#...i probably will not post ts4 gameplay content on here again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oswanily · 2 years

Text

I posted 1 330 times in 2021

1211 posts created (91%)

119 posts reblogged (9%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.1 posts.

I added 5 205 tags in 2021

#100bc - 1037 posts

#100 baby challenge - 1035 posts

#nily100 - 1035 posts

#nily100 gen2 - 560 posts

#simblr - 296 posts

#the sims 4 - 295 posts

#sims 4 gameplay - 295 posts

#ts4 - 294 posts

#sims 4 - 294 posts

#sims 4 100 baby challenge - 64 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#also cc will be posted tomorrow i'm just back in college and haven't had time to take previews

My Top Posts in 2021

Canning Station Recolor

@merrymomo asked for a recolor of icemunmun’s Canning Station version 3.0, and here it is! If there is anything you want recolored, feel free to ask!

Info and download under the cut!

Recolor: needs the mesh by icemunmun! link above!

the canning station mod requires Outdoor Retreat, so this probably does too (idk if the object in itself needs the pack, or if it just need it to be functional)

65 swatches: 45 from my Removable palette, and 20 swatches with a wood texture (i know it’s too much, i just can’t help it...)

If you don’t want the mod but still want the object, you can just keep the .package with the canning station, and then it will be decorative only! That’s what i’ll do at least 🙂

Sorry for the terrible looking preview, i was too lazy to make a room and everything...

Tag me if you use it in your gameplay, I want to see !

Contact me if there is any issues, I’ll fix them as fast as I can.

By downloading any of my CC, you agree to my TOU.

Download: SimFileShare | Dropbox

@maxismatchccworld @mmfinds @eileenccfolder @maxismatchbuildcc @sssvitlanz

270 notes • Posted 2021-04-29 02:17:44 GMT

These Scribbles Chalkboard

yeah, i changed my preview style, again. I don’t know how long this one will stay either.

Anyways, here is a decorative chalkboard I made from the Sims Sessions sign a long time ago! Isn’t it super cute? I think it is.

Info and download under the cut:

Base game compatible

10 swatches: 5 designs in 2 wood tones

Sculptures and Kids decor categories

For some reason it doesn’t have a footprint so I’d advise you put something like a backpack underneath it, just so your sims don’t walk through it...

Price: 200§

Tag me if you use it in your screenies so I can see! And feel free to contact me if there is any issues, so I can fix them. Also, if you like my content, consider buying me a coffee or asking for a commission ! It would help me a lot 💖

By downloading any of my CC, you agree to my TOU.

Download: SimFileShare | Dropbox

The drawings come from the Internet, credit to whoever made them. Also, credit to the people who created the CC I used in my screenshots.

@maxismatchccworld @mmfinds @mmoutfitters @maxismatchbuildcc @eileenccfolder

271 notes • Posted 2021-10-01 15:13:42 GMT

Summer Fun tattoos

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I really wanted my first post of the year to be a CC post. Also, since I learned to make recolors, I’ve always wanted to make some tattoos - I tried it four or five times in the last year - and I never was satisfied enough with the result to post them, until I finally figured it out last November ! So to celebrate this blog’s birthday (I mean my first CC post, in December 2019) I give you these ! A small set of arm tattoos that are summer and holiday themed - well, most of them are at least.

Info and download under the cut!

9 Swatches shown above - screenshots from S4S

The weird white/yellow shading around the tattoos come from the S4S lighting, they’re not like that in game!!

All tattoos are located on the same spot (left arm) and are in the corresponding tattoo category

BGC

Not 100 opaque because I find it more realistic that way

Three of the swatches have English, but you wan barely see it (first, fifth and ninth swatch)

Made on female frame body template, but enabled for men cause why not!

Tag me if you use them in your let’s play, I want to see !

Contact me if there is any issues, I’ll fix them as fast as I can.

By downloading any of my CC, you agree to my TOU.

Download: SimFileShare | Dropbox

The designs I used for the tattoos are not mine, credit goes to the tattoo artist who made them - his name is Jean André, if you want to check out his work. Also, credit to the people who created the CC I used in my screenshots.

