Grant Rodiek, a producer on The Sims 4 Expansion Packs has confirmed that Cats & Dogs WON’T be playable like in The Sims 3 Pets. He basically said that Pets will have a mind of their own, like in The Sims 2 Pets.
It was a think that was debated for months by The Sims Team but Grant is confident that the team has made the right decision of making Pets not playable.
What the f**k are they thinking??
People will buy it anyway. People will buy anything.
I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. You couldn’t really do too much with them in TS3 apart from digging in the ground and have them walk through the world.
^ this
Agreed. I didn’t see much point in controlling them in TS3, and I kind of like the challenge and interaction this will require.
Think about it this way; it’ll better simulate real life because in real life, you can’t control your pets. For the most part, it comes down to training to keep pets well behaved and that was something Sims 3 lacked because all you had to do was take control of them and there was no challenge and it didn’t represent reality. They are trying to emulate an authentic pet experience. Give it a few days and you might agree
I’m supposing they’ll still have a whim bar and moonlets on the pet j
In real life you don’t control a whole household or become a vampire.
in real life we dont have aliens,vampires,ghosts, and cow plants.
fantastic news I think it is more realistic this way! However how will we know if they are sick?
There might be some kind of notification that they are, I’m sure they figured out a way to tell us if the pets are sick or not
Well… that’s disappointing. First no sign of horses in the mix and now no pet control…
What would you even make them do? Go around and make them lick and sniff everyone because that’s basically all they’re good for control-wise.
Tell them when to eat and drink.
Or to pee outside or in the litter box.
If you pet was stupid in TS2 it would starve because it forgot to eat. lol
If you controlled them to pee outside or in the litter box then much of a used would it be to train them to be good for you? Not trying to be rude or anything, it’s just that the thing you said kinda takes away one of the most fun aspects of a pet which is training them.
You clearly haven’t ever heard of the warrior cats challenge, or any story/challenge involving pets.
Yesss that’s what I was excited for with this pack
I asked if there would be a cheat that allowed us to control them and he blocked me. He did say there is no Create-A-Pet demo coming
I don’t mind the fact that they aren’t controllable, I actually prefer it since it’s more realistic. It is sort of a problem if there isn’t even a cheat to make them controllable for people that prefer it though! It makes me think they couldn’t make them controllable for whatever reason due to the game engine. They know people coming from Sims 3 are used to it so it would make sense to at least make it accessible through a cheat.
I’m very torn between not controlling and controlling pets. Not controlling gives training your pet a purpose (rather than your pet training itself under your control), but I always liked to turn to the dog and have a little adventure. And I have a cat from TS3 (Imnota Frickinhorse, he was a pretty messed up looking cat that survived three zombie apocalypses, unlike Ima Frickinhorse the horse) and there’s no way the AI could do his personality justice.
I also fear that a lack of control means a lack of control over their ageing, which means pets will die regardless of ageing being on or off.
Same here. Blocked.
Yes at least in the sims 2 we had a cheat for controlling pets. I think we should be able to have a cheat, a choice . Wonder if we will be able to see their needs.
It was a lot of work trying to make both the Sims and pets happy. I’m glad we don’t have to control them. I just hope there’s a lot of interaction between the sims and pets. I also wonder how its going to work when trying to get your pets to make puppies or kittens.
Can’t wait to add a baby kitty to my sim family
To be totally honest, I was quite annoyed when they said that Pets wouldn’t be playable because I was so used to playing the Sims 3 Pets. However, now I’m excited because it makes it more lifelike and challenging. I think the developers are aiming to go back to the Sims 2 (unplayable babies and pets, no open world, etc.).
And know that I think about it, when you did play as a pet, you didn’t really do much. Yes, you could build relationships, have babies and improve skills like hunting, racing and jumping. But besides that there wasn’t really much else to do. Most of the time I would be controlling my Sims and only switching to my pets if they were hungry or lonely. Although I enjoyed playing as a pet, they slowly became prioritized and would be more like a friend than a playable sim. And now they are unplayable, it will be more of a challenge to find out their needs. I’m really excited for this pack.
As for horses, I wasn’t really too bugged about it (I’m more of a cat person). Horses wouldn’t really fit in with the non-open world and would probably be used like cars would (e.g. you would send them out into a rabbit-hole when going out for rides.) But look at the bright side, not having to work on horses meant that the Sims developers had more time to focus on cats and dogs. Besides, they aren’t ruling out the possibility of horses. We might see them in the future with even more things to enhance our gameplay experience than if they were added with cats and dogs.
