wut EPs are teh bestest?

[Cyberdodo]

I've recently started playing again after a long break, and I'm feeling rather behind.

I only have Uni, NL, and OFB, so I'm looking for some info and opinions on the more recent EPs, beyond the obvious EAxis sales pitches. What gameplay options are added or changed? Do new careers have new LTWs? Most importantly, how badly borked is each one (tolerable with appropriate application of Awesomeware, or too big a steaming pile of bork for anything to fix)?


Moderator edit: Thread name changed to Jolrei's lulzy suggestion, to make our new sticky thread's topic clearer.

[Ambular]

I'd suggest M&G just because that will bring you up to date on assorted stuff like build mode options, slots, and cheats.  Also, it will keep you current with new mods and content still being made.

Seasons is good for general ambience and new weather-related activities.  Pets is great if you like pets (obviously,) but it doesn't add a whole lot else to the game.  OFB and AL both expand your Sims' options quite a bit as far as how they can choose to live and work.  BV mainly deals with vacations, but it does also add new accessory options and beach lots.  Free Time mainly adds hobbies, and I believe (verify please, someone?) the secondary Aspirations came with it.

IIRC, OFB was supposed to be quite stable and Seasons wasn't bad.  Pets had some serious glitchiness and I believe AL was a bit of a nightmare (or that could have been BV, I'm not sure at this point,) but all of them have since been patched and modded to within acceptable parameters.

[Bleached]

Yeah, FT added the secondary wants. To me, Seasons and Free Time are a must. Both of them add things that are visible in the lives of the sims, no matter how you play the game. With OFB, BV, and AL, the expansions are less pervasive, but are nice options to have if you want them. Personally, I don't really use the OFB or AL features, but I have them simply for the extra items and interactions that came with the packs. BV I use more often, but you might not, depending on your play style. As for LTWs, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the "Have 5 top businesses" LTW for fortune sims.

[akatonbo]

FreeTime is my must-have now. If I had to give up every EP but one, that's what I'd keep, because I've wanted secondary aspirations pretty much ever since I started playing (plus I do like an awful lot of the hobby activities as well).

[jolrei]

I like the BV build mode stuff.  FT hobbies and activities are good.  Seasons, well, for seasons.  Pets is only good if you want pets (they're growing on me, I must admit, although none of my sims has a pet yet), and for the room dividers.  AL has ZOMGceilings! which is more important to me than I thought it would be.

All this can be yours for the Arrring!

By the way, how many of these "wut EPs are teh bestest?" threads are there now?  The OP might just read through a few of those, rather than us rehashing all this yet again.

[BastDawn]

By the way, how many of these "wut EPs are teh bestest?" threads are there now?  The OP might just read through a few of those, rather than us rehashing all this yet again.

Good point.  We only have four (other) sticky threads in the Podium at the moment; this can be #5.  Hopefully that will prevent additional threads with this topic.

[Assmitten]

Oooor people could go to the BBS where they circle jerk about this repeatedly. Come on, Dodos, we have other things to CJ about.

[Cyberdodo]

By the way, how many of these "wut EPs are teh bestest?" threads are there now?

I didn't see any, thus why I asked. Maybe I just fail at searching. Now that this one is stickied, it shouldn't be a future problem.

Oooor people could go to the BBS where they circle jerk about this repeatedly. Come on, Dodos, we have other things to CJ about.

Clearly you misunderstand. If I was seeking Fanboi Zen, the BBS would be the place to seek it. But I think my question would have upset them and disturbed their Oneness with the Fandom, by daring to suggest that any EAxis product could possibly contain bugs. 


Now if you'll excuse me, I'm busy hitting the 'Thanks' button for everyone.  "Baaa!"

[Zazazu]

But I think my question would have upset them and disturbed their Oneness with the Fandom, by daring to suggest that any EAxis product could possibly contain bugs. 

Or that any one could be inferior.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Any EP/SP including and after BV will give you SecuROM. Any EP/SP purchased through EA's downloader thing will give you SecuROM. Read stickied thread re: not getting it.

Blah:

• Uni. Repetitive to the extreme, and the benefits of a college education are minimal.
• Nightlife. I almost never add a downtown to my neighborhoods and I don't have vampires. Dates can be useful. This is a moot discussion, though, because you have both.

Meh:

• Free Time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think secondary aspirations were carried over to AL. The majority of the crafting hobbies take forever and a day to earn badges in. But it is nice to have more craftables to sell in businesses. FT also adds the option to frame sim paintings. I like the sports objects, though basketball is kind of flat without it being a contact sport, and all sports and jogging drain too much energy.
• Bon Voyage. I don't use vacations. I don't really want my sims' lives being longer, because I like playing the generation game. Beach lots are awesome, though, and I'd have bought it just for that. Also, digging is a huge exploitable loophole in the majority of community challenges.
• Kitchen & Bath. Ok, the two sets of kitchen items are nice. The bathroom stuff is mostly a recolor of existing items. The walls don't really tickle me, and one floor in particular looks like Atwa made it.

