Definitely they were the best looking Sims in the whole series. All the gripes I have with Sims 3 Sims were either mostly or completely fixed with them. Just look at that guy's eyes! The hair! The skin and features!
If the Sims in Sims 4 would have looked like that, I think far less people would complain about them.

Medieval is also a good example of an open world game with Create-A-Style that runs buttery smooth. Even pathing/routing is better than TS3 and TS4's. And AI is much better too.

Other Sims I made in Medieval:


And some images in-game:

Even the CAST tool was better in Sims Medieval. In Sims 3 the textures often ended up looking cheap or rubbery (remember Sims 3 Grimms Latex Robes) and it was far too easy for the colours to look oversaturated. It was ana mazing feature, but it needed more improvement. And Sims Medieval gave that improvement the clothes and fabrics looked like real, high quality clothes and fabric again, no matter what texture or pattern you slapped on them. Just look at the dresses of the queen(?) sorceress and the noble lady petitioning the king, or the doublets worn by the bard and the other noble. To me they show a clear improvement from the Sims 3 CAST. Why not use that improvement in the sequel?

Granted the world of Sim Medieval was a lot smaller, less flexible and less complex than Sims 3 (nobody aged, very little birthing or dying going on)...but the world of Sims 4 is also a lot smaller and less complex/flexible than Sims 3 or 2... so...

It was smaller and there was no aging/death (other than caused on purpose or by quests), but it was much more lively than TS3's or even TS2 and TS4's worlds. There are people everywhere, doing their own activities, socializing, playing games, etc.

I could go to any lot in the game and there was always something going on:


If there's a The Sim 5, they should definitely take some things Medieval did better than 3 and 4 into consideration. A smaller, denser open world would actually solve a lot of problems, like poor performance, broken routing and lots with only 3 or 4 Sims. I definitely don't want ANY loading screens in a world. Even if each "world" only has 20-25 lots, I want a continuous experience. There could be a loading screen to load other worlds in a travelling system similar to the one in The Sims 4.

Yeah in my idea of a "giant community lot" with the houses being loaded as you enter wasn't really talking about loading screens, but more like the bit of loading that happens when you enter a house in Sims Medieval.

So in your idea, basically a bunch of 20-25 lot "neighbourhoods" in a larger "town"? If so then I'd like the feature to be able to add more neighbourhoods in the basegame.

It doesn't. In that future, EA had closed its doors three years ago.

Orphalesion - I didn't play Sims Medieval. What made their witches so good?

I think the OP works better if we imagine that EA dumps the franchise in the future and you are able to buy it as a new independant studio. Because current EA would never let you have free reign to do whatever you want as lead designer. And atm there is no reason to expect that this is going to change.

Given our collective ambition as fans of the franchise, it would be for the better, if not, the best if EA handed the franchise off to a company that would have a better handle on such an impactful intellectual property.

EA is pretty much only in the market to sell something if it's worth the revenue hauled in. Otherwise, they won't exactly take gambles on rising stars unless the content is lucrative.

If I had a hand in designing TS5, I would ask that they include several different eras, which would slowly advance while played (ranging from like bronze-age to space age) and certain items would be locked or unlocked as the eras advance. I would also include several different beautiful world types that would start out empty and could be customized and populated with DLC and some free starter stuff. These worlds would range from various earth climates and biomes to alien planets for colony worlds. They could be slowly terraformed and changed as time goes by, leading to some great stories. There could even be moon colonies and spaceship worlds.

Sims would be able to, depending on the world type, find different kinds of rocks and gems, and lots of other cool items. More cool things would be available with paid DLC.

Personally, I would rather keep it unlocked. There are days I want to build a historical period piece. I also would make major civilizations worldwide flow with time.

Besides, I would get bored over time not being able to used what was once unlocked, only to be locked again.

Eh, I can get on board with advancing "decades" like from maybe the 1950s to the 2020s or something. But only if it was optional and adjustable on how fast those decades advance. The biggest problem would of course be providing enough content for each decade (enough hairstyles, enough clothing, enough furniture etc.)
I also agree with PandaQueen, that items should not be locked once you're past their decade. Vintage is a thing and has always been popular, maybe objects and clothes from past decades should just rise in price or something and if there's townies the game should give them a makeover each "decade"
In addition to setting the duration of each "decade" there should also be an option to set custom start and end dates. If you don't wanna start in the 50s, you can set the start date in the 1990s and so forth. And an options to just play a decade forever, without advancing.
But the biggest problem would remain with the content needed for each decade. It isn't fun to play in the 80s if there's just 2-3 80s hairstyles available for women. Each decade would need an amount of clothing, hair and furniture comparable to a standard Sims basegame (of course there'd be some very basic clothing and hair options that would be useful for all decades) and then there's the EPs and SP, each of which would have to cater to all of the decades and and and and...


