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The reason why The Sims 4 isn't as good.

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  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    He operates under the premise that if he says it...it's a fact unless or until someone can prove otherwise....
    Problem is he's also in charge of deciding what does and doesn't qualify as satisfactory evidence.
    Flat Earthers rely heavily on the same tactic
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • TriplisTriplis Posts: 3,048 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.
    Mods moved from MTS, now hosted at: https://triplis.github.io
  • NeiaNeia Posts: 4,190 Member
    @DeservedCriticism
    I bet Maxis rep don't care one bit about your speculations. What they want is most likely your honest opinion on what you personally like, or don't like, and why. They aren't reading your posts to get your opinion on how other people may feel. They have profesionnals to do that, and analyse the market, so they won't rely on your posting. Especially when it may or may not be accurate, which means they would have to sift through pages and pages of random speculations, worst signal to noise ratio ever, and they don't have unlimited bandwith.

    Stick to what you know, and what you personally feel, and you're more likely to be heard, I say.
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    Neia wrote: »
    @DeservedCriticism
    I bet Maxis rep don't care one bit about your speculations. What they want is most likely your honest opinion on what you personally like, or don't like, and why. They aren't reading your posts to get your opinion on how other people may feel. They have profesionnals to do that, and analyse the market, so they won't rely on your posting. Especially when it may or may not be accurate, which means they would have to sift through pages and pages of random speculations, worst signal to noise ratio ever, and they don't have unlimited bandwith.

    Stick to what you know, and what you personally feel, and you're more likely to be heard, I say.

    That's pretty much what I'm doing, dude. I've been saying my opinion and providing as much detail as possible, including my perceptions of such an update and why it neither pleases me from a gameplay perspective nor does it increase my view of the company. The only "others" I've spoken on behalf of is if you go back several pages, you'll find a post I made on the subject where ~3 others immediately agreed with me. There's the saying that for every one customer complaining, another 26 remain silent. It is unlikely that both my opinions and yours are isolated incidents, thus yes, both of us are seen as samples of a larger like-minded audience.
    Triplis wrote: »
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    This has to be the 6th or 7th time I've said "yes, it's speculative" and I don't see anyone trying to claim their interpretations as fact.

    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.
  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    edited March 2017
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.

    In fairness though that's not Deserved's MO.
    He very often frames his opinions as fact and then challenges people to prove otherwise.
  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.

    In fairness though that's not Deserved's MO.
    He very often frames his opinions as fact and then challenges people to prove otherwise.

    That could be true, but it's not my place to assume the position of someone else and guess at their underlying purpose.
  • Jordan061102Jordan061102 Posts: 3,918 Member
    edited March 2017
    @Triplis why are you always to search problems? With you, no one can talk.
    Lu4ERme.gif
  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.

    In fairness though that's not Deserved's MO.
    He very often frames his opinions as fact and then challenges people to prove otherwise.

    That could be true, but it's not my place to assume the position of someone else and guess at their underlying purpose.

    Think you lost me there.

    I'm not making assumptions. He's telling you
    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    ^You don't see where in that one sentence he says he doesn't need proof but you do?

  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    edited March 2017
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.

    In fairness though that's not Deserved's MO.
    He very often frames his opinions as fact and then challenges people to prove otherwise.

    That could be true, but it's not my place to assume the position of someone else and guess at their underlying purpose.

    Think you lost me there.

    I'm not making assumptions. He's telling you
    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    ^You don't see where in that one sentence he says he doesn't need proof but you do?

    Didn't see that, thanks for sharing.

    ETA: I wasn't suggesting you were assuming anything. I was speaking on my views of telling someone what their opinion means.
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    edited March 2017
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.

    In fairness though that's not Deserved's MO.
    He very often frames his opinions as fact and then challenges people to prove otherwise.

    That could be true, but it's not my place to assume the position of someone else and guess at their underlying purpose.

    Think you lost me there.

    I'm not making assumptions. He's telling you
    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    ^You don't see where in that one sentence he says he doesn't need proof but you do?

    BOTH
    need proof. If my stance cannot be proven, that does not mean disagreeing stances are proven true. Both remain unsupported.

