For what I gather a skeptical fan but I agree with everything you said above. It's the ONLY explanation to why we haven't gotten any news this late into the development cycle. At this point their should at least be internet ads running and they should be preparing a television ad.

Not exactly the only explanation and people can get overly skeptical. I know a few official forum go-ers who refuse to believe TS4 even exists. It's likely anger cause they wanna see or get the game, but it's kinda silly. I think as soon as they showcase at E3 the marketing will be in full effect. I think they're gonna do a TV ad closer to the release and to be honest we have no idea what they really have up their sleeves in the way of marketing after E3.

Agreed. I got the bakery from a friend, and it doesn't work at all it simply states "no interactions available" on the stove.

Not only that but mostly all the kitchen counters from the store don't work with Create-A-Style. If you put them into a corner they go back to their original color. You should have seen my face when I realized I could not use CASt on the Edwardian Kitchen Set I paid for with my own money.

It probably looked a little something like this

I know, right, Cece? I have several counters from the store that I have to argue and fight with to keep their colors I want them to be, because I don't want the same colors in every kitchen in which I place them. I have always waited until stuff goes on sale on the store, however, I've gotten a good amount of stuff from there over the years, and I'm not about to pay full price for something only to find it doesn't work as it should.

It seems ridiculous to me, if the game is to release in September-December, that the really first look at the game will be June, 3 months before fall. Three months? I have three months only to see if TS4 is really worth paying 60 + bucks for? LOL That's a lot of money for a game, and I don't remember ever paying that much money for just a base game.

Edit: The company where I work has been doing a bunch of lay-offs as well the last while and will continue throughout the year. I know a lot of places that have been having to do that lately, and it looks like EA is trying to shove a bunch of crap down our throats with TS4, as far as I've so far seen, and expect us to pay so much money for it in a economy that is still floundering. I say if they don't have a really good solid game in TS4, they will be losing a lot of money.

I think this is correct ^. People assumed they have something to do with TS4 because of the cartoony look. I agree that they AND TS4 are cartoony, not at all sure they actually were designed for that game or by people who are designing for the new game.

One thing is for sure: they definitely do NOT match the art style of TS3, in any way shape or form. They look extremely out of place so they do look as if they must have been designed for another game. OTOH, maybe since EA laid off so many people, they just hired some first graders to design their mesh at a really low cost.

If it is indeed three months from the day they show it off at E3. Why isn't that enough time? That is something I'm VERY curious about. I asked on the official forums and everyone ignored me, but still... Why are we stressing? All the info they're going to release is going to represent the game (roughly) and why does it matter if it's all at once or over three months? Not trying to bait or anger anyone.. totally legit question.

Nintendo just revealed Tomodatchi Life the 8th in a podcast, then came out with a trailer that became viral on the 10th and that game is coming out what.. June 6th?

I think people are concerned because TS4 was announced almost an entire year ago. It was announced in May of 2013 and then basically just dropped off the face of the earth with so little information known. Every thing we DID see/get told was followed with "but it's pre-alpha so it's not final". So the next time we see it, it could be vastly different (or almost exactly the same), no one knows. They've been incredibly tight lipped about it so I think people just don't trust EA to reveal accurate information in 3 months and answer questions about the things we really want to know.

Because this is EA my friend. It is extremely sketchy the way they have gone about this. Three months to showcase everything? We will be lucky if we learn anything in those three months.
I guess the skepticism in this is that with each prior game Sims 2 and 3 we had SO much more information. Showing it this late just makes it feel like they are hiding a lot. I feel that if they wait that long to show anything it proves that this game is extremely unfinished and they don't want to put any money in marketing until the very end to hype it up.

I get the frustration entirely and they did make a huge mistake pushing out the same tired article 20-30 times to fill the gap. I think that's why they totally went radio silent because the reaction to these articles re-wording the same message was just ridiculous and pissing people off. I was just saying radio silence aside now that we have an actual date for info instead of them recycling the old information and the same tired pictures.

Games sometimes drop off the face of the earth during development due to delays. I remember not hearing ANYTHING about TS2 after a PC Games Magazine article, which I still actually have. I pre-ordered that game immediately after that and didn't hear much of anything for almost a year. I had the couple of alpha game play videos which were an entirely different game due to the server fire.. then they started having more and more info closer to the release.

