Hello everyone! I just wanted to stop in here to clarify somethings about the panel:
1. Those who attend will absolutely be able to share what they learn after the panel is over.
2. There are two portions for this panel. The first is hosted by myself and is about what goes into deciding what influencers we work with / how content creators can start building relationships with us. The second is hosted by Lyndsay and Rachel and will be giving some insight into how far we've come with The Sims 4 since launch, explaining the addition of Game Packs and what they have to offer, and what exactly goes into development for content on The Sims 4.
3. The Q&A will be focusing solely on the above items that we discuss. We are not talking about future content, we are not making any announcements about content, and we aren't giving hints to anything.
4. We are taking this opportunity to grow stronger relationships with our international community who sometimes feel left out of things since our North American community tends to get more opportunities for things since our studio is based here.
I hope that helps clear things up
Focusing on the fourth point here.
If you intend to "grow stronger relationships" then I suggest the Sims team be honest. Be honest with the community. Even if you only look at this thread you can see the amount of anger and frustration there is within the community at this time. What you're planning to do over at Gamescom is of no use to anyone, and is really, really harmful to your reputation because it's showing you are turning a complete blind eye to everything at the moment.
People are tired. People want to know stuff. You know what we want. If you have anything to say to us, make sure it is of worth. If not it is purely wasting everyone's time.
How is the knowledge of our inner workings with development and production not of use to anyone?
How is providing people who want to build their fan sites or create video content (whether streamed or pre-recorded) and potentially make it a living with the knowledge of how we can work together and opportunities they have available to them to help succeed not of use to anyone?
How is taking the time to speak to actual fans face to face and have conversations not of use to anyone?
In the context of what is happening NOW in the community, personally I don't think these issues/topics are of absolute priority. They are handy, for sure, but not when questions about toddlers, EP3, the lack of general content, and worries over the future of the franchise are asked pretty much every single day on these forums.
While it's interesting to understand the "inner workings" of development and production of the game, it would be more beneficial to know them alongside what you are actually working on .
Taking the time to "speak to actual fans face to face" is fantastic, absolutely, but about what? The new cellphone update? Please don't ignore the many, many elephants in the room. It's not doing anyone any favours.
I appreciate your replies by the way in this conversation.
@SimGuruDrake - I have a question for panel, not connected to the toddlers and pets
I've just read somewhere, that 'EA might be opening for remastering their games' (article was connected to the Mass Effect series) - so obvious question - Is it possible, that somwhere in the future we'll get remastered Sims 1 or 2? That would be really awesome.
I have no knowledge about that quote since I tend to not know about what's going on with anything outside of Maxis. As for your question, I honestly have no idea if that would be possible but it's something I've had conversations about with different coworkers in studio while we are having lunch / on a Starbucks run. I actually got my hands on a copy of the Sims and got it to work on my PC (mostly so I can help create more throw back Thursday images for our social team) and it made me super nostalgic--also that game holds up graphicly even though it's over 16 years old.
@SimGuruDrake yep I agree, I think your panel at Gamescom has a very specific purpose and I think it's great that you're going all the way to Germany to reach out to a different group of Simmers. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Gamescom panel - you have made it clear what its purpose is, and I think we shouldn't expect anything out of it other than what you've stated! (Looks like we were posting about that at the same time just now.)
But the Gamescom panel's integrity isn't the biggest issue here! I stand by what I said that we can't take your claims for transparency seriously when mechanics are added unannounced. It's the same old, same old with the newest patch notes - relationship culling has been tweaked (and favourably, though I still can't play the game unmodded personally with the new levels) but there was nothing about this in the patch notes. Why, why, why??
Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us.
In regards to culling I cannot speak to it, I don't work on that part of the team. But this might hold at least some knowledge of what you are looking for: December 4 Patch Notes --please scroll to the bottom to find the culling specific portion.
