I feel like I'm watching Big Brother. "Expect the Unexpected!" (Sadly, just as ridiculous a slogan for BB22 as it would have been for Sims 4. We had *one* blindside all season, and had to wait all season for it. A very, very boring season, at that.)

I remember when we got an occult in every expansion pack, from Makin' Magic until Get To Work.

Also, as a side note, it's frustrating to me that I can't get Sims to do what they're supposed to do on lots without the Club system.

For example: I need a club of several types of townies to occupy each lot type. Like, if I want a restaurant with a nightclub, the restaurant patrons likely won't club, so I need to create a set of Sims to do that - but they also won't dine out. This applies to anything with a restaurant, honestly, or any lot type that doesn't exist (like a bowling alley), or mixed lot types.

I considered getting Snowy Escape yesterday at half off. I decided I do not want it. So this now makes a pass on that, Eco, Batuu, knitting, laundry, tiny, and who knows what else I cannot think of. Realm was last thing I actually played a bit. Bought Univ and have not even sent a Sim there.

I got all for Sims, all for 2 other than 2 packs, HM and Ikea, all for 3 other than K Perry.

I find this to be just plain sad. This game now is just IMO as Clint says too "meh".

I learned we can have multiple elevators on penthouse lots and Sims travel between them without any trouble. Yet, this behavior does not work on non-penthouse lots.

We have teleporters in realm of magic, but I can't make an elevator. Space ships and not cars. Retail stores and we can sell services. My goodness...

Hardezt working team doesn't want you to tell stories how you created an elevator outside a penthouse flagged lot. You're insane! Thinking outside the box is forbidden. Sandbox what?

Or If it's the engine, than you're also insane to be even trying such elaborate building schemes Consequences may result in your computer bursting into flames Sorry Maxis/EA, I just can't help not giving some slack

So when will the sperging in this thread go back to speculating on what pack EAxis is going to make next from the surveys?

Do we have enough empirical data to figure out when people get bored of packs (i.e. the amount of time it takes to fill out every lot with new ones from the gallery, to access every hidden lot, for all the bugs/bad game mechanics to become apparent, or to complete one generation)?


Speaking of missed opportunities, I was looking at some very nice persimmons today, and I thought- why didn't they add any in Snowy Escape?

Persimmons + peaches would have been great additions IMO.

Something else I hate is not being able to be a movie director in Get Famous.

Like, you sit on the director’s chair and while there, you’re allowed to dictate what actors/actresses wear and do. Building a relationship with them and getting their skills up allows them to do certain scenes better.

Sets can also be designed before a scene begins, but are limited to a specific budget (like, $10,000 for a small budget film or something).

The movies are the same as they always were - “Cooking Video, Fighting Video, Dancing Video” - You then piece movies together at the media production station and send them off to make money off of them.

You’d be able to direct movies, television shows, daytime dramas, “reality” shows, news stations, etc.

It could even be lazier than that and play out exactly the same was as the acting career, and still be somewhat satisfying.

Utilizing both the video-making mechanic and the acting mechanic, it would be available for maybe level 5-up, the lower levels would basically play out the same way as the acting career, but without any acting segment (you're just given a list of tasks to do to prepare the shot).

Regardless, you start off by going to the phone/computer/editing station, and choosing a producer to work with (clone of the agencies). You choose a genre of movie/tv show/commercial to make (clone of the gig-list). It first sets you up with an off-screen audition (audition clone), and then gives you a list of sims to choose from for each role (reusing the sim selector windows).

You then get consecutive shooting days (one for commmercials, two for tv shows, three for films), and on those days, you enter the stage, set up already. You do a whole bunch of tasks to prepare you for the shoot.

Then you start the shoot by clicking on the director's chair, and then click on each acting spot, and direct the actors to act in a certain way (reusing the actor animations).This produces a mood/topic for each shot.

Each shooting time produces several segments of themed film (just like the video drone), which you can then load into a editing station (unrealistic, but still). Reusing the video-editing mechanics/skill, you can do some director edits, and then 'upload it', and you'll get a producer commentary, plus some flavor text about the vfx team polishing the shot. You can then also use the editing station to promote the film/bribe reviewers/organize advertising.

A few days later, the film gets released and then you can check the reviews via the computer/phone, and the box office numbers (depending on the trends and advertising). The film then produces royalties just like any other book/video, and you're given a chance to win an award like the acting career.

