Oh, you have 'deemed them useless' have you?

pft.

I don't know but I'm sure someone will figure out a a way, I can play TS3 with all expansions on my computer and I've never even touched Origin, not sure if it's the same thing though.

When the Rapture comes and the truly good and righteous of the world - all seventeen of them - float on up to that big ol' crack den in the sky the rest of us will be left to burn in endless seas of fire, in a world of torment ruled by Nazis on dinosaurs. And one of the most cruelest deeds Beelzebub will force upon us righteous sinners is having to relive ten more seasons of Friends again. And I know just who they can cast as the updated character of Girl On Internet Board Bitchfully Bitching About Bitching. It's you, in this role you've perfected.

I could begin a list of everything wrong with The Sims 4, but there's several thousand posts scattered on this website alone to explain that. Comets would circle the Earth before I'd even finish the list of content that was unjustifiably cut. Of course I guess all of that is trivial. Every feature in The Sims 3, from unlimited customisation to open worlds? omg lag, just cut it! Building features that have been around for years? lyke, trivial! An entire age group? lyke thy wer rooly annying. It doesn't matter though, Sims can multitask. This literally changes everything.

You can tell a lot about what you're getting in this game from the promotions and previews already, and there is nothing remarkable, except how completely unremarkable it is. A lot of people are putting too much hope in expansion packs and patches. You'll probably get pools, but I doubt you'll see an entire age group, larger lot sizes, bigger worlds or anything. You're stuck with a sub-par, half-assed and over-priced game for the next generation.

Well, so far I haven't seen any publicly known or legal way to bypass Origin. And as far as we know atm Origin will be mandatory for TS4. Later versions of TS3 are already equipped with obligatory Origin. No way to ignore it, no way to bypass it, the only option is to play offline, but Origin controlls all recent EA games. So, in order to try out TS4 you will have to know someone who gives you access to their Origin account.

So, ehm.. good for you?
I don't think you get to decide what I choose to spend, or not spend, my money on.

FTR toddlers are only useless if you haven't played Sims 2.

I've noticed a lot of people who support the Sims 4 on here apparently hate toddlers. They're annoying and "needy", etc.

Isn't that how toddlers are in real life? Needy?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I thought toddlers were pretty important to those of us who always played families. That's probably yet another reason we're not "looking on the bright side".

@SakuraKiss - Exactly. I never look forward to when my sim babies reach the toddler stage, because it's stressful as hell, what with all the things you need to teach them and oh shit there's only one day left and little Timmy still doesn't know how to walk or talk what am I gonna do... but that's kinda the whole point of it. If they make toddlers even more easy to manage when (if?) they eventually add them, I'm gonna be so buttmad.

Epic age range eliminates the stress you're getting from your toddlers. With Epic, the toddler stage can last up to 150 days. Toddlers are actually very entertaining. I like it when they cry!

Did someone really play toddler for 150 sim days?
I remember having five toddlers in one family once. My sim was fulfilling "Surrounded by family" LTW. I played for 2 or 3 hours and when went to sleep, but I had trouble falling asleep because I could still hear their constant cries in my head. Yeah, toddlers are very annoying, needy and selfish creatures in The Sims, just like in real life. However, it's usually toddler life stage when I start to feel some emotional connection to little sim (babies are all the same and burritos), so I can't imagine playing family ahd having fun without this stage, with all its troubles. After all, being parent isn't supposed to be easy and pleasant.
On topic, I think it's totally alright that people who don't care about missing features will buy and enjoy the game. Good for them. I just don't understand why they try to oblige everyone else to buy it too. And why they are so sure that feature they didn't use wasn't really used and loved by other players.

"trying" the game only costs 60$, so cheap!

The only way EA will take notice if we all vote with our wallet, don't buy this garbage game! don't let them get away with it.

I've never actually played the toddler stage for 150 days. It just gives me plenty of time to play with them without feeling rushed. When I'm ready, I just age them up using either a Content Customization Control Command (C4 for the win) through a mod, or throw them an impromptu birthday party.

I hope you're right actually. I think the only way that The Sims 4 can redeem itself is if the new features are worthwhile.

Haha, I've been complaining for the most part too, and I barely even have 20 posts. XD

What I don't get are those people that say I never used a feature, so go ahead and cut it. It's like they can't acknowledge when a feature is a good feature that surely many others use. I hardly ever used pools, but I think it's lame to cut them.

