#sims 3: the true sequel

[thedarkmistress16]

My pitch for a future Sims game (5, 6, whatever) that is a proper sequel to 3 but better

or, what sims 4 should have done logically, if I want to be petty about it this is a long ride buckle the fuck in

Simply take what 3 did for base game and condense it a bit, but add more mechanics in other areas for a more well-rounded base game that is a clear love letter to Sims 3, with a focus on the optimization of gameplay.

Talkin' open world, but keep it mostly the same. Have decent gameplay for babies and toddlers, alongside pools, hot tubs, and other basic things that sims 4 did not include on launch but every other Sims game beforehand did in THEIR base (yes I will always hold this against them).

Include seasons, pets, occult sims (aliens, ghosts, zombies, and vampires), a very vanilla high school and community college system, and one vacation/travel lot AT LEAST. Have these features with extremely basic systems that work fine as is, and leave the more in-depth features for future expansions that justify the price point. Do not replace those systems upon said expansion, but rather build upon them further in a meaningful way and add new features that complement the pack's focus.

Example: Make an education pack that focuses on not just including forms of higher degree types like masters, doctorates, and certifications with an importance for major and minor declaration for a new university world, but also creating a preschool and/or kindergarten system, and a middle/junior school one. Maybe have them act as rabbit holes that family members or guardians need to drop the youngins at and have them learn additional skills, make friends, or improve their mood while they're there like a regular, older Sim does at school. Maybe the kids can bring things for a "show and tell" assignment one day and bring home pictures they've drawn or a toy they've swiped on others (for the klepto enthusiasts). Have public and private schools (elementary and up) differ in discipline methods, event messages, and usage of uniforms. Also include a homeschooling option and, in general, have the institutions declare a "wacky hat day" or "wear this color day" to just make things more lively.

For careers, let Sims have internships either offered by an institution they attend or the career path/field they're in or apply for. Varieties on payment, scheduling, and location can make each field's internship more diverse, especially so when based around the current Sim applicant's qualifications of skill level, income, scheduling, and traits. Would be neat to have jobs that may ask a Sim to relocate, not unlike WA's traveling opportunities. Thinking for Fashion, Business, and Reviewer careers to name a few.

Have birds and rabbits behave like cats and dogs mainly do now for pet expansions- to have four main and common household pet options (instead of two or three) that have the ability to be trained and interacted with more in general (I understand horses may not be included ever again and I love them in 3 but I am fine with not having them here despite that horses are fucking great-). Depending on the pet's personality traits, they can react very differently to other animal species in the same household, such as giving a cat a predator trait living with a bird and causing the feline to act more hostile and aggressively toward said bird when in close proximity. Maybe have traits that pit cats and dogs against each other as well, such as dogs having a moodlet to "chase a cat up a tree" or something to that effect. Even further, perhaps include special traits like Sims 4's aspiration traits in CAS but for specific breeds in this Sims 3 sequel like a history of hunters or intelligence or show business. And if creating a custom breed of animal, you have the freedom to choose that special trait for yourself and start a new breed heritage of that pet.

STORY MODE. You're a liar if you don't miss the hell and chaos that is playing through the first Sims games like Sims 1, Bustin Out, Urbz, 2, and Sims 2 Castaway on console and the Sims 2 Stories and Sims Medieval on PC. Simply having the option for story mode makes a Sims game feel more robust and complete, giving players more to do after fucking around in freeplay for a while or are lost amiss the abundance of features at their disposal. Catching a robber then unlocking their career was so fucking cool. Traveling to various lots and getting to know existing Sim relationships, personal journeys, and plights helps get the creative juices flowing for freeplay, too. Trying to juggle a job, numerous relationships, skills, and needs was fucking hell in early Sim game story modes (without cheats. otherwise, what's the point?), but so fucking rewarding when you do complete it. Bonus points for including Sim family mainstays like the Landgrabbs or Goths, even for a small cameo.

Bring back the color wheel OR use a single color for each channel and edit that with tone/saturation/transparency sliders. THERE IS NO ACCEPTABLE IN-BETWEEN HERE SO GET THOSE DEMON SWATCHES OUT OF MY FACE (wheel for pet CAS, swatches and sliders for CAS but only swatches for build/buy mode? wtf EA pick one. no wonder S4 is such a nightmare).

Please for the love of everything make an Island Paradise pack work with the hotels, scuba diving, and mermaids with better houseboat placement and optimization. Bonus fun thing: Add some Atlantis or any lost underwater city lore for high-level divers to find in the most dangerous diving locations. maybe have them swim into a pocket of water filled with ancient relics or creatures that existed years ago like narwhales or make llama/unicorn seahorses, i dunno. Maybe a nod to the lore in Sims 2 Castaway or Sims 2 Castaway Stories. Something fun and ocean-themed to add onto the fun of exploring in the pack. And adding more lore never hurts.

For Sim birthdays, let's make their likes and dislikes, and favorite things they enjoy have more meaning than just a description in their bio or briefly mentioned in the message/notif box during convos. Have a variety of different cake flavors, colors, and candle toppers to choose from, as well as decorate the home with streamers, balloons, and banners. Have these be various color schemes and designs, but also of themes like royalty, galaxy, dinos, gaming, mythical creatures/magic, aliens, wild west, carnival, pirates, superhero, underwater, vehicles, gothic, seasons, holidays (for the "my birthday lands next to/on a holiday" peeps), and some sim mascots like freezer bunny and tragic clown, to name a few. Have Sims be able to pick their favorite and disliked or hated things, either discovered through gameplay or chosen in CAS. And have objects that are meant to be gifted to the birthday Sim have choices in wrapping color, designs, and extravagance (simple. plain wrapping, themed, with all the bells and whistles). Have the option to gift coupons and gift cards too, lol. This would give players the opportunity to make each birthday of a Sim be either their best day ever, surrounded by their favorite things and feeling loved, or the absolute worst one of their lives and planned utterly and completely wrong (having an upset or angry moodlet, depending on their traits). Even if there's little to sparse decorating or the cake is the only thing they like, they can still have a tiny moodlet boost for the ones that don't like big celebrations on their birthday but can still get something nice out of it. Grant them a greater moodlet bonus when they partake in things they enjoy or hate doing on their birthday (in Sims 3 terms, like an additional +5 or +10 increase to a base reaction to something they already like doing or hate, such as enjoying being alone even more than normal or hating the outdoors would worsen their mood when they stay outside longer that day). If too robust to code, acceptable to make into a pack that expands upon families or as a smaller pack with just this birthday mechanic in place as the selling point but a basic likes and dislikes system in place for base game. Birthdays functioning akin to a Sims 2 PC event or as a candle interaction with optional party set-up in Sims 3/4 would depend on the coding requirements.

