do the gurus actually look at this forum?

"Writin_Reg;c-16808882" wrote:

"drakharis;c-16808858" wrote:

"DreamaDove;d-950308" wrote:
Or is it just an echo chamber for us to complain to each other?

I think it depends on what it is. Like if you message them personally about something serious. They probably will NOT respond even by at least pointing you in the right direction. But if it's something less serious if the stars are aligned properly and you did the sacred Llama Dance correctly they might actually respond to you.

No offence to the gurus just pointing out that you all could be a bit more active and chat things up whether it's a post with 2 responses or one with thousands of responses. Don't just respond in a post just because someone broke the rules or a thread got out of hand.

I think the gurus are more or less here to act as forum mods so that we all play nicely and pr. If you want tips or having trouble with the game ask rosemow or one of the members who has been here a while for help instead of one of the gurus. Again no offence to the gurus

Actually we have official EA moderators. They are not Guru's. Guru's are listed in the title just as EA moderators are listed in their titles. I believe if a Guru does close something they have a reason to do it like confusing info or changed info that no longer matter. Generally the moderators take care of closing threads and possibly Kate who is the Community manager but who also does some Guru work as well- like she is the go between between us and the devs, among other things - she is also in the live streams etc..

Thanks, for clearing that up. I am used to seeing the Gurus post when a post gets out of hand or people are arguing to the point it's not very civil and because of that I made a leap of logic and thought they did moderation of the forums as part of their job.

I have seen their posts with highlights with what is happening on the dev's end and acting as pr keeping us up to date with polls and other things of that nature,

@Writen_Reg whenever there is an LBGTQ thread there is somebody bound to cause trouble and the thread gets hot and usually gets shut down usually within a week because a few people get offended bring their own morality into it by it and it doesn't end up as being civil. I have seen the gurus step in as a result and shut those topics down.

"JoAnne65;c-16809300" wrote:

I disagree. I’ve seen numerous, very thorough, well phrased topics that went into detail how people would want to see emotions handled, or personalities, the auras, the traits, customizability (or rather the lack of it), you name it and people have pointed out their issues and also elaborated how they’d like to see it in a most constructive way that may feel like bellyaching when you don’t agree, but that doesn’t make it less profound and constructive.

I don't get that. Whether or not I agree with something has virtually nothing to do with whether or not it's constructive. Sometimes someone is just bellyaching and I agree with it. Then there are also times when someone is being constructive but I don't agree with their ideas or what they're saying. There is no correlation. Numerous posts with detailed and constructive feedback exist, yes, but far more numerous are the amount of "xyz is garbage, fix it" posts that are much easier to come by.

"JoAnne65;c-16809300" wrote:
“We want it to look better, it looks very poor.” I mean, people were right about that and it was so obvious that not a lot more was needed for an argument, but I wouldn’t call that subject a feast of constructive criticism.

I didn't call it one either

Sometimes they visit.
*hides dirty socks under couch cushion, and slides swear jar over coffee ring on table*

*whispers*
If they're tagged, they're more likely to show up.

Sometimes they pop by to answer a question, or make an irritatingly vague comment that sets the speculations and rumour part of the forum ablaze.

*puts dirty feet up on coffee table*
But most of the time, they probably just skim a thread or two of topics they're watching. I think they may stalk certain themes.

"JoAnne65;c-16809300" wrote:

"Cupid;c-16808965" wrote:

"Cinebar;c-16808565" wrote:

"Cupid;c-16808034" wrote:

"MzPigglyPooh;c-16808030" wrote:

"stilljustme2;c-16807902" wrote:
Constructive criticisms they do respond -- for example when people were upset about the texture of the ball pit in Toddler Stuff.

General bellyaching, not so much.

What's to determine constructive criticism and "bellyaching"? Or better yet WHO determines that? Lol

It's easy to tell the difference. Feedback is constructive when it pinpoints a problem, explains why it's problematic, and suggests a solution. Preferably without insults thrown into the mix. Though, just because feedback might be constructive doesn't mean it'll always get a response.

Really? I saw a lot of so called bellyaching in those big threads about the ballpit. It wasn't exactly constructive, and neither are the threads about the new EP not having enough lots. We should never have to come up with the solution, they don't pay us enough for that. :D

You don't need to code or design the solution, but one would assume if someone takes issue with something they would at least be able to comment on what they would like changed. "I don't like this" isn't good feedback on its own. The problem that people had with the ballpits and DSV were more obvious: texture and lot quantity respectively. But when it comes to more complex issues like the emotion system, traits, etc, you tend to see a lot of "this isn't good" and not a lot of input on what should be done with it.

I disagree. I’ve seen numerous, very thorough, well phrased topics that went into detail how people would want to see emotions handled, or personalities, the auras, the traits, customizability (or rather the lack of it), you name it and people have pointed out their issues and also elaborated how they’d like to see it in a most constructive way that may feel like bellyaching when you don’t agree, but that doesn’t make it less profound and constructive. The ballpit? “We want it to look better, it looks very poor.” I mean, people were right about that and it was so obvious that not a lot more was needed for an argument, but I wouldn’t call that subject a feast of constructive criticism.

(can’t answer the OP’s question, I have no idea if they’re reading the forums)

I wrote one of those well written constructive threads about the emotions and traits system. It's too dang redundant and overlaps too much, but I was much more detailed in my examples in that thread. It wasn't even read by gurus or developers. It's here somewhere like 500 pages back in Feedback from 2015 or 2016. But I'm thinking it was the first year, and still no fixes. lol

Yes we are always watching... like the watcher watches over the universes in the marvel comics so too are we watching these forums....

"Zasz;c-16809975" wrote:
The last patch was in august. We have november now. We had regular patches about once a month until august. But we had new content since then. They shut down the bug reporting section in this forum where people could directly interact with gurus from time to time.

