I'm going to be honest here, I'm not looking forward to anything after The Sims 3. There is no way that EA isn't going to create tight deadlines for such a project, forcing the team to cut corners (like with The Sims 3). But for a moment, let's pretend EA didn't rush projects into a maximum of 2 year long development. What would make a Sims 4 worth the jump to you?

Here's my list:
-Credit system: Lets say your family is low on funds, but you know your sims will be able to afford the expense within the next 5 days. You would be able to charge to credit, and your next set of bills will contain the price of the object plus interest. It would be useful for things like when you first build a house, and forget something like a fridge, or toilet, or if your sims are consumerists (see below), and want new stuff.

-Personality revamp: It has always bothered me in The Sims 3, that traits are Black and White. (Good/Evil, Technophobe/Computer Geek, etc.) Then I thought back to The traditional Sims personality system, which is also far from perfect, Then I thought why not combine the two. There would be about 20 sliders, with opposites on either side of each slider. Some would be good vs. bad traits like kind vs. mean, others would be differences in opinion like Liberal (The belief that the individual is more important than any government or business) vs. Conservitive (The belief that the whole system is more important than the individuals within it.) These kinds of traits would introduce actual conflicting opinions, in which your sims will either have to learn get along with people of differing opinions, or develop a kind of phobia towards people of different opinions.

-Phobias: If your sims experience traumatic events or isolate themselves from certain events, for example a toddler getting bitten by a spider, then they can develop phobias which will show on the personality panel in the UI. There will be a bar that starts out filled, and the more they face their fears the more empty the bar gets until they are no longer afraid of it.

Wackiness: My idea of a sims 4 isn't all realistic and serious, sims will still have wacky items, creature states, and wacky NPC's but they will also have returning wackiness. For example, the tragic clown and therapist will be back.

-DIY: Sims will be able to create their own furniture, using parts. There will be two ways of accessing the DIY menu. In an occupied house, you can buy a workbench, which allows you to create furniture, using an interesting UI where you choose your furnishing type, and then choose from various parts of that type. Like a rounded chair back, and fancy chair legs, then you would use the much faster version of create a style to design the pattern on your furnishing, and perhaps create a style would even have stencils like the patterns in pets. This will be cheaper than buying prefabricated stuff, but your sims would be taxed with the labor, so give them frequent breaks (or just use maxmotives). As for the unoccupied houses, you can access it via buy and build mode.

-Regions: Each city and town in the game would be connected with an area of reconciliation, there would be no loading screens, instead you would have a limited view distance, and the game would load the distant terrain as you get closer to it, in small pieces like with Minecraft. This would have to be well optimized to work, but it can work. Also, you could terraform the landscape and build new cities and towns.

-Hair length: Hair would have a slider for length in CAS for each hair style, but it will also grow out on it's own, so you may have to visit the barber shop, or take your chances and cut it yourself.

-Online economy: What people buy effects the prices with supply and demand logic. This could be turned off for those without a steady internet connection.

So those are my ideas, what are yours?

I like all of those except the idea of the online economy, just because it could get a little crazy - and how would CC fit in?
I especially like the idea of the credit system and the re-done personality. TS3 Sims kind of fall flat when it comes to personality; in my game at least, what traits they have really don't affect them very much (with a few exceptions, like Workaholic).
And the credit system would be great. Anything extra to add to my Simmies bills!

What I really want to see in TS4 is revamped gardening. Appropriate bushes, trees, vines, etc. for the appropriate produce. No more meat/burger/cheese bushes! No more apple trees to grow bananas!
It would also be pretty cool to have the option for Sims to "invent" their own meals, using various ingredients. Depending on their cooking skill, the result could be disastrous (stick to Hamburger Helper!) or really great (open a restaurant!)

I wish people wouldn't just click the disagree button without expressing what they disagree with. Okay, maybe it works when the poster expresses one idea, but not when there are many ideas in one post...

That being said, I take it this is anything goes?

I agree with the Personality Revamp and like your ideas. What I'd like to see is sims getting ten traits, which would then be ranked, three greater, four middle and 3 lesser. I'd like to see the traits being modified by one another. For example: Flirty/evil would try to break up relationships, string people along, while flirty/good would be horrified to knowingly flirt with someone in a relationship. I'd also like to see the sim capable of a form of evolution. Create a sim with an athletic trait, but then never use it, trait gets weaker and weaker eventually falling away completely and is replaced with a trait more in keeping with their lifestyle.

