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I see a lot of people saying it is elitist to ask for a next gen sims game that doesn't limit it's features for extremely date hardware. I want to make a thread about why I think people are misunderstanding the point.
Many people are misinterpreting this as us asking for mind boggling graphics and a massive open world. This isn't the case. What we are asking for is a game that can meet the level of technological advancement we have seen in past releases. Sims 4 is the first time they held back
It can be hard to imagine this, but there was a time when The Sims 1 gave people trouble. I remember playing the game on my Uncle's computer that he gifted me, and I had a choppy frame rate. The load times took upwards of 3 minutes to travel. It was a heavy game for some machines
So imagine what happened when The Sims 2 released. It wasn't even able to launch on the pc we had. I was upset, i was frustrated. I was also 5, so i had no money and there was no way my parents were going to buy a gaming pc for me. (we didnt even know they existed)
So for a year I owned the game without being able to even play it. Then, the Christmas of 2005(i think?) my parents got us ALL a new family computer. It was an emachine not at all made for gaming. I think it cost like $350. But it ran the sims 2 at minimum settings.
When i FINALLY got to play The Sims 2 i wasn't made that it didnt work on the old pc. The game was more amazing than I ever even thought possible. The graphics blew me away, there was so much new stuff to do. It never even crossed my mind.
Funnily enough, Christmas of 2009 i got The Sims 3 and the same thing happened. It would not run on the emachine. I was devastated bc at this point i was old enough to have seen videos of the game and I wanted to play SO badly.
I didn't get to play it until halfway thru 2010. My parents bought themselves a new computer, for $400. The idea was that WE would use the old one and my parents would have the new one as their own.
Of course, I begged them to let me see if I could run the sims 3 on it. And i could. Once again, I wasn't at all angry that they had to get a new pc to play it because I was blown away by how amazing it was. new graphics, an open world. Create a style. It was REVOLUTIONARY
The Sims 4 is the first time I didn't have to buy a new pc to play the next sims game. Up until LAST year i was gaming on a desktop no doubt optimized for office use. And it was already 5 years old when Sims 4 released. I should be happy i didnt have to buy a new pc right?
Well i wasn't. Because being able to run it didn't make up for the fact that it was devoid of any meaningful changes. It didn't feel revolutionary like The Sims 2 or 3. It felt samey, it felt safe. It took steps backwards.
My point is, if you cater to extremely dated hardware you can't have amazing jumps in quality like 2 or 3 did. Yes, it was lame that we had to get new computers. But we didn't EVER consider getting a gaming pc. We aren't asking people to do that.
All we are saying is you should get up to date hardware to play. The desktops i had before met the MINIMUM requirements, I had to have my settings down. But it was worth it because it allowed the game to evolve and not restrict itself.
The Sims 4 has to restrict itself and it's damaging the gameplay in a horrible way. We don't want to see that happen again. We aren't elitist, we don't hate poor people. I literally AM poor. But the customer HAS to evolve or the game can't.
Yes it sucks that you might have to spend 400 or more dollars to play new games. But thats the way it ALWAYS worked for the sims. That's why we got 3d graphics, and why we had an open world, and more complex ai. Because the customers were willing to meet the requirements.
