It is not an idea that has ever been considered by EA or Maxis. It is a complete and utter fabrication. Don’t worry about it at all! It’s clearly an awful idea haha.
Absolutely! There’s no question about it. Will Wright isn’t even working with EA or Maxis anymore, so he certainly would not be revealing sensitive game information during a big period of silence. He likely knows little more than we do about The Sims 4!
This just in — The Sims 4 will not feature babies, children or teens.
Our own correspondent, Neal Hauser had a chance to rap with Will Wright, co-founder of maxis and director of the previous Sims games.
We’ve heard that the new Sims game will not feature children. Is this true?
“It’s a strictly adult oriented game.
In the future we will add babies through teens in an expansion pack to be released later, but the core of the game doesn’t hold such content. We didn’t want it to.”
Why would you remove such an extremely popular component of the game?
"We wanted the game to draw in the current generation of young adults, so making a game without [children] was optimal for that crowd.”
What about the younger audience?
“The new Sims game will have the ‘Mature’ ESRB rating… We’re taking some less-racy elements of the previous games and expanding them to steer [the game] towards a purely adult audience. For example, the ‘woo-hoo’ function is now a lot more intimate, for both the sims and the player.
It’s no longer two sims fumbling under the bed sheets, it’s more of an interactive experience that we think older audiences will enjoy.
And for those who enjoy polyamorous relationships, there is a Menage’ A Trois option.”
It sounds like you’re taking a big leap of faith with your target audience. Do you think it will hinder sales?
"No, not at all. There are so many new and upgraded features of the game, the gameplay alone will draw in a crowd. We think this is a good move.
If you haven’t seen our new Create-A-Sim, you should look into it. We’ve revolutionized simulated gameplay. It helps to think of it as a completely new game, not just a sequel of previous titles.”
Do you think the absence of children and teenagers will make the game boring?
"The first Sims game only had children, it didn’t have babies, and children grew directly into adults. We think that making this game adult-oriented will push the market in a better direction.
If people want to have kids and teens in their games they can buy the expansion pack.”
This "article” is completely fabricated. All of the original life stages have already been confirmed for TS4.
I wouldn’t expect anything for a few months. I know, it stinks, but the game is at a relatively early stage in development…we just have to wait. I’ll post the second news appears! Thank you for checking my blog for your Sims 4 news! :)
Nope!
I definitely have a hate/hate relationship with EA, and a love/hate relationship with The Sims 4. Haha!
It’s quite complicated. Most of my gripes about TS4 (and The Sims franchise in general) come from problems within EA. I really dislike what they did with TS3 (ugly Sims, expansion packs with less content that are more expensive, focus on DLC, clunky and buggy gameplay…etc.), and how they are handling TS4 marketing. They drummed up all this hype and then completely stopped promoting the game. They could at least release a weekly “developer dairies” or something to keep us going.
Looks like we’ll be getting a few more months of silence before any real news.
It’s definitely cartoony. I just don’t mind it haha. The Sims 2 beta had the best graphics in my opinion, and it was never released. TS4 really looks like The Sims 2 beta, so I’m pumped.
Which I was happy to hear. He also corrects the wrong conclusions some Simmers drew from previous posts of his on the Sims 3 forums and at Mod The Sims.
(via honeywellsims4news)
It’s from a presentation about the expansion pack, but it is a picture of TS4, don’t worry!
No set release date yet, but it should arrive in fall 2014.
Number 1
The developers are so hard at work on the game that they don’t have time to talk about it with the fans. They’re so focused on making the perfect game that they don’t want to reveal anything before it is 100% polished and beautiful.
Number 2
There is no marketing department. The marketing staff for the game were made to participate in a Hunger Games style tournament designed to find the best person to sell the game. None survived.
Can we have a moment of silence for our fallen comrades?
It definitely isn’t #1. There is no way that EA “doesn’t have time to talk about it with the fans.” They are a multi-billion dollar corporation, they could afford to hire a few people to run some social media sites for TS4. It has to be #2.
Don’t they want to keep the hype going? It’s like Marketing 101!
If you see it in the screenshots, then yes!
I know, right? Oh well, not much we can do about it. Thanks for considering my blog to be one of your favorites…that means a lot!
Not yet! Only adults so far.
I agree!
According to a Forbes article, The Sims 4 was set to be released in March of 2014, before it was delayed until the fall.
“This continues what appears to be a growing willingness among major video game publishers to delay games rather than rush them to launch.
EA, in particular, has been known to drive a relentless release schedule thanks to their time-sensitive EA Sports titles. It’s encouraging to see a game like Sims 4 delayed, if only because it indicates a focus on quality over speed of release.”
Though I am disappointed that the game won’t be out earlier, it is encouraging to hear that EA is finally paying attention. One of the biggest issues with TS3 is that EA pushed the team to release the game before it was ready, resulting in less features, more bugs, and an overall unstable game. I am willing to wait for quality!
I added a little countdown to The Sims 4 release, located right above the poll! Unfortunately, we don’t have an exact date yet, so it’s really counting down to fall 2014.
Maybe I should delete it…it’s making me realize just how far away fall 2014 is!
Because
Me too! But EA would never allow that, because it wouldn’t directly maximize profits.
I’m pretty sure they just aren’t finished building the game yet. Each Sims game is usually in development for several years, usually starting right after the release of the previous gen game. TS4 missed those years of development, because EA spent over 3 years making the online Sims concept that was completely scrapped.
