There is no doubt that any game or product will do better most likely if they can get the US buyers. I will not get into politics other than to say if the US and world are in a depression or recession coming thanks to someone I did not vote for, it will not be the best time to release a game when discretionary spending is down.

I have never considered Sims to be game about consumerism. I do not play it that way at all. But yes, EA wants people to buy the products of course. And for the development, Will supposedly started Sims as a way to play with house designs after the fire and before a rebuild. I LOVE building in Sims and CAW. And am glad the game developed into also much more.

IMO the Quebec theme to the degree there is one, is very nice. I have visited Quebec and loved it. And as you all know, my opinion is the biggest problem is many people just will not want to play the Para in the world the developers create.

The true test will be- can we mod things to make it look how we want it to? In Sims 2 and 3, people play medieval, paleolithic, futuristic etc., worlds and both games are moddable to allow pretty much anything one can imagine. When we get fed up of playing the worlds that are supplied to our paras, can we build them a house in the desert or in a jungle if we like? Obviously these mods have been made over many years, and also the game mechanics were updated through DLC, but this is I think what made the early sims games so successful. Will be interesting to find out if this sort of thing would potentially be possible in Paralives.

I'm looking forward to enjoying Paralives for what it is. My only expectations are they don't treat customers like shit and they stay on top of bugs. Bugs are going to happen, but allowing them to hang around like luggage for years at a time like EA, yeah, no.

I remember playing a medieval TS2 a long time ago. It was going rather well until the school bus appeared.

And now for something completely different. I noticed a railroad track at the beginning of the trailer. A railroad track means a train, a train means a railroad station, a railroad station means another railroad station, another railroad station means another town, another town means a small world, at least. Am I overexplaining? I am not sure myself.

...and there I was thinking 'don't think about the railway line, just a prop, just a prop, set expectations low....'

I'm not sure that the game absolutely needs to be successful in the US to be successful overall. Comparing European and US populations, Europe has way more people (the EU alone has more than 400,000) and I would actually suspect they have possibly more purchasing power these days among people who are interested in that kind of game. Not including the rest of the American countries, Asia, and some African countries.

What might even be more important in this context, the cultural influence of the US is rapidly waning these days. Speaking of many of my fellow Canadians and fellow Germans, the game being from Canada and NOT from a US company would be more of a reason to buy. Especially if it conveys a mix of European and Canadian cultural influences. And as mentioned, if world tools and modding are flexible enough, people can make their own cultural spaces in this game just like they did with TS2 and TS3.

And not to forget, this is a small team with no shareholders. If even half of the about 140,000 followers they have on Steam buy the Early Access release, they will have money in the bank. After that, it will need positive word of mouth (assuming people will like the game), and transparency when updating. And of course fix things instead of creating more bugs.

They don't need to make the money an EA game needs to make.

I have no issues with build or the world at the moment. But I am one of the people who will not want to play any world as I will not play those Para. I have a bunch of 3 worlds I need to finish and get uploaded and could build far more, and have downloaded many others over the years. Some wonderful ones. I like to play the actual Sims in 1,2,3,4. So for me it was/is a complete package. For me, Paralives is a life simulator where I have less than zero interest in playing the characters. And if I will not buy due to them it is true for many other people also I am sure.

New public patreon post!

It is about an area that can be seen in the latest trailer. There is also a mention of the new currency in the game called Paradimes, which will have its own symbol of course.

@Casimir Looks lovely, really nice buildings! I want to explore. Paradimes- cool!

Aaaargh, I need to just stop looking as there is not much I like at all about this game. I could list but will not after seeing that last post they did. You all can gaga and gush over it but seeing what I just saw confirms I do not want this. IMO they are missing the boat on so many levels. Too many. I credit them for creating a new game and I know they are not EA, but this is nowhere at the level of Sims. And as we have Sims, for me is not needed. And there are a zillion other games we can play. There are some good things but overall IMO this is way too much of a step down/backwards. Curiosity pulls me in, but sad to say nothing is making me want this, and that is not changing.

One thing I still want to see is how the rabbit holes work. Is it ts3 rugs? Ts3 doors? Maybe they pop put of existence at their place of work for now since all we know is they go to the location of their job like ts3. Ah, I went to check and the most recent post regarding careers is still private so I don't have much to say I guess....

I'm guessing these are rabbit-hole buildings? If they are not then the building system is way more sophisticated than I realised.
I really love the look.
Now I have to stop thinking about that apostrophe, Edwards & Co's ....

Well to me it already looks better than Sims 4, especially since they have promised an "Explorable open-world town".

They are also inventing history and lore for their town, and while it is good to know where the best hot dogs can be bought it is even better to know that they are having fun; that promises we will have fun as well.

The post is under a paywall, so I won't go into details, but apparently there will be a tool to create cutscenes in Paralives. How cool is that?

And unlike inZOI, the other open world life sim, it doesn't appear to be full of set dressing. I may be mistaken but as a former patron, I'm sure I saw somewhere that the town was being created with the in-game build tools - which does beg the question of how the rabbit hole jobs will work. Perhaps you can designate any building as a rabbit hole - which will make the character disappear behind a special door inside? (I genuinely cannot remember if this was ever explained before I am lambasted as a leaker )

You can see in the roadmap that the memory feature is finished, which makes me very interested. I wonder how a complex TS2 feature will work in Paralives. I hope that paras will ''gossip'' about memories and worry about the negative ones, just like in TS2.

But, that will be kind of difficult beacuse Paralives doesn't have speech bubbles.

Pathfinding is also done and that was one of my biggest concerns for Paralives.

Oh yeah. I guess there aren't speechbubbles. I forgot about that. Still wonder if they'll implement something to help follow conversations. Actually, I think I'm remember they did something to at least convey the mood of the convo in a private post, but not via speechbubbles.

Bug of the week!

Gotta love them.

Who doesn't love some floating hamburgers?

Jokes aside, Simmer Erin talks about the new released patreon post here.