Understandable. Patrick Kelly was always believed in this forum of ordinary simmers. But from the very beginning the forum on modthesims was very suspicious about him exactly because his stories didn't make any sense to people who knew just a little about the game industry, game programming and modding.
The game industry isn't small at all. Actually it is big business. Just look at the following facts about EA (from 2016):
Number of employees: 8500
Revenue: $4.396 billion
Operating income: $898 million
Net income: $1.156 billion
Total assets: $7.050 billion
Total equity: $3.396 billion
EA has departments all over the world and is actually a huge company even though people easily thinks "But they only make cheap games!" The problem with this kind of thinking just is that EA makes many different games each year and each of them often sell in millions of copies.
So if Patrick Kelly really betrayed EA by giving us confidential information then EA would have made a lawsuit against him and also made sure that he never would have had a chance to get a job again in a big company anywhere.
But if he only made a practical joke by using some scenes from an old abandoned game like TS2 for consoles then EA wouldn't care because this old code was of no use for anybody. This is totally different from releasing secret inside information about EA's future games. So if EA didn't like it then it would always have been enough for EA just to tell people about the practical joke and maybe require Patrick Kelly to do the same. But EA apparently just didn't even care enough about "the secret Olympus" to do that!
Gamers often think that working in the game industry is just about playing favorite games all day long. But that is a dream which couldn't be farther from the real world.
Games are made by teams and a team has the following types of developers:
Producers, who are just the bosses who supervise the development of the game. The executive producer is the boss at the top who takes all major decisions (and in EA's case negotiates the main issues with EA).
Artists, who only make small parts of the graphics.
Programmers, who write game code and test and correct the bugs.
Testers, who only test the game and reports issues to the producers or the programmers.
And there are also game designers who's job it is to design (some of) the gameplay.
But each member of the team only has a tiny part of the game as his/her responsibility. Developers are also often just transferred to other teams for completely different games. A good example is the developers in EA Melbourne who earlier only made racing games but then suddenly were given the task to make the Sims Freeplay too. Did they like both racing games and Sims games? We don't know because nobody asked them. But I doubt it and I also don't believe that the developers in Maxis chose to work there because they liked Sims games. They just wanted a good job in a big company like EA and likely also to work in the good locations in Redwood. So they took the job and was then told by EA to work on the Sims games and also which small part of the game that they should see as their responsibility. If they had wanted to work on a different game instead then they would probably have had to move to another city far away from their family. So they accepted to just work on a tiny part of a Sims game even though they maybe never had wanted to play such games themselves.
If you only should work on a small part of a Sims game which you were told to target on 13 yrs olds (especially girls) as an easy simulation of mainly dating and prepared for a huge number of SPs would that be enough for you to work on 8 hrs a day in the next 5 yrs?
I don't think I made my meaning clear. When I say the industry is small, I'm saying it's small relative to other industries, in terms of talent. It has grown a lot over the years, but the number of experienced devs? I can't remember the source now, but I remember reading/hearing somewhere that part of the reason so many MMOs have such similar base designs is because it's a lot of the same devs going from project to project. That should give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
This isn't true at all. I play several MMOs. But they aren't made by the same company or even in the same country. They are made by developers and companies in the US, Australia, Russia and other countries. So no, they aren't made by the same devs at all.
But I agree that they are similar and based on similar ideas. The reason for this is though that the companies and the developers copy each other's ideas. They can do that because the ideas aren't really protected by any laws or patents. So if a game seems to be successful then other companies of course want to make a similar game. This is especially true for MMOs because they often start as small games that are easy to make even for new small companies.
As for what "gamers often think," I said nothing about "playing favorite games all day long"??? Game design was my college major. I'm saying what I'm saying from the perspective of knowing things about the industry, not from the perspective of a gamer. Like I said in the post you quoted, I'm not saying it's a job that is fun 24/7. But the game industry is not as easy to break into as some industries are and the pay is generally not exactly wealth aspirations territory, so you pretty much need to have a passion for making games to make it in the industry. Wanting to play games is ancillary to that; certainly most, if not all, game devs have a history in enjoying playing games, but they are in it because they also enjoy *creating* games to a significant degree.
I didn't say that you thought that way yourself. Only that I think that the majority of the simmers in this forum do which usually is why most of the discussions about "everything being the fault of the devs" and the idea that any dev knows everything because "EA only sells the games" dominate the forum.
I can state it again and again that that doesn't mean they enjoy every job they have all the time. But this scenario you're creating about how you doubt that a dev would like both racing games and Sims games is just plain ignorant about game developers. It's a bit like looking at an actor and saying, "Well nobody asked them, do they enjoy both creating a baseball movie and creating an action hero movie?" They might like one more than the other, but they're both acting and that's what they're in it for, not the genre.
What most of the devs do isn't in any way similar to acting which has much more variation.
You are talking about designing a game which is only done by a couple of game designers if we talk about a big game like TS4 and only a small part of the time. Most of the work of the other devs is much more trivial. I agree that liking games is why you would become a game designer. But how about being an artist and make 5 SPs each year for a game like TS4? There isn't really any game design in that because it is only stuff and not gameplay.
Being a programmer and work many hours each day on finding and removing bugs or to just test and give some details in a game a little better balance is monotonous work too and I would hate it. It isn't like being an actor at all but much more like having a job to make sure that all the things (clothes, bottles, tools, hats and similar stuff) for the actors are present and given to the actors at the right time.
EA isn't different from other big companies who develop new products. In such companies guests are never allowed access to rooms where new things are developed and the employees there have usually signed documents where they accept that the projects under development are secrets and all the information about such things is confidential and can't be revealed before the projects have become products and released. The secrecy can even also exist later than that. If a developer leaves the company then this developer is still bound by his/her signature on such a document and if the company can prove that the developer has revealed anything anyway then the company can sue the developer for many millions of dollars. Patrick Kelly would likely lose his car, his house and all his money savings and still have a big debt to EA if he really gave inside information about a not yet announced EA project in 2013.
So the official story about Patrick Kelly is extremely unlikely to be true. We would also have heard about EA's conflict with Patrick Kelly from EA and other sources if it had been true.
