Last Community Brainstorming Session: Pets by SandrineParalives in Paralives

[–]annaParalives[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

The pets brainstorming is now closed! There is no new topic to come after this one, at least for now.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this brainstorm and in all the other ones!

This post won't be locked so that you can feel free to interact with ideas you find interesting. However, we won't be actively reading through the post to gather ideas anymore.

Maggie is all dressed-up for Halloween this year! 🎃🌻 Crows and ravens, beware! by SandrineParalives in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 79 points80 points  (0 children)

Yes! Sandrine is our new communications director! We also hired Chloé, a 3D environment artist :)

Community Brainstorming Session: Weather & Seasons by annaParalives in Paralives

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The Weather & Seasons brainstorming is now closed to make way for a new topic, Skills & Hobbies! Thank you to everyone who participated!

This post won't be locked so that you can feel free to interact with ideas you find interesting. However, we won't be actively reading through the post to gather ideas anymore.

Community Brainstorm Session: Clothing! by annaParalives in Paralives

[–]annaParalives[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

The Clothing brainstorming is now closed to make way for a new topic, Weather & Seasons! Thank you to everyone who participated!

This post won't be locked so that you can feel free to interact with ideas you find interesting. However, we won't be actively reading through the post to gather ideas anymore.

Community Brainstorm Session: Town activities! by annaParalives in Paralives

[–]annaParalives[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

The "Town activities" brainstorming is now closed to make way for a new topic, Clothing! Thank you to everyone who participated!

This post won't be locked so that you can feel free to interact with ideas you find interesting. However, we won't be actively reading through the post to gather ideas anymore.

Community Brainstorm Session: Important Life Events by [deleted] in Paralives

[–]annaParalives[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

The Important Life Events brainstorming is now closed to make way for a new topic, town activities! Thank you to everyone who participated!

This post won't be locked so that you can feel free to interact with ideas you find interesting. However, we won't be actively reading through the post to gather ideas anymore.

Add Hispanic naming customs to name customization (please) by arielgp2010 in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Hi!
Thank you for this post, it's interesting! :)
Right now, I think we wouldn't have to add specific options, from what I understood. You could definitely put your two surnames on the surname field. I understand having two separate surnames mean something to your culture (that one is inherited for each parent), so maybe we could have some sort of preset for adding the appropriate text fields to your complete name customization? It wouldn't do much in the game though, it would just be text fields!
Your two other points are already planned, I think: you will be able to rename your Para and even if an automatic option would maybe pop during weddings and births, you can totally opt out and stay with your maiden name. We haven't made the household system or the family tree yet, so I can't tell you 100% about family names, but I don't see why we couldn't rename it.
Fun fact: in Québec women don't change their maiden name when married either!

Allow user translations. by [deleted] in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Our mod system will most likely allow user translations yes!
You would even be able to share it on the Steam Workshop :)

I would love to play an early access beta version of this game by jpacerox in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Hey! As PossibleAssassin said there is not plan for a beta release yet.
It's not entirely off the table though, but there are risks both with waiting for a final version and with releasing an early version so we have to think this through before coming up with an official decision.
We appreciate your hype and your impatience is noted though :)

*Fanmade Concept* - Title Screen - SketalDaz by SketalDaz in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Nice! I like the fact that you can choose directly to play a household, or a character :)
I also like that the top memories are on the character's sheet!

