#does this count as gameplay

[xx-j4nu5-c4t5-xx]

"An ideal Sims game would have Sims 2's gameplay mechanics, Sims 3's open world, and Sims 4's graphics!"

I absolutely despise this take, and I want to explain why. This is a very long rant and it is full of piss and vinegar directed at everything in the Sims 4. I'm gonna try to keep everything kinda professional as much as I can but I can't guarantee an unbiased opinion.

If you'll let me talk your ears off for a moment, I'd like to explain, from my own experience as an artist and a casual player, my issues with the art style and direction of The Sims 4 compared to The Sims 2. (I'm not really going to comment on 3 because I've never played it.)

I want to start off by explaining the difference between better graphics and higher resolution. The Sims 4 absolutely blows Sims 2 out of the water when it comes to textures and polygon counts on sims, no contest. But I'd argue that the graphics themselves... aren't better. They're worse, even, so much fucking worse. The biggest problems come from the stylization and the animations, in my opinion, so I'll explain what I mean.

Have you ever felt like the Sims in 4 just look... weird? Not quirky, not kinda strange, but off. Distressing. Uncanny. Whatever the fuck the kids call it nowadays. When you strip away the packs and the CC and the shaders, the sims in the base game look bad. They're very close to being human; they walk like us, talk like us, have families like us, but they don't look like us, not exactly. There's always something off about them, no matter how close you try to get. Proportions will be a bit off, or your eyelashes will be like three polygons for some fucking reason, and the jig is up. The illusion is gone.

This is one of the instances where a higher resolution and more detailed models and meshes work against you. You aren't making believe. You are beyond the point of pretending that the pixelated shapes are real clothes and bodies and faces, because at this point, they're close enough that you don't need to. There's no gap to bridge. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're lifelike, at least, not enough to be completely human. In some ways, they're still tethered to being cartoony and plasticky and fake. Just enough to frighten you. Enough to put you off. They're not using it to their advantage anymore, and instead, it's holding them back.

When the Sims 2 came out in 2004, the developers knew that they weren't going to make a perfectly accurate life simulator. They physically couldn't render every wrinkle in the face or fold in the clothing. In some animations, things clip strangely or the facial expressions are sort of janky or there's just some form of roughness around the edges. But that's okay; your brain doesn't need a perfectly accurate representation this time. That's not what you're here for, anyway.

The Sims 4 is basically Icarus-ing itself into disaster. The entire game sacrifices style for complete realism, a goal that was unachievable ten years ago, and is unachievable now.

The Sims 2 never thought of itself as a completely realistic life sim, though. It has cartoony, low poly meshes and exaggerated proportions and wild, raunchy storylines that would never occur in real life. BECAUSE IT ISN'T REAL LIFE. And it isn't like real life, not because it's failing to be, but because it doesn't want to be!

The Sims 4 is not ever going to completely replicate human looks or interactions or dynamics. And if it's trying to, it's doing a shit job of it. That shouldn't be the goal in the first place. If I wanted to watch a lonely college student talk to himself in the mirror to try and get better at interacting with people, I'd close the computer and go look at myself. It somehow highlights the most mundane parts of life without any of the whimsy and goofiness that the earlier installments had. It takes itself too fucking seriously for its own good, and it's killing both the gameplay and the art style.

The other point I'd like to bring up is the animation. The Sims 4 allows for much more customization of both sim and environments, but at the cost of dynamic animations. How many times is that grab animation reused? How many times is the same set of animations used for sims with wildly different personalities? Your sims barely feel alive with how little they express themselves.

Now, look, I'm a digital artist. I've dabbled in animation, but only briefly, and only in 2D. I've got no clue how 3D animation works, much less how it worked 20 years ago, but I can see the passion in every single animation in the Sims 2. The more niche interactions allowed for more expressive animations than in 4. They could afford to have a distinct animation for mean sims throwing the football extra hard to be assholes, rather than every sim using the same generic football-throwing animation to save time and money. I get where they're coming from. I get the idea. But in one move, you've both made the art style stiffer and less expressive, and you've made the personalities of the sims seem meaningless. Everyone acts the same, regardless of what their moodlets or their traits say. It's hollow. It's stifled. It's a waste of potential.

But for what Sims 2 lacks in polygons, it makes up for in smaller animated details. Quality over quantity. The sims have hair physics, they open the door before they get in the car, they take utensils out of the counters when they cook, they jump on the couch and the cushions smush under their weight. When they dance, the weight is realistic, and when they smile, it tugs at every one of the few dozen shapes that make up their faces. The sims are lively. They dance and sing and love and hate just like humans, and rather than being some strange attempt at mimicry, it's almost a tribute. They were made with love. You can tell that they were drawn up and rigged and animated by a bunch of people working together, studying each other and making faces in the mirror for reference and watching their kids and neighbors and dogs and hands for reference. The sims are not human, and not trying to be, but they're taking the most human parts of us and making them their own.

You could never have a game with the Sims 4's graphics and the Sims 2's gameplay. The gameplay and graphics are inexorably connected, and the Sims 2 just has so much glorious detail baked into it, that you could never really make it work underneath the limitations of the later games. The developers of 2 knew what their limits were, and they worked tirelessly to make the game as full and complex as they could within those limits. The developers for the Sims 4 just did not have those guidelines, and thus, the drive to bend the rules was no longer there. They didn't go wild in rebellion because they were never told they couldn't in the first place. They spent the entire time chasing a goal they couldn't meet, and lost sight of what made the series fun to begin with.

It wasn't the realism you came for; you had realism already surrounding you. It was the caricature of it that made it interesting.

