A major new Sims 4 update MAYBE COMING SOON?! [And how you can prepare]

Ah, summer!!! Overcrowded and overpolluted beaches. That time of the year when some schoolgirls pay a fortune to be allowed to dig latrines in remote places during stints of "voluntourism". When some schoolboys try jumping from the balcony of their hotel apartments - usually in warmer countries - into the hotel pool (hint: more often than not the jump doesn't go well, and consequently they hurt themselves very badly). When spoiled tourists spend a couple of thousand Euros/USD for those cruise-ship trips in the Mediterranean, only to get drunk most of the time.

And for those people who wish to experience pixelated summer adventures (whether instead of the above-mentioned stuff or in addition - I make no judgments here), EA are going to release a new major DLC/expansion for The Sims 4 named "Island Living", set to be released on Origin on June 21st! In the event of a G4TW-repack of said DLC, here is some general information and also ideas on how you can make most of this intermediary period. Please help spread the word about this; I don't think I will be sending an e-mail newsletter just for this general announcement.    Let's start.



1) The first thing to note is that updates and DLC after The Sims 4 version 1.51.77.1020 will cease support for 32-bit systems. Most people by now should have computers already though that support 64-bit systems. Otherwise you will not be able to benefit from any further game updates. 

//EDIT

Hold on, (thanks to anadius for pointing this out!)
https://twitter.com/SimGuruDuke/status/1138245606709686273

OK, this latest announcement suggests that they are postponing the "Legacy Edition" for the moment. This means that regardless of whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit system, you can play the upcoming Island Living DLC.  





2) Regarding the Mac-people on here I found an article from an Apple-support page saying this here:

Apple Support wrote:Mac computers that support Metal
Find out if your Mac computer supports Metal in OS X El Capitan and later.

Metal is a graphics and compute technology built into macOS, iOS, and tvOS. It allows the main processor (CPU) and graphics processor (GPU) to work together more effectively, providing more fluid graphics performance in games, and accelerating high-performance media apps. These Mac computers support Metal (and Metal 2) in OS X El Capitan and later:

MacBook models introduced in 2015 or later
MacBook Air models introduced in 2012 or later
MacBook Pro models introduced in 2012 or later
Mac mini models introduced in 2012 or later
iMac models introduced in 2012 or later
iMac Pro (all models)
Mac Pro models introduced in late 2013, plus mid-2010 or mid-2012 models with a recommended Metal-capable graphics card.

Published Date: September 24, 2018

So apparently if you have an older Mac computer that does not support this "Metal"-thing, you won't be able to benefit from any future updates either. Please don't ask me further details, as I'm not a Mac-expert at all. I just re-posted the above list to give the Mac-audience a vague indication of what is going to happen. Maybe @User09 will help us come up with a new wrapper for this thing.



3) Likewise you won't be able to use Gallery items (in your current 1.51.77.1020 games, if you cannot upgrade) that will be downloaded in the future. I may accommodate the existing TS4 Gallery-creator thread, to account for these changes, but not sure what exactly as of now.



4) There still seem to be some issues with the ZLOrigin servers, but even for those people that ZLOrigin does work, it has come to our attention that some ISPs now seem to be blocking access to ZLOrigin download servers (see e.g. this here). You can/should use some kind of VPN in that case. Or use another form of direct downloads, like this stuff from @anadius. 

Not sure if the trick with changing the default DNS servers works here too, but feel free to try it.
Control Panel => Network and Internet => Network and Sharing Center  => (your current network device/adapter) => then in the screenshot that comes up:








If it still does not work, then you can still use some alternative download source for The Sims 4 items, such as the above-mentioned anadius-items



5) In general, as always, please be aware that ISPs in certain countries are increasingly sending these warning letters for torrenting copyright-protected material. We will try coming up with one or more direct download solutions right from the start this time, with the help of @Sim Architect. Otherwise: if possible for you consider investing in a good VPN service. NordVPN, ProtonVPN and Windscribe are items that I would recommend.

NordVPN does not seem to have a free plan though. ProtonVPN does, but the free servers do not support/allow P2P-traffic. Windscribe does support P2P-traffic even on free servers, but there is a monthly data cap of 10GB, which may be OK for *just* downloading the new TS4 updates/patch. But as you can tell, free options on VPNs tend to have severe limitations. 

Just make sure please that if you find yourself in the position of your internet being terminated, to complain to your overlords in Washington D.C./London/Paris/Berlin or wherever, instead of blaming us for the misfortune caused by your own (!) negligence and/or naivety. Otherwise there is a chance I might get triggered, which I'm sure nobody wants. Taken from the movie "The Downfall". Brilliant acting from (the late) actor Bruno Ganz. Just as a sidenote.





6) As usual, be aware that as always these major patches will break your existing mods. So backup your precious saves and whatnot...ah, whatever. You probably know that drill now better than I do probably! 
  



I think that should do from my end so far. If you want to ask anything, please make sure it is related to one of the bullet-points mentioned in this little announcement. Good luck, and...

Stupid question, but is there any ETA on the pride update or Island Living being available through G4TW? Or is there somewhere I can read about how long after they release Sims stuff that you guys repack it? (I'm sorry if I'm coming across as rude, I know I'm impatient, I'm just super excited about Island Living.)

//EDIT

Sorry, never mind me. I just read the FAQ.

