The link below is a long interview made with Will Wright in 2002 and some of it refers to the failed online attempt which hadn't come out then (I think). It's from the Will Wright Wikipedia reading list.

This would annoy me a bit, but if it came this early in the series I suppose I could go offline!

'...................CP: So this would be The Sims Online where everything is going on at the server level as opposed to individual machines.
WW: No, this could be for just the next version of The Sims.
CP: As long as you have a way of collecting the data from the people.
WW: Right, and they could easily opt out if they want to turn it off. But for the most part they could still be playing a single player game, it’s just that every time they boot it up it goes to our server and asks for the new tuning set. And when they finish playing every day it sends back the results of what they did. So they’re still playing a single-player game, but it’s individually tuning itself to each player. You know based on your preferences, but also based on the parallel learning of a million other people. So you might discover things. Or somebody might actually initiate a sequence of actions on their computer in a very creative way and the computer might recognize that, send it up to the server, and say: "Wow, that was an interesting sequence, and that person likes doing comedy romances. Let’s try that on ten other people tomorrow. If those ten people respond well, let’s try it on a hundred the next day." So it could be that the things aren’t just randomly discovered, but they’re also observed from what the players did specifically.....................'
Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go
A Conversation with Will Wright by Celia Pearce

Conducted in Will Wright's office at Maxis, September 5, 2001

http://www.gamestudies.org/0102/pearce/

When the game has already/being worked on popular demanded objects: ladders, pool steps and slider. And just think once these are animated and aren't cut...

Seems like a game that is winning "Diverse buy objects" award.

I just found out about this today and I'm already excited. I've wanted a sim competitor for so so long. I look forward to following this pet project.
Even if the graphics start off as Sims 1 or Sims 2 level and improve overtime, I am fine with that. It's never been about the graphics or how pretty the sims look, I love the gameplay and the mechanics. As long as I can distinguish family members apart or see traits passed on from generation to generation, I'll probably be good.

Crossing my fingers this project succeeds.

you gotta be kidding it looks like a game from 1987! No rival for the sims at all!

Graphically, no. However, if it lives up to the expectations of the features promised by the developer (open world, advanced building tools, seasons/pets available from the beginning, etc.) it will blow The Sims 4 game-wise so far out of the water it will be floating off somewhere in outer space.

Any actual examples? I can't see how it looks like its from 1987

The graphics are a bit out dated, but you choosing to say that they are from the 80's basically negates your argument completely. Good job.

The graphics kind of remind me of... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPyjsdT8ihc

You've clearly never played such fine video games as Hard Drivin', Zarch and I, Robot. Someone had to invent the flat shaded polygonal 3D look and it wasn't the 90s (though they did perfect it.)
Doesn't mean they don't look like ass, of course, but they're technologically impressive and Paralives'd ain't. The cartoon aesthetic is cute, provided there's still something going on under the hood. Games like Planet Coaster and Overwatch had a pretty good thing going on a few years ago, with a smooth cartoon aesthetic AND medium-high-end shaders.

Side note: if you ever feel like playing an old but stupidly fun racing game that was pretty much a decade ahead of its time, get yourself some DOSBox and a copy of Stunts. It's addictive as hell and I've been playing it on and off for about 13 years.

Flat-shaded games can work fine for more cartoonish characters and surroundings, and can even look quite good if done properly - but for a life simulator with human characters I'd rather have something a bit more realistic. Doesn't need to be hyper-realistic, just somewhere closer to the Sims 2/3/4 alley.

TS3 with slightly higher polycounts and a bit on top in terms of shaders. Think PBR, the nice subsurf effect from Medieval, screen space reflections, an up to date AO method, and you've basically got the modern essentials covered. Maxis also baked their textures when they took over development of TS3 again, I think, and that's something that can also do a lot if you're working with the same sort of art style that TS3 has.

TS3 is an open world game, right, and open world games always have a vaguely similar look because they have to cut corners on certain effects. Characters in open world games always look a little bit worse than they do in other games, and the shadow mapping usually isn't great. I think a new life sim game would be pretty great if it had the level of detail of, say, GTA V. There's a lot more going on there in terms of ambience and lighting calculations but it's hardly a different world compared to TS3. Here's an interesting study on how GTA V's graphics engine works. I think it's nice to know that the steps in composing a frame in an AAA video game are quite similar to compositing a complex FX shot in a video production, though GTA does it 60-90 times a second and I do it about once a week.

I loved how the Medieval sims looked compared to TS3 - the sims looked so much better. Vanilla TS3 isn't the best look the Sims have ever had (but the outdoor surroundings and the look of pets were great once you managed to remove that awful shine from everything. Furniture... not so much).

One of the issues with most of TS3's Buy Mode content is that they stopped normal mapping it at some point. In a game like TS3, you need your normal maps for fine detail. The unaddressed graphical issues like light cutting off and the hair shader conflicting with a bunch of other shaders also really make TS3 look a bit unfinished. Not to mention the stylistic inconsistencies due to them outsourcing the asset creation.