So please stop defending the people who do not adress problems but create more problems! We do it in every other aspect of life. Except in the gaming industry.

This topic has nothing to do with any of that. The question here is "do the gurus look at the forums", not "are the gurus doing a good job". I dont get why you would try to make it a "sToP DeFENdInG" situation when nobody is defending anything.

A SimGuru came on the forum a little while ago and wrote something very mysterious and next time I looked it was wiped off. Only a couple of us browsers saw it and nobody repeated what it was. B) Now I've forgotten what it was exactly as it was when I was about to go to bed. :(

"SimGuruMrE;c-16810296" wrote:
Yes we are always watching... like the watcher watches over the universes in the marvel comics so too are we watching these forums....

Thank you for the confirmation, I was just starting to get discouraged about whether posting here had any actual effect.

Thank you for your work on TS4 :)

"Cupid;c-16809707" wrote:

"JoAnne65;c-16809300" wrote:

I disagree. I’ve seen numerous, very thorough, well phrased topics that went into detail how people would want to see emotions handled, or personalities, the auras, the traits, customizability (or rather the lack of it), you name it and people have pointed out their issues and also elaborated how they’d like to see it in a most constructive way that may feel like bellyaching when you don’t agree, but that doesn’t make it less profound and constructive.

I don't get that. Whether or not I agree with something has virtually nothing to do with whether or not it's constructive. Sometimes someone is just bellyaching and I agree with it. Then there are also times when someone is being constructive but I don't agree with their ideas or what they're saying. There is no correlation. Numerous posts with detailed and constructive feedback exist, yes, but far more numerous are the amount of "xyz is garbage, fix it" posts that are much easier to come by.

"JoAnne65;c-16809300" wrote:
“We want it to look better, it looks very poor.” I mean, people were right about that and it was so obvious that not a lot more was needed for an argument, but I wouldn’t call that subject a feast of constructive criticism.

I didn't call it one either

I’ll repeat the sentences I was reacting to: “ The problem that people had with the ballpits and DSV were more obvious: texture and lot quantity respectively. But when it comes to more complex issues like the emotion system, traits, etc, you tend to see a lot of "this isn't good" and not a lot of input on what should be done with it.”

You are trying to explain the difference there (in your opinion) between constructive criticism and this so called bellyaching. But it’s simply not true. Over the years simmers have expressed their opinions thoroughly here (and in fact developers have proved several times they have listened to some of it by making improvements in the very areas people complained about and suggested solutions for) in ways that impressed me and hooked me to these forums. Because it meant discussing this game I so love. Pages and pages and pages have been written by people giving input what in their view should be done with exactly that, complex issues like the emotion system, traits etc. I find it hard to understand why anyone would qualify all those topics and posts as bellyaching instead of constructive criticism. For a player like me it’s much more important developers see topics like that and try to do something with it, than a topic about an ugly ballpit (like I said, I don’t really see how calling a ballpit ugly is constructive, if anything the posts adressing that were - understandably - far more in line with “it’s garbage, fix it”) and you were suggesting you found the comments about the ballpit constructive because you are trying to explain the difference with complexer issues to Cinebar. We are not the ones here trying to divide this section into ‘bellyaching’ and ‘constructive criticism’ by the way, I perfectly understood why people complained about the ballpit.

"Cinebar;c-16809933" wrote:

"JoAnne65;c-16809300" wrote:

"Cupid;c-16808965" wrote:

"Cinebar;c-16808565" wrote:

"Cupid;c-16808034" wrote:

"MzPigglyPooh;c-16808030" wrote:

"stilljustme2;c-16807902" wrote:
Constructive criticisms they do respond -- for example when people were upset about the texture of the ball pit in Toddler Stuff.

General bellyaching, not so much.

What's to determine constructive criticism and "bellyaching"? Or better yet WHO determines that? Lol

It's easy to tell the difference. Feedback is constructive when it pinpoints a problem, explains why it's problematic, and suggests a solution. Preferably without insults thrown into the mix. Though, just because feedback might be constructive doesn't mean it'll always get a response.

Really? I saw a lot of so called bellyaching in those big threads about the ballpit. It wasn't exactly constructive, and neither are the threads about the new EP not having enough lots. We should never have to come up with the solution, they don't pay us enough for that. :D

You don't need to code or design the solution, but one would assume if someone takes issue with something they would at least be able to comment on what they would like changed. "I don't like this" isn't good feedback on its own. The problem that people had with the ballpits and DSV were more obvious: texture and lot quantity respectively. But when it comes to more complex issues like the emotion system, traits, etc, you tend to see a lot of "this isn't good" and not a lot of input on what should be done with it.

I disagree. I’ve seen numerous, very thorough, well phrased topics that went into detail how people would want to see emotions handled, or personalities, the auras, the traits, customizability (or rather the lack of it), you name it and people have pointed out their issues and also elaborated how they’d like to see it in a most constructive way that may feel like bellyaching when you don’t agree, but that doesn’t make it less profound and constructive. The ballpit? “We want it to look better, it looks very poor.” I mean, people were right about that and it was so obvious that not a lot more was needed for an argument, but I wouldn’t call that subject a feast of constructive criticism.

(can’t answer the OP’s question, I have no idea if they’re reading the forums)

I wrote one of those well written constructive threads about the emotions and traits system. It's too dang redundant and overlaps too much, but I was much more detailed in my examples in that thread. It wasn't even read by gurus or developers. It's here somewhere like 500 pages back in Feedback from 2015 or 2016. But I'm thinking it was the first year, and still no fixes. lol

One good example was the hundreds of pages long topic about toddlers, filled with ideas they clearly did use, which resulted in the best toddlers the franchise has.