Hmm... no.

I can't argue the fact that TS3 is a POS. That fact became more and more apparent when using mods. Mods made the game so much better that the true nature of the POS base game became even more obvious. I haven't played TS3 without mods since the first year. The community took up the gauntlet despite EA, and made TS3 far better than the product we were given. We have the community to thank for our enjoyment of TS3, NOT EA.

EA has a history of producing shoddy incomplete products, yet people flock to them as if they were some sort of digital savior. Many of us succumbed to their marketing ploys and promises. This was what happened with Sim City, and we all know how that turned out. But despite EA's bald faced lies about Sim City being unplayable without a persistent online connection, members of the community stepped up and made EA retreat from their claims. With egg on their faces, EA admitted that it could be played offline, and relented by releasing a single player version without DRM. That was however too little too late. (All the while, TS4 was being produced with the same persistent online connection requirement) Heads rolled at EA, and TS4 went into reverse engineering mode. The TS4 that is about to be dumped on us is simply a poorly hacked version of what was to be the future of EA products, with the "Sim City" requirements hastily removed. Make no mistake, EA is a corporation that is interested in only one thing, money.

The Sims franchise started to go downhill when EA acquired Maxis. Sims 2 was the last product that the original Maxis team had anything to do with. (Probably because it was well under development prior to Maxis' acquisition). Yes, TS2 despite EA interference, was still a far cry better than TS3. It still had the Maxis charm that we had become accustomed to. A charm which was sorely lacking in TS3. Maxis actually did care about customer satisfaction. They took pride in their product unlike EA. We still continue to buy into TS with the hope that somehow the Maxis charm will surface. It's not going to. Maxis is dead and gone and has been for many years. The solid reputation that Maxis had is well evident in the number of loyal fans who still cling to the empty shell, myself included.

TS4 promises to be a bigger money pit than TS3. There is an old saying; "caveat emptor", "let the buyer beware". It seems no matter how badly EA treats us as consumers, they still come out on top. I'm sure TS4 will sell reasonable well despite everything. I do however feel that it will never come close to the juggernaut that TS3 is/was. The free ride EA has enjoyed on the backs of the community is about to come to an end. I don't think that modders are going to much care about TS4 given EA's track record of lies and broken promises. Here we have come to the end of yet another cycle in the TS saga and TS3 is still broken out of the box.

EA is counting on the fact that a new generation of buyers will not remember all of the broken promises, and undoubtedly many won't. But what they haven't counted on is the fact that many of the old generation are still here to remind the community of how things should be. We shouldn't be forced to settle for garbage and be content with whatever EA decides to push at us. We shouldn't be happy about being taken for fools. I had surely thought that by now EA would have learned its lesson, but sadly that is not the case. I'm not saying don't buy TS4. If that's what you want, it's ultimately your decision. What I am saying is that we should stop allowing ourselves to be treated like a steaming dump.

Oh,life will go on...without sims 4.

-no toddlers
-removing so many build mode features
-no CAST
I'm not sure who has it worse if legacy players or builders
And also no I'm not going to give it a chance for 60USD

That, and also the simple notion that some day, one might actually suddenly want to play the game in a new way. For some people that thought must be mind boggling. :D

I always hated this "stay positive" mindset in rl and here too. When things are sh** they are what they are, no need to sugarcoat it and stay positive. Let's face it, EA managed this poorly, and they don't deserve all the praise they're getting from the fanbois. Stay positive and you'll hit a brick wall once you start playing and notice how many things are missing, it will be too late then.

I've been reading your comments, and although most of you are angry with me, I'm agreeing with your posts. You are making valid points.

This is going to be contradict with my first post extremely, and I'm sure many of you will question my logic after I say this, but I'm going to tell you the truth:

I actually think that if this wasn't The Sims, I would probably be as angry as you guys are. We are taking huge steps back with some of these cuts (no newspapers?? what the hell, EA...)

