So...Sims 4

Greetings gang!

You know something that should not come as a shock to any of you that have known me for a while is that I am a staunch Sims 2 fanatic. And most of you know that besides the game being so awesome, I am a tightwad and after having spent so much money on 2 copies of Sims 1 and 2, I was not in any frame of mind to spend money on 3 or now 4.

But...

Don't you hate a but? Not to be confused with a butt...those are kind of cute!  

Anyway, as I posted in the other thread EA/Origin is or was offering a free copy of Sims 4 base game, all you had to do was log in on your Origin account, go to Sims 4 and "buy" it. And being a tightwad, I had to buy it. I downloaded and installed it and I have played it about 5 maybe 6 hours total so far, an hour in the morning/afternoon before going to see the wife and an hour or so after I am home. And I find myself, liking it...Not sure it is liking it enough to want to buy any expansions or stuff packs, but I have been enjoying my time a bit more as I have moved on. My first Sim while not forgotten hasn't been played since I sent her to work that first day. The 2nd one I skipped the tutorial and messed around with building a house but haven't done much with either. The 3rd, while I am not crazy about how well I did on making her look, I have advanced her a lot further, even found a Sim for her to be crazy with.

The interface is still a total pain in the arse, trying to rotate and move around is frustrating beyond words at this time. I'm so use to just sliding my trackball the direction I want the camera to slide and it sliding but now if your cursor passes over an interface section at the edge of the screen, it won't slide or maybe slides unbelievably slow. And I hate that I can see memories or haven't found a way to find them.

I love how fast the game is now...In the time it takes Sims 2 to load to the neighborhood selection screen in it, this game you have done created a new Sim, built them a house and have a couple of kids on the way...okay, the kids is a gross exaggeration. But it is light years faster, just blows my mind...even planning clothes is so much faster, switching outfit might be a little slower, but in Sims 2 you have to click a wardrobe and tell it what outfit and then they have to go to the dresser and change, in 4 you just click them and tell them to change. Getting a couple from a "Hi nice to meet you" to "Hey, let's woohoo" is fast too...a LOT faster

I love that if you have a gay couple, they can be "natural" parents. You click the wardrobe, click change Sim and it takes you to the page where you can select how that Sim is, it can become pregnant or it can get a Sim pregnant, then make sure their partner you select the opposite for. How cool and simple...then you got the option to "Try for a baby", I do miss the chimes though when they are, but after the woohoo the Sim that could be pregnant have them click the toilet and they can take a $15 pregnancy test and you get immediate results. "Eating for two"! lol

The humor in this game is really a great selling point, I love that you can select one of all these different walks for your Sim to have. My Sim was first in her home and this young adult female comes walking across the street and I was immediately mesmerized by her little bebop walk. And her name...Summer Holiday! I fell in love with the little computer code immediately. I hadn't planned for my Sim to be gay, but I just had to get them together.

I was very disappointed that there was not a hot tub feature for the base game...That was one of the easiest ways to help a couple become friendly on a more intellectual bases as well as playing chess together.

I love that they give you the option instead of needing a 3rd party mod to allow a baby's mom to breastfeed...that was pretty awesome. Though it looks more like they are trying to smother the child...lol And I do miss the option of the mother to rub her own belly, it's funny to watch the "father" play with the baby...their hands completely disappear inside the mom's belly! lol The gestational period is different and kind of interesting, the whole pregnancy thing I think they did a great job with.

Clipping errors seem to happen a LOT, but the game recovers from them and things go on without too much issue. I kind of like how they can pick up their plate of food and walk somewhere else and stand there or sit and eat while conversing with a partner. Had one scene where the one Sim was eating the other wanted to hug them and the eating Sim walked about 6 tiles away and the other Sim walked 2 tiles away and then their arms shot out behind them towards the partner and their shoulders were all jacked and stuff. lol

Building a house is both a treat and a pain. I love that you can select "pre-made" rooms and build them and not have to worry with decorating or what furniture to buy if you don't want to. You can change how big the room is after placing it in the position you want it in. Changing direction of the rooms and items is a little different but simple once you know the keyboard short cut. Trying to align rooms is a bit of a pain, especially getting doors to match up to blank walls, then of course you got to change windows and curtains if they don't match what you like, but that isn't really a negative...still I would rather they didn't have windows and curtains so you could just put in what you want.

I'm looking forward to continuing this family, their child was only just born so I haven't experienced much in that department yet. I think after the child becomes a child I might switch roles and have the Sim I made become a mother.

