Do you think they have finished the game?

I don't know.... but if they finished it and the videos they are showing are final, I'm kin of disappointed. I just think maybe they are just making copies and export and just waiting for fall

No I don't think so, from what I've observed from the Sims 3. No, there are going to be a whole lot of patches and if it is I wanna refund!

Well Sims considering the ammount of Eps that one can think that sixaM could make for TS4, eventually if you do plan to buy them. But as for a finished product without patches doubt it.

They haven't announced that the game has gone gold yet, so I doubt it's finished. It'll have to go gold in the next week, I think, if they want to make the release date. As for a first day patch, all games have them these days, it's not a big deal anymore.

Games always come with patches. Especially when they first get released. It happens.
And then DLCs start rolling in... and we become happier and happier.

As a massive gamer here I can tell you that not every game gets a "Gone Gold" announcement. It's possible it is done and going through all the certifications (IE the Teen rating that was just announced a day ago). I suspect a Gold announcement in a week and a half.

They wouldn't stand up on the Gamescon stage and say "Play our game when it releases in three weeks" if it hasn't been finished already. Yes there will way more than likely be some day 1 updates, but the game itself is "done".

I think it's sort of sad that this is the mentality. It's true that a lot of games get D1 patches or whatever, but really they should endeavor to put a complete, finished game out that doesn't need these. Not "they" EA. "They" game devs. I've never once seen an Indie game, regardless of the scale, need a D1 patch or even a patch in early release weeks because the quality must be higher because they don't have a studio to back them. I feel like it should be the opposite.

But yeah. The game is probably gold by now. A lot of big name games don't have a gold announcement anymore.

From an old time simmer that has played sims 1, 2 and 3 this game was the most secretive of all. I have never seen a sims game that was kept in the dark like this game. There really hasn't been that much shone to the public about game play and such. The game is to be released in 3 weeks. It does look like the would say something about whether it has gone gold or not.

No.

It's sort of EA's MO that they release games that are half baked and then they rely on the modding community to fix it.

You know what? I'm actually fine with that. *ducks for cover*. The game will work without these mods but the mods just makes it better and allows for more customization. If that makes sense.

Basically, every person has to decide for themselves if they can live with a game that may very well be bug filled and will never work as advertised without the use of mods. Hello, Sims 3, nice to see you old friend.

This is why I like the "lists". We are making informed decisions.

wait are we all talking about the sims 3 or 4?

I just realised the first post was written in May. The game certainly wasn't finished then.

And yeah, @MezzoMetric , they wouldn't need Day 1 patches, but it doesn't bother me anymore. There are so many types of PCs these days, they're always going to be finding new problems.

Some people are contempt with the current game while others not so much. I'm not really sure if it the concept of "finished" should be placed in the same box as "personal opinion". Does it have every past feature that we loved and expected? No, it does not but that doesn't mean the game is incomplete, it just means it has other different features in their place.

If we're going all technical and speak about whether the game is glitch-free and optimized I'd say that only a fool would really expect to game to be flawless. Everything has its own limitations, the engine has limitations, the devs themselves can't predict and counter every possible bug and glitch in the game. A game is a work in progress even after release.

If by complete you mean releasing a whole base game with enough content that it no longer needs expansion packs (because it already comes with everything), I'd say I want some of what you're smoking. This is EAxis we're talking about, Expansion Packs are their bread and butter, its how they fund themselves. Its not going to change.

I'd actually say TS2 was far more secretive. They had released a few screenshots like 2 years out, then /nothing/ for a really, really long time. That was the worst wait I have ever experienced for a game.