I think the reason I'm still going to buy it is because...well, it's The Sims. I was off playing The Sims 1 when I was 6 or 7 years old, and I have all 3 games on my laptop. I've been waiting for this game since The Sims 3 came out. I've been waiting too long to not play it now. I mean, I HAVE to play it. It's The Sims! I'm addicted to this series to the point where I forget about what each game lacks and just play! I have always told myself that I hate The Sims 3, but I still go right back and play it and totally forget my anger. And yeah, The Sims 1 has extremely outdated graphics. But once I'm playing, that doesn't even matter to me anymore. I have a feeling that it's going to be the same thing with this game, and because it's The Sims, I can't allow myself to become outraged to the point where I stop playing until I've actually tried it. I've been waiting too long to give up now.

But yeah, that's my honest opinion. I'm sure obsession to that point is unhealthy, and you can call me crazy all you want, but it's the truth. Just thought that I'd clear that up.

I get your point and glad to see your eyes are not glossed over by the shiny. My stance is more defiance than anger, I find paying $60-80USD for the base game a slap in the face by EA and this is my slap back. Too much basic items removed now to garner profits later. I am tired of that dance, but Sims 3 wasn't this bad out the gate.

Perhaps you should rethink your strategy of communicating by being condescending and flippant in equal measures if you want to actually discuss the game, as it's not your opinion as such that people are reacting to. To many (most?) of us, you mainly come across like you want to police other forum members in regards to how they should feel, think and what to do. That's not gonna get you anywhere.

I'm aware of that, and I apologize. I wasn't trying to command everybody to go shell out the $70 because I was going to. I was just saying that I didn't think it was fair how everybody was trashing it and talking about how lame it is going to be when in reality they have no idea yet. We should wait until AFTER the gameplay is revealed to say stuff like that.

But yes, I do understand people's anger. Rereading my original post I actually was thinking things such as "Did I really say that? Wow, I'm a bitch. " If I were in the same boat as you guys I'd probably be angry at what I said too :/

Man, I get it, y'know? I fucking love this series, more than any other. I played TS1 back when I was still a silly stupid teenager. I played TS2 on the first computer I bought with my own money. I played TS3 with my first child sitting on my lap. This series has quite literally changed my life - if it didn't exist, I wouldn't live even on the same continent that I do, I wouldn't be married to the man I'm married to, I wouldn't be pursuing a career in the industry I'm in, and my children would not even exist. I'm not trying to play "I'm more emotionally invested than you" just saying I TOTALLY GET IT. It is completely okay to love this series fiercely and loudly, because it is amazing.

And if you want to buy Sims 4, if you're excited about it and think it looks great, if you think it'll be fun and worth the money then I am happy as hell for you and I hope you have all the fun in the world with it, and get your time and money's worth and then some out of it. Not even a hint of sarcasm there. Most of us desperately want TS4 to be a great game. We would be -delighted- if it were, and would play the crap out of it, because we love the series. And yeah, I'm gonna get it - I probably wouldn't if I didn't have to (site admin, gotta make forums and download areas and guidelines and all that crap to support it here) because I don't think it's worth the money... But I will. And I'll probably play it, too, just to see what it's like. Shit, I may even come to like it.

It's just annoying when folks (not just you) roll up and yell at everyone here like we're a monobrain collective. And it doesn't even matter what they're yelling - we've had messages of "TS4's gonna be great and ya'll just haters!" similar to yours, and just as many "TS4's gonna be crap and anyone who buys it is sheeple!" and they are equally... well... insulting. Because at its heart, that kind of argument assumes that everyone you're addressing thinks the same way, and also that all of those same-thinkers are incapable of forming their own educated opinions based on the info (blog posts, tweets, gameplay videos, screenshots, reviews, etc.) available out there, and must somehow be scolded into thinking the "right" way. It doesn't work, it just gets people defensive, and if anything, it only makes people dig in their heels more on their position.

If you want to have the slightest chance of actually swaying someone's position, try well-researched, calmly-presented facts - show them and talk about the things you're excited about in the game. We even have a whole thread that's for people to be excited without anyone raining on their parade. There are some great features of TS4, and I think a lot more people -would- be excited about those things if it weren't for all the other stuff. And maybe it's not as bad as it seems, and in a few months we'll all be playing it and eating crow. Nobody has any way of knowing, really. All of us - excited, skeptical, disgusted, whatever... we all just have to wait and see.

(PS: I think it is really cool of you to come back here and admit your mistake for starting off the way you did. 99% of folks who make a yelly opinion post like yours never do that. Somebody raised you right. Good on them, and you.)