One does wonder why these problems only happen to a fraction of the user base; it seems to be more mucking-up of existing games/towns, though. I went ahead and started up an entirely new game post-patch, with the new Indie Stone and core Awesome mod - and no issues - YET.

I wonder how much actual testing EA does with saved towns with an actual "history". Are these slowdown/clusterfuck conditions also happening mainly to those who've accumulated a number of "active" households over time, and/or with multiple sacred households? Or are the non-modded Sims players getting farked games too?

Bethseda/Elder Scrolls games were designed with modding in mind, and the company released toolkits as well as their own scripting language to create new content/locations/objects/characters etc. On the other hand, EA has locked down TS3 big time, it seems - I remember reading somewhere else on this forum that they had encrypted much of their code. There is a *limited* avenue for creating custom content, but EA does not really want folks modding The Sims at all, it seems. Ergo the hoops the actual hardcore modders have to go through - it's not so simple as just not writing over each other's XML/config file changes, or coordinating override folders full of LUA scripts and custom objects.