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The Open World: What are your hopes?
June 25, 2020 at 12:50 amI wanted to make a thread to see what people’s hopes are for the open world town. I debated making a thread like this since we know there will be a world creation tool at some point after the game comes out where we’ll be able to do whatever we want with the town. Then I thought to myself, well technically we don’t know when after release the tool will become available. So we could be limited to the single base game town for a while. As of right now, we don’t know.
But still I would like to ask what are everyones hopes the open world town? For me, my big hope is that I would like for there to be a good amount of lot variation across the town. Meaning that when I start the game up, after all my Parafolk are created and ready to go and it’s time to pick a place to live, I’d like for there to be reason for me to pick one location over another.
If on the left side of town (just a hypothetical since we don’t know the layout)there is a public pool, a dog park, a pizza place, and a community garden, I would hope that those exact same types of lots don’t exist on the opposite side of town. Now of course, I don’t think there should only be one of each lot type, just that I feel they should be spread around and that there are incentives to live somewhere, kind of like real life. Also consdering that we will have cars in the BG, having to drive long distances to somewhere vs. walking or biking would be a huge deciding factor in where to live. Maybe I’d rather have one family live in walking distance of a beach, but they must drive to get to the supermarket. Either way, I would like that to be something I must consider when I place my folks.
What are your hopes for this base game open world town? Anything specific you’re hoping to have? It doesn’t have to be just in terms of lots, it could be for homes/architecture, characters, culture, anything.
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26 Replies
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My first thought is that I hope there’s a beach and our parafolk can swim in the ocean. Speaking generally, I want the world to have a wide variety of lots that go beyond what we’ve seen in certain other games. I hope that most lots, instead of being rabbit holes, open up when you enter and close when you exit. I also want to see neighbours doing more than just walking by on the street, maybe chatting with each other or lounging on the beach or picnicking in a park. Kids kicking a ball around in a quiet cul de sac.
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I would like to see different types of restaurants: casual family style, romantic/elegant. Different prices according to the restaurant. Same with clothing store – fancy ones should sell items that are more expensive. Most of all, I want to see the town “alive”. I want to see children playing games like tag, hide-and-seek, etc., paras kissing/caressing/proposing/arguing, etc.
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I really want paras to be diverse and full of personality; some sociable some are not i know i might be a cynic with this but it’d be really funny if i have a para who’s waving at their neighbor who’s sitting in a coffee shop and that neighbor looks over at my para then resumes back talking to the person they’re with, no hi or anything. So i would like some paras to be and have cynicism/attitudes and friendly traits.
Definitely para life progression and ambience going when i go outside paras are just living their lives catching up with another, picking up others, mowing the lawn etc. and my para to observe and take it all in, just making the town feel alive. That’s one of my major wishlist items for the open world.
Smooth transitions of lots from cities/town into residential areas even leading out into the wilderness/country side and vice versa so lots dont feel out of place. If community lots are to be side by side i’d just like for them to blend in, like how everyone is wanting apartment/loft on the second floor and business on the first. Also lots of lot variations as you mentioned to socialize and just be somewhere.
I’d like to be able to pick a neighborhood to live in within the open world and each one has it’s own charm and quirks, including knowing if homes are for sale or rental. Housing priced based on neighborhood and different type of career salaries paras have who live there. I’d like to have bike lanes for bikers so they’re not on the main roads or at least be able to travel on sidewalks. Rural dirt roads you can walk or drive on, and parks and forests that blend in for paras to take a walk through.
Seeing different architecture styled homes based on the area/city you go to and old abandoned homes overgrown with weeds. With that being said i dont want every para to be welcoming when new neighbors move in and have every neighbor come to my paras home to greet them. Because it just doesnt happen in real life. But i think it makes way for more opportunities in getting to know other paras, in different ways and form relationships in the game later. To add on to that I’d like to see world events that can affect paras lives or not and bring paras together in various unique ways, the economy, and even government.
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i’m really hoping for deep lore, especially in this first world. i want pre-made characters to have premade relationships with other townies. maybe one dad has an affair with the girl across the street, or a pair of next-door neighbors hate each other and are in a full-blown prank war. obviously that’s kinda exaggerated, but i would love to see relationships somewhat like that. i would also love for there to be parks and stores that aren’t rabbit holes so you can meet people there. i would hope they have different skills based on their jobs and hobbies and hopefully different relationships with their kids. maybe they’re closer with one, or if one’s a teen they could be drifting a little. little things like that with townies just make the world feel so much more alive and really make me want to play so much more.
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My main want for the open world is for it to be lively and feel connected! I really want to got to bars and see many different people, and maybe times where it’s busier than others (for example quiet on a Monday and super busy on Saturday).
I’d love to see a lot of premade households too, with diverse families and individuals with interesting lore. It’s what makes a game that much more enjoyable!
I’d also like to see the world connected with all aspects of it, for example being able to walk a child to school, or see the fire service driving to your house to help. It would make the world so much more realistic and I love that!
At some point I would like to see attractions like zoos. I think that would be adorable! I really don’t expect it for base game or even ever but it could be a really nice expansion for example “days out”: which you get zoos, funfairs, museums, galleries and more! I think that could add a lot.
