I do think that a 16+ rating would be best for the game considering the content. Some of the sexual stuff, cheating and such could still not be too good of an influence for early teens who are just starting to get into more serious relationships than a childish crush.
A 16+ rating would allow a bit more in the game such as bringing alcohol pie dancers, gambling and other such stuff back, and then the game could actually allow teens to get tattoos, go joyriding and other such things without having to worry about being a bad influence on teen kids.

I like the idea of TS4 being more realistic, but not including half of the examples in the original post. AIDS and cancer should definitely not be in the game, and I'm not on board with prostitution either. It takes the game quality out of the game for me? I think Sims could take a little more darkness, a little more sexuality, but not to that extent. I don't really want EA making light of stuff like that by throwing it into a cutesy game. A new moodlet for finding out that your family member has AIDS? I don't think so.

I can kind of associate with the idea behind the wishes in the OP, mainly because the watered down happy dappy, nothing evil / wrong / bad ever happens beyond having a bad mood of the Sims imho makes gameplay meaningless and gets in the way of drama and ultimately this kind of game is about storybuilding. While the OP examples are extreme, in a movie/book ... these setups alone would drive stories.

That said, you'd not need such really cruel twists of fate but some level of gameplay that better builds exciting stories. Currently virtually any Sim can be anything, it would be a start if a Sim and you as its cheperon could actually fail at things like career, romance, opportunities and if there were surprises, twists and actual challenges to throw you a curveball.

I think my first household started out as an impoverished single mom with two kids. It didn't take long before they were filthy rich, the kids honorary students, one a rockstar the other an athlete. How about making this kind of stuff more difficult? Not everyone can become the best athlete without good traits supporting commitment (learning skills) to achieve it, plus luck.

I'm not sure many Sims players would play something like Crusader Kings which is in essence a medieval dynasty simulator but the two games are similar in being story creation tools, not games in themselves. In that game you can create a grand empire of impressive might and yet your king can become insane, crippled and ill resulting in everything crumbling around you. This game makes losing fun as you struggle to have some 8 year old regain a semblance of power. Sims could do with something along the lines with everyday life examples instead of medieval history.

It would be a great challenge if sims, like real people, would need to find the job, love interest and skills that suit them.

Their traits could make them unsuitable for some jobs where it makes sense. In some cases they could still get the job if their skills are high, but could still struggle for promotions. In other careers they simply couldnt get past certain points at all due to a crippling trait. There's no way they should let a clumbsy sim become a surgeon.
To be descent in politics, sims should also have traits for it such as schmoozer, charismatic, friendly, flirty, good sense of humor, etc. could help them reach the top.

Based on traits, there should also be career paths that would make your sim unhappy. They shouldnt like every career path.
A couch potato would be unhappy in the sports and army careers, a rebellious sim doesnt want to be a cop, a snob might not want to apply to any filthy job but could get happier in the career once they advance far enough, etc.
Yep, there could also be specific positions within the career they can dislike. It would show their struggle to the top. Some could even love a lower position and could refuse a promotion. I dont like the automatic promotions either way.

I only read a few of the posts here so forgive me if I reiterate what someone has already said...

I would be down with some Sim on Sim crime IN A SENSE OF COMEDY. By that I mean, it would be cool if a Sim could sabotage another Sim that may result in death, such as bad food or break the tv so the Sim has to risk the chance of getting electrocuted to repair it. I don't have many examples and I hope you guys get what I'm saying. Like indirect murder.
Honestly, I don't think EA will even go for that but, hey, I've got my L&D tombstone handy for unwanted townies.

On another note, I've always made use of the cigarette mod for all three games. Even though I don't play TS3 anymore, it had the best one. I know it won't be in the game EVER, but this is very early request of a smoking mod in the Sims 4 .

I think that people love The Sims too much to want it to stray too far from the formula. TS4 with child molestation, tranny prostitutes, criminals spreading drugs to addict teens and make crack husks, some people would like / love it darker and others would equally detest it and feel alienated. Players like the game for different reasons, changing up what's already got mass appeal to many individuals, too risky. I mean, hey, I would love for Batman to drop the goth and go gospel like the Disney Hercules but the series and fandom has long established itself.

Realistic does not equal abuse, prostitution and addiction.

Having to actually call a taxi, wait a while and be charged for the ride would be a good start. I don't understand the free instant taxi in the Sims 3. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of buying a car? And babies with legs. That's realistic. Being able to make out with your spouse without having to woo them every time. That's realistic. Cops not having a telepathic knowledge of where teen sims are at night. That's realistic.

There are many ways to implement realism without changing the T for Teen rating.

I'd prefer it to be more realistic, but I still love it being unrealistic.

Original_Sim gets it. Realistic =/= DARK & GRITTY

One of these things is not like the other.