So what is the real story? Theoretically it could be that "Patrick Kelly" wasn't his real name and that he has fled and now is hiding in a country where neither EA nor the police can find him. But that isn't likely either.
But the huge similarity between the sims in Olympus and in TS2 for consoles (both in the way they look and in the way they move) gives a much more likely explanation which as mentioned is that Olympus was only a practical joke invented by Patrick Kelly and a couple of his friends. Therefore this is the explanation that I personally believe is correct. I just don't think that it is a coincidence that the sims in the Olympus videos looks exactly like the sims in TS2 for consoles and not like the sims in any other Sims games. The information that Patrick Kelly actually worked on the UI for TS2 for consoles just makes this seem even more correct.
This isn't true at all. I play several MMOs. But they aren't made by the same company or even in the same country. They are made by developers and companies in the US, Australia, Russia and other countries. So no, they aren't made by the same devs at all.
I don't know why you would choose to refute the point in such an indefensible way. Of course talent gets shifted around sometimes. Why would you even argue that? If you'd told me, "Maybe it happens sometimes, but it doesn't account for much," that would be a much more difficult point for me to debate, as I don't have hard numbers on hand.
Movies are made by different companies and in different countries too, but it's always different actors every time, right?
This isn't true at all. I play several MMOs. But they aren't made by the same company or even in the same country. They are made by developers and companies in the US, Australia, Russia and other countries. So no, they aren't made by the same devs at all.
I don't know why you would choose to refute the point in such an indefensible way. Of course talent gets shifted around sometimes. Why would you even argue that? If you'd told me, "Maybe it happens sometimes, but it doesn't account for much," that would be a much more difficult point for me to debate, as I don't have hard numbers on hand.
Movies are made by different companies and in different countries too, but it's always different actors every time, right?
Did you miss the point? I answered a message that claimed that different MMO games are so similar because they are made by the same developers. But why would Boolat games in Russia have the same developers as EA Firemonkeys in Australia? Why would EA's developers in Redwood be the same as EA's developers in San Francisco or in Helsinki?
You can find Tower Defence games made by many different game companies in many different countries and I agree that they are so similar that it is quite boring to try playing new games of that type. But they sure aren't so similar because they are made by the same developers. The reason therefore just is that they copy each other's ideas as i wrote. The same can be observed with several other types of MMO games
This isn't true at all. I play several MMOs. But they aren't made by the same company or even in the same country. They are made by developers and companies in the US, Australia, Russia and other countries. So no, they aren't made by the same devs at all.
I don't know why you would choose to refute the point in such an indefensible way. Of course talent gets shifted around sometimes. Why would you even argue that? If you'd told me, "Maybe it happens sometimes, but it doesn't account for much," that would be a much more difficult point for me to debate, as I don't have hard numbers on hand.
Movies are made by different companies and in different countries too, but it's always different actors every time, right?
Did you miss the point? I answered a message that claimed that different MMO games are so similar because they are made by the same developers. But why would Boolat games in Russia have the same developers as EA Firemonkeys in Australia? Why would EA's developers in Redwood be the same as EA's developers in San Francisco or in Helsinki?
You can find Tower Defence games made by many different game companies in many different countries and I agree that they are so similar that it is quite boring to try playing new games of that type. But they sure aren't so similar because they are made by the same developers. The reason therefore just is that they copy each other's ideas as i wrote. The same can be observed with several other types of MMO games
I think you have missed the point. You can see the handy work of game developers if you pay attention. I can't speak for MMOs since I despise them and don't play them but the person said these people move around from company to company and this is very true. Take for instance EA's Frank Gibeau who was their hardline Mobile king who wouldn't green light any project unless it has some sort of online player participation requirement. He is now over at Zynga where he may give Sims Free Play a run for it's money. Since EA and Zynga often sue each other and accuse each other of stealing each other's ideas. But the point I'm making is you will see some of his influence there and think to yourself that reminds me of something in EA games. It would only be natural. Some of EA's top people left to start their own mobile games so don't be surprised if something you see in one game reminds you of something that was a feature in another. These people do take with them their own style and if you read credits on game endings you might say, oh, yeah, I knew there was something familiar about this or that.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
This isn't true at all. I play several MMOs. But they aren't made by the same company or even in the same country. They are made by developers and companies in the US, Australia, Russia and other countries. So no, they aren't made by the same devs at all.
I don't know why you would choose to refute the point in such an indefensible way. Of course talent gets shifted around sometimes. Why would you even argue that? If you'd told me, "Maybe it happens sometimes, but it doesn't account for much," that would be a much more difficult point for me to debate, as I don't have hard numbers on hand.
Movies are made by different companies and in different countries too, but it's always different actors every time, right?
Did you miss the point? I answered a message that claimed that different MMO games are so similar because they are made by the same developers. But why would Boolat games in Russia have the same developers as EA Firemonkeys in Australia? Why would EA's developers in Redwood be the same as EA's developers in San Francisco or in Helsinki?
You can find Tower Defence games made by many different game companies in many different countries and I agree that they are so similar that it is quite boring to try playing new games of that type. But they sure aren't so similar because they are made by the same developers. The reason therefore just is that they copy each other's ideas as i wrote. The same can be observed with several other types of MMO games
I think you have missed the point. You can see the handy work of game developers if you pay attention. I can't speak for MMOs since I despise them and don't play them but the person said these people move around from company to company and this is very true. Take for instance EA's Frank Gibeau who was their hardline Mobile king who wouldn't green light any project unless it has some sort of online player participation requirement. He is now over at Zynga where he may give Sims Free Play a run for it's money. Since EA and Zynga often sue each other and accuse each other of stealing each other's ideas. But the point I'm making is you will see some of his influence there and think to yourself that reminds me of something in EA games. It would only be natural. Some of EA's top people left to start their own mobile games so don't be surprised if something you see in one game reminds you of something that was a feature in another. These people do take with them their own style and if you read credits on game endings you might say, oh, yeah, I knew there was something familiar about this or that.
