Maker Packs, Meltdowns, and the September Autonomy Fix

Becca HartwellSo, so, so, so

Danny ReyesOkay, somebody's had their Motherload coffee this morning.

Becca HartwellI'm just saying I woke up and my download queue looked like a grocery receipt.

Danny ReyesThis is the Plumbob Report. I'm Danny.

Becca HartwellAnd I'm Becca, and today my Sims folder is crying for help.

Danny ReyesHow many packs even dropped this week?

Becca HartwellI stopped counting after Five. Five, Danny.

Danny ReyesFive Maker packs in One Week?

Becca HartwellOne Week.

Danny ReyesThat's wild, right? Like my Sim can't even use a pool ladder correctly and EA is out here shipping content like it's a vending machine.

Becca HartwellDon't get me started on pool ladders.

Danny ReyesWe are absolutely getting started on the Marketplace though. Not yet, but we need to talk about it.

Becca HartwellOoh, cryptic.

Danny ReyesVery cryptic. Later.

Becca HartwellFine. Fine. I'll wait, but I've got the counterweight. The September update news is actually good.

Danny ReyesWait, really? Good news in this economy?

Becca HartwellI know. I had to sit down too.

Danny ReyesOkay, tease it a little. Don't give it all away.

Becca HartwellLet's just say autonomy might stop choosing violence for once.

Danny ReyesAh, the autonomy really said choose violence though historically.

Becca HartwellHistorically, yes. We'll get there.

Danny ReyesOkay, so between pack overload and this mystery marketplace thing you're dangling, my brain is already doing the loading screen spin.

Becca HartwellSame. So let's start where the chaos actually is.

Danny ReyesThe packs, because there are so many of them right now it's honestly kind of unhinged.

Becca HartwellOkay, so cold hard fact number one is there's a brand new pack called Soft Balance made by a creator named Comiko and it landed on the marketplace literally one day after two other packs went up.

Danny ReyesWait, one day after?

Becca HartwellOne day.

Danny ReyesSimsCommunity's write up on it says it dropped right on top of the last batch, like no cool down at all.

Becca HartwellNo breathing room. None.

Danny ReyesZero.

Becca HartwellSo what were the two packs before it?

Danny ReyesManicure Ritual and Cozy Cottage. SimsCommunity had already covered both of those the day before Soft Balance even showed up.

Becca HartwellManicure Ritual. Okay, I see the vision, tiny nail salon energy.

Danny ReyesCozy Cottage is doing exactly what it says on the tin too.

Becca HartwellHonestly, the names alone tell you the whole vibe shift the team's going for this season.

Danny ReyesYeah, it's very cottagecore meets self-care era right now.

Becca HartwellSure. Sure. But three packs in like what? 48 hours?

Danny ReyesGive or take, yeah.

Becca HartwellThat's a lot of Simoleons leaving wallets real fast.

Danny ReyesI mean, if you wanted all three, you're looking at real money before the week's even out.

Becca HartwellRight, and that's before we even get into whether they're worth it individually.

Danny ReyesAnd it's not even the start of it. Go back a little over a week before that.

Becca HartwellOh no, what happened a week before that?

Danny ReyesEA dropped Five Maker Packs at once. Five.

Becca HartwellOh my God, five in one go?

Danny ReyesFive in one go.

Becca HartwellAnd the comments under that Report got spicy.

Danny ReyesPeople were asking why the free content drops basically vanished since July.

Becca HartwellWait, since July? Like nothing free at all?

Danny ReyesThat's the vibe in the thread, yeah, and some folks were straight up wondering if EA's testing whether stuff that used to just be a free update now shows up locked inside a paid Maker pack.

Becca HartwellOh, that's a nasty theory.

Danny ReyesIt's a theory. Nobody's confirmed it. I'm just telling you what people are saying under the article.

Becca HartwellRight. Right. That's fair. That's just what the comment section thinks.

Danny ReyesYeah, and to be clear, none of this is EA confirming a strategy. It's just what players are theorizing out loud.

Becca HartwellSure, but theories spread fast when the pattern already feels this obvious.

Danny ReyesBut you stack that next to three more Packs dropping in two days and it starts to feel less like a coincidence and more like a pattern.

Becca HartwellIs it just a busy week for the Maker team or is this actually the new normal now?

Danny ReyesThat's the question I keep asking myself. Like is September just gonna be Pack after Pack after Pack?

Becca HartwellHonestly, I don't even know how creators keep up with making this stuff that fast.

Danny ReyesRight? Somebody's cranking these out like a Sim on a caffeine buff.

Becca HartwellOr maybe it's genuinely just a queue backlog from summer finally clearing out all at once.