You know what I'd really like to see? Somebody successfully convince the executives that cancer and HIV would be a welcome addition. Any marketing team that can sell that deserves a raise because the vast, vast majority of players don't want their stress-relieving fun disrupted by the game being told their favourite Sim has cancer, 6 Sim days to live. (Or your Sim can just go the hospital and cure it, thus ruining the realism you wanted. Except maybe you have to sell everything you have to pay for it, which would probably start a hundred debates on the forums regarding healthcare.)
And then HIV. How would you do that? Sleep with a random sim, sinister music plays, message pops up saying to get yourself to a hospital? So will your sim being drinking potions to stave off death for the rest of their lives? Or will it be a quick trip to the science facility, which brings us back to the problems with cancer. And either way, you're going to offend/anger a large chunk of players.
And, really, what is the point to this? Most people play the game to escape reality. I personally see it being tedious at best, absolutely heartbreaking at worst.

Moving on from the dark to the dark and gritty; prostitution, drugs and murder would immediately bump this game's rating up. Higher rating = less buyers = less profit = EA's faces melting in a rage. Also, back to the marketing for the game. "Your sims can now be addicted to crack simcane! Turn a trick or two to pay for your next hit, fight off social services from taking your half-dead baby away, murder your dealer Jizzy for money. Anything is possible in Sims 4: Vice Nights." Save that stuff for Mods.

And as others have been saying, realistic =/= gritty or dark. When I say I'd like realism in the game I'm talking about, using your example, Sim mothers not snapping back to their original size after having a kid. Or being difficult to make money, that when you are able to buy a big house cheat-free it should feel like you did something, rather than just find a few gems. Marrying someone should take time, fears should be brought back from The Sims 2 (Like spouses fearing divorce, parents fearing their chidlren's deaths, children fearing fire, etc.). I didn't mind death from diseases like pneumonia, where they could be treated. Stuff like that is what I'd rather.

Speaking of terminal illness, there was one in the Sims 1. Maybe nothing like cancer, but it was called The Guinea Pig Disease. If your sim got bit by the pet guinea pig that came with the Livin' Large EP, they would get cold symptoms and eventually die. And there are natural disasters (e.g. meteors) in the Sims 3.

There are many ways to include sickness, death and disasters in the game without being graphic or upping the rating.

Didn't you have to stare at the picture of the guinea pig to be cured or was that just some urban legend like Mew being under the truck in Pokemon? Maybe I'm getting it mixed up with the clown...

Guinea pig bite-related deaths aren't realistic (Not that I care too much about realism) but that's more like what I'd rather have in the game in terms of illnesses. That and the stuff in Sims 2. Things you could cure but could still die from or these funny but fatal illnesses. Also the random deaths like being eaten by flies.

It's actually true. If you got the guinea pig AND the picture everything was fine, the painting would prevent the sickness. If you had got the sickness staring at the painting would cure it. If you didn't have the painting and you didn't feed/clean the pig and tried to play with it it would bite you and make you sick. I once decided to test how potent the disease was and got a three-member family all infected. I managed to cure the mom and kid by repeated coffee/juice and sleepng/hot tubbing, the dad perished because I had him fix the hot tub which eventually cured the others. As a reward for the survivors I got them the painting so the kid could keep her pet. :D

I really liked the Guinea Pig disease and it's something that is Sims-world-appropriate, hails down to previous game and not too graphic (since it's just flu symptoms until sudden death, just cough, cough, cough, keel over). I like challenge and difficulty in game with the Sims-flavour and flimsy. Real-world fatal diseases are not ok in my book.

I really like such things too. It's something that can kill your sim, and the cure is not obvious. And as you see how the series has advanced, they could do some great stuff with it.

Like having a strange disease that causes a sim to look a bit sickly. Their skintone could become a bit unhealthy but nothing too weird. Maybe they could get red spots on it or such in a further stadium. To cure it, several rare ingredients could be required. Something like an alchemy potion could need to be made to cure it. If not cured, the sim could die of it, making the search for the cure a race against time. I'd love to have such tension in my game.

If they add zombies to sims 4 by the way, I'd want them to go all apocalypse with it and make it contagious. Zombies biting other sims to turn them, turned zombies being NPC controlled. They shouldnt eat other sims, just bite them to make them zombies as well.
To this there would also be a cure, maybe a bottle that can be smashed on the ground, turning all nearby zombies into people again. No zombies should appear by default though, their creation should be through a player action. Wouldnt want unwanted zombie outbreaks. I think it would be a great possible side effect for getting a sim back from the dead. It's too easy in sims 3 to get your sims back from the dead, I'd want to see a 25% chance or such that when you resurrect a sim, that they become a zombie instead causing chaos to ensue. Teaches sims that they shouldnt be so eager to play god.