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response. I think you might have misunderstood my question though, and I might not have been clear enough so I will clarify here. I was already aware that the team retrospectively addressed culling in that particular instance in December 2015, and did explain some of the performance issues involved. However, this particular statement of yours really confuses me in its relevance to the issues I mentioned:
"Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us."
Do you think that the addition of culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay were "very minor issues"? Or are you trying to imply that they were not intentional changes? (I don't think you are because all mechanics have been confirmed to be intentional, but I'm just trying to understand what you've said here.)
I think that the bit you said about not knowing something got fixed because it was a side-effect of something else might relate to the recent tweak to relationship culling. Fair enough. But the heart of my concern has still not been addressed - why weren't culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay announced in the patch notes that introduced them to the game? I am hesitant to accept what you said about "very minor issues" as an answer to this question because it's difficult for me to see how the developers would think that removing Sims and their relationships from the game was a minor issue.
(ETA I meant to say 'recent tweak to relationship culling', not 'recent tweak to inactive played relationship decay' at the beginning of the last paragraph. Sorry for the mistake there.)
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Ok...what was the reason to take out individual memory timelines and instead just mash everything up in a pile of screenshots in the "screenshot manager"? Cause I'd love to know why.
They consider this being "transparent and forth coming" yet we never see culling and decay changes in that patch notes...Or hear if it'll finally be tweaked, or why the game needs it in the first place aside from "performance". Everything over the past two years has been the opposite of transparent.
@SimGuruDrake yep I agree, I think your panel at Gamescom has a very specific purpose and I think it's great that you're going all the way to Germany to reach out to a different group of Simmers. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Gamescom panel - you have made it clear what its purpose is, and I think we shouldn't expect anything out of it other than what you've stated! (Looks like we were posting about that at the same time just now.)
But the Gamescom panel's integrity isn't the biggest issue here! I stand by what I said that we can't take your claims for transparency seriously when mechanics are added unannounced. It's the same old, same old with the newest patch notes - relationship culling has been tweaked (and favourably, though I still can't play the game unmodded personally with the new levels) but there was nothing about this in the patch notes. Why, why, why??
Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us.
In regards to culling I cannot speak to it, I don't work on that part of the team. But this might hold at least some knowledge of what you are looking for: December 4 Patch Notes --please scroll to the bottom to find the culling specific portion.
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response. I think you might have misunderstood my question though, and I might not have been clear enough so I will clarify here. I was already aware that the team retrospectively addressed culling in that particular instance in December 2015, and did explain some of the performance issues involved. However, this particular statement of yours really confuses me in its relevance to the issues I mentioned:
"Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us."
Do you think that the addition of culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay were "very minor issues"? Or are you trying to imply that they were not intentional changes? (I don't think you are because all mechanics have been confirmed to be intentional, but I'm just trying to understand what you've said here.)
I think that the bit you said about not knowing something got fixed because it was a side-effect of something else might relate to the recent tweak to inactive played relationship decay. Fair enough. But the heart of my concern has still not been addressed - why weren't culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay announced in the patch notes that introduced them to the game? I am hesitant to accept what you said about "very minor issues" as an answer to this question because it's difficult for me to see how the developers would think that removing Sims and their relationships from the game was a minor issue.
If we intentionally changed something that would be considered major (as in it is a big deal to the players) we would acknowledge it in the patch notes.
If there was a side effect to something that was unintentional we would wait to figure out the issue before making statements so we know all of the facts.
I can't really answer your other questions because I was not part of the team until SP1 launch and those in charge of what is now called the communications team (not sure what the team was called back then) at the time of base launch are no longer here.