Other Fun Packs to Include:

A Wild West/Cowboy/Native American expansion pack. I haven't seen this theme done since Sims 2 console and a bit of SIms 3 (but in Pets it's more ranch than anything) and I wanna see more of it. Give me a world with a dedicated museum, historical plots of land, a cheesy Indian-themed casino, some colonial aesthetics, and half-de-commissioned, worn railroad tracks placed somewhere in the map. Gives me an excuse to see a dumb Woody costume in there, too. Maybe add horses here! A southern style of architecture on the buildings and homes would be neat to see here, too.

Make a Superhero pack. Maybe combine it with an "Into the Future-esque" pack or something where a sim's genetics can be altered to have superpowers like increased strength = faster athletic/gymnastics skill build rate or crazier muscle definition. Or higher stamina = less energy depletion. Just simple things that the reward system does for achievements. Oh and not to mention the ability to fly, shapeshift, and control elements!!!?!!?? Like regular occult such as vampires already and have been doing for years?? How have superpowers not been a pack yet?!? (Movie Stuff doesn't count) Perhaps include a heroic and villainous progression system/tree that grants certain rewards when deeds of a good or bad alignment have been done, making evil and good trait Sims more important and possibly affecting the time stream as well if still merged with a time-jumping pack. By extension, throw in angels and demons as llamas because of the alignment scale PLUS the canon of Sims praying to or being derived from llama people will never NOT be the funniest Sim lore I have ever encountered and it would be really fun to see at like, high superhero levels a Sim can achieve. Would give a chance to poke at the player for being god or something too, like Medivial does. I want some actual Sim mutants in my game, not just cosmetic look-alikes, lol.

Have a Master Suite pack combined with Wicked Whims, lol. But seriously, give us more juicy, dramatic, and sweet interactions that Sims can do with others romantically like polygamy relationships, an escort career system, periods and ovulations, couple therapy sessions, more sex skills, etc. Let a Sim's orientation, sexuality, and preferences affect how other Sims engage with them like how compatible and incompatible traits react upon discovery, on top of including them in general. Let me see the chaos or harmony a Sim polycule will bring. Or an anime-inspired harem ripe with jealousy. Make the SIms adult again guys tf, lol.

Do a Fast Lane pack but INCLUDE A RACECAR DRIVER CAREER plus an auto mechanic/detailing/manufacturing, tow truck driver, and delivery driver (warehouse or fast food) careers and part-time jobs. Would or would not lead to Sims dying more race-wise but this franchise is all about wacky deaths so might as well (that was a wacky races reference btw). Damn hold up we've had helicopters and yachts for cutscenes and rabbit hole travel since Sims 1 and 2 and Urbz and Castaway and like, none after that? Fuck include skydivers, pilots, stewardesses, security detail, luggage carriers, flight instructors as job titles in the plane field, and actual airports while we're at it. Taxi to that airport and then rabbit hole to your destination. This could've easily been an expansion pack istg-

How about more rollercoasters? And water parks and carnivals and state fairs and big tops? Do a whole pack about this theme park aesthetic and give adrenaline junkie or fear of heights and from funnel cake to BBQ lover or sensitive stomach traits. How about being able to take pictures of little kids on the slow spinning rides for the family members and include the long wait time and rigged game negative moodlets and the worth the wait and exhilarating ride positive ones. Let Sims gorge on peanuts under the big top and see the elephants or have a clown completely ruin their day at the theme park because they have a hate clowns trait or a prior nightmare experience. Have their level of activeness-laziness and playfulness-seriousness affect how they react to riding a coaster of different twists, turns, loops, and speeds, if possible.

(Not a pack but an extension of the above with coasters used as an example:) Also include the possibility to die on a coaster or other event, or perhaps let certain memories stick with Sims like next to someone who died or survived a crash and have that prevent that sim from autonomously doing and refusing to go on any roller coaster again or a specific coaster/action forever or for a really long time, having that lessened with optional and continuous therapy sessions. Give my Sims traumatic experiences that block them from doing certain actions and, when cheated to do them or have their memory intensity lessened enough to do that action again, have a higher risk of actually having that fear come true, greatly decreasing the effect the memory has on them, or completely getting over their fear depending on the level of intensity the traumatic memory has on that Sim at that time, on top of personality traits like Un/Lucky and general world chance variables within the world's coding.

