LGR did enjoy the pack at least, but was a bit disappointed when he compared it to the price and the gamepacks it's related to. I kind of agree on that. There is a few things here I'm disappointed about as well. The lack of gameplay at the top lot being one of them. He didn't even mention that, but he's not a builder so I guess it's natural.

We didn’t have these issues when themes actually made sense and could be summarized in a few words.

“Snowy Escape” is so vague and doesn’t properly illustrate what’s being added, unlike Hot Date & Nightlife, or Open For Business and Ambitions.

I still don’t know what Get Together actually is because the gameplay added outside of the club system doesn’t make any sense. Change clothes... together. Drink Coffee... together. Dance... together.

I feel like they try so hard to avoid looking like they’re remaking packs that additions come across as random. I’m 100% of with another dating pack with fun things to do on a date and new places to go.

Rather, would have been. Everything has been done and is kind of meh...

That's not true... Get Together is remake of Livin Large. Many (random) activities and objects, but also nothing really coherent

Get Together is one of the packs I use the most. I never really understand why, but I use it a lot.

Get Together has a lot of odds and ends I use, but it makes no sense.

"Japan, But Not Really" makes me laugh so hard.

Watched the LGR review and am not sure will even want this one when half off.

What gave you that idea? Hell, the tone of his voice alone seems absolutely done with this shit to the point I wouldn't be surprised if he made the video just because he feels he has an obligation to his viewers to do so. Did he even praise anything...?

Yes, he did praise some things. He said the world was beautiful, he said he liked the build/buy items, he said he liked the food. He said the climb to the top was well worth the effort. I am not going to watch again, but yes, he did not totally trash this. He said it felt more like a GP than EP, but did not say it would be garbage as a GP. He also said the sentiments is a good addition to the game.

He did one of his well thought out balanced reviews.

But he did spend the whole video explaining how all game play was already in the game through different other packs and just with some pretty new paint on it. I think it is telling that we even do say something positive about packs that don't expand game play. We're already used to EPs being lackluster I guess.

I really don't get how they plan EPs like this. Do they meet up and someone says :"OK guys. They've bought Eco lifestyle so now we don't even have to bring new ideas to the table. Just tell me about everything we already have in game and then we discuss how to redo this in a different world."

I think "lackluster" is pretty darn accurate. I did not get Eco and so far do not have enough interest in this new pack to want it. I do not think they are bad/horrible, but to me they are not good/interesting/enticing enough for me to want to play them. I might like seeing a Sim ski down the mountain once, but I do not want to have to watch that 30 times or whatever to get the skill up enough to do something, or with the climbing. Overall this pack just does not match my interests. And as said, with no significant new gameplay do not feel any need to get it.

Just like Island Living.

It would be a conspiracy theory to say that EA creates packs around stuff they've already made, but they create packs around the stuff that they've already made.  There are those that don't want to publicly acknowledge this, but most people can count how many times they've seen a animation, a bar, a picnic table, a CAS item, ect... from another pack.

This game of "Pretend everybody is clueless, then call them toxic when this problem is brought up" might work for some gaming communities, but we're talking about the sims community.  This is the same community that wants to know what is in their sims' fridge, what their sims are cooking on the grill, and so on.  There is no shame in doing this, and I'm sure there are people that don't care about such details, but for the most part, players notice things.  I watched a video the other day where the person spent a good 20 seconds talking about what was in her sims' hot pot.

This same game of pretend is played for all the bug problems.  There are those that go out of their way to avoid showing game play so bugs won't be noticed. Some people haven't made that connection yet, but TS4 bugs even bite gurus.  Game bugs don't discriminate.

Guru George found himself in a situation the other day while streaming.  He clicked on the hot pot, it didn't work. He clicked on it again, it didn't work.  Since he couldn't announce that the hot pot is broken, he attempted to use a smooth recovery by making a joke that he hoped there was a fire alarm on the lot so his sims wouldn't starve to death.  In the end, he ended up killing a sim anyway by means of freezing to death because TS4 sims don't listen and no longer change into winter clothing on their own. He had another sim plea with Grim to bring the dead child sim back.

I'm not a fan of gurus anyway, but George likes to talk to people like they're 5 which is really annoying, but watching him trying to maintain his guru dignity while trying to work with TS4 bugs was entertaining.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/808551684

The dead child Sim?!

Yup, she froze to death.

That is just spot on. I sit in Oslo longing for the mountain slopes, but do not have the fitness to go myself and is stuck here with school and my computer. So I love this skiing experience. I would have liked the animations to be better though. My teacher would not be impressed, but he's a demanding man.

I do agree with LGR on the beauty of this place, but that is not enough for me to buy this pack. The winter activities and Japanese style sold it for me.

When it comes to decision making on packs like this they have said it comes down to what people they have available. They probably didn't have that many who could make assets and wanted the animations for the slopes, so that is why this pack might look lackluster. They have a LOT of animations in this pack. Not to mention the world itself, and the build objects. We can't have everything every time. These are professions they have to assign tasks to. When you talk about gameplay that might be programmers probably. They have been busy implementing the skiing experience.

