Which EP next?

[Count Four]

I've got Night Life and Open For Business so far, and I'm all primed to get another EP. After some of the stuff I've read, I've got some reservations about Pets, but--

Which EP should I get next?
Opinions, advice and EP-specific ranting are requested.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've got Night Life and Open For Business so far, and I'm all primed to get another EP. After some of the stuff I've read, I've got some reservations about Pets, but--

Which EP should I get next?
Opinions, advice and EP-specific ranting are requested.

Pets adds basically nothing of real importance unless you actually really want the pets themselves. OFBp2 is still regarded as the most stable engine, so it's either Seasons or nothing.

[flowerchile]

I'd go Seasons myself if I had to make a choice.  Pets is like another Stuff Pack as far as I'm concerned as I mainly bought it for the new shinys and I haven't spent that much time actually adding pets to the families in my hood.  But with Seasons, all the extras just happen and seeing as how I am lazy?  I like it 

And Pets borkened my Hood 

[Gwill]

Uni is boring to play, but the effects of it is great.
Pets is a waste of time unless you're really into small furry critters.  It brings nothing to gameplay aside from the actual pets.
I'd go for seasons.

[mildlydisguised]

I really disliked Pets and uninstalled it.  Uni is has good objects but it doesn't seem to integrate with the main hood well.  Therefore I would add Seasons too.

[J. M. Pescado]

Uni is boring to play, but the effects of it is great.

Having 6/2 is really a HUGE improvement over 4/1, especially with the added want spam from expansions.

Pets is a waste of time unless you're really into small furry critters.  It brings nothing to gameplay aside from the actual pets.

Well, it added werewolves, but yeah.

I'd go for seasons.

Basically. Of course, why limit yourself to one expansion?

[fff]

Go for Seasons - lots of cool stuff and new ways to kill Sims - what's not to love?

Pets is okay, I guess, I didn't find it all that exciting, the pets themselves are cute for about the first ten minutes, then they're just a pain in the ass. Like Gwill said, Uni sucks to play, but all the stuff it brings into the game is good. Except for the whole Influence concept, which I hate with the fire of a thousand burning suns. But maybe that's just me.

 

[J. M. Pescado]

I think the Influence thing may be engineary, and exists as an artifact of the engine, not Uni specifically, so any post-Uni engine would have it. Of course, it's entirely ignoreable, since you never have to use it, and frankly, it practically never works.

[Gus Smedstad]

I thought influence was a great idea in concept, until with time I discovered that I almost never wanted to use it.  The problem is that except for Cook, Clean, Repair, and Write My Term Paper, it's all socials.  I don't care about socials, I can initiate those myself.  Cook would be OK if the target didn't make stupid useless stuff like a plate of sodas, despite having cooking-10.  OK, granted, Write My Term Paper is useful for sims who never roll the "write term paper" want themselves.

What I really want for influence is non-social stuff.  A generalized interface where you can issue a single command as if the sim were playable would be ideal.  Prior to the "call to dinner" action, "Influence | Eat" would have been useful, for example.

I've been debating buying Seasons myself.  I just started playing again, and I'm not sure how fast I'll get bored this time.  I'm having a hard time seeing how weather and new jobs will stave that off, though I suspect I'll appreciate the variety if I'm going to be playing anyway.  I keep thinking, "do I really want to buy this just so I can store leftovers?"

 - Gus

[floopyboo]

No, you really want to buy this so you can smite the shit out of sims that annoy you. With the help of the batbox, of course.

[Emma]

I love Nightlife and Seasons. I have all the EXP packs (and a couple of stuffits) but those are the ones I would choose if I could only have 2. If I could only have 1 then it would be Seasons.

[Kyna]

As floopyboo mentioned, there's the awesomeness that is smite.


Personally, I find once my sims have maxed out skills, got all the crafting station badges, and given birth to their spawn ... that they fast become boring.  Nothing to do except sit on the couch and yawn while power idling.  That yawning drives me nuts.

Seasons has added a lot of interest to the game for me.  Firstly, it gives my sims something to do (without the loading times of going to a business or on an outing/date).  Fishing can be done 3 out of the 4 seasons, and keeps my maxed-out sims occupied for most of the year.  There's the fruit and veg patches as well.  I'm putting in decorative gardens so that sims can get into the gardening club - prior to Seasons the last garden I put in was before Uni came out.

It seems that sims catch cold more often now, and there's lightning, overheating and freezing to worry about, so maybe I'll even see my first accidental death.  Freezing nearly got Darren Dreamer the other day.  He was doing yoga by the letter box in winter, froze, and fell face down into the snow.  Dirk was already off at uni, so there was nobody to rescue him.  Darren survived the experience, but for a few minutes I was excited at the thought that I was finally going to have a genuine accidental death ...

