Right or wrong?

That's gorgeous. If they can pull off something as organic and real-feeling as that, I would be delighted.

Who cares? If it is concept art, it means nothing to the actual game.

Reminds me of a mashup of New Orleans (as seen in the opening of Disney's The Princess and the Frog, when Tiana and Charlotte were small children) and Venice (just from my experiences watching travel shows and playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 as Soleanna was based on Venice).

I just hope they don't screw it up.

I have my doubts and reservations.

I'm carefully optimistic though because it actually does resemble the style of the real in-game pics that we have already seen!

Right. I like it very much and hope to see something like that in the game.

Right, but if the concept art had sucked, people would be bitching about it and calling EA out for being da worst company 7ever!!11!

I can totally imagine my sims walking down that boardwalk(?) after a romantic diner. It's really a gorgeous piece of concept art and I do hope it's gonna appear in The Sims 4.

and hallelujah *cue church singing* to what Pelouse said

It depends. If the town is such that you have to click on a building and wait for a loading screen and then back to a loading screen just to walk to the next building, then no, I don't like it. If it is open and my sim can stroll down the street, eat at a bistro and then stop next door for a drink, plus interact with other sims along the way, then great, I love it. I also don't want one huge lot with multiple venues or storefronts that takes forever to load and can hold 3 sims because of the lots size. I want an open world, where sims wander from lot to lot, no loading screens. I never had trouble getting a dozen sims on my larger lots in my open world. They were alive and busy. I realize that folk with slower computers had issues, party because of a bad engine and partly because of outdated hardware but I don't want to step backwards just to run on 15 year old computer systems or tablets.

If it looks anything like that, it's the first Sims game where a lot is not surrounded by a huge swath of open land. Buildings right up against each other is a first.

I am certainly expecting an open world. Can't see them stepping backwards on that.

One can hope that the world would be even MORE open, in that you could travel BETWEEN worlds or "subhoods" without loading screens... games like MMOs manage that, even if it involves using tricks like a tunnel or mountain pass or ocean voyage to give the new zone time to load.

I don't know, for me this looks like some big pre-rendered background taken from a point-and-click adventure.

But help me to remember with regard to open worlds: how did the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion do that? Wasn't there sometimes visible loading in the background when you were out in the open and some loading screen when you entered a building that was shortened very much, however, when you entered it a for a second time immediately again?

I think it looks good but I kinda miss wide open spaces. I'm hoping we get an option to choose a typical suburban neighborhood with little boxes on the hillside.

i think it looks absolutely amazing and i really can't imagine that the actual game looks like that so idk maybe it's just some kind of rabbithole or just an artistic interpretation of something

Well, there's also the possibility that these are shells, sort of semi-rabbitholes, all placed on one very long but not very deep lot and surrounded by a lot of world decoration objects, like those sewer exits.
What I find a bit suspicious are those gables that reach above the roofs. If these houses are really built then either the build tools are very cutting edge or they are plastered with decorative objects.

A lot of games use zones. When you enter a zone you get a wee bit of loading. While you are in one zone, everything is higher in detail but you can look out into the other zones and see things in lower detail. It is possible they are using zones although that is older technology.

Most games now use LOD's, or level of details. When I make objects, I make three copies, one very low poly (or even flat), one a little more detailed and then one very detailed for close up view. I combine them, add the distance I want each to be viewed and then put them in the world. Depending on how far your character is from the object, they will see high/med/low details. Sims uses that now to some extent. You do get some popping as the items become more or less detailed.

They can also do this with terrain (world) by loading only part of the world at a time. As your character runs across the land, parts of the world would load and increase in detail while others were sort of fade out to a lower detail. This allows massive worlds but only a portion is being used at a time so not a huge resource hog. Since every object and character and npc on a world is only being processed when you can see it, this really helps with lag. While the sections do "load" it is usually so fast that you usually do not notice it unless it is loading a huge area with lots of objects.

I am suddenly remembering some discussion of procedural generation of terrain and a recent discussion where a Guru (I think) mentioned they were trying to reduce loading times. This makes sense with the above. Maybe they are trying to reduce the loading time while loading the bits of terrain in a large open world! How cool would that be?

BTW, this is commonly used in current MMOs. I can do it easily with Unity and it works really well.

Edit: Just talked to my computer husband and wanted to add that the world is broken into tiles and then each tile loads as you approach it. So you are only loading one tile at a time. The tiles can be huge, as large as Sunset Valley.

But isn't that what The Sims 3 does already anyway? Depending on your settings there are some 6 lots in high detail the rest is in low detail. Sims also go from high detail to low detail mode depending on their vicinity to either your Sims or the camera.
What that Guru said sounded more like loading screens which gave rise to the worry that TS4 would abandon the open world idea or modify it rather drastically, because in TS3 there are no loading screens unless you travel.
So, what you're saying is that Oblivion was similar to worlds built with Bioware's Aurora Engine (which was tile based (?)), only that transitions between zones were more fluent?

And Unity, is that the engine that used Infinity as its base and is currently used for the Planescape iterations?

TS3 uses this and even when you take the sim walking to a lot, which is slower and technically should give plenty of time for the lot to load, you still get a lot which is missing textures on various objects. Given this and how much of a sim's day is wasted by travelling from one lot to another, I kind of miss the loading screens of TS2. Anyway, those buildings in the picture look like shells, wonder how accurately they would be able to represent them in game.

I love that concept art and I'm crossing fingers and toes that it does in fact exist, or will exist in the game.



They do now anyway so what's the diff?

Yes, it does. But you can also do that with terrains. You could have a tile with Sunset Valley and then another with Lucky Palms. Your sim could travel between towns without any noticeable loading....maybe a little hiccup when you enter the town, but not bad. You could play in Sunset Valley without your computer churning out the stuff or Lucky Palms. This could really help with lag in a large world.

Of course, not sure EA will do this but it was probably the plan for the MMO.

That was my point.

Something good is revealed > "eh well they could be lying they suck boo ea let's wait until we see it in the game before we say it's good"

Something bad is revealed > "OMFG YOU SUCK EA YOU SUCK SO MUCH I WILL NOT WASTE MY MONEY ON YOUR PRODUCTS" *


* may be an exaggeration.

That is exactly what happens when you lose someone's trust. My kids tell me all the time they didn't eat the cookies I had saved to take to a party. But since they tend to sneak cookies quite often, I no longer trust them not to take the cookies. So even if it was the cat, I can't really be sure it was not them. Unfortunately, when you can't trust someone, you often assume they did something they did not do, or will do something they won't do.

I always tell my kids that even if they are innocent, this is for all those times they did it and got away with it. It all balances out. EA may actually be making us this great game, but our reception is because they sometimes outright lied to us, they fooled us with pretty pictures before, and more often than not, the finished product did not live up to the hype.

I honestly hope we are wrong...but....

So what you're saying is... EA aren't giving us cookies?!

See! I told you EA ain't $h*t. I can't believe this!11!! *overreacts more* *stomps out* *speaks in tongues while frothing at the mouth*

#jokingwithya

LOL

No, I am saying that EA promised us stuff and then didn't deliver so we can't trust what they say now, just like I can never trust that my kids didn't eat the cookies even when they insist.

Of course, my kids just end up getting carrot sticks instead of cookies.

EA may end up getting slower pre-orders but sadly, most of us will probably cave anyway. LOL

Believe me, the kids did not eat the carrot sticks. They ate the cookies. And lied right through their little angelic faces.

EA, OTOH, seems intent on not providing any cookie dough, and then swearing we don't need it to make their cookies. And there's no angelic, innocent face on them either.