Thing is that TS3's engine supports a bunch of stuff that the game ends up not using. If they'd tried a little harder, it would look a lot better now. TS3 is way more on-point for 2009 than TS4 is for 2014.

I don't expect realistic graphics from an indie game, let alone one being made by one person so far. If BoTW is their inspiration and possibly their goal, I think they can achieve that. I am not in the developer's head, but I don't think his goal is to recreate The Sims as we know it in modern times (3 and 4).

People always say creating a sims game is hard because of all the logic involved behind the scenes and it's true. It's why there aren't any competitors for The Sims right now. EA has the market cornered, it's something only they have been able to achieve though they've been quite lazy with it lately. Realistic graphics, while easier to create now a days, is another challenge on an already tough project.

I've always felt even if someone can recreate The Sims 1 with modern design, features, and gameplay, I'd be happy. I would play the heck out of that game. It's not the most graphic intense game, but boy was it packed with gameplay and quirkiness. It's why I fell in love with this series in the first place. Sims 2 really built upon that while also changing everything. I remember being so excited watching the commercials of them having a family and growing old, now I can't live without generational content. Sims 3 came with the open world and everyone growing along with you, now I can't live without my open world. A Sims 1 like game with generations and an open world? That's a dream come true for me. (plus advanced building tools I guess, I'm not the best with building though I do like it)

People talk a lot about the tale of SimCity vs Cities Skylines, but there's also stories like Rollercoaster Tycoon. Along with the original Sims, I used to play Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 all day long. I skipped Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 (because I didn't know it existed), but I know it's a fan favorite. So in comes Rollercoaster Tycoon World, supposedly the next step in the Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise. It was a disaster in every way imaginable.

Out of the trashfire that is Rollercoaster Tycoon World, we got Planet Coaster, an excellent modern take on Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. BUT, we also got Parkitect, a modern take on Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. I know Planet Coaster is a great game and I've watched people play it for hours, but I actually lean more heavily into Parkitect. I don't know why, but when it comes to these type of games, I prefer the simpler look and feel. Even though Planet Coaster is available to me with higher fidelity graphics and whatnot, I don't feel a great desire for it.

So, maybe Paralives won't be the game you're looking for if realistic graphics is the key feature you want. Maybe another indie developer (or regular developer) will step out of the woodwork and bring you a version of a sims inspired game you prefer, just like Parkitect (RT2) vs Planet Coaster (RT3). I supported both projects when they were starting out and it's a great feeling to see two great games be created after the original IP holders failed their communities. If another developer wants to create their version of a sims game that has realistic graphics, I would be all in on that project too.

Nah, Zelda looks better.

Okay, as someone quite familiar with the way each game renders graphics, The Sims 2 is hands down the best rendering engine out of the three games. Meshes and textures look in-game the way they're supposed to look (the way I made them), colors look exactly how I inteded it, and there's no uninteded "fancy" effects. I love the way materials look. Leather looks like leather, wood looks like wood, metal like metal (Example). There's no bump maps for most objects, but they aren't that necessary because meshes are super high poly (average polycount for objects is something like 5K, up to 15K for really big and complex objects; quite insane for 2004).

The Sims 3's rendering tech is a DISASTER. Color banding is a massive issue, especially when trying to make gradients (I was just working on a gradient wall texture and I deleted everything out of frustration), not to mention how everything is oversaturated in-game compared to the way it looks in Photoshop, TSRW, Blender, etc. Then there's the issue of alpha channels and the terrible implementation of transparencies. There's so much unnecessary hassle. Not only you have to account for transparency in the alpha channel of the multiplier, but you also need to fiddle with the Alpha Phong value in the shader until transparency looks okay in-game (you may need to this 1000 times, changing the effing alpha phong value by 5 points each time). Normals/bump maps exist for certain objects, floors, walls, etc. but you can't add your own to objects. If you add one, the game will just ignore it. If you try to edit an object with a normal map (like the Late Night Vampire coffin), the process of exporting/importing the mesh will break the object and it won't work in-game (apparently the normal map should be added in the 3D program, somehow, with some tool we don't have). And in the case of walls and floors in which normals do work, it takes a lot of time for them to look okay in-game. I don't have this issue with other games.

Now, The Sims 4 has a better rendering tech for normals and speculars (forgot to mention how bad speculars look in The Sims 3), but diffuse textures are often blurred and don't retain the sharpness of the original texture outside the game. This is what I'm talking about. Then there's the problem with materials. You can use the green channel in the specular texture to make metallic objects, but they never look right in game. It's extremely difficult to get truly metallic textures in-game. Everything looks glossy or mate, but mostly glossy. Not to mention how difficult is to make fabric look like fabric instead of plastic. It's almost like no matter what I do with the textures, the game will inevitably rub vaseline on my objects and make them look quite bad. Making shiny stuff like marble or polished wood is quite satisfying though. The way the lighting engine enhances the normal map and the information of the specular is pretty good.

