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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 11:37 AM
Default If you were the creator of The Sims 4, what would be your main focus of The Sims 4?
Sims 2 had Genetics, Sims 3 had open-world, What would your Sims 4 have?

Just pretend the Sims 4's main focus on "Emotions" hasn't been implemented yet, what would your main focus of the game be?

For me my focus would be the "roots" of the game as it was revealed last year... or was it earlier this year?
What were the aspects of the original Sims 1 that made the Sims so famous?
For me it was the quirkiness, the infinite possibilities of making your Sim rise to the career ladder, the zany phone calls, the fact that people bring chocolates to your house...etc


Now its your turn.
What would your main focus be?
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retired moderator
#2 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 12:09 PM
My main focus would be to bring the best parts of Sims 1,2 and 3 together while taking close notice of what the community wanted. I would also make sure everyone knew it was single player and offline with no sucurom! The base game would include a good range of subtle emotions and all the large parts of life, going to work, having children, weather and pets. There would also be some basic gardening and collecting. I would include an updated and smoother CAST as I know sims 3 players would want that. I would make sure the sims furniture, clothes and hair had current classic styles with all hideous items designed by monkeys thrown under a train. The world would also be open, semi open or closed depending on how the player sets it.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Sesquipedalian Pisciform
retired moderator
#3 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 12:41 PM
Great question.

One of the biggest problems facing games companies today is keeping their content fresh and new and keeping all player types engaged. Many gamers have less time to play their game of choice, there are also many games to choose from - making a game constantly new is a drain on any company - micro payments or not. However, there is a source of free content available to these games companies - the players. By offering modding tools that allow players to become creators then the life span of a game can be greatly extended.

My focus would be on making modding tools available to those players who want to mod the game. I would combine that with a centralised distribution of free content. However, this would only work with a game that is worth modding in the first place.

Looking at the current and past modding efforts usually serves as an indicator of what the "fans" of a game want. What we see in the Sims game is that there is no real average player - the strength of the game is that the game can be whatever the player wants to be and so I would focus on making the gameplay as adaptable as possible.

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Forum Resident
#4 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 1:03 PM
Considering new content, I'd expand on the open world of sims 3 by making it a truly functional town, where jobs have meaning and affect the town.

Heres a short rundown of all the basic jobs:

-Police.
There would be a standard amount of cops required. Only one police chief, several positions for lieutenants, etc. Quite a few patrol officers. When theres a lot of crime, more job openings become available for the police.
Would also have a branch to forensic department once more.
To get hired by the police, they really look at a sim's psychological profile. (their traits) If they are insane, evil, couch potatoes or otherwise having traits that wouldnt work with the job, they'd be less likely to get hired. Having build up their skills could compensate for it though.

-Criminal.
Wouldnt be a standard career, sims could be self employed criminals instead and wouldnt be open to discuss it with others. Would also be various illegal activities possible in most jobs such as fraud, etc. The larger the police force, the more chance there is of criminals getting caught. Depending on their crimes, sims could be in jail for quite a while. If they got caught for robbing a bank and resisting arrest afterwards, they could spend a long time in jail. Friends and family could still visit them in jail though, and sims in prison could be allowed to call.

-Hospital.
While the lower jobs could be available to any sim, as they move up requirements should become steep. Clumbsy sims should never be allowed to operate for example.
There could also be a healthcare rating in town. This could be improved by having better doctors, increased funding, etc. When its high enough sims could get flu shots and such, when its low such things wouldnt be available.

-Army.
When signing up with the army, theres a chance your sim has to go away for a while for a peace mission or such. They'd be out of the country for several days. During these trips, occasionly there would be choices to make. Dangerous choices could cause your soldier sim to die, but by picking the safe option you can keep them alive. the dangerous options can however get them to be promoted and honoured for their heroism.
In town, the army can also be used to maintain order if the ruling mayor declares martial law. This would mean crime would be pretty much non existant, but could undermine many pleasant things as well, making the mayor very unpopular.
To get in the army, sims could be required to run an obstacle course. If they succeed in time, they are in and if not they are out. their skills and traits would improve or decrease their performance.

