Do people still play The Sims 4? I bought it like 7 years ago, played it once, got bored, and never picked it up again. I saw gameplay once of the Sims 3 and was genuinely surprised by how many more features it had.
The Build Mode features in 4 are pretty good if you’re into virtual dollhouse building, and there’s a ton of custom content for it (as long as you’re on PC).
Live Mode is not very good, but it’s functional enough to play dolls in the houses you built if you’re willing to do all the story writing to make up for sims not having very interesting personalities/desires/autonomy.
Life by You’s cancelation was a big disappointment to hear. I figured if any studio had an understanding of emergent intercharacter storytelling in the way a Sims game needed, it was Paradox.
That said, Para-Lives is still in the works and looks quite promising.
paralives is so slow development though, and the lack of teaser releases concerns me about the quality. I have high expectations for it as well but starting to grow concerned
Maxis made terrible decision after terrible decision. They had no money and ea bailed them out and redesigned sim city 3k to actually be possible on modern hardware, while allowing dollhouse to continue and turn in to the sims 1. Then Sims 2 and 3.
Hate on ea all you want but Maxis fucked themselves up and ea made all of the sims possible.
Why is nobody competing with them? It doesn’t seem like a hard type of game to make, and they’re doing such a terrible job that it should be easy to compete with them.
The fact that there aren’t many alternatives likely means that making a Sims-like game isn’t as simple as it looks. That being said, there are a bunch of life sims under developement right now (probably because EA is doing a terrible job) such as Paralives, Inzoi and Alterlife.
Just a heads up, Alterlife likely never got off the ground. They mocked up a demo video with store assets 3 years ago, but were never heard from again. I still have it on my wishlist, but my hopes are not up, lol.
I recently was holding out hope for a franchise that was similarly treated. I can tell you from experience that Sims 5 will make a billion dollars and they will then fire all the programmers who made it.
It’s only been “irrelevant” because of the poor reception to Sims 4. The Sims was the first great “life sim” game, and the 3rd installment added a crazy amount of content. That’s all we wanted. More stuff to decorate with and places for our Sims to explore. Nah, Sims 4 took away the variety and added paywalls and multiplayer and was just generally a poor experience.
For anyone holding out hope for #5, this is on par with Blizzard announcing their smartphone diablo game. EA killed this franchise, and yeah I’m a little sad about it.
l haven’t played Planet Coaster, but my impression was it’s more of a coaster builder than a theme park manager? A lot of “hardcore” players play OpenRCT 2, and for a slightly more modern take on the genre there’s Parkitect. But classic RCT hasn’t been replaced
I wouldn’t know, I’m a filthy casual. Parkitect never did it for me, but Planet Coaster did. The point is nobody’s making a new Rollercoaster Tycoon under that name, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t worthy successors from competitors.
Cities Skylines is a better example, I remember how much Sim City sucked, but Cities Skylines knocked it out of the park
Skylines is ok, it never clicked for me, consider it more of a city painter than a management game… That plus Paradox’ DLC policy made the game quite unattractive to me rather quickly. And it was very car-centric.
Unfortunately, I’m unaware of a serious contender.
I watched the LGR Video then saw this and it looks bleak. EA promised to update the NHL series into the new Frostbite engine and all we got was the same game with the same glitches plus a bunch of new ones and longer load times. Even now like 4 years later it’s not worth playing, a total mess. A real shame Life By You got cancelled I had that on my wishlist and it looked almost finished…
I still play Sims 3 with the entire pirate pack from time to time, guess the tradition will continue for now
It makes money so it’s not dead. People using it and playing it are the reason. It would only flop if people weren’t giving them tons of money. It’s the hard truth one’s got to acknowledge.
Relative to its time, yes, but Sims 3 is peak Sims. It improved on 2 in every way, but the thing they did the best and left out of 4 was the create a style tool, which allows you to make any surface any texture and colour you like. You could have a wooden sweater and metal carpet. No limits. You could make uncanny replicas of most homes, furnishings and all.
