The Sims Community is Different

Yes this forum is so frustrating to use.

I really dislike the "Show more".

I try to view "Newest" and still get days old posts showing at the top, even when I know there are posts only minutes old on a thread. 

I also don't like how default sort is "Most Liked", I prefer to see sequential posts so the discussion makes sense when reading a thread. It's all over the place.

I totally agree. I want the pages and natural flow of posts back.

Couldn't have said it better myself, cyncie.

The simming community is all about long discussions and ongoing conversations.... topics and ongoing conversations that can literally carry on for weeks/months/years.  This 'general gaming Q&A board' type of format is not designed for that sort of thing, it's designed to handle only a simple question and answer type of layout (aka short and sweet).  Anything further than the first initial handful of replies will end up getting lost in the abyss of endless scrolling and non-chronological nested replies.... making it virtually impossible to navigate your way through it or trying to make any sense of it.

The entire design of this site is not, and was not, created for the simming community.  It was created as a general gaming site where people can ask a question and get a few replies, and nothing more.  That became blatantly obvious within a few days of trying to navigate around this place.  Click on a thread that says there's a recent reply just a few minutes ago... but then try to actually find that reply?  Impossible.  Because it's nested somewhere amongst the weeds of replies (even after you changed the default display to "newest"), and thus you can't find it without going through the nightmare of endless scrolling for half an hour.

We can't have our usual 'Sims-style' ongoing conversations because, within a  handful of days, that conversation becomes impossible to try to follow.  So we give up and walk away in frustration.

I'm on the lookout for a new Sims forum that's more user-friendly and welcoming for, specifically, the simming community at large.  A place to have our usual conversations, in chronological order, with page numbers and sub-forums.  Where we can get the latest Sims news, stories, and discussions..... in less than 120 seconds..... without having to jump through hoops to get there.

This place is not it.

I just want to add my voice in support of cyncie 's  statement. They nailed it with this thread. 

This new forum doesn't feel anything like the old one and it does more to work against the creatives than it does to allow us to even simply share a screenshot. I know I've spoken up about this a few times already, but the truth is, I hate it. I hate the new forums. I'm sorry, but I do. They just feel cold and chaotic and completely unaccommodating to the Sims community. We can't even do anything! Just trying to stay updated on a single thread is like swimming upstream in a waterfall. It's really kind of offensive, if I'm being honest. It just proves that EA doesn't actually care a whit about their players. All of that talk they do about "bringing players together" just feels false and has always been only about marketing for monetary interest. I mean, I always knew, but sometimes I dare to hope that one day EA will actually support the people who support them and their investors. I foolishly long for the day they will see the light and realize that they wouldn't have to put so much budget and effort into all of the deceptive sugar-coating of the game if they just did right by their players. But ah, the cold, clammy clasp of capitalism. 

It would be nice to get some responses to all of the feedback we've been leaving for weeks now, but I suppose we wouldn't even see it because these forums function so poorly that even the community managers seem MIA and drowning in the shuffle of disorganization. 

Seriously, whose decision was this? You're losing people faster than a desperate politician. 

That was so well stated. I didn't even think of it that way, but I have been seriously annoyed trying to use this forum. It's a sad day for Sims players.... 😥

10000% agree. The Sims needs a forum designed for it. At this point, I think AHQ was better suited than this forum.

In my opinion, the main thing that would help us a lot right now would be page numbers. If we had page numbers, and posts sorted in chronological order like the old forums (which I dearly miss 😭) it would be a huge step in the right direction. It would be especially helpful for story threads.

Completely agree, we used to have 30+ pages with insightful discussions, quoted and neatly sorted so you could easily catch up. It also took time to read and post and the default setting is "most liked"? and I have to click on "show more" to catch up in the discussions? On top of that you have a setting which logs users off the site if they are "idle" which doesn't feel respectful.

I agree with you cyncie and everyone else on this thread. 

Like others, I've given my feedback so many times, on the old forum and on the new, and frankly I have nothing more to add for now.  It's like trying to fight a pathethic cluster of soapy bubbles blown by someone who doesn't even have the lung capacity to blow decent bubbles. No offence. Our feedback seems to be falling on deaf ears, popping out of existence time and again.  Deaf ears as in, bubbles have no ears. If they did it would be weird, right? Where am I going with this?

From shopping trolleys to new forum functionality, I've concluded for the 78th time that EA just doesn't care about the sims community due to their extremely poor communication with their customer base. No acknowledgement from the powers that be - aye, how incredibly exhausting. The lack of interest is widely felt. 
I feel like a loyal dog that has been abandoned in the woods by folks who should care about him. Luckily I have no problem surviving in the woods. Ye can never really domesticate me anyways. Don't know where I'm going with this either...

It's good to see that there are alternative -simmer friendly- channels available on which we can socialize as a community.  It's sad that a simmer exodus is what it has come to, but it's near impossible to feel welcome and comfortable on this forum and until they make some really spectacular changes on here it will only get emptier and emptier, until eventually this place turns into an echo chamber without the echoes.
Maybe that's what EA wants, aye, maybe that's exactly what they want.

I also find it very difficult to find the "new" replies to a thread i'd like to follow. And I'm struggling to find topics that used to be pinned at the top of the old forums like Sims on Social Media for example. I have no clue where to find out if there has been a new patch or hot fix released and what Simmers experiences with them are. All topics seems to be cluttered under The Sims General discussion and its becoming a massive mess to navigate.

As for stories like OP and others in this thread have already said, its impossible to follow the natural, chronological order of them in these forums. I'm finding myself spending less time here that I did on the old forums. Which is sad. I really enjoyed the generally positive and always friendly and helpful discussions with fellow simmers.

I have to agree. I miss reading the stories. And the longer threads. I can't read the negative and positive threads about Lovestruck because I can't see most of the posts. I would love to have pages back