This page is restored from the SimGoodie blog archive, originally published in early November 2011. SimGoodie was Norway's largest Sims fan site, covering news, discussions, and community content throughout The Sims 3 era. What follows is a snapshot of what the site and its readers were buzzing about during a particularly active stretch for the franchise.
The Sims Social and Facebook-era collecting
Two posts on the archive page dealt with The Sims Social, the Facebook game EA launched in August 2011. The first, dated November 5, recommended a Facebook app called "Auto Collect Games Bonuses" that let players batch-collect all the bonus posts their friends shared on Facebook rather than clicking them one by one. Author Alexander Ahlsen described using it once or twice daily to gather items.
The second post, from October 28, rounded up new objects and clothing available for purchase with SimPoints, Simoleons, and SimCash, sourcing the information from The Sims Social Fansite (www.sims-social.com).
For context: The Sims Social was shut down by EA on June 14, 2013. The game, its companion apps, and the Facebook bonus ecosystem no longer exist.
New Sims 3 Store content for November
A November 3 post listed the month's fresh additions to the official Sims 3 Store, including:
- Automatisk kjæledyrmatemaskin fra Autonom (450 SimPoints), a pet auto-feeder timed to the Pets expansion launch
- Samlingssett fra november 2011 (2,800 SimPoints)
- Stue og spisestue fra atomalderen (1,700 SimPoints)
- Hverdagsbarn-samlingen (1,200 SimPoints)
- Keiser Zens soverom (550 SimPoints)
- Tiden er inne for å gi gaver! (free)
The mix of pet-themed premium items alongside holiday gifting freebies reflects where the franchise sat that month: The Sims 3 Pets had just shipped for PC on October 18, and the holiday season was approaching.
Weather hints and expansion pack 6 speculation
One of the most discussed posts on the page (it was among the few with reader comments) asked whether weather might appear in the next expansion pack. A player on moreawesomethanyou.com had discovered a pile of leaves and twigs appearing in-game where a trash pile should have been. Sims treated the object as garbage and disposed of it normally, but the unusual visual raised eyebrows.
The post speculated: did EA accidentally leave weather-related assets in The Sims 3 Pets? The source was credited to SimProgams.com. The sidebar listed "EP6" with a vague Spring/Summer 2012 window, and as history confirmed, The Sims 3 Seasons did arrive in November 2012 as the eighth expansion pack (not the sixth, as the community numbered them at the time based on planned releases).
Pets 3DS and Master Suite Stuff teasers
The archive also included a brief November 2 post sharing the trailer for The Sims 3 Pets on Nintendo 3DS, along with sidebar references to the upcoming "Soverom Og Bad Stæsj" (Master Suite Stuff), scheduled for January 26, 2012. A reader poll asked what people thought of the stuff pack, with options ranging from "Ser veldig bra ut!" to "Hva er det?" The pack arrived on schedule and was the fifth stuff pack for The Sims 3, following a pattern of content updates that kept the community engaged between expansion releases.
A window into the 2011 Sims community
Reading SimGoodie's archive from this period paints a picture of a fan community juggling multiple Sims products simultaneously: a mainline PC game with regular Store drops and expansion speculation, a Facebook social game with its own economy, handheld console ports, and stuff packs filling gaps between major releases. The site itself maintained active comment sections, polls, a tag cloud heavy on "Kjæledyr" and "GamesCom," and social links across Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and YouTube.
The archive sidebar lists post counts by month going back to October 2009, with a clear peak of 97 posts in August 2011 alone, likely driven by GamesCom coverage and The Sims Social launch hype.
SimGoodie legacy archive (simgoodie.com)