I'm somewhat familiar with the disaster of it. The shitty thing isn't that it's broken, it's that most of it would be at least somewhat fixable through hundreds of hours of manual labour. And we all know nobody's going to bother.

TS3 does actually have some nice speculars- but as with everything in the game, it's very fiddly and unpredictable, and the fundamental issue is that there is no proper 'average' to use as a baseline.

Personally, I wonder how much of a disaster the render engine is behind the curtain, considering like what you said, the uneven implementation of features like normals and bump maps- not to mention the broken floor-floor lighting and short shadow clipping distance. Wish there was a way to open up the shader files and take a look inside, IMO.

I also sort of wonder if it additionally comes down to TSRW (the most accessible tool) being totally unpolished and more or less unfinished.



It's not that no one would be willing to do it (fans are perfectly capable of dumping hundreds of hours into mods), it's more that no one outside of EA can do it- the files are compiled and there's no way of accessing or editing them.



I think the Parkitect comment is spot on and a potentially great parallel- it's a graphically simpler game than Planet Coaster, but the management systems are much better. Planet Coaster really focuses more on being a creation tool, rather than being a game. In fact, I would argue that it offers too much easily-accessed freedom, which inevitably leads to a tyranny of choice and the overshadowing of the rest of the game (the ability to control the number of guests in a park as well as the weather is one example).

I would much prefer if Paralive keeps the door open for players to mod the game on their own for graphics (maybe go for simple textures instead of everything being solid colors), and instead focuses on the mechanics.

Personally, I also think they announced way too early, and now the poor guy's going to have to shoulder the collective hopes and dreams people are dumping onto him- instead of people arriving with realistic expectations. I took a look at the Discord and people were already suggesting horses- horses!

It's a conclusion I reached after several years of making content for TS2/3 and recently TS4. TS2 renders textures and meshes the way you make them. It doesn't oversaturate colors, add annoying post-processing effects, have issues with color banding, work with dodgy speculars (each material has its own properties, which is better than relying on an specular to cover all materials), and doesn't really need bump maps for the most part, as most meshes have a very high polycount and the game is capable of rendering hundreds of thousands of polygons simultaneously. This is my personal experience with all three games, but I'm sure someone more familiar with the inner workings of each rendering engine could provide more precise information.

So far the graphics doesn't engage me enough. It's beautiful from aesthetical point of view but as for videogame it's too pastel-ish, bright for me. Atm I can't imagine how characters would look like in this game, but probably developer works on some solution that will satisfy most of players.

Anyway, we should wait and judge the game when it's released at least in alpha stage.

Offtopic: BTW what's up with people hating James and Deligracy? I started watching Sims videoblogs only couple of weeks ago but atm I think all simmers are nice. Maybe it's because I'm not used to strictly judge Sim's fans in general, but I didn't see anything questionable in these youtubers apart from they may have different approaches and opinions same as every person.

It's going to have "teen" rating so I guess it will steer clear of any of the more painful issues in life. Will it be any deeper to play that The Sims? Or will we be so bowled over by the curved walls that it won't matter?

Oh god, I'll feel and age old. "Thanks" Alex for bringing 87's in my life.


I get that artstyle not everyone tea (albeit I see it on par with TS4), since in time it may change and people will jump onto it, but think of a argument that makes sense. I don't think 87 used 3D extensively, let alone had them. I envision every game was pixelated. I don't stare at this screenshot and makes you say "It's from 1987".

Maybe it's one of times they're being EA puppets again, since those who wish to stay in Game Changer tend
to do. Just a guess, what instance are you referring?

^ I don't think a 2D pixel-art style from 30 years ago and a 3D flat-shaded style from now are entirely comparatible to each other, because the Zelda game did have a lot less pixels to work with, and it fit the game style at the time (Mario games and various others also had a similar style).

The 3D flat-shaded style can be nice if done properly and might work great for a more cartoonish game, but I'm skeptical when it comes to the humans and pets. Since the only human/pet creatures we've seen so far was half a body and a dog, and both were rather meh in both visuals and animation, I'm going to need a bit more to be convinced this style is going to work. Maybe it is a simpler art style to work with, but it also kinda looks a bit cheap, so I'm curious to see how the end result is going to end up. It's a lot easier to make surroundings look nice than animated characters.

There are examples for more modern "pixel-art" games like Minecraft the pixelated/simple style works absolutely great even in a 3D world, because everything is carried through. The point of Minecraft isn't really the avatars, so since everything else is pixelly, the characters being blocky and pixelly as well only enhances the feel of a pixelly 3D world.

Paralives on Twitter wants a vote apparently....
https://twitter.com/ParalivesHub/st...876411590283265

I agree. This is how we got Laundry Day in Sims 4! If those from MTS vote though he might get some better direction.