Exactly as stated! My poor PC is getting bogged down I just downloaded a bunch of new packs with this sale and oh no guess what my storage is almost full now between that and all my CC and mods…Oops! I have an external hard drive I’m thinking of moving my other games I play to and future games I also got a new SSD potentially that I’m thinking of just having the Sims on and I’ve been wanting to back up my saves anyhow! Anyhoo just venting that this game takes up to much space ha! For those of you that have downloaded to external hard drives any tips be appreciated but mostly it’s just a vent! 😂😂

I'm so confused. I just got a ping from Malwarebytes that my updater from aaros is malware. But I didn't download it recently? The download is from like April I think. I know his mirror site was compromised but I don't see how I could have been infected when it's not a new download. I'm confused and scared. I had my computer hacked from another person's updater in January and had to wipe my pc and change everything.

Can someone help me please? I'd post in the 🏴‍☠️ forum but last I checked they don't help with sims stuff anymore.

I have been playing the Sims since it first was released. I was the kid that saved all her lunch money to get expansion packs as they came out.

I had twins and stopped playing the Sims. They're older now, so I saved up for the summer sale and bought a lot of the packs that I had to watch pass me by as I raised my girls.

6 expansion packs, multiple kits, and even the birthday bundle for sims and Sims 2.

A day or two after I buy them, they all of a sudden have a stacking discount if you're buying many at once.

I contacted ea and after a really long wait, no resolution. They say it has to be within 24 hours.... But it's the same sale. I'm very upset and now I understand how little ea cares about their customers.

I would've take a credit with the difference to finish purchase what I was missing.

I ended up getting a stock response from an agent about Playstation (I'm a pc player) when I tried again.

How horrible.

https://preview.redd.it/ijfg5nrfc4bh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a677e1c3a14f814699da9193ec992b37e441e47

His wife has just given birth. And this idiot is over here cuddling a trashbag. (He wouldn't stop hassling everyone in the hospital about 'eco lifestyle' omf this pack...)

Im usually quite patient with the sims team, especially bc of how rushed they usually are by EA, but damn...

This past update made it where roofs just disappear and they just tell us "oh it'll be updated for the July patch" and that patch will be on July 21st 🫩🧍

And what's crazy is that this past patch had absolutely nothing to do with roofing at all so I'm a little confused as to how they could be possibly managed to break the game this much

decided to update the game like a week or so ago after playing on a pre-moola market version for about half a year (my thinking was - oh well, it's been a while since a large update, so the game must be pretty stable by now. and I wanted to download some of the newer mods). and guess what.

GUESS WHAT.

the bastard children of my casanova sim got automatically added to his wife's (and his) dynasty......... WHYYYYYY.

okay fine, i can delete them. it takes just a couple clicks anyway.

...I TRAVEL TO ANOTHER LOT AND THEY ARE BACK IN HIS DYNASTY. I have one of them join another dynasty, travel to another lot - THEY ARE BACK IN THEIR DEADBEAT'S DYNASTY AGAIN. I think - 'Maybe I forgot to update some of my mods?' (I keep a spreadsheet of the mods I have with all the links and the times I last updated them, so that's pretty unlikely, but y'know). I take out my mods folder, open the game - AND ALL. OF THESE BALD. WIGLESS. BASTARD. CHILDREN. ARE IN HIS DYNASTY. AGAIN.

It doesn't even seem to be a bug, but a deliberate choice made by EA :-) This is just insane. I am going to break my COMPUTER /joking

Instead of expanding the actual sickness we have in the game they created a new type that are all affected by NOTHING and happen to all sims randomly. Yes it can be turned off but it's just like, do the developers not play this game? Surely they understand just how terrible of an idea this was.

Playing The Sims as a child, I always loved building relationships. Friendship and romantic relationships were fun and all, but I hated building relationships with other household sims. It's like, why am I controlling you 2 and the entire conversation? I always built relationships outside my households. I'm friends with my coworker... in love with my neighbor... but... but I have no enemies... That's weird, though, because I was mean to a sim at the park. Oh wait, because I was mean to them, I'll never see them again. I guess that's realistic. Because I was mean, I'll never see them again.

