The graphics from the Sims 5 looks just like the graphics from sims 4. I hope this will not be the case when it launches. The aesthetics is what truly keeps me from enjoying Sims 4. Too Cartoonish.

I wonder what game will be available first, because if it happens that Paralives launches first, it will be in a huge advantage regarding the protection of its ideas. That is why I do not like how the Paralives team always has secrets regarding the development of their game, but I also understand that at the same time because EA and Maxis can, for example, evolve Paralives' ideas and make them better.

We can only guess why EA has announced TS5 so early, but the competition with Paralives is, in my opinion, the best guess. What are the other answers to this question? It could be that EA wants TS5 to be as popular as it can get, but then again TS is already a popular franchise. It has millions of fans that, for the most part, eagerly wait the next installment.

It is more than obvious that Paralives and TS5 will now be in this weird race/competition about who got the idea first and whose ideas are better. Maxis has told us that more updates about TS5 are coming soon. It feels like Maxis is copying Paralives' approach or maybe Maxis wants to be first to claim developed ideas.

EA shouldn’t have to consider Paralives as actual competition because they have the pull and manpower to be in a different league. The have longevity and an actual fan base to back themselves up.

With all of these resources that they still waste while failing to deliver rock solid projects (likely due to ONE majorly botched project, TS4’s base game), the fact that they are seeing an independent title as a competitor is enough for me to not want to buy TS5. It never should have come to this and they have the means to supersede anything Paralives has done.

They got too comfortable in their nonsense as a team. Now is not the time to “give it all you’ve got” and “prove yourself to be the best” - the time for that was when Sim City 5 flopped, and they’re still trying to make TS5 a multiplayer experience (even though the Sims has always had a strong community and fan base).

I will agree with almost all you say but I do think for EA it is a time to up their game and make a better game than 4. I completely agree that they are in a different league than Paralives, so there is really no excuse not to do it. As said, I do not think they are particularly worried, BUT having having some legitimate competition finally is good.

I think many of us think that 1 then 2 then 3 of Sims were advancements. But while some things in 4 are done well, many of us, including me, think it was step backwards. EA should not depend on past laurels. They need to step up to the plate as this is a very different world from even 10 years ago.

And I also am curious to see which game releases first and how well received? And actually not being the first has some advantages as the latter can see the feedback/results/sales and may be able to make some changes to it's product based on that.

Getting popcorn to watch this all over the next few years.

EAxis should have upped their game years ago. I only have but so much hope for The Sims 5 since 4 is still having trouble.

It’s not even a case of the older games being amazing. They’re still having trouble delivery an engaging, complete experience - My Wedding Stories dropped this year. Dream Home Decoratir struggled. High School years soon became problematic.

I’d gladly go back to the 2 EP a year cycle, 2 stuff pack cycle. 1 EP, 1 GP, 1 SP… whatever their barometer is for consistency, but I can see that quickly souring.

They know their business models and okay it well. I’ve said it before - if the results between 100% and 90% aren’t significant, and the returns are the same if they pull 70% vs 90%, why even give 90%? They’ll operate at 70%.

Totally true, and that is how most/many businesses operate nowadays.

It looks that way because of a weak application of shaders representing anything like shine, bumpmaps, or gloss, in addition to a totally even lighting (no real indoor shadows).

Hence nearly everything aside from the floor has a flat matte texture, combined with an aggressive application of fake ambient occlusion like in TS4.

Hopefully this is just WIP graphics (though it may be troubling if it's the art direction they're going for), let's hope that they can at least use Unreal Engine's capabilities and not just repeat TS4's aesthetics.

Does anyone still have that really early TS3 concept rendering that depicted TS2 furniture rendered with good lighting?

As I said in a previous post. It's way too early in development for the video to mean anything about a finished product in my opinion.

Totally agree. If EA/Maxis hasn't learned anything by now, it is fully obvious they never will.

I just hope it's open-world. Any other flaws can pretty much be worked around apart from that one.

