User blog comment:LostInRiverview/The Sims 4 has been announced!/@comment-4077536-20130621102327

There are some rumors going around that The Sims 4 was planned to be online the entire time, but after the SimCity fiasco they decided to change it to offline and promote it that way. Some say that EA announced the small press conference and invited the fansites just because SimsVIP leaked images of TS4: Olympus, which confused many fans. While there are some evidences that support some of these theories, I myself choose to ignore them until the game is showcased at this years Gamescom. I'll make my judgement there.

What is interesting and what does make me think are TS4 surveys that some users from The Sims 3 forums took a couple of days ago. Now, I can't be 100% if it's legit, but I choose to believe them as EA hosted surveys like these before.

The survey was provided by SwagBucks and it took about an hour to complete. While they didn't want to spoil too much on the forums, they did mention some of the features that they would like to implement based on feedback, like: in CAS you can click & drag to edit Sims' faces and bodies; Build Mode features blocks; there was a question to remove the open neighborhood in exchange for quick loading times; there was a question for removing life stages (gradual aging, maybe?), questions about the Collector Edition which should cost $90... However, many of the questions consisted of questions about online features like: mobile apps with which you can create Sims, check on your Sims etc.; livestreaming apps; co-op play, online neighborhood etc... which somehow fits in the above rumor.

If this is real, it's strange that they're doing surveys now - 9 months before the game is released and 2 months before the big reveal. And the fact that they chose more so random people which don't really play the game worries me a bit.

All in all, I'm waiting for Gamescom to make my decision do I like it or not.