-Laboratory.
Here new objects can be researched and invented, kind of a long term thing instead of a single sim inventing the craziest things at home.
That could still happen, but the laboratory would unlock things for buy mode. Each expansion could add more stuff for your sims to research.
A lot of the research could be based on traits too, insane sims could come up with ideas no other sim could for example. Evil sims would likely have some different ideas as well. Couch potatoes would have additional ideas about comfort, etc.
Within the laboratory, there could be two branches: mechanical and biological. Each would create different inventions.
Perhaps it could even be possible for a lab accident to create a special kind of sim such as a supersim or such. But this would be something to be added in an expansion.
Any sim could sign up to be a test subject at their own risk, stuff would actually be tested on them.
To actually become a scientist, sims would require high logic skill, perhaps an education. This career could be quite liberal with traits since it could create interesting ideas.

-Restaurant.
There shoud be multible restaurant types, your sim chooses to work at one of them and would be an employee there.
Restaurants would compete with each other, there could be a fancy restaurant and a fast food restaurant. Different sims could have different tastes. Through expansions, more types of restaurant could be added.
The more restaurants you have in town, the less customers they'd get. It would also be possible for restaurants to undermine the competition in various ways, if the owner wishes such.
Yes, sims should be able to own the restaurant. In a way it should work somewhat like open for business.
Different kinds of restaurants could have different requirements too. the fancy restaurant wouldnt hire slobs for example, the fast food chain could allow anyone to work there.

-Business.
Like the restaurant, there should be more businesses. What it does could remain unclear, typical office stuff. But I'd want to see the huge heartless corporation and the small friendly business. The first would earn more money but would force sims to do immoral things and wont make them much friends, while the second would pay less but have a friendlier enviroment. Like with the restaurant, the businesses could undermine each other.

-Journalism.
This could work quite differently, with sims working independantly and turning in their articles at the office. Once they bring in enough articles, they could be hired for a steady job and work at the office. And from there work on the news later on. This news could be shown on sim tv's, allowing your own sims to actually appear on tv.

-Politics.
There could be several political parties in the game, with different goals. Maybe sims could be capable of starting their own party as well, allowing you to name it and give it its own goals.
Internally, the first part would follow regular promotion but still with a limited number of job positions. Can only be one mayor, and being mayor would mean something. Your sim would have power to do good or bad things for their town.
Less moral sims could also be rather corrupt, and could secure a lot of money for themselves especially at higher positions. When caught doing it, they could go to jail however and the stolen money would need to be paid back.
Traits and your sims personal life would be very important in politics. If your sim neglects her children, cheated on her husband several times, got into fights with other sims and has a criminal brother, she'd be unlikely to advance in politics.
The better your sim behaves and their relatives, the better they'd do in politics.

-Music.
All instruments would be included, from the start there would be a symphonic and rock branch. It starts with a try out, with a sim using the instrument of their choice. Or they sing.
Either way their skill with the instrument of choice would advance them.

-Sports.
Different sport teams for the town, each with their own skill. I'd suggest baseball, basketball and soccer. More could be added later on.
Alchemist
#5 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 2:51 PM
Better graphics
Field Researcher
#6 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 3:34 PM
My focus will be complexity, including complex environments and ways to play the game

Better gameplay

more small details

improved personalities

Aging blending together better so there are noticable ages in between the main ones like preteen and middle aged.

height differences (connecting with the ages blending as in the sims will slowly grow taller and heights will be genetic)

Fully connected towns with the option of placing a new town on a map where you want it to go to connect with another town in-game

Creepy dark humour

Seasons and pets in base game (pets including all kinds of exotic pets as well, including hedgehogs and even monkeys!)

Neighborhood ages with you, but new sims are an optional thing, and sims won't die on their own or move away unless they have small roles (townies not playables)

Morality system with chances of getting punished for crimes and chances of getting away with them as you build your sneaky skills.

Teens can do everything adults can, but woohoo is not available for teens to do with adults. Exception to this rule are teens who are close to being young adults and early aged young adults.

There are censoring options parents could implement for their kids game if they were against things in game, which would make the above impossible if the parent wouldn't allow it. These could also be used for people who are uncomfortable with these things, regardless of age.

Sims could build literally everything in game from scratch, but they would need to get supplies and build high skills.

cheaper items do not work the same as expensive items, and really really cheap cars could possibly break down while your sim is driving. Additionally, cars may run out of fuel. Sims will have the options of fossil fuels or alternatives better for the environment.