For things like the distiant past or future, I'd rather see spin-off games where they can really explore and provide content for the theme.





The magic system just seemed properly involved without being over-complicated, but maybe it was just the pseudo RPG-gameplay that suited magic more.

Yeah. If people want advance, they simply can do by making their own rules and setting it up as a 'challenge'.

omg yasss. the fact i can make this Boi without any cc is just... mind blowing. unfortunately male sims in sims 4 and sims 3 look.....well, not this good.

omg medieval... best looking sims. They went for stylized semi-realistic when developing sims 3 but failed miserably however they perfected it in medieval. I even acidentally online-found a person who designed sims medieval sims, lighting and skin shader/details. They worked on sims 3 pets fur as well, and did an amazing job in both cases.

However, someone mentioned sims 3 saturation and omg, sims 3 is so bad on gamma correction. Has anyone ever taken a picture in sims 3, looked it up in UI and then hanged it on the wall and noticed a huge difference. The game is just, too dark for some reason, the puctures with dark blue tones become completely black and nothing can be seen on them except banding... huge amounts of banding. For some reason TSM is the most clear sims game after sims 2. Sims 4 does not have banding issues but, unlike TSM there's this blurry/blue filter over everything that makes everything look like monochrome washed out puke. It's like they just can't get the lighting/color balance right.

I agree 100%. The Sims 4 has a blue tint, which makes stuff that should be white look light blue. It also washes out details in textures and adds a weird plastic-like shine to everything, even when you try your hardest to make mate textures.


The Sims 3 has saturation and gamma issues. But at the very least details are rendered as they should, and shaders work as intended for the most part (glass looks like glass, metal like metal), though the BLOOM effect (especially during full moon) is awful.

The Sims Medieval is perfect in my opinion. The right gamma, saturation, contrast, and textures are rendered the right way.


Medieval is slightly more stilized than The Sims 3. But that's how you do "stylized" right. You don't have to sacrifice texture quality and polygons to make stylized graphics. You don't have to make every object have a glossy/plastic-looking feel. You can have QUALITY graphics regardless of the chosen art style.

Rough idea from this thought:
Distant past\future basegames with various worlds released with add-ons.

Maybe if we released it with a world or 2, (maximum 2 to start), it would be a matter of where to start that we could agree on as the important part.

Lightbulb...What if these past and future ones could interact with each other with the present time one? Although it would be expensive to interact with all three games purchased, they could still function in a standalone mode without time travel.

How about time travel to the past as well as the future? With the applicable programs, you can travel to the eras in question.

Time travel in TS3 was rudimentary at best, but I shouldn't leave out the consequential actions that mold a future. There should be challenges like before and it starts in the past where Good or Bad Futures are due in part of your sim taking part in challenges to fix up or screw up the future.

New requests:
1) STAIRS, L-shaped, U-shaped, spiral, ladders, elevators
2) Adult EP, Prostitution, murder, drugs, crime, serious illness, toxic relationships/domestic problems
3) Farm EP, tractors, chickens, cows, Maybe rope it all into a sustainable/pioneering pack where your sims can make/grow their own everything
4) Life stages: baby, toddler (1-4), child (4-9), preteen (9-14), teen (14-18), Young Adult (18-30), Adult (30-45), Middle aged (45-60), elder (60+)
5) 3 different heights for sims that are carried over to each life stage after child: short, regular, tall (this way the 'it cant be animated' excuse can be avoided by animating everything for each height)
6) Landlord profession (your sim can make a living by renting property to other sims, and upgrades to properties mean that your rent can be raised, and filthy or damaged homes are offered for less, I used to do this with a mod in TS3)
7) a way to do more ceiling/indoor roofing detail, such as having the triangle point or beams of a roof visible from the inside when there is no floor above the room (this might be a bit unrealistic though)

Returning features:
1) TS4 multitasking, toddlers, CAS, build mode (with the roofing system more flexible to make "half stories" or attic rooms where you cut into a bit of the roof, and dormers function better), the way the outfits are carried over to the next life stage, parenting system, daycare, object height/ALT cheats,
2) TS3 world setup (loved gathering seeds and pets and swimming in the ocean) and career rabbit holes, CASt, multiple property/business ownership, story progression, gardening outside of a box, crime system, cars, customizable work outifit
3) TS2 (I skipped over this one a bit because I got the game only a year before TS3 came out but I remember some) relationships were more interesting, apartments, user friendly neighborhood design, personality point system, buying clothes, ALL THE CHEATS
4) TS1 unlimited party guests (with celebrity surprise... just don't pick someone dumb like katy perry), random visitors to your house, let NPC's be just NPC's, chemistry set disasters, easter eggs and inside sim jokes that are not marketed as a big chunk of game play and just snuck in for fun, gardener, party strippers, ALL OF THE DUMB SOUND EFFECTS!!! lol

Things that do not work:
1) swaddled babies in cribs
2) children can not do anything, let them do things dammit! I could use the stove, garden, play piano, exercise and help clean around the house when i was 7, IT AINT HARD!
3) Make the game more focused on ALL life stages
4) AND PLEASE FOR FUCK SAKE DO NOT MAKE FURSUITS AND COSTUMES AVAILABLE TO WEAR AS NORMAL CLOTHES!!!! I HATE WHEN I SEE THAT SHIT IN MY GAME LIKE STOP SHUFFLING THAT IN!