Seasons has revived my interest in the sims, and it's not just about storing leftovers.  I don't use the "store leftovers" feature anyway.  I stick a couple of platters in a sim's inventory and let macrotastics deal with feeding my sims.

Seasons is definitely worth buying.  Or acquiring.

[Gus Smedstad]

Smiting?  Batbox?  I guess I missed any kind of comprehensive review here, and the "professional" reviews didn't mention it.

 - Gus

[syberspunk]

I'm jumpin on the Seasons recommending bandwagon.  Really, as it's been said before, Seasons is pretty much what the original game should have been in the first place.  And it only took them, oh... what?  About 3 years to actually get that far?

Anyhew, I actually like the influence system, including the social aspects.  But only because I am easily amused at the tomfoolery that occurs in the Sims.   I think it's kinda funny to play cupid with random townies and try to influence them to flirt and socialize with other sims.  Then, with twojeffs ACR, you can actually have townies that will autonomously flirt, kiss, and even woohoo with each other!  You know... almost like real life.

Ste

[Kyna]

Smiting?  Batbox?  I guess I missed any kind of comprehensive review here, and the "professional" reviews didn't mention it.

 - Gus

Smite is a feature of Pescado's lot debugger (the batbox).  You can use smite to strike a sim with a bolt of lightning.

[purplehaze]

I actually found a use for influence yesterday. I have a good female breeder, and I wanted her to breed with a married Sim from another lot. Their relationship was around 100/85, but he continually rebuffed her flirts. I didn't want to mess with the love potion, so I had her toddler influence him to flirt with her. Hearts flew and now a baby is on the way.

[phyllis_p]

I'd definitely take Seasons over Pets.

Re: influence -- since Seasons I often end up having "gardening parties" at my more heavily landscaped lots during the fall.  The day after the gardener comes, I invite a bunch of people over and influence them to garden so they can do the things the gardener didn't get to because s/he was so busy raking leaves.

[Sagana]

I've been debating buying Seasons myself.

You want it I say the same things over and over but it's really odd to me how hard it is to say why everyone wants Seasons, but... they did a decent job with implementation. There's bugs, but not a lot of them so it doesn't tend to be horribly frustrating in any way and it just adds the right things to make the sims feel like they have lives - time marches on, the weather is neat and exciting (yeah going to look at it gets tiresome, nuke that), there's a lot of different fun interactions/stuff to do - the farming biggie to keep it interesting long-term (especially in combination with OFB) and the little stuff (snowmen, iceskating, marco polo, leaves etc.) that rotates so it doesn't get old so fast. If all there was was winter, it'd get boring very soon, but I think it stays interesting because sometimes it's summer or whatever.

Anyway, people generally sort of agree on the EPs - Uni sucks, NL is good, OFB is a love/hate relationship (I'm on the love it side), Pets is 'eh, but I've not seen one with as much agreement as Seasons. I've seen very very few people say they uninstalled it or they hated it. That's a pretty good recommendation

[Zazazu]

I actually found a use for influence yesterday. I have a good female breeder, and I wanted her to breed with a married Sim from another lot. Their relationship was around 100/85, but he continually rebuffed her flirts. I didn't want to mess with the love potion, so I had her toddler influence him to flirt with her. Hearts flew and now a baby is on the way.

That's hilarious. "I wanna brother! Kiss my mommy!"

If you can only do one, Seasons is a must-have. It completely changes the game. By switching seasons around, you can make neighborhoods that truly seem different from one another, plus the Oversoul approves of all the new deaths from above.

Pets is fun, so don't knock it, but it's only slightly better than Uni. It does necessitate changes in lot setup. Hiding the garbage can is a must (in a small 1x1 C-shaped alcove or behind a door locked against pets). Most of my neighborhoods have had a high number of filthy strays who love to dig, but somehow my current one hasn't had a digger in five generations of play. I have a beef against collars...they never look right on a pet that doesn't have a pencil-thin neck.

[sewinglady]

I guess I'm the oddball that actually likes Uni.

I like that they come away as graduates that have made more friends, etc.

I hardly ever use the influence feature tho.

And while I would be hard pressed to pick between Uni and Seasons, I can honestly say that unless you are just gaga over fur-bearin' critters that you should just skip Pets.  I was unimpressed.

[syberspunk]

I guess I'm the oddball that actually likes Uni.

You're not the only oddball.  I've always constantly said that I actually like Uni.  In fact, the majority of my playtime, especially lately, has been in Uni.  But that's because the majority of my CAS made sims are based on people I know IRL, but since, for many of them, I don't know their entire history or their family, I have to make them start off as individuals.

Anyhew, the benefits are definitely worth it i.e. the extra want slots and lock.  Not to mention the Uni related LTWs and Uni careers, which I have hacks for.

I like that they come away as graduates that have made more friends, etc.

Me too.  I use Uni as the time sims spend to build life long friends, skills, and find potential mates.