@maxismatchccworld @mmfinds

🎵 Happy late birthday to you, my CC creator career... 🎵

355 notes • Posted 2021-01-05 21:46:00 GMT

Upper Hand Tattoos

Another one! Wait that’s DJ Khaled’s thing... Aaaaanyways...... The name is self explanatory. These are tattoos of hands. Located in the upper back. Hence upper hand. I think I need to stop writing now cause I don’t know what I’m saying.

Info, swatches and download under the cut:

All tattoos are located on the same spot (upper back) and are in the corresponding tattoo category

BGC

Custom thumbnails

Made on female frame, but enabled for both!

Not 100% opaque because I find it better looking that way

12 swatches shown below (click picture for better quality):

Tag me if you use them so I can reblog you!

Contact me if there is any issues, I’ll fix them as fast as I can.

By downloading any of my CC, you agree to my TOU.

Download: SimFileShare | Dropbox

The designs I used for the tattoos are not mine, credit goes to the tattoo artist who made them - his name is Jean André, if you want to check out his work, he’s really good! Also, credit to the people who created the CC I used in my screenshots.

@maxismatchccworld @mmfinds @s4library @eileenccfolder @sssvitlanz @wcifsareclosed

357 notes • Posted 2021-03-10 02:27:47 GMT

Show Your Pride Rugs!

More rainbows! This time it’s a rug, because I love rugs. I would legit put a rainbow rug in my house, if I had a house. But I don’t, so my sims will instead.

Info and download under the cut:

BGC

4x3 size rug

21 swatches ↓

Tag me if you use it in your screenies so I can see! And feel free to contact me if there is any issues, so I can fix them. Also, if you like my content, consider buying me a coffee! It would help me a lot 💖

By downloading any of my CC, you agree to my TOU.

Download: SimFileShare | Dropbox

The patterns come from the Internet, credit to whoever made them. Also, credit to the people who created the CC I used in my screenshots.

@maxismatchccworld @eileenccfolder @maxismatchbuildcc @mmfinds

596 notes • Posted 2021-06-18 08:01:01 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #tumblr yir

9 notes · View notes

saralynnx · 3 years

Text

Long Time No See -- And a Blog Update

I realize it has been a really long time since I’ve posted any sort of personal gameplay on here. Since February (7 months!) in fact. As much as I hated to stop posting, I had to finally admit to myself that I had some major tumblr -- and Sims -- burnout. So I took a break, obviously. I played Pokemon, read books, and dabbled with some other neglected hobbies until around June-ish. Then I came back to Sims, as I knew I eventually would. And even though I had a nagging little feeling inside that I wanted to come back to tumblr, I knew I still wasn’t quite ready.

Until now. But, it comes with a price...kind of.

Just as the release of Island Living in June(?) 2019 brought me back to Sims 4 for a good while, so too has the release of Cottage Living, even though I had sworn off The Sims 4 after the release of Batuu in 2020. Dammit, EA. I honestly would have probably still stayed away from TS4 if my fiancee hadn’t started playing again, but she has a pretty big influence over me...ahem.

I have been playing Sims 4 for a little over a month now, and with the help of a fantastic YouTube channel called Petey Plays It, I have come to really enjoy and appreciate it for what it is, in ways that I haven’t before. So at this point I was thinking, hmmm, maybe now is the time to come back to tumblr? But I was really conflicted because I had hardcore dedicated my blog to Sims 2, and I didn’t want to disappoint people who had followed me for Sims 2 content. So I considered starting up a new blog for Sims 4, but the effort of building up a new blog turned me off the thought again.

However, recently I have been inspired to retry and restart a 100 Berry Mermaid Baby Challenge that I had attempted back in 2019 after Island Living came out. And I am so inspired and sure of myself that I know now is the time to make my return, and not on a new blog but this one, where I have poured lots of hard work and love into for 3 years now.