I love the type of gameplay that the Sims (specifically building and character creation, other stuff is boring af) has but it sucks so much to play because it’s so limited unless you spend thousands on all the dlc. I am a game dev (well, I call myself that but I’ve never released anything cuz I’m too busy with finishing up college rn) and I really want to make a life sim game one day. I’ve seen plenty of indie life sims fail unfortunately, but I’m still going to try anyways. I have a few ideas I haven’t seen anyone else do. So many of these games fail that I’m not afraid to try something a bit crazy and hope it sticks.
Will Wright! We need you, now more than ever!
We need simulation games!
We need llamas!
We need a great vision of weird fun you can have!
Will Wright is…Will Wright is apparently busy with an AI powered game that looks extremely vaporware. Nooooo…
no, that’s the problem, there won’t be a new Sims game. Sims 4 has been a zombie of a Sims game since it came out 10 years ago and EA just announced that they’re more than happy to let it’s corpse shuffle around for the foreseeable future, rather than make a Sims 5 that people actually like.
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Look forward to Inzoi, I think it launches next year, they released the character creator to try it.
Do people still play The Sims 4? I bought it like 7 years ago, played it once, got bored, and never picked it up again. I saw gameplay once of the Sims 3 and was genuinely surprised by how many more features it had.
I play sims 1/2/3 only look at 4 because it free.
The Build Mode features in 4 are pretty good if you’re into virtual dollhouse building, and there’s a ton of custom content for it (as long as you’re on PC).
Live Mode is not very good, but it’s functional enough to play dolls in the houses you built if you’re willing to do all the story writing to make up for sims not having very interesting personalities/desires/autonomy.
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When I did play I would build relationships with people before locking them in my house until they died and then steal all their assets
But did you buy the hundreds of expansions to bring it to feature parity with Sims 3? Only costs like $1065 for all of them! So cheap /s
Life by You’s cancelation was a big disappointment to hear. I figured if any studio had an understanding of emergent intercharacter storytelling in the way a Sims game needed, it was Paradox.
That said, Para-Lives is still in the works and looks quite promising.
There’s still hope. Just not from EA.
paralives is so slow development though, and the lack of teaser releases concerns me about the quality. I have high expectations for it as well but starting to grow concerned
Mmhmm, Paralives looks like it’s going to take the world by storm. I’ve been following their development and they’re doing really good things.
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Maxis made terrible decision after terrible decision. They had no money and ea bailed them out and redesigned sim city 3k to actually be possible on modern hardware, while allowing dollhouse to continue and turn in to the sims 1. Then Sims 2 and 3.
Hate on ea all you want but Maxis fucked themselves up and ea made all of the sims possible.
Just like ConcernedApe and Stardew, right? Redigit and Terraria?
I wouldn’t say never. A lot of these indie creators love their creation enough to not sell out.
Why is nobody competing with them? It doesn’t seem like a hard type of game to make, and they’re doing such a terrible job that it should be easy to compete with them.
Who’s got a Sims alternative?
The fact that there aren’t many alternatives likely means that making a Sims-like game isn’t as simple as it looks. That being said, there are a bunch of life sims under developement right now (probably because EA is doing a terrible job) such as Paralives, Inzoi and Alterlife.
Ooohhh, Inzoi and Alterlife both look really good!
Just a heads up, Alterlife likely never got off the ground. They mocked up a demo video with store assets 3 years ago, but were never heard from again. I still have it on my wishlist, but my hopes are not up, lol.
I recently was holding out hope for a franchise that was similarly treated. I can tell you from experience that Sims 5 will make a billion dollars and they will then fire all the programmers who made it.
Do people really feel this strongly about the Sims? I thought it’s been irrelevant for like a decade
It’s only been “irrelevant” because of the poor reception to Sims 4. The Sims was the first great “life sim” game, and the 3rd installment added a crazy amount of content. That’s all we wanted. More stuff to decorate with and places for our Sims to explore. Nah, Sims 4 took away the variety and added paywalls and multiplayer and was just generally a poor experience.