Over all, I have to give the game high marks. I didn't expect it to have the level of humor in it that it does, while it is worlds different from a game with Wil behind the wheel it still has a lot of merit and if I wasn't a tightwad I would be looking to buy other packs for it. I've looked at some of the mod work that has been done for it, but for now I think i am really just going to enjoy it without much going on...though I am glad "Motherlode" still works!  

Seems like there was more I was going to say, but I guess I will stop here...see what any of you have to say and maybe my other thoughts will come back around to me. have a great day gang!

Tim

I'm the same. I haven't seen much about TS3 or TS4 to tempt me away from TS2, but I can't turn down free. It can't hurt to try it if it's free (as long as I can prevent Origin from trying to update my TS2 UC which I really do not want it to do.)

So far, I've only played it briefly twice. I wanted to just jump in really quick with a character and get into the gameplay (since I've already played with the CAS demo before. The two TS2 families I'd recreated were still there. ) but my son took over with making characters. He just got them into a framework of a house he made them and was on to something else. The few seconds I got to use the controls I found it really difficult to rotate and scroll, but there's away to change that. The second time I played I went into settings and changed it to what they call Sims 3 style controls and it was a lot easier to manage. The rotation and scroll worked just like in The Sims 2. I would recommend changing that setting.

The second time I played (last night) I found a household that was already made with a single sim in it and a neighborhood that already built and populated, so I was able to jump into the game play. It definitely loads quickly and it played smoothly for me. I remember when I tried the demo on my old laptop it was so laggy, but I didn't have that problem this time. My computer fan was roaring pretty loud a few times (like it does when my son plays Fortnite) but it ran fine.

So far, I like it well enough. It's a cute, light game, but it seems to lack a lot of the depth that the Sims 2 has. I miss having the detailed personality points and other info I can look up about my sims. I really miss the wants panel. I play I strongly wants based game. I drive everything I make my sims do on their wants (or needs) so without the wants panel, I was just letting my sim go about her day, taking care of her needs, autonomously watching TV or reading books and it was kind of boring. I really didn't know what to do with her. There are goals related to aspirations. The sim I randomly chose was a foodie, so I had her cook a few meals when she wasn't hungry or watch the cooking channel to fulfill those goals or wants or whatever they're actually called.

I find that their needs drop really suddenly. Like it will seem like everything is staying in the green and going fine for hours, but then suddenly they're starving and tired and need to use the toilet. Maybe it's just me not being used to it, but when they drop into the yellow it seems sudden and dire.

I like that the neighborhood seems really active. There always seems to be a lot of sims out on the street to chat with. You can chat with groups of sims at a time which is nice and you can have your sim visit a neighbors house. There's a bar to show relationships, but I miss seeing the actually numbers. My sim barely made any progress in her friendships, so for me the relationship building seemed a lot slower than in TS2 (especially since I play with ACR.) I didn't really get a chance to check out all of the social options. I let her act autonomously (aside from greeting other sims) so all she really did was chat.

I thought it was pretty funny when I directed my sim to go greet someone while she was eating and she just took her plate with her outside. I wasn't expecting that. There seems to be a lot of chances for multi-tasking in this game and I do like that.

I didn't play with the building tools this time or even open the shop catalogue. I just used a prebuilt and furnished house. I remember the building tools from when I played the demo and the add a room tool was pretty cool, but also a little tricky to use.

Overall, it's a decent game. I really, really miss the wants panel though.

I have to say as whole TS4 is a lot better then it was 5 years ago, But I still definitely like TS2 better. Yes the default camera mode is more difficult to use, The TS3 camera mode is very similar to how TS2's camera works. Personally I find the edge scrolling to be a bit slow as well and using the keyboard is about the same. I did recently find the camera file that sets the speed for both of them. I am hoping to experiment with that this weekend, I will certainly let You guys know how that goes.

@SimEm Wants technically still exist but are renamed and are off by default. Theses days EA calls them Whims, They have to be turned on in the settings. If memory serves me I believe the setting should be under game play. It should be be something along the lines of "hide whims".

@Grykon I have heard a variant of memories exists in TS4, But it's now dependent on the screenshot feature. I haven't really experimented with it myself.

Thank you both for sharing your thoughts so far! I look forward to anymore conversations on this game!

Aaroneous wrote:

I have to say as whole TS4 is a lot better then it was 5 years ago, But I still definitely like TS2 better. Yes the default camera mode is more difficult to use, The TS3 camera mode is very similar to how TS2's camera works. Personally I find the edge scrolling to be a bit slow as well and using the keyboard is about the same. I did recently find the camera file that sets the speed for both of them. I am hoping to experiment with that this weekend, I will certainly let You guys know how that goes.