So this is what will be coming to my blog very soon. I know this will disappoint and turn off some people, and I do regret that, but in the end I know that this is my space to do what I want, and that is more important than followers and notes.

See you soon, everyone.

#blog update #text post #I LIVE

7 notes · View notes

tripstaysnoided · 4 years

Text

Flow Just Like Water

youtube

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

#state of the uwunion #long post

15 notes · View notes

wildlyminiaturesandwich · 5 years

Photo

The Sims 4 Island Living - Early Access CAS Review

Huge thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play Island Living early!

I’ve been hemming and hawing all day about whether or not to post this because obviously everyone has access to the game now but I figured I put a lot of work into it, so why not! I know it’s like way late but I had a lot going on during the very short time frame we were given for early access (less than 24 hours) and these reviews won’t be too in depth because I still haven’t really had a chance to explore the new pack fully, but here’s what I have anyway 😊

It’s all under the cut because I apparently had more to say that I first thought lol Seriously, next time a new pack comes out I might just stream. It’d be a lot less hassle for everyone involved and I could just waffle to my heart’s content!

See a preview of all the new CAS items here

From what I’ve seen so far of this pack, the Sims Team put so much time and effort into making everything look amazing, especially the CAS items, which might have meant less time went into making sure everything actually worked properly, but I’ll get into what that means for CAS items in a bit. For now, let’s just start from the top!

🌴 The Hairs

I think my absolute favourite thing about this pack by far has to be the hairs. It’s obvious the team have been working super hard since Seasons to give us better quality hair types and styles, and with all the new hairs in Island Living I think it’s pretty clear that they’re absolutely nailing it so far. They still have a long ways to go when it comes to inclusivity, but I think they’re on the right track and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the future!

I mean all you have to do is look back at Base Game hairs to see how far they’ve come. Back then they had yet to figure out how to make not only simple wavy hair and textured up-dos look good, but more importantly they really struggled with natural hairs (I think we all know I’m referring to the infamous cauliflower hair fiasco).

But look at a few of these GORGEOUS Island Living hairs! I honestly would have paid full price for this expansion, even if I hated everything else in the pack, just to get my hands on those hairs!

I only have a couple minor issues with the hairs. The first being the curly side ponytail that was featured on the female sim in all the trailers. It looks amazing but it clips through literally everything the sim wears. I know there’s probably nothing they could have done about it though and it’s a beautiful hair, so I’m glad they included it.

The second issue I have is that yet again, there is a hair who’s texture overlaps an area it shouldn’t. We seem to get one of them in every single pack these days and this time it’s the big curly bun. The texture overlaps the back right section of the top and bottom teeth:

🌴 The Clothes

The clothes looks amazing as well, in general, but I do have a few issues with the clothes. Not major issues, just generally things could have been done a little differently I guess.

First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Once again teen-elder males, children, and toddlers got very little in this pack. This has become a trend with all new packs now and honestly, it’s never really worried me before because I have pretty much always played female sims, but now that I plan on playing Island Living with Luca I’ve realised just how annoying anyone who plays exclusively male sims must find it! I’m also just realising now as I type this that none of the clothes would suit elder sims either which is kind of sad.

I wish I could say I was exaggerating when I tell you I spent the better part of five hours in CAS trying to give Luca an Island Living make over the other day, but I can’t. I legitimately spent almost five hours in there. The new CAS items for males fall into roughly three categories; traditional islander, cheesy Hawaiian tourist, and swimwear. With an added smaller category of what I like to call “Was I in a shipwreck or did I drop my clothes in wood chipper?”; a handful of clothes that are all torn and ripped for some reason. So, though all the new clothes do look really nice, none of them really suit the style that I wanted Luca to have, and because there is such a limited amount of adult male CAS items in general, it took me forever to find stuff I liked on him and I’m still not entirely sure I like most of what he’s wearing, but I just couldn’t spend any more time in CAS lol

I was also quite disappointed that there were only two hairs for children and none at all for toddlers. Toddlers only got eight things in this pack. Adult females got 67! And as far as I’ve seen toddlers can’t really use any of the new gameplay items either. So pretty much all they can do with this pack is play in the sand and splash in the shallows. What we need is just a whole pack full of stuff for every age and gender EXCEPT young adult females.

