De Sims 4 screens en informatie in Games magazine

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Nadat we even rond hadden gezocht kwamen we erachter dat de vorige screen van de bouwmodus in De Sims 4 uit de nieuwste uitgave (nummer 138) van het magazine games™ komt. Jammer genoeg is dit magazine niet gratis.

The Sims 4 is due for an unveiling next week at Gamescom, but if you absolutely can’t wait to find out about the next Sims game from Maxis then you’re in luck: games™ has the exclusive details.

games™ Issue 138 details what Maxis hopes to achieve with The Sims 4, how the game focuses more on the emotions of your digital people and some of the changes to the create and build portions of the game.

In het magazine staat een artikel van 8 pagina’s over De Sims 4. Zo staat er onder meer dat de Koeienplant in De Sims 4 zal zitten. Verder worden ook de producers van De Sims 4 geïnterviewd. Zo heeft producer Lyndsay Pearson het op een gegeven moment over de pinguïn uit De Sims 2 die met de sneeuwpop ging praten. Zal dat misschien een hint zijn dat pinguïns in De Sims 4 of een uitbreiding zullen terugkeren? Wij hopen in ieder geval van wel.

Hieronder volgen een aantal citaten en screens uit het artikel over De Sims 4.

“For The Sims 4 we’re actually really going back to the Sims themselves and giving them an entirely new dimension,” continues Franklin. “Adding this emotional aspect is opening up all kinds of new gameplay for us. To do this we actually have a totally new set of technology and tools that are underpinning all of our systems under our gameplay, powering our creative tools, powering our animations and all of the gameplay itself.”

We want each of those progressions and each of those emotions to feel really rich and deep and different. You’ll see different content unlock, different socials unlock and different outcomes unlock within a bunch of different factors in the game – the way you get through skills, careers, the way you get through your day. So there’s a lot of emergence in there that people will get to explore for a long time.” Naturally, moodlets contribute to reflect situations and events as they have done in the past, while clothing and the surroundings will also feed into the emotion of a Sim. Furniture can be purchased through an Ikea-like catalogue, offering a range of items that directly influence how a Sim feels within the environment – for example, an inspirational painting could boost the creativity of a
Sim. Of course, there’s a risk that tethering emotional charges to everyday items could create a vapid household of conveniently appeased Sims, or worse, commonplace objects awarding arbitrary buffs.

“We spent a lot of time tuning that,” Pearson explains. “It has a lot to do with the weight we give any particular thing. Though it might be we decide that we give a flirty painting and that may give you an impact if you’re in a flirty mood – like if it’s in your bedroom and it’s your little love nest and it’ll enhance that. It’s not that if you have a flirty painting in your bathroom and walk in the door then all of a sudden you’ll be flirty. It’s not that crazy. So it has a lot to do with how we weigh the importance of those things. There are going to be certain things that will have a big impact that’ll change your emotion right away, but others are going to have to be accumulative and add up to changing your emotion overall.”

The Sims 4 and custom content
The Sims 4 wants to make creation accessible, and producer Lyndsay Pearson predicts that the new tools will galvanise the community: “We think by letting these tools be more fun, more useable and more powerful for people who might not have tried it before that will also hopefully galvanise them to want to share creations and say ‘Hey I’m good at this too, look what I made.’ And then make that experience easier for people who want to opt into that.” The Sims Exchange is set to be an embedded aspect of the Sims experience.

Group interactions
“When multiple Sims are interacting with each other, it happens in a natural way.” “We’ve effectively taken that intelligence and translated it into the algorithms that control the grouping of the Sims,” adds creative director Ray Mazza. “We’re also giving players control over groups of Sims. You can now tell Sims when they’re in groups to do things together. ‘Go over there together,’ or click on a basketball hoop and select ‘shoot hoops together.’ It makes it really easy to do things together, rather than orchestrate each Sim individually.”

Multitasking
But by far the most fundamental improvement is the Sims’ newfound ability to multitask and Mazza jumps into an example of how the system will streamline gameplay. “Your Sim can go to the gym and you can have your Sim hop on the treadmill and then watch the home and garden channel on the TV – so she’s gaining a little gardening skill and getting fit on the treadmill. Then a guy walks up next to her and starts bench-pressing, and she decides she wants to flirt with this Sim. She can do that without having to get off the treadmill, walk around that Sim and kick him out of the object. They can just do this as they’re exercising. They can form a relationship, fulfilling their social needs and gaining some skills. It
looks natural, it feels good and it’s more strategic.” It’ll also have other social benefits. “Sims can now double fist drinks,” laughs Mazza, “That’ll certainly help with group interactions.”

Create-A-Sim
“Our main goal is to advance ease of-use, tactility and power of the tool. It’s kind of like reaching in, grabbing, pulling and moving the Sim yourself. It’s like moulding clay – but not so messy.” The Super Mario 64 analogy is rather apt; players can use the mouse to tweak facial structure, body proportions, and overall shape to create more diverse Sims. There are several levels of detail at work, zooming in to stretch eyelid width, tug at pupil size and even noodle the nostrils if you so desire and even dictate the style in which they walk around their environment.

Build Mode – the new Blocks system
“We designed a system called ‘Blocks’ and they are… well, building blocks for the house.”

You place a ready-formed structure (with walls and floor already attached) based on a catalogue of shapes, and manipulate its parameters, stretching walls and surfaces, tweaking objects – such as the pitch, curvature and overhang of roofs – all the time the infrastructure adapts to the alterations on-the-fly.

Producer Vaughan: “A lot of players in the past have really invested themselves in these very intricate buildings, which you can still do in Sims 4, but now you are able to grab these blocks, grab these rooms, and put stuff together quickly. If you don’t like it then pull it apart and put it back together in another way.”

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4 reacties

  1. Even ter verduidelijking:
    Het nieuwe ‘blocks’ systeem is een extra optie die ze hebben toegevoegd om het bouwen makkelijker te maken. Het is dus niet zo dat dit de enige manier is om huizen te bouwen in De Sims 4.

    Producer Vaughan: “A lot of players in the past have really invested themselves in these very intricate buildings, which you can still do in Sims 4, but now you are able to grab these blocks, grab these rooms, and put stuff together quickly. If you don’t like it then pull it apart and put it back together in another way.”

  2. Mij lijkt het erg leuk, maar ik ben niet weg van het uiterlijk van de huizen en Sims. het doet me erg denken aan een Cartoon of Sims 2. Maar voor de rest lijkt ie me hartstikke gaaf en ook de manier waarop je Sims creeërd is erg handig, Nu kan je veel sneller bijv. jezelf namaken