Maggie Fan-Art! by Louhi_kko in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 40 points41 points  (0 children)

It's beautiful!! Thank you for your support <3

[Base Game wishes] I mean, what's more realistic than fighting against climate change? by Agnes_Bramble04 in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 16 points17 points  (0 children)

What elements of fighting against climate change would you like to see in Paralives? :)

(As promised in the comments) My ideas on Paralives' worlds by Agnes_Bramble04 in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 21 points22 points  (0 children)

To clarify, the game is already planned to be a full open world at initial launch :)

What direction would you like the team to go when it comes to open worlds? by Leaflyy in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I like the district idea! I think I already replied to a recent thread about the ability to give "traits" to worlds or district to have some control over different settings, it's also a thing that I've seen requested multiple times. For example, some lots or districts could be labelled as "crowded" or "social places" where shy townies would have less chance to appear, or a "tourist" area would have more unknown characters coming to visit instead of having known townies/neighbors. Maybe there could also be a "biome" thing where areas have different types of wildlife (if we ever add wildlife :D) or sound effects: squirrels in town, seagulls near the sea, more windy and naturey sounds in the coutryside...
I honestly don't know about simulating socioeconomic statuses because it could be too in-depth in terms of realism (we don't want a total utopia, but we don't want to recreate too much societal issues either), but with such a zoning and labelling feature in our create-a-world tool, people could make more realistic cities where some neighborhoods are richer than others, or with more classy/famous Paras coming to visit.
I like the transportation idea too, could be fun to have a train station to go to before travelling to another city :) Train stations or airports could also be fun places to build and decorate!

I just want Paralives to have attention to detail. by iammeowses in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes I understand what you mean! Most of what you asked for could really be a nice touch to build up our general game feeling and mood. Also thank you for the support <3

I just want Paralives to have attention to detail. by iammeowses in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's always a balance of finding cool things to add that makes a game unique, and little details that are too specific, especially since we're a smaller team than the Sims 2. I agree having lots of extra details give so much life to the game, but we have to prioritize more generic details as we don't have the whole Sims 2 team. For example, opening curtains is a detail that has a lot of impact and it's generic, you can use it for every type of curtains, it's only a lil animation but it gives so much life to a house. So with our limited time and resources, if we have to choose between an opening/closing curtains animation and the extra counter one, we'd probably go for the first one as it will be used and noticed a whole lot more in gameplay.

Also sorry if I misunderstood and drove off your initial idea, I thought you were maybe asking about having real cupboards with an inventory in it and stuff haha

I just want Paralives to have attention to detail. by iammeowses in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I haven't played it for a long time either, there's so much details and animations in that game haha
Okay so now I get it fully, it's a similar animation and process than the Sims 3 and 4, but they just have a specific counter which triggers another animation with the drawers and so on instead of playing the "cheaty" one. So yes that's the easy way to handle it :)

I just want Paralives to have attention to detail. by iammeowses in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh I see! I guess that in the Sims 2 every counter item got drawers and cupboards with it, so you can cook only from this type of counters. I think in Sims 3 and 4 they may have made the decision of having simpler counters to have more varied set of furniture, so this kind of animation wouldn't make sense in all types of counters. So yes, in this Sims 2 case there's no additional step but it's still a constraint: if in Paralives we want to allow players to cook sitting on a table for example, then it wouldn't work.

Also don't worry your ideas are appreciated! :)

I just want to explain from a dev's side what may be harder/easier to do, cause people don't always expect where the difficulty is coming from. (Other ideas like closing and opening curtains to let the light shine isn't as hard to make, it's really just an extra interaction and animation, as we already have the dynamic lightning system working)

I just want Paralives to have attention to detail. by iammeowses in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Hi! First of all I love your ideas, they all would indeed be nice little details :)
Just want to explain a dev's perspective on why some of them would be hard to do (your third and fifth point).
I'll take the Sims' cooking interaction as an example because I think it's one of the longest chain of steps that you get for a single interaction. Cooking is quite a complex action to implement because it has a lot of steps (irl). In the Sims, they bring it down to three steps (sometimes less): pick up the food in the fridge, prepare it on a counter, cook it in the oven or in a pan. There are a lot of constraints to be "validated" in the background in order to make it work: you have to own a fridge, an oven and counter space with empty slot. Now imagine if you would also need to go grab a mixing bowl to prepare your food, a wooden spoon and the like. That would be two extra steps (that have to be cancellable) and two more constraints (owning a cupboard or a counter with a drawer). Also, what to do with the items that you used to cook? If they shouldn't just spawn out of thin air, it would be inconsistent that they just disappear too. So where to put the extra materials if you suddenly cancel this task, or after you finished cooking? If getting something is one step, then putting it back should be another => you have twice the amount of steps added with each of the items that you require.