    The rule of thumb is that the party making the bolder claim or the party making the positive claim needs to provide evidence. So for example if someone's claiming they didn't murder their neighbor and someone else is claiming he did, the guy claiming he did murder him needs to provide evidence because you cannot prove a negative.

    Here, the issue at hand is that when we lack evidence one way or another, ALL claims, both those claiming EA did the transgender patch as a publicity stunt and those claiming they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, require evidence. Both are claiming something that is not a negative and can be proven, although in our specific case, solid evidence is constantly withheld by EA.

    My qualm
    is that often times, people I discuss these issues with do nothing to even attempt to support their argument, but rather simply highlight I have no concrete evidence. That's a "well duh." That's a universal truth for every discussion about EA activity, Sims development and sales numbers on these forums. So what's annoying for me is that when I try really hard to try and provide a logical argument such as "if transgender issues and progressive issues are so important to them, why weren't the included on release and why does the progressive issue they happened to choose happen to be the one most often in the press these days instead of a lesser recognized one," anyone disagreeing with me does not attempt to provide a similar logical argument in the other direction, but instead they just say "NOPE, NO PROOF, DISCUSSION OVER." It seems like a very lazy and detrimental way to shut down a discussion instead of....yknow, trying to help contribute to a discussion.

    For example, I happen to know this would be a great tidbit to include in a counterargument. Why do I know that? Because I bothered looking. I put in effort. Was it mentioned by anyone else...? Not really. People said "the employees care about this stuff" but did little to provide evidence, even though that evidence DOES exist.

    I don't have a problem with evidence to the contrary, differing opinions or things that may prove me wrong. I do have a problem with laziness and a method of discussion that ultimately just focuses on shutting down discussion, whether intended or no. I 100% believe there's value to discussion, and it's a real shame to see so many people cling to the "you have no evidence" schtick instead of attempting to put as much effort and logical reasoning into their opinions and stances that I do in mine. It's bothersome because it gives the impression people may not actually be interested in discussion at all.
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • TheGoodOldGamerTheGoodOldGamer Posts: 3,559 Member
    I don't know what your fascination with EA is and why you go on and on about it here rather than on the EA forums specifically.

    It's like complaining about your pizza not to the manager of the pizza shop, and not even to the delivery guy that gave it to you, but to the delivery guy's friend who happens to be sitting in the car waiting on him as he delivers another pizza to your neighbor next door.

    The forum, and there in the discussion, is meant to be based on and around the game itself. Then, you could potentially also use the forum as a means to contact Maxis (i.e. most of the various gurus that check in from time to time around here). And third removed is anyone even remotely connected in an immediate way to EA as the publisher overall.

    So you're third removed yet you act like you're talking to EA customer service directly. If you feel like your concerns are going unnoticed, that may be why.
    Live, laugh and love. Life's too short not to.
  • Uzone27Uzone27 Posts: 2,808 Member
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Uzone27 wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »
    Triplis wrote: »

    It can be anything from people who see money as a means to an end and are after some other goal (I think Elon Musk is probably a sterling example of this) to people who see money as the end, but are happy to try to make the world a better place in the process, to people who just want money and will use virtue signaling to make more money.

    Since we can't go interrogate EA's employees and get an unquestionable answer out of the decision-makers about why the particular decision in question was made, it's utterly pointless to speculate beyond the motivations and words that they have put out there for us to see.


    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    We're talking about the company voted most hated company in America twice in a row (and then the contest ceased to exist). We're talking about the very same company that refused to include things like Toddlers and swimming pools at base game, but saw fit to include giant cupcake factories and rocket ships. The entire release stunk of EA pushing the game out the door too soon and not caring, but you mean to tell me the moment it's about transgender rights, suddenly those same uncaring suits don't care about profit margins? Let's be clear about something: the moment that transgender patch dropped, multiple publications had articles ready. It was if EA informed them of it in advance, as if they wanted people to know how progressive and how pro-LGBT they were.

    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    This all ties right back into the fact that I think faaaaar too many people view companies as friends rather than entities they did a trade with. I mean honestly, why do you care? Why are you going out of your way to defend the....integrity of EA? Why does it seem like an uncomfortable idea for you to view EA as calculating and money-orientated...? I brought it up to make a point about prioritizing marketing over the actual product, not to insist they're the devil or something; I believe I stated multiple times I don't fault them for being calculating and logical because that's exactly what all companies become.

