The Sims Medieval

J

J W

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2008
Messages
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Anyone play this? I'm thinking about getting it, but am kind of put off by the complete lack of reviews or buzz.

From what I can tell from other sites, there seems to be some people who love it and some people who hate it, though this seems more like fanboy banter than anything.
 
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Real gamers don't play The Sims.

Just their spouses, children, friends and hipsters, which is why it makes more money than any other franchise. The Sims doesn't need to buy reviews like other franchises do; they could make The Sims Dog Vomit and still sell 10 million copies.

Why, yes, I am bitter, why do you ask?
 
It's kind of addicting for a little bit. Then it gets pretty repetitive. I guess it depends how much you like exploring various paths with the characters.

I never really played the regular Sims, so I can't comment too much on the comparison.

This game is pretty fun at the start. There are something like 10 "ambitions," which are campaigns with certain goals to bronze, silver, gold, or platinum depending on how well you do the goals. Typically, you need to gold or silver the goals in order to unlock more ambitions. The goals are kind of random. Like make lots of money, conquer other territories, max level all your sims, etc.

Each ambition is laid out with X quest points. There's a list of quests you can choose to take. I don't know the exact count. I'm guessing there are something like 30-40 different quests. The list will randomly pick about 8 that you're allowed to choose from. You start out with just a monarch over your kingdom. Each quest that you complete gives some XP to your monarch or whoever and some building points to spend, with more points for better results on the quest. As you get more points, you can spend them on building more buildings (like the tavern, the wizard tower, barracks, etc.). The buildings will typically unlock more characters, like the bard, the wizard, the knight, etc.

Quests vary. Typically, you talk with people, go collect stuff, fight people, etc. Usual quest type stuff. You also have daily goals for each character. Like the doctor has to heal a couple people in addition to the overarching main quest goals.

There's the typical Sims stuff in there. You have to cook, eat, sleep to upkeep your sim in addition to doing all of the above. Certain quests have 2 sims at once so you have to toggle back and forth between the 2 to keep both happy at the same time. It's kind of hectic until you get used to it.

When you take a quest, you pick which sim you want to control (like monarch, doctor, knight, etc. if you've unlocked them by building the buildings). There may be some restrictions, like certain quests can only be undertaken by this profession or these 3 professions.

The first ambition has 50 quest points. Each quest takes about 3 QPs, so you end up doing about 17 quests for that ambition but you can finish the ambition goals in like half the time if you're super efficient.

Anyway, all of the above was actually pretty fun. The main problem occurs after you've finished an ambition and unlocked a couple of others.

Then, you take the next ambition. You get 50-60 more QPs. After that, you realize wtf. It's the same quests. You start out as a level 1 monarch again. You have to rebuild all the buildings. Basically, it's the entire thing from scratch. You can carry over 1 character from the previous ambitions, but still. It feels really repetitive after that. It may take 2-3 ambitions, but you'll see all the quests relatively soon.

I guess you can take different paths for the same quests and different sim personalities (good vs. evil, etc.) You can explore more traits. But there are 10-12(?) ambitions, each with 40-60 QPs. How much exploration are you really going to do before you're bored? They do have achievements/trophies to extend it a little longer but I don't see much replay value after you've completed a couple of ambitions. That may just be me, though.

Cliffs:
Fun game but gets repetitive fast.
 
WabeWalker said:
Super good post, a123456.
Click to expand...

Agreed. An excellent write-up.

It sounds like it's quite different from the sims experience. I was hoping that you could build castles and stuff. Building is where it's at in the sims.
 
They almost had me by putting the word medieval in it.

No.....wait. They didn't. It still says SIMS. :)
 
Thanks a123456, so is there a lot of killing and mayhem? Maybe some combat system action? If yes (or if it can be modded in) I might be interested.
 
This is looking more and more like a budget-bin title. The trouble is that Sims titles rarely make it all the way to the budget-bin. I don't think I want to spend more than $25 on this.
 
J W said:
This is looking more and more like a budget-bin title. The trouble is that Sims titles rarely make it all the way to the budget-bin. I don't think I want to spend more than $25 on this.
Click to expand...