[felassan]

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from some older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube videos where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago. (Multiple videos are covered in this post, so the source video of each bullet point is included there) -

"I'm pretty sure that the [in-world] Dragon Age will be an age that lasts a suspiciously long time, as long as there are Dragon Ages being made. I don't think they will drop 'Dragon Age' because it's such an identifiable part of the franchise". [source]

"I totally cannot spoil what the original Black City was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure that the approach to lore in DA has always been to leave it ambiguous to allow the future to go where it needs to go. Though that being said, DA:O was definitely built with the assumption that it was not getting a sequel." [source]

"The Calling is presented as taking decades to kill you on its own. So Alistair would still be alive in DA:I and DA:D if he went that way. I think, if I remember the lore correctly." [source]

"DA:O introduces a lot of hanging plot threads that aren't necessarily resolved. Orzammar potentially sets up a civil war, there's potentially werewolves running around. There's a lot of stuff we've been able to kind've ignore, but there's a lot of stuff that's still out there. The line of succession for Ferelden is open isn't it." [source]

[on the Warden's quest for a cure for the Calling] "I don't think it's established that the cure is actually found is it. Or just that they're looking." [source]

"Likely any cure for the Calling would be to extract the Taint from the person, so you would basically cease being a Grey Warden at that point." [source]

"I think they're treating the Trespasser epilogue slides as canon." [source]

[during DA:O epilogue slides] "You can see, this leaves a lot of threads in a lot of potential different directions that Dragon Age has been dealing with since then, since 2009." [source]

"The resistance that there was for toolset for Frostbite was a feeling like, 'this engine is proprietary, it does a bunch of stuff that we don't want other people to be able to steal'. That's basically not even true anymore. There's actually a feeling now within EA that user-generated content, UGC, is incredibly good, that it's basically free marketing. Like you say, Skyrim has been going forever. So that's why, EA has a really complicated relationship with UGC. What they want is basically, everyone to make TikTok videos and things about how great the game is. They don't necessarily want you to make DLC or Twitch stream the thing but they also recognize that this is not a, you don't get to have one without the other really. Yeah, the 'cost of free ads from fans is fan DLC'. That's pretty much, sums it up perfectly." [source]

"CD Projekt uses slightly different language than BioWare did for DLCs, expansion packs etc. I would not classify the free DLCs from The Witcher as expansion packs, they're DLC. They called them expansion packs but from my perspective, an expansion pack is larger than that but it's a spectrum for sure. The thing I would say about CD Projekt in general is they're amazingly good at picking the right language. So what they did on Witcher 3 is they said, they added a tiny bit of content to each of their patches and said 'this is DLC, we're going to give it away for free, aren't we amazing?' And then they made their DLC a little bit bigger and then said 'these are expansion packs, we're gonna charge for that', brilliant. Honestly brilliant. Because it makes them, it's a great PR move, it also meant that they got a, every time they released a patch they essentially got an article on the gaming sites. It's something that BioWare and frankly DA in particular is pretty bad at, like, naming things, and using language that makes things sound better." [source]

[on The Sims] "'Buy a thing and then later they release more stuff to add to your thing', it's an amazing business model. It's also a business model that EA does not understand, they, like BioWare, suffer from being a thing that exists within the sports-focused EA ecosystem that, constantly trying to explain that 'our players are not the same as your players, you need to let us do what we know how to do'." [source]

"We had a free-to-play version for DA multiplayer, that was Hendrix. It's not on the, EA didn't want it to exist so it was only on the servers for a little while, a couple of months, but it was actually there. I'm sure it's not up anymore." [source]

"I don't know if Frostbite is gonna die. I think there's a very good chance that what's going to happen is, it may become the next sports engine. FIFA is a monolith and has taken over the driver's seat for that engine. I don't think they're gonna be very interested in switching again. Even if active Frostbite development in general goes away, FIFA will keep going and then a bunch of other games live in the rain shadow of FIFA, like NHL." [source]

"If it was up to me, I'd probably have forced Mass Effect onto Frostbite. And I would be strongly inclined to keep Dragon Age on Frostbite for at least one more game because you've built the foundation. The best engine to use is the one you just used. But I don't know what's gonna happen after DA:D to be honest. BioWare seems to be addicted to throwing away work they've done in the past. And it was never up to me." [source]

"Frostbite isn't a recruitment negative but certainly it's a lot easier to find people that already know how to use Unreal. What you actually see in programming is some people, it's not a universal, but some programmers, they don't wanna work in Unreal because they feel like someone else gets to do all the cool programming bits." [source]

"The question for Awakening is should it have even been an expansion pack, or is a different solution to have made it, say, 40% bigger and made it a full-sized game. This is, I think, the reason why expansion packs are so rare these days is because, it's easy to imagine a path from an expansion pack to a $60 or $70 game and then you're getting somewhere between 80-120% attach as opposed to 30% attach. I suspect this is the primary reason why expansion packs have kind've faded away, because 'I'm gonna ship every year' is fairly accepted within games these days. So honestly the pitch for Joplin's live service was 'we're not gonna do a live service, we're gonna do a game, and then we're gonna do another game in 18 months and another 18 months after that. And maybe we'll do one piece of DLC in there, but we'll just be like dunk-dunk-dunk' and the economics for that are great. So that's why expansion packs are gone I think." [source]

"That's the fundamental problem of DA:O not knowing it's gonna have sequels, it leaves the world in a very quantum state. There's still stuff that's hinted at in those [epilogue slides] that are happening sometime in the future that I think are gonna probably at this point be ignored. Probably the biggest issue of DA:O is that it leaves the world in a state that probably wasn't intending that there would be a sequel." [source]

"When we were discussing doing a remaster for the trilogy, my pitch was to essentially retcon it [DA:O, DAII and DA:I] into a trilogy, to make it the 'Champion's Trilogy' or something to that effect, where you group the three games together, imply that they were always intended to be a trilogy kind of, and then that does a couple of things. It packages them into something that stands on its own a bit better, but also lets you potentially change what you're doing with the player character going forward. If you've decided that, okay, we've changed player character every single game up until now, but maybe we're not going to do that going forward, by packaging them together in a remaster you kind've give yourself permission to do that. Certainly DA:D is gonna have a new player character, given that the one from DA:I is missing a limb." [source]

"We probably oversold the Wardens in the marketing for DA:O. Because essentially, what we did was establish them as the coolest thing in the world and then yeah, so the series has definitely been dealing with the aftermath oh 'but not Wardens? Therefore not cool' forever since then." [source]