    And as such, even if tomorrow we somehow irrefutably proved EA's entire staff is passionate about political messages all out of the goodness of their hearts rather than the goodness of their pockets, it hasn't changed anything: they still use the game as a political statement rather than a game, which is part of my problem with it. I do not play this game to hear political statements shouted at me, even if I agree with said statements. I don't care; I don't need political validation from a game. I want to play my game and have fun, thus I still view such politically-orientated updates as misguided and often counter-intuitive to the focus of a game.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: if EA is so progressive and passionate about these issues, why weren't they included at launch? And as I said, it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things: whether EA are a bunch of compassionate LGBT allies or some guys in suits smelling a chance for profit off such a patch, the patch and the events surrounding it still seemed to prioritize advertisements over gameplay, and THAT'S the problem. That's what needs to be avoided in the future and that's why I get nervous when I hear them asking for more skin tones or talking about cultural representation or the like, because all of those issues tend to be aesthetic-only and completely devoid of gameplay.
    What is there to refute if the argument you're making hinges on data none of us can have access to? There are a million and one topics we could discuss. I don't see what's productive about discussing one that will very likely never have a conclusive answer. Especially if you're going to try to act like you can magically make a probable answer out of wild speculation.

    Welcome to 99% of our discussions about EA then. All this results in is zero discussion of what could be going wrong.

    Let me put it this way: imagine some company rep is reading this thread and asking himself what they could be doing better with Sims 4. We have some wild speculation, some wrong, some right, some completely wrong and some surprisingly accurate.

    The rep
    knows what's correct though, and the rep can act accordingly based on our discussions while ignoring those that are completely wrong. No harm, no foul.

    If we instead decide to have no discussion ever because we don't have any info to work with....well then guess what, discussion never happens period. None of us have much of an idea what could be going wrong since we never discuss it, reps can't look at community discussions to try and piece it together, and we don't get much chance to explain our problems or how we perceive development to be going, whether it be a positive or a negative.

    I want to discuss despite the annoyance of no real hard facts about company policy, so I will. If you feel uncomfortable about trying to have a discussion devoid of facts with only logical speculation and attempt at making sense of what we do know, no one's forcing you to participate.
    The issue is not speculative discussion. The issue is having speculative discussion with an undertone that it's not speculative at all and is a discussion based in obviously provable fact. On top of that, it's an issue when that undertone is used for speculative discussion relating to controversial topics, like the inclusion of something that has wider social implications in our societies.

    The speculation forum is chock full of discussion that maintains an undertone that it's all just speculation and I don't believe I've once batted an eye at it; in fact, I've participated in some of it. The speculation forum is a great example of how to do speculative discussion, most of the time.

    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.

    In fairness though that's not Deserved's MO.
    He very often frames his opinions as fact and then challenges people to prove otherwise.

    That could be true, but it's not my place to assume the position of someone else and guess at their underlying purpose.

    Think you lost me there.

    I'm not making assumptions. He's telling you
    Guys remember that time I said some of you have got a bad habit of killing a discussion by arguing "we have no proof and we can never know so let's just leave it at that" instead of trying to refute any arguments I've made....? Yeah.

    ^You don't see where in that one sentence he says he doesn't need proof but you do?

    BOTH
    need proof. If my stance cannot be proven, that does not mean disagreeing stances are proven true. Both remain unsupported.

    The rule of thumb is that the party making the bolder claim or the party making the positive claim needs to provide evidence. So for example if someone's claiming they didn't murder their neighbor and someone else is claiming he did, the guy claiming he did murder him needs to provide evidence because you cannot prove a negative.

    Here, the issue at hand is that when we lack evidence one way or another, ALL claims, both those claiming EA did the transgender patch as a publicity stunt and those claiming they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, require evidence. Both are claiming something that is not a negative and can be proven, although in our specific case, solid evidence is constantly withheld by EA.

