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Does The Sims Team actually read these forums?

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DuendeDuende Posts: 175 Member
edited September 2020 in The Sims 4 Game Feedback
It's been on my mind for many years and I'm not going to address thealien elephant in the room but do you folks think the team actually reads the brilliant, often well-thought-out, detailed suggestions written on the Official Sims forums? I'm asking because after the news of Star Wars pack I—

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I'm genuinely wondering if there is someone who even notes suggestions gathered from here and addresses them in a meeting and perhaps another who collects statistics on the mode for the highly asked for content. Unless my eyes deceived me within the past few months I could have sworn I've been seeing: farming pack, improve babies, a colour wheel on several platforms apart from here like YouTube and Twitter, but anyways.

What do y'all think the Sims Team can do to improve clearly interpret what the franchise has been asking for or do to improve in general?

Post edited by EA_Joz on

Comments

  • Chicklet453681Chicklet453681 Posts: 2,431 Member
    If I had to guess, I would say NO! They don't read the forum posts or feedback section. I think that they used to more often, because I have seen posts made by some of the Gurus, but that was years ago.

    Now, I'm not sure if there are any "behind the scene" staff that gather statistics or if the moderators do something or if they are strictly moderating the forum for rule breaking.
  • Vivi_WillowTreeVivi_WillowTree Posts: 451 Member
    Haha... NO! 🥺
  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    They say they do, but on ninja accounts, so that they can lurk them I guess. I think they still use Twitter and Reddit more than their own property site. Sometimes I wonder why EA even has forums sometimes for their games.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
  • auroraael14auroraael14 Posts: 988 Member
    If they do frequent the forums and read about our feedback and ideas then they either don't care about our ideas or feedback or they have decided that our feedback and ideas don't align with their plans for the game. Just from the few packs that they've released this year, I believe they have their own objective for this game. I don't know the ins and outs of how they decide or choose the next pack but if they were running out of ideas we have so many amazing ones here but maybe it's not even their ideas that are lacking but the creativity behind it and all the reused animations.
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  • KathykinsKathykins Posts: 1,881 Member
    There is no way we would know if they read the forums, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. There are a lot of great ideas here, and plenty of constructive feedback. If I was a dev for The sims, I certainly would have paid attention to it. And for all we know, they might just be a regular member here, reading and posting like any other member.

    I've only dabbled a bit with an RPGmaker, but I know one thing from that experience: Developing games take time, lots and lots and lots of time, even for a large team of experienced devs. I was alone, and it would have taken me YEARS to make a simple, generic RPG.

    They might see ideas and feedback, decide to implement them, but it won't be done immediately (and absolutely not as fast as players want). They also need to find the right time/pack for the ideas. And of course get it "approved". Not everything can be added to basegame for free. Even the stuff we voted on in the surveys, its like people expected those features to be implemented right away, not thinking about the time needed to create/program those features.

    If the devs are reading, let me remind them: I STILL WANT FAIRIES! Ok??
  • SimTrippySimTrippy Posts: 7,651 Member
    I don't think so tbh. I mean they might scan them on occasion, but unless they specifically start an idea gathering thread (as they did for Nifty Knitting) which they still only seem to skim briefly, I don't think they really read idea / feedback suggestions here. But idk of course.
  • OnverserOnverser Posts: 3,364 Member
    edited September 2020
    I think I saw a while ago that someone said the devs didn't look at the forums anymore so I'm guessing that still applies. In their statement all they acknowledged was people on twitter


    Also a colour wheel is never gonna happen in the Sims 4 no matter how many people want it. It wouldn't be possible to add it at this stage in the game.
  • SimmingalSimmingal Posts: 8,886 Member
    for their own mental health i hope they don't go through all sections

    but it'd be nice if they visited ideas section for some inspo :wink: plenty of good ideas there
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  • clover24clover24 Posts: 887 Member
    I think they do read the forums... toddlers!
    But I think they have packs preplanned way in advance, (and I know farming as been a big ask since the game came out as some other elements) Like a few years in advance a lot of things we have got (not including the current pack) have appeared from long ago surveys and what we have asked. It’s just not always in the way we may expect or want. (Off the grid for instance)

    I personally would love more packs likes farming, etc but I stand by fixing issues with the game we have already before continuing in a journey that keeps messing with the game.
  • ErasorheaavErasorheaav Posts: 4 New Member
    Dev teams for big companies are actually like entire offices divided into various departments, each devoted to a specific part of the product development.

    "The Devs" aren't a plucky group of friends all sitting together around the same table, they're workers who live in their own cubicles and probably want nothing to do with the game once their workday is done - that is, if they're not getting burnt out by the infamous Crunching habits of the gaming industry.

