The Sims 4: New Game Patch (March 10th, 2015)

There’s a new Sims 4 update available now in Origin. If you have automatic updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto update once you open Origin. If you have auto updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking on the game in your library.

To ensure your game is up to date, check the game version found in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > GameVersion.txt. Your game should now read: Version 1.4.114.1010 (PC) / 1.4.114.1210 (Mac). If you have updated but it is not showing the correct game version, delete the GameVersion.txt file, restart the game, and all will be corrected.

Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game 

Update: 03/10/2015 – PC Version 1.4.114.1010 / Mac Version 1.4.114.1210

Hey Simmers,

March is upon us, Get to Work is pushing against the door, and the color green shall soon reach a pinnacle of popularity, if only for a day. And we have an update ready to release.

It’s a small update that fixes a few crashes for Mac and PC that the community has helped us track down and reproduce. And a little bit of content.

What’s new? It’s St. Patrick’s Day or St. Paddy’s Day, (as I learned this week, it’s not St. Patty’s… who knew?)! Top off your Sim with a bit o’tha green by plopping on a new hat for your male and female Sims, found in Create a Sim. And a new gnome has joined us! Search for the Bare Essentials Gnome to adorn your abode.

Thank you all for the save files, feedback, and help we get in narrowing down issues, and improving on The Sims 4 experience for everyone!





Crash / Performance (General)
We fixed a ‘failed to load object’ error that was returning the player to the neighborhood map when attempting to load into a lot.
This error was the result of an invalid fallback being called when we ran into a load error. Essentially, if we were looking for a sofa and we couldn’t find the sofa, we would say “Hey, there is no sofa” and kick the request back. Which would then say “But I need a sofa.” And this would go back and forth until finally someone would just give up, storm off angry, and say “Fine, if there is no sofa, there is no game, and you can forget about dinner, cuddling, and now we are going to go visit my mother, and yes, you ARE coming with me!”
Players who have Nvidia GTX 960, 970, or 980 video cards should no longer get the “Unrecognized Video Card” error upon launching the game.
We fixed a crash that could occur on load due to “lot caching,” which was fixed… by removing the cache. Au revoir.
We fixed an issue that could lead to an infinite load when travelling that was due to certain world objects (trees, rocks, or similar) failing to load. Rather than hanging, we now just advance the load.
And by advance the load, it is meant that we step over the request, and move on to the next. Like when you are reading your daughter’s Christmas wish list, and you just ignore the “pony” and “little brother” line items.
Fixed an issue where browsing the gallery could lead to a crash.
We fixed a few crashes that were affecting some users on both Mac and PC… yea, that’s pretty generic. To be specific, we fixed crash category 0xd12c29, 0x4518fe, 0xb72d33, and 0x34bc94. Maybe that was too specific? I’m not sure I can do better in this case, um… we fixed a Graphics::Texture, Pathplanner:containsFast, FamilyManager, and SetNotificationFunction crash. Totally not helpful. Let’s just go with “Mac and PC are now more stable as a result of these fixes.”

Crash / Performance (Mac)


Fixed an issue that was preventing the game from launching, and display an “Unable to start, initialization” error if the players save file had lots of custom content installed due to a file handle issue on OSX. This fix should allow you to comfortably have approximately ~1000 pieces of custom content as opposed to 20 which was the case previously.
Fixed a crash that was the result of using a mouse with more than 5 buttons. It is once again safe to use these mice! It should be noted however, that no mice were harmed in the testing of our fix, all mice were handled with the utmost care, treated with respect, and held for only the shortest amount of time, before we released them once again to live amongst their own kind. Not that we are against mice and human cohabitation, only that without understanding the desire of the mouse, it can only be considered inhumane to force the mice to remain in our environment.
We fixed a texture loading issue that was causing some systems to have Sims appear without texture upon loading into Create-a-Sim.

Interface (Mac)


It is now possible to change the refresh rate in the Game Options, Graphics tab.
If you launched the game in fullscreen and then exit fullscreen, the yellow minimize button was disappearing upon exiting fullscreen. As a side note, if you are aware of the official name for the “yellow minimize button,” that would be great, because our bug report referred to it as “the yellow minimize button in the top left of the window” and I have to wonder if it has a simpler name, like the minimize button or maybe they just call it Bob. Click on Bob to minimize. Did you click Bob? Have you seen Bob? He minimizes things for you. Takes away your cares, shrinks them away… Bob.
If you launched the game in fullscreen and then exit fullscreen, the green fullscreen button was disappearing upon exiting fullscreen. As a side note, if you are aware of the official name for the “green fullscreen button,” that would be great, because… didn’t I already write this note? So, yea… Bob Junior. Okay, this is just weird. Why do I have 2 bug reports about 2 buttons that are right next to each other in screen space? They’re fixed now, Bob and Bob Jr.
You should no longer be able to edge scroll while the options menu is open.