There you have it- a system that makes the video-editing skill useful, and doesn't require any completely new systems. I think they probably were planning on something like this, but never got the chance to take it on, IMO.

I believe it because there’s a ton of premade film sets. Technically, we can do already this (sort of) but the flying drone is so tacky.

Get Famous is my favorite expansion pack in this game but yeah, I'd be lying if I said they didn't drop the ball by only introducing an acting career. There really should have been an all encompassing film career with different branches: Acting, Directing, Editing, Screenwriting (my area of expertise lol).

with time it is shown me Eco, is more a builder's pack than anything but gameplay. But unfortunately even the builder side has issues, quite badly designed that they had to include an option to disable the footprints..

I like that it added a ton of ways to get Famous and it’s pretty open ended. Being a famous YouTuber is cute, but I’d rather an actual fashion career which branched out into modeling and photography/styling.

I wish they they handled businesses the same way. There are so few ways to make money while owning a property. I rather a retail overhaul, but my safest bet is asking for a new business pack.

I got my dirty hands on Snowy Escape a couple days ago before I had to uninstall the Sims 4. My verdict? It's okay. It's honestly okay.

And that's it, honestly. Just...okay.

Let me say: I'm loving the Japanese inspired world. It's been very well done, and the aspects of the culture done quite tastefully, in my opinion. In contrast to the Sims 3 where while the world was beautifully done, it was more of a tourist trap. The Build and Buy of this expansion is also excellent, I'm sure everyone here already knows. Also, as a Lore Whore, I very, very much appreciate the lore we got in this world. Love me some family feuds! And of course we've had lore in the Sims 4 before but never done this well. I like it very much.

However and unfortunately, the main activities such as skiing and mountain climbing have very little replay value, if they have any at all, which to me is one of the downsides of having gameplay restricted to worlds, among other things. Secondly, Lifestyles and Sentiments are quite the neat addition, but they should have been done a bit better. They've tied these features a tad more to the emotions system than the autonomy system, and that is really it's only major downfall. And there's the case of false advertising with the train and Simstagram, and too many shells and poorly done rabbitholes.

So, Snowy Escape isn't a bad pack, but it isn't a...good one either. It's simply average. Especially since Sentiments and Platforms, arguably the most important features, came in a free update to the base game. Buy it, get it, or don't, it depends on what you want really.

If you have Island Living you can ride a jetski on the lake in Snowy Escape and swim in it (safely) as you can in University in two places but one lake there has sharks in it according to a Simmer on the OF! There are probably a lot of other World tie-ups not found yet.

and me all this time thinking I was the only Get Famous stan lol

I saw on a website that an "Into the Future" redo is one of the least wanted Sims 4 packs, ranking just above "Sweet Treats".
This gives me hope! EA was never one to reject a bad idea that nobody asked for!

I don't think EA could do an Into The Future expansion pack for the Sims 4 well even if they wanted to. I can't see it being anything other than a disaster.

Or any pack for that matter. Every one of them can be better. They choose not to.

The only way that pack would be worth it was if the 'futures' were more radical- no more Stepford sims or reskins of the same map (Oasis Springs was extremely disappointing)- I mentioned this maybe a year ago, but I think a whole series of small-yet-radically different 'universes' would be interesting.

For instance:
- A cyberpunk city with huge skyscrapers- neon, steam, flying cars, etc.
- An utopian Tomorrowland-type world- waterfalls, megastructures, etc.
- A space station- Maybe overlooking a planet, mostly artificial but with some green spaces, etc.
- An green apocalypse world- everything's overgrown, zombies, etc.
- A Waterworld-type world- everything's floating, etc.
- A Max-Max-esque apocalypse world- barren, zombies, etc.
etc. etc.


The funny thing about the WA worlds was that they were explicitly going for that Disneyland-version of the worlds.

I can admire their naivety, but I don't think something like that would fly today, ironically.

Snowy Escape's aesthetic take on Japan is far better, but I think that I think WA has a small leg up due to the cultural traits that gave your sims some small unique characteristics- I think Snowy Escape definitely needed that (instead of some weird 'Proper' trait or the ungated menu-bloating options). As of now, your sims- Japanese or not- don't really have any sort of marker that can differentiate them from others (I guess this fits into TS4's US-centric melting pot ideals).

