I'm guessing it's the same as downloading a sim with CC off of the Exchange or MTS; if you don't have the CC in your game and it's not included in the download, then it'll just be replaced by something.

Whoever it was that suggested the idea of making a fake facebook account (with max privacy settings, I'd recommend) and zero friends to link the Sims to, that's a very good idea and that's how anyone who actually wants the game but doesn't want the FB connection should go about it if it turns out it can't be modded away. Then just forget the facebook account even exists. FB gets no (detailed) info from you, EA gets no info from them, your friends get no spam from EA, happy days all around.


Thank you, Commander Shepard.

Umm, enough of this. You really need to shut up at this point. I'm running out of alcohol and your entertainment value is diminishing.

Then stop responding to them rather than being snippity. I happen to disagree with her too, but you acting pissy is just as obnoxious, so knock it off. If you don't agree with her say so civilly or keep your opinions to yourself. We aren't children here, don't act like it.

I would like to know how will the Sim act in the friend's game. Will they be just like a townie, who will keep performances? Can you invite them over, is there some kind of limitation to them that you cannot marry them? murder them? Even though I'm not interested in this feature, I am interested in how EA implements it.

For example when will the Sim get back? Is it x days in the friend's game that the Sim stays in the town? what if your friend doesn't play for two weeks, but you continue to play your hood. That means your original family, from where the singing Sim left the game, will continue to age, and when the traveller returns, his kids will be old and dead and he will still be young. Or, if it's possible to cancel the sending from your own game, if your friend doesn't have time to play, but what if your friend's game never gets the notification the interaction was cancelled, and then the Sim returns, will you now have two of the same Sims in your game?

And where will this visiting Sim live? in a random empty house, a hotel?

I also wonder what happens if you send the same Sim to multiple friend's games. I guess you can only send it to one friend at a time.

I think this has potential to being fun for some people, but it also has potential to being extreme buggy, and game breaking. Sims had so much trouble returning from WA trips, like having surprise kids and wives when returning. So I'm not extremely confident this will work out smoothly, when you add online to the mix, and WA was just local.

It just occurred to me. Online options for TS3 is like what the Securom anger was in TS2. I wonder what great idea will anger people on TS4 when it comes out.

The Virtual Reality programming will have pop up ads.

If you go over to the ea website you will see that most of the players are not happy with what has been presented so far. Even if there are players who are looking forward to this ep that is fine with me , what I am saying is that I do not like what I have learned about it and I have right to say so.

I do wonder if SHT will have in-game ads, since in-game ads were rumored to be an upcoming feature at one point. That would definitely turn many players off.

-tinfoilhat-
Shhhhh Frankie, they'll hear you.

Do not want in game ads. In game store is bad enough.
Does anyone ever actually USE the in game store?
I have never so much clicked it...

Wow, EA really doesn't stop failing to sink lower and lower... and lower.

Here's stuff we didn't bother to finish in time for LN a.k.a includes all the stuff you wish LN would've had!


So... we get an EP for an EP? Really?!

I'm completly shocked as well. Despite the fact that the new careers and locations (which sound not too bad itself) should have been included in LN, what about this social network crap? Apart from the fact that I only have very few friends how play the Sims I don't think they are too interested in sending me their sims (I'm not).

I don't want to chat via my sims game. I don't want spy facebook in my data. And I don't think that someone is interested in which celebrity level my sim just gained. I don't want my friends' facebook pages be spammed with my sims news. Also, I don't want to tell everyone that I'm playing the sims and with all the details.

I know, turning internet off (or just don't use it on your laptop like I do) will protect you, BUT I suppose EA puts his efforts into this "great" new features and not into gameplay. So I suppose bugs, laggy gameplay and not too many new features. Sad, the first EP I'm not excited to buy.

I think that EA's greatest problem is that once they sell you the game, they receive no more money from you. So they are trying very hard to change that - first they started this store; now this social part of the game - I think they are trying to find some way to make us pay on a monthly basis. Now, if the Sims 3 required an Internet connection to play and are connected to your Facebook account, advertising would be easy to spam. Pay 10$/month, and you can get rid of the pesky ads forever.

Perhaps they are trying to devise a similar system that will work in The Sims 4, and are using SHT as a testing platform...

Have I gone too far with the conspiracy theories?