Much appreciation and admiration,

-SimGuruGnome

The Sims 4: New Game Patch (Mac – February 20th, 2015)

There’s a new Sims 4 Mac update available now in Origin. If you have automatic updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto update once you open Origin. If you have auto updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking on the game in your library.

To ensure your game is up to date, check the game version found in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > GameVersion.txt. Your game should now read: Version 1.4.103.1210. If you have updated but it is not showing the correct game version, delete the GameVersion.txt file, restart the game, and all will be corrected.

:!: Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game :!:

Update: 2/20/2015 – Version 1.4.103.1210 (Mac Only)

Hey Simmers

The Sims 4 has been released for the Mac! Woo-yea! But you knew that, and we’re really happy to see folks having fun with the Sims on their platform of choice!

We have also been listening to feedback, and have heard the reports of some players using Mods and Custom Content that are experiencing problems (polite way of saying crashes), and we have some fixes ready to go!
Fixed an issue where the Use of Script Mods was causing the game to crash on boot.
Fixed an issue where some Custom Content was crashing when selecting it in Create A Sim.
Since there is so much custom content available, we cannot say for certain that the patch will fix *every* instance of this type of crash, but we expect it will correct a significant majority of them.

More details about these fixes and some workarounds for other custom content issues can be found in the forum post “Issues with Mods and CC in The Sims 4 on Mac.” 

Thank you

SimGuruGnome
(posted on behalf of the cutest gnome of all

The Sims 4: Hospital Robes & Policemen Hints

The Sims Brazil has just shared a new Sims Anniversary image on Twitter. In this image you can see a Policeman about to walk through the door, and another Sim dressed in a Hospital robe. Check it out below!

The Sims 4: New Valentine’s Day Content

The Sims team is slipping in some new Valentine’s Day content with today’s Sims 4 Game Update. Once you update your game, look out for these new items in your game.

Introducing Genealogy

Can you believe it? This week marks the 15 year anniversary of The Sims™. This is a massive milestone, not just for us in the studio but for all of our players, many of whom have shared this journey from that very first day. We will be celebrating throughout the month of February, but what better way to kick off than by talking about a much-requested feature that we are bringing to The Sims 4 today.

Genealogy is essential for legacy and family players to fully appreciate the scope of their games. For all those players who lovingly document every generation of their Sims, print out their family trees, and keep tracking of the complex relationships that develop, Genealogy is an incredibly valuable tool.

Let’s take a look at a Sim family you might see in the game.



Now, with this feature, you’ll be able to look at your Sim’s family history, including brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers, grandparents (and some greats, and great greats, etc.), step relationships (like Step-Parent), half relationships (like Half-Sibling), and of course, Spouses.

After you download the most recent The Sims 4 update, you can find this in Live Mode by opening the Simology Panel (or hit the Y key).

Then, click Show House’s Genealogy.



Boom! There’s the whole family. You can now view and track the vast relationships you’ve accumulated in your Sims’ lifetimes. Who is related to whom? Which child came from which grandfather? It’s all there for you.



Let us think of a traditional story, that demonstrates the value of Genealogy.

In the beginning, Malcom meets Beatrice. They wed and soon have three strapping sons: Pablo, Paulo, and Steve.

Pablo fell in love with a lad named Steve, who was often confused with the brother Steve. They adopted three children, one of whom is also called Steve. That’s three Steve’s in one family. Now, using Genealogy, you can easily know which Steve you are referring to.

Paulo became entranced with Lettucia, whose family name was Crisp. Lettucia had a fine daughter from a previous tryst, Tomata. Though he was fatherly to her, Genealogy helps us know that Paulo is her Step-Father.

Finally, Steve (yes, the original Steve) met Jane. They fell in love in the deepest way and were inseparable. They married and soon had a lovely daughter, Jean. Jean was beautiful, with curls of red. Unfortunately, tragedy befell the household and Jane died too soon. After years of grieving, Steve met Janie. The irony was not lost at all by anyone. Janie and Steve had a daughter Joan to properly confuse everyone. Genealogy shows Joan is in fact Jean’s half-sister.