This is also one of the areas I think suffered from too much focus being on making them look pretty instead of making sure they actually work properly. If you look at the image below you can see by the top three that some of the clothes have very visible seams and quite bad clipping, especially with muscular/heavier sims.

As for the three images on the bottom... Listen, I love the concept of the bikini bottom with the transparent wrap, and the one piece with the tied top but the textures on all three of these pieces are just... not great. It looks like whoever made the green swimsuit and the pink shorts went absolutely bonkers with the normal maps and highlighting; they look like they’re made of rubber.

The swimsuit is also supposed to be tied at the top but the knot is just a flat texture, there’s no dimension to it at all. The same goes for the bikini bottom and wrap, it’s not only a very low quality looking texture but the bikini bottom is just painted straight onto the outside of the wrap, which bothers me probably more than it should lol I think most people probably wouldn’t even notice or be bothered by these things but this is supposed to be my honest opinion of the pack and I honestly feel like a few of the CAS pieces (like the three above) don’t fit with the rest of the art style of the game.

Side note that has nothing to do with Island Living: I also wanted to add that I’m not happy at all that the pride content we got with the patch did not include a Simlish version of the “It Gets Better” tee. Like MANY other people, I don’t like having English in my game, so I won’t be using that particular swatch I guess.

Overall, I really do like the Island Living clothes a lot. I just feel like I probably won’t use many of them outside of Sulani, and also that more effort could and probably should have been put into making sure they didn’t just look good but also that they worked properly on sims of all sizes and didn’t clip or have holes in them, and that they all fit in with the art style of the game.

🌴 The Mermaids

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve never really cared much about having mermaids in my game. I played with them for a few weeks when The Sims 3 Island Paradise came out and then didn’t touch them again. I haven’t had much of a chance to play with them in Island Living yet, but I can already tell you that I do like them more than TS3 mermaids. However, I’m probably going to stop playing with them in TS4 after a short time as well just because they don’t really have a lot of replay value for me.

They look amazing though! It’s clear a lot of effort was put into making their animations look very natural and organic while they’re in the water. The added animations like their tales hanging over the edge of the tub when they have a bath and the funny little dolphin squeak thing they do randomly were really fun to see happen in game and made me giggle, and I really like the addition of them having a hydration bar instead of hygiene. I’m very happy that they can swim in pools as well! Ooooh and that mermaid kiss 😏

I do wish some things about them were different though. For starters, I wish there was more customisation options for them. Four tales and two “scaled” tops for females, only one top for males that doesn’t have scales on it, and with the exception of different colour options, none of them can be customised any further than they are already are. I really wanted options to add little fin pieces and spikes off the sides of the tales or some barnacles for the elderly mermaids. Maybe some tail scars and missing pieces, and definitely some more facial features like gills, fin-shaped ears, even more scars. You know, basically just anything other than typical Disney style mermaid appearances. I think I might have been far more interested in them if I could have made a mysterious, dangerous-looking siren.

But mostly I just wish they had been made more... I guess MORE of an occult life state? As they are now they’re very similar to the way aliens were made and I’ve always thought EA did aliens hella dirty with the way they were kind of just added as an afterthought in Get to Work and make no real contribution to gameplay. The only occult state that I feel hasn’t been done poorly was vampires and I was REALLY hoping mermaids would be more like that. Instead mermaids have powers that don’t really do a lot, a hydration bar that doesn’t kill them if it drops too low, they can drown human sims but not other mermaids, and when a human sim eats mermadic kelp and becomes a mermaid... nothing happens. They just have a tail when they next go into water; it’s very underwhelming.

I wanted them to be able to earn points to spend on leveling up their powers like vampires but with maybe an added bonus of... something like reputation. So depending on how they use their powers and what traits they have, they could earn a reputation as either a good, wholesome mermaid who just wants to live among the humans and be happy. Or, they could turn to the dark side and become an evil, scheming siren who spends their time plotting how to torture any poor humans unlucky enough to be lured in by their songs.

