The Sims AHQ February Highlights and Recap!

Sul Sul!

EA_Cade here as usual to kick us off 🙂 

We had quite the busy month in February: Starting off strong with The Sims 24th birthday, an SDX, a ShopTheSims.com drop, a developer livestream, a Stuff Pack and then finally a base game update to wrap us up! 

We also welcomed 15 new members to the Community Connections Program from our sister site Forums.TheSims.com, which we announced would be closing later this year. Please welcome @Ellupelluellu, @simgirl1010, @BreeMiles, @lisasc360, @soocoolsim, @Simmingal, @rosemow, @luckyheather, @Gagea25, @Anna554, @EnkiSchmidt, @DaniRose2143, @Bluegayle, @Metior_Ice and @emorrill.

Please feel free to drop in and say "Hi" if you see them around AHQ doing their thing 🙂 

Now off to @EA_Solaire from here. Dag Dag for now!

This month's news and announcements:

• This month on the 4th, The Sims turned 24 years old! We had a very exciting week long birthday celebration which included a merch restock and a new limited edition birthday pin drop in The Sims Official Merch Shop, a Twitter giveaway, a Twitch livestream with Trixie Mattel, and a new Discord gameplay challenge!

• On the 13th, the newest SDX was dropped, which included a new addition to Skin Details in CAS: Vitiligo! Be sure to read up on all the details for this new feature in the developer FAQ here.

• On the 28th, we had a Crystal Creations developer livestream where we got an in-depth look at the new crafting skill, and all the jewelry, gems & crystals! If you missed this livestream, you can catch up on this here. 

• The 28th also brought us a new drop in The Sims Official Merch shop - a curated limited-edition jewelry collection inspired by Crystal Creations, which includes a stunning Plumbob ring, a Plumbob layered necklace, and a pair of Plumbob drop earrings. Be sure to check it out here!

• And finally, on the 29th the newest stuff pack Crystal Creations was released! Before you get busy with crafting new jewelry, cutting gemstones and harvesting crystals, be sure you also check out this in-depth interview with content creator ArethaBee, who designed several unique jewelry pieces for this new pack.

Patches and updates:

• On the 27th, a new patch was released which a number of big fixes - you can read up on everything included in the notes here. 

Notable threads:

• Is there such a thing as playing too much Sims? Probably not, but @coolsim9999999 wants to know what kind of funny experiences you have that show how much you play The Sims. Are you like me and have dreams about building houses, or do you use the building grid system to measure real life furniture? Or maybe you consider yourself bilingual with how much Simlish you know (do you think they offer Simlish on Duolingo? 🙃) Whatever you do in real life that reflects how much you play, be sure to tell us about it! 

• And up next, @simgirl1010 wants to hear all about your favorite Sims families and what they've been up to. I almost always play with one specific family who is now on their 8th generation- this family started as a Rags to Riches challenge, and once the current adult has made plenty of money and had a few kids, I'll move on to one of the children and start the challenge over. But what about your favorite family- is your favorite a premade household, or a family you've based off real life people? Do you like to create new households for each pack, or have you been using the same family since The Sims 4 launched? Be sure to share with us who your go-to household is! 

• And finally, @OliverWilken is asking about any funny or unexpected interactions you've noticed in your game - did you know your horses will interact with wild animals in Henford-on-Bagley? Or that your Sim will blow out smoke rings after eating extra spicy food? If you've discovered any silly interactions or animations in your game, be sure to share them with us! 

And to wrap us up, the results from this month's polls:

How many hours do you have played?

4,000+ hours took the win at 39%, and now I don't feel so crazy for having 4,371 hours played🙃 Keep wracking up those hours, y'all! 

Which lifestage do you like the most?

Young Adult absolutely stole the vote here at 72%, and I have to agree as this is my favorite lifestage as well! 

And that's all for another month of highlights! Stay tuned for all the exciting news and updates for next month. Happy Simming everyone!

-EA_Solaire