EA announces The Sims Medieval

[Azazel]

The Sims did better smithing than every mmo? 

Sounds very EQ2-ish...

[naum]

Trying to figure out how to run this on my MacBook Air… …it's easy to install using another machine's DVD/CD drive, but the game requires the disc inserted to run. I could try using EA Download Manager and plug in my key but there is no Mac support (other than in game patch/update).

Game is fun, though there are some annoyances with the UI and not a fan of the parts where your sim goes off "into the dark" to do some quest and in old-school-text-adventure fashion, plops you into a modal dialog box (i.e., hunting, certain special quest tasks, traveling to other lands, etc.…).

Went the totally random route, random everything -- skin, face, clothes, even traits. Your "hero" sims get 3 positive traits and 1 negative trait.

Thus far, monarch having an easy time going through quests.

Then rolled up a knight to go with the previously built barracks -- again, totally random sim creation, and she got "cursed" as her negative trait, which has severely impacted her quest progress. It made responsibilities (every day your sim gets assigned a couple of tasks to complete in addition to your chosen quest task path tree) hard -- as she didn't have enough focus to win fights or even get simple things accomplished. Or worse, getting gored hunting and lowering focus further. And then ending up in stockades for not fulfilling the obligations. Also, took me awhile to figure out how to earn money. Guess I should have read the "Lessons" or consulted an internet guide, but that zaps the fun for me, I'd rather struggle along and figure out for myself in-game.

[Sky]

How can you not love your cursed, bungling she-knight? I think you're approaching it from the wrong angle :)

[naum]

How can you not love your cursed, bungling she-knight? I think you're approaching it from the wrong angle :)

I dig her but she's been pwned in every fight/duel thus far, except for one, when she shook down a visiting noble for a money sack. He didn't give it up willing and she had feed him a taste of the blade to earn that 60 simole sack. Though all the training and practice, she been leveling up the XP (ready to ding level 4).

Even one of her positive traits is not conducive to her profession -- "friendly".

Here's a video (& some short text, which he got some things wrong, additionally, he missed the ".", "," keys that allow you to rotate camera) review here:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8750-The-Sims-Medieval-Review

[tmp]

The quests are all from the same mega pool, though, so you'll have to repeat them from thinger to thinger, although a lot of them can be done by multiple classes, so you can approach them differently at least.

The multiple approach is excellent. Got a quest where A WITCH APPEARS but since i have neither soldiers nor mages/priests to deal with her yet, going to have king take one for the team instead. Literally

[rk47]

Trying to figure out how to run this on my MacBook Air… …it's easy to install using another machine's DVD/CD drive, but the game requires the disc inserted to run. I could try using EA Download Manager and plug in my key but there is no Mac support (other than in game patch/update).

Game is fun, though there are some annoyances with the UI and not a fan of the parts where your sim goes off "into the dark" to do some quest and in old-school-text-adventure fashion, plops you into a modal dialog box (i.e., hunting, certain special quest tasks, traveling to other lands, etc.…).

Went the totally random route, random everything -- skin, face, clothes, even traits. Your "hero" sims get 3 positive traits and 1 negative trait.

Thus far, monarch having an easy time going through quests.

Then rolled up a knight to go with the previously built barracks -- again, totally random sim creation, and she got "cursed" as her negative trait, which has severely impacted her quest progress. It made responsibilities (every day your sim gets assigned a couple of tasks to complete in addition to your chosen quest task path tree) hard -- as she didn't have enough focus to win fights or even get simple things accomplished. Or worse, getting gored hunting and lowering focus further. And then ending up in stockades for not fulfilling the obligations. Also, took me awhile to figure out how to earn money. Guess I should have read the "Lessons" or consulted an internet guide, but that zaps the fun for me, I'd rather struggle along and figure out for myself in-game.

To get a good success rate when attempting anything, take in leisure activity, whatever they may be, to increase your focus bar.

Basically:
-Drinking beer
-Having a 'good' meal. Don't just eat gruel all the time, buy some raw ingredients and cook something.
-Gussy up on the mirror
-Wash your face with a water jar
-A good rest

Focus is the only factor you need to proceed through quest successfully.
I'm very disappointed with the game so far. Very large step backward in terms of sandbox game-play.

Expect the Dungeons & Dragons expansion pack in 6 months.

[Sjofn]

Don't forget peeing! Peeing gives focus too.

[Paelos]

Don't forget peeing! Peeing gives focus too.

Yep you really have to focus on that after drinking.

[schild]

I'm going to return the game. It put my computer in a crash loop.

[naum]

Very narrow in it's sandbox gameplay model -- if I had more time to play, I'd be done with this already. As is, it's been fun, but there's not a lot of replay-ability here.

Sims 3 players, it's not at all Sims 3 -- your sims are really not sims other than in a limited quest sphere.

But it's not an RPG either.

Again, the biggest grievance is all the stuff that happens to your unseeable character -- go hunt a bear and just get a modal dialog box with the results. Odd when other things like sword fight duels and other sim interactions are animated aesthetically.

To me, more fodder, on how move to more realistic 3-D graphics really stunted deep gameplay.

[Sjofn]

The Sims have always handled shit like that that way, though. It never occured to me to be all "I want to swing my sword at the bear in REAL TIME" because a) the combat sucks anyway and b) they've never really done that before.