Vegetarianism (and seperately, Veganism as well) will be in new lifestyle options that will be completely seperate from traits. That way you can make sims with complex personalities without having to sacrifice a trait just to make them live a certain way. Lifestyle options can even seem to conflict with personality, which would make the sims more complex, like geeks who want to woohoo with everyone or preppy criminals.

Personalities will have their own strengths, so you can control which one shows more than the others.

Mental health is independant from traits, making an insane sim act like regular except for random outbursts and strange behavior at odd intervals. Sims could also be depressed, but have a very happy personality in front of others, or they could show it depending on their personality and how they cope with things.

All CAS options are unisex, giving you more options when creating a sim. This doesn't necessarily mean your sims are going to be trans or change their gender expression in any way, it just means they may just like certain fits of clothing or certain hair styles. Alternatively, sims can in fact be trans, although it will be more something you may interpret from your sim based on how they act and whether they come out of CAS being masculine, feminine, or neither. You can chose whether or not they are for sure, making them identify a certain way with extra options, or you could just let them be "born" in CAS and explore themselves as you play. The chance of them being trans naturally would be small, however you would get a couple in your years of playing. It would just matter if you actually pay attention to how they feel about things.
Alchemist
#7 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 3:50 PM
An open planet, I would love that you could take your car and just leave for some place, maybe your car broke down on the way and all you can see is a big forrest!
Instructor
#8 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 4:22 PM
I would focus on creating meaningful gameplay systems, maybe even at the expense of content, so that going forward EPs could make the most of the base game. One of TS3's many failings was that it provided a poor base, with numerous pointless systems that became even more pointless when EPs made use of them. (See, moodlets.) As a "selling feature," I would personally choose to focus on individual sims' personalities in a deeper, more impactful way than TS3's traits. That would sort of be the key example of "meaningful gameplay systems," as I think that having each sim react to the reduced situations in the game in a different way is more interesting than seeing a dozen sims react the same way to a wider range of situations. Replayability and all that.

I promise I'm not as grumpy as my avatar looks.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 4:29 PM Last edited by lil bag2 : 24th Oct 2013 at 4:50 PM.
Everyone's pretty much said what I was thinking so to repeat it would just be redundant. But I'd like to point out Inhuman_One's post on how careers should work in the Sims. What he/she described is EXACTLY how I thought it'd be like in TS3. I would overlook every other negative aspect of TS4 that we've seen so far if that's how neighborhoods would work. Your sims' career choices should be able to affect more than just his family's income. A town shouldn't have more than one mayor. And there should be serious and often life threatening consequences for careers like Criminal, Law Enforcement, and Military.

One thing I would have done that nobody has mentioned yet is make every hairstyle accessible to all ages. it always bugged the hell out of me whenever I saw a hairstyle I really liked for a kid but it could only be used by teens and adults (the same goes for custom hairs too) Judging by all the adult to child conversions on this site, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that was never out of EA's power to do this. It was just another case of neglecting the child stage.
Field Researcher
#10 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 4:39 PM
If I were the creator of Sims 4, I would focus on better gameplay, I will try to get close to the fan / community to know what they want etc, and make sure the game is perfect and every patch released must fix any bug or problems occured.

I would like to make the game where everyone can play it without having to worry about their pc specs and such(some justice for us, pls), and also, stuff packs can be downloaded for free.

Oh, and I also want the base game to have the previous games EPs element in it, seasons, pets, all supernatural beings available, etc.

I will make the route fail better as well. I mean, what about a sim squeezes(english isn't my language) through behind the chair like we do?
Lab Assistant
#11 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 8:00 PM
What leefish and Inhuman One said.

I love the idea of a more 'neighborhood'-smart game, where your jobs actually does make a difference. As of right now, all the neighborhoods are the same - dull. No crime, everything's just perfect. I'd love to create poorer, more rough neighborhoods based on my decisions (the mayor is a corrupt a-hole) and then a high-tech neighborhood where people are wealthy, educated and snobby - and then if there was a way for these two neighborhoods to meet.... BAM!

=)

Don't have much faith in The Sims franchise anymore but am naïve enough to think that someday, my plumbbob will turn green again.

