Look, the Sims community can be a bit odd. I’ve just been reading a thread about the joys of flirting with married men with single female sims to knock out a particular baby achievement (“they won’t move out of their house so them and their wife are just stuck there hating each other”) , before discovering that one of the current dramas is over an undoubted bug that Sims players would prefer is left untouched. Don’t fix that problem, EA!
The bug in question is one whereby taking a photo of two Sims together using a particular tripod causes dramatic gains in relationship / reputation between the two characters. Those two metrics usually take a long time to build up through conversations etcetera, and so this bug is a bit of a shortcut for players to gain a large friendship group quickly: “Within 10-15 photos their relationship with any Sim they just met will be completely maxed-out” runs one bug report. Is it against the spirit of things? Who cares about that! It gives the lovely XP, so people like it just fine thanks.
A few days ago disaster struck as EA posted the latest ‘laundry list‘ for the game, which means the fixes and content the team is currently working on, and will be delivered very soon. It is going to “resolve” the photo bug, and Sims players are having a normal one about it.
“GIVE ME MY PHOTOS GAIN RELATIONSHIP BUG BACK NOW,” proclaims Simbrosia, presumably standing atop a mountain with lightning striking all around them. Equally restrained is Simmer4Life00: “DON’T FIX THE PHOTOS, MY SIMS WILL NEVER HAVE ANY FRIENDS! PLEASE I BEG OF YOU, DON’T FIX THE PHOTOS.”
Over on the subreddit the angle of attack is less straightforward: Players are complaining about this bug being fixed when, in their opinion, there are much more important things to focus on than a bug that gives you lots of juicy XP for free and cuts down grind. “Let’s fix this non-issue first” says Baaaabe. Lola pi gets straight to the point: “Who snitched?!?”
“Oh noes, well, it’ll just be cloudgazing then,” says Fiebre (sorry, they nerfed cloudgazing years ago). “So they can fix this, but no mention of a solution for infants abandoned across town when returned from childcare,” harrumphs Paranoid Pumpkin, before going full Paranoid Pumpkin: “Just another reminder that EA hates its customers”. Sure hon.
This is all just straw clutching. Players know it’s not meant to work this way, and it’s been a semi-open secret particularly as it’s a way to rush through certain friendship-focused achievements. But anything that cuts the grind in a grindy game is going to be popular, and so no surprise about this.
The patch does not yet appear to have been released but, whatever the Sims community thinks about it, the photos are getting fixed. Say what you will about it but the Sims is never boring, whether that’s terrifying bugs that infest it with long babies or a war breaking out between goth kids and pastel lovers. The game also recently received some long-requested culinary items, including matzah/matzo ball soup and challah bread: So, naturally, we got some Jewish mothers to critique them.