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
Oh I totally agree with you on an update for that game as it pains me to have to turn anything down on my pc. LOL. Would love to see a 64 bit state of the art remastered version of Sims 2 - but will take what I can get so I can play the family style play I enjoy. I play Sims 2 and Sims 3 fairly equally, as I really feel left out of Sims 4 style of play - so I would love remakes on 2 and maybe even bring Sims 3 up to 64 bit too.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
In My opinion this whole thing comes down to only one problem, that the Answers that we really want , will not get answered until the items or content actually gets added in, and if they do not, then at the end of it all, we will know for sure what the game was really all bout and what the truth really was, only then we can decide at the End of this if we really want to toss our hard earned money at the next Game to come out for this franchise. that is all I am going to say bout this subject.
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
In regards to culling I cannot speak to it, I don't work on that part of the team. But this might hold at least some knowledge of what you are looking for: December 4 Patch Notes --please scroll to the bottom to find the culling specific portion.
That section was all about changes to Sim culling and townie generation. None of it informed us that a new kind of culling - relationship culling - had been introduced as well. It was that new mechanism that threw us, undoing previous gameplay. Similarly, adding relationship decay in a situation it didn't previous exist did that. (Apologies if someone else mentioned this already.)
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
In regards to culling I cannot speak to it, I don't work on that part of the team. But this might hold at least some knowledge of what you are looking for: December 4 Patch Notes --please scroll to the bottom to find the culling specific portion.
That section was all about changes to Sim culling and townie generation. None of it informed us that a new kind of culling - relationship culling - had been introduced as well. It was that new mechanism that threw us, undoing previous gameplay. Similarly, adding relationship decay in a situation it didn't previous exist did that. (Apologies if someone else mentioned this already.)
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
Oh I'd definitely redownload TS2 even if they simply updated their shaders to work nicely with modern graphics cards. Currently you have to turn off all sorts to stop black splodges.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
@SimGuruDrake yep I agree, I think your panel at Gamescom has a very specific purpose and I think it's great that you're going all the way to Germany to reach out to a different group of Simmers. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Gamescom panel - you have made it clear what its purpose is, and I think we shouldn't expect anything out of it other than what you've stated! (Looks like we were posting about that at the same time just now.)
But the Gamescom panel's integrity isn't the biggest issue here! I stand by what I said that we can't take your claims for transparency seriously when mechanics are added unannounced. It's the same old, same old with the newest patch notes - relationship culling has been tweaked (and favourably, though I still can't play the game unmodded personally with the new levels) but there was nothing about this in the patch notes. Why, why, why??
Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us.
In regards to culling I cannot speak to it, I don't work on that part of the team. But this might hold at least some knowledge of what you are looking for: December 4 Patch Notes --please scroll to the bottom to find the culling specific portion.
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response. I think you might have misunderstood my question though, and I might not have been clear enough so I will clarify here. I was already aware that the team retrospectively addressed culling in that particular instance in December 2015, and did explain some of the performance issues involved. However, this particular statement of yours really confuses me in its relevance to the issues I mentioned:
"Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us."
Do you think that the addition of culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay were "very minor issues"? Or are you trying to imply that they were not intentional changes? (I don't think you are because all mechanics have been confirmed to be intentional, but I'm just trying to understand what you've said here.)
I think that the bit you said about not knowing something got fixed because it was a side-effect of something else might relate to the recent tweak to inactive played relationship decay. Fair enough. But the heart of my concern has still not been addressed - why weren't culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay announced in the patch notes that introduced them to the game? I am hesitant to accept what you said about "very minor issues" as an answer to this question because it's difficult for me to see how the developers would think that removing Sims and their relationships from the game was a minor issue.
If we intentionally changed something that would be considered major (as in it is a big deal to the players) we would acknowledge it in the patch notes.
If there was a side effect to something that was unintentional we would wait to figure out the issue before making statements so we know all of the facts.
I can't really answer your other questions because I was not part of the team until SP1 launch and those in charge of what is now called the communications team (not sure what the team was called back then) at the time of base launch are no longer here.