Been playing since 2000
Ex-Moderator of Swedish Official site: TheSims.se (closed in 2011)
Admin of Sims UnCut

Follow: twitter.com/denkert
Mad Poster
#12 Old 24th Oct 2013 at 9:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Inhuman One
-Business.
Like the restaurant, there should be more businesses. What it does could remain unclear, typical office stuff. But I'd want to see the huge heartless corporation and the small friendly business. The first would earn more money but would force sims to do immoral things and wont make them much friends, while the second would pay less but have a friendlier enviroment. Like with the restaurant, the businesses could undermine each other.


Business is just bogus job description. Any business in town, be it a restaurant, a shop, a library, a hospital could classify as a business. Personally I think it would be nice if they rethink careers and jobs more like TS2 OFB. This way we could have job openings based on skill in more than one location. A cleaner for example would be needed in most places, be it science lab, school or hospital. Same for a cook, there could be openings at restaurants, or school/hospital cafeteria. A librarian could work at a public library, or school library. A business sim would become a CEO if he has at least a level 10 business.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#13 Old 25th Oct 2013 at 4:28 AM
Oh guys I was actually referring to the "selling point" being the focus ... like the Genetics, Open World thing ... hahaha... but I can see what you guys replied at that root.
Field Researcher
#14 Old 25th Oct 2013 at 5:24 AM
First, they need to offer a game with fewer bugs and issues. No expansions till the first one is all worked out! Then, spread the expansions out a bit, instead of trying to have one every month or so. We barely have time to explore one, at the current pace, before another is offered. We should also get some better clothing and hair options, like, say, long CURLY hair for the females, and some actually masculine clothing for the men (seriously, the men here cringe at a LOT of the EA offerings), more clothing and hair options at the start, furnishings and build objects in FULL sets, without missing pieces, Things like ladders and bunk beds, pool tables, pool slides, and so forth, should be standard in the base game.

The base game should have some life basics, which include pets, weather, and college. Rabbit holes should be minimal, and limited to things like school and office jobs. Many jobs could be workable careers, such as we saw with Ambitions. Police, for example, could go on patrol, issue tickets, and make arrests, criminals could pick pockets, mug other sims, and break into homes, cooks could be seen working in a restaurant kitchen (which was NOT a rabbithole, so other sims could actually eat inside like we did in TS2), journalists could run around doing interviews, with or without a news crew/cameraman, politicians could have some activities, like speeches, shaking hands, etc., athletes could be seen in an actual game, perhaps, or at least training, scientists could work in a lab we could see, mixing, experimenting, and so forth. Not sure what a businessman could do, or the kids at school, but sitting at a desk working is certainly doable, as would be recess and lunch hours. let US decide if we watch them or go to another sim in the household, of fast forward. Acting sims could be seem practicing a scene. None of that would be complicated, and we would have much more to do.

There should be options to turn on and off various game play aspects, such as controlling who moves in and out of a neighborhood, if anyone, common sense when that happens, to make families move into family homes, instead of collections of odd sims. Non-active sims should buy things on their own, like, oh, baby cribs, as needed! Celebrity status, supernaturals, etc, should be controllable in detail. Plus, there should be no, and I mean absolutely NO requirement for any online interactions! Online shopping in game? Sure, IF and ONLY if we can turn it off, and HIDE the store items when it is off. We should never, EVER be required to connect to other players to unlock items in our game. We should also have built in controls over things like gender preference, for active, non-active, and NPC sims. Regardless of what each of us wants, I am certain many would prefer being able to tweak the settings without a mod. Options such as we have now for supernaturals, with perhaps sliders for percentage, should be fairly simple, and keep all players happier.

Expansions should revolve around new worlds, with cool features, and more creative ideas than simply making regular life issues an expansion. Expansions should come with a LOT more stuff, too, and stuff packs, if any, should have, well, stuff, not a handful of things. Plus, can we put some actual thought into those?? A couple are downright embarrassing, to the point that, as an adult, I skipped buying them. Finally, stop trying to make us all go broke on the stuff! This might come as a shock to EA, but not everyone has unlimited funds, and $40 for a game is a bit steep! I fully expect them to start at $50-60 for TS4, with higher priced expansions as well. If they do that, chances are, I won't be buying. The games are fun, but so is buying food for the kids, and fixing the car. EA needs to remember we have real problems in the economy these days.

