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Is There a New RoadMap News For Winter, Yet?
Cinebar
Posts: 33,618 Member
Just asking in case I missed it. I've seen a lot of speculation about bands, cars, time travel etc. and lots of other things. But there isn't any news yet is there of what the road map will be since the last roadmap for this past summer, right? What is the theme of a new EP or GP has there been an updated roadmap yet? And if not when will they do that?
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
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From what it looks like now, there is one more kit and another update "Dimension for our sims" left for 2021.
Season of Selves: Oct - Dec
Next roadmap could be: Jan - March or (if there's a pattern) March - May
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/994101/new-season-new-sims-new-kits/p1
So probably no more announcements before or close to start of winter, December 21.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
Do you mean there won't be any EP for the holidays this time? And or a GP? Are you saying nothing until next March or April (can't remember) when GTW was released in 2015? Is this normal? (I thought there has always been something big near the holidays.)
I think pandemic delayed it.
But last year was even worse wasn't it? And they released that Star Wars pack, in Sept. The Snowy pack in Nov. And another pack in Jan. I don't get why there would be an even bigger delay now when they were working from home then.
[/quote]
Do you mean there won't be any EP for the holidays this time? And or a GP? Are you saying nothing until next March or April (can't remember) when GTW was released in 2015? Is this normal? (I thought there has always been something big near the holidays.)[/quote]
I think pandemic delayed it.[/quote]
But last year was even worse wasn't it? And they released that Star Wars pack, in Sept. The Snowy pack in Nov. And another pack in Jan. I don't get why there would be an even bigger delay now when they were working from home then.[/quote]
expansion packs are made in an average of 2 years, they were almost finished last year, so covid did not affect it
but this year covid affects pack
I'm not sure it takes two years for an EP. TS3 was pumping out EPs every eight months or less. And in some cases they pumped out a few only three and four months apart.
I wouldn't expect anything until at least then.
Pack-wise, we are more likely to get a winter (January/February) GP and then an EP in the late spring/early summer (June/July) ready for the school holidays.
Here’s a direct link to the article for those who don’t have Twitter.
[/quote]
Do you mean there won't be any EP for the holidays this time? And or a GP? Are you saying nothing until next March or April (can't remember) when GTW was released in 2015? Is this normal? (I thought there has always been something big near the holidays.)[/quote]
I think pandemic delayed it.[/quote]
But last year was even worse wasn't it? And they released that Star Wars pack, in Sept. The Snowy pack in Nov. And another pack in Jan. I don't get why there would be an even bigger delay now when they were working from home then.[/quote]
expansion packs are made in an average of 2 years, they were almost finished last year, so covid did not affect it
but this year covid affects pack[/quote]
I'm not sure it takes two years for an EP. TS3 was pumping out EPs every eight months or less. And in some cases they pumped out a few only three and four months apart.[/quote]
making games is harder now and sims 4 team is smaller than sims 3 team 😇
Sims 4 team can make 2ep 1 gp 1 SP and many kits per year but covid is delaying things right now actually just a few months
Of course, it takes 2 years on average, but it takes more than 1 year, when a package comes out, more than one package is actually under construction.
Almost everything last year was already "in process" when the pandemic hit. The delays from the pandemic are hitting this year, even as the offices ramp back up -and Maxis is still mostly working from home, if the home offices in most of the SimGuru's streams are any indication.
I wish I remembered to ask them about how the pandemic is affecting them during the livestream when they were taking questions.
It's certainly possible that the pandemic could be impacting their output, but... I don't know, I'm a working professional, and our productivity (both in the group I lead, and company-wide) has actually gone way up since we started working from home, by every measure. And I'm not a micromanager at all; we work the same hours as always, I always give people whatever flex-time they request, and we don't even have weekly Zoom meetings... my policy has always been, if you're getting your work done and the quality is good, I have absolutely no need to peer over your shoulder constantly... but in my experience, things like not having a commute and being able to work in more comfortable clothes are huge morale boosters, and that helps people work harder and get more done. But who knows, maybe some of the developers have actually been sick or had family members who were affected.