But that’s obviously not how they ended up being made, and I’m probably just gonna end up playing with them for just long enough to see everything they have to offer and then moving on to more interesting things. I knew that would probably be the case going in to this knew pack though, so I don’t really consider that a deal breaker when it comes to the pack as a whole.

🌴 The Verdict

Overall I really like the CAS items in this pack. I have some issues with them, but as I said, none of those issues were deal breakers. In fact, every single piece of clothing could have been broken in some way and mermaids could have been absolutely awful to play with, but as long as those hairs were exactly as they are; I’d buy the pack just for them 😍

All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. I am not paid by EA to “hype” their games; I am given the opportunity to review their games early in exchange for an honest review.

#The Sims 4 #Sims 4 #TS4 #Island Living #EA Game Changers

258 notes · View notes

rockethorse · 5 years

Text

I know EA is nickle-and-diming the Sims community over EVERYTHING these days but one thing that stuck out to me recently as particularly egregious is the concept of the Seasons EP.

When Seasons was released as an EP for Sims 2, it really was revolutionary. The developers had tried to include basic weather functions (e.g. rain, lightning) as part of the game in the base pack, but couldn’t hammer out all the tweaks in time; so they expanded on it with more content, more weather types, temperature effects, Plantsims, NPCs (as annoying as the garden club can be), fishing, and of course, gardening/juicing/fish recipes, then released all of that as a separate expansion pack. It was IMO worth the money and remains one of the “must-have” EPs for TS2.

However.

I think, at this point in the Sims-game development lineup, EA is simply taking advantage of players’ expectations that weather and temperature effects etc. will always be an expansion and will always cost as much as an EP, because I believe weather effects should just be a core aspect of all Sims games moving forward and, if not included in base game, should be patched in later for free, like ocean swimming (TS3) or toddlers (TS4). I do not think simply “add weather to your game!” should be considered enough of a draw to warrant shelling out for an entire EP.

Gardening and fishing were both things that were introduced into TS2 in the Seasons expansion pack that have become part of the expected Sims base-game package. Both systems have been greatly built upon and improved from TS2 (and TS1 in the case of gardening) - there is no “get to dirt!” or “get to rod!” expansion pack that expects you to pay money for the privilege of harvestables or fishing. But I find it particularly frustrating that a life simulation game, which, even if they have been over-focusing on the “wacky” aspects of the game lately, is still at core about being able to replicate the real world, would put something as integral to that experience as WEATHER behind a paywall.

I'm not saying that just because something was introduced in a previous expansion pack means that it should be included in the next generation’s base game or else the devs are being lazy; that’s absurd. Every core game has to be programmed from the ground-up, even if you’re able to recycle some old assets, so it’s not like they can use TS2 weather in TS3 at all. Like, we’ve had pets since TS1, but I don’t expect pets to ever be included in a Sims basegame, because creating the pet system would be just as hard as creating the Sim system. What I’m saying is I don’t think weather effects are one of those aspects that’s too difficult to implement in base game, especially compared to when TS2 Seasons was released. It was already kind of strange that TS3 didn’t introduce weather in basegame given they’d tried so hard to ship weather with TS2. But I imagine the seamless world system made it a lot harder. When the much more streamlined TS4 was announced without any weather, it started to feel more deliberate. EA is taking advantage of the fact that it really WAS revolutionary to introduce it in TS2 and warranted it being its own expansion pack to continue to gatekeep weather effects into its own EP in future gens, even when that becomes easier and easier to implement into basegame. Basically, they’re taking advantage of people’s nostalgia for the TS2 Seasons EP and the good reputation it has/had to allow its fanbase to keep believing that Seasons EPs are SO difficult to produce that they HAVE to be an EP and are therefore worth that sweet sweet EP cash.