Zynga specializes in card games (solitaire, poker etc.) and slots games. Besides that they have the Farmville games. But not much else. So I can't see them as competitors to EA who usually doesn't have such games at all?
The Sims Freeplay doesn't really have any competition just like the other Sims games don't have it either.
But if you were interested in MMO games you would especially notice all the many Clash of Clans clones which all are just varitations of the original Clash of Clan games although all the clones are made by other companies from all parts of the world. There are a few other types of free MMO games which also exists as clones of eachother. The Candy Crush type of games are just an example of this too.
Found this post (that was copied and pasted on the forums here a while ago:
According to this Olympus wasn't a practicle joke, it was real alright. But it wasn't the original Sims 4, Sims 4 had code name Icarus.
Why do you believe this guessing from somebody else???
You can find lots of guesses. Almost all of them just believed Patrick Kelly because he was supposed to have worked in EA. But if you want to document something then you need to actually find statements instead from EA. Statement from naive persons who just believed Patrick Kelly's practical joke don't prove anything
And I reiterate; so the people who listed The Sims 4 "as an online game" on their professional portfolios were just playing a practical joke?
I don't agree with the picture they posted because it's a whole lot of nonsense inspired by someone's desire to deny information that's been around for years now. However, I do believe previous employees who have listed it as an online game at the early stages of its development.
The only earlier employee who listed it as an online game was (afaik) Patrick Kelly which I don't believe because it is obvious to me that the pictures he gave us were pictures from his modified version of TS2 for consoles. All other persons were just naive simmers who trusted Patrick Kelly because they believe that even the employees in EA who only make coffeee know everything about EA and all EA's games and decisions. (It has never worked that way in companies where I have worked myself btw.)
Simmers seem generally to be very naive and have a high belief even in people with tiny authority. But they rarely know anything about the way computers and their software work. (I am a highschool teacher in mathematics and computer science which probably is why it seems that way to me.)
Patrick Kelly had left EA in 2013 when he posted his "information" and videos and I doubt that he even ever had worked on the Sims 4. The TS2 for consoles was multiplayer too btw which no other versions of TS2 were.
Please read that over and let me know how the practical joke idea sounds. When multiple former employees list it as previously an internet based game you have to just take it for what it is, a game that was originally intended and designed to be an online multiplayer game.
Found this post (that was copied and pasted on the forums here a while ago:
According to this Olympus wasn't a practicle joke, it was real alright. But it wasn't the original Sims 4, Sims 4 had code name Icarus.
Why do you believe this guessing from somebody else???
You can find lots of guesses. Almost all of them just believed Patrick Kelly because he was supposed to have worked in EA. But if you want to document something then you need to actually find statements instead from EA. Statement from naive persons who just believed Patrick Kelly's practical joke don't prove anything
And I reiterate; so the people who listed The Sims 4 "as an online game" on their professional portfolios were just playing a practical joke?
I don't agree with the picture they posted because it's a whole lot of nonsense inspired by someone's desire to deny information that's been around for years now. However, I do believe previous employees who have listed it as an online game at the early stages of its development.
The only earlier employee who listed it as an online game was (afaik) Patrick Kelly which I don't believe because it is obvious to me that the pictures he gave us were pictures from his modified version of TS2 for consoles. All other persons were just naive simmers who trusted Patrick Kelly because they believe that even the employees in EA who only make coffeee know everything about EA and all EA's games and decisions. (It has never worked that way in companies where I have worked myself btw.)
Simmers seem generally to be very naive and have a high belief even in people with tiny authority. But they rarely know anything about the way computers and their software work. (I am a highschool teacher in mathematics and computer science which probably is why it seems that way to me.)
Patrick Kelly had left EA in 2013 when he posted his "information" and videos and I doubt that he even ever had worked on the Sims 4. The TS2 for consoles was multiplayer too btw which no other versions of TS2 were.
Please read that over and let me know how the practical joke idea sounds. When multiple former employees list it as previously an internet based game you have to just take it for what it is, a game that was originally intended and designed to be an online multiplayer game.
It still shows the video which obviously isn't from TS4 but instead from the old TS2 for consoles game which we already know that Patrick Kelly worked on (and which was the only version of TS2 which was multiplayer too).
There is a link to Grant Rodiek's interview where he talks about something else and says that they don't want to be pulled in too many directions because the multitasking isn't so hard to make. He doesn't at all say that they worked on a completely different game earlier. So nothing points in the direction that they did.
So we still have no confirmation of any of Patrick Kelly's statements from anybody in EA. We also know that EA is a company which always want to use its money as efficiently as possible and which closes down studios for much smaller reasons then working on a project which had to be discarded completely. So Patrick Kelly's statesments are in extreme conflict with the way EA's studios work. He used a falsified video to make it likely. He released material which according to himself was confidential and which therefore could have meant he would have been forced by EA to pay many millions of dollars to EA for releasing it - which again shows that it probably wasn't confidential at all because it wasn't about EA's future game but instead about old abandonware
What wonders most is that nobody has asked either a top producer in Maxis or a top manager in EA about Patrick Kelly's statements?
Why not ask a producer: "Is it true that you earlier worked on a mulitiplayer version of TS4 which was abandoned after problems with SimCity 2013?"
Why not ask a top manager in EA: "Did you really work on a multiplayer version of TS4 which then was completely abandoned like your earlier employee Patrick Kelly said?"
I don't mean her in the forum. But why didn't newsmedias such as IGN ask such questions?
And why didn't any producer in Maxis comment? My guess clearly is that all such comments would be about confidential stuff that they weren't allowed to talk about. But why did Patrick Kelly then? Didn't he sign the same documents about not releasing confidential materiel without permission? If so was it because he actually never worked on TS4?
Found this post (that was copied and pasted on the forums here a while ago:
According to this Olympus wasn't a practicle joke, it was real alright. But it wasn't the original Sims 4, Sims 4 had code name Icarus.
Why do you believe this guessing from somebody else???