True, you give a very good point
And they added racoons and foxes <3
I think its better that way, and I do agree that it will look more realistic if they are not playable.
I think is wrong to not let us have a choice to control them, as I liked to make sure my pets ate and had social interactions, also there are no pet birds at the moment, hope there will be. Someone will probably make a mod though.
If someone tried to made a mod, The moder will add user interface, Pie Menu, Test the effect of skills, and change the behavior of pets. It will require so much work.
I love pets and would prefer to control them but in Sims 3 pets kept getting stuck and frankly I’d prefer quality (less bugs) over quantity (more control).
I am kind of happy that we can’t control them, because in the sims 3 the pets were quite needy, and we had to control EVERY single action they do because they were to dumb to do what was actually right for them. It was like my cat needed to go scratch, but I didn’t bother controlling him at the time so instead of taking care of his need he goes and starts sleeping. I was like “B**ch the f**king scratching post is right there!! Get your butt up, stop sleeping, and scratch the pole.” There were times where my pets died earlier then they should of….wonder how they died I mean one day they were a kitten/puppy and five minutes later they were an elder ready to die…. weird.
I like that I won’t be able to control them in the way we do our Sims, I just want my Sims to take care of them.
It challenge the player and makes it more realistic alright but the game isnt actually that realistic when we have vampires and controllable aliens
I don’t mind this at all. I didn’t really play as a pet in Sims 3 since I was more involved in my Sims’ affairs. Besides, I think it’d be interesting to see how this will turn out. Maybe pets will do something random and crazy that’ll make for interesting gameplay. 😀
People are just the worst! On time they say: “Oh we want the whole game more realistic”, but when they make pets realistically uncontrolable they say “Oh we didn’t want that we wanted to control them” and then a problem starts cause a lot of people hate on it which is not cool.
Very true. But this is the Sims Fandom we are talking about. Give them anything and they’ll find something to complain about.
No Toddlers… COMPLAIN. Give them Toddlers… COMPLAIN.
No Pets… COMPLAIN (and continuously demand it with every trailer they release).
Cats and Dogs… “THIS ISN’T WHAT I WANTED! WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE! WHY AREN’T THERE ANY HORSES! WE WANT SEASOOOOOONS!!!!”
i’m extremely disgusted at the fact that we wait so long for expansion packs to come out, (there hasn’t been one in about 10 months) and the one that we get doesn’t even have functioning gameplay that’s crucial to the sims. at least in the sims three they had 2-3, maybe even 4, expansion packs come out in a year. and we wait years to get half the stuff for the same price and get ripped off. this is completely ridiculous.
I think I won’t buy it if this is a thing… I would’ve if I could play as the pet, because I like the warrior cats sims 3 series, and I would’ve done it in sims 4 but I guess not because they were so dumb and didn’t put the controlling system. But really, if you don’t want to play as the pet, then don’t play as the pet!! But now there’s nothing we can do, and we can’t play as the pets… I really hope someone creates a mod for controlling the pets, if the sims developers ain’t going to make it possible. I would’ve really wanted to control them, that’s what I expected the most about this. I’m pretty sad now 🙁
Because if they add cintrollable pets, peopke who wanted realistic and challenging pets will be ignored. That’s what haplen with sims 3 pets and that is also the reason why a lot is happy tgat it is not controllable.
This is very late, and you may have already heard about this as it has been a while since Pets came out, but there is a mod to make pets playable: http://sims4studio.com/thread/4254/aom?page=2&scrollTo=89311
I’m very disappointed with the news that pets won’t be controllable. Anybody who’s ever played TS2 pets knows that if not kept under a tight leash, they would completely fail to fill up their motive bars. Pets left to their own devices with TS3 were pretty much the same. I think removing the controls is not going to improve the situation if the AI is not improved, and I haven’t seen much evidence that TS4 AI is superior to the game’s previous iterations.
Without controllable pets (and I’m assuming we’ll be able to check their needs in some kind of way, even if they’re not controllable, unlike babies), just off the top of my head you can’t direct them to eat, sleep or pee if they’re going into motive failure, direct them to socialize with people and other pets, direct them to woohoo and breed, direct them to get out of the way if they’re blocking the path, cull annoying behaviours, pose them for pictures, do pet stories/challenges or debug them when they bug out. All those features are essential to my style of gameplay.