The other reason it works is that weather feels good to play with. It really does add another layer of interest, fun, and whimsical realism/immersion to the game. So a lot of Sims players are happy to shell out the money for a Seasons EP and get excited when one is announced because it FEELS like you’re getting a lot, because weather/seasons change the whole feel of the game. It can feel like you’re playing something totally new! But that’s a great deal for EA, because you FEEL like you’re getting a lot when you’re really not getting very much at all in terms of work/budget from them. It’s a little thing that makes a huge difference in the way a game feels, and EA successfully tricks its audience into thinking that impact on gameplay directly correlates with effort/time and therefore worth. Like, swimming, cooking, etc. are also difficult systems to implement but they are also integral to the Sims experience, and IMO, weather is the same way. (Because it’s a life simulator, but weather is DLC??)

That’s not to say that implementing weather in any Sims game is easy. Any new addition to the game takes a lot of collaborative work. I know that weather effects also require a lot of hard work to get finished by the time a base game ships, and I’m honestly not sure the way EA manages Sims game releases could support that any more - Seasons being an EP is probably just as much an excuse to rush the release of a half-finished base game as it is a way to sap more money from its players. But I also feel that the work would, in the long term, be much shorter if new Sims base games were constructed from the ground-up taking weather into consideration. Weather shouldn’t be excluded until you have to retrofit it into the existsing game core system, it should be incorporated into gameplay from the start. But again, that might delay production, so EA would never let that happen lmao. Spend more time/money on making a better game that will have greater playability/longevity and bring in more money over the long term? Why would they ever do that when they can just rush a half-finished game and make those big bucks in the short term? Lmao.

Also, “but I hate weather and I don’t want it in my game -” ideally TS5 or whatever would give you options to play without some or any weather effects. Then you can choose to play as if you didn’t have seasons at all without everyone else having to shell out EP-price for something as fundamental to the Sims game experience as gardening or fishing (or toddlers).

I don’t know what the point of writing this post was. I’m not trying to be negative about the newer Sims games or anything, and of course not the people who enjoy playing them. And I’m sure that the Seasons EPs ARE good and feel fun to play. I’m just questioning the motives behind why these mechanics are STILL, even two game gens after they were initially introduced, considered “EP-only” content and have not been incorporated into our expectations of base-game content, and the only answer I can come up with is “saving and/or gouging money”. I just feel like they know a significant portion of their playerbase aren’t familiar with other game titles and how DLC/paid content is released for them, so they don’t know that they should expect/demand better and basically just buy whatever EA sells them. Ka-ching for EA.

I guess I’m just old man angry at cloud because I miss the Maxis days, where EPs were “here’s everything we were psyched to try and get you before but didn’t have the time/budget/literal CD-ROM space to give it to you, so we really crammed it with as much content as we could manage to finish in time so that you really get the most for your money”, and not “here’s the bare minimum amount of content that we felt we could charge you full EP price for without inciting a riot”. But what else is new?

Basically EA is just cashing in on the idea that people will pay for an expansion pack now because it has been an expansion pack in the past, whether or not the content in that expansion pack still requires the same amount of effort/work/budget that originally required it to be an EP in the first place.

#this is just ridiculously long don't even read it #I forgot half of what I said even #I've just been watching a lot of Sims youtubers lately and they're all mostly focused on TS4 #and it's interesting hearing them talk about TS3 as 'their' Sims game #like the one they grew up with and moved on from #because for me that would be TS1 and then I guess TS2 but I still play TS2 #and hearing the way they talk about current EPs and just feeling kind of... bitter? on their behalf #because they're so impressed by the content that they get in EPs and I'm like. but this is barely even a quarter #of the new content you're SUPPOSED to get #but you don't KNOW that because you've just grown up with this expectation #and that's what EA is counting on lol

22 notes · View notes

simnovels-blog · 7 years

Text

EA RANT

Ok so I was reading reblogs and comments under a post that someone created in appreciation for the new Cats and Dogs expansion and calling out people who are crying they aren’t getting what they want. First of all I want to say that I agree that simple hate for something will never get you very far. EA won’t listen to you if you scream in capital letters that you want a different expansion or if you want horses in your game. They will just laugh at you as they cash in their millions in november.