Whenever I try to do a mean Sims playthrough, I always encounter the same issue: I never see that sim again. Likewise, when a sim is mean to me, I never see them again. It's this weird paradox that's like, even though I hate you, I want you around me so that I can hate you. This applies to all Sims games. If you have a friend, you can invite them to your house, but an enemy will not want to come over, and that makes sense. When I thought about it more, I also realized it's quite difficult to maintain an enemy because you rarely see the same group of people as part of your schedule. I'll be speaking about Sims 4. In the base game for The Sims 4, there isn't a way to interact with the same group of non-playable Sims. If you go to a lot and wait there for 10 hours, I'm sure you'll see people your Sims know, but it's not guaranteed. In real life, our negative relationships likely function on a routine. Coworkers, classmates, roommates, family members. How can that function in The Sims organically without me, as the player, needing to build that storyline? The active careers and high school offer some of this; however, these Sims rotate at inconsistent times. You would think roommates work, but if you're mean to a roommate, they'll just move out. Clubs from the Get Together pack? I mean, yes, but it's not as organic as hating a coworker. Maybe it's just a me thing, but I want to walk into a building and see the same sims so that we can form a dynamic. The same way I walk into a bar and make friends or walk into school and make an enemy. I need more organic ways to build enemies.

How do evil people make friends? This is a genuine question that applies to all Sims games. If a sim has the mean/evil trait, should they make friends by being mean or being nice? What is it like to be mean in a friendship relationship? In The Sims 4, Sims will almost always use the nice interactions autonomously, regardless of their traits. As frustrating as that is, what SHOULD happen when a mean sim meets someone new? Should they greet everyone in a mean way or greet everyone kindly? After greeting, should they start acting mean? And if 2 mean sims are mean to each other, should that increase their relationship or decrease it? These are all genuine questions that I have, but there's no real answer. I think with Growing Together introducing conversation preferences, it almost took the load off of mean sims (I'm not insulting this pack; I love it btw) because, yes, you can unintentionally talk about something that someone has negative feelings about, but what if I intentionally want to hurt you? If this seems like a circular argument, it's because it is: How SHOULD mean Sims make friends?

Can Porolives and Inzio give me a mean girl? The Sims 4 has made its decision and decided how it wants to handle mean and evil, but its offspring must decide what mean and evil means to them. Inzio follows a similar conversation pie menu system that The Sims has, and I've experienced zios autonomously acting mean towards zios they have negative relationships with. Additionally, the most important thing about Inzio is that at careers and high school, your coworkers and classmates are consistent, which allows for long-term relationship building. In Parolives, I don't think you can greet parofolk negatively, as all conversations play out neutral. There are also no ways to encounter the same parofolk daily, so it's hard to say how they'll solve this mean issue.

All in all, I don't think there is a "wrong way" to design mean/evil NPCs. I think personally what I care about most is being around the same group of NPCs daily so that I can create drama organically while still being immersed in the gameplay.

.....But I'd love to see what you all think :)

I am not going to name names but some people are lying saying they aren't using ai when they clearly are. Their art isn't art anymore it's just ai trash.

So, there's been quite a bit of information going around as to what protects you and what doesn't protect you from infection, what is and is not safe, and what to do and what not to do if infected. The malware seems to be a packet sniffer/infostealer so what you do and the steps you do it in are very important.
For reference, I've previously worked in IT for nearly 7 years from web development to network security.

