Maxis senior vice president Lucy Bradshaw and Sims Studio GM Rachel Franklin see the voyeuristic side of our society as a wealth of source material when it comes to making The Sims.

Their fireside chat at the GamesBeat 2014 conference, Franklin and Bradshaw cited the ever-changing entertainment media landscape as key inspirations for their long-running franchise. It’s not only about entertainment but also how people consume it.

The pair took this opportunity to share what Sims means to them. Franklin noted that this is a game that relies on little to no consulting with behavioral professionals, “It’s less of a life simulation but more a game about drama.” Bradshaw added that the Sims is a reductionist view of life, influenced by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It’s also a series that combines behavioral tension with user experimentation, were the best possible outcome is drama. Those outcomes are complemented by happy experiences like giving birth to a child or a first kiss.

“We want players to imbue a sense of importance. Create-a-Sim in Sims 4 just became all the more important. …” Bradshaw said. “You can choose traits that reflect real stories, like coming out of the closet or the death of a family member.”

The studios behind The Sims also do not get enough credit for striking that balance between the serious moments in life, while also keeping things lighthearted. A perfect example is the Grim Reaper, the avatar of Death who also uses a tablet. As Franklin put it, “We want to explore all these different facets of life, but it’s still game. … You should have a satisfying journey, but it should still be fun.”

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Thanks SnootySims for the find!

VGCharts published a chart showing which games sold the most copies in USA, Europe, Japan and/or Global!

Their chart for 6th of September, 2014 shows that The Sims 4 sold 408,150 copies Worldwide in the first 4 days! (from 02/09 to 06/09). The game sold 179,368 copies in USA and 161,584 copies in Europe.

There are 2 relationship types in The Sims 4: Friendship Relationship and Romance Relationship.

Each Relationship type functions with points that your Sims either receive or lose by communicating (or not) with each other.

You can add and remove these Relationship Points with cheats as well if you hate waiting.

To do so, open up your cheat console by pressing CTRL + Shift + C keyboard buttons. In the Cheat Console, you’ll need to write up a cheat that includes both names and last names of your two Sims:

modifyrelationship Princess Ess Sean Sullivan 80 romance_main

Legend:

Dark Blue – Cheat’s base

Green – First and last name of your Sim #1

Blue – First and last name of your Sim #2

Red – Relationship points

Orange – type of relationship; friendship_main for a friendly relationship and romance_main for a romantic relationship

This cheat also functions for Sims that are not on your lot.

You can also add Sims and modify the Relationship Points for Sims who are not in your Relationships list, as long as they’re moved in in one of the Worlds.

We’ve just started creating a brand new Career Guide for The Sims 4, where you can see all the information on what it takes to get a Promotion, which Career Branch is better, what Rewards do you get for getting a Promotion and so much more!

For today, we’ve prepared and gathered all the information for the Painter Career. It’s not an easy job, but by practicing your Painting Skills, it will surely pay off! You can earn money by both painting at home and painting at work, + there are some worthy rewards that you’ll find in your Household inventory after getting a couple of promotions.

Click Here to visit the Career Guide page!

We discussed with a reporter from Kotaku about a Concept Art of an unannounced The Sims 4 World. They reached out to EA to ask more about this Concept Art and will it ever be realized.

This is their response:

It’s really cool to see some of these old concept art pieces surfacing on the internet. Over the course of development, the artists in The Sims Studio explored so many different things, and there was a stack of concept art produced. The team looked at all kinds of different visual styles, locations and even time periods during this exploratory phase. That’s what pre-production is all about. As you will already understand, just because there is concept art, that doesn’t mean that there was ever any intent to take any of it into production.

So there you have it. The ”mystery” about the Veronaville-styled World is finally put to an end. Even though we saw this world come to life in Dev Screens, it’s still not sure is EA just hiding information about this world, since ”just because there is concept art, that doesn’t mean that there was ever any intent to take any of it into production” doesn’t look like a completely true sentence. Take a look at the leaked dev screens below and you’ll know why:

It’s still unsure does EA ever plan to add this world into the game, but at least we know that this World WAS put into production!

Mod The Sims Forum Member mgomez found an interesting text string in one of The Sims 4’s game files (just to make it clear, we tried to see it for ourselves too and it’s real – you can find it in The Sims 4DataSimulationGameplay > core .zip file).

According to the text string file, The Sims 4 will feature 3 addition types: EP’s (Expansion Packs), SP’s (Stuff Packs) and GP’s (Gameplay Packs?).

As an addition to this, EA recently published a new slider on The Sims 4’s gallery, telling people to sign up for their newsletter.

Be the first to hear about new gameplay features and exclusive offers!

So far, The Sims Team is refusing to talk about any future projects related to The Sims 4, even though information about The Sims 4 Premium Service is already beginning to leak!

You may have noticed that the more you play The Sims 4, the longer your loading screens will last.

This issue is caused by Cache Files collecting as you progress through the game. These files serve it’s purpose as a faster way of loading in-game thumbnails (such as families, houses etc.) and they are created each time you load something ”new”.

As you add more custom content and mods for the game, you’ll notice that your Cache Files are getting bigger.

Luckily, these Cache Files can be deleted.

To do so, open your Documents folder (or a folder where your The Sims 4 Save Game folder is), Electronic Arts > The Sims 4. There’ you’ll find a folder called ”cache” and a file named localthumbcache.

Feel free to delete the localthumbcache file!

When it comes to the cache folder, open it and delete everything that’s inside of it *except* the FileCache.cfg file!

You’ll immediately notice how your game loads much more smooth and faster.

I advise that you delete cache files every 5-7 days (especially after you download/remove custom content).

For more information about Cache files, visit Crinrict’s post!