I'd like the Sims 4 to come with two Control Applications that run outside of the game. One would manage content, assign categories, collections and search words. Allow you to change costs and modifiers, where it shows in the catalog, CAST from the application, change defaults and create sims. I'd also like to be able to assign modifiers to clothing, i.e. if an outfit is scandalous, I'd want sims with that gender preference to react, family to be outraged. The second application would allow you to create backgrounds and family relationships for sims, even allow you to create a sort of directive of future relationships.

Psychiatrist NPC, the game's artificial intelligence made manifest. Sims would be directed here in order to be brought in sync with any outside directives. Using Sims3 as an example. You have a couple, one has the brave trait, he is exposed to something like the mummy when he doesn't have the skills to defeat it. Brave is transformed into cowardly. This puts strain on the couple, resulting in him visiting the psychiatrist, who would prescribe activities (athletics, simfu) that would lessen the cowardly trait to the point where he could re-confront the mummy and regain the brave trait.

I've said elsewhere that I think Rabbitholes should remain, but that I'd like to see a new community lot, let's say an Active lot. Active lots with the appropriate objects could support a rabbithole career. For example, Police station would have a stand up reception desk, work cubicle, interrogation table, jail cells.The rabbithole shells should be more generic, in a variety of period and architectural styles. You would click on the shell and assign which career it supports. And some Active Career lots would by their nature support more than the assigned career -- allowing for administrative (business career) to function at hospitals, police stations etc. I'd like to see some trait / skills combine into different careers, artistic + computer wiz = graphic designer or web designer, genius + computer wiz = programmer. These could function working from home or freelancing from any appropriate rabbithole, or rather every appropriate rabbithole/active career lot.

Building
I'd like walls to be measured in quarter heights, and I'd like a new building shell that would allow you to build in four story, stackable implements that could each host it's own family. In addition to being stackable, they could also be placed sided by side allowing for the creation of highrises and rowhouses.

Better Relationships
More categories, now every relationship is based on friendship. But I'd really like the family relationship to be a separate relationship type. If the parent(s) not paying attention to the child, I would expect the child to start acting out and the teacher to be summoning the parent to PTA meetings. Should the relationship continue to deteriorate child's traits would be affected and for the entire family or a least the kid to have to seek counseling.

And last (at least for now), but definitely not least. Have weather in the game from the start so the rest of us can have some peace. :P

More traits. I'd like a slider because I agree, things are too black and white in the Sims.

More social interactions. Telling the same jokes and making silly faces gets boring after a while.

Height sliders.

Hair sliders.

Less rabbit holes. I think the odd rabbit hole is effective but The Sims 3 takes the piss.

Weather -_____- for the love of all that is holy, GIVE ME WEATHER!

I would like to see construction crews constructing houses and community lots in the game for me, rather than me having to take time out from the game to do the building myself. I would like to specify the lot and pick a blueprint for the crew to build, but then have it built over time as I play in live mode just as we see in the real world, rather than the completed lot appearing like magic. My sims could get jobs working on the lots, so there's a new career too! This would not have to eliminate players building lots, but we could pick any player built lot to be the blueprint to use.

Yeah CC would be a tough one with the online economy idea... But perhaps have CC randomly increase and decrease in value. That could work... I think...

Anyways, great ideas keep them coming.

What would make a Sims 4 worth it for me?

Having bought Sims 1, 2, and 3, I've already decided not to buy Sims 4 because I don't like the way EA does things. The only way they could change my mind is if weather was included in the Sims 4 base game or at least in the first expansion pack. Having to wait until near the end for something that should be in the game at the start is a none starter for me.

What I'm going to do instead is finish the world I'm building, and then add the CC I want and then never be bothered by patchs and updates again.

Plus, I think they will do with Sims 4 what they are doing with Sim City, make you have to be online to play it. That just won't happen with me! How many people will be upset when they go to play Sim City and the site is down for some reason?

I deleted the rest of this irate post . . .

If sims four made my computer magically up to par with the requirements that I know wont fit my current pc i would consider it lol

What would make it worth it?

1- It is built with a better game engine that can handle 500+ population

2- Maps can be 4 or 5x the size of Sims 3's largest map

3- NPC's can have homes and active sims can visit them when they aren't working.

4- Residential lots can be designated for NPCs.

5- Apartment buildings can have more that one playable family as well as units for NPCs to live in; and we can specify which.

6- Weather is base game. This is non-negotiable

7- Clothing and hairs are tagged (business, casual, trashy, futuristic, '20s, trendy, etc.) and we can choose which catagory or specific clothing is fit for random or if they will show up in CAST while playing a particular neighborhood.

8- Babies are more interactive but they also sleep more.

