I completely agree. The simulation of living creatures in The Sims is an amazing one. I would love it to be mixed with other genres. Oblivion could have been a good game if it had TS2 AI instead of the Radiant one.

I would love an RPG where personality, relationships and memories are so complex as TS2 or TS3.

Plus the Sims 2 Open for Business is an amazing simulator within the simulator in which you can run any kind of business. TS2 Seasons has a quite good seasonal simulation.

What if Elder Scrolls 5 or Fallout 5 had such freedom as TS, seasons which affect the player’s mood and environment?

What about relationships with NPC like frienship, love interests, familiar ones in which we have different dialogue options and interactions according to it?

What if NPC characters would act according to their needs and interests?

What if we could play the fictional game just building objects and selling them?

The Sims would definitely be an amazing basis for an RPG engine and for most games that need to portray human behavior in a more realistic game.

That doesn’t seem like something you would expect from a casual, non hardcore game, really?

This.

RPS linked to an article in the Sunday papers a while back about AI in games and the complete lack of mention by the writers of the article about Sims AI was kind of mind boggling to me tbh. More game developers should pay attention to what Maxis are upto when it comes to creating AI for sure.

Also they should license their Sims-AI to RPG developers, so that we finally get NPCs in games that have more complex lives than the “Walk around randomly at day and sleep at night” dudes that populate today’s RPGs.

I’m deeply envious. Albeit you didn’t cover it in the article what’s your take on the playability factor of having multiple Sims given the gameworld is on the move perpetually? Do you think you could run 4 – 5 Sims comfortably, or do you think that would be pushing it? Also how does the game treat aging Vs the second game?

Also why is it whenever there’s a Sims thread, people invariably feel the need to post that they don’t get it? What’s the fascination there? Personally I’m not a big RTS man, yet I’ve never yet felt the urge to crash a Sins of the Solar Empire thread to unburden to the world about my lack of attraction to the genre (like anyone cares). Not having a dig, just more finding it kind of strange that the subject of the Sims always seems to bring this urge out in people.

@pilouuuu

I’d say the Sims in Sims 2 were pretty smart tbh (far more so that the creatures in B&W), given the sheer amount of memory and motivations they each carried with them. The downside to Sims 2 was the limited range of personalities and the rigidity of each ones goals. Seems to me the move to mixing personality traits is the really big step with this iteration, more so than the move outside.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a version that’s focused more on the play aspect and less on the work.

I’ve aljoyed all the sims but never been able to play them for any extended period of time, this one might change it. =)

The Sims is really unique in terms that it’s a complete sandbox simulator: you’re free to play it in anyway you want. Even if in this version they moved more towards RPG playing with goals, missions, buffs, etc, which is also nice because it’s optional. So in one family you may play to obtain goals like max skills or top of the career and in another you may just concentrate in disfunctional family relationships.

I’m really glad they minimized the importance of needs, because it kept you from doing the fun stuff. If you went to a community lot in TS2 you had to call for the cab, wait for it, wait for a loading screen, greet some townie, start playing snooker with him and… oops my sim needs to go to the bathroom. Then my sims starts playing football and later, oops I’m hungry. After that my sim only wanted to sleep so I had to go home.

Thankfully that kind of experience won’t be a part of The Sims 3, so after all The Sims 2 will be completely forgotten and the update would make much sense.

And maaan those chicks are hawwwwt. I’m all boned up over here.