Would be quite upset if I didn't have:

• Pets. I like pets. I'm a big animal person in real life. About half my families have pets, and some breed.
• Apartment Life. I live in a city, so having apartments seems realistic to me. Some of the networking perks can be a big boon (my Apocalypse family has over $500k before the birth of gen 3 due to a few good money chance cards and everyone getting the higher salary networking perk).
• Ikea. I like cheap crap. More furniture is always great, and it's a great addition to my dorms and apartments.
• H&M. Good clothes, especially with some cc that converts them to different age groups I have. Jeans that don't look like they're packing cottage cheese.

Must-have:

• M&G. The vast majority of the objects are very well-done and the afore-mentioned game engine updates.
• Seasons. It truly changes the look and feel of your game, even if you don't ever leave the home lot. I also love gardening and fishing, both because they create a new business option, and because you can make sims self-sufficient.

[akatonbo]

Of course, the thing I always bring up in these threads is that everyone's tastes and priorities in gameplay are different. Pets is an obvious one, because it adds very little besides the actual Pets, so what people think of it tends to depend very strongly on whether they like cats and dogs. Other EPs aren't usually quite so clear-cut (I'm no big fan of weather but I like a lot of other things about Seasons because it's got a lot of features), but knowing what you like best is a good way to decide what to add next. (I'm also big on new things for Sims to do, so FT appealed to me even before I knew about secondary aspirations -- which I do think carry over to AL, yes. Incidentally, almost EVERYTHING that came with NL has been carried over by some later EP, it is pathetic.)

[rufio]

• Free Time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think secondary aspirations were carried over to AL.

They were not; that is in fact the one thing that still makes me consider arring FT.

FT also adds the option to frame sim paintings.

This, however, was carried over.[/list]

[eaglezero]

I like Seasons and Apartment Life quite a bit because I enjoy the farming and apartments (and AL also has the cool thing where you can put multiple paintings on a wall and move them up and down, which I obviously use for covering walls in ridiculous amounts of paintings). I don't often use the new thingies other than furniture added with Pets or BV, but Pets in particular had some fun furniture sets (and it is very cute to see toddler sims, who are pretty useless and boring, cuddling with a pet). As far as Freetime, I didn't think that hobbies would be all that interesting, but them and the secondary aspirations are actually fun. And whichever EPs came with new careers, I'm pretty sure my sims roll LTWs to those. Oooh, and the Education career (which came with Seasons?) is pretty awesome because it has the GOLD BOOKSHELF which has very fast skilling rates for everything.

[cwykes]

The list didn't include all the SPs.  Do you need the Christmas EPs to get christmas and new year parties?  Those are nice occasionally.   Then there's Family Fun Stuff which totally sucks in my opinion.  All the furniture & decor is dreadful.

Could we say anything about memory/disk space?  If your PC isn't that great, which EPs are really going to add to the lag?  I suspect Seasons is about the worst, but some awesome comment on that would be a great addition to the thread.

Bon Voyage is just beautiful!  It totally blew me away the first time I played the various destinations.  But, you need to keep changing lots to do it all and the load times become more and more annoying with every vacation.

[J. M. Pescado]

Bon Voyage is just beautiful!  It totally blew me away the first time I played the various destinations.  But, you need to keep changing lots to do it all and the load times become more and more annoying with every vacation.

I'd have to say BV is probably the singularly most superfluous expansion, personally. I don't think there's anything actually IN it that you can't get from a later expansion, IF you are not into the entire vacation scene, and it does tend to get old pretty fast.

[Mootilda]

I thought that you could only get beach lots with BV.

[Grugly]

Depending on how OCD you are, they could ALL be must-haves for various reasons. All the main themes aside, I tried to look at them in terms of "How will this directly effect my gameplay?" when I was pondering what to buy.
I can't part with BV because of the sheer joy of WALKING SOMEWHERE without waiting for a taxi or dealing with the tedium surrounding personal vehicles... the vacation elements leave me cold, really.
Mansion and Garden added the setquartertileplacement cheat, which is easily the most pathetic reason to want an expansion... but man, my anal retentive mind was not pleased with never really knowing if something was properly centred through snapobjectstogrid false.
FreeTime and the dual-core sims, obviously... but man was that ever borked to the point of unplayability before the swath of bug fixes Pescado released. Who in their RIGHT MIND thought the hobby bosses should call you every time you eat, watch television, or take a dump?
Apartment Life added the ability to raise or lower wall decorations IIRC, which is another tiny little nitpicky thing that either is a must-have or makes you go "Seriously? Forty bucks?" Reputation... well... I'm a sucker for anything that adds to the already horrifically cluttered UI of each Sim. The more personalized you can make a Sim, the happier I am.
Not sure which of the last bunch added the roof slope adjuster, but that's also awesome.
Another Aspiration in NL, Influence in University, hairstyle-per-outfit in Seasons... I can never have enough tiny tweaks. Witches, apartments, spontaneous combustion and creepy hobby stalkers I could have done without.
The one single thing they've gotten better at seems to be adding additional "Oh by the way" things that don't directly correlate to the main theme. Unfortunately they've also apparently decided to make beta testers of their customers... FT and AL were just unacceptable as retail products. MATYware makes them a lot more entertaining.