"But a new player character means you have a harder job every single game, because you have to get people interested, you don't get the shortcut of 'Shepard is Shepard, you know Shepard'." [source]

"Anders is the one that made us rethink how we introduce romances, because a lot of people ended up in romance with him that didn't mean to. We'll see if they come back to that in DA:D, but I think that because of Anders in DAII, DA:I was definitely trying to not 'accidentally do anything to you'. But it does mean that it is very player-controlled and very player-initiated. But maybe they'll be willing to go back to that a little bit." [source]

"Tevinter Nights does a really good job of staying away from violating canon. The thing with, the further you go away from what's in the games the more you are, the less well it's gonna do, so that's not necessarily a problem but it is something to keep in mind that you don't, you're trying to make money with your novels. Setting it in a time period that people don't know is great for the core fans but isn't necessarily gonna do super amazing. The advantage that Tevinter Nights is, because it's an anthology, you're able to just, everything kinda just stands on its own and therefore you're able to just stay away from the major characters to a large degree." [source]

"Varric's definitely not quantum, he's in good shape. Dorian, I feel like Dorian is guaranteed to be around [as in quantum], but maybe not, maybe I'm wrong about that. But the games have gotten better or at least more conscious of what they do with companions as it's gone on, in terms of trying to, being at least aware of the fact that you might want these people to come back, so maybe at least understand the quantum you're putting them in. There's a bunch of followers in DA:I that you might just not recruit. Like Blackwall's pretty easy to miss. Dorian can show up but he doesn't die if you don't recruit him, he's alive. The biggest thing for quantum is 'are they alive', in which, in DA:O there's a lot that don't make it. Then you have to deal with, well they might be [killed/not recruited?] or something but the biggest thing is, if they're alive you can probably make it work." [source]

"I have a feeling that Desire Demons are going to be just, ignored, or, honestly I mean one way to, I think, Desire is seen in a very narrow light in DA:O. I think if you go, if you move into Desire being a much broader concept, you have a lot of options there. I think if you approach Desire in a broader sense I think you have some opportunities. But then you kind've end up with the DA:I problem with the Fear." [source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

"Orzammar is definitely the place in DA:O that actually looks like Dragon Age. Everything else is kind've generic late 2000s fantasy, pretty much the same as The Witcher. For example, Ostagar has a more generic fantasy visual" [source]

"You know, other than DAII, DA does involve a lot of crossing the entire country to turn around and go back doesn't it" [source]

Chat asked "How well does the vanilla game DA:O play on modern hardware?" Mark replied, "I'm playing it on modern hardware, I don't have everything cranked way up and currently I'm running it in a window. It's running really well. The only thing that happens is if you turn the graphic settings up too far it will blow up because it will run out of memory. It's a 32-bit game and so if you cross 4 gig it will explode. But there are some mods out there that get you around that. That's the only problem with it is that, if you turn it up too far it will become unstable. I'm worried about stability problems during the [Battle of Denerim] part of the game" [source]

"I always found Redcliffe Village in DA:O a bit confusing to move around" [source]

Chat observed that the soil in Redcliffe would be be bad because of all the darkspawn and undead that were there. Some users theorized that the people there moved to a different part of the nearby land to make 'Redcliffe' again. Mark commented, "One of the reasons we felt okay pretty much redesigning Redcliffe in DA:I, because it's kind've broken. You know, we don't show it completely destroyed here but certainly it's hard its struggles" [source]

"I don't know who came up with the ogre-sync kill. Sync kills are really cool for bosses, they become a lot less cool for things when they're constantly happening but they're usually, unfortunately sync kills are often something that end up being de-prioritized as a feature, because they don't actually have a gameplay effect so they're kind've just aesthetics. So they often actually get cut for time reasons" [source]

Mark mentioned that he "certainly [has] some degree of lingering crunch trauma" [source]

[during the Battle of Denerim, when many creatures are on-screen] "DA:O does a good job of selling large groups for a game of its time. We must be doing a trick, something to get all this, because this is way over the creature count limit for DA:O. It's possible that we made special creatures that are way cheaper. Or it's a mixture. Waves is part of it. They aren't dropping any loot so there's definitely something going on" [source]

"Shouldn't there be people in the Wardens who have a bit more training in dragon killing?" [source]

"We probably should have auto-levelled unlevelled party members before the Battle of Denerim" [source]

[on the elves in the alienage during the Battle of Denerim] "Where'd they get the bows? Pretty sure it's frowned upon for elves to have weapons in alienages" [source]

"People do play DA solo which makes it difficult to have any sort of puzzle or anything that requires a group" [source]

[on Sandal] "I told the team if you put him in DA:I you gotta put him in everything because he basically then becomes a central figure of the franchise. So they gave him a rest. So you can blame me for him not being in DA:I" [source]

Chat asked "I'm curious why BioWare never brought back the army spawning mechanic from DA:O to DA:I, I always thought it was epic and underrated". Mark said "We talked about it in DA:I, it was actually a UI thing, we didn't have time to do the UI properly. I mean there's a lot of reasons why you don't get to play with your Inquisition well in DA:I, like to play with the organization, which is actually too bad" [source]

[while fighting baby dragons during the Battle of Denerim] Chat asked "Why are the baby dragons there in the first place?" Mark said "Someone wanted another addition to the combat. But it doesn't really make a lot of lore sense" [source]

[on lock bash] "I like what we tried to do in DA:I, giving you different things for different classes. Didn't really get used effectively. But it does strike me as weird, it didn't at the time, but playing through this, is like, you go into a space, all the chests are locked, you kill everyone, no-one has a key. Like, whose got the key to that chest?" [source]

"DA:O really does do some impressive army stuff given the chunkiness of its engine" [source]

[at end of DA:O] "Probably should have shown Morrigan leaving" [source]

"Alistair would be a fine/adequate king. He just needs a policy wonk to give him ideas" [source]