Thank you so much! The Saving Private Ryan quote was golden, make me laugh so hard.

Princesstomato wrote:The Saving Private Ryan quote was golden, make me laugh so hard.

Yes, and I fear heavy casualties from German MG 42's and mortars/artillery pieces, on the way to the beach. Of course, only in a figurative sense.    (before someone complains here "my granddad fought in WW2 you cruel bastard, how dare you make fun of all this??").

I understand that not everybody may be able to invest in a decent VPN. I also get that common sense is eroding. I may even be willing to concede that the average torrenter may not be willing/able to keep up with the news regarding legal/policy changes in the world of filesharing. But what I'm not getting is the fact that a lot of people these days seem to be unable to follow basic instructions; we're now putting these notices everywhere nowadays that more and more ISP's monitor these torrents. If people are still too naive, then that's on them.

For my part, I'm also going to moderate these comment sections more harshly now, as I'm not really seeing the point of bringing up any patience in that regard.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:Just make sure please that if you find yourself in the position of your internet being terminated, to complain to your overlords in Washington D.C./London/Paris/Berlin or wherever, instead of blaming us for the misfortune caused by your own (!) negligence and/or naivety. 

Could it be an idea to compile some kind of statistics or table listing countries or ISPs for which that happens most frquently? 

Nina wrote:

Could it be an idea to compile some kind of statistics or table listing countries or ISPs for which that happens most frequently? 

Maybe; right now we 'only' have this here:
https://www.games4theworld.club/t24636-us-residents-which-isp-s-are-more-controlling-than-others

This is stickied under "Computer Security / Privacy", but we'll think about ways we can improve the visibility of the topic. One possible concern here is, that people fear they might expose themselves by commenting and/or voting. I can tell everybody on here: I literally could not care less what you write about, or how you vote on (American) telecommunications providers. Though I suppose if the language is too brash, I'll have to curb down on that, to be in line with the general Forum Rules. Other than that though, I will not care. But then not everybody may believe that, for whatever reason. And that's OK I suppose. I mean, it's not me in the end who is suffering from all this surveillance.

Another issue that I feel is, that when people complain, it's usually just in the form of an angry comment, and in most cases I have to "roughly determine" from the IP-address of the commenter, where they come from. Usually from the United States. Sometimes we also get scattered and more neutral comments from people in certain parts of Europe, such as the UK, France & Germany. And I can understand the anger, a tiny little bit at least. If someone's internet gets terminated then they might be concerned with bigger problems, than talking to me on this Forum. Still I don't think people should bother posting merely angry comments on here, without any further details whatsoever.

Also unsure about the likes of Canada, Australia & New Zealand. I read that the latter two are cracking down very hard on "pirate sites", but I don't know if and to what extent they monitor internet subscriber's traffic in the same way as the US does.

So in the end...apart from a handful of "usual suspect countries", we can't really provide any more tangible statistics or information. We can try and improve our disclaimers, but beyond that the individual user will have to do the legwork of informing themselves about the situation in their home countries.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:That time of the year when some schoolgirls pay a fortune to be allowed to dig latrines in remote places during stints of "voluntourism". 

There are still people who do that?? 

Freezer Bunny wrote:There are still people who do that?? 

Apparently.

I vaguely recall we once had a team member on G4TW here, a girl from England, who said she wanted to save up for such a "voluntourism"-trip. One reason being you could "exchange" the completed trip for credits at university. Oh well, not sure if she ever went ahead, but there you go.

Yo! I have read the faq but it wont let me click on any of the questions so could you help me out? Im just wondering when island living & the pride update is available through G4TW?

Pexplekindasxck wrote:Yo! I have read the faq but it wont let me click on any of the questions so could you help me out? Im just wondering when island living & the pride update is available through G4TW?

The best advice I can offer is (when you are on a PC). CTRL + SHIFT+ DELETE => delete cookies/cache. Should work in browsers like Firefox & Chrome. Restart the browser, reload the FAQ page here:
https://www.games4theworld.club/t24098-forum-faq

Then try again. The questions are basically like spoilers, so you click on the orange questions, and some white text or explanation will pop up underneath. If you are on a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet, it can be a bit more of a pain to click on the orange questions, indeed. If you still can't load the FAQ for some super-odd reason, I'll just answer that part for you, and everybody else here. Taken from II. General questions about the downloads.

G4TW wrote:
"What about new G4TW games and software"
We generally do not give specifics of G4TW releases in advance, and that includes ETA's or other technical details. One obvious reason is we tend to not create the actual items ourselves (and instead rely on 'scene-groups' in doing so). Another lesser obvious reason is that specific ETA's for example would theoretically give anti-piracy organizations a possibility to thwart or otherwise disrupt our operations. A scenario that seems unlikely of course, but we have to be prepared for that possibility too. But no worries: any new releases will always come as a surprise! 

On a related note, keep in mind too that nowadays we do not accept requests for new game releases anymore. Check the official list of downloads (semi-)regularly, to see if there is any new stuff.

And yes, it has happened that we once wanted to release something (admittedly a non-Sims game but still), and then shortly before doing so there were "problems"...that I won't discuss in further detail in public here. The truth is, as an 'open community', even people that do not like our type of activities can freely read up on all discussions. For better or worse.

Welcome to the Forum btw.