I think this is great. Acknowledge the talent and give them an opportunity.
Maybe Sims 5 will hire the wickedwhims creator and add their skills to the next game…haha
I’m kind of surprised that The Sims doesn’t have more competition.
It’s been many years that the series has been kind of the only entry in the genre.
Yeah, a lot of the other classic Sim games don’t have analogs either (though Sim City does), but The Sims is pretty commercially successful.
Much like Bethesda games, they take quite a lot of work to make for what is essentially a position that has been unchallenged for years. Very high risk, but only like somewhat high reward.
Like just breakdown what the Sims into its fundamental components. The characters, the fashion, the homes, the skills, the jobs, social interactions, possessions. It’s a lot of work.
Like just breakdown what the Sims into its fundamental components. The characters, the fashion, the homes, the skills, the jobs, social interactions, possessions. It’s a lot of work.
That’s the thing that gets me is the core life sim gameplay loop is actually pretty simple, mostly because it was originally an architecture simulator with people you could play house with and then Maxis realized playing with the people was a ton of fun so they built onto that gameplay.
Basically you just need several values which count down over game ticks for the needs, modifiers on how much it each goes up and down and then add a bunch to the value when the sim does something to satisfy the needs
Social interactions are purely plus/minus a few points with a bit of RNG and modifiers for the traits, mood, hygiene level, etc.
Careers are basically just bad quests from an RPG. Your sims happiness (is the average need level greater than or less than X) chooses whether their career performance value is increasing or decreasing per game tick while at work, skills and work style (working normally, working hard, etc.) will modify the value that’s added or subtracted per tick, add in a skill check when that value reaches promotion and you have rabbit hole careers
Tons of games have structure building mechanics which I won’t pretend to understand from a game engine level but I’d say that’s a pretty well solved issue
Really the hard part is the graphics but if games like Minecraft, Terraria and Stardew Valley can be such hits with 8-bit inspired graphics, I think a strong core gameplay loop can outshine average Steam shovelware-grade graphics
So basically, if you want to create a Minecraft mod to play the sims, there’s the recipe. Honestly if I was any good at programming I’d take a crack at it but I don’t have the patience nor skill to do that at this stage
A lot of simulators exists that cover bits and pieces. Mostly just people simulators without house building, often entirely without a house view with decorations you have free control over. Most try to fit in more complicated stories and relations, which might force them to restrict many other choices, like character progression far beyond simple skill points and career level.
That’s awesome! Elianora’s mods have been basically a mandatory download for me for years because the quality is always incredible. She absolutely deserves this.
I wonder who they hired to do the facial modelling. The environments look really good but the faces look like games from 15 years ago. I really expected more from the game that Microsoft has been making so much fanfare over.
I really expected more
I’m sorry, but why? Why do people do this every time a new game comes out? This is what Bethesda does, and Microsoft isn’t much better.
Every new game it’s like people forget what these companies do.
You should’ve expected a Bethesda game.
Btw elder scrolls 6 will suck, too.
It’s crazy.
Bethesda have owned id Software, the best graphics engineers in the business, for a decade. They now even have Microsoft money. This is still, somehow, the best they can do.
No it is not the best they can do. I haven’t played starfield yet, but it should be obvious that no company with shareholders to whom they need to answer is ever going to do “the best they can do”.
That isn’t even their target, at least not overall. Their target is maximum profitability. Putting forth maximum effort for the best graphics is not going to result in max profits, so they were never going to do that.
And that’s to say nothing of the fact that graphical showcases just aren’t what Bethesda does in the first place. No one should have expected that. This isn’t an id game.
Starfield…doesn’t suck though.
I’ve sunk 20 hours into it so far and it’s amazing. You people just have your expectations up the ass for a company that is great at one formula and expect them to do the other when they never said they would. It’s ya’lls fucking fault for expecting No Mans Sky to be the greatest fucking game of all time at release over a company that made fucking Joe Danger.
Cyberpunk 2077 I can understand more as it was made from the guys who made The Witcher 3, so feature wise I can understand the betrayal and they fucked up by lying to us. But it’s still ya’lls fault for expecting it to not be buggy and broken as fuck when it was delayed 3 fucking times. The red flags were there, and you STILL bought it.
Oblivion and Skyrim have the same basic formula with little differences sprinkled in here and there mechanics wise that make it feel different, but familiar. Starfield is the same way and I fully expect ES 6 to do the same. But that’s fine. I don’t want anything groundbreaking. I just want Skyrim but with modern graphics, animations, different setting, and some new mechanics.
Good god you people are negative.
It’s ya’lls fucking fault for expecting No Mans Sky to be the greatest fucking game of all time at release
Yeah, having read over a bunch of comments here, a lot of the comments that are unhappy about Starfield are basically people expecting it to be like No Man’s Sky, or some people who just don’t like Bethesda games in general. The ones that are happy tend to be people comparing it to earlier Bethesda games that they liked.
I really like Bethesda games, so for me, that’s great. But I do also get that there are people who don’t like Bethesda games, and for those people, being told that they’re wrong and that they should like it drives them nuts.
I think a good rule of thumb is to probably expect Starfield to be similar to earlier Bethesda games, like Skyrim and Fallout 4. If you like those games, you’ll probably like Starfield. If you dislike them, you’re probably going to dislike Starfield.
