do the gurus actually look at this forum?

If we were going to participate in a "Live Stream", there should be a place where we could post questions in advance. Basically, it would be a way to compile similar questions so that 100 people aren't asking the same thing 100 times. I've seen this happen on other "Live Streams" about other games.

The forums are good *because* they're organized by topic, so they're east to browse-- much more so than Twitter.

As for there being 'too much'... maybe somewhere with an up-vote system would be most helpful since simmers could up-vote comments and issues they care about and have those be the ones delivered to the sims. Kinda like here, but with an easier way to know which posts are on top--like reddit.

"DreamaDove;c-16824721" wrote:
The forums are good *because* they're organized by topic, so they're east to browse-- much more so than Twitter.

As for there being 'too much'... maybe somewhere with an up-vote system would be most helpful since simmers could up-vote comments and issues they care about and have those be the ones delivered to the sims. Kinda like here, but with an easier way to know which posts are on top--like reddit.

that's a great idea. I think that would work really well. Maybe something like this can be incorporated into the Friday posts they already have here in the forums?

"Writin_Reg;c-16819410" wrote:
Not having twitter is your own fault - it takes no time to sign up to twitter. It is easy as pie. So don't give that excuse.

That's a bit rude.
I don't need another platform to have to keep up with!
Between facebook, twitter, instagram, tumbler, various blogs and forums, how on earth does anyone get any work done?

We shouldn't have to sign up to other social media platforms, or use them and risk revealing too much personal information. We're not allowed to post personal info here, so why should we have to risk it to keep up to date on the chatter?

I stopped using twitter years ago, it's too chaotic, discussions lack structure, and how the heck do you even find a specific topic? My twitter account was work related, so not something I'd want to be using for a game, meaning I'd have to have a second account.

The forums are much simpler. They have structure, you can follow particular threads with ease, and you can do it without giving away personal info.

"Zasz;c-16820537" wrote:
Twitter is like a box with strings. You grab one and work through it until you find the end. For the next tweet you start from the beginning. One wrong click and you start from the beginning.

On the forum you have one shelf for each thread. You never lose sight where each thread is and you can read each first page, quote something and you will be perfectly fine at the end of the thread with your response. You can have multiple threads open and be as detailed as you like with every response without resorting to spam because you arent limited to 280 characters per comment.

I have to question peoples sanity if they think twitter is more effective than a forum for communication. Twitter is something for attention plums and short announcements, not for communicating.

This is how I feel about it. It's easy to find what you're looking for on a forum, twitter is like reaching into a bag of yarn that a cat has been in.



Maybe the developers should stop using all social media platforms for a month, and see if it speeds up the development of new parts of the game. Social media is well known to be a massive time waster. I get more work done without an internet connection. :/

"Cynna;c-16824206" wrote:

However, have you ever seen the chat section of a Live stream? It's like the Wild West. People shooting for the hip nearly as fast as the eye can see. :D

How the Gurus manage to discern anything in that kind of environment is a miracle to me. Imagine so many people speaking (?) at once and demanding to be heard? ::smh::

It's crazy in chat and people keep screaming at me "Turn on slow mode!" Yeah, having a minute timeout per a chatter's message doesn't help when there's literally thousands of you guys.

But really that's the whole problem. There's millions of you all and there's dozens of us. I have access to the forum's stats pages, and although I don't know if I should be talking about it, there's easily a thousand messages per day. Per. Day. Having to catch up with them is daunting but luckily that's what the forum moderators help do for us! (THANKS @EA_David !)

Then you have the way the forum works in general. I generally check forums once every 3-5 days - honestly, mostly to see if I'm tagged on anything, but I'll also scan the topics. Especially after a livestream or news event to see what's up, etc. But by the time I see something worth responding to, it's old. I toss my reply into the pile 30 messages later. Those that were around during the "Ask a Guru" days knew how difficult that was. You'd ask a question, by the time we responded, 5 other questions went in and it.... well it was just hard to read. Not to mention that anywhere we do speak up, we're now committing ourselves to 10-20 minutes of responses. Both to make sure nothing's taken out of context (especially say here in forums where we're representing EA and will probably be quoted) or because it's live chat like Twitch and you can't just say hi and bye. That's just rude.

I've been pretty vocal about loving reddit - I appreciate that their forums bubble up relevant conversations and drown out inconsequential noise. You can reply directly to people and see a conversation at a glance. That's difficult here so you'll see a lot more lurking from us.

"MzPigglyPooh;c-16823404" wrote:
Anyone ever wonder if we should do something like discord?

I'm also a huge fan of discord - and am in a bunch of them mostly because I'm also a huge fan of Twitch and they generally go hand in hand. People who run around in Sims discords know I lurk around - (like here) you can usually tag me and I'll show up eventually. Having an official one can be problematic - it's literally a big chat room so moderation would be more difficult and take more resources, etc. I'm onboard with the idea, but I can understand if EA/Maxis don't even want to touch it yet. If there were unofficial ones, I'm always down to join in - I'm probably in about 30 servers.

