Something LGBT might just happen to us!
In the beginning of 2022 The Sims Team has held a very important Maxis Monthly Livestream. In this stream Maxis has revealed that they’ve been working on a new feature in Create A Sim for The Sims 4 – Customizable Pronouns!
In the livestream the team has shown off the Work in Progress Concepts of the revamped User Interface. Now featuring new options for Pronouns right next to the Name input.
The upper right corner will say “Hello, My Name and Pronouns are…”. After selecting it you’ll get to enter the Name, as well as choose the Sim’s pronouns from the new dropdown.
The upcoming Update will also feature Custom Pronouns, allowing you to add your own. There are grammatical guidelines in the new User Interface prompt that lets you see how your Custom Pronouns will look like through different examples of gameplay and UI prompts and notifications:
In January 2022 the team has shared in their interview information regarding when we can expect this update, and also at which state the feature was back then:
As you saw this is still a work in progress and our research and design will continue until we feel the feature is in the good place to be launched into the game. That being said we still have a path ahead of us and we want to make sure to check on you along the way and keep you updated. Once the first version of this feature is out please know that we are continuously working on improving the game and each update brings us one step closer to a greater, inclusive experience in The Sims 4.
You can read the full interview with the developers for full information about The Sims Team’s plans for this feature.
Yesterday, The Sims Team has announced a new Roadmap for The Sims 4. In the Roadmap the biggest focus was on the Paid Releases, including one new Game Pack and two Kits. Unlike with previous Roadmap Announcements, this one didn’t lay down specifics on Content Updates for The Sims 4.
That’s, of course, until we got an insightful tip from our reader @Mischaloola, who pointed out a very interesting clue. The Sim that’s featured in the main render on a redesigned layout of The Sims website is wearing a T-Shirt with the Trans Flag pattern on it:
To make things more interesting, we’ve checked out TheSims.com website today. The render that was shown yesterday got removed, with a new tagline:
Step into the Moonlight and explore who you are after dark!
Sure, it’s Pride Season this June. But that could only mean that The Sims Team has been preparing for that very special occasion to release the Customizable Pronouns Update!
We, of course, could be wrong. And this article is still purely speculative until we know for sure. But, the Trans Flag and the new tagline isn’t just there for nothing. And LGBTQ+ players all around the world, especially the Trans and Non-Binary Communities, need proper representation and escapism now more than ever.
So, here’s to hoping!
If the pronouns update is coming this season, “Explore who you are after dark” probably wouldn’t the best marketing for it. Trans people don’t retreat into their dwellings at night and come out as someone else. Being trans isn’t a costume.
WTF… We all know the “Explore who you are after dark” it’s all about the werewolves. Stop problematizing things.
I’m not. I’m saying the marketing theme isn’t the best for the message.
That’s probably why it wasn’t included in the teaser.
The concept of exploring your identity outside of the open/daylight is actually a pretty common concept in the LGBT community, and using darkness/nightlife for those analogies is just as big. The idea is that you’re free to be your true self without being watched and judged.
I did do a bit of a double take over that myself, I’m sure it’s not what was intended to be the message I’m sure it was meant to be about werewolves and nightclub wear, but yeah it can be read like that too and came off a little yikes.
Must be why the roadmap doesn’t include the Pronouns Patch at all
Yall cant be serious… “Could be coming this season” Anyone in the LGBTQIA community knows June is just a promotional month for companies at this point. They change their logos to rainbow themed but never in the countries where we are killed where it would actually make a difference taking a pro stance… Adding in a pronoun system is not rocket science. It could’ve been added when it was announced but nope. EA saw chance to save face and pretend to care and is waiting for Pride month.
To be fair, there are a lot of pop up messages and phrases in the game that needs to be updated since there are several DLCs. This isn’t like EA announced it at the very start when it was just the base game. If they rush it to appease some people and then miss a lot of them, which would very likely happen, then those involved would be accused of being lazy or not taking it seriously. True they could’ve waited until it was finished, still be accused of pretending to care, but at the same time this community asks for more transparency. Likely this was given a green light for the gurus to talk about what their plan was regarding pronouns by marketing because otherwise the gurus aren’t suppose to make concrete statements about upcoming unreleased content.
I would guess such an attitude from a yt gay that only speaks english(and utilizes a RuPaul Drag race pfp, despite the transphobia in the show). As they are covering all the various languages the sims is in, they wouldn’t be able to drop it as they announced it. There are many languages that are still very gendered and make it very difficult to change the language. The sims team has to work with linguists & the nonbinary communities in the various regions just to ensure they get it right. And then there is the case of wasn’t added in at the beginning of the game’s cycle so there is various spots that would need to be adjusted for this
Talk about assumptions off of a pfp. I dont only speak english nor am i white and you’ll note the distortion of rupaul’s eyes… While i do acknowledge that translating it to all the languages takes time there are many cases of media being released in 2 or 3 languages and then other translations added on later. Like it or not English/Spanish and Mandarin are the most spoken languages. Do you stand and wait at the checkout line at your local grocer just to make sure the old lady with 3 items gets to leave the same time as you? Might not be popular to say clearly but it is true. No reason to let English speaking users wait other than pretending to care about the other languages.
Hello English nonbinary person here: I’m totally happy to wait until pronouns can be completely and sensitively included in the game. My local grocer isn’t a multinational corporation that rakes in a ton of money from all over the world so I’m not really sure where you were going with that straw man of an argument. The game already exists in numerous languages, nobody should have to wait for an update any longer than anybody else.