    My qualm
    is that often times, people I discuss these issues with do nothing to even attempt to support their argument, but rather simply highlight I have no concrete evidence. That's a "well duh." That's a universal truth for every discussion about EA activity, Sims development and sales numbers on these forums. So what's annoying for me is that when I try really hard to try and provide a logical argument such as "if transgender issues and progressive issues are so important to them, why weren't the included on release and why does the progressive issue they happened to choose happen to be the one most often in the press these days instead of a lesser recognized one," anyone disagreeing with me does not attempt to provide a similar logical argument in the other direction, but instead they just say "NOPE, NO PROOF, DISCUSSION OVER." It seems like a very lazy and detrimental way to shut down a discussion instead of....yknow, trying to help contribute to a discussion.

    For example, I happen to know this would be a great tidbit to include in a counterargument. Why do I know that? Because I bothered looking. I put in effort. Was it mentioned by anyone else...? Not really. People said "the employees care about this stuff" but did little to provide evidence, even though that evidence DOES exist.

    I don't have a problem with evidence to the contrary, differing opinions or things that may prove me wrong. I do have a problem with laziness and a method of discussion that ultimately just focuses on shutting down discussion, whether intended or no. I 100% believe there's value to discussion, and it's a real shame to see so many people cling to the "you have no evidence" schtick instead of attempting to put as much effort and logical reasoning into their opinions and stances that I do in mine. It's bothersome because it gives the impression people may not actually be interested in discussion at all.

    Very cleverly worded but once again an example of thinly veiled (and heavily bisaed) opinion posing as fact.
    it even gets borderline personal in it's agressive nature.
    It's for profit, it's naive to think otherwise. And what's more, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by giving logical, unfeeling and uncaring companies that strive for profit the benefit of the doubt. By all means give individuals the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure the individual programmers and workers like the message, for example, but let's not give a faceless company the benefit of the doubt like we'll hurt it's fee-fees if we don't.

    The problem isn't that you're sharing and debating an opinion the problem is you always claim the high ground.
  • TriplisTriplis Posts: 3,048 Member
    @Triplis why are you always to search problems? With you, no one can talk.
    I don't understand what you're trying to say.
    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.
    I don't see what's tricky here. For whatever reason that I haven't attempted to analyze in depth, it seems that somewhere people are learning from a fairly young age that the way to express an opinion is to express it as if it's fact and then become adamant about the truth of it when challenged, as if what they stated was something concretely proven.

    It seems clear to me that this is behavior being internalized (without conscious awareness) and so when someone is called on it, they aren't always aware that they were doing it in the first place. So the accusation seems like it's out of left field. In your case, like it's an attempt to suppress an opinion, when it's just asking for opinions to be clearly communicated as opinions.

    I'm not asking anyone to mold or change their opinions.

    If somebody says, "Coffee sucks because it tastes terrible and I dare you to prove me otherwise," that's a pretty combative way to express the opinion, which is just...

    "I don't like the taste of coffee."

    So many less words needed, the opinion is expressed, it isn't made combative, and it suddenly looks a lot more like sharing and opening up about yourself than picking a fight.


    I would speculate (though it is just speculation) that people are learning this from a place of feeling that they need to sound confident. That if you don't sound confident, your words aren't worth anything. But sometimes the most respected minds are those who have confidence in expressing that they don't know something. And I'm not trying to make any "I'm better" point about myself in that way... I get swept up in "sounding certain" all the time.
    Mods moved from MTS, now hosted at: https://triplis.github.io
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    Is this the Sims 4 forums or the Semantics 4 forums? It's outrageous how often this SAME discussion comes up, as if people ABSOLUTELY need their hand held to tell them if it SEEMS something sounds ridiculous as a fact, it's probably not meant to be a fact.

    You don't like my wording? Tough. You think I've stated it as fact? This is the third time this thread (holy balls I dunno how often I've had to say it total) that I've said the contrary and agreed with assertions I have no conclusive evidence. But all this talk about semantics is the most dull, boring crap ever, and as another user has said here, only leads to derailed discussion.
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • comicsforlifecomicsforlife Posts: 9,585 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    @Triplis why are you always to search problems? With you, no one can talk.
    I don't understand what you're trying to say.
    Well your opinion of such 'undertone' is just as much baseless speculation as what you're lambasting. Do you have hard facts that prove your point?

    See how tricky things become when you try to suppress opinions? Because when you're molding your opinion to not offend others you are effectively suppressing that opinion, and not getting your actual feelings across.