Irony being, here we are talking about TS5 on a longstanding, much-loved mods/CC website, who, quite possibly, may not be allowed to host mods for TS5. Looks like EA may be attempting to take control of that avenue. I mean taking control of that to gain extra revenue is the ultimate in nickle & diming the player base, or as we say in the UK "penny pinching," but isn't that what EA do? No need for introducing loot boxes into the Sims franchise, not when you can make it so modders and CC creators have to pay licence to EA to use a tool made by Maxis to make stuff for the game. And that stuff will only be allowed on one website, the one they're now doing a test run for all this by making a new home for TS4 mods.

Websites like MTS may not be allowed for Sims 5 mods. Might be breaking the "new" (yet to come) law to host mods. (Might see a revival in rebel sites like More Awesome Than You... for a while.)

And no such thing as free mods or CC any more. Because if creators have to pay for a licence to use the EA/Maxis Mod Tools, then they're going to want recompense for that. Perhaps in some new EA End User bylaw that they cannot give mods/CC for free, as that destabilizes the revenue structure for all, and creators who want to play a fast and loose Robin Hood with the rules will lose their EA IP TS5 Mod Tool Licence.

Unsanctioned modders making unsanctioned mods on unsanctioned mod tools and hosting on unsanctioned websites will be a new form of piracy. EA TS5 taking full control.

I feel like they flew too close to the sun with TS3’s open world and CAST. It’s 100% doable today, but they probably had PTSD with the open world aspect.

I think a good alternative is having an open world, but not having the entire world be active at once. This leads to empty lots. Perhaps simulate a single lot at a time, and give the illusion that the word is active from the perspective of a single lot
- like TS2, but better looking.

If that player has a population of 100 sims in town and 60 of those sims are non-elder adults, half would spread out across multiple nightclubs/bars/etc. It doesn’t work visually.

"If a tree falls in a forest when nobodys around, does it make noise?"
^ ^ This is the crucial aspect. The game should not bother rendering a sim taking a poo, if its 3 blocks away. Only when the camera is focused on that activity.
If EA can grasp this concept, it will work. 95% of developers nowadays could make this work. Its only EA I worry about.

If latest Quantum Physics is correct, the tree (and forest) doesn't exist at all until someone thinks of them. Kind of like computer generated LOD distance and such the like. Even bold enough to say, if for one moment of the day, absolutely nobody was thinking of our familiar Moon, it would simply vanish into non existence until the next person thinks of it.

So that means EA doesn't really exist at all until someone thinks of them. How 'bout we all stop thinking of them. See if latest Quantum Physics is correct...

I support this experiment 100%!

So far everything shown is like:
- Sims 4.5 as far as the graphics look (it's slightly more textured than 4 but nothing too impressive and the color wheel pretty much guarantees that it won't be very textured either since that would just end up looking muddy)
- If Sims skin/eyes/hair etc can be edited with the color wheel too there won't be any kind of working genetics, we're back to Sims 3 and its "dad dyed his blonde hair blue after mom got pregnant so the baby was born blue haired too" *facepalm*
- it's likely online
- it has at least multiplayer option if it's not downright always-online-multiplayer
- additionally they also want their own (likely at least partially paid) mod-source where people can only download carefully curated CC EA has accepted (this will likely be reversed by the modding community but seems like their goal anyway)

That's pretty much list of everything I did not want with none of the things I did want so my interest is already gone and the game is at least 2 years away from release. They might still lure me back if the Sims themselves look awesome and don't have stupid clay hair but I doubt that so I'm keeping my expectations on Sims 5 or "Rene" extremely low. But maybe it'll at least have cool things to convert back in Sims 2 once it's released... :/

Talking of new games, Will Wright appears to be recreating Minecraft!?

Not that I have high hopes for the game or anything, but commenting on the graphics at this stage is probably pointless.

