Update: 10/1/2014

Welcome to October 1, Patch Day!  First off we would like to say thank you for all of the help we have received from the community in identifying and tracking down issues. We love listening and learning from all that you do, and are always striving to make The Sims 4 the most solid game it can be. We love your stories and we greatly appreciate all your help!  We have a lot to share about what’s new, some fixes, and what have we done to your game? So, let’s go!

The New
Ghosts! Ready to go and in your game, just jump in and start killing your Sims! Well, I mean, you can… nicely kill them? Or just lock them in a room for a couple days, um, without any food or water. That’s one way to do it, but will take a while so if you’re really impatient maybe just set them on fire. Oh, this isn’t going well. Look, if you happen to see a ghost, however he or she got there, and we aren’t judging, then you can experience all new interactions like “Ghost Scare,” “Ghost Repair,” or “Pass Through”, new aspirations and whims, and new behaviors as they float happily, angrily, or howeverily about!

• When a Sim dies, they become a non-playable ghost
• Use the “Invite to Household” interaction to make a ghost into fully playable member of your household!
• Ghosts can have relationships, get married, woohoo, hold jobs, build aspirations, earn traits, or just be!
• Ghosts have a unique post life experience based upon how they died…
  • Sims that died by hunger seek to satisfy their hunger in the after life
  • Sims that died by overexertion and old age find they prefer to take it easy in the afterlife
  • Sims that died by fire have a new interaction available to them… my advice, try and not make them angry
  • Sims that died by an emotional death can radiate their emotion onto other Sims
  • Sims that died by electrocution, when angry, have a unique interaction to break electronic devices.  They also seem to really enjoy the “Hand Buzzer” social.
  • Sims that died by Cowplant have the desire to harm and help the plant world.  They can cause plants to die when in a negative emotion, but will care for plants when in a positive emotion.
• Ghosts can possess objects, and they can repair broken objects when possessed
• Ghosts have new interactions available to them, such as “Ghost Scare,” “Pass Through,” and “Talk About Death”
• Level 10 Gourmet cooks have a new recipe “Ambrosia”, which can be used to bring a Ghost to life (or give a Sim renewed life)!
• There is a new gardening flower type, the Deathflower, which can be used by a Sim to save themselves or another when visited by the Reaper!

Before you go out hunting for ghosts, why not head into Create a Sim where you can find some incredible costumes from the Star Wars universe! How can you go wrong with a Yoda child ghost Sim in a Happy mood sitting on a rooftop balcony looking down upon a young adult who has just completed some sort of epic universe saving event?  You can’t.  Yoda, Leia, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader costumes await you in Create a Sim!

With the addition of ghosts, even the gnomes are not safe from the call of the Netherworld. “The Ghastly Ghostly Gnome” has scared his way into your Build catalog, eagerly awaiting a place in your home!

The Fixes
We have identified a few more of our harder to track down crash issues, some tuning fixes, a couple new cheats, and a smattering of other fixes! Here are the details…

Cheats / Assets

• We have added a cheat to show hidden objects, such as the ponds, channel specific stereos for venue use, and many other items. Open up the cheat console ([CTRL]+[SHFIT]+[C]) and type “bb.showhiddenobjects”.  You can use the Build Filter pane to find the Debug objects under the Content drop down.
• 5 new eye colors!  Dark blue, dark blue hazel, gray brown hazel, olive green hazel, and purple!  Create a Sim, go NOW!
• A new Spooky station can be found on your stereos! It’s scary how good the music is! It’ll BOOm… your boxes. It’s funnier if you make the “m” silent in that last one.
• A new Create a Sim clock speed cheat allows you to speed up and slow down your Sim’s animation in Create a Sim. Use the cheat by typing “cas.clockspeed [0-10]” in the cheat console window.  0 is pause, 10 is not!

Crashes / Performance

• Corrected an issue where the interaction to “Write a Book” was not properly saving, causing the save file to error
• Loading a lot and selecting Sim to play who is off lot now loads to the correct Sim
• Fixed an issue where the UI might forget that a household exists and not allow the player into Build Buy
  • This primarily was a result of the player deleting all households in their neighborhood, but could occur as the result through other means
• Fixed an issue that could cause the game to become non-responsive if the user uploaded an unfinished venue from their home lot and then attempted to reenter Build via Manage Worlds from the lot
  • The household Sims were incorrectly being removed from the world, leaving the player in a bad state and unable to play
• Some in game circumstances can lead to the product ID becoming lost, resulting in a possible crash.  The crash has been fixed by adding a Null Guard (he’s a pretty good guard).
• Fixed an issue where the Off Lot actions were not always available after loading an existing save file
• Sims who are reading or eating should no longer reset when changing wall heights of rooms that are nowhere near them
• Lowering the foundation will no longer cause cabinets to be placed into the household inventory in certain circumstances
• Fixed a floating Sim issue that would sometimes occur when the Sim decided that the direct “air” path was shorter than any of the alternate options
• Sims will no longer route fail when attempting to perform the “Sell to the Simsonian Museum” action on an Unnaturally Large Space Rock
• The Sims 4 default refresh rate is now the same setting as the windows refresh rate