    Individual members of the development team might skim the forums, but they most likely don't take anything from here to bring to any sort of office meeting they'd be a part of. Even if they would do that, any little change or addition they might suggest has to go through chains of review and approval - and considering any and every little thing costs exorbitant amounts of money (everything translates into work hours, at the very least), don't expect anything to come of it.
  • BabykittyjadeBabykittyjade Posts: 4,975 Member
    SimHuman_2 wrote: »
    Hi! I'm new. I really don't know what a forum is or how to use it. I'm an older simmer but I hope all of you will accept me. My comment is that I truly hope they read the forum and monitor it for more than just rule breaking or I am going to have to get a Twitter account and embarrass myself some more. The whole reason I did this is because I am concerned with the games change of direction. It seems to be changing from the sandbox that I got hooked on since Sims 1 and continued to enjoy through sims 3. I had hoped sims 4 would be a great combination of 2 and 3 but I feel the game is moving into a narrow follow the path we setup for you type game. I am very concerned and I hope they read this because the future of the sims for simmers like me is at stake.

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  • happyopihappyopi Posts: 1,355 Member
    I kind of think they moved community interacting to Twitter, planning to eventually pull the plug on the forums to snuff out negative nancies. Kind of what they did with Social Bioware pre-Anthem/Andromeda.

    It backfired spectacularly since they basically get harassed directly over on Twitter, while we sort of auto moderate ourselves, containing negativity and feedback to specific, separate threads.

    Bad call on their part, but I don't even feel sorry for them. I mean the forum announcements at the top haven't been updated since end of august, they don't deserve this (almost) orderly community.
  • SharoniaSharonia Posts: 4,853 Member
    They read it enough to censor it. I'm not sure it goes beyond that though. They do appear to be blind to our feedback and concerns. :D
  • SimmerGeorgeSimmerGeorge Posts: 2,724 Member
    The only time SimGuru's were actually responding to the feedback was after the base game release backlash and after the Sims Spark'd backlash.
    This was the time when they really were often addressing stuff.
    You won't find them around here nowadays though.
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  • bella_gothbella_goth Posts: 1,770 Member
    whether they come to the forums or not, it looks like they ignore any opinion that criticizes their job
  • bixtersbixters Posts: 2,299 Member
    I only ever saw SimGuruNinja pop in to talk about Spark'd. It's kind of sad when the gurus come to the forum to talk about a bad TV show, but won't comment on threads about the actual game :(
  • ParyPary Posts: 6,871 Member
    Sharonia wrote: »
    They read it enough to censor it. I'm not sure it goes beyond that though. They do appear to be blind to our feedback and concerns. :D

    I second this. I don't believe they're really interested in any opinions or feedback from here at all. Probably because they don't want to engage with the community beyond a 140 character limit. In my opinion it's because they don't want to answer hard / harsh question put forward by the community. Yes, communities can be demanding, harsh and sometimes entitled, but they should be able to handle that with grace and aplomb, particularly if they believe in their product, but they don't ( handle things with grace )

    I think it's much the same for all EA games now - many of the forums have been removed for games in favour of stupid Twitter or Fakebook where they can just pointedly ignore any feedback or concerns that they feel belong in the "too hard" basket.
    They don't like criticism, they don't seem to want feedback of any kind unless it's back patting and congratulatory, or a glaringly obvious bug or error.

    That said, I'm still grateful for these forums, not because I want to interact with the Guru's - I believe that any interactions falls mainly on deaf ears, but because I like to interact with my fellow Sim players and friends, who, after all, are really the only ones who understand what its like to be a Sims player.
    I've mentioned my games in passing to others, or family members who don't play, and they tend to look at you like you're mad or something :D

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  • DragonCat159DragonCat159 Posts: 1,896 Member
    edited September 2020
    Kathykins wrote: »
    There is no way we would know if they read the forums, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. There are a lot of great ideas here, and plenty of constructive feedback. If I was a dev for The sims, I certainly would have paid attention to it. And for all we know, they might just be a regular member here, reading and posting like any other member.

    I've only dabbled a bit with an RPGmaker, but I know one thing from that experience: Developing games take time, lots and lots and lots of time, even for a large team of experienced devs. I was alone, and it would have taken me YEARS to make a simple, generic RPG.

    They might see ideas and feedback, decide to implement them, but it won't be done immediately (and absolutely not as fast as players want). They also need to find the right time/pack for the ideas. And of course get it "approved". Not everything can be added to basegame for free. Even the stuff we voted on in the surveys, its like people expected those features to be implemented right away, not thinking about the time needed to create/program those features.

    If the devs are reading, let me remind them: I STILL WANT FAIRIES! Ok??
    Nah, they implement it what EA decides on with whatever their gambling wheel of forture stops on. If devs actually often check the forum and engaged with the fandom here, oppose to just landing a dart where it lands or a thing a game changers decides to rant on (e.g, missing white shelves or food), the feedback section wouldn't consist of reoccuring thread suggestions that are taking ages to appear. Examples? *Cough*
    Where are the things that people are asking a dozen of hours: bands, werewolfs, interactive cars, freed babies, spiral staircases, actual smarter and realistic Sim behavior, simulation lag fix, implactful traits, more slots, hotels, buildable and shell-less apartments, animated lifts, generational content, romantic interactions, colorwheel not only for pets, diving boards, small pets other than hamsters, cheat to control your pets, ghost staying dead, wakes and the list goes on because I can't recall all of them. These aren't mild and trivial things to be put in the back trunk, like these been suggested hundred of times and veryf requently. Who asked star wars and strangeville??? Hardly anyone.