[during DA:O epilogue slides] "These are the ones that set up the quantum for the rest of the game" [source]

[during DA:O epilogue slides] "It's interesting that we called Dagna a mage" [source]

"I think DA:O still holds together. I mean it wasn't a very attractive game in 2009 and certainly it doesn't look better now than it did then, but I think it holds together. Some of the storytelling choices are problematic from a now perspective, almost everything in the Pearl, and then the whole broodmother bit could be, I mean it's a bit too far, it was probably a bit too far even at the time honestly. The combat holds up pretty well, because it's not 'push a button and immediately do an action' it has aged pretty well. The animations are kinda clunky and things don't line up very great but that's not that bothersome. It would be much more noticeable that it was a problem if things were a bit more direct" [source]

"DA:O has WASD in large part because Oblivion had WASD controls. I remember the transition and being kind've confused as to why you would do that, but yeah it's the right call. In the time that this was in development it became pretty universal" [source]

"How involved was I in Anthem? I was in charge of Anthem for the past 16 months. So a damaging amount" [source]

"Will I do an Anthem stream? I will probably do at least 1 Anthem stream. I might play through the story, I'm not gonna play multiplayer. I might play through the story and play it in pure dark pattern, forcing it to let me play it by myself, but we'll see" [note this video is several months old] [source]

[on Awakening] "Other than Destiny, this is pretty much one of the last expansion packs there ever really was with a retail presence. It's honestly a way better business than DLC. DLC you're attaching, maybe 10% of your people are gonna buy it, whereas expansion packs, 30%. You can spend a lot more money and make a lot more money with an expansion pack" [source]

"I think the idea for DA multiplayer getting harder when somebody died was to try to make the match start to end so that you weren't waiting. I don't know how effective that is, probably not very, but I think that's the thinking" [source]

"I don't think we really were, pretty much I think DA became a series when BioWare got bought by EA. I don't remember the exact moment but you can see by the slides at the end of DA:O there's a bunch of stuff that isn't really completely thinking about the fact that we're gonna have to pick up this ball in future" [source]

"Frostbite shares a lot with Unreal as well from a tools perspective. It wasn't done quite as intentionally. It's funny because the tools for Eclipse for DA:O, there was a specifically-designed wall between the two project streams to prevent this engine from taking too much from Unreal. There was a worry that Epic was going to get mad at us and sue us. Which given everybody elses' engine development was probably unfounded" [source]

"I imagine that a Blight probably increases Warden recruitment. I think it makes sense that people would be interested [right after a Blight was stopped] because you're the heroes on the block, but given what the Wardens know about Blights and things you would think that the responsible thing would be to actually cut recruitment way down, keep the order alive and then as they sense a Blight starting to come, ramp the recruitment way back up again. But I don't know that they know that a Blight is coming early enough to do so, so I guess the worry would be that if they don't keep their order relatively large then they wouldn't have the forces necessary to fight a Blight. Though of course you wouldn't expect another Blight right now, we just finished with one [Mark was playing Awakening's opening sequence at this time]. I think it's, there's darkspawn to fight and despite what they may claim, it's about being big enough to have a political impact on the world so that everyone doesn't ignore their existence and then they show up and no-one remembers who they are. Duncan talks about knowing it was coming but everyone not believing him so it does imply that they know at least some time beforehand. But you probably don't wanna wait til 1 year before it starts happening before you start rebuilding your forces" [source]

"The reason why Awakening was able to ship so close to DA:O was because DA:O moved a huge amount really late in development to do the consoles. So Awakening was pretty much mostly built in 2009, you know in the last 9 months of DA:O development, which was mostly porting it to the consoles. There's no way you were getting an expansion pack out within five months of that size without [this]" [source]

"Awakening is a masterclass in 'people who are familiar with the fools using the tools at their disposal to do some amazing stuff" [source]

"One of the challenges with expansion packs is they kind've have to fit inside the umbrella, even if they're taking place afterwards like this one does [Awakening], they can't raise the stakes too much. Whereas if it was a full-fledged sequel it could kind've do something new, kind've has to. Which is part of the problem with Awakening, given where DA:O leaves the world it's kind've hard to, we didn't really know where we were gonna go for our sequels yet, so that's probably why" [source]

"The problem with not sequel-ing Dragon Age is then what you would have been doing is probably trying to make a fantasy RPG in a new setting and then having this impossible comparison to DA constantly happening, and every single difference being a potential criticism, you can see why that, being a potential big problem. Much as I wouldn't want to wish it upon other dev teams, DAII is what allowed DA to be a series, because it kind've is the one that eats the rock of 'this is not like my previous game' and it kind've gets rid of the worst bits of continuity errors. And so to a large degree I would say that by DAII being this sort of thing that's rushed out to fill a financial gap, it allows the series to become a series. But you know, I wouldn't say that's the fix that everyone should take" [source]

"The problem you have to remember with DAII and 'more time' is very quickly you run into Skyrim releasing, and releasing DAII then, regardless of much much extra effort you put into it, after Skyrim is not a good thing. It has to kind've live there in a pre-Skyrim world. There is stuff that can be done for sure, but there's a limit to what you can do" [source]

"Mass Effect has, Shepard is too tightly associated with ME, so what do you do? Do you just keep bringing him back and making clones of him or something? That was definitely a problem in the case of Mass Effect: Andromeda because you had a younger player character, so therefore the tonal differences were seen as problematic. So it's something that you definitely have to think about" [source]

"With Justice, you do a pretty good job of explaining away anything that happens to Anders" [source]

"Oghren is here in Awakening in part because of again, quantum. Because Wynne could be dead, Leliana could be dead, Alistair could be dead, Sten could be dead or not even recruited. So you don't really have a lot of choices if you wanna bring a companion back." Here chat mentioned that Oghren can be dead. "Oh, so they do [in-game] respond to it [if Oghren was killed in DA:O]. He must have been the least quantum then. The place that you were most likely to kill Leliana in DA:O was at the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and I think we just sort've were like 'the Urn's right there so. She's fine'. Yeah, there needs to be a warrior [in Awakening]. I mean, we could've made a brand new character but. Sten was really likely to die. Lots of people didn't even recruit him. Hers [Leliana's death] is probably the most plausible retcon" [source]