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response but in addition to what @luthienrising pointed out I would like to say that SP1 was released in May 2015 (source) and relationship culling was added after that date, as was inactive played relationship decay which was added several weeks ago and confirmed by @SimGuruNick to be an intentional feature. The features I'm talking about were not in the game "at the time of base launch" - that's kind of the point. I don't know the date culling was added but the other features I've been discussing were added since May 2015.
"If we intentionally changed something that would be considered major (as in it is a big deal to the players) we would acknowledge it in the patch notes." - So you're saying that relationship culling and inactive played relationship decay were not considered major or a big deal to the players. I would imagine that after the fact the team must see that this is NOT the case because there has been such outrage over those two features since their addition to the game. But I have a very hard time seeing why those features would not be considered "major" or "a big deal to the players" by the people who developed them. Did anyone play test those at all?
Now someone has to ask if the rumors about the City Pack are real but i bet they won't answer it
Especially after moving it to Expansion Packs...out of our eyes
@SimGuruDrake I know you are trying very hard, but we are angsty. You probably won't respond to this but I hope you read it and talk it over with the team. It has been almost 2 years with no word on this. Can you and team just, for this one thing, make an exception and talk to us about toddlers? We just want a yes or no, so I don't have to constantly play meekly thinking, I don't want this couple to have babies because I think toddlers are coming in the next few months and I want to wait.
Please talk to us about this one thing, if it's not going to happen just say it. There will definitely be a fallout but everyone can move on eventually. This will benefit simmers who truly enjoy TS4 but can't because of how toxic the community is right now. We really, really need to know.
@SimGuruDrake yep I agree, I think your panel at Gamescom has a very specific purpose and I think it's great that you're going all the way to Germany to reach out to a different group of Simmers. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Gamescom panel - you have made it clear what its purpose is, and I think we shouldn't expect anything out of it other than what you've stated! (Looks like we were posting about that at the same time just now.)
But the Gamescom panel's integrity isn't the biggest issue here! I stand by what I said that we can't take your claims for transparency seriously when mechanics are added unannounced. It's the same old, same old with the newest patch notes - relationship culling has been tweaked (and favourably, though I still can't play the game unmodded personally with the new levels) but there was nothing about this in the patch notes. Why, why, why??
Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us.
In regards to culling I cannot speak to it, I don't work on that part of the team. But this might hold at least some knowledge of what you are looking for: December 4 Patch Notes --please scroll to the bottom to find the culling specific portion.
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response. I think you might have misunderstood my question though, and I might not have been clear enough so I will clarify here. I was already aware that the team retrospectively addressed culling in that particular instance in December 2015, and did explain some of the performance issues involved. However, this particular statement of yours really confuses me in its relevance to the issues I mentioned:
"Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us."
Do you think that the addition of culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay were "very minor issues"? Or are you trying to imply that they were not intentional changes? (I don't think you are because all mechanics have been confirmed to be intentional, but I'm just trying to understand what you've said here.)
I think that the bit you said about not knowing something got fixed because it was a side-effect of something else might relate to the recent tweak to relationship culling. Fair enough. But the heart of my concern has still not been addressed - why weren't culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay announced in the patch notes that introduced them to the game? I am hesitant to accept what you said about "very minor issues" as an answer to this question because it's difficult for me to see how the developers would think that removing Sims and their relationships from the game was a minor issue.
(ETA I meant to say 'recent tweak to relationship culling', not 'recent tweak to inactive played relationship decay' at the beginning of the last paragraph. Sorry for the mistake there.)
The gurus were fully aware of culling issues and how we reacted to them.
The first form of culling was "sims culling" and this was introduced before January 2015. The first no culling mod was made available on Mod The Sims website around that time in January. We have made lots of noise about it, I know I have made that and you will see my name in tons of threads regarding the culling in case I was not the one who started them!