    The issue is where they priotize stuff and how basic & fundamental and high-on-demand things have yet still taking through YEARS while the game has the life span far longer than of previous games. Having to wait another 5-10-20 years for X feature that should been in the game now is not funny, and people reasonably and justify so are getting impatient. But hey, I'm sure Knitting stuff have replenish the hunger of customers who are dying to get Hobbies while dividing up into individual packs, which translates to again more years meanwhile TS2 for instance done it with one expansion pack. Bunk beds? Those wouldnt have made sense in tiny living. And I guess it makes sense that family titles (nieces, cousins, etc) sure gonna take millenia to get coded in because with your logic we don't know better cuz it takes lots and lots and lots of time according to your reasoning. No, nobody buys those excuses. One of the best developers had time to take the judge panel for reality show nobody asked, so that's the problem on them.

    Just skim through the feedback section and just do the count. How many of the ideas are evident that are close to being implement? You be shock to find out that hardly any of these ideas are put into consideration.
    clover24 wrote: »
    I think they do read the forums... toddlers!
    But I think they have packs preplanned way in advance, (and I know farming as been a big ask since the game came out as some other elements) Like a few years in advance a lot of things we have got (not including the current pack) have appeared from long ago surveys and what we have asked. It’s just not always in the way we may expect or want. (Off the grid for instance)

    I personally would love more packs likes farming, etc but I stand by fixing issues with the game we have already before continuing in a journey that keeps messing with the game.

    And that happen when? 4 years ago? Besides vampires and parenthood, those are the only concepts that are appear of genuinely been done from taking in feedback as their the only implementations that received a postively huge reception.
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  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    Pary wrote: »
    Sharonia wrote: »
    They read it enough to censor it. I'm not sure it goes beyond that though. They do appear to be blind to our feedback and concerns. :D

    I second this. I don't believe they're really interested in any opinions or feedback from here at all. Probably because they don't want to engage with the community beyond a 140 character limit. In my opinion it's because they don't want to answer hard / harsh question put forward by the community. Yes, communities can be demanding, harsh and sometimes entitled, but they should be able to handle that with grace and aplomb, particularly if they believe in their product, but they don't ( handle things with grace )

    I think it's much the same for all EA games now - many of the forums have been removed for games in favour of stupid Twitter or Fakebook where they can just pointedly ignore any feedback or concerns that they feel belong in the "too hard" basket.
    They don't like criticism, they don't seem to want feedback of any kind unless it's back patting and congratulatory, or a glaringly obvious bug or error.

    That said, I'm still grateful for these forums, not because I want to interact with the Guru's - I believe that any interactions falls mainly on deaf ears, but because I like to interact with my fellow Sim players and friends, who, after all, are really the only ones who understand what its like to be a Sims player.
    I've mentioned my games in passing to others, or family members who don't play, and they tend to look at you like you're mad or something :D
    Awe Pary nice to hear from you again. :) Thankfully I have some family that play it too, but yes it is hard to explain it to friends sometimes.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
  • AuroraskiesAuroraskies Posts: 1,834 Member
    Link this thread on twitter and ask.
  • ParyPary Posts: 6,871 Member
    Hey @Scobre , its been a while, I hope you're keeping well :)
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    Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
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  • alanmichael1alanmichael1 Posts: 5,384 Member
    Reading the forum on my smartphone and the header threads have not been updated since August? Bad sign for the forum?
  • ChadSims2ChadSims2 Posts: 5,090 Member
    Seeing the packs we get and what goes into them I highly doubt they use these forums to see what the community really wants. Just look at the ideas sections so many great ideas for packs content and game play and they never add any of it pretty sad because there is great stuff.

    I swear the only idea I have requested here that ever made it into the game was elder reminisce and that is because they were actually using the forums for the community pack taking down ideas. Now years ago they were keeping an eye on the toddler family play thread that is most likely why they are actually good because what we wanted to see is there.

    Sims 4 went from "You Rule" to "One of the stories we want you to tell"
  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    It was supposed to be the duty of the CM to interact with this forum and other places then take those concerns and wishes back to the teams and GM. How'd that work out, I remember when they actually did come here (at least two different ones) they told the customers here, they aren' the vast majority and bascially whiny, and entitled. I don't think they went back to the teams and told them what players/customers here wanted because it took years and more like emailing Lyndsay and others to get toddles etc. It even took a mediators like Anastasia and Spark to get some of that stuff. And they finally left after the insults from some well known CMs.
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