That's a shame. I do feel like Life By You is the Sims-style game I've heard the least about though
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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Yeah, I hadn't heard a lot about it. When they pushed back the first launch I was disappointed, when the second launch was postponed I was starting to expect a cancellation. It appears they just had too big a scope for the first time in the genre.
Which of the alternatives do you like the best/have the highest hopes for?
Maybe Paralives. I feel like it's further out from completion than Tiny Life though and is going to require more time to become a polished product.
It sounds like they've got a pretty small dev team, so I'm sure it's going to take a while. Hopefully the wait will be worth it!
I'm somewhat torn on what I would prefer these games to do. On one hand I would like it to be like the Sims, but better. On the other I would like them to carve out their own niche and go from there. Either way they go there will be people that are disappointed. I'm personally not a huge fan of the artstyle of Paralives, but good gameplay is almost always the deciding factor for me. I'm certainly willing to give it a try, if for no other reason than supporting alternatives.
It’s sad that we are losing a potential Sims competitor, but it sounds like they didn’t have a unified image of what they wanted to make. It also seemed a bit too ambitious, like they were trying to directly shatter the Sims monopoly all-at-once instead of gradually make inroads.
It’s good that Paralives is still in development. Personally, I like the art style better and it’s just good to have a potential competitor. I also think their strategy might make them more viable as a smaller competitor.
In the end though, life simulators can be a tough genre to break into; the player-base is generally more casual, but the game is actually needs to be pretty intricate be convincing.
I think you're right, they did take on too much for a first release. I don't really think many studios have the resources to go head to head, so they're most likely going to need to find something they can do better than the Sims.
I'm also glad to see Paralives hasn't shown signs of quitting, I'm hoping we'll see a good release from them. It's funny you mentioned the art style, as it's actually the main thing I've seen so far that I'm not a fan of! I still plan on playing it if/when it releases though.
I am curious how the no paid dlc will work out for them long term. Hopefully they'll get enough sales to follow Hello Games and be releasing free updates years down the road, but I could just as easily see them adding new features to a Paralives 2 a few years down the road. It is an indie studio though, so I have higher hopes for free updates and bug fixes than I would with some of the big ones.
Lol well to each their own! I like the art style because it doesn't try to be realistic. For realistic a life simulator, I would probably just go fire up the Sims 3 (which, granted was horribly coded and runs terribly lol.) For Paralives, I think having a more cartoony art direction can allow the designers to be more expressive, create a unique feel for the game, and also make things easier for themselves going forward.
I am also curious to know how the no paid DLC will work in the long term. If Paralives is successful and has free DLC, then I could see that really lighting a fire under EA's ass. Like many simmers, I bought almost all of the DLC for the Sims 1, Sims 2, and Sims 3, just to have them release the Sims 4 and expect me to start all over again lol (and I didn't this time.)
But I could also see them funnelling all their efforts and improvements into Paralives 2.
It remains to be seen - hopefully Paralives actually happens.
The Sims 3 is my favorite of the series, and the one I still play, so that's probably why I like the more realistic art style! It is a very badly optimized game though! However, even with 10 dlcs installed it's actually surprisingly stable for me. I am running it on Linux though, so Proton may be helping with that a bit. I remember having more bugs when I was playing it on Windows. I also run very little custom content, so I'm guessing that helps as well!
I do agree that the style Paralives is going with is going to save them a lot of development time and money. It'll also make it a lot easier to differentiate the games as well. I'm sure it'll grow on me over time, gameplay is usually more important to me than graphics.
I would really like having free dlc, and I'm hoping it does work for them. However, I'm not as opposed as some to paying for dlc if it's an actual expansion of a good base game and not a few random cosmetics. I highly doubt I would be still regularly playing The Sims 3 12-13 years from the day I bought it if they hadn't released all of the expansions. The "dollar per hour" metric that I see many using has been exceeded many years ago!
I guess what I'm saying is that I almost prefer buying a $20 expansion for a game I already have rather than buy a whole new $40 game every year or so. It's also possible to get them on sale, so I often had savings there too. It also gives me the option to not purchase or uninstall expansions that I don't want for my current playthrough. It's definitely not a wholehearted endorsement of the practice, but I do see some of the benefits of it if done right.