“a multinational corporation that rakes in a ton of money from all over the world” that just proves my point even more. They have the money and the connections to the whole world and all it’s languages the game is already released in… Use it and get the update out instead of waiting for June to capitalize on Pride month. If they are waiting for new words to be adapted like French recently did for a They/Them equal (the gender-neutral pronoun “iel” – a combination of the French pronouns “il” (he) and “elle” (she) that corresponds to the singular “they” in English) then this update is never gonna come out. Sadly it’s not a priority for the people society deems “Normal”.
A multinational corporation that rakes in a ton of money from all over the world isn’t some struggling indie studio, they can afford to release this quickly, because including the two sets of pronouns the game already has and providing the option for a third is not as hard as people make it out to be. They just have to pick one, as all the alternate choices can be picked by the player through the custom pronoun feature.
The files that actually contain the text the game uses are just .xml files. You can read them yourself in Notepad. A simple batch find-and-replace can update the entire game in a matter of anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.
I’m with you and I’d easily wait for the sims team to work on how to neutralize extremely gendered languages like French and Spanish than us English speaking folk get it 1st. Too many cis or trans binary folk forget how overtly gendered non-english languages can be
Linguists? It’s literally just a basic localization job. Each language that has a localization already has a “he/him” and a “she/her” equivalent, that hasn’t changed. The only thing they have to do is pick the most-commonly used nonbinary pronouns, as seen in the alpha screenshots. It’s he/him, she/her, and they/them, which will be translated as an equivalent from a 5-second Google search, such as those listed on https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Pronouns
Because I guarantee that’s what’ll happen, they’ll pick a pronoun from a wiki, and then it’ll turn out that one of them will be for a language that people from that language won’t like, and it’ll be updated over the course of several patches.
not all nonbinary folk uses they/them(I use it with faun/fauna), so they have to work around neo pronouns with the custom pronouns. Please look up french or another extremely gendered language that sims is played in and see if the nonbinary community has figured out a word and not just smooshed the two (like what is the official gender neutral term in french). I swear yt queer folk who speak mostly english should really use critical thinking with this one
As someone with neo pronouns i would think the lesson to not assume so much or to not jump to so many conclusions so quickly would’ve been learned long ago for you… Find a new tune to sing pet. I know white people’s ancestors and a large majority currently alive are responsible for numerous horrific things. Be better and dont assume they all agree with what happened or is happening. Sadly without those few white people who fought alongside us we wouldve just been outright killed faster and nobody wouldve noticed. Try and hide the outright hate for them or if you cant find a new angle cause all your comments here have include the “yt” form for white. I get it, it’s the same as turning the gay slur into one insulting the heterosexuals “straggot”. But it’s just beyond lazy and frankly below you.
You’re the one claiming not to be white while acting like a cis yt gay that likes Rupaul’s drag race. Shush little gay, the current strive for our rights was started by trans black women and its thanks to lesbians and the actually amazing allies that many survived the aids crisis of the 1990s. I’d say claiming to not be yt after being called on your white bs is lazy and what I’d think is below you, but you’ve proven that you’re just perfomative and care more for cis ally feelings than actual trans folk, much less trans BIPOC folk
I’ve had quite enough of your snarky holier than thou attitude child. I am a 58 year old black trans woman, my sister was one of those lesbians that cared for the gay men in hospital. i know far more about our history than you could sniffle up in your quick google searches. STOP ASSUMING THINGS BASED OFF OF YOUR BIASES… I’ve lived it. Also, you keep harping on about RuPaul… You do realize he apologized and is working on correcting past mistakes. My gods if you can never be forgiven and allowed to grow as a person but instead always be condemned for past mistakes… What’s even the point of learning and growing as a person… Go to therapy child and work on your anger.
I’m just matching your snarky energy, you’re really going pretty far with this. Didn’t realize I’d bring out the black woman you had to embody when you came out. Your claims now is coming off even more as performative than before. listen to yourself and go to therapy instead of attacking me for matching your energy and bringing logic to the table
Yeah and that’s what the custom pronoun field is for, Jayce. You can see it in the screenshots. They’re using the most common pronoun for the predefined fields, which is they/them. Neopronouns are relegated to the custom field.
So, in French, they’ll use the most common French NB pronoun. Likely iel / iels / ielleux.
iel/iels/ielleux isn’t the common one, just the one that made it to the dictionary. remember with french, 90-95% of nouns would need to be updated to be neutral, as most words aren’t neutral. also iel is just a fusion of the masuline and fem pronouns , not all nonbinary folk are that. I don’t remember in the inital mockup the use of multiple pronouns sets as well. I swear you yt cis queers don’t seem to critically think on this
Okay and that just circles back to “Maxis will probably change it in a patch a month later”
EA will do this the cheapest way they can, just like how in the trans update they batch-updated all the outfits instead of doing it by hand
It’s like you expect EA to spend ****money**** on this. Can you imagine?
Also, you don’t remember the mockup? You just have to scroll up for literally 2 seconds. He/Him/His, She/Her/Hers, They/Them/Their, plus a custom pronouns field. I swear you don’t seem to critically think on this
Can’t they make their game better and less expensive (with all the packs it’s like 300$ and not worth it better buy sims 3) before adding additional things like pronouns ? You add those things when the game is finished not before…