BUT, I do agree with the core of what these people are trying to say. I think it’s better though to form a well thought, well written opinion which explains exactly why Cats & Dogs and the Sims 4 in general is such a disappointment so that everyone, even the die hard Sims 4 fans, understands what these ‘hating’ players are going through. So I decided to post a rant about EA and the direction they took with Sims 4, which will forever make me sad and disappointed and this is why (I’ll add a read more button but please do read more):

First of all: I am 25 years old now. When The Sims was released I was eight and I can still remember very well the first time I played the game at my friend’s house. She was so kind to lend me her disk set so that my dad could copy it (yes, very oldskool, back in the day copying disks wasn’t a crime yet lol). And so i had my very first Sims game and I fell in love with it immediately. From then on, I patiently waited for every christmas, birthday and the Dutch holiday Sinterklaas to ask for new expansions and I played them more than any other game we had. All the way up to Sims 3 Into the Future. Sims was and is my childhood, my teenhood and now even my tweenhood (are those real words? lol). So you can imagine how excited I was when Sims 4 was announced!

Sims 4 looked amazing in the first trailers. I didn’t care for the change in art style. Cartoony would be fine with me because this was going to be a new Sims and it was going to give us even more than what Sims 3 already offered. EA’s campaign focused greatly on the new improved CAS and their emotion system. The way they presented it made it look really cool. It actually seemed like you could knead your sim in any way possible and those emotions felt like a true enrichment to storytellers. As a storyteller, these teasers and trailers and gameplay trailers made me incredibly excited!

I was lucky enough to be asked to review The Sims 4 by my current employer back then a gaming website called XGN.nl (right now it’s just a clickbait SEO mania there but when I worked there back in 2014 they did produce some quality). This meant I received a copy of The Sims 4 for free. This is when I was first encountered with how EA deceived us with their trailers. Every company does this of course, but I had to say it was a great disappointment to try out the new CAS and bump into very strict limits when it came to kneading your sim. The sliders were basically still there, just hidden behind a different mechanic that also didn’t work very well yet (they patched it later). Second of all, the emotion system was completely dominating the game, meaning that sims were ALWAYS feeling a certain emotion. They were never ‘neutral’. Another ridiculous element they added was the sudden change of moods whenever your sim walked into a room with a sculpture or painting that was created in a certain mood. Did your sim’s father die 5 minutes ago? No worries, just take a look at a playful painting and you’re all good again. This was not the emotional system they promoted. This was a mechanic that was way too flexible and not realistic at all even on a cartoony level. It completely destroyed the possibility to make beautiful screenshots and stories of your sims without having to use posepacks and this was exactly what I loved doing.

Of course there were also the other restrictions like the lack of toddlers, swimming pools, dishwashers, pregnancy leave… the super tiny neighborhoods with fixed lots and those horrible loading screens… It was definitely a step back from Sims 3. They did announce they would prioritize performance over content this time, but it seemed to me that they weren’t given the appropriate budget for this game. Even back in 2014 it should’ve been possible to create at least an open neighborhood with lots you could move around to your desire and still imrpove performance compared to Sims 3. Of course that would mean the development cost would be higher so this is where I start my actual rant. I’m pretty sure EA didn’t give them the money they needed to create a proper sequel. EA is notorious for being a cashgrab company and they saw more profit in a low cost model that would attract the new generation who grew up with mobile games and NOT with the older Sims games. They saw money in those teens and younger kids who weren’t in the possession of an up-to-date gaming pc and therefore were used to playing stuff like candy crush on their phone. And of course, they were right. This was a huge group of people it turned out and they considered Sims 4 a success.

But what about their old player base? What about me? What about everyone else that was like me? We had been looking forward to a sequel for five years already. This was no sequel. This was a different game made for different players who never experienced the enormous and free worlds of Sims 3. On top of that, this wasn’t a game for creative people either. They took away create a style, they took away toddlers (thank god they fixed that one though), they made the baby stuck to a crib, they added loading screens, sims would look vastly out of place now if CC’d, everything a creative person loves to do, to direct their game and have all the freedom to create any kind of picture they desire was taken away.