I think it could've been done well, even then. It's just poorly optimized, the whole game is. People took that to mean that the open world *caused* the performance issues and used it to rationalize not having it in TS4. Like you said, though, there's even less reason not to do it now. Fingers crossed The open, customizable world is half the reason I enjoy ts3 so much, seeing sims I've created walk around the town square interacting with each other...it's like my own little fish bowl.

We all said that about TS4 when we saw the oversized mailboxes and how out of proportion to the sims all the objects were. We said surely the graphics will be improved before launch.

TS4’s visuals did improve since the leak and have slowly improved since release, but its still a low fidelity game that is showing it’s age due to the quality of the resources used and how the game optimized them.

Rene’s visual aren’t bad, just a higher fidelity version of TS4. I truly yearn for a visual style that is like TS3, but higher fidelity - between stylized and realistic.

Well if they want TS5 to work on connected multiple, multiplayer platforms, as in mobile phone players sitting on a bus on the way home from work, playing with PC players in some internet cafe (with low-to-mid range rigs nothing to write home about) while also playing console players (typical locked-in tech with no chance of upgrading) then you can count out the likes of Ray Tracing implementation or the likes of NVidea being put to task updating graphics cards to sustain TS5. If mobile phones are the lowest denominator they're going for, for that "across the board" play, then yeah, no big advancements from TS4 graphical capabilities. Certainly don't get your hopes up.

Then again, remember how we used to bitch and whine about the latest release of Half Life needing to be run on computers made by wizard aliens from another dimension. And that crappy Dell Home Laptap you had would totally melt into a puddle of bubbling, liquid plastic and dripping sand just for imagining it trying to run Half Life. Gone are those days at Maxis HQ. Then again, gone is Half Life. Half Life had even less than a half life! That's frikken irony. Bahhh! Valve. Bahh!! Steam. Meanwhile TS4 goes on for over a decade running on potato tech, and still going strong now it's for free. Lessons to be learned.

Honestly, if a game is just "good," advanced graphics don't really count for much. Playing older games like Fable, Halo, Mass Effect, the remastered releases, didn't make all the difference. (I can't wait to see what the new remake of Dead Space will entail.) They just were and are great games. That's all Maxis need to concentrate on. So let's hope they do. Though, once again, my trust in latter day Maxis making a great "new" sims game is practically zero, no matter what the graphics look like. They've just lost the "old Maxis" touch for making a "charming" game.

"Dear Lord, there's a fire burning down half the village, what shall we do?! Here's a bucket full of Red Tape we took nine months to decide upon, and a hot fix patch for the patch of the hot fix patch from three months ago, see if that helps. Nope. Took too long. Village is now a total dumpster fire."

Wasn't online connection and speedy online patching supposed to make it easier? Make it better? Fuck me, TS1, TS2 and TS3 were far better without online monthly patching. That fucking backfired wouldn't you say? Trust Maxis to do better for Sims 5? Not if I had a whole lifetime to live again as a young person, would I trust them. I'm an old fart, and that trust has gone where Maxis are concerned. They're simply abysmal. With volunteers, players just like you and me who love the game, taking up the bulk of the workload on their main Maxis and EA Help websites. Why are volunteers the ones doing most of the questions? FFS! Where are the paid EA "professional" fuckers to sort the mess? Of course, Red-Fucking-Tape before the paid EA staff feel the need to stoop so low as to engage with the plebeian player with issues. MOUNTAIN OF UNRESOLVED ERRORS. But thanks to the tireless volunteers for at least trying to help where the "paid professionals" CONTINUOUSLY FAIL TO CONNECT TO PLAYER BASE. Or am I just an old bugger reading it all wrong? (Boy, do I fucking hate EA Help. - Except for the kind-hearted volunteers. They have my respect. But Maxis/EA, nope. Can't have what you don't earn.)

