My biggest disappointment is how you have to start a new kingdom for every ambition. It's just so tedious, and since the quests repeat, it quickly becomes a bore.
Part of the appeal of the Sims, for me, is to watch them grow, age, and die. That simply isn't possible here. You can have children, but they never age past childhood. It's really hard for a sim to die. Adult sims don't age at all, and I believe the book says they can't die of hunger. Maybe they can die from wounds, but given the amount of damage they can take, there's no real risk of that happening. And since you have to start a new kingdom each time you run out of QP, there's no real point in trying to customize them. They never become your people. They're merely moveable skill sets, and aside from certain restrictions/abilities, largely the same.
There's some potential here for a much deeper game, but it just feels rushed and incomplete to me. Diplomatic standing is due to whether you pass popular edicts and patrol borders instead of interpersonal relationships? A level cap? No needs except sleep and hunger? No build mode? No chance to visit, or even control, neighboring kingdoms? Being forced to rebuild a kingdom on the same map over and over? Being forced to go through the same quests over and over? No chance to have a family, or royal dynasty?
There's not a lot here after the tutorial ambition is completed. The game can essentially be completed in just a couple hours. Very disappointing.
This game is weird though even as a Sims spin off. The resticted camera angle and really low Sim customization options. Seriously, two sliders only?
I'm confused by this as there are a ton of sliders, all of the detailed ones from The Sims 3. The extra slider mods I was using with TS3 also work, though some of the outfits have problems with them. About the only thing missing is makeup for the ladies, which makes sense, and picking individual components of outfits (there are only whole outfit selections, based on their class, though there's a way to even remove that restriction).
Yeah, there's no way there's only two sliders. My BF spent over 2 hours per character getting all the faces he wants.
All I created was the monarch and I just remember choose traits, clothes and use two sliders for looking old and freckels. Are the options under like soming of advanced tab? Also are all clothes just suits? Like no pants and top combo choices?
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
This game is weird though even as a Sims spin off. The resticted camera angle and really low Sim customization options. Seriously, two sliders only?
I'm confused by this as there are a ton of sliders, all of the detailed ones from The Sims 3. The extra slider mods I was using with TS3 also work, though some of the outfits have problems with them. About the only thing missing is makeup for the ladies, which makes sense, and picking individual components of outfits (there are only whole outfit selections, based on their class, though there's a way to even remove that restriction).
Yeah, there's no way there's only two sliders. My BF spent over 2 hours per character getting all the faces he wants.
All I created was the monarch and I just remember choose traits, clothes and use two sliders for looking old and freckels. Are the options under like soming of advanced tab? Also are all clothes just suits? Like no pants and top combo choices?
There's a Looks tab, I believe it's called, that lets you choose different facial features like eyes, nose, mouth, etc, and each of those have an Advanced tab with all of the sliders, just like in TS3.
Well I'll remember to look for that when I make my new people. I stopped last night after placing my first building, the market. I thought I had read that each new building gets a new hero character but I don't remember seeing a pop up and this game loves pop ups.
Also it was 1am when that happened and I had to be at work five hours later so it all seems like a dream....oh no!
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Well I'll remember to look for that when I make my new people. I stopped last night after placing my first building, the market. I thought I had read that each new building gets a new hero character but I don't remember seeing a pop up and this game loves pop ups.
Also it was 1am when that happened and I had to be at work five hours later so it all seems like a dream....oh no!
After you place a new building, click on it to bring up an info window. It will show the associated hero, or if you haven't picked one yet, it'll have a big + icon that you click.
I've been saving the sims I create to hopefully make repopulating after changing ambitions easier.
I've enjoyed the game so far. There's a few things I wish had a bit more meat to them and I do wish the new ambitions didn't use the exact same kingdom (it'd be a bit more interesting already if that just changed from ambition to ambition).
Oh, Nightslyr, the tips for hunger need actually mention twice "don't die of starvation". That said, I've yet to have a sim die from starvation, I just make them eat gruel. Which they don't appreciate but I can't be bothered to buy fancy ingredients. There are also a few quests that can cost you your hero, I lost my physician to taking too long with the wedding quest.. the queen had him thrown in the monster pit for eloping and not sharing the details of the wedding night in time :winky:
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited March 2011
I'm curious to see what modders can do with this one. There are a lot of things I like about it (the crafting is fun and wizards are awesome), but I'd like a bit more sandbox freedom.
