Hello,

I've heard that one of the 'new cool things' in Sims 4 is that there's more advanced multitasking. But as an example they have "Now your sims can talk and enjoy a drink at the same time!"... haven't they always, since sims 2, been able to do that?

Well, TS2 sims have some kind of small talk while e.g. having a drink at a bar, or their social meter fills when they read together. Not sure if it counts as multitasking though, because you can't actively direct them to do it.
The only thing close to multitasking in Sims 2 that comes to mind right now are the "chair icon" commands in the pie menu, while they are having a meal together. They can, amongst other things, throw food at each other or propose.

Technically they can when they are having a meal at a restaurant. They drink/talk when placing an order.

I think they mean that they can do this talk/drink whether sitting or eating etc.

Almost the same.From a sims2 game how I remember,you can eat and talk,or watch tv and talk with others.So that multi-tasking is very slippery thing I say.They may just add more locations where you can use multi-tasking,and that's will be all of that magic

Weren't you able to watch TV and eat at the sames time in TS3? You could also hold your baby and watch TV.

Like almost everything in TS4, we'll have to see it in action before we know if it's cool or a big gimmick. The example they gave us so far for multitasking was at the gym on the treadmill. You can turn on the TV and watch the garden channel gaining the gardening skill while at the same time working out. Or, when a cute girl walks in you can flirt with her while you're both working out. We've had some multitasking in the last 2 games but nothing to that extent. It's the only feature that I've heard no one complain about so it must be good xD

In both TS2 and TS3, there were very limited cases of multitasking, each of which was presumably added to the game by hand. Explains why there are so few conversation topics while scuba diving, for instance :p

I am HOPING that what they mean about TS4 is that this sort of thing is being handled procedurally... so they wouldn't have to do a whole set of animations by hand for every combination of activities. If you have the head and mouth and arms moving independently of the hips and downwards, you can do talking while sitting, talking on the treadmill, waving while running or bicycling, etc etc all without custom animations for every pair.

I've got to leave this thread now.