9- Babies also have about 3 clothing choices. If I am playing a tropical island, my sim baby can just wear a diaper. If I am playing an alpine town, my sim baby can be bundled up. Their clothing can also be CAStable.

10- Toddlers can mess with almost anything in the home, as long as they can reach it. They can also harm themselves if parents aren't watching.

11- Toddlers can interact with each other, play together, make mischief, or fight over toys.

12- Sims can get generic jobs that do not have a career ladder. So if I want to have a sim stuck in a deadend job, I can do that.

13- There is actually an economy with banks. Whatever the sims have other sims made it. Simple example: toys. Sims can make and sale toys. They can own a toy shop or just work in it. Another example: video games. Sims can work as video game developers. Others can work in electrinics jobs. Sims can shop to buy electronics and games. Grocery stores are open and sims can work or shop there. Also sims can buy freshly caught fish or produce from a farmer's market, etc. Taxis cost money. Clothing cost money. Cell phones have to be bought. If we click on a sim's friend within the UI to call, the sim will just walk over to the house phone and dial or use the payphone if they are not home.

14- Certain careers affect the town as a whole such as the political career, law enforcement, crimnal, etc. Other careers or jobs, not so much.

I think these are the major selling points for me. I can't think of anything else.

I'd love to see EA deliver a game engine that can deliver that kind of breadth and depth of game. Unfortunately, until Dell releases a Dimension Quantum computer desktop (for < $999) it might be beyond EA to come up with something that can run on even next year's computer models with the kind of detail we'd like.

Personally, I'd settle for a game engine that can handle a 200+ population on a larger map with more CAW "tools" incorporated right into edit town mode. And I'd really like to see more intelligent routing. One other thing that's been mentioned in other threads, but has really caught my interest, is asymmetric relationships, which could exist in TS2. Unrequited love could bring some needed drama back into sim relationships.

P.S., they would HAVE to move to a 64 bit engine to do even what I'd like, let alone more. I know that might leave some players out in the cold who aren't ready to update their systems, but it really is the only way they can get the memory footprint they would need to do anything even close to the degree of immersion we'd like to experience.

Honestly, at this point I don't even care if the Sims 4 comes out or not. Just the idea of starting over from the beginning AGAIN is enough to make me go "bleh". If it does come out, I think I may wait until a few EP's are released as well, assuming EA doesn't do anything foolish like make it online only or has way too many social aspects.

Absolutely.



Have you seen some of the horrid clothing and hair styles EA forces into the expansions? Has anyone at EA ever actually seen how guys dress? Is it possible for EA to give us hair for men that does not look like it was whipped up with a cotton candy machine?

I have a document with over 20 pages worth of ideas for Sims 4 and what it would take to be worth it for me.

I'm tired of my families turning out to be the same, no matter what. I've even mixed it up, like having the mother of four cheat on her husband with the dashing vampire celebrity, but it was so difficult to play because, despite that she was charismatic and had a top relationship with her husband before she was caught, the relationship went down to zero as soon as he found out and he wanted a divorce that very night! What the heck?? No chance to get him back? No chance to change and smooth it over? No second chances? Ughhhhh...

Not to mention that most lifetime aspirations are either skill or career related. Yes, there are some that aren't, but most of them are. It bugs me that all a sim has to do to gain a lifetime achievement is to sit in their house all day and read books. Or go to their job enough. That's really, incredibly boring. I wish that we could read a book and then, for certain skills, we have to try out the methods that the sim learned before advancing. You can read all the way to the top of the cooking skill and know all these recipes but never come into the same room as the stove. What's with that? Sure, I know how to make pancakes, but have I ever made pancakes? Nope. I'd probably screw them up. And I'd like it so that, if you stop using a skill that it depletes a little over time. Not a lot, because you can't go from Da Vinci to crayon eater if you haven't practiced in a while but... yeah.

I also want to be able to have large populations, like 500+, and a way to keep family trees intact, even if a gravestone is missing.

I also want EA to give a good solid shout out to the previous games and include the gameplay from that, but to add a smidge of something new. I'll be honest. I wanted Sims 3 to be a combination of Sims 1 and 2 plus more stuff and more advanced gameplay and customization. Why? Because those games were FUN.

And throw all this social networking nonsense in the garbage.

I'm glad you like my other ideas but I really don't understand what you mean by discriminating. I'm talking about sorting clothing so that random sims do not walk around town wearing flippers for everday outfit. Or pirate boots for swimwear. I just want more control over themed clothing.