Danny ReyesCould be. Either way, my wallet does not care about the reason. It just feels the drain.

Becca HartwellOkay. Hold on. Hold on. Before we go further down the Marketplace rabbit hole, I gotta pump the brakes for a second.

Danny ReyesUh-oh. What?

Becca HartwellBecause I promised you good news earlier and I have been sitting on it this whole segment.

Danny ReyesOh right, the thing you were being weirdly cagey about.

Becca HartwellI wasn't being cagey. I was being dramatic. There's a difference.

Danny ReyesSure. Sure.

Becca HartwellSo while all this pack chaos has been happening, there's a September update coming and from what I've seen, it's actually aimed at fixing something that has driven every single one of us up the wall for years.

Danny ReyesWait, are we finally talking about the thing I think we're talking about?

Becca HartwellI'm not saying anything yet.

Danny ReyesBecca.

Becca HartwellI'm not saying anything, but yes, it's about autonomy.

Danny ReyesNo way. No way. No way.

Becca HartwellYes way. So let's actually get into what this update is supposed to do because it might genuinely change how these Sims behave.

Danny ReyesOkay, I am fully sitting up now. Go.

Becca HartwellOkay, so September, this is the one I actually wanna talk about.

Danny ReyesRight, the mystery patch. Do we have a date yet?

Becca HartwellNot exact, but a report saying late September and they're narrowing it to either the 18th, the 15th or the 22nd.

Speaker 3So basically pick a Tuesday and pray.

Becca HartwellPretty much. But there's a dev drop-in on September first, so we should know more right after that.

Speaker 3Okay, a drop-in first, then the actual patch a week or two later. Fine, I can wait.

Becca HartwellAnd here's the part that made me actually gasp a little.

Speaker 3Ooh, gasp-worthy. Go.

Becca HartwellThe same report says this update is supposed to fix the married Sims bug. You know, where you send a couple through Create-A-Sim and suddenly they're just partners again.

Speaker 3Wait, that bug? The one that's been in every complaint thread for years?

Becca HartwellThat one. Apparently, it's one of the most up-voted requests out there, and this is supposed to be the fix.

Speaker 3If that's real, I might actually cry. My Sims have gotten divorced by CAS more times than in real relationships.

Becca HartwellThat's a sentence.

Speaker 3I stand by it. Okay, what else is in this mystery box?

Becca HartwellSo still not locked in, but the same piece says there might be some free CAS or Build/Buy stuff folded in too.

Speaker 3Like actual free content after everything we just talked about?

Becca HartwellThat's the tease, yeah. They mention the Olive Spectre hairstyle possibly coming back.

Speaker 3The hair? People have been asking for that hair since forever.

Becca HartwellI know. It's not confirmed. It's teased. But if it shows up alongside a patch that's supposedly free, that's a nice little olive branch. No pun intended.

Speaker 3Okay, that pun was not it, but continue.

Becca HartwellFine, fine. So that's one report. There's a second one that's honestly the bigger headline for me.

Speaker 3Bigger than the marriage bug?

Becca HartwellDifferent kind of big. This one says the whole September update is centered on Sim autonomy, like broad improvements, smarter, more consistent, more responsive behavior across regular gameplay.

Speaker 3Okay, Becca, we need to talk about what smarter autonomy even means at this point.

Becca HartwellI mean, I hear you. It's the Update EA keeps promising.

Speaker 3We have joked about pool ladders on this show more times than I can count.

Becca HartwellWe have. Sims standing in a puddle refusing to leave because pathing gave up on them.

Speaker 3Right. So when they say smarter Autonomy fix, my brain goes straight to, "Okay, sure. We'll see."

Becca HartwellSame. I'm cautiously into it, but the Team has said big Autonomy improvements before, and it's been a mixed bag.

Speaker 3A mixed bag is generous. Some patches make it better for like a week, and then a Sim decides eating cereal is more urgent than putting out a house fire.

Becca HartwellThat happened to you specifically, didn't it?

Speaker 3It happened to me specifically, yes. Thank you for bringing it up on the podcast.

Becca HartwellI'm just saying if this actually lands, that's a real quality of life shift for basically everyone who plays.

Speaker 3Agreed. No argument there. But okay, speaking of things EA promises and things EA delivers.

Becca HartwellUh-oh.

Speaker 3Remember that Marketplace thing I was holding back at the top?

Becca HartwellI remember you dangling it like bait, yes.

Speaker 3So I went and actually read the reaction to it, not just the announcement, and it's not the reaction I expected.

Becca HartwellOkay, now I'm nervous.

