I just want to say, that our greatest hope for improvement isn't EA scraping TS4 and moving forward with TS5, our greatest hope is some other company having the balls to release a life-simulation game and create some competition for EA, and to put pressure on them. The same way Cities: Skylines basically destroyed SimCity.
After my disappointment with Cats & Dogs and the whole atrocious Battlefront 2 debacle, I can no longer tolerate EA (even just a little) and the way it's ruining every game franchise it gets its dirty little claws on. As long as EA is publishing TS, and as long as they have even the tiniest say in the matter, this series will never be what it once was, it will only go down hill. And the worst part is, people will continue buying Sims packs, no matter how absurd or devoid of content they are, people like those delusional happy-go-lucky idiots over at the official forums will continue to kiss EA's ass, and like a little child will laugh in wonder as they are given even the shittiest scraps of half-assed content. If people don't start voting with their wallets now, EA will never change, they will continue down this road, draining more of your money and giving less in return, all the while destroying every game franchise along the way.

Hear, hear.

Context:
"Star Wars Battlefront 2 heroes come at a substantial cost"
https://www.polygon.com/2017/11/13/...ke-vader-prices

I don't think my post was violating this site's rules, but maybe is there something I was unaware of, or did my post just basically got mass reports?

I agree, it seems as though EA will continue to bastardize the series in the name of profit. I do believe that a better series (in terms of predecessors) will be challenging to make, due to Will Wright's influence, but we'll see. I won't be purchasing any more Sims games from EA-that's for sure. This is the last time they'll rip me off.

Or not. I do agree TS4 has very teeeeeeeeeeeeny tincyyyyy chance of having any success. Sooner or later, it's gonna fail. That's my personal prediction. As for the hopes of a competition emerging from deep seas, I have unfortunate news....

I saw a picture of a cat riding a Roomba today on twitter that almost made me consider buying the Pets expansion.

Glad I came here first.

Even the simplest of things have been downgraded with the Cats & Dogs expansion, such as cleaning out litter boxes. In TS2 and TS3, there was a completely new cleaning animation where your Sim went on their knees and used a tiny plastic shovel to clean the litter box. Well, in TS4, the Sim just bends a little and basically picks up the poop (they do the "picking up an item" animation, recycled from the base TS4 game) and a trash bag appears in their hands, and that's it, no new animation. I mean seriously, something as stupid and simple as cleaning a litter box, and they didn't even get THAT right. This is just pure laziness, like, does the Sims team have some kind of vendetta against quality animations?!

Hey, at least the laser pointer changes color depending on your sims mood... cause that's what we want, right?

True, but let's not underestimate the cost and complexity of making a Sims competitor. Colossal Order got their citybuilder greenlit after SimCity's infamous launch, hauled ass, and launched 24 months later. Development could've started on a Sims competitor the day TS4 came out, and it would still be too early to announce anything.
It's a bit like developing a proper GTA competitor, only more difficult.

Are you sure? TS2 base game took three years.

EDIT: For those disagreeing, source for development starting 'in earnest' in late 2001:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/l...2/1100-6110073/

I assume no one argues that it launched in 2004.

Nah, let’s not make excuses for them.
These people could make laughing look difficult.

Four, and the TS2 base game is laughably barebones compared to what we're used to nowadays. And let's not forget that TS2 already had a rough technical basis in TS1, whereas any other dev has to start from scratch.

Were you talking about piracy, by chance? It's probably against the rules to discuss it here and the mods will delete the posts, I'm sure, but let's be honest: it wouldn't be such an issue if EA wasn't practically pressuring people into doing it with their questionable business practices.

All I'll say is I bought every expansion of TS3 and some stuff packs as well as the base game of TS4 and that one shitty camping pack, I think. That's all I'm willing to pay. I still absolutely love TS4, though, I just don't think a lot of the crap is worth what they're charging.

That's nothing 'new' at all. Animations always had cuts through each of the new iteration. One of the examples, in TS3 cars could teleport your sim in and out. I'm more concern with mechanic cuts than animations one's, as those always happened. Not that I'm accepting this kind of stupid routes, but just addressing it ain't new. Though, EA will get lazy and more lazy with making satisfying detailed animations through in each upcoming sequal (If there happen to be any in the future before EA really manages kill the franchise for good).

I was talking about general video games piracy, not even mentioning this Sims game. The OP looks disappointed because he has spent his money into something below his expectations. So I gave a little advice, but turns out it was violating this rules, maybe?

I think that with this current game structure most/many of the resources are going to making the worlds with all the fake backgrounds/areas. I am sure doing BB now and others were massive amounts of work. So animations and other things are being shortchanged. They have to do the worlds as complete but can skip other things if there are not the funds and time. I think the current team has their hands tied in many ways by what is in place already. My guess is the worker bees would like to do more in many cases, but budgets and time, and management directives prohibit it.

@Kompaktive any talk of condoning or encouraging piracy is not allowed on here. http://modthesims.info/t/517758#postingguidelines

Paradox or Frontier could do a sims type game....they just couldn't call it The Sims. But they could breath life into it and make it a more than worthy adversary to EA/Maxis. All anyone from those companies need to do is go to the official forums, read the feedback section and ...boom... you've got all the information you need to make a Sims type game that would put EA/Maxis to shame.

I know Paradox has a Sims thread on their forum....but I don't know if it's a project they are working on or not. It would be interesting to see what another company could do with the game. A fresh take, maybe not so much censorship...give it some real life Shit.

Link for those interested. There's more than a few familiar names there.

Well I contributed... I made a couple of posts.

Yep. I've been playing Paradox grand strategy games almost exactly as long as I've been simming.

The Sims 2 Base Game has more content than commonly found in a typical full release in today's game industry. The first and later two entries in this series are more bare bones in comparison.

That was not the impression I got. Especially in terms of CAS and Buy Mode.