In the beginning I still had hope. I thought: expansions are going to turn this game into something great just like they did with the other series. But even here EA decided to take the cash-grab route instead. Instead of releasing expansions with a decent amount of content they went for the modern way of DLC: add only one or two extra things per DLC. Comparing expansions of The Sims 4 to expansions of The Sims 3 and simply calculating the amount of hours of gameplay each expansion gives if you try out everything once showed how TS4 expansions are only a fraction of what TS3 had to offer. Again: their arguments were about keeping the performance good enough for even low-end laptops. But seriously my phone could probably run TS4 without any lag. This day and age it IS possible to create way more than what they do with the TS4 and still have a decent performance even on an outdated PC. So this had to be a matter of budget. I don’t blame the developers. They get their money from EA. I blame EA for not giving the developers enough money to make a worthy sequel or to make worthy expansion packs. And it’s not just with Sims 4 btw. They completely ruined the Mass Effect series as well with that monstrosity they call Mass Effect Andromeda. If you google a bit about what happened there, you can see how bad management, a low budget and a deadline pushed way too early by EA messed up the entire development of that game. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing is happening behind the screens of the Sims 4, but we just don’t know about it.

The worst thing is, at least here in Europe, Sims 4 isn’t any cheaper than Sims 3. Even though the development cost was clearly a lot lower and even though they give us a lot less content, the base game and its expansion packs still cost the same amount as a Sims 3 expansion. You pay 40 euros for Get to Work, which gives you only 3 new careers. This is the same amount you pay for Ambition, which adds so much more. I don’t even want to speak about the Vampires game pack which is the prominent example of how EA decided to cut previous expansions into thousands of little pieces and then sell them for a high price each to get more money.

This finally brings me to the newly announced Cats & Dogs expansion. Again, at least half was cut off the content we had previously gotten in pets expansions and the only new thing they added was a vet career. To make it even worse, cats and dogs won’t be controllable so when the crappy AI abandons you and fucks one of them up, you are basically screwed since you can’t control them to fix the issue. We will have to see about this when it is actually released, but it’s perfectly possible your pet will get stuck in your house somewhere and die of starvation simply because you can’t get to it in any way. Besides this possible issue, it’s another restraint for creators. A lot of stories including pets can’t be made now since the pets can’t be directed into a desirable action or position. I can’t imagine every storyteller is patient enough to wait until the pet performs the desired action by themselves. Back in Sims 2 pet’s weren’t controllable either, but at least they had a cheat so you had the option of you really wanted to. Now they announced they won’t even give us that cheat. This isn’t because they don’t want to give us a cheat, it’s most probably because they never developed the possibility of controlling a pet to begin with. Again, I suspect this was a budget issue. If they wanted to make pets controllable, with their given budget they probably had to cut down on other stuff like autonomous AI. Again, EA decided to go cash grab instead of giving us more options and more freedom to create whatever we want with this game.

They have derailed from a sandbox game into a more RPG/mobile game kind of feel. I just can’t understand why they did that. Did they underestimate the size of their creative playerbase? Did they underestimate how restrictive some of their choices would be? I don’t think so. I think they simply didn’t care. They care about money, that’s what EA is famous for. They have been given ‘awards’ for being the worst gaming company plenty of times already. Sims 4 is one of the shining bright examples as to why they deserve those awards.

One can only hope that one day a different developer with a less money greedy publisher will pick up Sims where the third series left off and make their own version of The Sims. This already happened with for example Cities Skylines and Planet Coaster, who are succesors of Sim City and Rollercoaster Tycoon created by different companies. But as long as there’s no announcement about such a thing, all I can really do is be sad about what Sims 4 never was and never will be.

#ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 rant #ea rant #ea #electronic arts #sims 3 #ts3 #i hope it's clear now for all of the sims 4 fans why the game receives the criticism you guys hate so much

11 notes · View notes