You just don't like skiing. Most of you probably has never even been in a slope, perhaps never seen snow. Then this pack is not for you.

I have skied way back when and had my arse frozen too many times on stuck ski lifts. Not anything I miss doing. I am not wild about driving in snow but do like looking at it. I think snow can be totally beautiful. But as pretty as that may be, that will not get me to get this EP. And watching my Sim ski the same downhill over and over and over is of no interest to me.

I am not simming much now, but when do would rather spend time in Cronor in 3, and just starting to look at Mermadia. They hold my interest.

Pretty much- EA 'chooses' a theme based on their surveys, and then the game designers sit around and develop the mechanics, figuring out what systems can be recycled to save time/effort/money, and what needs to be made anew.

Unfortunately, it seems like a problem that EA has of late is that they seem to prioritize the FX/visual team over the programming one. Is it because FX cost less to implement in terms of wages (fx artist vs a programmer) and time/effort (objects and effects have a relatively simple pipeline)?

I honestly don't know if it's cheaper or not, but it does show lost opportunity.  Using Snowy Escape as a example: Instead of having a train that does nothing, it could have been used to teleport sims to another world. A single loading screen from Point A to Point B wouldn't have made a difference. This idea wouldn't have had the same depth as having a sim stand in line, purchase a ticket, then wait for the train, but it would better than not being able to use it at all.  They even made the platform for the train station unusable. 

The map on the train station although not FX could have been used in a similar way. Have a sim click on the map which could teleport them to somewhere on the Snowy Escape map or something like that.  They already have the animations for sims walking, the teleport system, ect... If they used the map idea, maybe they would have had to create a animation for the sim pressing the map, but I'm pretty sure they already have something similar that could have been reused.

I don't think there is much that could have been done to salvage the gondola situation, but they could have at least had the sims open the door to this ski lifts rather than ghosting through them.

Graham has said as much in the past. To use the base game as an example, he in so many words stated that it was more cost effective to do things like the boat in Willow Creek, because they can churn out fx much quicker apparently than they can actually program things into the game.

If this has been a problem since 2014 for them, then I'm at the point where I believe this game's life cycle has been dominated by producers and only one or two programmers actually doing anything. Anyone remember the cupcake machine? Why on earth did they prioritize something like that for the base game when it needed so much else? Yet according to Graham, it was the right choice because "priorities". Yeah, ok. Whatever you say.

They should just be honest - they’re trying to get as much out of their paper-thin budgets as possible. It’s still a business, we’re not stupid.

I’m sure the budget for Snowy Escape must have been terrible because most of it was reused or repurposed assets. Considering that, you’d think they’d have added more to the pack, but no.

Into The Future reused a TON of gameplay objects from previous games and repurposed a lot of other assets, and still brought a lot of new content to the table, and that was made by a secondary studio.

Apartment Life followed a similar pattern - many things were reintroduce, or offered up in some other kind of way in previous packs, but they made the effort to include new content.

We don’t get the same love we used to. Hotels aside, we didn’t get even get Manga or Anime. What was the budget used for? Hiking?

*Judge-ly stares at the shaft box object, that has decorative doors and its purpose to transport Sims from one floor plan to another, which Gurus decide to name it the >_> *ding* e-le-va-tor*

I mean really. That object that eye-glaringly lacking animation and when in code wise literally dont need to be stacked pretty much telling of what kibd game TS4 is. It's so ahead of time, that in todays technology-advance world ppl can ride elevators without the doors opening. Neat

You're Sims walks/ghost through the lift's CLOSED doors and pretty much any rabbit hole without doors. Why do we accept this kind crap and don't make louder noise? What If a developer falls asleep, spills coffee over their programming and does "oops! Hehe. I accidentally removes the animation of Sims pulling covers and getting into beds. Too lazy or cuz time constrain can't recreate it so I'm gonna make a formal apology on twitter. Oh well! Luv ya." But hey, why does animation matter when it gets the job done (e.g, when you're Sim is instantly laying on the bed, sitting on a toilet, food poofs on the counter without prep in milisecond and Sims can now talk telepathically by just staring in each others eyes without moving their lips

Because half the damn simulation lag in the game is because the game takes ages to dredge up the required animation resource (or object resource seen when digging for gems) to play during the interaction. Maxis know their own game engine better than you think. Laziness is not the issue. More like walking on eggshells balancing out performance for their half-arsed, in-house game engine. Maxis devs are all about recycling older animations, or including none at all, because they would bring TS4 to a crippled simulation lag standstill if they gave it too many unique resources to have to try to fetch up, request per interaction, too often.

Or other things like that strongly assiosate with the culture like martial arts or/and comic making skill, so now you have to wait for another pack that shoehorns with formal guarantee to be in third theme orient pack. Kind weird formal didn't cross their minds but it's not like they're showing us that they look up past packs.