You can find lots of guesses. Almost all of them just believed Patrick Kelly because he was supposed to have worked in EA. But if you want to document something then you need to actually find statements instead from EA. Statement from naive persons who just believed Patrick Kelly's practical joke don't prove anything
And I reiterate; so the people who listed The Sims 4 "as an online game" on their professional portfolios were just playing a practical joke?
I don't agree with the picture they posted because it's a whole lot of nonsense inspired by someone's desire to deny information that's been around for years now. However, I do believe previous employees who have listed it as an online game at the early stages of its development.
The only earlier employee who listed it as an online game was (afaik) Patrick Kelly which I don't believe because it is obvious to me that the pictures he gave us were pictures from his modified version of TS2 for consoles. All other persons were just naive simmers who trusted Patrick Kelly because they believe that even the employees in EA who only make coffeee know everything about EA and all EA's games and decisions. (It has never worked that way in companies where I have worked myself btw.)
Simmers seem generally to be very naive and have a high belief even in people with tiny authority. But they rarely know anything about the way computers and their software work. (I am a highschool teacher in mathematics and computer science which probably is why it seems that way to me.)
Patrick Kelly had left EA in 2013 when he posted his "information" and videos and I doubt that he even ever had worked on the Sims 4. The TS2 for consoles was multiplayer too btw which no other versions of TS2 were.
Please read that over and let me know how the practical joke idea sounds. When multiple former employees list it as previously an internet based game you have to just take it for what it is, a game that was originally intended and designed to be an online multiplayer game.
It still shows the video which obviously isn't from TS4 but instead from the old TS2 for consoles game which we already know that Patrick Kelly worked on (and which was the only version of TS2 which was multiplayer too).
There is a link to Grant Rodiek's interview where he talks about something else and says that they don't want to be pulled in too many directions because the multitasking isn't so hard to make. He doesn't at all say that they worked on a completely different game earlier. So nothing points in the direction that they did.
So we still have no confirmation of any of Patrick Kelly's statements from anybody in EA. We also know that EA is a company which always want to use its money as efficiently as possible and which closes down studios for much smaller reasons then working on a project which had to be discarded completely. So Patrick Kelly's statesments are in extreme conflict with the way EA's studios work. He used a falsified video to make it likely. He released material which according to himself was confidential and which therefore could have meant he would have been forced by EA to pay many millions of dollars to EA for releasing it - which again shows that it probably wasn't confidential at all because it wasn't about EA's future game but instead about old abandonware
What wonders most is that nobody has asked either a top producer in Maxis or a top manager in EA about Patrick Kelly's statements?
Why not ask a producer: "Is it true that you earlier worked on a mulitiplayer version of TS4 which was abandoned after problems with SimCity 2013?"
Why not ask a top manager in EA: "Did you really work on a multiplayer version of TS4 which then was completely abandoned like your earlier employee Patrick Kelly said?"
I don't mean her in the forum. But why didn't newsmedias such as IGN ask such questions?
And why didn't any producer in Maxis comment? My guess clearly is that all such comments would be about confidential stuff that they weren't allowed to talk about. But why did Patrick Kelly then? Didn't he sign the same documents about not releasing confidential materiel without permission? If so was it because he actually never worked on TS4?
You are making no sense whatsoever, and as a result I'm done. I don't have time to argue with someone so dense. You obviously did not read the link, and if you did I don't know how you took anything you said away from it.
Found this post (that was copied and pasted on the forums here a while ago:
According to this Olympus wasn't a practicle joke, it was real alright. But it wasn't the original Sims 4, Sims 4 had code name Icarus.
Why do you believe this guessing from somebody else???
You can find lots of guesses. Almost all of them just believed Patrick Kelly because he was supposed to have worked in EA. But if you want to document something then you need to actually find statements instead from EA. Statement from naive persons who just believed Patrick Kelly's practical joke don't prove anything
And I reiterate; so the people who listed The Sims 4 "as an online game" on their professional portfolios were just playing a practical joke?
I don't agree with the picture they posted because it's a whole lot of nonsense inspired by someone's desire to deny information that's been around for years now. However, I do believe previous employees who have listed it as an online game at the early stages of its development.
The only earlier employee who listed it as an online game was (afaik) Patrick Kelly which I don't believe because it is obvious to me that the pictures he gave us were pictures from his modified version of TS2 for consoles. All other persons were just naive simmers who trusted Patrick Kelly because they believe that even the employees in EA who only make coffeee know everything about EA and all EA's games and decisions. (It has never worked that way in companies where I have worked myself btw.)
Simmers seem generally to be very naive and have a high belief even in people with tiny authority. But they rarely know anything about the way computers and their software work. (I am a highschool teacher in mathematics and computer science which probably is why it seems that way to me.)
Patrick Kelly had left EA in 2013 when he posted his "information" and videos and I doubt that he even ever had worked on the Sims 4. The TS2 for consoles was multiplayer too btw which no other versions of TS2 were.
Please read that over and let me know how the practical joke idea sounds. When multiple former employees list it as previously an internet based game you have to just take it for what it is, a game that was originally intended and designed to be an online multiplayer game.
It still shows the video which obviously isn't from TS4 but instead from the old TS2 for consoles game which we already know that Patrick Kelly worked on (and which was the only version of TS2 which was multiplayer too).
There is a link to Grant Rodiek's interview where he talks about something else and says that they don't want to be pulled in too many directions because the multitasking isn't so hard to make. He doesn't at all say that they worked on a completely different game earlier. So nothing points in the direction that they did.
So we still have no confirmation of any of Patrick Kelly's statements from anybody in EA. We also know that EA is a company which always want to use its money as efficiently as possible and which closes down studios for much smaller reasons then working on a project which had to be discarded completely. So Patrick Kelly's statesments are in extreme conflict with the way EA's studios work. He used a falsified video to make it likely. He released material which according to himself was confidential and which therefore could have meant he would have been forced by EA to pay many millions of dollars to EA for releasing it - which again shows that it probably wasn't confidential at all because it wasn't about EA's future game but instead about old abandonware
What wonders most is that nobody has asked either a top producer in Maxis or a top manager in EA about Patrick Kelly's statements?