"Tremayne4260;c-16824707" wrote:
If we were going to participate in a "Live Stream", there should be a place where we could post questions in advance. Basically, it would be a way to compile similar questions so that 100 people aren't asking the same thing 100 times. I've seen this happen on other "Live Streams" about other games.

We used to have threads made ahead of time, but that too requires more work by someone to compile and filter (Kate/Producers). I'll mention it to @SimGuruKate to see if it's something we can bring back up, but really the majority of questions are almost always answered by us during the livestream anyway. I mean you don't need to ask us what new death types or new woohoo places there are - we're gonna show it anyway.

"Movotti;c-16825406" wrote:

The forums are much simpler. They have structure, you can follow particular threads with ease, and you can do it without giving away personal info.

"Zasz;c-16820537" wrote:
Twitter is like a box with strings. You grab one and work through it until you find the end. For the next tweet you start from the beginning. One wrong click and you start from the beginning.

On the forum you have one shelf for each thread. You never lose sight where each thread is and you can read each first page, quote something and you will be perfectly fine at the end of the thread with your response. You can have multiple threads open and be as detailed as you like with every response without resorting to spam because you arent limited to 280 characters per comment.

I have to question peoples sanity if they think twitter is more effective than a forum for communication. Twitter is something for attention plums and short announcements, not for communicating.

This is how I feel about it. It's easy to find what you're looking for on a forum, twitter is like reaching into a bag of yarn that a cat has been in.

So twitter is so much easier because we get tagged on specific things, we follow specific people, and if something is getting particularly popular, Twitter's algorithms bubble it up to others' feeds even if we're not following that specific person. Plus, people generally understand who's in charge of what so they'll tag Arvin/Nick for bugs, Legacy for console, Graham on stuff packs (when that was a thing) etc. Of course, there's people like Kate who probably get tagged magnitudes more than someone like myself, but on twitter I can easily manage and respond to individual questions at my own time.

"Movotti;c-16825406" wrote:

Maybe the developers should stop using all social media platforms for a month, and see if it speeds up the development of new parts of the game. Social media is well known to be a massive time waster. I get more work done without an internet connection. :/

Interesting you present the idea that we should do less in social media in a thread asking that we do more.

That said, the bottom line is that SimGuru'ing isn't part of our job description. At least it's not part of mine. I get assigned work and am expected to complete tasks at the same speed whether or not I'm a SimGuru. I open up Twitter, Twitch, Discord, and forums knowing full well I can't tell my boss "Oh ya, so I didn't finish thumbnail generation for Mobile's Staging sandbox because I was responding to a bunch of Reddit posts about First Person Camera". Ya, that doesn't fly. Or if it does, only once and a while. The reality is that SimGurus are SimGurus because we love the community and interacting with them. We mostly do it in a way that it doesn't impact our work. If it does, then we probably wouldn't do it. No offense, but it's something we enjoy doing, but not something we need to do to accomplish our jobs. SOME SimGurus I harass because they don't do anything anymore ( @SimGuruTrev !). But, eh - they're probably just doing their job anyway.

"simmer_jay;c-16822659" wrote:
I definitely know they do. One of my favourite moments ever was when @SimGuruSteve tagged a meme to a post I made. I literally have it bookmarked on my browser in case I need to save it to my PC again.

Best.Moment.Ever.

Awww, I remember that! That was my heyday of screwing around and not doing work during work hours.... and then doing work at home when I should have been sleeping. Work life balance. It's a thing.

Not that I'm spending an hour writing forum posts at 1:30am....

@SimGuruSteve Thanks for the response! It's always awesome to know that the gurus are still participating here when you all do have a chance and it's really nice to get a perspective of what goes on behind the scenes. I can only imagine how hectic is it keeping with thousands of players comments, threads, and messages. That being said it is greatly appreciated that you all do take the time out of your busy schedules to pop in a check up on things here. :)

Personally I’m not interested in socializing with gurus. What is important to me, is the idea they are aware of what goes on in the community. That means not just the praising, but also the critique. All corners of the community, not just the people who love the current game (that used to be me 2009-2013, with a passion that lasts to this very day, it’s others now). It saddens me the version that suits me best gets thrown under the bus so often, because it leaves me with a feeling my playing style doesn’t matter and is thrown under a bus. And I regret I’m left with an impression my voice is considered completely irrelevant anyway because I’m the wrong age and not part of a ‘target group’.

"MzPigglyPooh;c-16826110" wrote:
@SimGuruSteve Thanks for the response! It's always awesome to know that the gurus are still participating here when you all do have a chance and it's really nice to get a perspective of what goes on behind the scenes. I can only imagine how hectic is it keeping with thousands of players comments, threads, and messages. That being said it is greatly appreciated that you all do take the time out of your busy schedules to pop in a check up on things here. :)

I concur. :)

Hmmm--did this thread inspire the questions about the Community Team on the latest TS4 Surveymonkey poll?