Electronic Arts, Maxis announces "The Sims 4"

[EntropyGuardian]

Originally Posted by azurabug

I will not be buying this game (in fact I refuse to buy any game from EA). They aren't even putting toddlers OR pools into the game at release. You're going to have to buy those features - which is ridiculous. EA is nothing more than a money-hungry corp that will break their game into as many pieces as possible to get the most profit from people willing to dish out all that money.

I think the last time I checked the price to buy The Sims 3 and all the expansions (not all the DLC) it was around $500!! That is absurd for a game that was released 5 years ago.

They found a price model that works. You release the base game, add stuff through expansions, release a new version cutting out stuff that was in the last version, charge for them all over again. Etc etc.

People eat it all up.

For what it is worth, I felt TS2 was the best in the series. The first was REALLY limited in how every sim had a face mesh and body mesh and a skin for each. TS2 introduced mixing genes and the transition from Baby->Elder->Dead which really gave the game a huge additional dimension as well as the huge graphical upgrade.

TS3 was more or less a retread of TS2. You could walk to other lots and it was seemless and all that but the times I felt like I needed to seemlessly walk to the power plant to pick up seeds I could count on one hand. The strongest point in TS3 for me was other lots aging as you played another family. It made the whole town feel more alive.

TS4 will be another retread with slight graphical improvements, a slew of features axed from the game and resold as peacemeal or via expansion packs. This is a surprise to no one.

Do yourself a favor and flip a few posts up, get TS2 ultimate for $0.00 and play that instead.

[azurabug]

Originally Posted by EntropyGuardian

They found a price model that works. You release the base game, add stuff through expansions, release a new version cutting out stuff that was in the last version, charge for them all over again. Etc etc.

People eat it all up.

For what it is worth, I felt TS2 was the best in the series. The first was REALLY limited in how every sim had a face mesh and body mesh and a skin for each. TS2 introduced mixing genes and the transition from Baby->Elder->Dead which really gave the game a huge additional dimension as well as the huge graphical upgrade.

TS3 was more or less a retread of TS2. You could walk to other lots and it was seemless and all that but the times I felt like I needed to seemlessly walk to the power plant to pick up seeds I could count on one hand. The strongest point in TS3 for me was other lots aging as you played another family. It made the whole town feel more alive.

TS4 will be another retread with slight graphical improvements, a slew of features axed from the game and resold as peacemeal or via expansion packs. This is a surprise to no one.

Do yourself a favor and flip a few posts up, get TS2 ultimate for $0.00 and play that instead.

I agree that it's effective. For me, it's more about not supporting this type of model and not encouraging other gaming companies to follow suite. I don't mind paying $40 for an expansion that adds a lot of new, interesting content. But I'm not dishing out hundreds for features that were already part of past games. That's just being greedy.

Although EA does have a pretty awful reputation with all the "hardcore" gamers I know. Hopefully other companies take note of that.

[Amelie90]

Originally Posted by azurabug

I agree that it's effective. For me, it's more about not supporting this type of model and not encouraging other gaming companies to follow suite. I don't mind paying $40 for an expansion that adds a lot of new, interesting content. But I'm not dishing out hundreds for features that were already part of past games. That's just being greedy.

Although EA does have a pretty awful reputation with all the "hardcore" gamers I know. Hopefully other companies take note of that.

I agree that more should be included in the base game and expansion packs. Of course, I'm one of those people who's spent hundreds of dollars buying Simpoints to get additional store content, so I'm enabling them and who knows how much I've actually spent on Sims 3 altogether...

[Amelie90]

Only a few more days now until The Sims 4 is released on Tuesday, September 2nd. I'm so excited!!!