@SimEm  Wants technically still exist but are renamed and are off by default. Theses days EA calls them Whims, They have to be turned on in the settings. If memory serves me I believe the setting should be under game play. It should be be something along the lines of "hide whims".

@Grykon I have heard a variant of memories exists in TS4, But it's now dependent on the screenshot feature. I haven't really experimented with it myself.

I'll look forward to any report you have on the camera issue and I will take a look at changing mine to the TS3...I'm not sure I have seen the option for that, but will look! I'll also look for this Whims thing you mention, I'll definitely want that on.

I'm about 11 hours into the game total now...about 8 hours with my main family. Handling the baby was different, but not too bad. You don't need a diaper station now, the changing now happens right in the crib. I do love that when the mother goes into labor, it's like a 6 hour process...and you have an option when you click on the mother for her to go to the hospital at which point her and the "father" will leave the lot for about an hour and then pop back in and the baby will be in a crib in a child's bedroom if you have one. When the baby transition to a toddler I went ahead and reversed my couple and had them try for a baby...funny thing is, both times, both ladies got pregnant on the first try. She's about 3 hours from her 3rd trimester start.

Toddlers are a bigger pain in the butt...when they transition to a toddler, you can choose which kind of toddler they are going to be. I forget which one I picked, but the stinker has lots of bad dreams so you got to comfort them on those and they get angry pretty quick if a motive drops too low.

Speaking of which, man the motives really drop fast sometimes. Like one moment they are fine and then BOOM pass from green to red. lol

I think this time when the pregnancy comes due, I am going to let her have the baby at home to see how that works compared to just sending them to the hospital.

Oh, awesome! Thanks, Aaron! Now that I turned on the settings, I kind of remember the whims from the demo. It's weird that they have them turned off by default. I noticed some aging settings when I was looking for the whim settings that you might want to take a look at, Tim. Especially if you have multiple families and you don't want the ones you're not playing to age without you.

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Speaking of which, man the motives really drop fast sometimes. Like one moment they are fine and then BOOM pass from green to red. lol

They really do! It seems like they go along for a long time with everything green and when they drop, it's sudden.

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I have to say as whole TS4 is a lot better then it was 5 years ago, But I still definitely like TS2 better.

I'm not sure what they changed about it, but I have to agree. When I tried the demo years ago it was almost unplayable. I didn't even use the full amount of time allotted, but this time I'm enjoying it.

I did see how to change the camera view but I didn't care for the change that much. I forgot to look for the whims thing...I'll go look that up and the aging thing, thank you Em!

Is there some kind of weirdness with the Sims 4 and getting pregnant? I mean, 2 times, pregnant first try...okay, that's a little odd, but not out of the realm of possibility...but 3 times, pregnant first try? That's bizarre! And I did find the whims and turn them on...that's how I got the 3rd pregnancy...she had a want to try for baby...when done and ran the test and it came back as positive, I just quit without saving. LOL

The only thing I can figure about the pregnancy chances is that EA put the chance of getting pregnant very high, when trying for baby. As for motives they seem to be by some degree be affect by emotions, I found using the aspiration rewards doing with motives helps somewhat. Look for them under the aspiration menu, It will look like a present.

Finally I have been experimenting with the camera file and seem to have gotten it to the point where it's more speedy and responsive. The file it's self can be found at "drive:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 4\Game\Bin\res\Camera.ini", Before editing it I would highly recommend backing it up. If You're just worried about editing the speed of edge scrolling then edit the line "EdgeScrollSpeed = 4.0". The higher the number is will make it scroll faster. I set mine to 6.0 and it seems good to me. While not required I recommend also edit "EdgeScrollAcceleration = 2.0" and "EdgeScrollDeceleration = 6.0". EA for whatever reason decided put some sot of delay when getting the camera to max speed and when it stops. "EdgeScrollAcceleration = 2.0" I set to the scroll speed value which means it will instantly go to max speed. "EdgeScrollDeceleration = 6.0" I set to around 10.0 which the camera stops almost immediately.

Very cool, thanks Aaron! I'm not yet comfortable with messing with that file, but that is excellent information and may tackle it later!

You say there are aspiration rewards? I mean I figured there had to be something because of the points you get for doing things, but...I haven't seen anything to click to get to that. More exploring to do!