World Adventures might've started to inch towards what I guess you want, but I didn't enjoy that expansion very much. Doing quests in it is fiddly and sort of boring, and I'd much rather the flash card "go left, go right" stuff. Partly because a lot of them are funny, partly because I don't think it would be nearly as fun as you think it would be.

[Stormwaltz]

Woe. 

I finally had time to install my copy of the Limited Edition tonight, and found... I can't run the installer. AI can view all the files on the disc in Explorer, but it locks up the system for about two minutes slowly loading all the data. Running the setup off it just locks up the machine. In order to get control back, I have to manually eject the disc.

I've never seen anything like this before.

[Sky]

They're airing mainstream commercials. Fiancee saw one last night and asked me about it. The commercial was pretty bad, with the black dude from Scrubs. But now she's interested, luckily Sims games don't go on sale often and full price games are 

I told her it was probably too much game and too little sim to be enjoyable, I'm not sure she cares, she saw an assassin put poison in a cup, and a bard. If it has a plague event, she'll probably buy it on the spot. She's into medieval art and death. Mostly death.

[Sjofn]

There's a doctor class that uses leeches and shit, and you definitely deal with plagues.

[Sky]

 

[Paelos]

Yep, doomed.

[Sjofn]

I like to help! 

[caladein]

Really though, every game needs an action to "Use a pile of leeches."

[Ard]

Sjofn, I'm personally laying blame at your feet that I looked at the clock last night while playing this and realized it was 1am.  On that note, if anyone cares, I found this on sale at Frys for $35 last weekend.  I've never seen a Sims game on sale before, much less this low this short after launch. 

[Sjofn]

Oh sure, blame the woman. 

[Tannhauser]

Why, are you driving?  (flees from thread)

I'm going to eventually pick this up.  The spot with Donald Fason was the clincher!  What, did the Scrubs money run out already?

[Sjofn]

ARISE

Because an expansion for this is coming out on August 30th. Here is their doofy preview trailer thing. I liked this enough that I'll probably pick up the expansion. I am a sucker. :(

[NiX]

They got their facts wrong. It's Pirates vs. Ninjas.

[Mrbloodworth]

This game looks fun, but I fear how much time I would end up putting into it.

[caladein]

I'll probably pick it up on sale later this year (because that's what I always do with Sims expansions ) but man, that indoor camera made me want to punch babies.

[rk47]

This game looks fun, but I fear how much time I would end up putting into it.

I don't find it that fun TBH. It's really mind-boggling how much they messed up with the sandbox aspect of the Sims that we all know and loved. Instead, every day of your Medieval Sims' life will be dictated by chores and chores and more chores. With very limited time to execute it.

[Sjofn]

They didn't "mess it up," they were doing something slightly different with this game.

It seems like they took all the people who thought the questy bullshit in World Adventures was an awesome idea for The Sims 3 and put them on this game instead, which I am glad for. I didn't like World Adventures much because they were "messing up" the sandbox formula in my actual Sims game, and missing the point of why people play that. But Sims Medieval was clearly going to be more focused in everything I read, so I play it for different reasons. I don't mind having things to accomplish on a particular day in addition to my quests, because that is the point of this game. If you want to play The Sims but in medieval clothes, go download some shit from modthesims.info and call it a day.

I also know some people who said they never really liked the Sims because it was too sandboxy. I think this game was trying to solve that problem without having to fuck up the real Sims for the people who enjoy that (given there are so many of us  ). I can't really say if they succeeded, since I liked the original Sims and all its mutant babies since then, but I also like the more focused gameplay, so long as it isn't gunking up my original dollhouse.

[Sjofn]

So I got the expansion. It's nice and all, but not worth the money, as it simply doesn't add enough. So no one else buy it unless it's on sale. 

[Fordel]

One day they are going to stop making 'The Sims' and I have no idea what will happen to you Sjofn.

[naum]

I was into this for a few weeks, leveled up a few sims, and started on another… …then I went on vacation for a few weeks, came back and kind of forgot about this game. Then a month or two later I wanted to give it another whirl and somehow I forgot where I put the disk at… …but I really did not much of a mind for searching for it.

OK, but some things really bugged me about it…

[Ard]

So I got the expansion. It's nice and all, but not worth the money, as it simply doesn't add enough. So no one else buy it unless it's on sale.  

Too late, and I'm still going to blame you anyhow.  Not that there's anything to blame you for, other than being up until 1 last night.

[Sjofn]

It DOES eat up the time, no doubt. 

[Azazel]

So this is fifteen bucks on the Steam Sale at the moment - I'm wondering what you do in it?. When you run quests and such, does the game take you outside into other environments? Do you still build your castle/house and put furniture etc around the place or is that sort of thing prebuilt?

[carnifex27]

I got it during this sale, so I don't have too much time into it.  The castles and houses are prebuilt, but you can furnish them yourself.  In the dozen or so quests that I've done, any time I leave the kingdom, I just get a text window that tells me what happened.  I've really been enjoying it (spent 9hrs out of the last 30 playing it), but I'm one of those people that found the other The Sims games too sandboxy that Sjofn was talking about.

[Xanthippe]

Crappity crap. Missed the sale.  How likely is it to go on sale again in the next few months?