One of the best selling franchises didn’t go unrecognized!
In honour of video games and their history, TIME, United States’ most popular magazine, created a list of 50 Best Video Games of all time, with The Sims taking the 31st spot! Here’s what the editorial team at TIME has to say about the game we all love:
Game designer Will Wright has said The Sims, first released in 2000, was intended as a satire of American consumer culture. Millions of players seem to have missed the joke, happily occupying themselves with the mundane tasks of running a digital minion’s life—from kitting out a new pad to managing bathroom breaks (or else). It innovated both the “sandbox” category of game in which “goals” are loosely (or not at all) defined, as well as the kind of minutely detailed task management that’s a common feature of so many games today.
The Sims Team has introduced a brand new limited event for The Sims 4 that will allow your Sims to progress through their skills and work/school performance three times faster than the usual!
This Event lasts from August 22 at 10am PT until August 29 at 10am PT and requires the latest update!
After ensuring that you’ve updated your The Sims 4 game to the latest version, you’ll be greeted with this screen in The Sims 4 Main Menu:
To gain benefits from the Triple Boost Week, you’ll need to find Jasmine Holiday, event coordinator for The Sims 4. She can be found as a townie walking around with a special Triple Boost Week plumbob icon on her jacket. If you can’t find her on any lots, calling her on the phone will do the trick!
She’ll immediately show up knocking on your door:
As she’s a special NPC character in the game, she only offers interactions depending on the event happening in The Sims 4. For the Triple Boost Week, you have two interactions:
Ask about Triple Boost Week
Request Boost…
Job Performance Gain
Skill Gain
You only get to choose one boost per Sim. If you choose to activate a different boost, the previous boost will be overriden with the new boost.
A Sim sparkling after given a boost.
You can check your moodlets in case you forget which boost you’ve choosen. Each moodlet lasts for 6 Sim days and can be renewed by requesting a boost again.
Capture 22
Capture 23
The Skill gain boost will make progressing through any skill three times faster!
The Job Performace boost will raise the performance bar three times faster! This boost is also valid for Child and Teen Sims and will just as well make their School Performance progression three times easier.
Ever want to level all your Sims’ Skills but they’re all “I’m too tired to paint” or “I’m too sad to Exercise”? What about trying to climb that Career ladder but your Sim just… isn’t feeling it? Well, clear your schedule for the next week, because The Sims 4™ Triple Boost Week: Skills and Careers is now live, free* for all players!
So, what does this mean? Simple: from August 22 at 10am PT until August 29 at 10am PT, your Sims can gain Skills at a whopping three timesthe usual rate, or gain a triple Job Performance Boost for base game Careers. All they’ll need to do is head over to Jasmine Holiday (or call her on the phone) to get granted with seven in-game days of Skill or Career Boosts. You can do it as many times as you want during that period, giving your Sims plenty of time to reach the top of their Career, or Skill up enough to write the next great novel. You’ll only be able to have one at a time, though – asking for a Skill Boost when you already have a Career boost will cancel the other one.
The Sims 4 Triple Boost Week: Skills and Careers is live right now, so grab some snacks and settle in; it’s time to make your Sim the master of everything!
Even though The Sims 3 was released back in 2009, the features it introduced allowed for endless creativity and possibilities, and because of that, there’s still a large portion of the community that still plays.
Here are 15 reasons why this game was waaay ahead of its time:
1. Huge worlds with beautiful scenery.
Isla Paradiso from The Sims 3 Island Paradise; looks beautiful in the morning!
2. The entire world is your playground!
3. You can fish anywhere…
No need to be on a lookout for fishing spots, as long as there’s water there’s an option to fish!
4. …or swim anywhere.
The entire world is one big swimming pool!
5. But enough of world talk. Did you know that your Sims could wear a bathroom tile pattern for their shirt?
6. Or sit on a chair made entirely out of gold!
Gotta love Create A Style.
7. You mean to tell me that not all lots are flat and that we can edit the terrain? I’m shook.
8. Did you know Ghosts can try for a baby?
Starting a Ghost family is this easy!
9. They’re masters of shortcuts and can pass through literally anything
10. Toddlers. Need I say more?
11. Teens that are shorter from their adults?! What kind of sorcery is this?!?!?!
Is that Bella from Twilight?! Yup, she can be found in Moonlight Falls, from The Sims 3 Supernatural.
12. Ownable AND drivable cars?! I don’t believe this.
13. Grocery shoppin’
14. Swingset swingin’
15. Clipping for coupons – only 2009 kids will know.
This Sim just got a 40% off deal on her next Pedicure at the Spa venue! Score!
Brittpinkiesims created an Event Mod that lets your Sim throw the perfect Prom for your teen Sims!
To install the mod, simply extract the mod .zip file to Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Mods. Brittpinkiesims also offered her Prom Lot for downloading that you can extract in the Tray folder (Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Tray).
The Mod is packed with new reward items, moodlets and, of course, the new event. It’s made specifically so you can invite only Teen Sims from all the worlds (you don’t have to even meet them in order to invite them).