I understand that some people prefer not to control pets because it’s more realistic or whatever (it’s also pretty unrealistic to be able to control one’s toddler children, and yet you can in TS4! Just saying), but we should have been given at least the option to control them or not, according to each’s style of play. The Sims is supposed to be a sandbox, but more and more we are being told to play the game exactly as the devs intented us to play, and not as we want to. That restricts a lot of my enjoyment for this series. I tried to explain this to Grant Rodiek over Twitter and he blocked me.
The fact that horses, and in fact, any small pets (other than foxes and raccoons?… because who doesn’t own a pet fox or raccoon) are not being included, is also pretty disappointing. This EP is offering substantially less gameplay than any of the previous Pets expansion packs, including Unleashed. Sure, it adds the option for you to establish yourself as a self-employed vet (people have been calling this feature an ‘open career’ but I don’t think that’s accurate), which is new and something I do look forward to. But other than that cats and dogs don’t look particularly different than cats and dogs from TS3 with the huge caveat that you can’t control them. Oh and they also take up family spots without an increase to the cap of sims per household. For 40 dollars (50 in pre-order) that sounds like a little bare. Then again, the theme of most TS4 expansion packs has been ‘stuff that you already had on other Sims games, only less’.
It’s a little frustrating how little work seems to be put into new EPs (especially due to the fact we’re getting one per year, despite the fact that we get several SPs every year), to me as a veteran Sims player who has spent a lot of time, money and love in this series. Unfortunately The Sims is still the only life simulation game in town, so we’re stuck with it for the time being, or counting the days until the franchise is rebooted and we have to buy back all the content all over again.
I sims 2 there was a cheat code that made the pets playable, will sims 4 have that too?
I liked being able to control them so that way they couldn’t just walk away from something you want to do. And I liked taking them on adventures around the neighborhood, especially when my sims are doing something else. It’s not about reality, it’s playabity, it gives you so much more to do and so much more control and helps build a better story. Plus you can train them to do so much more than what can be programmed and then what do you do when they don’t take care of themselves? Because that was a big issue for me in sims 2
Well said! I agree.
As long as they are not considered objects like babies are I will be happy.
I’ve hered somewhere you can play them like a sim and go places, for example you can take the dog to the park on its own and have him do things. However what you can do as them is limited.
I am actually really happy because in the sims 3 I was sooo stressed taking care a huge family and multiple pets so I think this is for the best
that’s exactly how i feel. way to stressful. i have up to 10 sims in my household sometimes. them and toddlers would be a nightmare lol
thank you for agreeing with me
also can people stop complaining we have pets so what if they are not playable at least we have thembut whatever what did expect the community to be happy
There goes my warrior cats challenge and any other pet-based challenges. Wish they made it an option, to have them be playable or not. ;(
To be honest, I understand why they did it, for the game to be more realistic, but it does take away a bunch of stuff I was looking forward to. Oh well…
now i’m actually cool with not playing them. for personal reasons. i have over 10 sims in my households at time currently (and majority of the time i do)and the toddlers are stressful enough for me. but i do like ur idea of being able to switch that mode on and off. that be kinda great. Becaus ei tend to mod my sims lifespans kinda longer and stay with one or two sims for quite awhile. (try and play realistically as i can. dating. career partying living out their young adult lives to the fullest) but having a sims and a pet might be cool to play them then. And being able to switch it off later when kids come in the picture wouldn’t be a bad idea. maybe it would be an added feature later. but do love that idea. hope someone reads this and they take it under consideration
I loved controlling the pets in TS3 it made me feel closer. Also are pets just not going to have needs or will you have to satisfy them by constantly offering them food and water. How can they have dreams if their whole live revolve around yo keeping them alive? I Hope there are some really good things added to make up for this because this was one of the main reasons I was looking forward to the pack.
Charging $40 for a goldfish simulator is wrong. lets count the facts
1. Can you control goldfish right now in the sims? No
Can you control new pets in the Sims? no
2. Can you feed Goldfish? yes
Can you feed new pets in the sims? yes
3.Can you’re Goldfish get sick an die? yes
Can the new pets get sick and die? yes
This is a rip off for $40 Who has time to train their pets?