Either way someone needs to write up a letter to EA and basically get the entire community behind it to express how much they've screwed us over and basically lost a lot of our trust that they even have to deliver.

They shouldn't of told us about TS4 at all.

It would of been much simpler, tbh.

I'm stressing for a few reasons myself. For starter, the fact that they've waited so long to release ANY new information scares the shit out of me. This means they either have something amazing in the works and don't want to revel it to use (for some reason) or the game is not even close to being finalized until sometime in June. Also, the game has been available for pre-order. Months before we even had a tiny bit of information we have even now was known. It's like they expect is to order a game that's not even finished. Finally, the team CHOOSE to show us those clips from the game a year ago. They totally could have waited until this year's E3 to show fans the game...that would have made more sense. On top of that, Fans were eager for more information after the original Sims 4 demo but we weren't angry like now. For months and months fans have been waiting for something to come out about the game. We got zip.

The Sims 3 handled this way WAY better. I know people like to act as though people were acting the same as they are now. Trust me, the were not. I know, I was visiting several Sim enthusiast forums during the late 2000's. We were more worried about the quality biased on what was shown not on what WASN'T.

There's an easy solution to all of this. Don't pre-order or buy the game until you're confident you'll like the game. I just think that they anticipated the game would be out by now and only a few weeks after Gamescom they pushed it to Fall instead of Spring for whatever reasons. Maybe they are doing something amazing or they're concerned that if they kept small incremental updates everyone would continue to be super critical of certain aspects.

A good number of people won't buy the game no matter how much they see.. it's a fact .. yet they continue following the progression of TS4 with a sour taste in their mouth. I'm remaining cautiously optimistic and don't really expect crap from EA given the past. Truth be told the most recent large release from the Maxis studio was SC5 and we know how that went. Expansions aren't in the same boat as a full on sequel. This is a post SC5 marketing world.

That's all I'll say on the matter. I get everyone's reason and was just posing a question earlier.. not playing devil's advocate or anything.

*hands out cookies*

EDIT

I edited so I wouldn't double post or post too much, but I'm not sure if this was newly posted but it kinda speaks to me that they're close to internal beta testing.

http://careersearch.ea.com/californ...ract)-sims-jobs

Quality Analyst I = Beta/Game Tester and I guess being a level I it could mean alpha.. but I think it might be beta. *shrug* It does seem like this job is for Alpha testing which could mean they're getting close to wrapping up Alpha. (Could be Beta, but some of the descriptions used kinda throw me.)
Also specifically mentions Sims as the franchise and as far as I'm aware TS4 is probably closest to that point + it's by contract so likely short term. I'm sorta surprised it was overlooked since someone posted they were looking for people for a new game.

http://careersearch.ea.com/californ...contractor-jobs
(This one includes mobile game stuffs.. so might or might not be Sims 4.)

http://careersearch.ea.com/californ...lyst-maxis-jobs
(says Maxis.... not sure if SC5 or Sims 4.. another mobile/server job)

http://careersearch.ea.com/californ...analyst-ii-jobs

found 3 more

? I thought the push back was around the end of January this year when they announced at their EA Q3 2014 Earnings Conference Call that Titanfall took the March release spot and TS4 was pushed out to the 2015 FY? which then became a Fall 2014 release.

Could be wrong here but I don't remember that announcement coming a few weeks after Gamescom? But then again it surely must have been because that's a scary time frame if we were expecting in Spring/March and ran right up to the end of January with no info I must of missed the boat somewhere along the line but then again it is all getting a fuzzy blur of boredom!

Edit: What does this mean?

•Provide testing for game features and development tools, including:◦Triggering in-game telemetry hooks by activating all game actions that cause a hook to capture data and report it to the collection server.
◦Consistently confirming whether all hooks are currently firing properly or not.
◦Verifying that hook data is being accurately captured and displayed in the various data dashboards.
◦Keep a hook log up to date with latest test results.

I remember seeing Fall/Late 2014 on a banner before the earnings call back in Oct/Nov which made me stop checking. I might be wrong.