For anyone holding out hope for #5, this is on par with Blizzard announcing their smartphone diablo game. EA killed this franchise, and yeah I’m a little sad about it.
Check out Inzoi.
I have really big hopes for this game, I’m worried to be disappointed. The character creation demo seemed good.
I hope creator outside character look good!
Steam link for the lazy
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2456740/inZOI/
I agree. I play demo creator character. Was fun! Hope game fun!
It’s time for a new Sims. The way Cities Skylines replaced Simcity and Planet Coaster replaced Rollercoaster Tycoon. Fuck EA
l haven’t played Planet Coaster, but my impression was it’s more of a coaster builder than a theme park manager? A lot of “hardcore” players play OpenRCT 2, and for a slightly more modern take on the genre there’s Parkitect. But classic RCT hasn’t been replaced
I wouldn’t know, I’m a filthy casual. Parkitect never did it for me, but Planet Coaster did. The point is nobody’s making a new Rollercoaster Tycoon under that name, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t worthy successors from competitors.
Cities Skylines is a better example, I remember how much Sim City sucked, but Cities Skylines knocked it out of the park
Skylines is ok, it never clicked for me, consider it more of a city painter than a management game… That plus Paradox’ DLC policy made the game quite unattractive to me rather quickly. And it was very car-centric.
Unfortunately, I’m unaware of a serious contender.
Now would be a great time to make a new simcity since city skylines 2 got greedy and bombed
I watched the LGR Video then saw this and it looks bleak. EA promised to update the NHL series into the new Frostbite engine and all we got was the same game with the same glitches plus a bunch of new ones and longer load times. Even now like 4 years later it’s not worth playing, a total mess. A real shame Life By You got cancelled I had that on my wishlist and it looked almost finished…
I still play Sims 3 with the entire pirate pack from time to time, guess the tradition will continue for now
I stopped with the NHL updates back with NHL 99 even they were basically just roster updates over NHL 97
It makes money so it’s not dead. People using it and playing it are the reason. It would only flop if people weren’t giving them tons of money. It’s the hard truth one’s got to acknowledge.
It lost its charm after sims 3.
Isn’t Sims 2 still the most robust and fleshed out Sims out there?
Relative to its time, yes, but Sims 3 is peak Sims. It improved on 2 in every way, but the thing they did the best and left out of 4 was the create a style tool, which allows you to make any surface any texture and colour you like. You could have a wooden sweater and metal carpet. No limits. You could make uncanny replicas of most homes, furnishings and all.
I think 3 was, I guess it’s subjective though.
Maybe the base game of 2 had more features or something, and with 3 you needed add-ons
I love the type of gameplay that the Sims (specifically building and character creation, other stuff is boring af) has but it sucks so much to play because it’s so limited unless you spend thousands on all the dlc. I am a game dev (well, I call myself that but I’ve never released anything cuz I’m too busy with finishing up college rn) and I really want to make a life sim game one day. I’ve seen plenty of indie life sims fail unfortunately, but I’m still going to try anyways. I have a few ideas I haven’t seen anyone else do. So many of these games fail that I’m not afraid to try something a bit crazy and hope it sticks.
Will Wright! We need you, now more than ever! We need simulation games! We need llamas! We need a great vision of weird fun you can have! Will Wright is…Will Wright is apparently busy with an AI powered game that looks extremely vaporware. Nooooo…
New sims game? This is the first I’m hearing of it. A complaint thread on Lemmy. Game’s DOA
no, that’s the problem, there won’t be a new Sims game. Sims 4 has been a zombie of a Sims game since it came out 10 years ago and EA just announced that they’re more than happy to let it’s corpse shuffle around for the foreseeable future, rather than make a Sims 5 that people actually like.
Oh I thought we all agreed that the Sims 4 was trash and that we would stick with the Sims 3 forever