I want to play this game and enjoy it but it seems like it could be really bad... Sort of like the last Sim City game (it was so bad they gave us all a free game!), so I am conflicted. The Sims is a super fun series, with really cool music.  

Posted by Draenin

Unlike past SimCity games, you have to start building up instead of out when your city starts to take up too much land space. That's why Cities of Tomorrow introduces things like Mega Towers, which go up to eight floors and contain everything from businesses to residential areas, and even parks. It takes a while to learn how to manage it all, but once you start getting into better technologies, things really start to take off quickly.

But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me to know that The Sims 4 is lacking lots of features, considering how much corporate meddling EA loves to do. Maxis is constantly having to bend over backwards for EA, and more often than not the end product always gets screwed up somehow by no fault of their own. (Spore and SimCity being the most recent victims of their terrible choices.)

I have CoT, it's a nice feature, but it seems pretty clear at this point that cities were intentionally cut down in size so that they could sell on the whole idea of "build up, not down". I'm sure EA knows how much of a red flag it would have been had they introduced an expansion pack with bigger city sizes, but this is pretty much a disguised equivalent.

Btw, I did a little bit a little bit of digging on The Sims 4 and found one of the biggest reasons they are having to cut down on features. From what I understand, Sims 4 was originally going to be a completely online title (even moreso than Sim City). When the Sim City launch fiasco occurred, however, they decided to shift gears and go for a single player approach (and had to discard 3-4 years of work in the process).

When you think about it, it makes sense. It seems fair that stuff like build mode and CAS would be able to be preserved even from such a massive shift in direction, hence the fantastic Sims 4 versions of those modes. On the other hand, stuff like interaction between Sims and the worlds themselves would have to be completely rethought and as far as I know remade from the ground up this way around. For example I think the new neighborhood system is a byproduct of this original system. From an online game perspective, having a small mini-world (the neighborhoods) with only a few lots for you and your friends makes quite a bit of sense had they been connected to a much greater world (perhaps literally a "world"). I can see how it all has come together up to this point.

But with Sims 3 expansion sales surely running stale and the expected date of the next installment coming up in the near future, Maxis would have needed to quickly come up with a new selling point for this installment of Sims. My theory is that the entire emotions system they are all fussing over came as a result of this sudden change in development with the sole intention of being the new selling point. This unfortunately would have gotten in the way of the rest of development with the demands of the new emotions system being so ridiculously high. This could explain the fact that pools and toddlers are both left out. They have now set the standard for sim interactions unattainably high and cannot produce a fully fleshed out pool system complete with interactions or even age states like toddler and young adult before release date.

The fact is that Sims 4 is literally only halfway done, probably even less than that. I'm hoping this will mean free patches in the future to compensate for it and, if I am right in my thinking, some high quality systems that may have even been worth the wait. In all honesty, I don't think EA is using this situation as a way to extort money from the players with future expansions. (If that were the case, they would be publicizing the hell out of the Sims 4's previous stint as an online game. It would be very convenient for them to claim that it was in the best interest of the players who definitely showed disinterest in having an online game.) Maxis will have some catching up to do for the next couple of years to complete their unfinished game, so I think it will all turn out decent in the end. (Not that we won't have to wait until The Sims 5 for something, you know, good.)

(Personally, I wouldn't mind a fully fleged online game, if they played their cards right. But *shrug* if 5 ends up being a singleplayer title we'll probably see the return of the open world and an actual upgrade to the game.)

Source that Sims 4 was originally being developed as an online game.  

Was I the only one who was mad you can't have a same sex couple? Yes? Ok....  

Posted by mangsi

Was I the only one who was mad you can't have a same sex couple? Yes? Ok....

As far as I know you still can. The only thing that was really said about this was Russia gave the game an adults only rating because it featured homosexuality. It's still in the game, however.  

Posted by MattKan

As far as I know you still can. The only thing that was really said about this was Russia gave the game an adults only rating because it featured homosexuality. It's still in the game, however.

:ooooooo  

Posted by MattKan

I have CoT, it's a nice feature, but it seems pretty clear at this point that cities were intentionally cut down in size so that they could sell on the whole idea of "build up, not down".

I personally don't mind the map sizes. Building out too far actually reflects a real-life problem called urban sprawl, which results in wasteful use of land space.

If you want a good comparison, look at the density of New York City (Higher population, less land space used.) in contrast to Los Angeles. (Lower population, more land space used.)  

Online only Sims? Hmm, I guess it could work for the Sims 5 but I bet a lot of Sims fans aren't able to be connected all the time with a reasonable level of bandwidth. I like how much research you've put into this, Matt! You are a bigger fan than I am for sure.  

http://bit.ly/1qRgC8R

New video with actual gameplay footage. Shows a lot of the UI and actual sims in action. It's a lot better than what I expected with the size of the individual neighborhoods and different lots. The loading screens are still annoying though . . . I feel like it will be difficult to play with multiple sims at once (unless you never leave your house/neigborhood).  

http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/conte...on-and-SecuROM

Oh.  

A lot of the things "confirmed" to not be in TS4 have recently been confirmed to actually be included. You can fish your faith back out of that garbage can.  

what laz said