I hardly ever use the influence feature tho.

I don't use it too frequently... but usually based on their wants really.  Especially when it comes to influencing others to write papers, do homework, or clean up.  After all... the dormies should clean after their own stupid pee and shower puddles, no? lol.

And while I would be hard pressed to pick between Uni and Seasons, I can honestly say that unless you are just gaga over fur-bearin' critters that you should just skip Pets.  I was unimpressed.

While I don't hate Pets, I wouldn't say it's tough choice between Uni and Seasons.  Personally, I think it's a no brainer.  Seasons hands down, for me, wins as the best EP so far.  Especially if you only had the base game and had to go with one EP at the moment.  Seasons would give you the 'best' engine upgrade, with a lot of variety of things to do.

If I had to rank EPs at this point, then my list would be (in order of preference):

Seasons
Nightlife
University
Pets
Open for Business

And it's not that I hate OFB, I just don't particularly have any use for it atm.  Aside from adding the inventory, there isn't much else that I find useful from OFB, thus far.  And I would imagine that, if you got an SP or EP higher/later than OFB, the Inventory is included as part of the engine upgrade anyways.

Pets gets an ever so slight edge over OFB, only because I had a dog, and I miss my dog, and my dog can continue to live on, so to speak, at least virtually.  Plus... Werewolves are cool.  Servos would have been cool too, if they weren't like totally borked and totally not like the Servo from the original Sims 1 games.

University is good due to the aforementioned reasons above.

Nightlife gets an edge because of the chemistry, dates, and cars.  Dates are a quick and easy way to get a sim's aspiration skyrocketing back up to platinum in no time.  The chemistry system isn't amazing in and of itself, but when combined with the romancemod and ACR, it's useful.  Cars are neat because you don't have to call up for taxis and wait for them to load up, and plus, Car woohoo amuses me.

I don't really have anything else to say about Seasons that hasn't already been said by other peeps.

Ste

[Count Four]

Seasons it is, then. Thanks for the input.

I do like the idea of more death risks. It's pretty tame as is. Probably the first thing I'll do is smite Goopy or something. And more things to do without having to drag over to a community lot sounds good.

Everything I've read about Pets has sounded discouraging. I want resurrection, though. I'll probably get Uni next time my budget allows me new toys. This month it's an EP and a new DVD player to replace the one that died. But I skipped Uni before and went straight to Night Life, because I kind of suspected what everybody says, that playing sims through college is boring. 

So I'm off to spend some money. And then come home and check that my hacks are compatible.


And, ya know...I don't think I've ever used influence at all.  I always forget it's even there. Maybe because the idea doesn't impress me. *shrug* If it doesn't work anyway, I haven't missed anything, have I?

[Orikes]

I can't imagine playing the game without Uni. I'm one of those rare birds that actually enjoys playing through university. It's a little too long, but for the most part, I enjoy that stage of a sim's life. It gives me a chance to let the sims show me who they really are. Once they get back to the main hood, it's usually time for family and children, so Uni gives them a chance to sow their wild oats, so to speak. (And with ACR in the game, man do they sow those oats. Constantly. With anything that moves.)

Still, if you don't think you'd enjoy the Uni aspects of playing, then Seasons is probably your best bet. It adds the most for the general game. Pets is okay, but if you're not going to actually have pets in your households, it's not worth it.

But everyone probably already said most of this, didn't they?

[Ambular]

I've got all the EP's, and frankly I wouldn't really want to have to do without any of them.  Each one added at least a few worthwhile features, whether it be new objects, clothes or hair, wallpaper or floors, new interactions, neighborhoods, build mode features, or something else.  And installing any of them at this late date, you get the benefits of all the patches and hack fixes that have been released, so you won't have to cope with many of the annoyances that early adopters did.  So despite the bugginess, I wouldn't rule out Pets if you actually, y'know, like pets.  XD

In terms of how much actual impact they have on play, though, I'd say OFB and Uni are the most dispensible for me (if I'm not mistaken, most basic interface features like the inventory, extra want slots and influence and so on, are incorporated into later EP's--am I wrong, guys?)  If you're not really interested in college or in running businesses, you can easily ignore the central theme of the entire EP.  Cars, pets and weather are all such basic parts of life that I'd be loathe to give any of them them up at this point, though.  And who wants their Sims to live dreary lives devoid of vampires?  XD

Something I don't think anybody has mentioned, but that deserves consideration if you like to build or download houses, is build mode features.  The last few EP's have added things like split-level foundations, half-height walls, rotational floor tiles, round roofs, mass demolition, and curved pool walls (I'm sorry, I can't remember offhand exactly which features come with which EP; hopefully someone else will.)  Not sure how much those are carried over from one EP to the next, either--anybody know?

[Emma]

I love (some) of the new build mode features, and I still want my build mode stuffit pack!