[mofuubuns]

Had an encounter where Kylar took Mari to an alley to fuck, and this happens-

So Kylar can read the body writing/tattoos now?? Is this part of the new update or has this been an old thing and I just haven't been playing enough-

[harmoniouseclipse]

Beach date 🌊💙

[llitchilitchi]

I get hating certain political systems and trying to abolish totalitarian regimes but at the same time many of them are so interwoven with our history and society they have become tropes and when I consume media with a setting where the monarchy is absolute and revered then I am playing my part and sucking that princeling off

[uncanny-tranny]

One of the reasons I think it's so important to foster intellectual curiosity and, ultimately, learning and a love for learning is how it subtly changes the very way you interact with and understand the world around you.

It's funny, because I spent time just to hunt and find a skull in Skyrim just so I could rotate it in my inventory and admire how detailed it was for five minutes, pleased about how I could point out and name individual bones (they even included the individual cranial sutures! Including my favourite suture (lambdoid suture)). I'm now trying to hunt for a skeleton so I can spend even more time admiring it. There's something funny and empowering about how the way I interact with things has changed with my learning.

If there is nothing else you do, learn. It doesn't matter what you learn, just seek out information. I know for some, a love of learning was almost punished in environments like school, so start out with things you are inspired by, things that deeply pique your interest. Learning isn't a punishment, it doesn't have to be scary. Whatever you want to learn about is worth the time and effort it takes to understand it.

[ruthplaysthesims]

Okay, good people. So as a good few of you know, Carlos and Kaori will be playing married couple for a day. They're basically going undercover at Naoki's gala. That also means they're going to be socializing with others A LOT!! So we need a good story on how they met and got engaged. It needs to be solid. Waiting for you guys' answers in the comments. (Their undercover names will be revealed later 🤫)

Yes, I may have my own Ideas, but I want this story to be interactive with you guys. and I love doing things like these with you! Please be respectful and let's chat 😀😆

[viktormaru]

Me crying on twitter again whenever I remember most ppl seem to think "narrative heavy" or "good storytelling" in video games inherently means hours of cutscenes or a bunch of dialogue

(^ thinks experiencing the story through gameplay mechanics can get a much more genuine and intense reaction from a player as they see the direct consequences of their actions on the world and characters surrounding them)

[fallincloversims]

After prizing Autumn from Indi’s tiny, grabby hands, Josie lay her down for a nap in her crib. Just as she had got her settled, Teddy quietly crept into the nursery and whispered softly, trying not to disturb the slumbering infant.

Teddy: Business associates? You don’t think…

Josie: I don’t know… Blake definitely met my dad, but who knows how close they are or even if they still work together?

Teddy: If you think he might be there we should skip it–

Josie: We 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 to go, Livi’s basically your sister. Not going would raise too many questions...

Teddy: But–

Josie: I’m just overthinking it. Why would they invite some people they hardly know to their wedding? C’mon, Autumn’s gonna wake up if we keep talking in here and I still need to convince Mels to let go of Aussie…

[moliathh]

crossover: hellsing x identity v

Integra as survivor (rescuer type), career: occultist

Alucard and Seras are hunters, their alias is Alucard is No-Life and Seras is Draculina.

this is what i mean when i said hunter Alucard attacks with his mouth because his hands are tied

[dayzadraws]

[reluctanttrabbit]

WAIT SHUT UP ITS A REALLY SMALL DETAIL BUT I JUST NOTICED SOMETHING CUTE IN THE OLD SECURITY BREACH TRAILERS

THE GLAMROCK NEON SIGNS USED TO BE ANIMATED...

[veone]

Zyanya Perez 

[xxfillerxx]

[nooboosim]

Some of my favorite photos that I never posted

[fanworldbuildingfun]

A little bit more on Mirage

So far from the dwv comments I get a feeling that the games Mirage would resemble most would be Unity and Syndicate

Except for the purported fame scale, which is closer to Ezio trilogy. The only difference being, I have a feeling there would be no way to reduce fame levels in Mirage?... But that is just my feeling so far

As to why I feel like the rest would be more like Unity and Syndicate? So far the fighting and parkour look the most like those games. Just spruced up with a new game engine and the fluidity that reminds me of Origins

(No offence meant for the rest of Layla trilogy - but Greece did not give as many climbing opportunities that weren't large buildings or cliffs And Valhalla - well. No matter how well you do it, Eivor just feels heavier than either Bayek or Kassandra / Alexious. My pet theory is that it was because she was made with heavy gear in mind, and it carries no matter what you put on her)

I am kind of curious what chain assassination would look and feel like in the end - and boy, do I see a lot of noise around it. Which, fair, right now it looks like something that belongs in Ragnarok DLC. But I do hope there would be some in lore explanation for why it looks like that? E.g. like they did with the whole Asgard sequence for Eivor. Maybe it's just Loki leaking and processing the surroundings at ISU speed instead of regular human speed. And since we play as Basim, we piggyback off that

[episims]

Household: Root

I kinda want to have informative summaries but I realized that I rarely share my thoughts of what's going on (apart from occasional blabbering in the tags) and eh. Who cares about that, even. But I have a feeling that not many care that much about who got a promotion and whatnot during the last round, either.

So I'll try this kind of commentary thing out.

During the last round, Judi and Ally broke up after Judi got pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby, Ally really truly did not. What they had in common was a total inability to understand each other's views.

Tbh I wasn't a huge fan of their dynamics to start with. Ally likes to be the center of attention, which frankly is impossible to do when Judi's in the same room. And Judi needs someone who sees through her facade, which I don't think Ally ever wanted to do.

So I wasn't sure what to do with them, but I sure didn't plan for Judi to get pregnant either! That was about the messiest possible way for them to part ways, sigh. But what's done is done, and now Judi is in this alone, which... might not be a completely bad thing?