Well I dont know about anyone else, but I am not looking forward to SHT coming out. Once I heard all about SHT, I knew it was definitely something I did not want near my computer. It's like we ask for improved features and innovative gameplay, and EA just shovels SHT at us. In the upcoming months they'll throw SHT at us left and right, which will make me sad because I know SHT's potential could have been a lot more solid instead of the loose composition we'll eventually be drowned in. I know I'm probably over exaggerating. There's probably players out there who would love to play with SHT and all of it's tantalizing visuals and sculpt-able features. Probably spend all night playing with SHT after getting it out of the box. I dont know...SHT just doesn't seem appetizing anyone once I learned more about it. Even thinking about SHT just gives me a nasty taste in my mouth.

Yay! I called it in post 26! The spring EPs are proving to be lame, with little new content. The spring EP's simply build on what was introduced in a fall EP. For example, Ambitions just expanded the adventure engine introduced in WA. Generations just gave us a bunch of stuff which should have been included in the original game.

I'd like to say yes, but EA's surprised me before.

We already have that. I refer you back to the....oh, for instance, the Ikea pack for Sims 2. Or H&M. I know about half of every product Ikea has, because I had to use it over and over when building houses. You think that isn't an ingame advertisement?

the way you say it, its kinda starting to smell really shitty, too!
ewww!

Yupp, I think that was me. I'm proud to say I did that back when Generations was released, and all my memories are sent to a spam dump on an alt account by the name of "John Riccitello's Bowel Movements" (EA's CEO, the company's supreme mastermind). If EA did happen across it, they would only see the name and the profile picture, a cartoony middle finger. Everything else on the profile was left blank and/or set to private. they can't even see all my memories.

Of course, considering the memory thing is set specifically to advertise on facebook, I'm considering just using a mod I read about to just rid myself of it completely.

As for advertising, I can't even stand non-simlish letters in my game. Heck, Drew Carey's appearance in House Party still irks me. When I saw EA's survey had a question, "on a scale of one to ten, which brands would you like showcased in our games?" everything got a one out of ten...

Ads would be a Very Bad Thing...there was controversy about Nascar and ads in FLS I remember, and EA had to address it to save their wallets from going empty...

I think everyone at EA would have to do a lot of coke for in-game ads to start to look like a good idea that wont cause a complete fandom bitchfit. In a way, yes, we already get a lot of them though. We had those two TS2 stuff packs, the free Ford download stuff that's released every now and then and the brand name stuff they sell in the store. Not to mention how in FLS most of the cars were expies of real cars.

If we do get in game ads, I trust someone here to mod them into nonexistence.

I use that mod. It's a gift from God. Not only does it remove the social networking aspect but you stop getting that godforsaken popup every time they stop to...I don't know, tie their shoes. I miss Sims 2 memories...you know, of stuff that actually mattered.

The memory notification, you can turn off from the settings panel.



But you can make memories matter, by using the this tool. I've basically chosen only to remember some stuff, like fights, flirts and woohoo and a few other significant events. Basically stuff I want to check out when I switch families so I know what my Sims have been up to.

It did surprise me how even my game perfomance increased when the new memory event was not being constantly triggered, every time somebody went to the park.

And you couldn't when I first installed the mod.


I'm familiar with that mod. I'm just too lazy to bother picking and choosing, lol, so I just wiped the lot of them. And I was referring more to the old idea of wanting to find out a sim's backstory and past and perusing their memories to find out their story.

Here's what I just wrote on the comments section of the EA survey:

I am most certainly in the "upset/pissed off/WTF were they thinking" camp regarding this SHT EP they're planning on releasing. Still, in reading this thread, and the thread regarding the less than carefully structured marketing survey EA is running (this thread ), I am struck by a possible lack of perspective on our part.

When EA first released The Sims 3, they sold over 3.7 million units in the first quarter (EPs not broken out in any recent figures I could find) (source ). I have no doubt that number is significantly higher now, and I'm certain the EPs have sold well (or there wouldn't have been more released).

Now, how many members of MTS are there? 10,000? 100,000? We may be Sims "enthusiasts", and it is certainly important for any company to listen to their enthusiasts' insights and concerns, but there are not 3.7 MILLION of us.