I do not want EA to make it easy to kill toddlers. All I would like to see is that toddlers act like toddlers and get into stuff. Having babies and toddlers in Sims 3 is too easy for me. And I would hope that if EA made Sims 4 that toddlers would present more challenging gameplay. Sim parents for example can't just go to the park with their toddlers and not watch them. In Sims 3 they put them on the ground and then go play hopscotch or play chess and the toddler just sits there like a mature adult and does nothing.

It is great that many modders have modded Sims 3 to give greater freedom but I would like to see Sim 4 provide more freedom from the beginning. Otherwise it would just be the same old thing and therefore make Sims 4 not worth it for me.


And that's another thing I would like to see. Clothing that men actually wear. EA has done a very bad job with this.

More like sims 2 with the open world of 3, less rabit holes or make it so that we the player could see what was happening inside, better and realistic graphics, easier gameplay and eaiser to get loads of cc for.

I've played games with far bigger worlds so I know EA is just not using the best stuff to build the game or optimizing it. I've played Just Cause 2 and that map is the biggest I have seen yet. Driving through the towns, cities, and rural areas the game doesn't lag and buildings and people don't take forever to render and there is not load screens. I can actually go from one side of the map to the other. It might take a very long time since I would have to not just use a car (boats and helicopters, SWIMMING!!!). Plus these types of games have a blur effect for things in the distance. EA can do it but they are just cheap.

I think personality sliders to compliment the traits is a good one. I do generally disagree that traits aren't as good as the Sims 2 personality points however. On this Sims 2 my sims would always use the cycling machine regardless of what their personality or hobby was, and they'd use it until they'd pass out. Same goes for the piano, ballet barre etc. On the Sims 3 however, I find athletic sims prefer to work out, while painting sims go and paint autonomously.

It would be nice if you could choose the degree of the traits severity. For example, if you gave a sim the 'neat' trait, you could chose on a slider just how neat they are. Either that or have personality points, and traits, just get rid of the traits that were covered in personality points and have more traits like 'neurotic' and so on.

For starters, I want everything we already have. I don't want to buy World Adventures, Late Night, Ambitions, Generations, Showtime, et. al. All over again. And I don't want to wait three or four years for the sims to get back to where The Sims 3 left off. Otherwise, I will wait that three or fou years for the Sims 4 to get back up to speed.

One big deal killer will be an inability to make and add our own custom content.

I agree with most of the original poster's ideas, although the online economy would blow up the limited/retarded AI of an average Sims town. Pets is one of my favorite expansions (I'm a horse nut), and I want for once in EA's damn life a functional glitch free horse that doesn't get stuck on fences and trees and RUNS NORMAL at maximum speed. Run on sentence my bad. Or maybe having pets that don't morph into hideous stretch out creatures upon expansion release! And height sliders for horses since not every horse ever is the same height. If they did ALL of that I would get Sims 4. Which EA probably wont because they are the two dollar whores of the PC gaming world, rant finished.

Oh and a crap tone more professions, slowly fazing out the more boring loading bar jobs. Crazy jobs like taxodermists, and dentists, and carnies, and white magic healers.

Two dollars? Damn, you got 'spensive tastes.

lol i wants 2 dollars fer yer perty mouth LOL

When TS4 has pets, weather and a re-make of OFB, then it will be worth it for me. I don't mind waiting a few years for these things to come in an EP. I enjoy TS3 so much that I can wait to see what TS4 is all about, and if those things never make it to TS4 then I'll just play TS3.

I would want a lot more realism in the graphics. It needs to run smoother. Also, the genetics need to be a lot better. It should be easier to populate the whole town with your own sims. You should be able to assign your sims certain traits, on a scale, that effect the way some of the other sims treat them like - good looking, hostile, etc. I also think they need to make it a little more mature.

I definitely agree with the Idea of Phobias, and a revamp of the trait system. Something that has always bothered me about the trait system is that 1: Nothing is as Black and White as the sims 3 makes it and 2: The largest amount of traits you can choose is 5, and (at least the way I create/play) 5 is not nearly enough.

Also having Regions (like the Biome system in Minecraft) would be epic, and hair length. Freaking awesome.

Now, this is just me spewing ideas, but religion and sickness could be pretty cool. I mean, it would become very controversial - especially if EA followed the most common religious stereotypes, or used real illnesses - but it would be... IDK, just more real.

At the moment, I'm definitely not going to get sims 4, unless they spend a very, very long amount of time "perfecting." Of course, knowing EA, that's probably not going to happen. So for now, I'm content with sims 3 (and possibly sims 2, although I would need a better computer to run it.)