    For the sake of construtivity, as you have called for repeatedly, it's incredibly non-constructive to tell someone they can't share their opinion because it's not a 'fact'. Let's stop that here and now. Civil disageeements happen, but it's a losing battle when you try to fact check an opinion.

    I think the pink iPhone is tacky, is that a fact? No that's an opinion and for me it's the honest truth, for you maybe not. That's the beautiful thing about opinions - if you don't agree, you don't have to! You can disagree all you want, all day long, but telling someone they can't say something because it's not true for you is suppression, no matter how much you disagree with the contents of their post.
    I don't see what's tricky here. For whatever reason that I haven't attempted to analyze in depth, it seems that somewhere people are learning from a fairly young age that the way to express an opinion is to express it as if it's fact and then become adamant about the truth of it when challenged, as if what they stated was something concretely proven.

    It seems clear to me that this is behavior being internalized (without conscious awareness) and so when someone is called on it, they aren't always aware that they were doing it in the first place. So the accusation seems like it's out of left field. In your case, like it's an attempt to suppress an opinion, when it's just asking for opinions to be clearly communicated as opinions.

    I'm not asking anyone to mold or change their opinions.

    If somebody says, "Coffee plum because it tastes terrible and I dare you to prove me otherwise," that's a pretty combative way to express the opinion, which is just...

    "I don't like the taste of coffee."

    So many less words needed, the opinion is expressed, it isn't made combative, and it suddenly looks a lot more like sharing and opening up about yourself than picking a fight.


    I would speculate (though it is just speculation) that people are learning this from a place of feeling that they need to sound confident. That if you don't sound confident, your words aren't worth anything. But sometimes the most respected minds are those who have confidence in expressing that they don't know something. And I'm not trying to make any "I'm better" point about myself in that way... I get swept up in "sounding certain" all the time.

    have you thought of going in to politics because I can't heads or tail of what you said I think you'd be good at it
    more for sim kids and more drama please
  • TriplisTriplis Posts: 3,048 Member
    have you thought of going in to politics because I can't heads or tail of what you said I think you'd be good at it
    I care too much about being honest to be any good at politics.
    Mods moved from MTS, now hosted at: https://triplis.github.io
  • Jordan061102Jordan061102 Posts: 3,918 Member
    Most of time you are in confrontation.
    Lu4ERme.gif
  • TriplisTriplis Posts: 3,048 Member
    Most of time you are in confrontation.
    I hear you loud and clear there. I have a hard time conveying things lightly for people through text. You might never believe it if all you know of me is internet arguments, but I'm actually quite jovial and loose-weave in discussions most of the time in person. It just doesn't translate all that well without tone and body language.

    One of the reasons I've stuck with a curious toddler as my avi long past the "toddlers in avatars" trend expired (ok, just kidding, that trend will never expire because it's just too cute :tongue:). But in all seriousness, it is my hope in having an avatar like that that people will take my words with a bit less edge to them.

    I also just wind up pulling out edge more often than in RL because there's so much edge going around and it feels necessary sometimes to cut through the thick of it and get to the heart of the matter. I can have problems being heard at all without my edge. Again, you might never believe it if all you know of me is confronting on the internet, but I spent most of my life being meek and "small."

    I do make an effort to not come on too strong, but I also can't give too much ground, you understand, or it feels like going backwards to the times in my life when I was a doormat.
    Mods moved from MTS, now hosted at: https://triplis.github.io
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    Most of time you are in confrontation.
    That's not that strange in the Feedback section of a rather controversial game. Let's stick to the game, not simmers.
    5JZ57S6.png
  • comicsforlifecomicsforlife Posts: 9,585 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    have you thought of going in to politics because I can't heads or tail of what you said I think you'd be good at it
    I care too much about being honest to be any good at politics.

    thats good
    more for sim kids and more drama please
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    Most of time you are in confrontation.
    I hear you loud and clear there. I have a hard time conveying things lightly for people through text. You might never believe it if all you know of me is internet arguments, but I'm actually quite jovial and loose-weave in discussions most of the time in person. It just doesn't translate all that well without tone and body language.

    Why do you acknowledge this truth of online discussion and then assume the worst of me?
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
  • TriplisTriplis Posts: 3,048 Member
    Why do you acknowledge this truth of online discussion and then assume the worst of me?
    Sigh...