The second issue is that the WA homeworld/travel world sort of created a threshold and the rituals of preparation and arrival which really felt like you were travelling somewhere unique. The lack of any sort of sim filter in Snowy Escape (i.e. seeing Geoff Landgraab as a vendor), and the fact that you basically instantaneously teleport to the world sort of takes a bit away from it- again, another issue that the game in general has IMO.

Huh, you bring up very interesting and correct points, Jje.

WA is very dated in terms of accurate cultural representation—hole to China...yuck—but the pack isn't completely downturn, as it were. Traits were something that the Sims 3 always excelled at, and the traits you mentioned we're very good. (Making them hidden was also a nice realistic touch.)

I also loved to see sims from different cultural areas come into my town in the Sims 3 as visitors. I dunno, it just felt nice to go to the lake in Appaloosa Plains to fish and have a french visitor come up to my sim and immediately get into a fight because whoa those traits are not clashing well now are they?

(I had no part in them becoming enemies, by the way. Sims 3 sim autonomy is serious and I like it.)

I think part of the reason (other being its niche heavily fantasy theme) why ITF wasn't well received because they could/had done it to the fullest. Hard to explain, but imagine say TS2 team had created that pack. Can't think of exact specifications, since I'm not that much of a futuristic-fic, but I even can see from my eyes there was a lot of room to go wild with it.

I do agree that Snowy Escape seem have handled the cultural thing very good oppose to World Adventure. Not to mention, how much it lacked with new gameplay BB content and mechanics outside of just solving puzzles/adventures. It feels a bare expansion pack if you were to just play it by not traveling to other worlds. However, with SE and BV you can experiment, less or more, without travelling there.

An underrated feature of WA is that it introduced several shops. Mostly commonly used are food, book, and general. A MUST HAVE for a player looking to expand their semi-open world.

WA honestly has so much content in it. The sheer scale of it is maddening. Travel? 3 entire towns WITH tons of tombs? Several skills? A new occult type? Open shops? New gameplay objects? New collectibles? A diverse build/buy catalog?

WA wasn’t even their best pack. WA is an example of how to have an expansion pack that has a niche theme that also doesn’t provide niche content to increase its value.

You know you wanted that motor scooter espresso machine...

I would argue BV has much more content than either of those, though obviously not combined. Proper Hotels, Lots of NPCs, three hidden lots (gotta work for them by digging), three cultures that look satisfying, new additions (new cas assets that are jewelry, new type of lot (beaches), camera skill/mechanic, ninja teleportation), massage table which you can incorperate in Businesses, new dances & greetings you can learn, go on tours with a guide and so much more.



In contrast to Snowy Escape, comparing that pack to the chunk that Takemizu Village alone offers, all I can remember that's distinct is skiing and talking to spirits. The other feature stuff shown in trailers already exists in BV or other packs of TS2.

Agreed, even though TS3 limits you to a single homeworld at a time, the presence of the tourists does make it feel like your sim is part of a bigger world- which is why I still hesitate to turn them off completely.

Contrast to TS4, where there really is no continuity in the world. You'll get Geoff Landgraab manning the food stalls on one lot, and then be a waiter on another, and you'll get sims from different neighbourhoods that technically should be halfway across the world jogging through your neighbourhood on a regular basis. Even worse, you'll get tons of randomly-generated NPC sims over and over again, despite having neighbourhoods full of sims you've created. Combined with the instant travelling, it feels very much like your sim is on a stage set, and all the NPCs are just extras that don't have any actual lives other than to play off your active sims.

One of my favorite aspects of Bon Voyage is that you can use massage tables as a business. Most of TS2's EPs have elements that can be used to actually run a business to provide services to Sims. Sims show up, and you sell them a massage.

In TS4, anything outside of a crafted item can't be used outside of a business. Like, if I put an espresso bar or juice bar down, Sims have a very low chance of going to it and buying drinks like they would at the retail fridge. Then, when they do, you don't make any money from it. You basically tend the register for fun. Then, upon hiring a barista, their sales don't make you any money. The AI blatently ignoring certain objects on lots is also another issue I despise.

I've attached a list of all objects that should operate as part of the "retail" system, but doesn't. A percentage of each use is considered a sale based on overall markup.