AAAAND that's all I got

One thing we need back in sims 5 is better dire consequences that were present in the sims 2. For instance, in the sims 2, if a married man cheated on his wife with the maid and if the wife came home, she would literally walk up to him, slap the shit out of him, then divorce him on the spot causing them to instantly be enemies, and if that wasn't enough, as the cheating ex husband was moving out, the ex wife would literally chase him off the lot while he was going to the taxi to leave And if the kids witnessed all this, they would be crying and heartbroken and being enemies with the kids as well. Point is, if you do something really stupid in the sims 2 you are really gonna feel it and the consequences would be dire and your life would be ruined.
The sims 3 did this a little but not as intense as was the sims 2 and the sims 4 consequences are just not there. Yeah you take hits in your relationships but that's about it.
So if a sims 5 was made, re introduce dire consequences for more dramatic gameplay and realism. .

Open world, make more sims 3 like so you can play a household instead of 1 sim at a time, and it would have strong witch & wizards (more of a Hogwarty feel), vampire (I like Sims 4 vampires) and science themes (it would be more like the "Back to the Future" Movies, duh!)

Fursuits are part of the charm of TS4. Just a way of distancing itself from reality. Which is the point of playing video games. If you think otherwise than turn off your computer and go outside because your ideas ruin the point of video gaming and are unwelcome.

I'm not sure you can have an 18+ add-on for a T-rated base game. Maybe you can, I'm not sure.

I don't believe it's necessary though. I know some people want this type of gameplay, but if I were making the game I would spend time developing a good Creation toolset like Skryim's Creation Kit with a built-in animation tool so modders could create this type of gameplay if they want. I believe having ONE adult-themed explicit EP is kinda weird for a game that a lot of kids play.

After having a taste of Get Famous or whatever its called, I want to see one major thing in a next installment. More interactivity between skills and careers. Especially when new content is introduced. I will use a TS4 example to illustrate.

Last EP introduced the mix master music station (who makes up these names?) to produce tracks. This could have been an obvious extension for the DJ mixing skill. Being able to play your own tracks on the DJ Booth and gaining more fame because you are a DJ that plays their own tracks. So when a sim learns to produce their own tracks and masters a certain DJ skill level, it should lead to DJ gigs that also earns you fame. If your sim then can also play the guitar or piano at a certain level, they could produce more tracks for the mix master station to use.

EDIT:

This Sims Medieval revival made me realise something. If made right, TS3 or TS4 could be made into Sims Medieval. It just asks for more advanced options ingame. Like being able to turn off certain mechanics and content from within the game (so no hassle with uninstalling content).
For example, being able to turn of cars, CAS items from a certain expansion pack, chose which careers you want to use etc. The base game would come with careers that would work in or be translated to any period (bar tender, shop owner, writer, physician, police etc)

This way EA could sell conversion packs that are like expansions, but then with a specific theme that requires different features or mechanics. Like Sims Western, where coaches, carts and horses replace cars and taxis (option to be disabled ingame). Specific careers could be disabled, so you would only have the typical western careers like sheriff, gold digger etc. So you would want to turn off Rocket Scientist for example, but could leave on Journalist, Bartender, Writer. The sims would use items that make sense for the time period.

Now let's say that this game would also be moddable to a high degree. The cool thing would be that you are able to turn on cars and rockets back on in the western conversion pack and mod this to some kind of Steampunk or Firefly series themed world if you would have the appropiate CC and official content ofc.

I hope this makes sense to you guys.

In addition to the above, there would be mesh collision enabled instead of just rigs for posing and IK movement interactions. Then you can have sims of different heights.
I think I'd also make life goals more of a triangle with one corner being family, another hedonism, and a third career/money.

There are many things I would have it look like, but because I'm on my phone and don't have much time left in my lunch, I'll keep it short (for now).

I would have variable wall height. But not like it is in The Sims 4, wall height that would allow for split-level houses. In order to get this to work in a consistent manner, I would actually bind wall height to the vertical measurements of stairs. There are quite a few more nuances I'd like to go into detail with later.