What did the gurus and the engineers do about them? "We hear you, we hear you"
In December 2015 patch they said that they listened and increased the cap of sims before culling happens. The increment was so minimal that I cannot even remember the figure. And guess what that was not because they heard us.. No, that was mainly to accommodate the townies of Get Together! And guess what, in the same patch notes they talked about how they addressed the sims culling but completely ignored the new relationship culling which was introduced. Of course we found it the hard way. I could not even restore my backup because I would lose lots of progress in the game, this spoiled my stories and made me really angry. I had to reintroduce my sims again. I have many sims in my game so you can imagine all that work.
Can you even imagine that relationship culling was introduced in the patch preparing for an EP named Get Together? Isn't that ironic?? completely destroying the purpose of the clubs.
Another thread I started in December 2015 about the new relationship culling and Simguru Drake has responded there too.
Here is the patch note, I am making the part you should read in bold
Hey folks,
I wanted to take a moment to speak directly to one of our most important issues.
We have listened to your feedback on culling and performance. And we have been, and will continue to address these issues, and have a group dedicated to them.
Some of the work they have been doing recently has been focused on optimizing load times, reducing memory usage, and increasing performance… but what about culling? Well, it turns out culling happens because of the need of those three items: load times, memory usage, and performance.
Outdoor Retreat was over using our compatibility region filters (when a Sim is requested for a “thing” we use a filter to determine who). Such that when the filter failed to find someone that fit the requirements exactly (male, bartending skill 5, young adult), it created a new Sim to fit the role rather than allowing for some flexibility (bartending 4 or 6 is probably just as well).
Along the same lines, we took the above fix and made it general – rather than always creating exactly what was requested by the game, we allow flexibility. Reducing the number of new Sims being created, that more often than not, would just come and go without the player realizing.
Get to Work added aliens, and one of the requests of the spawning system was to create disguised aliens. Turns out we were creating A LOT of disguised aliens. Not on purpose, but there was a cool down assigned to the spawned Sim that would then prevent them from spawning again in a given period of time. Sadly, the system was requesting ‘in disguise’ aliens more frequently than the cooldown’s timer… and thus creating brand new Sims on each request. We adjusted the tuning, and saw an increase in performance.
We have spent some time optimizing lighting draw calls, to assist with framerate issues while in Build Mode.
We removed some data duplication between the game side code and Create A Sim code, saving around 50kb per Sim data (also known as SimInfos).
The smaller the size of a SimInfo, the faster it is to load a given Sims information.
We discovered a large memory and performance spike as a result of inventories. Turns out that NPCs, who don’t need to know exactly what is in their inventory when they are an NPC, were carrying around large amounts of data and in some cases could have many hundreds of inventory objects, resulting in slow load times, and memory/performance spikes when the NPC was created.
Now NPCs do not instantiate most of the objects in their inventories until needed. This provides a much needed relief in the runtime performance spikes in our test environment.
These are some of the specific issues we have addressed recently, all with the goal of making the game stable, performant, and enjoyable. Please know that we are always looking at performance, culling, memory, and load time optimization issues among our highest priority issues. And while we can’t always speak to them, we are always appreciative of your feedback.
Thank you,
SimGuruGnome
Yep they listened to us and introduced a new culling form in the SAME patch but hidden from us. It is the Easter egg lol
Now June 2016 and they introduced a new form of culling or decay among the same household when it is inactive. I just wonder who they are listening to??? I am not going to be fooled any more by this. And regarding the claim that this is done for performance I am not going to believe that either like I am not believing the "we hear you" thing.
I came to a conclusion that this game and its engine cannot handle any data without erasing some data to make space for a new one. That is why sims are not shopping in real time like in TS2 because the game cannot handle the inventories, that is why everything based on illusion like whatever your sims do at their active career location has nothing to do with the world they live in and of course all these forms of culling and many more stuff.
In conclusion no body is listening to us, no body will do anything about the culling or would even care to do anything. Actually the opposite will happen where more culling mechanics will be introduced.
