Apparently, the open neighbourhoods of TS3 are not as universially beloved as we have believed. After the announcement that CASt won't be making a return, several people around the net have voiced the opinion that they don't want TS4 to have an open neighbourhood either, since it means their Sims will act independently when they're not selected. Like probably most other TS3 players, I've been under the impression that the open world was the great redeeming quality of TS3, the one thing many TS2 die-hards would have wanted for their preferred game. Maybe it's not so, but it's not always fun to voice an unpopular opinion and be attacked. Yes, there have been Simmers who have been honest about not caring for the feature, but they normally received a lot of disagrees.

So, let's have a little opinion poll. Use the buttons below to vote anonymously for whether or not you hope for open worlds in TS4. That's all.

Clarification: I meant for "disagree" to mean that you don't want open neighbourhoods. Not sure if that was clear, since most who have commented want them.

Do these people not realize that you can turn Story Progression off and that they can opt not to use CASt? It's the power of people like these who ruin the game for the rest of us who actually want such features. They have choices; we don't.

Yes, "these people" realize that you can turn off Story Progression. They are also aware that turning off Story Progression does not provide TS2-like gameplay. So, I assume that "these people" want a form of gameplay which isn't provided in Sims 3, regardless of whether Story Progression is on or off. I know that I do.

As to CAST, I really doubt that anyone except EA wants CAST to disappear, unless there are concerns about resource requirements or something like that.

Seriously, though, calling someone "these people" sounds like you're itching for a fight. It's probably better to try to understand their objections to a feature, rather than arguing that they can have what they want without understanding what they want. Sims 3 provided no way to play the way that I wanted to, which is why I returned to Sims 2 and why I'm concerned about "open worlds".

I really want an Open Neighbourhood and Story Progression

I love the open world and focus on one family so I would miss it. I couldn't imagine playing every family in my world, not when my world have 60 or more households, I would go bonkers and get flustered, just stop playing.

What if the game offered two types of game play, one the is lot specific and another with an open style? It may not be prudent or possible though. Playing lot specific was good at the time Sims 2 came out but I had always wanted the hood open and be able to focus on my favorites while the ones I don't want to play aged along.

The closed world and necessity for playing every family in town if you wanted them to age, have children, progress in their jobs is the reason I stopped plying TS2 months before TS3 came out.
So, without that open world and story progression, I would not buy Sims 4. That said, I hope EA will take a lesson from Twallan's SP mod, because after playing two generations in a town before SP mods were available, where Sims did not marry or have kids or gets jobs except to fill co-worker slots for the family I was playing, I gave up on Sims 3 for quite some time.

Open world. The ability to send my sim family of 4 to 4 different community lots and have each of them doing their own thing, socializing, relaxing, swimming, whatever, and being able in real time to click between them all without any loading screens for each lot is something I cannot play without. And I am spoiled by Twallan's Story Progression. As we won't have it this go around, unless and until another talented modder steps up to fill his shoes, so EA had better put a LOT of effort into making their own story progression actually work this time around.

Then again, for me this is kind of an intellectual exercise only, as based on what I have seen and read so far, I won't be buying anyway.

I thought Open World =/= Story Progression. I'm fine with Open World, it's Story Progression I loathe and detest and turning it off doesn't work properly. I hear Awesomemod offers some sort of sacred family doodah, perhaps that might be more welcome. Set the families you don't want played as sacred, let everyone else do what they want. I've said it before, I'm fine with my unplayed sims developing relationships in the background, but I want to be there for all the big stuff. I'd be horrified if I opened my game one day and discovered my little sister had played my favourite families and they'd had weddings and babies and died without me, I absolutely do not want my game doing it.

Open world was one of the features I really liked about TS3 but I stopped playing it very quickly because of the lack of control and difficulties in playing multiple families (and of course the soulessness of it but that's another discussion). I'd like to see an open world in TS4 but with more flexibility and options in controlling what happens to families you leave for a while. I like playing whole neighbourhoods and playing TS2 rotation style is fine with me. What I like about the open world idea is not the neighbourhood growing up alongside your (single) families but the sense of place it offers.

