EA Claims Sims 3 Leak is not the Final Build

In an interview with the Associated Press, EA claims The Sims 3 leak is only a “buggy, pre-final” version. This is pretty good news on behalf of the whole  Sims gaming community as the leaked copy featured some glaring bugs that should have been caught during testing.

The Second Leak (May 25th, 2009)

The Sims 3 has been leaked again, this time by another group. This group claims their leak is the final retail version and has been posted on many different websites and torrents.

After several observations found from forums and blogs we can conclude the retail version does not present the same bugs as the second leak. Click here to read more information about the  second leak. The article below consists only of the issues and bugs concerning the first leak. 

The Major Concerns with The Sims 3

The police station, so far EA hasn’t sued file sharers.
Screenshot via [SimGalaxy]

In the leaked copy, players found numerous bugs and oddities that would potentially disrupt the fanbase. It was very interesting to see SecuRom  packaged within the leak. This lead to doubts over the authenticity over EA’s statements. They claimed the physical copy of the game would be shipped without it, however, the digital copy would still include SecuRom.

Fortunately, it was later found within the EULA that the leaked copy was derived from the digital release. Even though SecuRom is used to protect unauthorized copies of the game from running, it was already bypassed by the time the leak was released.

The lack of objects, clothing, and hairstyles became a hot button issue among fans. EA has not revealed if the base game will include more items when it hits retail. EA does plan to sell more objects through The Sims 3 store, and will allow 1000 points free for all players who legally purchase the game.

As the hours went by, the mystery surrounding the leaked copy took on a huge forum debate whether the game was the final build. Players brought up major points to support each side of the argument. One issue that supported both sides were game freezes and crashes. In each case, players reported crashing incidents starting within 3 minutes to 6 hours of gameplay. However, some players did not receive any crashes whatsoever.

A general theory over the cause of the crashes were related to old graphic and audio drivers. It’s recommended that players should update their NVIDIA or ATI graphic card drivers before installing the retail copy of the game.

Bugs, Bugs and more Bugs!

Screenshot via [SimsDomination]

We do expect the Sims 3 will ship with bugs, and many of these bugs will most likely get patched. Alas, players were complaining about various glitches and screwups within the leaked copy.

A bug some players found early on during gameplay was the inability to kill a Sim in a fire. This bug was quite interesting in that one would think EA would allow this ability in the first place as it’s one of the most popular deaths in the whole series.  On May 20th, we finally saw the first leaked video that included the fire death animation, so we’re not sure as to why some players couldn’t do it and others could. Rumours and speculations arose as players felt that maybe EA was trying to soften the game’s image by removing the death. However, the leak was programmed to include other methods of killing a Sim. We concluded that this form of death will return in the retail version.

Another bug found by players was the inability to deactivate story progression. This feature controls any drastic changes your neighborhood Sims would do, for example, this feature controlled if your neighbors would move in or out, become pregnant, advance in jobs, and die. This became problematic towards players who wanted a similar play style of The Sims 2. They did not want to worry about other Sim families they created to suddenly die or move out of the neighborhood for good.

There were also some minor issues with the music not playing, fast forward speed button malfunctions, and guitars stuck on a Sim’s body.

Players are still skeptical

Protesting at City Hall

It’s quite hilarious to see the debate move right back to where we all started, as now there is still a lot of discussion on whether or not EA is telling the truth. Discussion among forums and blogs seem to theorize that EA is now speaking out to avoid bad press. It’s still likely that EA will release a patch to fix all major bugs related to the gold copy on release day.

We’re also concerned with EA’s choice of wording with the term, “pre-final”. This implies the leaked copy is probably just a few small builds away from the gold copy. If this were the case then it means the leak pretty much sums up everything that’s going to be in the game. Fans will not be happy!