Don't they know NOBODY wants online features? I really don't understand... We're causing havok in the internets and they still wanna go on with this idea. Are they really that alienated? I mean, if they are really that greedy, shouldn't they make what the player wants so they can buy it and they can.. gain money? Wtf.

Pretty sure whatever game/announcement is coming it will include online functions given that Sims Social is also "retiring" and online play seems to be a popular trend in gaming as well as EA's latest fad. Lets hope they handle it better than the latest SimCity release and if it is indeed The Sims 4 as opposed to something of a spin-off like a new Sims Social/Sims Online kind of game then they provide offline functionality as well.

Playing Sims 4 online, I will be shocked if someone breaks in my house and set on fire!


Pic owned by zaroba.

The bolded, underlined word (by me) is the key to this whole thing. What I have seen from EA's recent releases, if you use an offline option you can play but not save, so you want to save your work, must use that damn cloud shit!

I really hate that cloud shit! Hope it burns and dies a fiery death.

I don't know anything about clouds. I have some sort of cloud thing option on my X-Box but I never use it because I have no idea what it is and especially because it randomly popped up as an additional place to save games a couple of weeks AFTER owning my X-Box and not even doing anything to activate it. It just appeared.

As for online, I'm hoping that the big announcement is NOT the Sims 4 but Sims Online instead. This way Sims 4 can be put off for a while and we can continue to get some more Sims 3 EPs to complete the game. I'd be happy with 3 more EPs after Time Travel, honestly, and the game would be as complete as it possibly could be, considering the game itself.

Then again, I have been known to hope for things that are really not likely to happen.

I hope they learned anything from SimCity. But if the conclusion they took from SimCity's release is "we need more servers ready before launch", I'll just laugh a bit and then cry for the rest of the day while eating a tub of ice cream.

I am curious about TS4. There is one major improvement I want to see. Routing. And if they can't improve that, they could at least acknowledge how bad it is by making sims permanently drunk which then would explain their retarded behaviour. Just an example of how bad gameplay could be turned into a feature and made immersive.

And please, no always online crap.

I genuinely believe that this will be it. Taking your Sims online = bonus features and rewards, but you won't have to do it.

Sounds like an excuse to lock furniture in the game from players. >_>

Routing and loading CASparts. Two of the biggest technical flubs of TS3. The clock ceases to mean very much if Sims can take an hour of game time to get into the shower, then to get out, just because it takes them so long to load their naked outfit then reload their clothing.

EDIT: Just think how much worse shop mode will be when they've had time to integrate it into the game as a priority rather than an afterthought. :/

I have seen this pop up on my twitter notifications. I really do hope it's true because I will definitely stay away from that. I get nauseous thinking of some 13 yr old trying to romance my sim, really don't want anyone trying to romance my sim. I will feel so violated. *pukes*

Same here.

If the game has to be played online, it probably will not be moddable. If it is not moddable, you will lose the mod makers almost immediately. This includes not only the mods which change game behavior, but also custom items like clothes, hairs and objects. Sites like this one or TSR will not support it because they cannot provide mods for it. Also, most of the Sims blogs won't support it, because most of the blogs support mods.

The only players who will like it will be those who like boring plain vanilla games. An online sims game will be a dream come true for those who like boring plain vanilla games.

If EA botches something, the modding community won't be able to fix it, and everyone will have to wait for EA to fix it, if ever.

When EA decides the game is no longer profitable, they will turn off their servers, and the game will no longer be playable.

I am thinking of Microsoft's recent experiment with Flight. Some big brain at Microsoft decided they wanted a flight simulator which could not be modded. Microsoft felt that third party developers were making too much money off of the Flight Simulator franchise. They also decided that sim p8lots really did not want features like a cockpit. In Flight Simuilator X (FSX) you could fly all over the world. In Flight, you were confined to the big island of Hawaii. In FSX you could fly airliners, helicopters, gliders, and fighter jets in addition to general aviation aircraft; in Flight you were confined to just the general aviation aircraft. After a few months, they added the rest of Hawaii to the program. By then it was dead.