That being said, they've taken it way too far with TS4. Stuff packs, even most of the ones from TS3, should definitely be free updates! There also seems to be a large number of expansions that add very little, or are definitely things that should be in the base game.
Sorry for the small novel, it just kept getting longer! I don't talk much, but I get too wordy when I'm typing!
Lol no worries about the small novel.
Personally, I have actually found my Sims 3 game to run better on my M2 Mac with Rosetta 2 than it does my custom-built Windows machine lol. I never tried it on Linux. A major part of the reason the Mac is probably because the Mac version is 64-bit whereas the PC version is stuck at 32-bit. (Also, I never, ever would have thought my Mac would outperform my Windows machine. I only started playing the Sims 3 on it by chance and I realized it was running a lot better lol.)
It’s still not without its faults, though. The 64-bit version is littered with little glitches here and there. Isla Paradiso is extremely glitchy, so I don’t play it. And for some reason you can’t pick up bugs like you can in the 32 bit version (a work around is the vacuum thingy you can invent that vacuums up your surroundings lol.) I also avoid custom content that I think might destabilize the game as well.
Regarding Paralives, I would also prefer it have a bit longer period between sequels. Even if they do renege on the free DLC, like you said $20 a year is a lot better than buying a whole new game every year for a life simulator. I would also prefer each sequal to actually expand upon the features of the former.
Which brings me to why I so disike the Sims 4; the Sims 1 was the OG, Sims 2 brought us to a 3D world, and the Sims 3 brought us an open world. The Sims 4... did not expand upon anything. The big issue I have with the Sims 4 is that (1) feature-wise and gameplay-wise the game was definitely a step down from the Sims 3, (2) they broke the same expansion packs from previous generations into multiple packs but charged the same price, and (3) each new expansion pack added a new layer of glitches that made it almost unplayable. Just my opinion, but the Sims 4 just felt like a blatant cashgrab and I do not really see it as a upgrade to the Sims 3 at all lol.
Anyways, I'm hoping that Paralives is a very successful game and provides enough competition to keep EA from making another Sims 4 lol.
I do remember reading about them making a 64-bit port when Apple switched. Sure would have been nice if they would have upgraded all the versions! Although it does sound like it's not without faults as well. Isla Paradiso was always a bit glitchy for me, even on Windows. I saw someone mention the water pathing being a potential issue with it. I would get a lot of multi second freezes and things like that. The last two times I've used the map I managed to have a pretty decent experience though. It's a really nice looking place.
I definitely agree on having a sequel actually bring something new to the table. I see a lot of games released that are basically reskinned versions of the previous game. Or as you mentioned in the case of The Sims 4, removing content from the base game to sell more expansion packs! I did get the base game and the seasons pack on a very deep discount, but it felt very empty and disappointing overall. Of course, maybe I'm not supposed to enjoy the game until I spend $1200 to buy all of the dlc! That plus the need to log into an Origin account makes it a no go for me. Even TS3 is still a little crazy to get everything, but even before they reduced the expansion prices it wasn't near that bad. I also played the base game on it's own for a few years before buying my first dlc, so there's definitely a solid base.
Anyway, like you said, I really want a lot of competition for the series! I'm not planning to buy any future releases until something changes in their business model. We'll see what happens though!
I wanted the life simulation genre to grow and for EA to maybe see some competition. But it seems to be mostly Sims to the point this post is here and @[email protected] ([email protected] for the Lemmy users) is dead. I'm here because I enjoy The Sims but it would have been nice to get something new.
Unfortunately I don't know if anyone will ever catch up with the massive head start of EA/Maxis. Having an entire studio centered around it definitely helps iterate more quickly as well. It's going to be very hard for any potential competitors to offer a fraction of the content, at least at first. Even though I may dislike how much content gets locked behind a dlc, it really builds out the game in a way that wouldn't happen otherwise.
That being said, I think a company that got a solid and fun (and bug free!) foundation out the door could get a toe hold in the market. Especially if they offered easy options for scripting custom content, maps, etc.