Anyway, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not mad that there's no holiday expansion, I'm just incredibly surprised. I still find it very hard to believe that they are leaving that much money on the table. Particularly in a year when there are so many supply chain issues and people are predicting that it will be hard to find and get holiday gifts shipped in time. A non-physical product like this, which you can just download, would have made even more money than usual-- and I'm guessing the usual amount is quite substantial-- particularly the last few days before Christmas when people start realizing their other gifts won't be arriving in time.
ETA: although it did just occur to me, maybe the delays are actually supply chain related, too? I have no idea what kind of tools are used in game design, but I suppose there could be tech/parts that they haven't been able to replace that would hinder the design process.
Also... it's not that likely, but who knows, maybe they will do a surprise release around December 22nd or so. Technically that could fall into a winter rather than fall timeline/roadmap, and it is true that a lot of companies have been doing rolling Black Friday sales for almost a month now, so... I don't know, I think anything is possible this year.
Also, while I don't know how creative your industry is, my observation is that group projects involving a lot of creatives benefit not so much from an office per se, but being able to take time to see what other people are doing and offer unplanned feedback - as well as get it. Something that's considerably more difficult when working remotely from each other. If everyone is working remotely, then there isn't as much chance for that sort of group creative energy to figure things out.
On top of that, some Sim Gurus have school age kids who were also doing remote or hybrid learning, which the parents would have also helped with. And most of those kids are just now able to get their first dose of the vaccine. SimGuruGeorge's kids I think are both too young even for that (based on the little blonde head with the bow that was sitting on his lap for a little bit during the extra life stream... I think that's the older one, the younger one having been born right around when Snowy Escape came out, because he'd said in that stream that he might have to leave abruptly.)
Yeah a lot of them have kids. I know doi has a kid that looks a little older. And ninja has a daughter and son that seem pretty young. But George's kids are younger cause I think he has a toddler and a baby.
Why don't they just tell us these things? If they tell us what's going on then people won't have to wonder. I never understand why they are so secretive.
They may not have announced it, but their twitters and info streams have, since roughly April of last year, been very clear that they're mostly working from home. Heck, one of the early "hints" to upcoming releases that went around was when several of the Sim Gurus made their home offices in the sims and posted them on Twitter. No, not everyone uses twitter, but that they were working from home at a time when some 80% of the US that wasn't in "essential jobs" were working from home didn't exactly warrant a press release either.
Nothing to do with secrecy, and everything to do with a business making its own business decisions based on what it, as a business, thinks is best for it, as a business.
Companies are under no obligation to have to explain themselves (procedures, protocols, policies) just because a small percentage of its customer base on the internet has a twitter habit of jumping up and down on their soapboxes demanding 'answers' to everything under the sun.
Whatever decisions and policies come down from head office, everyone else further down on the corporate ladder (gurus, devs, etc) have to then implement and follow said orders from head office.
It's most probable that, like just about every other business around the world these past two years, EA/Maxis is having to play out this pandemic by ear and taking it one day at a time, unsure of what the situation will be in a week or a month or a year down the road. All businesses have been dealing with this unpredictable situation the best they can and are having to make drastic changes on the fly as each new situation arises. This is new territory for everyone... "the new normal".
This pandemic has been throwing unprecedented situations at everyone (worldwide), with businesses and governments (and us individuals too) having to scramble around trying to figure out the next move.
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~ Mark Twain
I feel like if someone asked a guru during a stream they would be very open in saying these things directly. It's like how simgurujessica just casually said on stream that she is working on the next ep and it turned into "news" because for some reason people thought there was not gonna be anymore packs for the Sims 4.
Kits have probably worked better for them because they don't require as much development, they can send out tasks and then take the finished assets and put them together into a kit.
I still find it odd how simgurujessica just said during a livestream that she was working on the next EP though. I suspect that these "seasons" are something that a subsection of people are organizing and for many developers at Maxis it's just business as usual, they care more about finishing their deadlines.
tldr, Maxis feels like a bit of a mess right now, but maybe that's also why we like them. It's a mix of corporate 🐸🐸🐸🐸 and complete honesty.