The problem was that Microsoft did not want others modding their game. However, Microsoft did not fill in the gap with their own add on content. Instead, they left everyone with a lame, barely playable game. Of course it bombed.

I suspect EA will go down the same path with the Sims 4. They don't want other people adding content to the game, but they will not provide that content themselves. So you will end up with a game which has far less to offer than the Sims 3. In effect, players will get a stripped down, brain dead version of the Sims 3.

Actually, pissing in the face of the massive and talented SimCity modding community HAS TO BE SimCity's largest sin. If The Sims went down that kind of track, well, screw them. But everyone is constantly on the very verge of saying "screw EA's games already", and EA seems determined to push their customers over that precipice, so nothing would shock me.

Two things here:

1) If it's always online, what if they (collective gasp inserts here) decide to pull a Blizzard and not let you play until you have the latest expansion/stuff pack?

2) I am ready and willing to bet that at least five people in the audience of the annoucement will groan and/or throw a shitfit when they announce always online.

Just wondering, but can this be the official thread for The Sims 4 so other people don't need to start any TS4-related threads anymore? Any discussions regarding TS4 shall be discussed here because I simply hate to see "What do you think about TS4" threads over and over again.

I don't know about that. Simcity is supposed to be moddable; and while it doesn't officially support mods just yet, there have already been at least a couple of mods released for it. Maxis has even said that Simcity should support the same package format as the Spore and the Sims series.

Point is, whether EA likes it or not, it's not impossible.

If EA were smart (and who ever accused them of being smart?) they would embrace mods. Instead of having the Sims store, they would have the Sims marketplace. Modders could post and/or sell their stuff on the marketplace, and EA would take a cut off of every sale. In fact, taking a cut of every modder's sale might actually be more profitable than selling their own stuff in the store. After all, this is the model used by TSR: TSR actually does not produce anything, they just make money of of their featured artists' work. In short, EA could muscle in on TSR's business.

By the way, this model already exists in Linden Labs Second Life. Second Life would be the real competition for an always online Sims game. EA would have to offer a product which would compete with Second Life. This would be doubly difficult because the market for Second Life has been shrinking. Whether this is due to marketing mistakes by Linden Labs or something else, is yet to be seen. But making a Second Life clone, which is what Sims 4 may shape up to be, seems to be a risky proposition in this market.

EA would probably have to offer mature content. Perhaps they would screen off part of their Sims world from the kiddies so they could offer this content? For an online game, a G-Rated Disney game is just not going to cut it.

I honestly think they should make TS4 backward compatible, like Windows 8/7/Vista. Sims 4 it will act as an upgrade base game for TS3 (read: data/save handling, smarter AI, more in-depth personality, better routing, bug fixes, realistic approach like: get in and out of car, baby with hands and feet, more detailed group scenarios like family dinner, bbq, picnic...), while we still can keep Sims 3 objects and animations and gradually upgrade it to a better version if we choose to.
I really don't want another 1000 generic beds in Sims 4, they need to develop more sleeping options like homeless sidewalk cardboard, ground mattress, hammock...

Thats more or less what the Sims 3 was to the Sims 2

Cloud services as an option would be fantastic, especially for those like me who have multiple computers for The Sims. Requiring it, however, is like building a wall around the pool your Sim is swimming in.

It's even less than they did for TS3 (which wasn't nearly as big a step as TS1 to TS2, as I understand). If they want to do an upgrade to TS3 and charge for it, then that's fine. Call it an EP or an "Enhancement Pack". But if it's TS4, I want a new game. A new game engine, new animations, new routing, new objects, new features etc.

^Personally, I wouldn't mind if they borrowed a few things from previous games. for it to be a crutch, that's a no.

A few things, yes, (like genetics ), but not all the basegame beds, all the same toys, all the same animations, etc. This is particularly true of animations, as custom objects, especially furniture, will be available quite soon, I'm sure . I want the fun of discovering all the cute/funny things my sims do, not to have 80% of the animations be identical to the previous game.

A matrix54 thread is the official MTS thread.