If they are making the Sims 4,how many here people would agree the restaurant,grocery store,bookstore,spa and cinema should not be rabbit holes but open?

One of my turn offs to the Sims 3 is that those places are rabbit holes. I enjoyed making the community lots in TS1 and TS2 to have them replaced by boxes with no real interior.

The hospital should also be open.

At the very basis, the restaurant, grocery store and book store should be open, as these sorts of businesses form the majority of what our sims will interact with.

The Cinema would be my next choice of opening, and then the spa.

Assuming the lots actually work. I mean, we do now have an open cinema as premium content in TS3, with a ticket machine and a turnstile, all so you can watch TV on a giant screen (I'll never forgive that cop out of failing to provide some new clips for the fancy movie screen). Yet, you can take your date there, but have no control as to whether your date will actually accompany you in to WATCH the damned recycled videos.

I'd love open venues like the grocery store, bookstore, and certainly the restaurant, but they better make sure those venues actually function correctly, defined as how a reasonable person might interact in the same venue. You know, order and eat food while seated at a table in the restaurant. Take a book off a shelf in the bookstore and bring it to a cashier to purchase. Have a masseuse give you a massage on the massage table in the spa. That would be my requirement for any open lots. Make them work as expected, in a manner a reasonable person would.

I would like to see OP's list as open places. I just want some of the jobs to be rabbit holes, so it is easier to leave some of the sim's family unattended.

There are people that don't want open restaurants ,grocery store, bookstore, spa and cinema?

I tried this yesterday and had no problem having my date watch the movie with me. I bought two tickets, gave my date one of them and then went to sit and watch the show and asked her to join me.

Now that I think about it, none of the other un-controllable sims used the ticket machine, they just walk through the gates, and when I was playing my sim who owned the gym and I had the ticket machine there, she got paid when the sims walked through the gates and they got a ticket into their inventory. So I think it would have been sufficient to only have my active sim buy the ticket and then call the date to join to watch.

From the list of the OP, you can play all of those already as open venues, not RH. For the exception of the restaurant that is not "real", but even then your sims can have a meal outside of the RH with the register.

For the spa, if you have ST or the premium spa objects, you can easily build your own spa. Now for the messus, well you could try having somebody tend a register in the spa and see could they give your sims a message, or try out virtual artisans any role ivy to have a sim on the lot. I haven't experimented with this so much so this might work or might not, but it's something I plan on trying out the next time I have a sim visiting ST.

For TS4, I'd like to see these open as well but, I'd also like to have RH jobs but have the RH as a door you can add to any building, instead of having it as a huge building that takes up so much space.

I *hate* rabbit holes. I want them vanished forever.

I loved in TS1 and TS2 you could explore buildings, but now the world just feels so bland and empty.
You all remember that wonderful moment when we all installed The Sims Hotdate and Nightlife expansions for TS1/2. It was wonderful. Sending your sims downtown and actually sitting in a diner, and being able to talk and stuff while dining. That was stolen from us. I was hoping late night would of fixed that due to being so much like hot date and nightlife, but it didn't. The only thing i can think is that EA did it intentionally to reduce the game engines load (as everything is rendered in real time due to being open world).

But now its 2013, technology is better. Raise the system requirements, render everything real time, be open world.
Stop living in the past and upgrade your PC if it lags for you.


The only thing i can understand being rabbit holes are Subways and Jobs.
Everything else? No.

So um EA, i got alot of good ideas for the game that if i was chosen to lead i would implement for the fans and not profit. Sign me on?

The idea of closed Rabbit holes is horrible after OFB and Open Workplace scenario EP in TS2.
It is understandable if EA release TS3 OFB later as 3rd or 4th EP to get OPEN RH.
But no, EA dedicated their time to OPEN OCEAN which I think it's great but they should not abandon the time-tested idea from TS2 just like that.

I definitely feel *some* areas could be a Rabbit Hole; for example if they include something quite intricate again - i.e. a sports arena - but every day things like shops, cinema and cafes should not. At the very least we should be able to see inside; if not interact with the NPC, other sims and the buildings facilities in some way.

all of the rabbitholes are work buildings.

Right Christmasfear. I want to know where Sims go to work? If you are talking about controlling them at work, not fond of that.

Exactly, so the people that say "We should see inside the restaurants but, not their jobs!" are they implying there should be two restaurants, one you eat in and one you work in? That's pretty much how it was in The Sims 2.

We could just go back to the classic carpool system. Sim gets into car and vanishes for a bit.
They could easily make it so the car drives down the main road of the games town and disappear outside of viewing area. They can simply say "You live in SimValley but work in Simcity".

That would be making it the same as Sims 2, except slightly open.

I want to see my sims work. I love the ghosthunter, firefighter, etc careers. I actually rarely play any others. I just use motherlode when my sims need money. Why should I send my sim to a purgatory like system with an annoying carpool when he could be playing with his daughter or teaching his teenage son to drive? Unless I can play it, work in Sims 3 is boring and annoying as they aren't actually doing anything when they could be doing something else.

Yeah, but they PROMISED this would be an offline, single player experience. Although, it could be a helluva way to backend it where if you want your sim to have a job, you have to buy SC too, and be online so they can commute to work.

Oops, I hope I didn't just plant an idea in some suit's head with this.

Or maybe there could be some sort of "employees only" door inside(or maybe even behind) the building that working Sims can go through throughout the day.

Although the prospect of interacting with(or possibly sabotage) co-workers is tempting.

