The Sims 4: Tuesday’s Guru Tweets

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My biggest in-game feature was the notification system; we revamped it extensively from what previous Sims games could do. Overall though my main responsibility was organizing the Change Review process, which is where we gather all the various ideas on how to improve the game and suss out what we have time to accomplish and what to spend that time on to make the game the best it can be.

Sure! The icons are much more interactive now… not only can you click them to move your camera to a Sim, but you can actually lock your camera on any Sim (or even an object) with them. The icons can also open various pieces of UI, so for example… if you got a notification saying that your Sim’s skill leveled up, you could click it as a shortcut to switch to that Sim and open their skill panel. Best of all, there’s now a notification wall that stores all of your messages as they come in.
 
You can scroll through a history of your past 200 notifications… it’s great if you missed a message as it popped up, or if you haven’t played for a week and want to figure out what you were last doing when you played; all of the messages have a timestamp on them to help with that. You can view your notification wall anywhere throughout the game and it’s unique per save file. It’s a really robust system and a big improvement over past games; I’m quite proud of it!

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There are a variety of options for how Sims age, so if you don’t want a family you like to die off you can keep that from happening. If you want to ensure they continue over multiple generations though you’re going to have to take an active role in woohooing with them or even playing as them so that they’ll have kids. Sims 4 gives you greater control over the fates of all the families rather than just the one you’re currently playing.

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Walking off a lot to the public space never incurs a load. The public space is always loaded and simulating. You can walk from a public space back onto your active lot as well. What you can’t do is walk from a public space onto another unloaded lot without loading. Also you don’t really travel to another world or another neighborhood – you always select a lot to travel to, and that lot may be in another world or neighborhood.

Public Space: Walk around anywhere that is not on a lot freely, no loading screens when going anywhere on public space [removed the word “lot” this is a neighborhood with multiple lots on it, they share the same public space]

Going from Lot to Public Space: Loading Screen [No, the public space is loaded with your current/active lot, so you can freely explore it with that lot loaded]

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Public Space to Lot: Loading Screen [You will always have an active lot that you have loaded into, and you will be able to play in the public space surrounding this lot. If you want to load a new lot in the same neighborhood/public space you will encounter a load screen]

Lot to Lot: Loading Screen [Yes]

Neighborhood to Neighborhood: Loading Screen [Yes, but this is because you are moving Lot to Lot, the lots just happen to be in different neighborhoods]

World to World: Loading Screen [We have only announced one world at this time ;)]

Anything that is a lot is a lot (example: a bar is a Bar Lot, not a part of the public space). The public space is the “stuff” around the lots. So maybe you would have 4 community lots/venues and you would need to load between them, but all 4 share the same public space, which is a commercial area. And in that public space you’ll have…public space stuff…like BBQs, picnic tables, playground equipment, etc… (You can have those objects on lots too, they are not restricted to the public space)

Basically anytime you travel from lot to lot you’ll encounter a brief load screen. Obviously there are other load screens in the game (like when you exit CAS, or save and exit to the main menu) but the loads are really short compared to The Sims 3.

Yup, that’s the gist of it. Example: You could have two Energized moodlets and one Inspired moodlet, and the sum total of the strength of those moodlets would determine your Sim’s current emotion. Let’s say each of those Energized moodlets were +5 Energized, and the Inspired moodlet was +20, your Sim would be feeling inspired because it’s their current strongest emotion. Anytime a moodlet gets added or removed it recalculates them to determine what emotion your Sim is in.


 

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