Why not ask a producer: "Is it true that you earlier worked on a mulitiplayer version of TS4 which was abandoned after problems with SimCity 2013?"
Why not ask a top manager in EA: "Did you really work on a multiplayer version of TS4 which then was completely abandoned like your earlier employee Patrick Kelly said?"
I don't mean her in the forum. But why didn't newsmedias such as IGN ask such questions?
And why didn't any producer in Maxis comment? My guess clearly is that all such comments would be about confidential stuff that they weren't allowed to talk about. But why did Patrick Kelly then? Didn't he sign the same documents about not releasing confidential materiel without permission? If so was it because he actually never worked on TS4?
You are making no sense whatsoever, and as a result I'm done. I don't have time to argue with someone so dense. You obviously did not read the link, and if you did I don't know how you took anything you said away from it.
I read the link. But I still don't know what you wanted me to see in that link?
@Erpe
So Patrick Kelly made a video, and then managed to convince coworkers to add mentions of online content on their linkedin, convince artists to make concept arts that look like his joke video, and engineers to add easter eggs in the code along with some multiplayer support to the game to fit his joke video, and all that because he was bored ?
And that's the most likely explanation for you ? And still you wonder why people are sceptic and doubtful ? (while at the same time saying they are naive because they believe people with tiny authority ) Are you really considering yourself higher authority on the matter than EA employees ? Do you believe that with your authority of a math teacher, you're going to convince people there was a widespread conspiracy to fake an online part that involved lots of people at Maxis ?
@Erpe
So Patrick Kelly made a video, and then managed to convince coworkers to add mentions of online content on their linkedin, convince artists to make concept arts that look like his joke video, and engineers to add easter eggs in the code along with some multiplayer support to the game to fit his joke video, and all that because he was bored ?
Which coworkers??
The problem is exactly that no coworkers confirmed his statements. But people give me links to statements from some simmers who never worked for EA but only seemed to believe that even though Patrick Kelly only had an ordinary job as a helper for the developers of earlier EA games and had left EA that Patrick Kelly still knew what he was talking about. Patrick Kelly's only documentation were some primitive videos which he claimed to have from an unknown Olympus project which he thought was some earlier version of TS4. But knowbody in EA or Maxis ever confirmed this.
And that's the most likely explanation for you ? And still you wonder why people are sceptic and doubtful ? (while at the same time saying they are naive because they believe people with tiny authority ) Are you really considering yourself higher authority on the matter than EA employees ? Do you believe that with your authority of a math teacher, you're going to convince people there was a widespread conspiracy to fake an online part that involved lots of people at Maxis ?
People in this forum believe anything from any employee in EA because they apparently think that all EA's 8,500 employees are bosses with unlimited access to all information about EA and EA's projects. But in the forum on modthesims.com people were very sceptical already from the beginning. You can see for yourself if you logon and read the long Patrick Kelly thread from 2013.
The page on Reddit which I was given as a link also doesn't confirm anything because it only is a report about Patrick Kelly and his statements. It doesn't at all attempt to judge if his statements or videos are believable or not.
@Erpe
So Patrick Kelly made a video, and then managed to convince coworkers to add mentions of online content on their linkedin, convince artists to make concept arts that look like his joke video, and engineers to add easter eggs in the code along with some multiplayer support to the game to fit his joke video, and all that because he was bored ?
Which coworkers??
The problem is exactly that no coworkers confirmed his statements. But people give me links to statements from some simmers who never worked for EA but only seemed to believe that even though Patrick Kelly only had an ordinary job as a helper for the developers of earlier EA games and had left EA that Patrick Kelly still knew what he was talking about. Patrick Kelly's only documentation were some primitive videos which he claimed to have from an unknown Olympus project which he thought was some earlier version of TS4. But knowbody in EA or Maxis ever confirmed this.
And that's the most likely explanation for you ? And still you wonder why people are sceptic and doubtful ? (while at the same time saying they are naive because they believe people with tiny authority ) Are you really considering yourself higher authority on the matter than EA employees ? Do you believe that with your authority of a math teacher, you're going to convince people there was a widespread conspiracy to fake an online part that involved lots of people at Maxis ?
People in this forum believe anything from any employee in EA because they apparently think that all EA's 8,500 employees are bosses with unlimited access to all information about EA and EA's projects. But in the forum on modthesims.com people were very sceptical already from the beginning. You can see for yourself if you logon and read the long Patrick Kelly thread from 2013.
The page on Reddit which I was given as a link also doesn't confirm anything because it only is a report about Patrick Kelly and his statements. It doesn't at all attempt to judge if his statements or videos are believable or not.
I don't believe everything Maxis or EA says. My track record on these forums should make that pretty clear. The link I provided for you has been heavily scrutinized and all of the information was gathered from legitimate individuals who actually were attached to the project and listed it on their professional portfolios that other potential employers can see.
It's not a rumor, no matter how badly people want to believe that its just that; there's concrete evidence to say no it is factual that the game was originally planned and designed to be an online game
@Erpe
Which coworkers?? -> The ones in the link provided by @drake_mccarty you said you had read for example.
You are right that the site mentioned other employees in EA and even Grant Rodiek. But then the site quote a statement from Grant Rodiek from an interview with IGN and if you read that interview you will see that the site just attempt to overinterpretate Grant's statement into being about something else which Grant never even intended to talk about.
Then the site mention some other employees. But again the statements from them are missing and remembering how they treated Grant's welknown interview there is no reason to not assume that they also just twisted statements (which they don't even tell us) from the other employees to mean something they didn't even want to talk about.
So my conclusion still is that the blog is just an attempt to "prove" that Patrick Kelly was genuine by twisting weak statements from other EA employees to mean something that would fit their purpose.
The only thing left is their postulate about TS4 considered to maybe become a multiplayer game. That may be true or not. But it doesn't mean that Patrick Kelly is trustworthy or that the Olympus project even existed.