I have Story Progression turned off, but I don't mind at all if my currently non-active families go about their lives and make friends as they please. Like Eskie, I also like to have my Sims going off independently, and I zoom between locations all the time. I love playing that way. At the same time I accept that many others don't. The best thing would be to have two optional playing styles in TS4, so you could select whether you wanted to play a fully open hood or "TS2 style". It would probably be next to impossible to program, however, because it would require two vastly different save systems.

According to Graham, the developers are aware and admire Twallan's SP so if they mess up the Story Progression in Sims 4, it's their fault. I liked the sacred option in AwesomeMod because I could focus on the extension of my one family, like when the 2nd generation grows up and moves out. I wanted to pick their spouses, lovers, lifestyles and jobs. That is about where the control ended for me. I enjoy the surprises sometimes too. I wouldn't like the game to be stifled, all or nothing. Give some options and it can be done because Pescado (well he does control his mod quite a bit) and Twallan do it in their SPs.

I'd like an open world that allows you to visit neighbors and community lots and keeps ages in sync BUT I don't want the game to process every single sim in that world while I'm playing the active household. If my active household is the Botwin family and they're all at home, I don't want the game wasting the system's resources on Lorelai who lives across the street and Buffy who's reading a book in the cemetery.

It would be great if they could do it like that, and there was a trigger function that sent them out when your active Sims went to community lots. Then you wouldn't have to spend half the night discovering where everyone was hanging out. I guess if the game didn't have to animate random Sims scattered all over, resources would be freed up allowing more Sims in active locations.

Edit to add that I remember when I only had the Base Game, non-active Sims would be static when they were in their own homes. If you looked in the window, they'd just be standing there. Now I see them interacting with each other inside sometimes.

I guess Open World means there will be all these households that will be advancing at the same time and that equals Story Progression to them.

It does if you want to play with aging on, if you haven't got a mod for individual aging.

And then they'll say they don't want to turn aging off or seek out that mod because they shouldn't have to do those things. (Yeah, that's right, I'm psychic.)

I don't think it matters what I want -- I'd bet my house the worlds are closed.

Would you really want to be homeless just to have open hoods?

But to be serious, yes, I'm starting to think so too. We're getting three worlds/neighbourhoods with the Base Game, and that could very well be compensation for them not being open. I just hope the loading screens are short, and that there won't be an automatic save each time you take a Sim to a community lot. Autosave was probably my main gripe with TS2.

But isn't a world/neighborhood open by definition? As opposed to a home lot or community lot, I mean.

Probably why they don't mention the neighborhoods then.

Vibrant Neighborhoods – Chose among brilliant and diverse lots for your Sims to live in. Vivid visuals bring your Sim’s home to life.

Total speculation I posted earlier today:
http://honeywellsims4news.tumblr.co...ood-speculation

I'm not entirely sure what you meant here. Only TS3 has "open" neighbourhoods. TS2/1 don't. In TS3 you can zoom in to look at any location on the map, and have your active Sims go off independently to different lots. In TS2 you can only see the lot your Sims are currently on, not what is going on in the next one over. Nothing IS happening anywhere else.

I really don't see how they can go back to closed neighborhoods/lots. Remember the trailer for Sims 3 about being able to finally leave your house? How in the world would they reconcile that with having to go back to just your house/single lots again?

Remember the Sims 2 trailer about life stages and genetics?

Hmm...I wonder what happened to that in the Sims 3. Wink, wink.

I'm confused. You could leave your house in TS2. You could leave your house in TS1. We had community lots and vacations!

ETA: You can't disagree with that, phantom disagreeres, it's true. Community lots in the TS2 basegame, community lots in the TS1 Hot Date EP and vacations in both vacation EPs. You could leave the house.

Well, I am not buying the Sims 4 anyway, do whatever. It will just solidify my reason not to buy it. Pfft, closed world.