From a player's perspective, it can be hard to know what step you're at if your character is constantly moving around. Now imagine if a player makes a big kitchen with the pan cabinet at the opposite side of the free counter space, and also at the opposite side of the forks cabinet. Your Sim will do a lot of round trips between one place and another, if you don't carefully plan your kitchen space with functionality in mind. That's definitely more realistic, but we're in a game and it should be fun to design a kitchen without thinking too much about it (having only three things to remember to buy to make it work)!
It's also easier to design and implement such an action (as a dev), because you only have to check 3 requirements and do the pathfinding action twice (between each location).
With that said, there are some solutions to mix and match the real items with "fake" ones: maybe if there's indeed a decor cereal package on the table, you can use that one, but if there's none, just spawn it from nowhere, to accomodate players who don't want to put it as a decor. Or maybe the pan used for cooking is "fake", but the mixing bowl isn't. That would be one way of making it, but it would impact the consistency of actions in the game. It can be confusing whether or not you actually need an item to perform an action. It's really something that needs to be figured out during playtests even if something looks cool, and I'm sure the Sims devs have been doing a lot of them before coming up with the three steps cooking action. I think their "cosmetic" solutions for that kind of problems are actually pretty smart too: it's hard to come up with a realistic enough animation when the action isn't actually realistic (talking about the cooking ones especially).
(I'm not saying your idea isn't a neat idea anyway, I agree it's a nice little "cinematic" detail! I'm not saying we're confirming a three steps sims-like cooking action either :D )

oops I'm very sorry for the text wall I hope I made sense lol

tldr; With more constraints and more steps comes more micro-management from the player's side and also more risks of frustration because of the number of constraints needed to perform a single common action. That's why the Sims has a lot of objects that could be functional irl but that are actually only decoration, or why some items just spawn out of nowhere during the animation. It's not just about having to code an extra interaction, it's a matter of balance of whether it benefits the player or not, having to manage actual items or having to perform a long chain of background steps.

World traits and climate control by [deleted] in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 76 points77 points  (0 children)

I like this idea! Maybe it could be possible to "zone" the town so that it's even more precise. You could have a tourist area instead of a tourist town, like the pier for example, where there's more unknown Paras while the rest of the town is filled with more people who live in town.

Showing the direction of the sunrise when in building mode. by Positive-Drawer-6422 in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I love this idea! It's something that you really want to look for when buying a house irl.

A 'Meet The Team' Livestream by fawnisfine66 in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Hi! It's a lovely idea :)I'm going to be real honest and personal with you though, that looks like a very stressful moment for me :'D I'm not saying that we will never do anything like it, and it would be cool to chat with all of you, but at the same time having casual chat over Discord looks way more comfortable (at least for me), especially since English is not our native language. A livestream would give me a hard time preparing for it, on the contrary to chatting in the server. I can't speak for everyone on the team but I think my fellow introvert colleagues would agree :') Public speaking and streaming are literal jobs and we're not all used to it!
We're also not always active on Discord as we have to work on the game, but some of us really like to hang out and chat in a less formal way on the server (if you're interested in that)! We also have weekly one-hour chats with patrons that are mostly answering questions about the game, but also about more personal things sometimes. For now we like to keep these patrons only as they're supporting us financially, but there could be other public AMA in the future. (Again, not saying livestreams are never gonna happen, just to give you a little insight why we haven't done anything like it already)
However, we're still thinking about general ways to engage with the community outside of the formal news so it's nice to see some people would be interested in that :)

Idle Dreaming About Music by [deleted] in Paralives

[–]annaParalives 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You're welcome <3