What is the appeal of The Sims?

[Wiglaf]

You got to the top of a career ladder while playing for an hour?

Learn to read. You're so ****ing annoying.

It takes an hour to realize all you need to do is make friends and buy equipment to advance. That is the only "challenge", and it is beaten with time, not skill, since it is virtually impossible to fail. Get over yourself.

[Krill]

I seriously doubt a demogame is escapism if you're involved deeply. They literally become your life.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


LOTM: Why did you design a family with 2 adults and 5 kids, in a small house? You never have enough money, whoever is sleeping in the living room is always being disturbed, you dont have room for stuff you need. Wouldnt it be better to wait till you know the game better? Why now?
POTM: For the challenge.

I did that once. It was a nightmare! Those little brats wouldn't shut up. I still never figured out how to bathe babies. So until I could change their diapers, they would stink up the whole room. And cry about it!

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


Learn to read. You're so ****ing annoying.

It takes an hour to realize all you need to do is make friends and buy equipment to advance. That is the only "challenge", and it is beaten with time, not skill, since it is virtually impossible to fail. Get over yourself.

The Sims 2 changes this by giving you scenarios about your job. Your responses to the scenarios affect your job performance.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


LOTM: Why did you design a family with 2 adults and 5 kids, in a small house? You never have enough money, whoever is sleeping in the living room is always being disturbed, you dont have room for stuff you need. Wouldnt it be better to wait till you know the game better? Why now?
POTM: For the challenge.

Originally posted by DrSpike
No one has really nailed it.

The popularity of the Sims comes from (and has reinforced) the widening of the customer base.

The new entrants to the market don't want games where skill affects the outcome, they don't want to achieve difficult goals and they most definitely don't want to lose. Where's the fun in that?

Instead they play in their sandpit going "look Edward he's cleaning the kitchen!!"

It's perfectly clear.

A year later you quote the best post in this thread, and it's still true.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by DaShi


The Sims 2 changes this by giving you scenarios about your job. Your responses to the scenarios affect your job performance.

[Krill]

[q=Spike]A year later you quote the best post in this thread, and it's still true. [/q]

That is because the nature of the sims will never change. In 5000 years when aliens start to excavate our planet, they'll find what they perceive to be a digital manual of our main religion that teaches everyone how to live. And guess what. It'll be the sims.

[Blake]

To say as that Sims players don't like to be challenged is utterly retarded. Everyone likes to be challenged, just because their challenge isn't the same as yours doesn't mean it's not challenge. The Sims is a game which is open at both ends, you can enter a game with very difficult families.

The argument used is a lot like "CIV is pointless because you can just play on settler difficult and win even if you're a total ******. There's no challenge."
The fact that CIV has a settler difficult doesn't mandate you to play on that difficulty, in the same way the fact you can create a perfect family to start The Sims with, doesn't mandate you to do that, you can create 1 parent and 4 kids...

Most CIV players do not play on the easiest levels, they play a difficulty which challenges them (and quit once it looks like they've won).
Most Sim players do not play perfect families, they play families which challenge them (and quit once the family stops being challenging).

Sims players who stick with the game become good at creating their own challenge through the medium of expression, like having the father run away with some hussy, or some parentacide, or by having a kid derail because he missed getting perfect stats before growing up... Random injections of creative chaos, is half of the name of the game.
Sims players, as the patron deity of their Sim families, like to throw those families curve-balls, to keep life interesting
The game itself will also throw those curve balls, in The Sims 2 at least, for example, it's possible for a Sim to DIE repairing the trash compactor (heheheh), alive one moment, dead the next. Sims can get fired from their job, the entire family bank account can be wiped out in a bad event, things like that. Whether or not the player reloads depends on their integrity, much like CIV players *chuckle*.

And now to point out something very few people would dare deny.
The majority of CIV players play on a difficult where they can't lose, they want to overcome some difficulty, but prevail in the end. A loss is considered a major upset. Few CIV players would dare play at a difficulty where they have the same chance of winning as the individual AI's

Hate on the game all you want, but leave the players out of it. You are not better than them.
Not better than, not worse than, not the same as, just different.
Understand?