Speaker 3You should be a little nervous. I've got receipts, and they change the whole mood of this Pack conversation.

Becca HartwellOkay, so I said receipts and I meant them. GameSpot put up a piece with a headline that basically calls the Maker Marketplace an insult to players and modders both. Whoa, that's not subtle.

Speaker 3Not even a little. GameSpot reports EA put out a public call for new Maker creators, and it got instant backlash, like immediate.

Becca HartwellInstant how? People just flooding the replies?

Speaker 3That's the gist. And the same piece points out a lot of the game's biggest former creators have already walked away from the ecosystem.

Becca HartwellWait, the actual big names?

Speaker 3The ones people used to build whole rooms around, yeah. GameSpot ties it back to frustration over paid login rewards and events that landed flat.

Becca HartwellThat's rough because those are exactly the creators who made people wanna stick around in the first place.

Speaker 3Right. And once people like that walk, it's hard to convince new folks the grass is greener.

Becca HartwellSo it's not just this one call-out. It's been building.

Speaker 3Exactly. This is the tail end of something, not the start.

Becca HartwellOkay, so pair that with the pack chaos we just talked about and suddenly the timing makes a lot more sense.

Speaker 3Right. And here's the other half. There's a separate write-up from a site called SimsCommunity about three packs that got pulled and then quietly came back.

Becca HartwellPulled? Like taken down entirely?

Speaker 3Yeah. Cottagerie, the little plant and garden shop, and the Salon Glow hair set, all three vanished, then reappeared days later.

Becca HartwellOkay, that's a little weird on its own.

Speaker 3It gets weirder. The garden shop pack came back cheaper, seven hundred Moola dropped to six hundred.

Becca HartwellSo they just quietly cut the price.

Speaker 3No announcement, no fanfare, just a new number when it reappeared.

Becca HartwellSo either somebody internally agreed the pricing was off or the backlash actually moved something.

Speaker 3Could be either. Could be both. Nobodys saying.

Becca HartwellEither way, a hundred Moola isn't nothing when you're saving up for a Pack.

Speaker 3Especially after just watching three new Packs and a Five-Pack drop happen basically back to back.

Becca HartwellWhat are people saying in the comments, though?

Speaker 3Same suspicion as everywhere else. Folks in that comment section are basically saying they don't trust the paid custom content pipeline anymore, full stop.

Becca HartwellI mean, come on. Can you blame them? Weve got five Packs at once, a one-day gap between drops, and now stuff getting pulled and repriced with Zero explanation.

Speaker 3Its a lot of smoke for one week.

Becca HartwellIt really is. Any one of these on its own Id shrug off as a normal week.

Speaker 3Same, but stacked together like this it stops feeling like coincidence.

Becca HartwellAnd thats the thing that actually worries me more than any single price tag. It's the pattern. Packs flooding in, free stuff drying up, then a public backlash over asking for more creators, then quiet price cuts on stuff that already got pulled once.

Danny ReyesPut together, it doesn't look like isolated hiccups anymore.

Becca HartwellIt looks like the Marketplace itself has a trust problem.

Danny ReyesYeah, and that's not a modder problem or a player problem. It's the whole ecosystem top to bottom.

Becca HartwellIt's wild that all of this surfaced in basically the same week we've been covering the pack flood.

Danny ReyesThat's not a coincidence of timing on our end. That's just how loud it's gotten.

Becca HartwellOkay, that's heavier than I wanted this segment to get.

Danny ReyesSame, honestly.

Becca HartwellBut you know what? Let's not end on doom. There's still a whole game full of ridiculous stuff happening that has nothing to do with any of this.

Danny ReyesOh, for sure.

Becca HartwellBugs, builds, weird Disasters, the usual chaos. I want some of that energy back.

Danny ReyesYou just want an excuse to talk about pool ladders again.

Becca HartwellMaybe. But also there's a whole wider life-sim world out there worth checking in on, and I'd rather leave people smiling than stressed about Moola math.

Danny ReyesFair. Let's swing that way.

Becca HartwellOkay, palate cleanser time. The Sims 4 Quality Assurance team actually sat down and did a developer Q&A on September first answering community questions about play testing and bugs.

Danny ReyesWait, the actual bug squashers talking, not the marketing team?

Becca HartwellThe actual QA team. SimsCommunity covered the whole recap.

Danny ReyesThat's kind of huge, honestly. I feel like we never hear from those people.

Becca HartwellRight? They usually let the patch notes do the talking.

Danny ReyesOkay, switching gears completely, have you seen the Apocalypse save file thing floating around?

Becca HartwellOh my gosh, yes. Someone took six familiar worlds and reimagined each one after a totally different disaster.

