I'd like to see a Sims 4 OFB but that will mean the Grocery Store,Spa,Bookstore,Cinema and etc should not be rabbitholes

I really liked to have my own business too in TS2. But was at the same time also glad that my other family members could be unattended at their rabbit hole jobs/school.
Having your own store/gallery is what I miss in TS3, so I also hope that this will come back in TS4. Probably with rabbithole jobs though, because I don't want to watch a full household every second for the off chance that they get distracted by a sim playing a guitar :/

Yeah, I guess I don't believe that EA can pull off a smart enough AI and routing (I hope they will take this as a challenge ).

If the Sims 4, which I'm very excited about, will not offer "real" restaurants, bars, venues (I mean REAL ones), there will be no reason to have it, and a more important thing is, if you are planning to make it the same as the sims 2 and the sims 3, you give us the base game, without (at least) seasons, pets, university, & nightlife expansions included, it will be a really bad idea, and if you plan to add a supernatural expansion pack to the base game, it will be the worst decision you ever make, because many players don't like imagination, you shouldn't lose fans anymore, any really the sims 3 wasn't a great game (the others were, because one after the other were upgrades, but TS3 is a downgrade in many areas) , many players like it only because it's the latest.
Finally, loving the sims series very much doesn't mean that we are going to empty our pockets only for improved graphics, that's real.
-I think that "The Sims 4" will be the best game in the series.
Thank you.

Personally I don't think that everything in ts4 will be controlled.

I agree, that those community lots should not be rabbitholes, I like to see sims in action in the restaurant a bus boy trips and drops his entire tray on you and your sim will either yell or be kind depends on his mood and traits or like in the grocery pushing a trolley and putting items unlike those pop up message in the sims 3.

To me, any rabbit hole should be open. Even looking at some fixed animation of your sim doing stuff is way better and more entertaining than staring at a building for half a sim day or more even if you can't control what he's doing. In TS3, if you start with a single sim doing any job that is not self employed at home, you basically end up staring at nothing while 2/3s of the day skips at the fastest speed (if your computer can handle that, which is not guaranteed)

Ideally, everything should be opened and fully interactive like inside your home. At a basic level, I'd be happy with non interactive animations plus story/choices pop-ups like when you play with the virtual reality goggles, or the ones that may randomly appear in the medical career, or at the restaurant; they should happen more frewuently, for any activity involving a rabbit hole and have real impact on the outcome of your interaction.

I hated rabit holes and that's one of the reasons I uninstalled Sims 3. I loved the idea of the open neighbourhood but what's the point if most of it is closed off? A lot of the game was pop up messages, no real interaction. I became bored with it really quickly. Also, part of my joy in Sims is to create community lots. Even when I discovered the rabit hole rugs, it still wasn't the same because I could not make the places functional like in the previous games in the series.

I really hope that Maxis figures out a system where rabit holes (or at least most of them) can be opened but also, that we don't need to micro manage every working Sims if we don't want to. I just want my freedom to make the buildings back and watch my Sims interact and enjoy them. <3

I totally agree.
Rabbit holes are so boring...

I wonder how making them open would impact the hard drive space and computing power.

I'm dying to know what they are going to do with rabbit-holes. Will there be more in Sims 4 or are they going to do away with them this time around?

Personally I wouldn't mind if they did rabbitholes for some jobs only. The rest should not be rabbit-holes period.

If we absolutely must have rabbit holes (I'm not saying I want or don't want them), then, at the very least, we should have rugs or markers to create our own. I hate the sizes of many of them, especially when playing in a tiny world. For example, I play this very tiny world from Custom Sims 3 named East Port. If you only saw how tiny it was, you'd agree that there is no way that all the standard rabbit holes would fit. Thus, markers (I actually prefer them to rugs) would allow you to create an office complex with a marker in its own room to pretend they are little offices. That's how I did it with that world in the largest lot, thanks to Jinx's rugs. I even decorated each office with different wallpaper to make them easier for me to identify. You could even build a large shopping mall!

However, I'm mostly referring to career-based rabbit holes. Obviously, grocery stores, restaurants, and the like should never again be rabbit holes. Never again, EA! Muahahahaha! Oh, wait... that's EA's laughter, not mine.

Muhahahaha!! I'm the evil EA!!! Run away in terror as I take your money but selling you trash!!! Muhahahaha run, run away my fellow subjects! I'm the ruler of what you're playing! I influence you! Run! Ruuuuuuuuun! Muhahahahaha!

P.S.: I agree, no rabbit holes!