You can learn more about this mod and download it by clicking the download button below!
You’ve probably been wondering ”What’s taking EA so long to announce EP3?!”. There are multiple factors behind their announcements for The Sims 4, and Lyndsay Pearson and Rachel Franklin explained all of them during Gamescom on their Sims Panel.
The quote down below has been provided by JulyVee:
Of course we as simmers want all the information at once – when will we finally get toddlers, seasons and pets, huh? But after this panel, I’ve realised it’s not that easy. Especially with the team wanting to keep things interesting with new ideas rather than just warm up the usual expansions. But in terms of announcing here are a few key points that show why they don’t announce a pack as soon as it goes into planning.
Things might not work out. If the team realises they have to change important things in the pack due to technical reasons or add other stuff to replace it, many fans might be disappointed. Retracting statements is never good. So they decide to show a pack when it’s clear that no considerable changes have to be made and that things work out the way they are supposed to.
Be able to show stuff. If a pack would be announced just when the sims team starts planning it, there would be nothing to show – no animations, no items, no art. As long as that is the case, it’s just words. So the teams decides to announce packs when they have something real to show us. At this point they also said they don’t want to make fans wait too long between the announcement and the release.
Keeping track. If the team would communicate every step of development to the fans, their heads would be spinning. Since there are so many projects at once it might be hard to keep track. So the policy is quality over quantity.
The perfect timing. This means that, e.g. a tropical island pack would rather be announced and released in the summer rather than winter (though Rachel said it almost never happens that finished packs are held off because of this). It’s also about the feature space on origin – EA has other games too and they have to make sure to find a good time to talk about the sims. So announcing a new expansion when they just launched a new battlefield game might not be a good idea.
The Sims Team’s Lyndsay Pearson and Rachel Franklin attended the Community Lounge at Gamescom where they were able to talk about The Sims 4’s production. They explained the process of developing a certain pack, phases of development, how they choose their pack themes and their announcement strategy.
Down below you’ll find a list of articles / videos of Simmers who attended this Sims Panel and got a chance to write down / record what was happening. We’ll be updating the list as new content related to the Sims Panel gets released.
After the recent leak there’s no doubt that The Sims 4 City Life is happening, but the thing is, we have no idea what this Expansion Pack could bring beyond the City Lifename that we got. Until The Sims Team officially announces The Sims 4 City Life and its features, here are 5 features that we’d like to see in this pack:
1. Apartments
Nope, we’re not talking about penthouse apartments from The Sims 3 Late Night, but rather the fully featured apartments that came with The Sims 2 Apartment Life. They were a perfect addition to The Sims 2 mostly because, just like The Sims 4, you had to go through a loading screen in order to load up a lot. What was great with The Sims 2 Apartment Life is that you could visit / move in up to 4 Households in one lot, giving the lot a feeling of one big happy family!
2. An Active Downtown World
The Sims 3 Late Night brought a beautiful world called Bridgeport. The only problem? It was almost empty, with a small amount of Sims that could only be found in Lounges or Clubs. It’s a really big world, and yet most of the time there are no Sims in sight while you roam around town.
The Sims 4 has the huge potential of bringing a new active Downtown world with lively areas/neighborhoods. Sure, you might experience a loading screen or two, but like the current Neighborhoods and Lots in TS4, the Downtown world could be just as active!
So much space and no Sims in sight! Via sims.wikia.com
3. Fame & Fortune Lifestyle
No pack has brought the Fame & Fortune gameplay aspect better than The Sims 1 Superstar! This Expansion Pack came with a Studio Town, fame score rating system, 2 celebrity awards, usable objects for singing and acting, and even some real-life celebrity names like Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne, Marilyn Monroe and more!
With smooth animations and vibrant gameplay, these features would be just perfect for The Sims 4!
4. Reputation System
It’s important what the city thinks of your Sim. Originally introduced in The Sims 2 Apartment Life, the reputation system allowed your Sim to have an easy or hard life, depending on how they treat other Sims while being on community lots. Sims who are publicly nice to other Sims will get benefits such as a job promotion, cheaper objects, and so on, while on the flip side, all of that can work against them, and turn into a negative, if they’re being rude towards other Sims!
Other Sims forming actual opinions about your Sim that will effect your gameplay is just what The Sims 4 City Life could offer to the current emotion features to bring it to the next level!
via sims.wikia.com
5. Vampires
The Sims 4 City Life has an opportunity to continue the tradition of bringing vampires with city-themed Expansion Packs like The Sims 2 Nightlife, and The Sims 3 Late Night. Both packs brought something new to the table: Nightlife focused on traditional vampires that possess typical vampire abilities, such as turning in to bats, while Late Night focused more on the new-age vampires that you’ve seen/read in recent pop culture, such as Interview with the Vampire or the Twilight Book Series.
We only have 2 occult types currently in The Sims 4; Ghosts and Aliens, which were added, and expanded upon, in The Sims 4 Get to Work Expansion. The Sims 4 City Life has the real potential of bringing Vampires into the mix!