Firstly, if you suspect that you're system is infected you should:

1. Immediately turn off your router. No devices should be connected to your network as malware absolutely can travel through your network
2. Immediately disconnect ALL USB devices from your infected device
3. If you have been infected you should notify everyone using your network as their devices need to be scanned (yes, this includes your work laptop you may have had connected especially if you have sensitive information attached to that device)
4. Run a scan on all of your devices, if of your devices are a work device you should alert your work's IT provider. Trust me, it'll be a lot worse if they find out it was you after the fact.
5. It is highly recommended that you at least wipe and reinstall windows on the device that was initially infected.
6. DO NOT change your password (yet) on the infected computer or any other device connected to your network, doing so could allow the malware to log your new credentials
7. DO NOT back up any program files from your PC, this includes your TS4 game. You mod folder should be safe. Rule of thumb is "pictures and videos only". If you must backup .doc or excel files it's safest to upload them to cloud storage before redownloading. All other program files should be downloaded from trusted sources
8. You must scan all of your other devices connected to your network.
9. Once you are certain that all devices are scanned/wiped then you should change your password.
10. Reinstall your programs only from trusted sources
11. SCAN YOUR BACK UP DRIVE before transferring them to your clean system.

Secondly, what is safe and isn't safe about the Anadius site?:

1. Rule of thumb is that if a site gave people viruses before then you should not use them. It's the same concept as not eating at a restaurant that gave you food poisoning. This is the absolute safest way to not get infected.
2. A mirrored site that is not mirrored by the author is generally unsafe, the reason being is that (in most cases) a site is only mirrored to instill the same trust from the users that they shared with the original author. However, the responsibility of internet safety lies on the user to make educated decisions on how they keep themselves and others on their network safe. I haven't really found a single good reason as to why anyone would ever mirror a site that wasn't their own and it's not the first time people have suddenly become infected after using the mirrored site.
3. The Anadius updater - DLL injector programs like the anadius software is ONLY safe if you trust the author. Your antivirus will often flag these programs as viruses because it is software that injects files into your system's vulnerable directories from an unknown source and the only thing the author would need to do to infect hundreds of people is add a single file to the program. Use this at your own risk.
4. The DLC unlocker - The DLC unlocker on the Anadius site should be a .bat file. NEVER DOWNLOAD AN EXECUTABLE (exe) FILE FROM ANY WEBSITE THAT IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE TRUSTED SOURCE. Nothing about the site should prompt anyone to download and run an exe file, nothing. Research the difference between the two, this is the minimum that you should know if you are going to pirate anything.
5. If you suspect something is malicious, stop, think about what you're doing, look at the warning signs, and research from trusted sources. (google works the same for us as it does for you)

Thirdly, what keeps your protected online?:

1. Keep your firewall protection secured, if you don't know what this is then DO NOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS ON A WEBSITE THAT INSTRUCTS YOU TO WHITELIST THEIR PROGRAM IN YOUR FIREWALL (the number of infections I've seen because someone openly admits to whitelisting a virus is insane).
2. Use Microsoft Defenders HIGH settings for virus protection.
3. Pop up blockers help, but do NOT replace keeping your antivirus settings on high and educating yourself on internet security. Always keep your browser's security settings on and never turn them off unless you know exactly what you are doing (and no, this does not mean reading what the file author is telling you, people lie on the internet)
4. Common sense is the most important. If a bunch of people are telling you that something is infected, that a website is compromised, or you have virus warning notifications popping up then stop what you're doing and think. At the end of the day, you could be compromising yours and other people's safety for some DLC for a video game.
5. Keep your system up to date!
6. Paid virus protection? I'll be honest with you, you rarely need paid virus protection is they are safe and cautious users, Microsoft Defender comes in the top of the list for virus protection, stops 99% of viruses, and offers great protection....but that's only if you keep your system up to date and don't add malicious software to your whitelist. You can use another virus protection program but you need to know which ones are good and which ones are almost malware themselves.
7. What if I got infected while using defender or another antivirus? Certain malware can circumvent your antivirus if they are zero days (are not known to developers and security experts). This usually happens when you're doing something you probably shouldn't be doing (like whitelisting a program before downloading it)

Hopefully this helps everyone stay safe and if it looks suspicious then DON'T OPEN IT.

Maybe it was just events we could always delete? But i just feel like a few years ago I was able to delete stuff from my sims calendar.