Danny ReyesEvergreen Harbor's power grid goes down in it, right?

Becca HartwellYep, that's one of the six. It's such a good use of the base game worlds.

Danny ReyesI love when the community does more with old maps than EA ever did.

Becca HartwellSame. Same lots, completely different vibe. That's the fun of it.

Danny ReyesHonestly, it makes me wanna boot up Evergreen Harbor myself just to see the blackout play out.

Becca HartwellRight? It's the kind of thing that makes an old world feel brand new again.

Danny ReyesSpeaking of lots, did you catch the arcade roundup?

Becca HartwellThe bowling and skating one?

Danny ReyesYeah. 20 sets for arcades, bowling alleys, skating rinks, all custom content.

Becca HartwellMy Sims desperately need somewhere to hang out that isn't the same three community lots.

Danny ReyesFor real. We need actual variety, not just reskins of the same seating.

Becca HartwellGive me a rink with terrible lighting and dramatic teen drama, please.

Danny ReyesHonestly, mood. Okay, now here's a weird one.

Becca HartwellGo.

Danny ReyesThere's a new game on Steam that IMDb straight up described as basically The Sims 4 but set in New York.

Becca HartwellWait, really? Like they just said that?

Danny ReyesThat's the pitch. New York life sim and everyone's immediately comparing it to us.

Becca HartwellI mean, I get it. Everybody wants a piece of this genre right now.

Danny ReyesIt's kinda flattering when you think about it, honestly.

Becca HartwellImitation as the sincerest form of flattery, sure, but also mildly annoying.

Danny ReyesWhich brings me to the one that's actually stressing me out a little bit, Fable.

Becca HartwellThe reboot? What about it?

Danny ReyesSo Playground Games told Notebookcheck it's 30 to 40 hours to beat.

Becca HartwellOkay, that's a normal RPG length.

Danny ReyesExcept GamesRadar got a totally different number straight from Xbox, 15 to 20 hours.

Becca HartwellWait, that's not even close. That's half.

Danny ReyesRight? But both pieces agree on the actual point, which is that because it's got these life sim systems baked in, you can just keep playing after the story's done.

Becca HartwellLike our open-ended save files.

Danny ReyesExactly. And GamesRadar quoted somebody basically saying you can play it forever if you treat it like a life sim instead of an RPG.

Becca HartwellThat's wild. A fantasy RPG borrowing our whole homework.

Danny ReyesRight? And it kinda proves the point that people actually want these systems, not just the story.

Becca HartwellWhich, fingers crossed, maybe pushes EA to take our side of things more seriously too.

Danny ReyesThe genre's just eating itself at this point, and honestly, good. More life sims, more competition, more reasons for EA to actually try.

Becca HartwellSee, that's the thing about tonight. We opened on packs and pricing drama and Marketplace stuff nobody's thrilled about.

Danny ReyesAnd we're closing on people building apocalypse worlds and modders making nothing out of arcades.

Becca HartwellThe community just keeps making something out of it regardless of what EA does.

Danny ReyesEvery single time. It's kind of the whole appeal of this fandom.

Becca HartwellOkay, I think that's a good place to leave it for tonight.

Danny ReyesYeah, my brain is full of Fable numbers and apocalypse worlds.

Becca HartwellAs it should be.

Danny ReyesLet's wrap this thing up.

Becca HartwellSo here's where we landed tonight. The Marketplace mess still stings, but that September update genuinely gives me hope.

Danny ReyesSame. Like EA ticked people off with the creator call and the pack pricing stuff, sure, but the autonomy fix could actually fix things.

Becca HartwellCould. Big could.

Danny ReyesFair. Fair.

Becca HartwellOkay, before we go, subscribe to the show if you haven't. It genuinely helps us.

Danny ReyesLeave us a review too. Tell us we're funny or tell us we're wrong about the Marketplace, whatever.

Becca HartwellAnd send us your builds, your bugs, your weird autonomy stories @PlumbobReport on everything.

Danny ReyesWe want screenshots. We want chaos. We want the Sim that got stuck on a pool ladder for six hours.

Becca HartwellSomeone's going to send that.

Danny ReyesSomeone always sends that.

Becca HartwellHonestly, whatever EA does with pricing next, you all keep building stuff that's better than half the paid Packs anyway.

Danny ReyesThat's kind of the whole vibe of this fandom, right? We complain, then we go make something cooler for free.

Becca HartwellThat's us. That's the Community.

Danny ReyesAll right, that's the episode.

Becca HartwellGo play something. Go build something. We'll see you next time.

Danny ReyesSul sul, everybody.

Becca HartwellSul sul.