Edited: To add a link to another culling post I made in Dec 2015
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
Comments
Yeah in three months that list would be a year old lol smdh wow.
In the context of what is happening NOW in the community, personally I don't think these issues/topics are of absolute priority. They are handy, for sure, but not when questions about toddlers, EP3, the lack of general content, and worries over the future of the franchise are asked pretty much every single day on these forums.
While it's interesting to understand the "inner workings" of development and production of the game, it would be more beneficial to know them alongside what you are actually working on .
Taking the time to "speak to actual fans face to face" is fantastic, absolutely, but about what? The new cellphone update? Please don't ignore the many, many elephants in the room. It's not doing anyone any favours.
I appreciate your replies by the way in this conversation.
I have no knowledge about that quote since I tend to not know about what's going on with anything outside of Maxis. As for your question, I honestly have no idea if that would be possible but it's something I've had conversations about with different coworkers in studio while we are having lunch / on a Starbucks run. I actually got my hands on a copy of the Sims and got it to work on my PC (mostly so I can help create more throw back Thursday images for our social team) and it made me super nostalgic--also that game holds up graphicly even though it's over 16 years old.
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response. I think you might have misunderstood my question though, and I might not have been clear enough so I will clarify here. I was already aware that the team retrospectively addressed culling in that particular instance in December 2015, and did explain some of the performance issues involved. However, this particular statement of yours really confuses me in its relevance to the issues I mentioned:
"Anything that we change intentionally that is a big change we acknowledge that in the patch notes. We don't always do that for very minor issues but there are times when things get fixed because we fixed something else so we don't always know those are fixed until after you tell us."
Do you think that the addition of culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay were "very minor issues"? Or are you trying to imply that they were not intentional changes? (I don't think you are because all mechanics have been confirmed to be intentional, but I'm just trying to understand what you've said here.)
I think that the bit you said about not knowing something got fixed because it was a side-effect of something else might relate to the recent tweak to relationship culling. Fair enough. But the heart of my concern has still not been addressed - why weren't culling, relationship culling, and inactive played relationship decay announced in the patch notes that introduced them to the game? I am hesitant to accept what you said about "very minor issues" as an answer to this question because it's difficult for me to see how the developers would think that removing Sims and their relationships from the game was a minor issue.
(ETA I meant to say 'recent tweak to relationship culling', not 'recent tweak to inactive played relationship decay' at the beginning of the last paragraph. Sorry for the mistake there.)
Add Manage Neighbourhood Options - assign your own Sim to NPC jobs!
The Problems with Death in The Sims 4
Distinguish Elder gameplay with Elder-only reward traits
Filter Rugs by Room Size
If we intentionally changed something that would be considered major (as in it is a big deal to the players) we would acknowledge it in the patch notes.
If there was a side effect to something that was unintentional we would wait to figure out the issue before making statements so we know all of the facts.
I can't really answer your other questions because I was not part of the team until SP1 launch and those in charge of what is now called the communications team (not sure what the team was called back then) at the time of base launch are no longer here.
Inge I had good luck removing the black square under Sims in Sims 2 by lowering my options for Shadows to medium and the black square vanished.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Yes, but that comes under my "turn off all sorts" comment, and since the graphics were not great even when the game was current, after trying that I decided that with all these things turned down to avoid black splodges it just didn't look appealing enough to bother playing. Hence my hopes for updated shaders.
Oh I totally agree with you on an update for that game as it pains me to have to turn anything down on my pc. LOL. Would love to see a 64 bit state of the art remastered version of Sims 2 - but will take what I can get so I can play the family style play I enjoy. I play Sims 2 and Sims 3 fairly equally, as I really feel left out of Sims 4 style of play - so I would love remakes on 2 and maybe even bring Sims 3 up to 64 bit too.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
This mod fixed shadows for me in TS2.