UPDATE #2: Things have gotten pretty legal over this leak. Apparently, Sony DADC/Warner (EA distributors in Brazil) have requested the brazilian rating board to hide the Expansion Pack 3 listing from their website. The document down below is the proof:
According to the document above, EA has 30 days (until September 17th) to decide a new date to publish this listing or else the brazilian rating board has all the rights to publish it without their permission.
Also, it was found out that the rating was sent for approval on August 10th:
UPDATE: The listing has been removed from the site mentioned below.
O Sim BR found the listing of The Sims 4 ”Vida na Cidade” which roughly translates to ”City Life”. The sitewhich leaked this information is the official website for video game rating in Brazil. We checked if this listing is real and it sure is still there!
The site also states that City Life was produced in 2016!
If you remember, back in August 2015 we had a survey which listed several Expansion Pack ideas. One of them was Metropolis that had the following description:
Metropolis:
Move into a bustling, modern city! Live in new apartments and penthouses eat food at carts and shop at street markets and immerse your sims in the different cultures of the city by exploring the many diverse neighbourhoods.
It could be very possible that The Sims 4 Backyard Stuff was hinting at the upcoming Expansion Pack with the following CAS assets:
The Sims Team is currently having a really cool promotion where you can get a free object (Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar) by simply registering to their e-mail newsletter.
To get this free object, follow these steps:
Visit the Newsletter page and sign up to your EA account. Make sure you tick the ”Yes, I want to receive emails…” box!
Note: if you’ve already signed up for the Newsletter before it doesn’t matter. Just do as prompted!
You’re ready to rock!
Note: if you keep getting an error message, try clearing your cache or using a different browser!
Your Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar is now waiting for you in your The Sims 4 game!
Is your Sim musically inclined? Can they rock out? Have they been known to shred on occasion? If so, they’ll definitely want to add this axe to their collection. It’s Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar*, and it’s exclusively available to those who sign up for The Sims 4 newsletter. The guitar’s eyes glow, and a cloud of black smoke will appear under your Sim – just like Grim. It’s rockin’!
All you need to do is sign up for emails about The Sims (as well as other EA products, news, events, and promotions) and get Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar. This exclusive in-game The Sims 4 item will help take your Sim’s guitar skills to a rockin’ new level. That’s it! Just sign up here, and this wicked guitar will be added to your game.
Origin is having a sale where you can save up to 75% on certain video games!
In this offer are also included The Sims 4 Base Game which is 60% off, The Sims 4 Expansion Packs which are 50% off and The Sims 4 Game Packs which are 25% off.
The offer ends on 30th of August, meaning that you have plenty of time to get a game you’ve been wanting for so long!
Just when things couldn’t get more interesting, more stuff have been found in The Sims 4 updated Game Files!
Igor_Erefound this guitar just ‘sitting’ withing The Sims 4 1.22 update files. The first thing he discovered was this render:
But that’s not all, he was also able to uncover and unpack the Guitar itself into a special .package, letting you play it for yourself! (You can download it HERE)
Here’s the description of this object that we found:
Grim’s Ghoulish Guitar
Record keeping is never easy, but we, at the Filers for the Dead Files, are happy to know a simple guitar was more than enough for you to sign away your first born. We, and Grim, appreciate your potential deposit, and wish you pleasant days… until we see you again.
Down below you can see all 8 color variants of this Guitar:
We currently have no idea when and how will this Guitar affect the actual gameplay as the modded Guitar currently doesn’t bring any new interactions, but we think this has something to do with the upcoming Event System.
UPDATE #2: More evidence about the new Event has been found! Seems like Jasmine Holiday will return to introduce the new Event System.
Also, we found this icon which seems to be related to the new system:
UPDATE: SimGuruDrake released a statement about the upcoming Event System, confirming that The Sims Team has in fact been working on it.
The team that’s works on engagement features (i.e. The free stuff you get in patches) are doing their job by creating this free content for you
The latest update for The Sims 4 that was released today introduces the ability to customise phone skins. However, there is hints of a new “event” system hidden within the XML code. Back in March, we had the Growfruit challenge with Jasmine Holiday as an event NPC. The latest update has expanded the code that was used with new details.
Events have a new “XP” system. Sims can earn XP and trigger a “Triple Boost Week” which will increase the rate a Sim builds job performance, boosts skills, builds friendships, gains aspiration points, or decreases the rate at which their Needs decay (note: this is still referred to as a “Boost Week” despite actually lowering the decay rate). Sims can only have one reward at a time.
We can expect these new features to be implemented the next time there’s a temporary challenge!
With the latest update for The Sims 4, The Sims Team introduced Smartphone covers! In case you didn’t know, they were first ”teased” with the first Get Together render:
Starting today, you can customize your Smartphone with 19 new covers!
You can find the new customization options under the Phone menu on the top bar of Phone options.
You can change the cover of your Phone whenever you want with just one click of your mouse!