I actually miss Sam Player (who was the executive producer of several Sims 2 titles and known as MaxoidSam in the forum) here because he was much more open than the SimGurus now are. He would therefore never have ignored a discussion like this one an I think that he would have found a way to tell us about Patrick Kelly's trustworthiness without confirming or denying if multiplayer actually was worked on as a planned part of TS4 even though he sure wouldn't have given us internal confidential information about the development of TS4 either.
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
Hello makers of the best game ever. I have been with Sims since Sims 1 and collected all the games. I love Sims 4! But what would make Sims 4 for me better than Sims 3 is if you could please add witches. I love witches and the full moon. You made witches in Sims 3 awesome, can you please bring witches in Sims 4 in with all the same wonderful stuff in sims 3 with witches. And Seasons. From a fan since sims 1. I can remember playing sims in the winter with blankets and hot water bottle well in to the night. Obsessed with this wonderful game. Where I can let my creativity out and take my mind of the hard things in life.
So please can you bring Witches, Seasons and Pets into this wonderful sims 4 game in? But most of all Witches.
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
No. That is still just a quote from the Honeywell blog where it is used as an interpretation. I can't find that statement anywhere else. So the developer's wording was probably different from this.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
No. That is still just a quote from the Honeywell blog where it is used as an interpretation. I can't find that statement anywhere else. So the developer's wording was probably different from this.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
What are you expecting? A direct link to the profile that was removed at the request of EA years ago?
Every shred of info on that page was copied from it's original source before EA had those pages removed. There's no misunderstanding, no misinformation; you just refuse to accept what's spelled out in front of you and instead choose to create fantasy scenarios to fit your wants.
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
No. That is still just a quote from the Honeywell blog where it is used as an interpretation. I can't find that statement anywhere else. So the developer's wording was probably different from this.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
You can't find that statement anywhere else ? There's a link to the page where it's taken from in the blog post. You know you can click on the link and your web browser will bring you to the linked page, right ? That's a quote from this developper's profile. You can go on Linkedin and check yourself, it's still there.
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
No. That is still just a quote from the Honeywell blog where it is used as an interpretation. I can't find that statement anywhere else. So the developer's wording was probably different from this.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
You can't find that statement anywhere else ? There's a link to the page where it's taken from in the blog post. You know you can click on the link and your web browser will bring you to the linked page, right ? That's a quote from this developper's profile. You can go on Linkedin and check yourself, it's still there.
I clicked on his name and was brought to his profile. But the statement wasn't there and I am not so interested that I want to use hours to search for it. Give me a direct link or I will just assume that you couldn't find it either.
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
No. That is still just a quote from the Honeywell blog where it is used as an interpretation. I can't find that statement anywhere else. So the developer's wording was probably different from this.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
You can't find that statement anywhere else ? There's a link to the page where it's taken from in the blog post. You know you can click on the link and your web browser will bring you to the linked page, right ? That's a quote from this developper's profile. You can go on Linkedin and check yourself, it's still there.
I clicked on his name and was brought to his profile. But the statement wasn't there and I am not so interested that I want to use hours to search for it. Give me a direct link or I will just assume that you couldn't find it either.
Well, you already have the direct link but you say you can't see it in his profile, I can't use your eyes for you. Use Ctrl+F and type Sims 4. If you're using Chrome, it will highlight it in yellow. There's nothing more I can do if you don't want to see it.
@Erpe
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
No. That is still just a quote from the Honeywell blog where it is used as an interpretation. I can't find that statement anywhere else. So the developer's wording was probably different from this.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
You can't find that statement anywhere else ? There's a link to the page where it's taken from in the blog post. You know you can click on the link and your web browser will bring you to the linked page, right ? That's a quote from this developper's profile. You can go on Linkedin and check yourself, it's still there.
I clicked on his name and was brought to his profile. But the statement wasn't there and I am not so interested that I want to use hours to search for it. Give me a direct link or I will just assume that you couldn't find it either.
Well, you already have the direct link but you say you can't see it in his profile, I can't use your eyes for you. Use Ctrl+F and type Sims 4. If you're using Chrome, it will highlight it in yellow. There's nothing more I can do if you don't want to see it.
Well. It doesn't work. I assume that you mean Gil Colgate who actually was an EA employee?
The problem is that I can't find the statement the blog apparently credit him for on LinkedIn. And if I just search for the statement in Google the Honeywell blog is the only place that Google can find. This strongly indicates that the statement on the blog is just an interpretation of what he may have said - and likely a very doubtful interpretation.
I would like IGN or GameSpot to ask one of the directors in EA's top about Patrick Kelly's postulates that EA should have wasted a lot of money on a so-called "Olympus" project before TS4 found its right track because I am sure that we then would get our answers. But alas such gamesites are mostly interested in games for hardcore gamers and only bring news about Sims games because they feel a little obligated to do it anyway. Therefore they alas are unlikely to give EA such questions in their interviews.
@Erpe
At this point, I'm doubtful you're even trying (or know how to use a computer or a web browser at all). Your web browser search doesn't work, your Google can't search either apparently. Because copy-pasting it in Google works just fine too and gives the linkedin profile on the first page. You have to scroll a tiny bit though. You know you can scroll to see the rest of web pages ?
Either you're trolling or you're computer illiterate, and if that's the latter you should have told so at the beginning, because I assumed you had basic computer knowledge.
@Erpe
At this point, I'm doubtful you're even trying (or know how to use a computer or a web browser at all). Your web browser search doesn't work, your Google can't search either apparently. Because copy-pasting it in Google works just fine too and gives the linkedin profile on the first page. You have to scroll a tiny bit though. You know you can scroll to see the rest of web pages ?
Either you're trolling or you're computer illiterate, and if that's the latter you should have told so at the beginning, because I assumed you had basic computer knowledge.
I tried again. But the information on LinkedIn seems to have disappeared. Maybe the reason is that Gil Colgate left EA in August 2014 and now works for another company?
But this time I also found the text you quoted him for on criticalgamer.co.uk along with the following interpretation of it: "It’s not a huge leap of the imagination to reach the conclusion that “internet based game” means “it won’t let you play the game without an internet connection” from the very same companies that already implemented it once.