D2D will drop the price to $29.99 by the end of summer.
 
The only thing I really need to know is: can I put my Sim on the rack, or lock him in a rat infested hut and give him the plague?
 
The "combat" is really kind of secondary compared to all the management stuff. If you're a combat profession, you can choose to fight other people, both sparring and to the death. So your knight can kill off your monarch, for example. That's actually one of the trophies.

The actual combat goes like this.

You have 2 bars, HP and stamina. Weapon and armor have HP/weight. So you wear heavy stuff, your stamina goes down faster. I think there's a hidden combat attribute, which gets better as you level up.

You can pick a "stance" during combat, which is like balanced, slow, aggressive. I assume slow uses less stamina but hits for less damage, etc.

During the actual combat, you can click on the other guy and do a special move on him. Typically, it eats some stamina and hopefully does some damage. Otherwise, it just does normal attacks. You hit the other guy or he hits you. The HP goes down a little. If either of you runs out of HP or stamina, then the fight is over.

So, no, I wouldn't call it combat heavy or intensive or complex. But you are allowed to pick fights all the time, if you're into that sort of thing.

I didn't see a rack but you can definitely get the plague and it's infectious. :) It does kind of bring the mood down, though.

The building is kind of different than normal Sims. Each Sim gets a building. Like monarch gets a castle, wizard gets a wizard tower, etc. But you can't move walls or do any major construction like you would be able to do in normal sims. You can place medieval furniture type stuff everywhere, though. There are tons of options for everything (bathtubs, chamberpots, beds, dressers, bookcases, forges, etc.). The only thing that threw me is that all of your stuff is shared and there's no penalty.

So, anyone can read your books, use your stuff, drink your beer, eat your food, sleep in your bed, etc. Generally, they won't do it but if you leave it out, they will eat/drink it. It's actually rather annoying. For example, I had a sim who had a fatal flaw that needed to have a drink every 12-24 hours. Brewing 12 beers costs 50 of their currency so I figured it wouldn't be too bad. But I ended up drinking about 1-2 beers total out of the 12 before everyone else mooched all of it.
 
Wait for an expansion and price drop. Not being able to actually make the castle (rumored to be in the first expansion), totally sucks. There's no reason to really buy anything since it's provided when you buy the building for the new hero.

The game has its moments, but has little replayability.
 
It's topping the various charts right now - ahead of every other recent game, including Crysis 2. Further evidence that The Sims franchise is a runaway train.

As a hardcore gamer, I tend to forget, and even find it difficult to believe, that hardcore gamers - and all of us here are that - are in the vast, vast minority. People are talking about games like Crysis 2 being 'dumbed down'. Those people have no idea how bad it can get. If developers were REALLY aiming to please The Great Unwashed, then games like Crysis 2 would be considered ultra hardcore.

Every now and then, when relatives are over, I show them a great title I'm playing, and try to get them to have a go at it. My brother-in-law, who's an architect, can't even use a controller. He's a super intelligent guy, but he has no idea how to play a game. Believe me, he's normal.
 
a123456 said:
The "combat" is really kind of secondary compared to all the management stuff. If you're a combat profession, you can choose to fight other people, both sparring and to the death. So your knight can kill off your monarch, for example. That's actually one of the trophies.

The actual combat goes like this.

You have 2 bars, HP and stamina. Weapon and armor have HP/weight. So you wear heavy stuff, your stamina goes down faster. I think there's a hidden combat attribute, which gets better as you level up.

You can pick a "stance" during combat, which is like balanced, slow, aggressive. I assume slow uses less stamina but hits for less damage, etc.

During the actual combat, you can click on the other guy and do a special move on him. Typically, it eats some stamina and hopefully does some damage. Otherwise, it just does normal attacks. You hit the other guy or he hits you. The HP goes down a little. If either of you runs out of HP or stamina, then the fight is over.

So, no, I wouldn't call it combat heavy or intensive or complex. But you are allowed to pick fights all the time, if you're into that sort of thing.

I didn't see a rack but you can definitely get the plague and it's infectious. :) It does kind of bring the mood down, though.

