User blog:LostInRiverview/Monthly Question - July 2014

Welcome to the The Sims Wiki Monthly Question blog! Each month, we'll be asking you an in-depth opinion question about The Sims series, and we want your answers! Give us your opinions, ideas, complaints, or whatever else is on your mind, related to the question asked.

We are also looking to recognize the best comments given by users; to that end, we are encouraging other users to award PlumbBobs to comments that are particularly positive for whatever reason. To give a PlumbBob to a comment, simply reply to the comment with PlumbBob.

For more in-depth information on how this feature works, or to suggest a future question, please go here!

As we approach the release of The Sims 4, we're starting to get a better idea of what is in the game, but, perhaps more importantly, we're learning what isn't in the game. Open worlds, Create a Style, basements, swimming pools and toddlers are all not included in the new base game. On top of this, most of the content introduced in past expansion packs - pets, weather, magic, occult and supernatural creatures, vacations, and universities, for example - is also not being included in the base game. The Sims 4 developers have been very open with their intent to add new features to The Sims 4 through the use of expansion packs, and it seems pretty likely that much of what is not included in The Sims 4 will show up in the future in an expansion pack. Of course, EA plans on milking the The Sims 4 cash cow for years, so it's likely that all this content will be re-introduced gradually through a series of expansion packs. That brings up this question:
 * This month's Question

If you could choose a theme for the first Sims 4 expansion pack, what would it be?

Should the first expansion pack be a repeat of an earlier pack, or should it contain all new content? What past features should be brought back before any others? Be sure to leave a comment and give your answers. Also remember to vote up comments you like by adding the PlumbBob template to your responses!

Special thanks to WikiBuilder1147 for suggesting this month's Monthly Question!


 * Last Month's Question

Last month, we asked, "If you could add, change, or completely remove a single feature from The Sims 4, what would it be?" We got a lot of responses (some of which ignored the "single feature" aspect of the question). WayfinderOwl received the most PlumbBobs for her comment. Listed below are the most popular comments, in order of PlumbBobs received: I've said this plenty of times, and I'll say it again;
 * - 7 PlumbBobs

To add the feature of changing households, and having all other houses frozen. Not force it on everyone, just allow it to be turned on and off for people who don't like this feature. Not everyone likes playing a single household. Or, the ability to play a couple of households at the same time would be nice. That would make legacies much easier. "I talked about this last month as well, but if I could change one feature, it would be jobs/careers in the game. Virtually every other feature has changed from The Sims til now, or is changing in The Sims 4 but careers are largely the same. Your Sim is hired, usually at the entry level, and builds skills and friends to climb to the tenth level in the career track. This model is really unrealistic, which is itself forgivable because this is a video game. But, this is the same model the games have used for the past fourteen years, when virtually everything else in the series has been modernized or changed altogether. I think a game that abandons the idea of 'career tracks' would be much more dynamic and enjoyable." "I'd like to see less ways of corrupting the game, less lagging like in The Sims 3, that humor and style of The Sims 1, and to stop making those happy storylines of The Sims 2 very weird and not make sense." I want the major focus to be about how the sim life effect the the history and story of the town.So I won't be able to just let my crinimal mastermind to walk to the grocer and live a normal rich sim life.I want that mastermind to live in a fortrest and have problems in the comunity and police and his crime effect the life of others - make it feel real!
 * - 4 PlumbBobs
 * - 2 PlumbBobs
 * An unregistered contributor - 2 PlumbBobs

The same for any other part of the game that just have no real uniq effect it should have (Policemen have a risk at job and respacted at comunity and can help stop crimes.Rockstar have tours and would help boost the history of music in the town and become a legend with golden monument in his name.Mayor is "mayoring".Mad scientist will crash someone house by calling meteors....)

AND NO REHASH ! NO NEEDLESS EMOTIONS AS MAJOR FOCUS ! I would like to see a number of features be more granular: careers, skills, the look of a world, etc. The single change I would most like to see involves skills; I would like a more realistic set of skills and subskills. For instance, we could have a basic Music skill, and individual instruments could be learned as subskills. A sim could learn to play an individual instrument at a higher level than the basic Music skill, but the Music skill might also be advanced through study of music theory with books. A sim in an orchestral branch of a Music career might be dependent on the base skill, while a popular music branch might only require an individual instrument. I'd even like to see singing or conducting as subskills. Imagine your sim conducting a string quartet in the park!

Other skills could work the same: Athletics might include Fitness, Martial Arts, and Dance subskills; Visual Arts could include Painting and Sculpting; Charisma might include Acting as a subskill. Perhaps Sims could even speak different languages, rather than simply learning a couple of songs!

I'm somewhat heartened by the revelation that there will separate home cooking and gourmet cooking styles, as it might point towards just such a system, if not in Sims 4, then maybe in Sims 5.

 LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 06:06, July 1, 2014 (UTC)