Making Better Worlds - A Guide for EA

[Riptide651]

Ok so recently I have been noticing that the EA worlds are of a lower quality that usual, and although they have tons of potential, they never utilize it. I personally think that if EA wanted to make a good worlds for the next few expansions they should contact the esteemed an celebrated world creators of the custom content community (namely Ouerbacker, Gabrymato, kiwi_tea , and simsample - to name a few, but there are plenty other great creators who build stunning worlds) to deliver a wonderful, playable, expansive, and artistically stunning world that the players have been craving for.

What do you think?

[simsample]

EA have a different remit to us custom world builders. Firstly they can only use the basegame and one EP (or set of store items for the store worlds). Secondly, they have to make sure that the world is not too large, so that people with weak computers can still play.

Those factors in themselves are very limiting! I think they are getting better at making worlds- Lunar Lakes for example seems to have very few problems such as routing flaws. Maybe they will release a store world which requires all EPs, but I can't see them doing this for an EP.

[Riptide651]

Lunar Lakes was pretty god. I remember reading one of kiwi_tea's reviews for Hidden Springs and he mentioned it had a ton of potential but I didn't deliver most of it. They would hire us for a store world? Maybe?

[Purplepaws]

I used to prefer EA worlds until the last few expansions left me wishing their worlds incorporated more than just one EP. I think they do well for creating unique, easy-to-play worlds in a short amount of time, but unless they start offering ones that utilize elements from all EPs, they're never going to have as much to offer as custom worlds that do.

[simsample]

They could use any of my worlds though if they were going to pay me for them! :lol:

I think that the actual design/ concept of the EA worlds is good; for example, France, Egypt and China are spectacular, and Bridgeport looks great. Twinbrook is lovely with the run down lots and the dam, and the terrain sculpting in Sunset Valley, Lunar Lakes and Appaloosa Plains is excellent. However, the playability is something else- Bridgeport and China in particular have routing problems, caused by poor use of the no routing paint and badly connected roads/ poorly planned routes. Bridgeport has a marked lack of housing and Starlight Shores has received the same criticism. But each world has a unique 'feel', and I love the lots/ design (for example, the butterfly pavilion in Bridgeport, the Pigeon Roost in Twinbrook, everything in Lunar Lakes). There are also some lovely touches like the fireflies on a mountain in China, spooky eyes in a hollow tree in Appaloosa, birds flying out of a bush in Bridgeport, swamp fog in Twinbrook.

So I don't think they have a problem with the teams who come up with the concepts and designs, just the team that tests! Now if they want to pay us to beta test, there would be a huge queue!

[Riptide651]

It would be nice, and we could add creative feedback, much like CFF and those worlds, right?

Personally for me - Starlight Shores was pretty lacking, maybe because I haven't used it enough, but it just didn't strike me as much as other worlds did. The architecture in Bridgeport was quite amazing though, I have to admit. Twinbrook was creative, especially the colonial houses and the green people. The vacation worlds, although very glitchy, were stunning. The use of sidewalks in Riverview was downright marvelous, where you could just walk the banks with houses on one side and a river on the other. Appaloosa Plains was lovely, and I love how they integrated the lots into the world. Overall they were nice, but very little of them had a relevant backstory, if any, and most lacked in that WOW! factor everybody wants to see.

[PoisonFrog]

I like Twinbrook and Lunar Lakes. I only briefly played LL, but I thought the mountains had an inverted terrace look to them.

[LadyAngua]

So I don't think they have a problem with the teams who come up with the concepts and designs, just the team that tests! Now if they want to pay us to beta test, there would be a huge queue!

I think there would be a huge queue even without recompense.

[kiwi_tea]

I could give them names of two community members who should be on any world QA team: DOLLDRMS1 and Writin_Reg. I don't know what state my worlds would be in without them. moryrie too, with Riverblossom. EA needs more technically proficient testers who pay attention to *details*.

EA does a great job designing their worlds within their constraints. I passed the StuckCheck feature of Twallan's Overwatch on their way via SimGuruSarah, because they obviously don't have an inhouse tool.

[acid_fairy]

I agree that what is lacking in EA worlds is lack of EP integration.

I prefer EA worlds because even though this PC was a gaming computer at the time of purchase, it's now three years old and it struggles to play anything larger than Sunset Valley without considerable lag: custom worlds do not tend to be built with the lesser computer in mind!

[ani_]

I agree that what is lacking in EA worlds is lack of EP integration.