"One of the things that kind've frustrates me a bit about the lore in DA moreso than ME is because it's so quantum, is the linear stuff in the comic books and novels have had, just picked canons on occasion. Which I get because you wanna have Isabela or Sten in the comics, but it does mean that it undermines the player agency there because it's like 'what you did isn't real, because here's what's real because we put it in a comic book'. I really don't like that but given the branching in the games you would've just had to have stayed away from those characters completely, which undermines the storytelling, so I don't know. I don't know what the answer is honestly. It's a good point that it's hard to imagine that Leliana's gonna be like 'sign me up for the Wardens' [source]

[on secondary media] "I don't disagree that you could do lots of prequels, but I think there's a limit" [source]

"The biggest reason why the darkspawn design changed from DA:O to DAII is that the DA:O darkspawn, mainly honestly the ogre, but they don't quite fit into our artistic palette, and there was a strong push from the art team on DAII to move the art direction into something that was ownable and so that's the main reason. It's really just an ownability perspective. But you can kinda see it in Awakening, because like The Withered is starting to look a lot like the DAII darkspawn, or at least he's headed in that direction" [source]

"One of DAII's big art direction things, Eclipse is really good at pushing polygons, so a lot of things in the art direction of DAII are pushing polygons. So they're spikier and they just have a lot more polys in them because it's one of the things it's really good at" [source]

"If you were doing a remaster you would keep the same engine. If you were doing a remake you would switch engines. It's not a remaster if you're switching engines, that's for sure" [source]

"I still maintain that Dog was essentially put through the Joining, but whatever. Technically probably everyone who has had contact with darkspawn blood is not a Warden, but it is a bit, I do think it's one of the things where the Taint and the Blight is a bit, is presented as being more bad than really is pulled off in the games" [source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[pocketramblr]

Idea: you know on AO3 you can create a choose your own adventure fic (there's like a whole tutorial guide on how to program it) someone should do something like that but like create an AFO dating sim. The premise would be like you the reader have been isekaied into the bnha universe, your main goal is to date and marry AFO. You must first get him to agree to a date you and then convince him within 3 dates to marry you. You have to choose the right dialogue and choosing the wrong ones end up leading to various outcomes such as you end up killing him to you took his place as ruler of the criminal underworld. The sequel to this story, once you achieved the true ending and marry him, should be AFO divorce sim, you married AFO realized he sucks and now you must divorce him successfully without being vaulted.

the first two thirds of this ask and i was ready to choose violence, but now i see your greater plan. honestly, ao3 as a medium for dating sim sounds like a p good idea.

[imustbenuts]

the trend of metafiction in video games is here, real, and messing with everyone. (a ramble on a trend in japanese media writing)

Fair warning. Full spoilers for the following games: Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC), Dangan Ronpa 2 and 3, Nier Automata, Bravely Default, Fire Emblem Series, AI the Somnium Files, Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade.

"Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if I'll ever get the chance to kill him."

unfortunately, 2b never gets to kill yoko taro but i bet the man would love to be grinded under her heels. instead, we the players get to blow up the names of the creators of Nier Automata in the credits sequence.

rambling time

anyway, hi. metafiction is here and i can prove everyone is getting played. for the past... idk 10 odd years there's been a slow simmering of this trend popping up in video games.

i define metafiction as a method where the creators of a media asks the engage to engage with the media in a way that essentially ties the audience's existence to the game's world itself.

it doesn't always mean the player is supposed to play gods in the creator sense, but rather that the players guide the characters we play in video games to a specific outcome through some level of interference. this might be as light as guiding the characters through a series of choices to a good ending, to downright damning as self-inserts or brute forcing them through insane amounts of torture to reach the golden ending, with the game being self-aware throughout.

though the roots of this metafiction writing can be traced to Visual Novels debuting in the early 2000s, JRPGs in particular have been getting really spicy with the way they're taking this.

but before that, i need to highlight a clear extreme example of metafiction. here is Doki Doki Literature Club. a romance horror VN released in 2017. (which is not made by jp devs but is still important in explaining this trend:)

DDLC is the easiest to understand what i mean by metafiction. this game plays out like a dating sim, with the very rightmost girl, Monika, being a non-romancable wingman at the start. eventually, she becomes self-aware of you, the player, in the game and then proceeds to slowly corrupt, then kill the other 3 girls the game so she becomes the only romance option. Monika knows she's stuck in a game world, and she even reads the name of your steam account. :)

and in the end, she even talks to you and reveres the player as a god, saying she'll be the perfect girlfriend if it means for the game not to be shut off. there's a lot more going on with DDLC, but the gist of it is, the player is an entity which exists in the context of the game's world in some form.

and this shit. has been happening more often as time goes on. a bunch of examples:

Danganronpa 2 has already been messing with the players way back in 2012. by essentially revealing that the characters were in a simulation all along, and then intentionally messing with the UI in chapter 6 as if the world knows we are there. Danganronpa V3 goes full throttle with this, the whole game turns out to be a spectacle of commenting on how the game exists only because the audience (the players) are there clamoring for more dangan ronpas to consume. which, true, and this was released in 2017.

the main character in Bravely Default (2012), Tiz Arrior begins in the game by nearly getting killed, and at the ending, relinquishes an entity saying 'thanks' before falling unconscious and falling to the ground. this entity was not brought up at any point and is heavily hinted to be the player. and indeed, this is explicitly stated in Bravely Second (2015) the sequel. referred to as a Celestial, this entity possessed him and basically kept him alive. people have tried to analyze this and came to the conclusion that the Celestial being is basically the player. by playing the game, Tiz is forced to live and be our lens into the world of Bravely Default.