This is contrary to what EA said back in July of 2013, when Frank Gibeau told VentureBeat that “The Sims 4 would be built as a single-player, offline experience.” You can’t really get that with an “internet based game.”; so it would seem that EA really did learn something from the Sim City backlash."
Even this text talks about the need for "imagination" to make it mean what you and the Honeywell blog wanted it to mean. So I guess that we are back where we started though
Comments
But I agree that they are similar and based on similar ideas. The reason for this is though that the companies and the developers copy each other's ideas. They can do that because the ideas aren't really protected by any laws or patents. So if a game seems to be successful then other companies of course want to make a similar game. This is especially true for MMOs because they often start as small games that are easy to make even for new small companies.
I didn't say that you thought that way yourself. Only that I think that the majority of the simmers in this forum do which usually is why most of the discussions about "everything being the fault of the devs" and the idea that any dev knows everything because "EA only sells the games" dominate the forum.
What most of the devs do isn't in any way similar to acting which has much more variation.
You are talking about designing a game which is only done by a couple of game designers if we talk about a big game like TS4 and only a small part of the time. Most of the work of the other devs is much more trivial. I agree that liking games is why you would become a game designer. But how about being an artist and make 5 SPs each year for a game like TS4? There isn't really any game design in that because it is only stuff and not gameplay.
Being a programmer and work many hours each day on finding and removing bugs or to just test and give some details in a game a little better balance is monotonous work too and I would hate it. It isn't like being an actor at all but much more like having a job to make sure that all the things (clothes, bottles, tools, hats and similar stuff) for the actors are present and given to the actors at the right time.
EA isn't different from other big companies who develop new products. In such companies guests are never allowed access to rooms where new things are developed and the employees there have usually signed documents where they accept that the projects under development are secrets and all the information about such things is confidential and can't be revealed before the projects have become products and released. The secrecy can even also exist later than that. If a developer leaves the company then this developer is still bound by his/her signature on such a document and if the company can prove that the developer has revealed anything anyway then the company can sue the developer for many millions of dollars. Patrick Kelly would likely lose his car, his house and all his money savings and still have a big debt to EA if he really gave inside information about a not yet announced EA project in 2013.
So the official story about Patrick Kelly is extremely unlikely to be true. We would also have heard about EA's conflict with Patrick Kelly from EA and other sources if it had been true.
So what is the real story? Theoretically it could be that "Patrick Kelly" wasn't his real name and that he has fled and now is hiding in a country where neither EA nor the police can find him. But that isn't likely either.
But the huge similarity between the sims in Olympus and in TS2 for consoles (both in the way they look and in the way they move) gives a much more likely explanation which as mentioned is that Olympus was only a practical joke invented by Patrick Kelly and a couple of his friends. Therefore this is the explanation that I personally believe is correct. I just don't think that it is a coincidence that the sims in the Olympus videos looks exactly like the sims in TS2 for consoles and not like the sims in any other Sims games. The information that Patrick Kelly actually worked on the UI for TS2 for consoles just makes this seem even more correct.
Movies are made by different companies and in different countries too, but it's always different actors every time, right?
You can find Tower Defence games made by many different game companies in many different countries and I agree that they are so similar that it is quite boring to try playing new games of that type. But they sure aren't so similar because they are made by the same developers. The reason therefore just is that they copy each other's ideas as i wrote. The same can be observed with several other types of MMO games
I think you have missed the point. You can see the handy work of game developers if you pay attention. I can't speak for MMOs since I despise them and don't play them but the person said these people move around from company to company and this is very true. Take for instance EA's Frank Gibeau who was their hardline Mobile king who wouldn't green light any project unless it has some sort of online player participation requirement. He is now over at Zynga where he may give Sims Free Play a run for it's money. Since EA and Zynga often sue each other and accuse each other of stealing each other's ideas. But the point I'm making is you will see some of his influence there and think to yourself that reminds me of something in EA games. It would only be natural. Some of EA's top people left to start their own mobile games so don't be surprised if something you see in one game reminds you of something that was a feature in another. These people do take with them their own style and if you read credits on game endings you might say, oh, yeah, I knew there was something familiar about this or that.
The Sims Freeplay doesn't really have any competition just like the other Sims games don't have it either.
But if you were interested in MMO games you would especially notice all the many Clash of Clans clones which all are just varitations of the original Clash of Clan games although all the clones are made by other companies from all parts of the world. There are a few other types of free MMO games which also exists as clones of eachother. The Candy Crush type of games are just an example of this too.
Here is a blog with a compilation of Olympus info:
http://honeywellsims4news.tumblr.com/post/63437610043/more-corroboration-for-patrick-kelly-the-sims-4
Please read that over and let me know how the practical joke idea sounds. When multiple former employees list it as previously an internet based game you have to just take it for what it is, a game that was originally intended and designed to be an online multiplayer game.
There is a link to Grant Rodiek's interview where he talks about something else and says that they don't want to be pulled in too many directions because the multitasking isn't so hard to make. He doesn't at all say that they worked on a completely different game earlier. So nothing points in the direction that they did.
So we still have no confirmation of any of Patrick Kelly's statements from anybody in EA. We also know that EA is a company which always want to use its money as efficiently as possible and which closes down studios for much smaller reasons then working on a project which had to be discarded completely. So Patrick Kelly's statesments are in extreme conflict with the way EA's studios work. He used a falsified video to make it likely. He released material which according to himself was confidential and which therefore could have meant he would have been forced by EA to pay many millions of dollars to EA for releasing it - which again shows that it probably wasn't confidential at all because it wasn't about EA's future game but instead about old abandonware
What wonders most is that nobody has asked either a top producer in Maxis or a top manager in EA about Patrick Kelly's statements?
Why not ask a producer: "Is it true that you earlier worked on a mulitiplayer version of TS4 which was abandoned after problems with SimCity 2013?"
Why not ask a top manager in EA: "Did you really work on a multiplayer version of TS4 which then was completely abandoned like your earlier employee Patrick Kelly said?"
I don't mean her in the forum. But why didn't newsmedias such as IGN ask such questions?