Well, I for one am a fan of rabbitholes. I know... boring!!! But hey.. in Sims 2, our sims got picked up and they went off lot to someplace to work. At least in Sims 3, we know WHERE they work and what building they're spending time in during work hours. I don't have a problem with non-RH professions but I can't and won't micromanage all my sims anywhere in their jobs. I think that's boring. As it is, if one of my sims wants to be in the PI profession and another in the stylist profession, I pck and choose which one will have their way because I will not micromanage them at work. Usually, stylist wins because I don't like the PI profession. The sim that wants to be a PI will have to settle for joining the law enforcement career.

This is one of those conversations that we could round and round on. While I like RH's and they're very useful, some professions/careers can benefit from not being RH's. Having said that, some professions/careers need to be in RH's. My solution is EA should implement RH and Non-RH work venues. This way, we (the players) can pick and choose what we want to do in our game and not have a shouting match on the pros and cons of RH's VS Non-RH's. If we get both, we can all just play in our little corners and be happy about it. Well... not quite because inevitably someone's going to piss and moan about something else regarding the RH's vs Non-RH's. But there's my 2 simoleons on the matter Feel free to disagree and yell at me! ;D

Oh and to answer the question - yes and no. I want to be able to take my sims shopping so the grocery store, book store, and whatever else stores (appliances, paintings, housewares, cars, motorcycles, bikes, shoe store, clothing store, jewelry stores, hair salons, etc., ad infinitum) should be open. Restaurants can be both and so can spa's.

Why is it important to know WHERE your sims are while they're supposed to be working? RH don't benefit gameplay in any way and they take up neighbourhood space.

Yesss, I agree. I see the rationality behind rabbitholes to an extent, but some of it is pure laziness. We used to have open shops at least! I do wish the school and jobs required a bit more interaction, but I think having it completely open would be very dull and open it up to a lot more situations where sims just wander off or pee on the floor in the middle of a lecture, so I'm not sure where I stand on that in particular. But bookstores? The grocery shop? The *spa*??? They should definitely be open. I keep my sims at home despite the open neighborhood half of the time because when I send them out I just end up waiting an hour for them to turn up at home again anyway and having nothing really accomplished during that time. Oh cool! My sim spent 2 sim hours sitting in the cinema building and now they have a little +mood because of popcorn! Really?
They at the very least need to open prom up. What's the point of prom at all if you don't see anything happening?

I don't know, I'm not as angry about the rabbit holes as other players. Honestly, I find it time saving to have the rabbit holes instead of waiting for everything to load and clear up (lower-end computer and graphics card) and I HATE HATE HATE lag. So the rabbit holes for me were nice, because I could tell one sims to go do something and not have to worry about them while dealing with another. I wouldn't mind the return of rabbit holes, but it would be cool to see an open-concept hospital or jail maybe. Jail, that would be fun. :P

Sorry but I don't get this. You want rabbit-holes just because your computer can't handle them?

I don't wish to be rude but what exactly could you do if everywhere you went it was a rabbit-hole? What exactly would be the point of the Sims if everything they did was just a pop-up of what 'they' did?

The open restaurants/interactions and whole other slew of things is what makes the Sims a truly unique and fun game. Taking these elements out just gives us a bare bones game with fluff added. Thanks but no thanks.

Honestly, I kind of like the rabbit holes. If you think about it, a lot of them already have the mix of open and closed that everyone seems to be wishing for. A journalist can interview folks, and write articles on his computer at home. The politician holds fund raising parties, and hits people up for campaign donations. A cop searches garbage cans and writes reports. Film career has opportunities to "do research" or go to the park or bars to publicize the next movie. Dr has vaccination clinics. Musicians can play for tips anywhere, and can hold autograph parties at various locations once they get well known.

I liked the restaurants in Sims2, but so much of that wasn't the restaurant, it was the interactions that were available... playing footsie, stealing food, sharing food. In Sims3, I usually build a cafe somewhere in town with the food register, and a reading room/bookstore with the book register, and I prefer them to the micro managing that OFB required. But, to be honest, OFB bored me stiff, when it didn't frustrate the crap out of me, so I'm hardly the target audience.

I think a lot of folks when they say they don't want rabbit holes have these wonderful pie in the sky ideas of what it will be like without them. May I suggest playing University for Sims3 and watching the lecture class? It's cute... for about a minute.... then you hit fast forward to end it cuz it's boring watching them alternate between note taking, sleeping, and having their hand in the air over and over and over. Now, imagine having to watch something similar for 6 sims hours, 5 days a week. You'd best watch, because you never know if a phone call, or someone asking for an autograph or some other random thing will make them suddenly drop the work part of the queue.

Do not want!!!!