There are a lot of good ideas posted here. The real question is; will EA listen this time?
Field Researcher
#15 Old 25th Oct 2013 at 5:28 AM
Quote: Originally posted by 999rozes
Oh guys I was actually referring to the "selling point" being the focus ... like the Genetics, Open World thing ... hahaha... but I can see what you guys replied at that root.


Oh, well, on that note, can they make height adjustments??? We got great weight adjustments with TS3, and even "female" adjustments, which is cool, but not everyone is the same height. We can stoop or stretch to smooch someone a different height, and work out the furniture, so can't the sims, too?

The other thing I would like to see is not losing all the wishes and whatnot when switching active households. A living world is great, but when they can't keep the promises, so we can't shift around as easily, it looses some of the fun.
Instructor
#16 Old 25th Oct 2013 at 2:37 PM
Ironically enough, after adding the things we loved from Sims1/2/3 of course (choice between rotation style play and story progression, custom neighbourhoods, CAST, quirkiness, genetics, etc), my focus would be on making the Sims smarter and much more unique. Kind of what EA is publicising with Smartsim, only I'd focus on other things besides emotions. That and a choice between control and freedom, which I feel is the main difference between Sims 2 (control) and Sims 3 (freedom). EA should try to cater to both instead of alienating one or the other.

-First off, a lot of character customization options to make each sim more unique. To start off, the sims should have a ton of likes and dislikes. They could like/dislike up to two foods, drinks, music, colours, animals (when pets came out, including minor pets), hobbies (could be two general hobbies such as:sports and nature or one general and one specific such as arts and crafts-painting). The most important thing would be, the ability to choose to not like anything at all. Maybe you have a sim that hates everything? Achievable by giving him dislikes, but no likes for example.

-Like many others said, traits that actually matter and play well with each other. An attraction system with turn ons and offs, and the ability to choose a sim's sexuality (hetero, homo, bi or asexual) and if they are monogamous/polygamous, if they don't actively search for romance/wants nothing but romance/etc.

-As for control, a much more in depth population control, to go with neighbourhood creation. How in depth you ask? For starters either TS2 style or TS3. With TS2 style, Sims don't age or start their own romances, and townies can't move into empty houses on their own. With TS3 style it's the exact opposite, you only control one family and everyone else does their own thing. You cannot change this setting once you've created the neighbourhood.

Then complete control over townie generation. Want no townies and have the game generate NPCs as needed? Done. Want a completely human neighbourhood? Done. Want a completely ghost neighbourhood, including NPCs? Done. Want a world with only teenage townies? Done. Want a mix of only vampires and werewolf males? Done. And so on and on. Then nobody could complain about supernaturals any more. Not to mention the supernaturals would be much more in depth, in order to be able to have a town full of them. None of those "temporary useless zombies" crap.

I have much more, including the wonderful jobs the Inhuman One mentioned, but I think that this would be a good base for the game, which is what TS4 needs to be. As others said TS3 was a crap base game, and as a result so were most expansions. I'll forgive not having weather, University, pets and so on, as long as the base game is good enough to make me excited for expansions.
Field Researcher
#17 Old 26th Oct 2013 at 9:00 AM Last edited by TullyKat1 : 26th Oct 2013 at 10:48 AM.
When I heard they were going back to 'the roots' I imaged they were focusing on what made The Sims so famous in the first two series, it was instantly exciting! I was majorly relieved that EA was reinventing their approach to the franchise and really looking at what got lost in the step from TS2 and 3.

‘Emotions’ actually an ok addition but is this really the best selling point? It should have been an improvement on TS2 emotions (a step missed in 3) so it sort of feels lame to attempt to sell it as the next big thing when really it should have been a progressive feature throughout.
‘Roots’ to me means expanding the gritty common life experiences, the essence’s of what a life simulator is all about. The roots of what the game is.

‘Live Your Way’….The Sims brings you a game experience that you can create any way of life you can image or recreate, from struggling with poverty to embarrassed of wealth, middle class boredom to career ambitious success etc. etc. all tried up with emotional Sims that reflect these struggles and achievements.

And they give us the tools to create diverse neighbourhoods, and more complex life situations that affect us in everyday life…..Like…..really, I pay my bills because no power would be a major impact on my home but hey do I really care about a repo guy coming and sucking up a side table?, so it needs to be grittier, down-to-earth basics with cool effects and gameplay that you have to achieve in life not some side challenge to take five top quality tomatoes for some random Sim???? Hell when do I ever do that in the real world?