(bravely default 2 sucks and i wont talk about it)

Nier Automata (2017) is an action hack and slash game where it's just. insane. a masterpiece. 2 examples are up there already. but in short, Nier Automata seems to be a meta commentary on how they are forced to fight in a never-ending cycle (because we want a game like this). after going through a couple of New Game+ where the playable character goes between 2B to 9S to A2, eventually the player is outright given a choice to delete their save file to break the cycle.

AI: The Somnium Files (2019) also plays with this outright in its story telling. There are multiple branching paths in the first game, and 2 parallel paths in the sequel, AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative (2022). in order to achieve the golden ending, the player must go through every single branches and gather information... that somehow can be told to the characters at critical points to help them achieve a good ending. The characters in here interestingly remark how they should have no way of knowing, but also cannot answer how they do.

the extreme version of this lies in the 'Secret' Ending known as Ryuki Diverge, where the player is given a string of numbers after getting the golden ending. Go back to a certain point in the story and tell this number to a certain someone, and the game breaks.

In Final Fantasy 7 Remake (2020), there are points where Cloud, Aerith, and even possibly Sephiroth are given visions of the original game's future, and react to it. The metafiction player entity here is non-existent, but arguably simply by wanting a remake there are divergences in place to entertain us, the audience.

these are what I know of the games who outright does this. there must be more out there but this would probably good enough to stop.

so the question is now, why?

and the short answer I've got is basically... Asia's religious and cultural beliefs. (is there a better term for this idk...)

there's a lot sloshing about in this bowl, but a lot of it can be attributed to Buddhism. In Buddhism, the world is understood as layers existing on top of each other. the higher layers reside the higher beings who can watch the ones below if they wanted to. mix a bit of taoism and existing belief system in to this, and it starts to look complicated.

basically, the higher beings are mixed with Gods and Deities. one may pray to them and gain their boon, or revere them and gain their favor. and in this understanding, it is possible for anyone of any tier to move up and down through their actions in life, and after death. but these myriad Gods in eastern understanding are not creator gods. unable to sculpt from nothing, these are more akin to spirits than anything else.

a word for these gods could also be devas. residing in their realm and talking to each other, enjoying their time in pleasure and luxury, tied to the whims of their own fate until they too die, and/or move again in their tiers. their lives are incomprehensibly long, so it is said, and thus as good as an immortal. they are said to sometimes whisper in people's ears to guide them.

translating this into video game terms and it starts to get meta. we players are the metafiction entity, the guardian spirits, the devas or deities or gods watching down from our realm being entertained by media. In terms of morality, we are often more amoral and ambiguous than clearly good or bad - our purchases of a video game only says how much we hope or trust this world can entertain us. In terms of time's passage, a month in a video game world is something like 5 minutes to us.

and of course, if there are weak-ass gods like these, out to just watch and enjoy, then there are creator gods. and those Gods are the people 99% of us can't even touch -- the creatives and writers behind each and every game they made.

you will notice that all games i mentioned up there, sans DDLC, are all made by JP devs. metafiction has definitely proven itself to be interesting if done right, and there will absolutely be more to come.

and while all of these sound like mad fan theory, buddhism and taoism aren't just things that exists in books. to the many living now and even for the past 2000 years, these are living beliefs that has shaped many people's understanding of the world. even right now. and it's so pervasive that even if one can't identify it clearly, one can certainly feel its presence. this isnt abrahamic religious understanding at work behind all those games. it's something else, and it is this.

once you understand that cultural thread, the customer is a god is not a hyperbole here. metafiction is not just some one-off trend.

and once you understand this, Fire Emblem Three Houses' buddhism analysis looks less insane, while the rest of the series look even more insane.

[colorfullyminded]

STOP I JUST REALISED U LIKED LITTLE GOODY TWO SHOES TOO!!! WHOS UR FAVORITE OMG??

Goody Two Shoes is a good game. I actually streamed it when it came out. I'm partial to Lebkuchen, because boy do I love a cute blonde church mouse who is secretly (or explicitly) sapphic as hell. She was such a little flirt too <3. Church girls who can be corrupted/corrupt with that "Wicked lesbianism" (said teasingly; I'm a lesbian) are sort of my weakness! That being said, after playing all the routes, Freya's storyline was so good. Like her bad end broke my heart! I was tearing up! And I did her path last so I already knew the consequences of my actions and I had to knowingly sacrifice her. And for what?! An Achievement?!! (it was a very nice achievement). Rozenmarine was cute too, though the weakest of the girls for me. It's a personal issue, but I don't like dating sim games that push you towards a clear "True route"/"True girl" I'm playing a dating game to fall in love with the characters-- let me decide who's the one for me. It was not as egregious as other games I've played, and Rozenmarine is very likable and cute so it wasn't too bad. But I prefer Lebkuchen and Freya's story much more personally. It's also just a little sad to know what ending is "Canon" in the sequel game (which I own but have not played yet).

What about you? You got a favorite? Have you played Pocket Mirror/plan to play it? Also do you like other video games-- I'm a huge gamer so I'm always down to talk games too.

[murfeelee]

Replies

I’m on Fall Break right now (not really a “break” though, since I’m up to my effing eyeballs in school garbage, wtf, where’s my frikkin vacation?), and I opened Origin for the first time in literal ages...only to see a message that EA’s gonna replace Origin with the EA App. Because of course they are. 🙄 It’s EA, so I already know it’ll be stupid; I just don’t want the EA App effing with the TS3 Launcher Bypass and Smooth Patch mods. 

___________________________________________

bbcopperdaisy replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

Spectacular, as always!   Honestly, I kind of like the spell-book effects coming from the floor.   Makes it seem as though "something" is being summoned "from below"...spooooooky! :D  Thank you and Happy Halloween.