Graphics

• ymBottom_PantsLoosePajamas and ymBottom_PantsLoosePajamasSatin were merged into a single asset in Create a Sim. They are now 2.
• Some hair and hat combinations created bad geometry along the Sims scalp, we have adjusted the geometry to correct the issue
• yfBody_CocktailStrap_Red is now a selectable color for the Bombshell dress found in Create a Sim
• “Mega Stairs (Ooh Fancy)” stairs now have color variants that are actually different than one another
• “Stack of Canvases” career reward item will no longer disappear when placed next to a wall and the wall cuts away
• Fixed graphical issues with the highlight and back-facing state of the “Captain Chaz MacFreeling Elegant Mirror.”
• “Malva – Square” ground plant will no longer place underground
• The “Barnish Bed” will no longer find that its pillow becomes possessed when a Sim gets in bed – a LOD (level of detail) issue resulted in the pillow bouncing around on its own when Sims went to sleep

Tuning

• Sims now have more painting variety at all levels – high level Sims will paint “beneath” their level at a chance of higher quality
• Sims can now listen to music and play chess at the same time!
• Librarians can now also be young adults and can be either male or female. Previously they were always female elders. Stereotyping… don’t do it!
• The “Enable / Disable Emotional Aura” interactions now have tooltips explaining what they do
• “Try to Calm Down,” “Vent,” “Complain about Problems,” and “Take Bath” actions will now help resolve the “Not Enough Exercise,” “Need Video Games!,” “Conception Tension,” “Stale Surroundings,” and “Cooped Up” buffs that Sims get when feeling tense
• Fixed an issue where Sims with a high Cooking skill were guaranteed to never start fires while cooking. It is true that our Sims are quite intelligent, however it is also well documented that even the best Sim is still a little prone to the accidental setting ablaze of their luxurious mansion.  Sims above level 3 cooking skill can once again start fires while cooking… it is just unlikely.
• The final Milestone of the Nerd Brain aspiration now only requires that a Sim read 10 (not 15) books in order to complete
• “Earn Money Turking” was providing a large amount of Simoleons within a short amount of time, this was not the intention and the amount you earn has been reduced
• Toys that say they increase a Childs creativity, now actually do
• “Writing a Jingle” will now pay your Sim for doing so. There was a bug with writing a jingle on the guitar that could result in no Simoleons being paid
• The Serenade’er will no longer get all the buff benefit from the Serenade.  The Serenade’ee will now also receive a positive buff from the Serenade when being Serenaded to by the Serenade’er
• Time based achievements and buffs were not always tracking correctly.  Fixed a visual issue with the tracking, as well as fixed the “Just Getting Started” and “In the Game” achievements
• The “Fridge of Steel” and “Fresh Maker” upgrades on the refrigerator were completing too quickly, they have been tuned a little slower
• Gym Rats will no longer lose hygiene while doing a “Zero G Workout”
• Science table emotion potions will now provide positive buffs, rather than just make you uncomfortable
• Autonomous Sims were finding it impossible to die by Cowplant because they would, during the moment of death, attempt to queue a Get Comfortable interaction, which, not being compatible with the Cowplants attempt at eating the Sim, would cause the Sim to reset, thus saving the Sim from death (woo!).  We’re sorry to say, we fixed the issue, once again putting our Sims in jeopardy with the Cowplant digestive desires.
• Intergalactic Growth Pods will no longer be resistant to your attempts to water and weed – the pods have decided life is good. Water and weed as needed
• Sims with unpaid bills will no longer find that the water & power has been shut off everywhere they go – you can properly mooch from your neighbors
• Fishing interactions now correctly display emotional context in the Pie Menu.
• A collectibles rarity will now affect its value
• Adopting a baby will now give all the parents adopting a proper buff for doing so
• Sims with spoiled food in their inventory will no longer find the option to clean spoiled food from the bar… that was just weird.
• Sims were able to feed dead cow plants. While interesting and slightly morbid, it did not actually do anything.  We have removed the action.
• Removed fitness gain for digging rocks.
• Fixed an issue where bills were incorrectly double counting objects when calculating the household value
• We addressed a negative current issue, where Sims were dying after being electrocuted just one time. It was shocking for us all. Our hair was on end when we learned of the problem.  We have quickly zapped the bug with thunderous attention and we’re a-buzz with this fix.
• The “Commercial Kitchen” styled room is now unlocked when the user reaches level 10 of the Culinary career while in the Chef branch
• Gardening plants will no longer broadcast their emotions onto nearby Sims. They have been counseled and have learned to bottle up their emotions inside… deep deep inside.
• Repair and Upgrade interactions now correctly display emotional context in the Pie Menu when your Sim is Focused
• Thank you to the community for helping to identify two issues where Child Sims were incorrectly allowed to get into the Flirty emotion, we have corrected both instances.
  • Children who had maxed their social skill were incorrectly able to Flirt with themselves in the mirror
  • Child Sims with the Insane trait and in the Confident mood, were incorrectly allowed to flirt with themselves in the mirror
• Romance filter option is no longer available for children while traveling (nobody ever showed up in the list, but it was odd that it was there)
• Venues converted to residential lots via Manage Worlds, will no longer prevent you from beginning the action of adding a new household to the lot if the venue value is greater than the starting funds of the new household.
  • You still won’t be able to place the family on the lot if they can’t afford it, but now you are allowed to create a new household using this flow.

UI

• Gallery notification timestamps will no longer incorrectly list your last activity as “more than a month ago” when it has been less than that

• Commenting on gallery items with the “<” character, followed by any text will no longer cause the text to disappear

• Event Major Goals now have hover tips with text explaining how to complete the goals

• Fixed an issue with Neighborhood Map context menus appearing off screen in some supported resolutions.

• Corrected an issue where the Build filter panel was being hidden when performing an open search.