I'm curious to see what modders can do with this one. There are a lot of things I like about it (the crafting is fun and wizards are awesome), but I'd like a bit more sandbox freedom.
Borrowed my coworker's copy and played some last night. Very cool. I will be buying this tonight or tomorrow.
One question though, it seems like having a bunch of heroes to manage would be busy. Can I just focus on one or two heroes at a time? Like, I get the monarch to a good place, then I focus on the merchant, then the blacksmith. Are they smart enough to take care of their needs and not get arrested or ruin the progress I made? Do they die eventually?
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Borrowed my coworker's copy and played some last night. Very cool. I will be buying this tonight or tomorrow.
One question though, it seems like having a bunch of heroes to manage would be busy. Can I just focus on one or two heroes at a time? Like, I get the monarch to a good place, then I focus on the merchant, then the blacksmith. Are they smart enough to take care of their needs and not get arrested or ruin the progress I made? Do they die eventually?
You only control the heroes needed for your current quest. Usually that's only 1, but a few have 2 or maybe 3. Otherwise they just do their own thing.
FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
May have been asked already, so sorry in advance - don't want to wade through the few pages just to get one question answered.
My wife is a pretty big Sims fan (as a lot of girls I know tend to be) in that that's all she plays in the way of video games. Would The Sims Medieval be a good game to get for her? She has enjoyed the other iterations but this is apparently some sort of departure.
I've never played a Sims game so I can't really look at it and make up my mind myself.
May have been asked already, so sorry in advance - don't want to wade through the few pages just to get one question answered.
My wife is a pretty big Sims fan (as a lot of girls I know tend to be) in that that's all she plays in the way of video games. Would The Sims Medieval be a good game to get for her? She has enjoyed the other iterations but this is apparently some sort of departure.
I've never played a Sims game so I can't really look at it and make up my mind myself.
I think the best comparison I can make is the Sims 2 College or whatever it was. Its kind of a sandbox set in a niche enviroment. But as some people mentioned it can be tedious to rebuild your kingdom over and over for each ambition (or campaign if you prefer).
Its a fun, quirky quest based game thoug since the quests are the same for every campaign. The heroes are unique and fun to play though and they all have different playstyles and personalities so I'd vote yes.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
It kind of depends on what she enjoys about The Sims. If she enjoys the sandbox aspect, having her own city to play in and do whatever she wants, then probably not. If she enjoys the roleplaying aspect, picking someone and living their life, and enjoys goal-oriented gameplay, then she'd probably like it. It's not a dress-up dollhouse, though, so that could be a turn off.
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MrVyngaardLive From New EtoileStraight Outta SosariaRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
As an aside, I made the excellent mistake of getting Sims 3 Deluxe partially due to this thread.
My free time now hates you all, as you have helped in some way make it an endangered species.
MrVyngaard on
"now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
So this is $25 currently on Amazon direct download and the EA Store. Is the overall consensus that it's a decent game? It's interested me somewhat, but I've never really jumped into a Sims game before of any variety.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
I would say it's worth it, but I'm a big fan of The Sims. It's hard to say whether you'd like a Sims game or not, but you should be able to get your $25 worth out of it.
Also, just saw some of the changes with the latest patch. It's a good one. They pretty much fixed most of the complaints I had:
- New Feature: Free Play Ambition - Set up your perfect kingdom without worrying about long term goals. In this special ambition, you can play quests when you wish, or control up to four heroes at once in a more open free play mode
- New Feature: Child Succession - If a Hero Sim dies, but already has children, you can choose to have one of the children grow up and take over their parent's job!
- Camera improvements - Have you ever wanted to get a better view of the action? The camera now allows tighter zooming and full 360 rotation in buildings
- End Game Improvements - Similar to the Free Play Ambition, can now play quests, earn XP, and build buildings even after your ambition is completed!