Yesterday’s blog post on Sims 4 Box Art raised some questions about whether or not The Sims 4 would be an offline game. Crinrict confirmed that the Google translation was accurate; the front of the box label on The Sims 4 does say that an internet connection is required to play.
However, after further investigation on Crinrict’s part it was determined that other games, like The Sims 3 Starter pack, have the same label but can be played offline. Contrast that with the SimCity box cover which states a permanent (bestehend in German) internet connection and Origin account are needed and we believe that’s the key difference.
The lack of a Mac label still appears to be cause for concern (notice the Sims 3 boxes clearly show it’s available for PC and Mac). If we use SimCity again as an example, the PC version was released on March 5th and there wasn’t a version available for Mac until August 29th — nearly 6 months later.
Related Articles:
Sims 4 Box Art and How to Cancel Your Pre-Orders: I was wrong to assume The Sims 4 would be released on Mac with the PC.
Internet connection will NOT be required to play TS4. It was one of the first things confirmed by EA. It’s in the press release. We’re good on that front!
As for the Mac version, there is still no official word on whether it will be releasing at the same time as the PC version.
I hate to me dramatic but never in my life have a seen a marketing campaign stop as suddenly as the one for The Sims 4, especially when the game is still in development. I’m sure when new information is released we’ll all forget about this massive dry period but until then I’m becoming more and more complacent about the game. All this has done is give people chance to pick faults with what has been revealed so far and then ultimately stop discussing the game.
I know the developers will be hard at work but what is the marketing department doing at the moment? Please get your shit together EA/Maxis, I’ve got a blog that needs nursing back to a healthy state.
I completely agree. They spend TONS of time and money drumming up hype for the game, only to let the hype shrivel and die in a news drought. Isn’t it obvious that they should be releasing news every week? It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking…but there has been nothing. No promos. No videos. No renders. No screenshots. Not even a hint of new info outside of what was announced at Gamescom.
Once again…get yo shit togetha EA!
Jill Johnson responds to a question on ethnic hair in SF Magazine’s Creator Spotlight:
I know we’ve had challenges getting the afros and wavy hairs in the past. It usually takes a few packs before we’re really nailing our hair pipeline. So for this project, literally, I have been really pushing a range of hairs so hard. We know more of the wavy and ethnic hairs are going to be challenging, but we’re gathering so much ref for them. We’re really pushing hard to make sure we get them in there early and that we get them nailed right.
I can’t wait to see how they’re going to handle wavy hair and I hope by early she means the basegame!
Think about how much faster the game will be, now that it doesn’t have to render dozens and dozens of custom object textures each time you load a building!
Most of you have horrible computers, and complain when TS3 doesn’t work on them. That is largely due to CAST. Without it, the game will be faster. Would you rather have a smooth game, or a laggy game full of custom textures?
I expect EA to make TS4 the best it can be. I believe that not including height customization and CAST were decisions made to ensure that TS4 is smooth and bug-free.
People are still threatening not to buy TS4 because of this.
What do you guys think? Can we finally get past this issue, now that we realize how GOOD this will be for the game?
Here are quotes from Patrick Kelly, someone who was involved in TS4 MMO concept, “Olympus.” This idea was developed from 2008-2012, but was eventually scrapped due to technological limitations.
“The (Sims 4) is a mess, the studio is a mess, and people are so frustrated they are about to revolt. Making games isn’t as glamorous as people think, in fact its pretty cut-throat, but the current generation of Sims designers are taking it to another level.
The most obvious clue that they are scrambling now is the inexplicably boring Sims 4 logo, which looks like it was created in under a minute and designed by a committee of clueless producers.
But believe me if EA could keep (the Olympus concept leaks) under-wraps, they would. I know from personal experience…there’s some reason they’re letting this stuff out now, probably to distance themselves for a design they wasted 3 years developing but no one really liked.
There is a constant struggle between the designers and producers trying to get every great new feature possible into the game and the management who want to cut costs and get the game out as soon as possible.
EA has always forced The Sims developers to release broken, featureless games because they need it released ASAP to make the most money. It really doesn’t seem like we should blame anyone but the management at EA. It saddens me to think that if the designers had control, TS3 would’ve likely had much more features and much less bugs. Imagine TS3 without DLC! *faints*
Shame on you, EA.
(Info collected from honeywellsims4news and ModTheSims forums!)
Disappointing — to me — follow up news about the 50 Mile High Achievement we just learned about.
@SimsVIP Achievements are a similar concept, yes… complete some particular task, unlock an achievement. The little details may vary a bit.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham)
October 2, 2013
@SimsVIP They’re on a player level, not a per-Sim level.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham)
October 2, 2013
What do you think? Do you want an achievement system for you or would you prefer these sorts of achievements be for Sims to accomplish?
(via honeywellsims4news)
I love the concept, not the execution. But still, we haven’t seen a whole lot yet. Maybe it looks better in person?
They haven’t yet, but it will be. But we can’t pre-order yet unfortunately.
They had it in TS2…let’s look at TS2 system requirements, shall we?
I think they could do it ;)
They definitely won’t add it. You guys like to keep giving Maxis and EA the benefit of the doubt, but they don’t deserve it! The game is like 99% complete. The game actually does not change as much as everyone thinks it does from pre-alpha to final release.
*Snap*