    Since you asked:

    1) I don't assume the worst of you.

    2) I see a pattern in your words that often comes across to me as thinking very little of the opinions of others, thinking very highly of your own, and having virtually no interest in what others have to say, or in adjusting your viewpoint. That alone isn't so bad (most of us are guilty of it in varying degrees), but you also often use bold, italics, exclamation marks, etc., and in general use wording in a way that sounds very sarcastic and like you think the point is just so obvious and good god, how can you not see it?!? (like that).

    I don't know what to tell you apart from that because I don't know why you're asking me this question. Are you wanting to vindicate yourself? Make me look bad? Or is it just plain curiosity? I mean, what do you want out of this exchange?
    Mods moved from MTS, now hosted at: https://triplis.github.io
  • DeservedCriticismDeservedCriticism Posts: 2,251 Member
    Triplis wrote: »
    Why do you acknowledge this truth of online discussion and then assume the worst of me?
    Sigh...

    Since you asked:

    1) I don't assume the worst of you.

    2) I see a pattern in your words that often comes across to me as thinking very little of the opinions of others, thinking very highly of your own, and having virtually no interest in what others have to say, or in adjusting your viewpoint. That alone isn't so bad (most of us are guilty of it in varying degrees), but you also often use bold, italics, exclamation marks, etc., and in general use wording in a way that sounds very sarcastic and like you think the point is just so obvious and good god, how can you not see it?!? (like that).

    I don't know what to tell you apart from that because I don't know why you're asking me this question. Are you wanting to vindicate yourself? Make me look bad? Or is it just plain curiosity? I mean, what do you want out of this exchange?

    #2 is absolutely not intended. The best I can give you as an explanation is that often when you make an argument, you have a thesis. Yes, one's thesis can be worded as a statement, and this is normal. As a rule of thumb? You can pretty much assume if something seems like an absurd claim devoid of proof on my behalf? I probably do not mean it literal. Italics and bold are used solely to call attention to major points of the blocks of text, that's it.

    Other than that? I studied law. Debate there is pretty fierce, it rubs off. When you think someone's made a weak argument or a weak point? You get in their face about it, you do not let it stand. (how many times did I call out people that said Bowling is more detailed, for example. I'll continue to do so cause typically that statement is made with zero evidence, so I see no reason to allow that to become the general concensus of the matter) Attack, attack, attack, and that's precisely what I'll do if and when I think someone makes a weak argument. I understand it can be a little aggressive for most people, but I also recognize the value of it, so I do it. Just understand there's nothing personal in it.

    As for my opinion? I imagine on some fronts I'll continue to be aggressive with it. I don't like the stuff pack model for example, but this isn't really a matter of one opinion being superior to another, nor do I see this as one where I or others can be swayed (unless they truly refined what's included OR others grew increasingly tired of them). For me to silence that opinion however is to not let my voice be heard. I like to make it known because the alternative is to just...well, cope with the stuff pack model as is and accept it. I'd like it if like-minded people could come to these forums and see they're not the only ones not content with that feature; sometimes people are hesitant to speak up when they feel they're in the overwhelming minority, so I like to be there to make sure it's not so overwhelming. And if my critique of a pack were a majority...? Yes, I want to hold EA's feet to the fire in order to encourage improvement.

    As for why I insist on bringing this up? You "calling me out" yesterday was out of left field, on my end. Whether you believe me or not, your interpretation was absolutely not intended. It's not my intention to shame you for being wrong, but rather I think if left unaddressed, you and I will have great difficulty having any discussion in the future as that same suspicion/impression would remain. I think that would repeat itself consistently, and obviously that's bad. That's why I bring it up, because quite frankly if you were to insist I was trying to attack you personally or something and stand by that assertion, I'd probably block you. Not out of personal animosity or a personal grudge, but because of it being highly likely that any discussions we have would once again get "personal" and derail from a subject, thus we would both be a continuous nuisance for others that distracts from discussions.

    All and all, I realize I'm going a tad off topic now, but I do so because I think reconciling is important if we're going to have meaningful discussion that doesn't derail in the future. If we can't do that, then I'll block, though that is something I'd prefer to avoid since I don't like censoring opinions from my feed. Make sense?
    "Who are you, that do not know your history?"
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