It's a simple fact that the game is JUST PLAIN ****TILY MADE, it's a bug ridden pile of crap and requires a long list of mods to fix the bugs and close the loopholes. The basic premise of the game is however an entirely respectable one, and once modded to fix it, it's quite a decent game.

[Wiglaf]

Sims players who stick with the game become good at creating their own challenge through the medium of expression, like having the father run away with some hussy, or some parentacide, or by having a kid derail because he missed getting perfect stats before growing up... Random injections of creative chaos, is half of the name of the game.

They don't add challenge. No matter what your goal is in the Sims 1, it can be accomplished just by taking a lot of time.

Playing Civ4 on a reasonably tough difficulty level doesn't mean it just takes you longer to win. It means you need to think more/micromanage more or lose.

And now to point out something very few people would dare deny.
The majority of CIV players play on a difficult where they can't lose, they want to overcome some difficulty, but prevail in the end. A loss is considered a major upset. Few CIV players would dare play at a difficulty where they have the same chance of winning as the individual AI's

A totally bull**** assertion. Nobody plays Civ 4 knowing they will win. They expect at least some challenge, which the sims does not provide.

[Solver]

You'd think so. It turns out that many casual players play Civ4 knowing they will win - as in, they play at a difficulty level where they easily win 95% of the time or even use the worldbuilder to cheat because that's what they find fun.

[Wiglaf]

When you're making illogical assertions like that, it's nice to back them up.

A more reasonable assertion is that people play at a level that, based on their skill level, they feel comfortable that they have good chances of winning. No one wants to lose, but no one wants a completely guaranteed win either.

One poster here, I think it is the rasputin guy, used to keep saying settler was too hard for him. So just because bad players are playing settler doesn't mean they're getting easy wins or expecting it. Even at that level you need to make more & less obvious decisions than the sims provides.

[Solver]

I'm not talking about the people here. Apolytoners, generally, represent the hardcore group. Casual players aren't like that.

Granted, yes, even Civ4 on Settler has you making more decisions than Sims. That's true.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


They don't add challenge. No matter what your goal is in the Sims 1, it can be accomplished just by taking a lot of time.

So just play with a damned self imposed time limit.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike




A year later you quote the best post in this thread, and it's still true.

The point was doc, now that ive actually got the game, i have examples of folks playing who do we want to be challenged.

Now Im not saying that POTM is typical of the playerbase. I really dont know many sims players, and unlike Wiggy here, I dont hang on the Sims message boards chatting up little old ladies. It may be that all most of them want to do is play with low challenge, so they can then play interior decorator. (and Im not sure exactly whats wrong with that - Im more into architecture myself, as opposed to matching wallpaper, which im singularly incompetent at, and playing with architecture is fun, just as building roller coasters, say is fun in RCT, or as designing a ship is in MOO2 - and just as in MOO2, you can design a ship purely for coolness, of design the ideal ship with the battles you want to play in mind, in the Sims you can design a house for its own coolness, or do so with your gameplay in mind). But it is clear to me that at least some folks DO play for challenge.

I think the challenge vs no-challenge issue has to be seperated from "defined goals" vs "no defined goals" issues.

Simcity2000 had no defined goals (in sandbox mode, the most common way to play) but it was easy to make it challenging. The Sims is less challenging, as well as having no defined goals. There are dozens of games out there that have defined goals, and are still easy, or can be and often are played in unchallenging modes.

Id love to see the SIms be more challenging, and can thing of many ways to make it so (like aging and dying, which I gather is part of Sims2) or lowering salary levels, or whatever. I dont think taking away sand box mode is desirable though.

[Wiglaf]

I really dont know many sims players, and unlike Wiggy here, I dont hang on the Sims message boards chatting up little old ladies.

I don't chat up little old ladies either. Where do you get off being such a douche bag?

I looked at the forum six years ago to see threads about soap operas and how to "plug in the keyboard so I can use the game" and "this is a great way to pass the time while ironing!" It was amusing.

So just play with a damned self imposed time limit.

You can't speed up the process much, though. If you've got five kids and one adult, it's going to take a long time to get a bigger house, get a better job, etc. Better players who know exactly the right moment to send their little man to the pooper might shave a few fake sim hours off their time, but that's hardly any big achievement.