You have careers, sims and Skills to worry about right now. The average gamer does not have time to train, feed, water or whatever else the pet is going to need to survive not never mind thrive.
This is a poor show.
I loved TS3 pets because the challenges I played got you in sink with you pets by having them rely on sims the least amount possible.
I Was hoping to play some of these challenges in TS4 but no we get goldfish.
I am extremely disappointed with this. TS4 is not meant to be realistic you can literally be a Vampire, ghost or alien for goodness sake.
Dude i have a goldfish in real life he dosent need much just food every morning and sometimes a water change no need to overeact
i’m actually ok with it. im might be interesting not being able to predict what they will do. im mean we will still be able to see their needs. and i like how realistic the game has been getting. i love it. all the vampires fairies and crazy future stuff was too much for me and i only purchased the games for the clothing or furniture/interactions but could never get into them. so the fact the pets are unplayable is a tad bit easier seeing how my house would be a disaster keeping up with everyone. i modded my games with more than 8 sims sooooo not worrying about the pets is cool. however do wish they would have added minor pets. hamsters. birds. snakes. fish i can actually feed . also rodents would have been great for the tlc lots. and random squirrels and birds at the parks would have been cool too. i love to see another pack integrating this and a pet store career. create a pet wheel is super awesome looove that. and making them unplayable will probably make the game run smoother. i highly doubt they are finished with game packs stuff packs and expansions. im enjoying getting a little at a time in cheaper packs. i get paid monthly and buying a 20 0r 10 buck game pack is a lot easier than a 40 all the time. im still playing catch up. have about 4 packs i haven’t bought yet. im happy with them and the way the dish out the smaller packs and stuff. its ust my opinion and i totally understand why people are upset but im just over here enjoying this.
All i think is that there should be a choice on if you want to control them or not because some simmers get stressed when they have many sims to take care of and pets included but others want to be able to make new adventures and stories with the pets and don’t find controlling the pets a stress at all so having a cheat or maybe a control pets on or off button in the game options would be ideal
i wish i could control them it is no fun if you cant. Their should have been a way to maybe switch the oet controls on or off. Like if someone wanted to control their oets they would turn the control setting on and if they didnt want to control then they turned it off.
i very much f**king agree!!!!
I don’t see how it would hurt anyone to make the pets controllable; you could always choose whether or not you control them just as you can with your Sims. Having the ability to control more than one Sim doesn’t prevent you from doing challenges such as the Asylum Challenge. Whereas making pets completely uncontrollable is okay with some people, but restricts gameplay for everyone else. Not every Sims player is obsessed with making the game “realistic.” Personally, I play the game to get away from the stress of real life, not to replicate it.
this definetely wasn’t the right decision…….i’m probably just going to mess around with create a pet now and not make a actual one because we should be able to control it! especially if it will fight with our sims when we don’t damn need it too!
this is absolute bull sooooo BUH BYE SIMS 4 HELLO MOTHERFRICKING SIMS 3!!!!
I do not understand the reasoning behind the idea that not being able to control the pets makes the game “more realistic.” Wow. OK. Shall we account for all the ways in which the game is not realistic? I think anyone trying to do so might be typing for a very long time. How is the idea that you can control the actions and destinies of human-like characters any more realistic than the idea that you can control the actions and destinies of domestic animal-like characters? As a matter of fact, in real life, we really do control the lives and actions of domestic animals. Anyway, we are not dealing with anything at all real, here, folks. It’s a matter of what makes the game more fun or less fun. I vote that taking away playable characters equals less fun. That has nothing to do with realism.
yea…. the sims is a simulation game. you control things! cmon we have cow plants and aliens in this game.
it would be nice to control them tho. for something as expensive as $40. atleast we get pets. but still being able to control them was what i was most excited for.
This comment is rather late, as Pets has already come out, but to anyone still upset at the lack of playable pets, there is a mod that lets you control them: http://sims4studio.com/thread/4254/aom?page=2&scrollTo=89311 I haven’t tried it yet, but it seems promising.
Why does it matter if it’s more realistic? It was fun to take the role of pets as well…Sims is already not realistic as you can control households/multiple people…yup super realistic
I’ve always liked the sandbox feel of The Sims games
It should just be up to the players…you don’t want the feature? So be it, and if you do then you should have the option..:/