Can anyone let me know if that was or wasn't a thing?

hi guys, I had a wild experience today. I went to go download the DLC unlocker off of the anadius mirror site because mine was outdated. When I opened the .exe I noticed that it looked different but I just figured that it had gotten an update. But the installation would not complete on my computer so I deleted all the files and just left it. But about an hour later, my discord was hacked into and sent a message about crypto currency to my server, as well as my instagram account. Soooo lesson learned from me, and I hope anyone who's looking to update their DLC unlocker sees this first. Stay safe out there guys!

After the update on June 30, my game will not allow enable mods. I have removed my mods, thinking that was the problem. It was not. I have restarted the game, EA launcher, and my computer multiple times and nothing has worked. Usually I let my game update automatically but after this Im thinking that should change.

Has anyone else had this problem?

P.S. Also one of my sims turned pitch black and I also thought that was from some mods clashing but I have found that the business and hobbies tattoo maker in CAS was causing that issue somehow.

I'm not sure of this is the correct flair. I also hope this isn't against sub rules because I genuinely write this in hopes that it clarifies and is helpful for at least one person.

I've seen 2 recent posts here regarding the Anadius mirror site, which report the site as compromised. I wanted to make my own post to hopefully, explain the whole picture and help people understand and make informed decisions.

What's happening?

The TL;DR:

• The current mirror site is NOT compromised itself.
• What is compromised though, are some file hosting services linked on the mirror site (especifically multiup and buzz. If you download from gofile, mediafire or pixeldrain, you should be fine). File hosting services are the websites where the actual files you want to download are stored, these are third party services and are not inside the mirror site.
• This isn't aaros' fault or doing, this is affecting the entire piracy scene, not just The Sims 4.

So far, at this time of this post, there are several file hosting services usually used for piracy that are compromised. Several piracy related forums have posted about this, including lists of which hosting services are compromised and which ones are still safe.

So anyone who was recently been infected, it was because you were redirected to a malicious site, downloaded the wrong file (not a file created or maintained by aaros) which was malware.

What can you do to protect yourself?

• DO NOT USE GOOGLE CHROME TO DOWNLOAD. It doesn't allow full ad-blocking and it's the most used web browser in the world, so when hackers want to massively attack, they create malware to attack Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers and steal from it. Do not use Safari either, it doesn't allow ad-blocking.
• Use Firefox with uBlock Origin. uBlock Origin is an extension that blocks ads, bypasses redirects, filters out websites that you tell it are not safe, blocks scripts, etc. Using it will allow you to bypass/avoid the redirecting to malicious sites. Microsoft Edge, Opera and Brave browsers also allow uBlock Origin, but Firefox is the one where uBlock works best.
  • You don't have to completely switch browsers, but at the very least use Firefox + uBlock strictly when downloading or navigating shady websites.
• Use a download manager, like JDownloader. It's mentioned in the PiratedGames post I mentioned above for the following reason: "Using JDownloader or torrents is safer because downloads happen in their own desktop apps rather than your browser. To stay safe, copy links directly into JDownloader instead of opening them in your browser. For torrents, only use magnet links or downloaded .torrent files. If a download ever starts in your browser instead of your torrent client or JDownloader, cancel it immediately.
• Get familiar with CS RIN forum and follow the post aaros has there; it wil have the latest news, the latest safe files and any news regarding malware are also posted on CS RIN RU.

What can you do if you've already been infected or you're worried you might be?

• Download and install the free trial of Malware Bytes and perform a full scan on your computer. That's what I always do when I get a malware scare, and that's the one I've seen most recommended.

Here's 2 longer and more detailed posts (on reddit) which can help you figure out if you're infected (in case you're not sure) and/or what to do if you already are:

• Watch out for malicious redirects on download links and mirrors (Massive malware campaign breakdown) (this is more an explanatory post about the situation in detail, but it does contain steps further down).
• What to do if you've been infected by the Anadius Site (A Step-By-Step Guide) (this is more straightforward).

(Mods please don't delete this; if the links aren't allowed, let me know and I'll edit them out).

If you're gonna pirate, you HAVE to take measures to protect yourself, you HAVE to learn what you're getting yourself into. If this all sounds like too many steps or too much of trouble for you, STOP PIRATING, for your own safety.