And why didn't any producer in Maxis comment? My guess clearly is that all such comments would be about confidential stuff that they weren't allowed to talk about. But why did Patrick Kelly then? Didn't he sign the same documents about not releasing confidential materiel without permission? If so was it because he actually never worked on TS4?
You are making no sense whatsoever, and as a result I'm done. I don't have time to argue with someone so dense. You obviously did not read the link, and if you did I don't know how you took anything you said away from it.
So Patrick Kelly made a video, and then managed to convince coworkers to add mentions of online content on their linkedin, convince artists to make concept arts that look like his joke video, and engineers to add easter eggs in the code along with some multiplayer support to the game to fit his joke video, and all that because he was bored ?
And that's the most likely explanation for you ? And still you wonder why people are sceptic and doubtful ? (while at the same time saying they are naive because they believe people with tiny authority
The problem is exactly that no coworkers confirmed his statements. But people give me links to statements from some simmers who never worked for EA but only seemed to believe that even though Patrick Kelly only had an ordinary job as a helper for the developers of earlier EA games and had left EA that Patrick Kelly still knew what he was talking about. Patrick Kelly's only documentation were some primitive videos which he claimed to have from an unknown Olympus project which he thought was some earlier version of TS4. But knowbody in EA or Maxis ever confirmed this.
People in this forum believe anything from any employee in EA because they apparently think that all EA's 8,500 employees are bosses with unlimited access to all information about EA and EA's projects. But in the forum on modthesims.com people were very sceptical already from the beginning. You can see for yourself if you logon and read the long Patrick Kelly thread from 2013.
The page on Reddit which I was given as a link also doesn't confirm anything because it only is a report about Patrick Kelly and his statements. It doesn't at all attempt to judge if his statements or videos are believable or not.
Which coworkers?? -> The ones in the link provided by @drake_mccarty you said you had read for example.
I don't believe everything Maxis or EA says. My track record on these forums should make that pretty clear. The link I provided for you has been heavily scrutinized and all of the information was gathered from legitimate individuals who actually were attached to the project and listed it on their professional portfolios that other potential employers can see.
It's not a rumor, no matter how badly people want to believe that its just that; there's concrete evidence to say no it is factual that the game was originally planned and designed to be an online game
Then the site mention some other employees. But again the statements from them are missing and remembering how they treated Grant's welknown interview there is no reason to not assume that they also just twisted statements (which they don't even tell us) from the other employees to mean something they didn't even want to talk about.
So my conclusion still is that the blog is just an attempt to "prove" that Patrick Kelly was genuine by twisting weak statements from other EA employees to mean something that would fit their purpose.
The only thing left is their postulate about TS4 considered to maybe become a multiplayer game. That may be true or not. But it doesn't mean that Patrick Kelly is trustworthy or that the Olympus project even existed.
I actually miss Sam Player (who was the executive producer of several Sims 2 titles and known as MaxoidSam in the forum) here because he was much more open than the SimGurus now are. He would therefore never have ignored a discussion like this one an I think that he would have found a way to tell us about Patrick Kelly's trustworthiness without confirming or denying if multiplayer actually was worked on as a planned part of TS4 even though he sure wouldn't have given us internal confidential information about the development of TS4 either.
One of the developpers has that on its linkedin profile :
"Sims 4. Got to work on clustered servers, chat systems, scaling and performance, and other internet style stuff when it was an internet based game"
It says it literally, no interpretation, no twisting.
So please can you bring Witches, Seasons and Pets into this wonderful sims 4 game in? But most of all Witches.
Anyway the game is still internet based and you can't even install it without an active internet connection. So maybe that was what he actually wrote about on LinkedIn before his words were twisted?
What are you expecting? A direct link to the profile that was removed at the request of EA years ago?
Every shred of info on that page was copied from it's original source before EA had those pages removed. There's no misunderstanding, no misinformation; you just refuse to accept what's spelled out in front of you and instead choose to create fantasy scenarios to fit your wants.
You can't find that statement anywhere else ? There's a link to the page where it's taken from in the blog post. You know you can click on the link and your web browser will bring you to the linked page, right ? That's a quote from this developper's profile. You can go on Linkedin and check yourself, it's still there.
Well, you already have the direct link but you say you can't see it in his profile, I can't use your eyes for you. Use Ctrl+F and type Sims 4. If you're using Chrome, it will highlight it in yellow. There's nothing more I can do if you don't want to see it.
The problem is that I can't find the statement the blog apparently credit him for on LinkedIn. And if I just search for the statement in Google the Honeywell blog is the only place that Google can find. This strongly indicates that the statement on the blog is just an interpretation of what he may have said - and likely a very doubtful interpretation.
I would like IGN or GameSpot to ask one of the directors in EA's top about Patrick Kelly's postulates that EA should have wasted a lot of money on a so-called "Olympus" project before TS4 found its right track because I am sure that we then would get our answers. But alas such gamesites are mostly interested in games for hardcore gamers and only bring news about Sims games because they feel a little obligated to do it anyway. Therefore they alas are unlikely to give EA such questions in their interviews.
At this point, I'm doubtful you're even trying (or know how to use a computer or a web browser at all). Your web browser search doesn't work, your Google can't search either apparently. Because copy-pasting it in Google works just fine too and gives the linkedin profile on the first page. You have to scroll a tiny bit though. You know you can scroll to see the rest of web pages ?
Either you're trolling or you're computer illiterate, and if that's the latter you should have told so at the beginning, because I assumed you had basic computer knowledge.
But this time I also found the text you quoted him for on criticalgamer.co.uk along with the following interpretation of it:
"It’s not a huge leap of the imagination to reach the conclusion that “internet based game” means “it won’t let you play the game without an internet connection” from the very same companies that already implemented it once.
This is contrary to what EA said back in July of 2013, when Frank Gibeau told VentureBeat that “The Sims 4 would be built as a single-player, offline experience.” You can’t really get that with an “internet based game.”; so it would seem that EA really did learn something from the Sim City backlash."
Even this text talks about the need for "imagination" to make it mean what you and the Honeywell blog wanted it to mean. So I guess that we are back where we started though