As for other conditions: whatever expansion adds seasons should allow sims to actually be frozen in the cold. Their motives could be frozen as well, and their aging could also stop. There could even be a machine for it that allows sims to freeze themselves willingly. They could be frozen for generations. Warmth would of course defrost them, warm weather would help and other sims creating warmth too.
Might also be a nice effect to have when magic gets added, allowing a freeze spell.
The sim should be stuck in whatever pose they had when they froze by the way.

I have trouble accepting how the more serious actions such as killing (by cowplant), zombies and vampyres (silly animations) are overwhelmed by humour turned up all the way in those particular places.

I'd prefer no killing at all (to pass the ratings) and some serious emotional effects surrounding occult states, such as pronounced crying or complete inability to appear in public. These changes should also be permanent and much more rare, rather than people just putting on a skintone costume and taking it off when done playing vampyre/zombie/plantman. Because the occult states are so obviously implausible, I end up not using any of them, and maybe put on the frozen skintone to mark a change to a stressed, unhealthy person. That is what I would like to see in a vampyre too: a more subtle change from within. Now when he's screaming and jumping "hey vampyre coming through, look how cool I am in this skin".

Perhaps deadly diseases aren't really needed. If the game has magic, we could have some detrimental effects from using it, but without any blatant jokes in them, like cartoonish mushrooms growin on the skin or something like that. This effect, disconnected from sexuality, could be subtle, but still deadly.

I admit I have little sense of humour. But if you make the jokes so nasty and into the face, it helps as much as turning the volume up for a tone deaf.

Indeed. I'd like to get rid of the sense of being watched by "us" on every step.

Mods and open-source perpetually developed games cannot deliver the sense of adventure, where you as the player explore a game, slowly unpacking the book, and turning it page by page. You don't know if it possible to kill or infect, and then it happens, or something else happens that you could never guess. In contrast, say, you install a mod for killing, open up the game with the intention to kill, then a debug error message pops up about a "stack number being out of range" in the heat of the moment. As a competent modder, you fix it, and reload the game again...

It is probably not an option to add an adult expansion pack, because clever critics will find how part of the scripts existing in the basegame can be grounds for bad press (like with hot coffee). That's a shame really.

I'd love to see "non-realism" as implemented means for the player to make their simulated world a better place than it could be In Real Life. I believe that was the original reason behind aging not being implemented. Having a miracle drug developed (expensive, or slightly unpredictable maybe) to halt aging is a much more organic method. If the player feels rewarded for being able to ensure their characters stay young and "unrealistically" beautiful, compared to other play attempts where they did not, that's a good game progression.

I agree with some of what you say, but not this: " serious emotional effects surrounding occult states, such as pronounced crying or complete inability to appear in public. These changes should also be permanent". Effects like pronounced crying already happen in response to many occults (OMG a SIMBOT!) and are highly annoying, as they tend to drop the que and can't be canceled, thus are quickly modded out. And why the "can't appear in public"? Where is the fun in that? "Look at all the places your sim could go, if only they didn't take advantage of this game feature."

As for permanence, no, no, a thousand times no. That choice, as with all choices in the game, should be left to the player. It's up to you if you want to use it. Don't take away choices from everyone just because you don't use it.

If someone has no or little sense of humour, ANY joke will fall on deaf ears.

I don't care how "dark" it gets as long as houses actually burn down. I don't want scorched floors. I want houses reduced to /rubble/ by fires.

Which means, if EA reads this post, we'll probably get spontaneous combustion upon a sim getting angry.

Lethal vampires, lethal werewolves and slayers/slaypires. That's about as dark as it should go while still being fun.

I don't want my sims staining their teeth with tobacco, getting beer guts and toilet breath from booze, losing all their teeth from bulimia, getting utterly f***ed up and finally ODing on coke and meth, getting the "Itchy Itchy Boils" from that skugly, parasite-infested and elderly §2 crack w****e on Booker Avenue, getting murdered over a Handheld or a new pair of Jump-Its! Sneakers, shot in the face by the Insane husband, taking the "Party Pack" from a stranger and the getting raped in an alley while being too disoriented to fight back...

I might get a lot of "Disagrees" for this, but please get the ghetto out of my sims. There are many poverty/crime simulators online that can do the same thing.

Its a bit to dark for a game. Even when the game is possibly NOT going to be just for adults.
And the sims isnt like that, its supposed to be fun and quirky.
And anyway. If the sims where realistic, I wouldn't want to play it at all.

The ability to murder other Sims is present in the Sims Medieval.

Cancer? HIV? That's kind of dark for a casual game, don't you think? I think most people would be looking for mods to turn off diseases, if they were introduced.

Prostitution? o.o I have nothing else to say, haha.