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetai...eleaseID=799055 < Press release on Oct 22nd 2013 showing a Fall 2014 release.
Some of those jobs might have nothing to do with TS4.. just thought they were worth showing either way.

Exactly, there was a fire, they lost everything they had to remake the game completely! They may have dropped off the face of the earth but it was not 6 months before release.

But then we would miss out on the wild speculation and mild panic here on the forums!

I think it might preserve our sanity better if we cancel our preorders and pretend TS3 was the last game in the series, until we start hearing news that a new game has been released and read that other people are playing it and enjoying it

It's strange to sometimes get that reminder, I think I might be one of those, and everyone else I know is. You know, a lot of my early TS3 EPs and SPs came from two or three friends who gave up on TS3 early on, and when they play The Sims at all, it's still TS2 as far as I know. Between all of that, plus the horrendous joke that was SimCity, I really hope EA has learned to stop alienating fans in some vain hope of reaching a really big audience. I think that's part of the problem, EA always seems to be breaking and watering down really solid gameplay and design in hopes of making more sales to the "Farmville market", rather than solidifying what works, building upon it critically and carefully, and thereby making games that will live and sell and stay vital for decades, like SimCity 4.

I'd be worried that I'd impulse buy TS4 shortly after release, but my husband has categorically ruled out that possibility due to how much money I already spent on TS3. He added it all up and confronted me last year, basically asking if it was worth it. You know, I had to admit, I don't think it was, especially some of the EPs where I made stupid sacrifices to get my hands on them (I skipped meals to get Pets). With shame I've got to admit that I think I turned into one of TS3's whales, to the degree that I could fit being a whale into my budget. I seldom waited more than a month after release to buy the latest EP, whether it was easy to get it or not. Thankfully I didn't do anything so stupid with the SPs, but that's because they're flagrantly not worth the money anyway. I would have paid what I paid all up for a really good, elegant, reasonably reliable, well-supported Sims game - something that helped me cope with little stresses and seemed rewardingly creative - but that's just not what TS3 is. TS3 has never been totally unenjoyable, but enjoying it has always felt like an uphill battle. TS4 has to be nice and functional, coded well, and quite unlike TS3 if I am going to buy it, which honestly leaves me unlikely to get it, given EA's track record. There's a romantic part of me that sees TS4 as EA's opportunity to turn over a new leaf. That's why I'm here. I haven't given up hope, but is that just silly? As an educated low income man in my late 20s, I'm hardly the audience they're aiming at, right? I get the impression that - Grahams aside - EA really doesn't mind falling well short of what MTS users might want, we're an entirely expendable part of their market.

A little bit off topic, but since I think you've had your new PC for a few days, how does TS3 fare on it now kiwi_tea? I'm asking because after I buy a new tablet this July, I'm gonna save up to build a new PC since I've had my current build for 5 years. I'd like to know if trying out TS3 on it would even be worth my time.

Ok, job-offers include a bit showing-off because the company wants the best available employee. So it's no wonder that this (and the other ones lovecat posted) rather come from a parallel universe where EAxis really did a great job with TS3. But remembering the mess EAxis did with TS3 (not to forget the Simcity disaster) it's... no, not funny, rather sad.
How can we expect that TS4 will be well-coded, stable and the great game we're still hoping for when EAxis not only needs to hire an emergeny-rotten apple they can blame for the things players gonna complain about? Obviously they don't even try anymore to tell us that the remaining Maxis-guys really have the chance to fail decisions... in doubt it was a probably nameless new guy who failed his job.
IF TS4 comes out stable, well-coded and even greater than TS2 I would be glat that I made it into this wonderful parallel universe where world peace isn't wishful thinking but a matter of fact. That's the only reasonable explanation.