Who has ever sat without power because of an unpaid bill or a storm or an accident down the road took out the power lines?
Who has ever be late for work because their car has a flat battery, no petrol, traffic jam or the roads were too treacherous to drive fast enough or you simply missed the bus?
Who has ever had a car that didn’t need cleaned or broke down?
Who has ever had a house that didn’t need maintenance or even the lawns mowed or windows washed?
Who has ever had to put a priority on paying rent or a mortgage?
Who has ever applied for a job and got turned down?
Who has ever had kids and you never had to nag them to clean their room or bandage a knee or help tie their shoelaces?
Gosh I could go on and on…. Like why can every Sim automatically drive? They should have to go and sit a driving test and they lose their licence on demerit points for parking fines, speeding or driving over juiced?

The 'Roots' of living life

Edit: to add...

Who has never cried or used a tissue?
Who has never got sick and had to stay in bed or gone to a doctor? ....
Mad Poster
#18 Old 26th Oct 2013 at 11:19 AM
Good question.

I agree with those who feel that the online component was supposed to be the star of the show, and the "emotions" angle was an afterthought after SimCity 2013 initially became a marketing disaster with its always-online feature. "Online! That will sell! Oh .... crap. No, it won't. What can we push now? Emotions .... yeah. Emotions."

Seriously. EA had better start really getting that huge rabbit to pull out of its hat because as far as I'm concerned, what it's offering is a rather puny bunny. But what that rabbit could be? I don't have a clue.

It might be able to attract some people with an OPTIONAL online interaction feature, providing it didn't get rid of it entirely already. It might have in all the panic. This game seems to be focused on single-player only. That was a little sad. The online component may attract some people, as long as the user determined whether he or she wanted to go online, and not EA. I'm surprised EA didn't do that in the first place with SimCity 2013, rather than heavy-handedly pushing always-online. Ease people into the idea, not shove them!

Many people are concerned that free custom content may no longer be plentiful. EA might want to quietly assure players that it will be, and that certain sites will not hold a monopoly on providing content. If EA missed this, it missed a lot. As it is, I won't even consider the game unless I'm sure we can get free custom content from many sites, not just an elite few that managed to brown-nose EA. (And the current stance of not having CASt would hardly woo many Sims 3-ers away from their game, I would guess. Even fewer prospects of customized content?)

Main focus, though probably not a marketing focus, would be to make the game smooth and playable, capable on most systems and video cards. But I guess that's hardly something EA can push in its ads!

Marketing focus .... for now, the possibilities. Subtleties of emotion, the ability to easily import and customize patterns on outfits and decor, the fluid motions of the characters. But EA does need a better bunny; something that even we couldn't imagine (and in a good way, NOT in a buggy/Securom/restrictive way). And fix the stupid hair already!

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Field Researcher
#19 Old 27th Oct 2013 at 5:38 AM
It won't happen, but if it was up to me, I'd make a game where the focus is that you can create anyone and do anything. Slimming that down into what would be possible in TS4, I would greatly improve CAS, starting with a small base of typical hairstyles which are available for all ages and both sexes (with variable textures), clothing and accessories the same, the same bone structure possible for both, and traits being much more meaningful as was stated by others above. Gender identity would be noticeable to the player based on whether the character has a male or female sign, but possible traits and external characteristics would not be limited. I would do this in a way that just wouldn't be noticeable to people who dislike that element of the game, as it's "only fashion" and if they don't like it they don't have to make androgynous Sims and can edit townies all they like. (Come on; the game is already overly camp regardless of sexuality unless you go out of your way to change it.)

I would also expand businesses so that they are playable and fun, and for the jobs which couldn't really be playably fun (short of minigames, which have a propensity for crappiness) there would be variety, as was mentioned above with cleaners being able to work in multiple locations. Traits, education and skills would be highly relevant to job progression, but there would be plenty of variation in the combinations that are acceptable. I would add more Alter-Ego style opportunities to work - stuff that actually has a serious impact, like one person mentioned risk of death v.s. heroic status in the military, which would be limited in its differentiation from nonviolent groups due to the offscreen nature of the job. (Don't think anyone's gagging for a playable military given how many games already have this; EA would only be criticised for under-expanding it.) A Sim's job would have a relationship with the environment, with offscreen roles being commutable if you play a small neighbourhood. If your Sim is a police officer you will see them on the job, for instance a Sim that you have assigned the role to will have a chance of being the one to show up while you're playing another household that calls 911.

