I have to respond a little bit to this by Gracie.
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The game mechanics are there to be used. Those that use anything they can to achieve their goal is part of the game. For real change to take place the actual game mechanics have to be changed.
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In a certain way, the top stores are now using the game mechanics (the hide feature and the circumventing timeout feature that the devs
implemented on purpose) to "pay for a number 1 position" on the list.
I suppose it's more fair now that they are actually paying for the sims.
But just because they are using features that the dev team have implemented and that the dev team apparently do not want to take away, it doesn't mean that we can't disagree with these features being in the game.
I for one strongly disagree.
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New features that have yet to be added to game mechanics will allow anyone to keep their house open whether they are online, offline, home or away.
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For cash, they will let us keep the house open even if we're not there.
I'm not sure how I feel about that.
In certain ways it's good, chuck your stuff out and come back later and reap in the cash. It's good if that's the way you want to play.
I suppose it's a way of making afk stores "legal and okay", and making stores into automatons. What you see is what you get - no playing in the store please!
The hide feature has already changed the store category into a bunch of automated automatons where what you see is what you get.
But how about getting an item you really need?
I spent hours storehopping looking for a place that could sell me a backdrop.
Nobody had them and the house where there were 3 backdrops (not for sell) didn't greet me when I came in so I assumed they were not there, and not available for me to ask what a backdrop would cost there.
I don't feel welcome and I don't want to ask them things when they don't greet me, I assume they don't have any desire to help me, only sell their stuffs.
I moved on.
At my store at least people can ask what the retail is on something and how much I am able to sell it for. That should be invaluable, since they can't see the catalog themselves anymore.
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A new feature that would create a new drain on the economy would be to auction and sell the available slots on another top 100 list. Let the market determine how much people want to "pay" to be number one.
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That's exactly what the top 10 stores are already doing.
They pay for 20 accounts and can therefore keep the house at number 1.
This great new feature would only legalise something that we the players make thread after thread after thread complaining about!
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I'm very sad about this development in the game.
As I previously wrote, the best part of the game for me is to run a store and actually
PLAY a store lot, just like other people
PLAY other types of lots.
But sadly the game is constantly migrating towards afk.
Everything is afk.
You shop in afk stores.
You skill afk in skill houses where everyone else is afk too.
You make jam semi-afk and just come back to sell the cases every 4.5 minutes.
And then people are complaining that the game has become boring?
Now EA want to make everyone happy so they implement empty store houses with stock that people can just come and grab and leave again.
<sarcasm>Why not implement some sort of post order service, you write a letter to the store and say what you want and it arrives in the mailbox, that way you don't even have to get off your butt and go to the store anymore...
Oh sorry, I forgot, the store owner will then get the hassle of actually getting the customers the things they want. </end sarcasm>
Implementing the hide function is what killed the stores.
Implementing the circumvent timeout feature is what killed the skill lots and stores.
Force people to
be there instead!
Force people to
do some teamwork!
There you go, there is your fun back into the game!