I prefer EA worlds because even though this PC was a gaming computer at the time of purchase, it's now three years old and it struggles to play anything larger than Sunset Valley without considerable lag: custom worlds do not tend to be built with the lesser computer in mind!

But SV is huge, surely you could run custom worlds that are small?

[Riptide651]

Even is a world is small you can include such an immense amount of detail in it, it will lag like a big world.

[kiwi_tea]

There's still a lot less to load, but yeah, crowding a whole chunk with loads of stuff will still hit a crappy system hard.

[High Plains Gamer]

But SV is huge, surely you could run custom worlds that are small?

Actually, Sunset Valley is pretty small. When you take the distant terrain into account, the playable area seems to be the size of a medium sized world. However, I will admit to not counting the number of squares. Also, it has a relatively small number of lots, compared to some of the custom worlds out there.

[ani_]

Actually, Sunset Valley is pretty small. When you take the distant terrain into account, the playable area seems to be the size of a medium sized world. However, I will admit to not counting the number of squares. Also, it has a relatively small number of lots, compared to some of the custom worlds out there.

On my old computer I plaid SV once and it was a huge drag, I was able to play small worlds much more easily, and these small worlds were custom. The problem with SV was the number of Sims in the world, deleted some of the really boring families and that helped but it was still slow and sluggish, and would have required more killing. Most custom worlds I couldn't even dream of using, they were not very merciful for lower end computers but some actually were, like NY (http://sims3newyork.blogspot.com/). I was sure my computer could not run it but it could, and pretty smoothly. The trick seems to be to use a lot of dummy buildings.

[SommarBlomma]

EA seems to have improved their work on worlds. SV and Riverview were boring and cartoonish, but, starting from Twinbrook ,their worlds are unique, with special theme and atmosphere, each world has its own charm and little special details. However, the EP integration problem is the main reason why I don't play EA worlds. I know, they can't include lots and CAW objects from other EPs into worlds they release with a particular EP, because a person may buy, let's say, base game, Gens and LN, so how could s/he use the world if there are other EP features in it?
However, the best solution would be to leave free space for us to expand! So simple. Just give us more empty lots where we can place and build whatever we want. Or at least don't make the terrain by the roads unroutable, so that we can easily place new lots ourselves. EA leaves us with almost no options to place extra lots in their worlds, that's the problem.
I used to find places for extra lots in Twinbrook, but the more EPs i have, the more spae I need, and I can't fit that all in Twinbrook.
I like SS for the lovely landscape and new nice lots, but, damn, no place at all to expand it and place everything. And, what's also disappointing, no suitable place to build custom appartments. I don't want a megapolis with skyskrapers (they lag), but i do want a town feel, with apartments in the centre and houses in the suburban area.

[crocobaura]

And, what's also disappointing, no suitable place to build custom appartments. I don't want a megapolis with skyskrapers (they lag), but i do want a town feel, with apartments in the centre and houses in the suburban area.

They should have given us a tool to make our own shell buildings, so we would be able to make smaller apartment buildings and even houses. Actually I wouldn't mind having a whole city built out of shell buildings.

[crocobaura]

Only an evil mastermind would say something like that...

Call me evil mastermind, but I really see potential in the shell buildings.
- if you don't want to spend forever building a house, you can just plop one of the shells on the lot
- they have more details on them and I think they look prettier than what can be built in game
- I think they may have lower polys than houses built in game and thus may be easier on the game as a whole seeing as you only build the inside walls and add the furniture and there won't be no textures and meshes to load for the exterior of the houses. the inside meshes load only when you enter the house
- we could place rabbit hole rugs inside pretty shell buildings that match our world theme

[Riptide651]

I actually agree, as long as you can make them yourself, if basically a no limits program.

[SBE]

SommarBlomma hit the nail on the head for me. Sunset Valley and Riverview are very "sims" worlds, in a word cartoony. None of the worlds that come with the game or in the store feel like real places. The style of the worlds in Sims 3's never really bothered me until WA, having places like China, Egypt and Paris exist in the world of "the Sims" shattered my reality on the world the sims lived in. I never thought of their world as earth. After WA, I can't even look at SV or Riverview, it just feels wrong. And for a basegame player options for custom worlds are slim to none.

[snowyhitsugaya]

I would love to see a larger selection of worlds in the sims. I agree that the EA developers are limited to suite the needs of people with slower running computers but perhaps they could make worlds with a quality option at the beggining. Just a thought! :)

[Riptide651]

ON a side note, to me it seems as if the DT in Starlight got herpes... :/