Combining a simplistic but representative range of CAS and Build/Buy options with an open neighbourhood worth upgrading for*, I would design a sequel that stays true to the original objectives of this life simulation franchise and finally achieves the objective of a game where nearly everything possible is fleshed out and what little isn't has at least got a token presence in the 'hood. (This in itself is a slimmed down version of my ideal game, which would have more "real life" than The Sims would or should necessarily include.) Credit to everyone else for their similar ideas. We've all been bouncing this stuff around for long enough. Being able to make yourself, your original characters and YOUR idealised/imaginary idea of human life should be and always has been the focus of The Sims.

*You wouldn't be forced to because of the aforementioned commuting thing.

Note: Couldn't help but picture Bob's Burgers when reading about restaurant rivalries. That should be the next cringeworthy SP partnership - it would at least have more potential for humour than Katy Perry!
Field Researcher
#20 Old 27th Oct 2013 at 7:29 AM
I agree with leefish's and ladygreeneyes649's sentiments, but I would also like to add: distinctive playables that emotionally engage the players. Whether it is a sim you want to hang out with, a sim you can't not hate, a sim that makes the player laugh, etc. For example, PT9 is the old man who always cracks jokes more than any other sim in the neighborhood. Nervous Subject seems to have an obsessive desire to prank everybody and anybody he meets, moreso than regular mean sims. Ripp Grunt is the handsome loser that you can't not care about, despite his flirtatious nature.

The first two sims I mentioned are examples of good and engaging characters: they're distinctive and hard to forget not through their looks, but through their actions and routine behaviors. (Although it is always hilarious to see an old alien man come onto the lot to kick the family's trash can) The third sim is an example of a character who emotionally draws in the player, (can work for good or for bad) making it hard to see them as "just another pixel doll".
Lab Assistant
#21 Old 27th Oct 2013 at 2:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by LadyGreenEyes649
The other thing I would like to see is not losing all the wishes and whatnot when switching active households. A living world is great, but when they can't keep the promises, so we can't shift around as easily, it looses some of the fun.


Without sounding too mean, but...
Honestly though, the main selling point? "HEY GUYS YOU CAN NOW SWITCH ACTIVE HOUSEHOLDS WITHOUT LOOSING WISHES"... I mean, seriously yawn.

I know you also said heights but that's not nearly enough either...

Don't have much faith in The Sims franchise anymore but am naïve enough to think that someday, my plumbbob will turn green again.

Been playing since 2000
Ex-Moderator of Swedish Official site: TheSims.se (closed in 2011)
Admin of Sims UnCut

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Test Subject
#22 Old 3rd Nov 2013 at 9:00 PM
I would do a few things:
>Bring stuff from The Sims 3 into the game
>Make a way to convert lots/sims/items from Sims 2/3 to Sims 4
>Make it far more efficient with no spam stats (the amount of time each person spends driving a car and to where, don't have C3 Sims buy millions of sloppy jalopies and big lemons)
>Prevent it from progressively taking more and more processor power as the game progresses
Top Secret Researcher
#23 Old 3rd Nov 2013 at 9:16 PM
"No DRM - because we trust our players."

Wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air?

As far as theme, I think it would be: "Customizable: play The Sims the way you want."
world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#24 Old 3rd Nov 2013 at 9:20 PM
Creativity and fun gameplay.

A balance between allowing people to shape the world, the houses, the objects, the sims, etc., to their own desires - as much flexibility as can be offered in the in-game tools, out-of-game modding tools and sharing of info, etc., so you can really make things just as you want them.

And also just... enjoyable, interesting gameplay. Depth to the sims' personalities and interactions, fun activities for them to do, realistic animations, etc., so once you do get everything just so, it's really enjoyable to play.

my simblr (sometimes nsfw)

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
Panquecas, panquecas e mais panquecas.
Alchemist
#25 Old 3rd Nov 2013 at 10:22 PM
Quality. I would want it to become the buzz-word that describes my game; to become the game that everyone mentions with a knowing nod at what the gaming world should be.
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