But trying to convince people who really like Bethesda games that they suck or to convince people who really dislike Bethesda games that they’re great is kind of not likely to work well.
This happens with every Bethesda release because they overhype their games and keep their PR vague enough that people can fill in the gaps any way they want to. They’ve been doing this since Morrowind. This review/user response controversy is nothing new and neither are the usual criticisms of Bethesda games half-assing everything from accessibility to writing to various gameplay elements.
And then instead of holding Bethesda accountable for their nonsense the fanboys like you go out and attack and blame other fans for it. Getting really sick of Bethesda fans shitting on anyone with criticism of their precious game company while whining about how toxic gaming culture is with zero self-awareness.
If you’re ok with Bethesda never innovating that’s fine, but stop trying yti shut down other people’s valid criticisms or acting like they’re stupid for expecting and wanting higher quality releases.
Eh? Point out at what point in my life I ever gave a shit about no man’s sky…
Did you reply to the wrong person or…?
You’d think Bethesda would notice what you claim to have.
That’s the point.
No I wouldn’t think that, they’ve never acted in a manner that indicates that they have that capacity, why would I assume they do?
In Fallout 4 and Skyrim, modders did ultimately put out high-poly-count heads, high-detail eyes, etc. I imagine that if tradition holds, there will be modders doing the same in Skyrim.
TBH the faces look fine for me. At least on major NPCs that have a role. All of the NPCs out in the cities are the ones that look wonky. I give it a pass though considering you’d have to be fucking staring at them immensely to actually notice.
Either way, modders will take care of it. That’s the beauty of these games. Anything remotely dumb that Bethesda overlooks, (which is every game) will be fixed.
Still having a ton of fun.
But eventually they lose all credibility and everyone abandons the Xbox platform. It’s really getting to the point where Steam is the only one worth using. And I’ve bought every Xbox at launch, except for the Xbox One. Playstation tends to cater to people who like turn based games, aka interactive slideshows. Xbox has just been stagnating for the past few years, and this was supposed to be the game to finally prove to us once and for all that they can put out a good modern game. Overall the game itself is pretty good and I’m not seeing much bugginess at all. But the way the devs speak about this game, I really expected something they could actually be proud of. They can always improve things with patches, of course. But at this point Starfield is a first party game, so I really expect it to showcase what the Xbox hardware can do. It’s as if Microsoft has nothing to do with the QA process of all of the studios they’ve acquired.
Playstation tends to cater to people who like turn based games, aka interactive slideshows.
What games do you have in mind that are turn based?
Playstation tends to cater to people who like turn based games, aka interactive slideshows.
Huh.
I’m a few generations out of date on consoles, but I was kind of disappointed with console turn-based games.
I normally think of the PC as the place to go, because the mouse and high resolution are often good partners for that.
Turn-based strategy games, stuff like Paradox titles especially seemed to be a PC thing.
Do you mean relative to the other console platforms, or relative to all other platforms in general? If so, what titles?
Maybe turn-based RPGs or something, stuff in the vein of Final Fantasy? Is that what you mean?
Meh, being able to build your own ship like Skyrim and kerbal space progran had a baby sounds like it makes up for that but I haven’t played the game so idk. Most space games are either a massive ripoff (think Star Citizen) or a major grindfest (Elite Dangerous) so it’s good to see someone try to make a space game that isn’t like that.
No Man’s Sky and Stationeers are almost similar games that are good but in those games the space ship game mechanics and functionality just aren’t there.
I’ve been playing it and it’s a great game. I just wish they could have gotten the faces good enough for the game to showcase what the Xbox and PC are capable of. The environments even look great. They really dropped the ball considering it’s Microsoft’s biggest first party launch in something like 5 years.
The shipbuilding is limited in order to try and not break the game.
You can only have one cockpit, warp drive, fusion generator, and shield generator. You can’t have dual core and double shielded guns with an cockpit strapped to them that obliterates anything in sight.
It is more like Fallout meets Cyberpunk 2077 in space with a complex loading screen mini game that doubles as a remote inventory, which you can spend hours customizing somewhat.
NMS’s use of ships is far better, like being able to fly around from place to place instead of loading screen around. NMS’s ship flying with SF’s shipbuilding would have been ideal.
Hopefully modders will be able to fix the shipbuilding.
Why do you think Bethesda is so supportive of the mod scene?
It’s a job application.
A few folks who worked on Skyrim worked on Oblivion mods.
Folks who worked on Fallout made Skyrim mods.
Id software (Doom) also hired modders.
Why do you think Bethesda is so supportive of the mod scene?
Because it creates content for their game without them having to spend money.
The only mods that Bethesda has ever gone after are those that re-use audio from other games. It’s a licensing thing. They’ve been basically a top 5 company in terms of supporting mods in general. Hate their formula if you like, but they don’t threaten original modders with legal action.
Anybody remember the Deadly Reflex Oblivion mod that Bethesda essentially based Skyrim’s combat on?
Oh yeah I do. Wow that takes me back. Stamina, kicks, acrobatics, finishing animations and beheadings. That was a great mod.
Pssh, I fucking wish they based combat on that mod. Skyrim’s combat is still a little too basic comparatively.
