@L0uisCouture It's the design tool, it lets you switch between the existing variants for any object you've already placed.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) July 4, 2014
@WatchDogAiden Your Sims won't autonomously enter an unloaded lot – if you want them to go there you'll need to tell them.
— Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) July 4, 2014
@lucahudsonJT We'll share this info soon.
— Grant Rodiek (@SimGuruGrant) July 4, 2014
@Dyvetta @SimGuruGraham @SimGuruSarah Teens cannot Woohoo with Young Adults.
— Grant Rodiek (@SimGuruGrant) July 4, 2014
@GeekSims Sim routing is far improved. Far, far improved. And yes, multitasking is alive and well!
— Grant Rodiek (@SimGuruGrant) July 6, 2014
From Mod The Sims
Original_Sim: With great power comes great responsibility. It you believe he’s got enough power to include certain features, surely he is responsible for putting the kibosh on others, especially when he said so himself:
SimGuruGraham: I don’t have the power to add or cut features. I have good autonomy when it comes to the specific features I own and can add/cut portions of them (within reason) to make the feature the best it can be. While I ran our Change Review process, all decisions made in there are by a committee of senior producers and designers.
A year ago I ran the same process for Island Paradise, and Seasons before that. I try my damnedest to influence the game in directions that I know the community is particularly interested in, but I’ve still made the argument to cut things before that you all would surely be unhappy about. When we do cut things, it’s because there’s something even more integral that needs that development time and takes priority for getting in the game.
Producers have to manage the schedule and budget that we’re given to ensure we’re hitting our milestones at the expected quality bar, so yeah… producers frequently end up being the bad guys who have to make difficult decisions; we’re the gatekeepers.
lovcat: The X amount of Guru time each week was likely pushed because of the turmoil, but this was the plan all along. Online channels. Twitter. Friendface. Ahem, I mean Facebook. Bargain basement marketing, ladies and gents.
SimGuruGraham: Nope, not the case for us. We have community managers; it’s their job to be part of that effort. The marketing efforts are on the main franchise channels with millions of followers. The SimGurus do this because we want to, often in our own time, and with a few thousand followers we aren’t going to influence sales numbers in any perceivable way.
Moreover, I don’t want to go on twitter or the forums and market to anyone… that sounds dreadfully boring. Why even listen to me if I’m not going to talk about the things I’m interested in or give my own take on things? You’re seeing gurus out there chatting more because post-E3 is the first time we’ve really been allowed to say anything.
Lots of people on this team have spent years of their lives building this; they want to get out there and talk about it. Some of that means difficult discussions as well about what’s not in the game – I can’t speak for others, but I enjoy the philosophical side of game development and talking through how a franchise evolves, what goes into game development, and why certain choices are made.
I want people to know what this game is, so I like getting out there and answering what I can to give you all a better idea what you’re getting. At least that gets conversations flowing and gets that feedback rolling in. I like the idea of nimble development teams that can rapidly respond and turn around feedback; to me a game like The Sims seems well suited for that.
Showing Island Paradise super early and having the time to actually incorporate feedback was a pleasant change. I personally don’t put much faith in the results of surveys and focus tests – I find them useful for understanding how people use the game, but not for influencing the design direction of a game. For that, I want to hear from all of you.