The building is kind of different than normal Sims. Each Sim gets a building. Like monarch gets a castle, wizard gets a wizard tower, etc. But you can't move walls or do any major construction like you would be able to do in normal sims. You can place medieval furniture type stuff everywhere, though. There are tons of options for everything (bathtubs, chamberpots, beds, dressers, bookcases, forges, etc.). The only thing that threw me is that all of your stuff is shared and there's no penalty.

So, anyone can read your books, use your stuff, drink your beer, eat your food, sleep in your bed, etc. Generally, they won't do it but if you leave it out, they will eat/drink it. It's actually rather annoying. For example, I had a sim who had a fatal flaw that needed to have a drink every 12-24 hours. Brewing 12 beers costs 50 of their currency so I figured it wouldn't be too bad. But I ended up drinking about 1-2 beers total out of the 12 before everyone else mooched all of it.
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lol, combat sounds more complex that a lot of action and/or RPG games. Hardly anyone does much with stamina. Managing characters is not my idea of fun gaming ... but maybe I'll try this game when it's in the bargain bin.

WabeWalker said:
It's topping the various charts right now - ahead of every other recent game, including Crysis 2. Further evidence that The Sims franchise is a runaway train.

As a hardcore gamer, I tend to forget, and even find it difficult to believe, that hardcore gamers - and all of us here are that - are in the vast, vast minority. People are talking about games like Crysis 2 being 'dumbed down'. Those people have no idea how bad it can get. If developers were REALLY aiming to please The Great Unwashed, then games like Crysis 2 would be considered ultra hardcore.

Every now and then, when relatives are over, I show them a great title I'm playing, and try to get them to have a go at it. My brother-in-law, who's an architect, can't even use a controller. He's a super intelligent guy, but he has no idea how to play a game. Believe me, he's normal.
Click to expand...

Give him a mouse/keyboard. Probably could catch on quicker.
 
Parmenides said:
Give him a mouse/keyboard. Probably could catch on quicker.
Click to expand...

My experience with non gamers has been the opposite. The controller is easier for them to work. My sister was visiting a couple of years ago, and I wanted her to play Portal. She's an Actuary, with a doctorate in Mathematics, and uses a mouse all the time. I was convinced that Portal would blow her away, but sadly she couldn't get a handle on the controls. I've pretty much given up on trying to convert all my non gamer friends and family members. They're just not gamers.
 
WabeWalker said:
My experience with non gamers has been the opposite. The controller is easier for them to work. My sister was visiting a couple of years ago, and I wanted her to play Portal. She's an Actuary, with a doctorate in Mathematics, and uses a mouse all the time. I was convinced that Portal would blow her away, but sadly she couldn't get a handle on the controls. I've pretty much given up on trying to convert all my non gamer friends and family members. They're just not gamers.
Click to expand...

Guess you have to start them young. I would have thought people who use the mouse and keyboard all day behind an office desk could catch on quicker. Heh, even construction workers have their fair share of the m/k.
 
I don't think it is the interface itself, but what you are interacting with. The best example of this I can think of is I am sure there are people that are used to k/m for RTS games on the PC, but still find controllers more comfortable for other games, such as FPS even, due to being used to them on the console.

A personal example for me would be for fighting games. I am the worst using a game controller, and actually greatly prefer a keyboard due to being used to it from playing on emulators on my PC. I literally cannot even manage to reliably do basic motions for special attacks using a controller. Having not played in an arcade in years now, I am sure I might be more effective using a keyboard over an arcade stick as well now.
 
Parmenides said:
Guess you have to start them young. I would have thought people who use the mouse and keyboard all day behind an office desk could catch on quicker. Heh, even construction workers have their fair share of the m/k.
Click to expand...

It could just be my sister. But, then, you should see her on a computer - she flies. It was depressing that she couldn't work the controls for Portal, because she's damned clever and I wanted to see how fast she would get through the various puzzles.

My cousin on the other hand is absolutely hopeless. When he first bought his computer over a decade ago I discovered that he didn't know how to double click. He would do it in such a way that it ALWAYS registered as a single click. I remember spending four hours at his house trying to teach him how to double click the mouse button, and just walking away thinking, so this is what software developers have to deal with. I wouldn't even bother showing him a game.
 
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