So, there you have it. A quick introduction to Genealogy. We look forward to seeing what our legacy and family players do with the tool. Don’t forget to share your stories on our forums.

Happy Simming!

The Sims 4: New Game Patch (January 22nd, 2015)

There’s a new Sims 4 update available now in Origin. If you have automatic updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto update once you open Origin. If you have auto updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking on the game in your library.

To ensure your game is up to date, check the game version found in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > GameVersion.txt. Your game should now read: 1.3.33.1010. If you have updated but it is not showing the correct game version, delete the GameVersion.txt file, restart the game, and all will be corrected.

:!: Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game :!:

Update: 2/22/2015 – Version 1.3.33.1010

Via SimGuruBChick: Tiny weensy patch today to address a minor configuration issue. You shouldn’t notice anything different after the patch.

Update 1/19/15

Hi Simmers,

I just wanted to let you know that the blog was having some problems yesterday and I couldn't post downloads and labels but I have updated the links and stuff so you should be able to have some fun shopping for free..

New Patch: Release Notes for 01/13/2015, Version 1.3.32.1010

January 12th Full Patch notes

Release Notes for 01/13/2015, Version 1.3.32.1010

Happy New Year Simmers!

It’s January, a new year has begun. There’s still a sun and moon in the sky, the rain falls, steam rises, and Plumbobs rotate – there must be a patch!

We had a few important fixes ready to roll to address some big community concerns, primarily the inability to load into a lot from a pre-existing save game, as well as a performance issue with large My Library trays that could cause the game to fail to load, and we wanted to get these fixes out to you! In addition to few others that we have at the ready.

Thank you again for all your feedback and help, we are humbled by your commitment and diligence.

Crash / PerformanceFixed an issue that resulted in our players being unable to load their household after installing the 12/16 patch, and instead being bounced back to the neighborhood map. The community was very helpful in identifying this issue (providing feedback and save files), thank you!

Fixed an issue where the game would become unresponsive on load if the player had a large number of households, rooms, and lots in their My Library sort.

TuningSim fertility levels had reached an all-time high recently, and twins were popping out all over! Our specialists have examined the issue, and administered a correction to the abundant babies. Sims should no longer find they are having twins (or triplets) at an alarming rate.

Fixed an issue that prevented career progress from properly tracking the Sims skill progression towards career goals.Working out on workout equipment will no longer count towards the play chess daily goal for the Astronaut career.

We fixed an issue that was a result of this: let’s say you had a Sim, we’ll call him Joe, and he lived in a household, say the Smiths, and you uploaded Joe, also known as Joe Smith, to the Gallery, and then you decided to add Joe to the Jones’ household by downloading him from the Gallery, thus now creating Joe Jones, and then you edited Joe Jones in Create a Sim, this would also modify Joe Smith.

The "In Need of a Break" buff is no longer in need of a break, and now correctly displays its information in the hover tip.

Zest Johnny will henceforth be known as… Johnny Zest!

Fixed an issue that could result in “bad things” when attempting to merge a Sim from the gallery into a household that already has a copy of that Sim in it.

Fixed an issue that could result in “bad things” when attempting to merge a household from the gallery into a household that already has a copy of that household in it.

We however failed to fix the repetitive nature of some of our release notes.

The Venue Wall Speaker: Spooky has made a return to the catalog after spending some time on the ‘other side’ to re-spookify itself.

Lots placed from the gallery that have used the move objects cheat will no longer delete their moo’d objects when the lot is placed.

The National Park venue now has tuning associated with it… so Sims who show up will know they can leave, rather than lingering around indefinitely, wandering aimlessly with no apparent purpose, direction, or desire (they could have at least played music…).

Fixed an issue that was preventing the user from uploading multiple rooms to the gallery if the rooms were uploaded consecutively.

UI / TextFixed an interface focus issue where the eyedropper tooltip was preventing the eyedropper from properly functioning.

Fixed an issue that occurred when opening a modal window on top of an open inventory stack, which would cause the stack to fail to correctly display.

Modal window is a piece of UI that requires input before the player can return to normal gameplay.
UI is an abbreviation for User Interface.
User is another name for the player, the individual for whom the software was intended.
Software, as opposed to hardware, is the set of instructions that direct a computer to perform specific operations.