LOL! Thanks so much for that. I felt pretty bad for messing them up; I literally have no idea what I was doing. 😅

popcornstar45 replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

So awesome!! The animated textures *Perfection*

chojrak-making-things replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

All that looks amazing 😍 well with green ghosts gives me goosebumps

Glad y’all like it! I was getting Night on Bald Mountain vibes the whole time; I was so happy!

themaresnest-dumblr reblogged your post “Simblreen 2022”

Brilliant work (and a soothing balm on our bust fuses right now!). You, Murfeel are a bloody good sort, an all round brick and veritable pippin, what ho!

Aw shucks, you got me blushing!

joojconverts replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

ooky spooky 💀💀 thank you!!

nornities replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

Awesome set!

jolifleurbleu replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

Awesome, as always! Thank you! :D

mspoodle1 replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

Yay! Thank you!

bast-sims replied to your post “Simblreen 2022”

This is a very cool set! I'm shocked!!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!! 🖤😀💗

You’re all very welcome! Happy Simblreen~! 😈😈😈

ijustneedsimsccstop replied to your post “C2077 Misty INSP Set”

CYBERPUNK FANDOM X SIMS 3 FANDOM HELLO????? THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE

LOL, enjoy, choom! I wanted to sit down and watch the Netflix Cyberpunk show, but I’m swamped with work. 😩 And I hear CDPR’s making a Cyberpunk sequel. Good on them; hopefully they get more time and aren’t rushed again. Night City is so freaking cool; it saddens me that C2077 didn’t get the shine it could’ve.

__________________________

Happy Simming!

[king-mera]

10 and 21 for Ghostbusters, 20 for Alice

choose violence ask game

10- worst part of fanon (Ghostbusters)

Worst part of GB fanon is the same thing that bothers me in almost every fandom, the overemphasis on shipping. I have nothing against shipping, whether it's with canon characters, OCs, self inserts, etc. and there are ships I enjoy too! It just irks me how that's become the focus of much of the fan content (at least on tumblr). I swear, the way some people talk about the characters, you'd think this was a dating sim and not a horror-comedy from the 80s. Sometimes it's feels like everyone forgot this franchise is about… You know… Chasing ghosts? Romance is a side dish here, not the main course. Semi-related to that is some of the more inappropriate behavior I've seen from some users. The things people say about the actors, both young and old (one of whom passed away!) is creepy and disrespectful. I'd rather not go into detail. I get that the original movies had sex jokes, and NSFW is inevitable in every fandom, I just think that some people take things too far.

21- part of canon you think is overhyped (Ghostbusters)

Some of you are going to hate me for saying this, but Ghostbusters: The Video Game has not aged well. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun experience and one I'd like to replay some day, but I don't think it functions as a worthy sequel to the first two movies. I may be biased since I like Afterlife so much, but even before the new movie came out, the game still never felt like the true third installment to me. We revisit a lot of the same set pieces from the movie and encounter many of the same ghosts, which feels like retreading the same ground. The new elements that were introduced with the mandala guardians & Shandor's cult are interesting, but I found it weird that Shandor had a descendant. He was a misanthrope who wanted to end the world, why would he have heirs? I guess it's to sacrifice one so we can see how evil he is… But we already KNEW he was evil because he's trying to end the whole world! Ilyssa is an odd character too, why'd they give Peter a new love interest after he got back together with Dana in GB2? Plus, not being able to customize our character or drive the Ecto-1 is disappointing (Spirits Unleashed would only grant us the former option years later). I do enjoy the game, it's nice to hear Harold Ramis as the voice of Egon one last time, and I would like to believe parts of it are still canon. I just don't think of it as "Ghostbusters 3" like some others do.

20- part of canon you found tedious or boring (Alice)

The Oriental Grove is TOO DAMN LONG. Honestly all of AMR gets tedious but this level takes the cake. We have to go through three scrolls and three slides and three puzzle/fight/platform segments and WHY DID THERE HAVE TO BE THREE? And of course our reward for this is the same as the end of every other level, no bossfight and a cutscene giving us vague information. If you want to see a level similar to this, but done better, check out Cassie's Collection in Psychonauts 2.

[jdog410]

10 Games I Liked the Most That I Played in 2022:

>numbers are the date I finished the game

Deaths Door (1/3) - A Zelda/Souls/Metroidvania that I would skip 9 times out of 10 but loved the art direction and general atmosphere. Nearly got the true ending but couldn't find the last 2 seed pots I was missing.

Forgotten City (1/11) - I play games for stories and Forgotten City is a well written game. You can see and feel its Skyrim roots which gives me a strange nostalgic feeling.

Pokemon: Legends Arceus (2/14) - Pokemon finally did something different. I have never completed a Dex but I was by far the most motivated to by this game. SIDEQUESTS.

Elden Ring (4/7) - It's Elden Ring.

Bugsnax (5/30)  - One of the two games I got all achievements for. Nice puzzle gameplay with a bizarre plot and fantastic characters. Highly recommended.

DMC V (6/15) - I want to love this style of game but I am not very good at them. That being said it's clear that DMC V is mechanically dense in such an interesting way offering multiple weapons and characters to try out. The kind of game that makes me want to replay games more.

Death Stranding (8/6) - The gameplay is unarguably dull, the story is ambitious (perhaps to a fault) and complex. A game that created a burning desire to see what was around the next corner.

AI The Somnium Files nirvanA Initiative (8/30) - I have a soft spot for puzzle-visual novel games. Shocked that the original got a sequel but enjoyed another convoluted mystery.

https://youtu.be/lshXhRFp07k

Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (9/27) - Played this on my phone and was not enjoying it until I connected an Xbox controller. After that I couldn't put it down and even took the controller to work one day...

Citizen Sleeper (12/24) - Comparing it to Disco Elysium is tired but it is still the easiest way to describe it. The short time to complete a circle (day) helped me stay engaged. Reminds me of the social sim part of persona.