I’m really excited to see what Paralives has to offer in its open world, and I’m even more excited about the create a world tool after launch!
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First of all, I would like to see rich lore and history of our town / city / world. Then there could be some events regarding history – celebrations of founding, local hero, notable citizen of city (like biologist or astrologer) or recreation of civil war. I would like to see mysteries and secrets behind town, which you could try to solve.
Environmental changes – while this is confirmed to not be in game at the launch, I would definitely like to see it in future.
Nature and explorable places – I would like to see nature that is more interactive. I really liked about The Sims 3 that you could go with your sims to lake and spend day there. Large forest, lakes, rivers, maybe caves in future. It would be nice to put tent anywhere in forest and stay there or even get lost. There could be also abandoned buildings you could explore.
Town changing – Kinda impossible, but I hope that one day I will see this in life simulator game. Neighbors could reconstruct their house, shops could change, buildings could get abondoned or buildings could be domelized.
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Really my biggest hope is something that seems fairly likely anyway. An open world life sim game like The Sims 3, but less buggy.
So far it seems like we’re going to get that at the bare minimum.
Beyond that…
I’d like to see Parafolk have more detailed AI governing where they are at certain times of the day. Humans are (usually) creatures of habit, so they can be expected to have some sort of rhythm to their daily lives. In the Sims 3 and 4, sims just show up on community lots randomly and you don’t get a sense that they have any reason to be there other than to act as set dressing for your own sims adventures.
I think it would be interesting if Parafolk in Paralives had a base “routine” of what their daily life looked like in the town and this would be altered by numerous factors over time. Altered by the personality of the parafolk, their memories, their mood/emotions, their career, their relationships (if their friend or partner likes a specific restaurant they become more likely to visit it with them) with a bit of randomness sprinkled in for good measure. Perhaps a parafolk just develops a liking for a specific coffee shop and they return to it on their lunch break on most days.
This would be placed over other concepts like lot, street or neighborhood/district traits….which would further influence where parafolk would visit. For example a parafolk might be pulled to visit a specific lot because of their personality but pushed away from visiting it because it’s located in a district with a shady or “crime hotspot” trait. On the other hand for some parafolk, it being in a downtrodden shady area might be part of the appeal.
I don’t expect something like this to be very likely as it seems complicated, but if we’re going into dreamer territory this is one idea that appeals to me a lot.
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I agree and I really love all of these ideas and I have the same dreams as you for the game, but who knows maybe modding could make this possible somehow if we cant get it because of its complexity or maybe a version of it is possible to be added and advanced upon.
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I really like that concept, Dizzardy, but I agree that it might be hard to implement. I guess as the system automatically creates more NPCs, kind of like in the Sims, it’ll be harder to determine favourites and memory-based options. Creating routines within the game can’t be that hard, though, so for parks perhaps they could implement an age-based system. Elders visit the parks in the morning and during the day when most people are at work, moms with their toddlers before noon, children and adults in the afternoon when work and school is out, and more teenagers around late afternoon/early night. Same with most places, shops, restaurants etc, and when shops close the area might become empty. It would create a lot of diversity and realism, and I don’t think it’s too hard to program into the game 😀
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One layout that I saw I really liked was there were three types of living.
The city was on the far left, and had malls, businesses, apartments and fashion/jewelry stores.
Downtown was in the middle-and housed local businesses like city hall, police and fire station. You could also have the military and science lots on this area. Could also have the farming lots on the outskirts.
The far-right was the beach, houses, and vacation lots.
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I think that would be a nice layout. You could prioritize if you want to live close to a shopping district, major town buildings, or a vacation spot.
That would be great since all locations have their own benefits. I kind of hope the town we get is done similarly.
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I love all these ideas. My idea is to eventually have many worlds. Each world will have neighborhoods, representing towns/cities. Multiple worlds will have different cultures and life styles representing countries. Traveling to the different worlds will be a transportation loading screen, like an airplane, bus, boat or train. All worlds in its own will be open worlds of cause.
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This may be the simplest thing, but as a creator that likes tweaking how things look ALL the time, I’d love the ability to toggle between Build, Live Mode, and Create-a-para anywhere, without extra mods, without needing to cheat code something in, I’d like TOTAL freedom in customizing the ENTIRE world however I want to. Within the games limits of course. Even if I have a bit of a load screen in between each mode, that would be fine.
I’m just plainly talking about the ability to edit a para I click on, or edit a house or lot I click on, or edit the neighbourhood name, or the world name. I basically want the ability to edit or change whatever I’m clicking on. There’s an entire cheat and work around to be able to fully edit your sim in Sims 4 and I find it really annoying. If it was just the shift-click that would have even been better but to actually modify anything else about that sim you have to “cas.fulleditmode” cheat. It’s cool that it’s there, I just wish there wasn’t so many dang steps just to do something simple like change the behaviour, voice, name, whatever I want really, about that sim.
It would be absolutely amazing to be able to fully customize anything there could be to do so, without there being a ton of steps to do it.
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I never found entering “cas.fulleditmode” very strenuous (apart from the fact I forget to do it like 50% of the time), but I’d really really like to be able to edit parafolk without switching households. From what you’re saying I think your idea would let me do that so I’m all for.
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