[jolrei]

Depending on how OCD you are, they could ALL be must-haves for various reasons. All the main themes aside, I tried to look at them in terms of "How will this directly effect my gameplay?" when I was pondering what to buy.
I can't part with BV because of the sheer joy of WALKING SOMEWHERE without waiting for a taxi or dealing with the tedium surrounding personal vehicles... the vacation elements leave me cold, really.

But "walk to lot" is available if you install any post-BV EP (FT or AL) as well.  You do not now have to have BV for that, IIRC.  Consequently, if you're not into the vacations, and don't care about the "ethnic" objects, the only real feature would be beach lots.

I got NL for the cemeteries and the vampires.
I resisted getting OFB for the longest time, and finally installed it because of some build objects.  I was not really interested in businesses at the time.  I find I quite like them now.
I'm not sure why I got Pets - room dividers, I think, which I hardly ever actually use now.

However, I find that the single most compelling reason for installing all the EPs for me has been to be able to use lots that other people have built.  It became quite frustrating to find a good house, only to realize that I did not have the EPs required to run it.

[Grugly]

But "walk to lot" is available if you install any post-BV EP (FT or AL) as well.  You do not now have to have BV for that, IIRC. 

I suspected at least one or two of those elements would end up being a feature-carried-forward. I've had all the expansions for so long that I've nearly forgotten which one does what.

[fleurcreole]

I cannot choose a single one that shines brighter than the other but I always thought Pets was meh. I find small pets adorable in real life but I bolt for the door whenever a dog, cute or otherwise approaches me. In the game, I think puppies and kittens are cute but really, if they could act more like the birds and fish I'd be much better off. Besides I've never played without the pet control cheat on. Or the cancel one.

AL is essential. Because apartments are nice. I love cars though (so nightlife is a must) and not many apt. designs allow them. I don't care much about witches though. I liked them better in Making Magic.

I have every sp/ep (and castaways...I am weak!) except that stupid holiday thing and I forget what came with which (I had been wondering about the paintings frames for a while actually). However, I don't think BV deserves so much bashing. I love going on vacation. I'm not sure why since in the end it never works out too well for me.

[J. M. Pescado]

AL is essential. Because apartments are nice. I love cars though (so nightlife is a must) and not many apt. designs allow them. I don't care much about witches though. I liked them better in Making Magic.

Cars are now entirely superfluous post-AL (even if you don't have AL, just MGS), because you can now walk to any lot which is faster than the entire "car pileup".

[Marhis]

Cars are now entirely superfluous post-AL (even if you don't have AL, just MGS), because you can now walk to any lot which is faster than the entire "car pileup".

Wasn't BV which added walk to?

Also, Pes, you unromantic you; they can't woohoo just walking around. Sheesh, priorities, people!

[Kyna]

Cars are now entirely superfluous post-AL (even if you don't have AL, just MGS), because you can now walk to any lot which is faster than the entire "car pileup".

Wasn't BV which added walk to?

BV added walk to comm lot.  AL added walk to work/school.

[jolrei]

BV added walk to comm lot.  AL added walk to work/school.

These are essential in my game, certainly.  Nobody leaves for school until they are finished that skill point/robot/potholder/other thing they're working on.  Miss the bus?  Too flippin' bad.

[Grugly]

I feel like Pets is probably the least important expansion... which is funny, because Unleashed's little neighbourhood renovation made it one of the only expansions the original game sported that didn't seem like a worthless skin and object pack. I absolutely loved watching my first cat in Pets... and within a few days, I was having my Sims pawn their animals off on the adoption agency because they just had no lasting appeal. I still like having the options there, but considering how little the expansion added beyond the aminals it's probably pulling the least weight of the bunch.

[J. M. Pescado]

Which is funny, because the AI of the Pets is FAR superior to the AI of the sims. For instance, pets never accidentally pee on your floor! If a pet pees on the floor, it's doing so as a deliberate act of code, and not because the AI was too incompetent to prevent it. Once a pet is trained NOT to do so, it will never do so unless you do something crazy like locking it in with no way out. The same cannot be said for sims!