That section was all about changes to Sim culling and townie generation. None of it informed us that a new kind of culling - relationship culling - had been introduced as well. It was that new mechanism that threw us, undoing previous gameplay. Similarly, adding relationship decay in a situation it didn't previous exist did that. (Apologies if someone else mentioned this already.)
Amen, You Go Girl,
Yep i used it too, works perfect.
Thanks for that info Emma. Good to know. Much appreciated.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Thanks, I might give that a try when I am up to reinstalling the game
@SimGuruDrake - Thanks for your response but in addition to what @luthienrising pointed out I would like to say that SP1 was released in May 2015 (source) and relationship culling was added after that date, as was inactive played relationship decay which was added several weeks ago and confirmed by @SimGuruNick to be an intentional feature. The features I'm talking about were not in the game "at the time of base launch" - that's kind of the point. I don't know the date culling was added but the other features I've been discussing were added since May 2015.
"If we intentionally changed something that would be considered major (as in it is a big deal to the players) we would acknowledge it in the patch notes." - So you're saying that relationship culling and inactive played relationship decay were not considered major or a big deal to the players. I would imagine that after the fact the team must see that this is NOT the case because there has been such outrage over those two features since their addition to the game. But I have a very hard time seeing why those features would not be considered "major" or "a big deal to the players" by the people who developed them. Did anyone play test those at all?
Add Manage Neighbourhood Options - assign your own Sim to NPC jobs!
The Problems with Death in The Sims 4
Distinguish Elder gameplay with Elder-only reward traits
Filter Rugs by Room Size
Especially after moving it to Expansion Packs...out of our eyes
Please talk to us about this one thing, if it's not going to happen just say it. There will definitely be a fallout but everyone can move on eventually. This will benefit simmers who truly enjoy TS4 but can't because of how toxic the community is right now. We really, really need to know.
Imagine wanting them, which is worse? Two years and counting...
The gurus were fully aware of culling issues and how we reacted to them.
The first form of culling was "sims culling" and this was introduced before January 2015. The first no culling mod was made available on Mod The Sims website around that time in January. We have made lots of noise about it, I know I have made that and you will see my name in tons of threads regarding the culling in case I was not the one who started them!
One example here a post I made in August 2015
What did the gurus and the engineers do about them? "We hear you, we hear you"
In December 2015 patch they said that they listened and increased the cap of sims before culling happens. The increment was so minimal that I cannot even remember the figure. And guess what that was not because they heard us.. No, that was mainly to accommodate the townies of Get Together! And guess what, in the same patch notes they talked about how they addressed the sims culling but completely ignored the new relationship culling which was introduced. Of course we found it the hard way. I could not even restore my backup because I would lose lots of progress in the game, this spoiled my stories and made me really angry. I had to reintroduce my sims again. I have many sims in my game so you can imagine all that work.
Can you even imagine that relationship culling was introduced in the patch preparing for an EP named Get Together? Isn't that ironic?? completely destroying the purpose of the clubs.
Another thread I started in December 2015 about the new relationship culling and Simguru Drake has responded there too.
Here is the patch note, I am making the part you should read in bold
Yep they listened to us and introduced a new culling form in the SAME patch but hidden from us. It is the Easter egg lol
Now June 2016 and they introduced a new form of culling or decay among the same household when it is inactive. I just wonder who they are listening to??? I am not going to be fooled any more by this. And regarding the claim that this is done for performance I am not going to believe that either like I am not believing the "we hear you" thing.
I came to a conclusion that this game and its engine cannot handle any data without erasing some data to make space for a new one. That is why sims are not shopping in real time like in TS2 because the game cannot handle the inventories, that is why everything based on illusion like whatever your sims do at their active career location has nothing to do with the world they live in and of course all these forms of culling and many more stuff.
In conclusion no body is listening to us, no body will do anything about the culling or would even care to do anything. Actually the opposite will happen where more culling mechanics will be introduced.
Edited: To add a link to another culling post I made in Dec 2015