Text will no longer overlap itself in the phone menu if the text string is too long.You can once again add a description to your Rooms and Lots that you upload to the gallery, rather than using the comment field… which was ingenious!

You will no longer be told twice that you can take Family Leave if there is more than one eligible Sim.

Thank you for all your feedback, keep it coming!

-SimGuruGnome

Release Notes for 12/16, version 1.3.18.1010

Hey Simmers!

Happy Holidays, Decemberings, and other end of the year tidings! The office illnesses have come and gone (for me) and things are looking up for a festive year end. And just for you, we have an update filled with new careers, holiday goodies, Gallery fun-ness, some cheats, a gnome on the go, a few holiday tunes, interface updates, and a bug or two squashed!

As this is a bit long on the details, and in an effort to keep it brief, I’ll cut my monologue short. So, without further ado, on with the datums!

Read More Here

The Sims 4: Careers Update To Release December 16th

According to The Sims 4 item page over on Amazon UK, the December Careers Update is scheduled for release on December 16th. This date comes as Amazon has started to document major feature releases on the item page, however we’ve yet to hear anything from official sources.

Official: The Sims 4 Careers Update To Release Next Week

SimGuruBChick has confirmed that the December Careers update is indeed planned for next week. This official confirmation comes just hours after Amazon UK prematurely revealed a release date of December 16th.

The Sims 4: Another Careers Update Sneak Peek

The Sims 4 Gallery has a new sneak peek of the December Careers update. Is that a Llamacorn??? :P

The Sims 4: New Game Patch (November 25th, 2014)

There’s a new Sims 4 update available now in Origin. If you have automatic updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto update once you open Origin. If you have auto updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking on the game in your library.

To ensure your game is up to date, check the game version found in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > GameVersion.txt. Your game should now read: 1.2.24.20. If you have updated but it is not showing the correct game version, start the game, shut it down, and then it will be corrected.

:!: Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game :!:

Update: 11/25/2014 – Version 1.2.24.20

Hey Simmers,

Just a small update for the end of November! Hopefully you have kept healthy this past month. It feels as though a minor plague has swept through the Studio, knocking folks down one after another. But that aside, we have fixed some crashes, addressed some community concerns, and sorted out a few other fixes that just happened to sneak their way into this release.

As always, the community has been doing an excellent job of keeping us on our toes. A new batch of fixes is on its way out with this release, including the un-breaking of the Add to Family cheat, a Sim pruning issue, and some water opacity issues. Thank you for your feedback, keep it up!






Crashes / Performance
Fixed a crash that was the result of long term gameplay instability in the UI framework that only occurred after moving, traveling, creating new families, and building for some time. Also known as playing the game.
We fixed a crash reported on the modding forums where custom content clones of hats and hairs could cause a crash on Intel graphics cards due to an issue with the skinning code.
Fixed a crash wherein should you click on an underwater light and change the dimness setting, and you do that again, and you do it again, and then again, again, again, again, again… the game would crash. The waters are safe again.
The game was freezing under some circumstances when a swimming Sim attempted to use an object found outside the pool. We have fixed all issues that we have found resulting in this freeze, and prevented the freeze from occurring in those cases we have not found. It’s magic.


Community Feedback

We fixed a bug where close family relationships were still getting pruned if they lived in different households. Previously, we were looking at each household individually, which was incorrect. For example, say you have a Sim with two children and one of them moves out. The second child then has a kid who also has a kid who also has a kid. Then the original Sim dies, but the child who moved out is still alive. That dead Sim should not be culled because he/she still has a living child.
The Vidame Hostess Station was causing Sims to freeze if objects that the Sim wanted to interact with were placed on top of it. We contemplated renaming the surface to the Vidame Hostess Station of Mesmerizing Never-endedness but opted to fix the issue instead.
Casual “if you were swimming before you went to work” Workdays have been cancelled, and Sims will once again spin into their work outfit before going to work.
On a side note, folks are happy that Casual “if you were swimming before you went to work” Workdays have been cancelled, because it was just too much to say.
Children and Teens can no longer be modified with the sims.add_buff Buff_Pregnancy_Trimester3 cheat.
The release of Pools introduced an issue with visitation that hid the Visit interaction when clicking on the door of a neighbor’s home. You can now click on your neighbor’s door to visit them once again!
In addition, there was an issue with being able to set which door was the front door on your home lot. That too has been fixed.
The Add to Family cheat has been re-enabled.
We fixed water opacity issues where the water was turning opaque on some graphic configurations.


Read More Here