"Charming." If no game has it, it just ain't worth it. All the games that have ever worked for you, "Charming" will be the key. From Zelda Ocarina of Time to Last of Us, the wining factor was and is its Charming nature, and unforgettable as such. Even if it's the scariest Resident Evil to ever come down the Pike. Still gotta be damn Charming to become that next, joint "favorite" spot in our hearts. Early sims franchise was one of the first game experiences for me to be so joyfully, unshakably and unapologetically Charming. The very epitome of Charming compared to all games before or since. And I expect it with every iteration. Whereas Zelda can go wayward, Mass Effect Andromeda went off to the galaxy and dimension of Shit and Last of Us 2 can suck the big one. (Don't even get me started on utterly Charmless Cyberpunk compared to fully Charming Witcher 3.) I want the Sims, my beautiful Sims, to remain true. Because it's such a great premise, how could you possibly fuck that up? Though modern Maxis just don't got it. Botched patches and Red Tape is what they got, by the bucket full, over and over. Not good for game making in general. And certainly no room, no mindset, to make for (Important; nay Vital) things like Charming.

Nearly every game I play has better graphics than TS4. They seem to be happy with realistic without everyone crying "uncanny valley" at the idea. Nor have I heard any other player complaining they won't run on their potato. Don't know if there are special forums for potato owners to keep me from reading about it or what?

The Sims franchise is unique for a number of factors. One of the main factors is, for over twenty years, it has this almost magically compelling attraction to reach out to those folks who have some basic form of a "Computer," - the cheapest Laptop they could buy in the sales just to have internet availability at home - to think that they could possibly run a "game" on it. People who would otherwise refrain from playing any kind of computer games at all because it's just not their usual thing. All shooting and bloody and nasty, it's just not for them. Hitherto no appeal. But for some uncanny reason, the Sims, having babies and families, raising babies and families, has something of an appeal to them. And not a War in sight...

Modern Maxis make the game to run on a potato specifically for these types. They know their target audience.

Old Maxis didn't cater so much to this. New Maxis do.

Times do change.

Three guesses who that target audience is. Bet you get it in one.

Keep in mind, no-one in their right mind has ever played an iteration of the Sims thinking this is gonna put my graphics card to the test! Yeah, I did that for Cyberpunk. Not so much for the Sims. Nor should anyone have to, Sims 5 and beyond. Though personally I did get pissed off with Sims 3 and the Error Code 12 out of memory bullshit. Because even if playing on a rig made by wizard aliens from another dimension, I got so, so, so fed up of the game's own in-built limitations running out of memory and always hitting that fucking Error Code 12 I had to give up. Sims 4 has never done that to me. Not once with any kind of the Error Code 12 bollocks. In that regard, Sims 4 is better. Far, far better. Sure, the Simulation Lag can test the nerves, but not a damn Error Code 12 to end the game and kill the whole save forevermore. Not once. And I'm forever pushing the game to its limits with freaky builds and crazy mods in testing, I have to say it's the most resilient version of the game so far. (It has to be, to survive Maxis messing around with it too ) That's what I enjoy doing with TS4. Make of that what you will. TS4 has not chopped off my creative nuts like TS3 did. Other than its Simulation Lag. (But hey, I made a mod for that too, so what the hell it.) Gotta give it some praise for that. I would personally love to get back into Sims 3, but the minute I dare imagine reinstalling it, my mind screams Error Code 12, No!!! Then I just stick with Sims 4. I got my gripes with it, but I don't got no Error Code 12s with it.

If Sims 5 comes with Error Code 12s, we must rally together as a unified force to purge it from existence and thwart it before it ever has the capacity to crush the the hopes and dreams of creators. This must never be allowed to happen again.

Sims 3 is my fave and always will be, but 2 had far more charm to it. I wish they had been able to carry that over to 3 with the new things such as open world. and CASt, and so on. I like the Sims in 3, but they were more graceful in 2 and we had the better animations there. I wish we could have had both the charm still and the new.

edit: I did most of my computer upgrades to play newer versions of Sims. I get good rigs, but not top for sure as do not need and do not want to spend. I am one of few that had a few error 12s way back when and have never had since. My 12 year old i7 plays 3 beautifully with all installed other than K Perry which I did not buy. Maybe I am just lucky, but my 3 still plays well.