Picture an assembly of focus groups evaluating the Sims (especially pre Sims 3) and potential expansions. Some consist of current players. We're in that group. We're familiar with the game, the "rules", and how they can be bent (and broken), and we literally create our own worlds to play in. We have certain needs. However, as valuable as we are in the development, and even in "indirect marketing" through our ability to build excitement in the community, we are NOT the bulk of buyers.

Most focus groups are made up of "casual" gamers. Some may be experienced in other games genres (RPGs, MMOs, even FPSs) but not necessarily in open ended, non-goal oriented play. Imagine handing them a copy of the Sims (let's even go back to Sims 1 for this), explaining to them it's a "sandbox" that they can play in and make whatever they want (well, within reason). Imagine the blank looks of those consumers faces when they stare at a game without any defined goal. Nothing to win. No quests to complete. No scores to post for your friends to see. As a company hoping to sell millions of copies of a game, those blank faces must have been pretty scary.

So, The Sims evolved into a more directed gameplay model. Now, there are achievements to strive for in work and hobbies. There are new places to travel to and have "adventures" (if your sims return intact, and I'm not referring to "surviving the dangers of tombs"). Now, we have new goals introduced, from the self employed professions, to gaining celebrity status, to dreaming of adopting a unicorn.

Even with the more structured gameplay, we "enthusiasts" have still managed to leverage most of the decent stuff out of the game, and incorporate it as we see fit. We eliminate what we consider gimmicks, like posting your Sims adventures on your FB page for present and future employers to see, or eliminating objectionable behaviors our sims always seem to display.

Still, we really like the game, and we keep buying it, along with the EPs and SPs we're offered. Despite all the bitching, I'll bet the vast majority of folks on this site, and even those vocal on this thread, myself included, will probably buy SHT when it's released. EA knows we'll buy this SHT, so why worry about us anyway?

EA needs to market to a broad audience. One that might be enthralled with American Idol meets Facebook. Create stars and send them to entertain your friends and family in their OWN Sims SHT world they bought just to see your "creations". After all, if you're willing to post photos of yourself for the world to see of you drunk out of your mind from some party you went to , why would posting "memories" of the trouble you get your sims into bother you?

The fact is, for a company like EA, holding as valuable a franchise as the Sims, it would be an act of negligence for management to not want to broaden appeal to as many suckers, er...customers, as possible.

Face it. If you add up all the "hard-core" Sims players out there, who enjoy building the game into something that they view as enjoyable, are there 100,000? 200,000? I think those numbers are actually generous. That leaves over 3.5 million players who apparently like to play by EA's rules, and are probably going to enjoy this latest EP of SHT to be released.

The fact that we can still mod behaviors as we see fit, and create content that is more meaningful to us, is what's really important. EA hasn't shut that door. They're not that stupid. As long as there are some decent nuggets in SHT for us to explore, just how pissed do we really have the right to be for EA to attempt to leach onto what they perceive as having the greatest mass market appeal?

Still, I am disappointed with the early info released about the upcoming release of SHT. I do know that after the disappointment I felt in Generations (and yes, I know there are those here who really like it), and the frustrations I felt with WA, I'm more likely to be a late adopter of this EP. That, in a way, is probably the one response EA doesn't want to hear. Not making quarterly sales figures hurts more than anything, even if sales eventually do catch up to projections, as those quarterlies are what investors are looking at.

It's not a lack of perspective on our part at all. You better believe EA is concerned about the overwhelmingly negative reception this pack is receiving online and I'd bet they're scrambling to come up with a way that makes SHT more palatable as we speak. Heck, considering Sims 4 is rumored to focus on the social aspects of the game they have to be more than a little concerned--someone has to be popping antacids at the very least.

"research indicates that for every complaint expressed there are over 26 unregistered complaints. Many dissatisfied customers just quietly take their business elsewhere."

"Actually, it's the customers who don't complain that you really have to worry about. Customers who don't feel like expending the energy to confront you, or write a letter, or be bold enough to say to a sassy clerk "There's no reason for you to treat me so rudely," just slip quietly away - and with them they take their future business."

"A typical business hears from only about 4% of its dissatisfied customers. 96% just go away and 91% will never come back. Source: “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner"

Hey, maybe that's why EA is pushing the pre-orders of the limited editions so hard--the customers aren't coming back for more.