- Hero Leveling Improvements - Can now gain XP beyond level 10 for all heroes, giving additional benefits
Posts
Part of the appeal of the Sims, for me, is to watch them grow, age, and die. That simply isn't possible here. You can have children, but they never age past childhood. It's really hard for a sim to die. Adult sims don't age at all, and I believe the book says they can't die of hunger. Maybe they can die from wounds, but given the amount of damage they can take, there's no real risk of that happening. And since you have to start a new kingdom each time you run out of QP, there's no real point in trying to customize them. They never become your people. They're merely moveable skill sets, and aside from certain restrictions/abilities, largely the same.
There's some potential here for a much deeper game, but it just feels rushed and incomplete to me. Diplomatic standing is due to whether you pass popular edicts and patrol borders instead of interpersonal relationships? A level cap? No needs except sleep and hunger? No build mode? No chance to visit, or even control, neighboring kingdoms? Being forced to rebuild a kingdom on the same map over and over? Being forced to go through the same quests over and over? No chance to have a family, or royal dynasty?
There's not a lot here after the tutorial ambition is completed. The game can essentially be completed in just a couple hours. Very disappointing.
All I created was the monarch and I just remember choose traits, clothes and use two sliders for looking old and freckels. Are the options under like soming of advanced tab? Also are all clothes just suits? Like no pants and top combo choices?
There's a Looks tab, I believe it's called, that lets you choose different facial features like eyes, nose, mouth, etc, and each of those have an Advanced tab with all of the sliders, just like in TS3.
And yes, all clothes are suits.
Also it was 1am when that happened and I had to be at work five hours later so it all seems like a dream....oh no!
After you place a new building, click on it to bring up an info window. It will show the associated hero, or if you haven't picked one yet, it'll have a big + icon that you click.
I've been saving the sims I create to hopefully make repopulating after changing ambitions easier.
I've enjoyed the game so far. There's a few things I wish had a bit more meat to them and I do wish the new ambitions didn't use the exact same kingdom (it'd be a bit more interesting already if that just changed from ambition to ambition).
Oh, Nightslyr, the tips for hunger need actually mention twice "don't die of starvation". That said, I've yet to have a sim die from starvation, I just make them eat gruel. Which they don't appreciate but I can't be bothered to buy fancy ingredients. There are also a few quests that can cost you your hero, I lost my physician to taking too long with the wedding quest.. the queen had him thrown in the monster pit for eloping and not sharing the details of the wedding night in time :winky:
I'm hoping expansions fix that.
One question though, it seems like having a bunch of heroes to manage would be busy. Can I just focus on one or two heroes at a time? Like, I get the monarch to a good place, then I focus on the merchant, then the blacksmith. Are they smart enough to take care of their needs and not get arrested or ruin the progress I made? Do they die eventually?
You only control the heroes needed for your current quest. Usually that's only 1, but a few have 2 or maybe 3. Otherwise they just do their own thing.
For those interested in possibly transferring kingdoms to new ambitions, check this out: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/5516778.page
My wife is a pretty big Sims fan (as a lot of girls I know tend to be) in that that's all she plays in the way of video games. Would The Sims Medieval be a good game to get for her? She has enjoyed the other iterations but this is apparently some sort of departure.
I've never played a Sims game so I can't really look at it and make up my mind myself.
I think the best comparison I can make is the Sims 2 College or whatever it was. Its kind of a sandbox set in a niche enviroment. But as some people mentioned it can be tedious to rebuild your kingdom over and over for each ambition (or campaign if you prefer).
Its a fun, quirky quest based game thoug since the quests are the same for every campaign. The heroes are unique and fun to play though and they all have different playstyles and personalities so I'd vote yes.
My free time now hates you all, as you have helped in some way make it an endangered species.
Also, just saw some of the changes with the latest patch. It's a good one. They pretty much fixed most of the complaints I had:
- New Feature: Free Play Ambition - Set up your perfect kingdom without worrying about long term goals. In this special ambition, you can play quests when you wish, or control up to four heroes at once in a more open free play mode
- New Feature: Child Succession - If a Hero Sim dies, but already has children, you can choose to have one of the children grow up and take over their parent's job!
- Camera improvements - Have you ever wanted to get a better view of the action? The camera now allows tighter zooming and full 360 rotation in buildings
- End Game Improvements - Similar to the Free Play Ambition, can now play quests, earn XP, and build buildings even after your ambition is completed!
- Hero Leveling Improvements - Can now gain XP beyond level 10 for all heroes, giving additional benefits