Sims work in most of these rabbit holes, so you'd have to have uncontrolled working Sims (like part-time NPCs) alongside customers. Like if I send Bob to work at the restaurant and Betty to eat there, I can control Betty (tell her to order this, flirt with the waiter, etc.) but I can't control Bob, who's in the back cooking. Unless you guys actually want to control your Sims while they're at work, and if they're as efficient on the job as they are at home, we're gonna end up with a lot of unemployed Sims.

Opening up some rabbit holes, YES, especially places like the spa and the theater. But let's stop short of opening up the hospital. I don't want to sit there and watch my Sim give birth, I really don't.

This.

TBH, there was no reason for the Grocery Store in TS3 to be a rabbit hole especially given the stores from World Adventures and implementation of cash register objects.

i don't want sims to disappear out of town for work just to solve that issue. but i also don't want every career to be like ambitions because sims are too stupid to work when youre not controlling them.

Seriously? The implication of Sims entering a building and we don't know what they're doing there is much better than if they just vanish at the street. That system is similar to traveling system where they drive a bit, stop anywhere, vanish, and then the game transitions to the university/vacation world. People want an "airport" place as a destination before the game transitions, and now you want everything back to The Sims 2 again?

Anyway, there are some reasons why I enjoy rabbit holes. One of them would be the limitation of architectural elements. Take a look for example at the stadium, MV colosseum, Bridgeport cinema, city hall, or mausoleum. The architecture is so unique it's only applied in rabbit holes, not regular building, because I don't think I can make use of stadium bits on my home. Where else would I use Colosseum parts outside the Colosseum if it's not a rabbit hole? Or if the Eiffel Tower made it to become a rabbit hole, I can't make use of the Eiffel Tower parts at home either.

Also, think if they didn't make rabbit holes, but instead regular buildings. I can't build anything closer to theater than a boxed building. In the end, every build elements are shaped in straight lines, and no round curves.

If we really want to see what's inside the building, I hope at very least they replace the rabbit holes with shell building (like skyscraper, pyramids, or Starlight Shores private clubs). That way, we can still enjoy the unique architecture as well as customize what is inside the building itself.

That's a great idea for rabbit holes. This might sound crazy but I had a similar idea that all of the rabbit holes should have a hybrid system. Where you can go inside the rabbit hole;maybe control and see them a bit, but have the option to have an auto pilot system. So you don't have to worry about your working Sims just like the Sims 3 rabbit hole system and focus your other Sim while that are at work. I know, I might be the only one that loves to control and manage every single detail possible. A simmer can only dream.


Let hope the Sims AI in TS4 is not that stupid and have a way better ambition/Profession system because, If so it's an automatic step back!

I don't care if places of work remain rabbit holes; but everything else should be open. It'd go a long way from dispelling some difficulties I have with immersion in TS3 when compared to the prequels.

It seems especially odd that TS3 included rabbit holes at all, now that I've gotten to thinking on the prequels. I mean; for most of those new places to visit were a big part of the appeal of the EPs.

What I would suggest is everything open, but sims turning into an effective NPC while at work. That way you can see them do their job, but you dont need to controll them. Impossible to do if you have a large household.

So if your sim works at the office, he or she could be seen working behind a desk. you could customise the office of course, and during career opportunities you could see things happening at the office and have the chance to make a choice. then you'd see your sim acting out that choice.
Choosing if they are slacking off, working hard, etc could also be selected and it could show.

I actually agree, I see no purpose for rabbitholes in the Sims 4.

In the Sims 2, a sim would get into a car which would drive off the lot and the sim would be gone for a set period of time. When that time elapsed, the sim would reappear.

The Sims 3 offered a natural progression from this in the form of the rabbithole. The sim would get in the car, which would drive him to a rabbithole for a set period of time. After that time elapsed, the sim would reappear and get in a car and come home. The only functional difference between the Sims 2 and the Sims 3 was that in the Sims 3, you could actually watch the sim disappear into the rabbithole.

But the Sims 4 should really be offering us a different paradigm. Ever since Ambitions, EA demonstrated that rabbitholes really are not necessary. Perpetuating them just is laziness on their part -- a sign which does not bode well for the Sims 4.

As for other sims in the family or elsewhere, the only sim which should be of import is the active sim. If a sim is not active, a much improved artificial intelligence should be making sure that he is making productive use of his time. Or more acurrately, if a sim is not active, he/she is not visible and the game awards a certain amount of job progjress based on the tone selected, much as what it does with the current rabbitholes. But players should be able to direct the degree of activity for the active sim.

Say you have a sim in the business profession. In their office, they would have a desk. If they are at their desk, you click on it and select from what they are doing. Are they working? Are they asleep? Are they doing crossword puzzles? You might have a water cooler, if you click on it, they start gossipping with coworkers. University showed us that it was possible to follow sims during things like their class activities and lectures.

Some jobs should be active. For example, journalists should be busy tracking down leads and interviewing people. This is almost the same as what the Ambitions Private Investigator does. Police officers should be doing stuff like directing traffic, writing tickets to other sims, and conducting investigations. Ambitions showed us this could be done.

Scientists could be sitting at a lab conducting experiments, reading scientific journals or giving demonstrations.

Restaurant workers, depending on their job, could be waiting tables, or in the kitchen cooking. Or woohooing in the pantry.

Politicians might be at their desk, but more likely at meetings or giving speeches.

Job experience is then awarded not just on showing up at work, but by completing projects.

While the use of rabbitholes was justified when the Sims 3 first came out, they have no place in the Sims 4.