I remember when Hot Date was released back in 2001. It was the first time that Sims were able to visit a community lot and an actual commercial district. That dining experience was unforgettable, and it was carried over to The Sims 2. I still scratch my head in perplexity as to who the culprit was to make the decision to can that idea. That was such a memorable feature that it had to have taken one person (or more) to decide not to carry it over to The Sims 3. The developers didn't forget to add it. They deliberately left it out and gave us a measly rabbit hole in its place. But why? Did they truly think we would've not missed that feature? Does the game engine not make it possible for that feature to be implemented? No, really, I'm being serious. I'm lost here. We are at expansion ten in about ten days, and still no open restaurants!

So, yeah, The Sims 4 base game needs to come with open restaurants to "make up" for it. And if it does, it'll be the first base game of the franchise to incorporate open restaurants. And judging by the leaked mock-ups, we could very well be getting bars and nightclubs. Good, because by the third sequel, there is absolutely no reason that another Hot Date/Nightlife/Late Night could hold its own water as a separate EP.

I agree it takes up precious real estate those nasty little RH's But as I also mentioned, we didn't even have that option in TS2... sims went off lot to work and came home after work. I know some of us pissed and moaned about it but then OFB happened and a lot of us, me included, had our sims create their own businesses and run them. That was fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know... some players didn't like OFB and are happy that we didn't get it in this franchise. So be it.

In regards to gameplay, IMHO in my game, RH serves the purpose of my sim going to work and earning their pay. I agree with having non-RH venues as well but TS3 didn't introduce them. They kept all the RH's and didn't open any of them. Fine, so I as a player can live with that. I still have some of my sims going to work in an RH and some are self-employed and others (the very few) have jobs like stylist and interior designer/architect. But overall, I'm not into micromanaging every sim at work and at school hence my love for RH's.

The appeal of OFB businesses was that players could run them, and they could also see what sims were up to inside them. They also gave lots of additional gameplay. But RH? They just sit there and, if they fit your taste, you could say they look nice in the neighbourhood. You don't need them for gameplay, TS1 and TS2 are proof of that.

It depends entirely on how the entire game engine is executed and how the game interactiveness is scripted! For example if the game makes a lot of action happen on every single lot all the time whether your sims are using it or not, that would need more power. But if the game is made so that action generates only when you zoom to a lot or send a sim there, it wouldn't require as much power.

The engine can be made so that it prioritizes different world functions, and when and how they generate. Like TS3 has 'hotspot' nightclubs with a lot of sims. Also lots have opening hours and times when sims tend to appear (like you won't see sims in the park at night). So by using different 'hotspot' type scheduled times of day for different lots, the load of action would spread evenly instead of all occuring constantly on every lot. That would be realistic as well, to see world population do things at appropriate schedules!

In TS3 public lots are generally very empty and quiet, even if it would be a nightclub, and even when sims do appear they often stand around aimlessly a lot... That can be changed with a game engine which would make sims behave more actively. If you've ever played TS2, it doesn't have the 'aimless' sims like in TS3 which is due to different game engine. TS2 sims respond to commands immediately, and even NPCs are constantly doing things, and that is just due to how differently the games were made.

It's a well known fact that TS3 game engine isn't very well made nor thought through, so that causes it to drain power due to general ineffectiveness... If you've ever tried Twallan's game mods, they can actually speed the game up while generating more action in your world which is because these mods change the game to work more efficiently!

So if the game makers would really focus in making TS4's engine very well and plan it all out with a lot of thought, they could add a lot more action without drastically increasing the need for more power.

I agree and I think most of that can be addressed with multi-functional community lots where we can have different types of stores/venues on one lot to save up space and for general realism. Instead of having a cinema or a bookstore and a clothing store, I'd love to just have them all in a shopping center lot that can take up one large lot space and leave room for park spaces, housing and whatever else will be coming down the EP pipeline. Hopefully EA has learned their lesson with TS3 and the lack of space with each new EP and venue types and is going to implement this feature in TS4.

That sounds really good, until you think about them announcing TS4 with great fanfare along with SimCity. Save these dates for more info was part of the announcement.
Then SC crashed and burned and they've now missed 2 of those dates, and didn't even mention it at E3.

I think TS4 was designed to be almost totally online, and they didn't realize til the SC debacle that a vast majority of Sims players were turned off by that idea.

So now, they are working hard with duct tape, silly putty, and bobby pins to try to "fix" the game. An engine designed with a great deal of focus and planning? Yeah, right.

there are enough live action careers from ambitions, plus showtime performance careers and late night bands (and more self employed options with twallans career mod) and now running a resort with island paradise to keep me from complaining about not being able to access my sim at work. the business career is probably just making photocopies all day, anyway. its realistic. the jobs that are monotonous and tedious feel like it.

also, if you want to have a open restaurant, we can make one, duh. there are registers you can buy food from, and npcs that run them. same with the bookstore. its basically a library. as far as virtual grocery shopping, sounds like watching paint dry, but im sure a general store register will do. find a open community lot and get building.