My previous PC was from 2009, with an upgraded 650 PSU, forget the processor but not bad, 8gb RAM, 64bit Win 7, and a GTX 650 (not ti, sadly) after TS3 (or my lack of understanding I needed an FPS limiter, depending where you want the blame to fall) destroyed my original card. It was adequate. I mean, it could run the game, but it ran it like an old machine, and I don't think I really realised how outmoded it had become until this upgrade. What I have now is AMD FX(tm)-6350 6-core processor 3.90hz, 16gb RAM, 64bit Win 8.1, and an AMD R9 270X. The difference is easily noticeable, TS3 runs much better, it's pretty much as eskie described - while the game runs well - it still meets bottlenecks of various kinds, it stutters, there are times when it runs exactly like it used to run on an inferior machine, presumably because it's an inferior game. Certainly other games, like Skyrim and Civ V, which had the odd stutter on my old machine, now run like butter, with consistently high FPS. What the upgrade has done, mostly, is given the game enough oomph that NRaas no longer slows it down during nightly checks, etc, and the loading times when the game is installed on an SSD are significantly improved. CAW is also more responsive, though not more stable. But you know, I have chronic fatigue from mono right now, so I've spent a lot more time sleeping that really intensively checking out how TS3 runs. I could have struggled on with my old PC just fine, but I suspect based on my experience this far that upgrading will significantly increase how much I enjoy the game, so... ...recommend if you can afford it.

DEP still kills the game all the time on Win 8.1 unless you make an exception. Win 8.1 also causes weird dark graphics if you try running TS3 fullscreen in any compatibility mode.

I am running Windows 8 and I have no issues with dark graphics if running Compatibility mode. I'm running Nvidia Geforce 780 TI super clocked and it works fine. Except the Custom Contents sometimes slow down the loading menu. Anyway I have Electronic Arts Folder (My Documents Folder) in my Solid State Drive and all expansion packs in separate drive Hard Disk Drive.

Create A Sim mode still lags like sh*t! I hope it won't happen again for The Sims 4.

When I play The Sims 3, the graphic card reaches 50 to 60 Celsius.

Thank you Kiwi_tea and RomerJon17. Not that worthy then? I guess if the worst comes to worst, the new PC will at least load my TS2 and 11gigs of CC faster. Plus, let me play Black Desert.

Even with the low requirements, I hope TS4 at least runs better on good PCs. I mean, TS2 has low requirements nowadays, but you can still feel a significant difference if you upgrade.

OK, I had to login to comment on that. I know it's off topic but it's not like we have seen heard or read anything new about TS4 anyway.

All these years I have played TS3 hearing my graphics card scream at the top of its lungs (ok, coolers and fans) once the game started. I always thought it was just because TS3 was very demanding, which made my card go crazy even though it's a good one.

Only a few days ago I found out the game is not that demanding - it just doesn't tell your card when to stop sending information. I was in complete shock and now I am positive that is what has been killing my sister's card (it's a older one and Sims is the only game she plays whenever she has the time).

As a long time Sims player, it's not news that we have to download a bunch of mods to fix even the most stupid things developers let it pass - but this is by far the most critic one. I'm not very bright on the tech side, but isn't the FPS limiter a basic thing for any game? When I discovered the game didn't have a limiter, I used the "fps on" cheat and almost died when I saw the values I was getting. How the fuck developers ship the game like that? And how come they never even bothered to patch it?! All it took was a tiny little mod to limit FPS to 30 (which is all the game can work with anyway), surely they could've done something? They simply didn't know the game kills computers? Is that even possible?

After downloading this mod, I'm surprised at how absolute silent my computer runs TS3. The game should come with a warning so everyone can download this and I can't help but wonder, in anger, the damadges this game has done to my cards all these years.

So yeah, when I hear EA is focusing on people with crappy computers, I hope it's not an excuse for them do pull stunts like this again, by not setting limits to prevent the system working extra even when the game already reached everything it needs to work.

So Kiwi, whenever you say "your lack of understanding regarding the need for a FPS limiter" is what killed your system, rest asured your - rather, our - only fault was to trust the game was at least a bit competent on the techinical side. It's not our part to understand the game needs a FPS limit. It's The Sims's team part and they have done absolutely terrible with this, for no reasons I can think of other than stupidity. I'm sure they are all nice people, but I don't even think EA as a company is to blame for this.

So now, the only thought that comes to my mind is to punch and yell at those smiling ladies that does Developer's Walkthroughs. I literally want to pull out all of their teeth and make them eat them while asking if they don't know about this.

/end rant

I agree. I've even had someone from the official forums tell me that as technology improved the game would be easier to run and will run faster. No, as technology improves (without that small fix) it'll just increase the rate at which TS3 causes your video card to burst into flames. lol