#here goes then ...

Okay, now it's Murfeelee’s turn:

We’re hoping this will appear legible, but if not, we’ll replace the pictures you see below with text (or just click on the link above if you can’t wait that long!)

We found the ParaPets video disturbing - the animation style was a little too close to that of the old Rabies Kills public information film adverts (as you all know, one of us is a little bit obsessed with rabies ...)

Good to note that he realised he wasn't up to the creation of the Parafolk at an early stage, although that in turn begs the question he ought to have realised that sooner - certainly before publicly committing himself, but that's another topic for later.

Ah, see this is another crux of the problem. If what you're saying is true, this isn't even Alpha, he and the rest of them are revealing too much too soon surely?

You can get away with ultra basic progress tasters if you're a Crowkeeper showing off Dusk Realm/Mermaidia on an indefinite timescale and not looking for financial reward (or coffee vouchers if you're Potato BalladSims/Jje10001 ...). But if you're looking for people to give you money, you need to be only showing tangible shots of what the finished product will be near enough looking like bar the tweeking.

First impressions last - the poor shadowing and rather marked style difference between Maggie Parafolkie and the background in particular would have us wondering whether it was an ex-Hanna Barbera employee behind it. Point taken though about the in-game colour wheel - which would be a plus point for the established gamer. For the fickle gamer in the street (whose sales, let’s face it, will be the ones to make or break this) ... mmmm, not so sure.

Yes, the lack of a colour wheel in the Glitterturd is perhaps the most damning part of the whole farrago - even more than no open world.

To leave out what has now become all but industry standard in a game where colourisation - or rather, the ability to colour it any bloody way you liked - is part of the mainstay of the whole Sims 3 thing was beyond parody - and before any Simgurus claim otherwise, weren't you the very ones licking up to Berrypie back in the day for the way her Berry Sweets pushed the Sims 3 colour palette to the limit (and our eyeballs, but that's another story!)

Yes, we are in full agreement with Rflong7/13 that what they did tools wise in Build mode was excellent, for CAS however we're more in agreement with Nikkei_Simmer that people just needed to learn to use the slider tools from Sims 3 properly - the lack of any numbering guide to what one is doing in Sims 4 CAS when using the sliders was another 'dude, seriously?' moment for us.

Of course, it would have been nice - nay, in fact downright appropriate - for the bumnuggets to give some instructions to Simmers on release on how to use said sliders, but that was too much like hard work for the Simgurus and players were left to find out for themselves or await help from others posted on the net ... not very edifying, and a portend of the sort of customer care to come.

Granted, the gaming industry had been drifting more towards (at times clumsy, at times brilliant) in-game tutorials, but there was a very large element where Sims 3 was concerned of being flung in at the deep end for the user.

Was it any wonder someone like Aarin turned up on the EA forum ... now there was a monster the Simgurus must share the responsibility in creating!

Come Sims 4, you'd have thought at least that lesson might have been learned .... ahahahaha, some hope!

Which brings us to the following point.

Part of this we've already answer earlier, so will try to take a different angle here.

The other half disagrees with what your humble narrator typed yesterday (grrrr!) and reckons the Sims series doesn't have and never did have a total monopoly of life simulations, only of a human cradle-to-the-grave one.

Most life simulations tend to be around animals - indeed, contrary to the gaming journalism myth, Little Computer People was not the first 'Life Simulation Game' ... that honour belongs to the long forgotten Survival  by Five Ways Software for MacMillan Publishing and Sinclair Computers' respective software wings - a way ahead of its time 'educational game' aimed at primary schools where players had to move a chosen creature from a fly to a butterfly (sadly not 'of Doom' ...) to a mouse to a robin to a hawk to a lion and find it food and water while avoiding predators and hazards. Unlike other strategy games, play was in real time with no pauses for thought, so players had to think fast and learn fast if their particular creature was to survive.

But we digress.

Hence why the nearest thing the Sims  has to an actual competitor (and that's stretching it) is Animal Crossing. No death, no ageing and lots of cute furry creatures - just the way most gamers like it. As Darkslayer remarked way back in 2009, gamers tend to be squishy by nature ... (albeit either being squishy or trying to squishy everyone and everything else, if you get our drift!)

To a certain extent, EA encouraged the belief of their monopoly (heck, they had to feel they were top at something when getting their arses royally kicked in every other genre!), when more and more games incorporated what we'd regard as 'Simmish' elements (eg. Skyrim ) because outside of the Simming community, most gamers found it all a bit too much and preferred cherry-picked elements.

Back in 1991, a proto-Sims, Jones In The Fast Lane by Sierra (it of 'King's Quest' fame and 'Leisure Suit Larry' infamy ...) was a complete flop - which may have been a deterrent to anyone considering doing a Sims copy cat - by the time of the success of the third in the series and any notions of it being a 'fad' being misplaced, it was too late for newcomers - or so the feeling went in an increasingly unadventurous gaming industry tied to their accountants' apron strings to deliver only guaranteed hits and leave 'innovation' for competitors to risk.

You only have to look at the seismic shock 'Cities: Skylines' caused - the industry's 'common wisdom' (ha!) considered it complete suicide to muscle in on the SimCity market - especially after the disastrous 2013 reboot and the rewriting of the narrative by gaming business people and journalists alike that the genre perhaps had 'had its day' (wrong again!). Even after that, the industry still regards it as merely an aberration rather than the problem being their own myopia.

But that myopia cuts both ways. We are no more stuck begging EA for anything any more than we choose to. The fact remains that we can kill them or force them to their knees by our indifference - something that never crossed the Glitterturders minds when they were dumb enough back in 2014 to back down to Grant Rodiek's threats.

In a gaming market place of choice and of excellent older games still being added to and updated by dedicated fan bases (Sims 2 and 3 are but two ...), we as customers are sovereign. The problem is - as in the world of politics - we have allowed ourselves to be conned by them into thinking they are our masters and we their servants, rather than the other way around.

Which is part of the dilemma we have with Paralives. Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, their main hook is in being an alternative to the Sims series in a marketplace where it has no competitor offering at least a 'close to' experience - there's the danger if we're not careful of falling into the same trap - 'keep giving us money if you want this finished product to be better' - rather thank making it clear to them money is dependent on them having something to show for themselves that will make us want to part with ours.

And at that juncture, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

There's also of course one other danger ... those at Paralives showing too much of their hand, too soon. If they think EA are going to sit back and let them cut into their territory, they don't know what awful bastards these people are - any good idea Alex Massé may have you can be damned sure they'll pinch and patch into the Glitterturd to steal his thunder - probably breaking half-a-dozen other parts of their glorious clusterfuck on toast(ers) with extra cheese, true, but they'll not care so long as it makes his future release look less attractive.

But yes, at the end of the day, we wish Alex well and hope his project is a success. He does however need perhaps to exercise a bit more caution rather than show the customary impatience of creators wishing to demonstrate how far they are with their pet project. That's all well and good when you're the amateur producing to the Corinthian spirit - hence Potato Ballad taking forever with Boroughsburg and the end result a masterpiece. Once money becomes involved ...

Especially at at time EA are on the ropes anyway and by the look of it this time will not be forgiven (even by the craven masses whose capability to take it from EA would have put Gregorina with Cororon to shame) - never interrupt your opponents when they are busy making mistakes!