Charitable Giving / Community Venues Pack Idea
As many of us know who've been playing the same family / legacy for a long time, building up vast amounts of money over time eventually becomes a problem. What will we do with it all? And the best-known lore families are also wealthy (Landgraabs, Goths, etc.). Therefore, I'd like to suggest a new idea of how to utilize later-game wealth: the Charitable Giving Game Pack!
This would work in a similar way to how recent expansion packs (Businesses and Hobbies, Adventure Awaits, etc.) have used the menu UI to provide various options. Here, a wealthy Sim / family could select a non-owned venue of a particular lot type (museum, library, park, national park, university commons, high school, arts center, community space, recreation center, or cemetery) and choose from the menu to donate money to the venue or endow the venue. This would allow for a selection of set amounts to be donated, each of which would correspond to a particular effect (the results being cumulative over time, regardless of which Sim / family donates). Once a certain threshold is met, the venue will be automatically 'upgraded' with fancier furnishings, new artwork or activity objects, better-trained staff, or even a building expansion. The venue's name will also be automatically changed to enter the name of the donating Sim / family (for example, "The Landgraab Celebration Center") to reflect their donation. Finally, in a similar manner to how environmental effects are handled in Eco Lifestyle, the venue's overall appearance would improve after the donation. The option to opt in/opt out of having various lot types be subject to these rules could be implemented in the gameplay menu options.
To make things interesting and motivating, non-owned venues of the determined lot types could also 'decay' over time, with furnishings disappearing, fewer employed Sims, and worse visual condition (again, similar to Eco Lifestyle). This would make it important for wealth Sims to support all the venues. Chance cards could introduce a fundraising opportunity when a community institution has fallen on hard times. Unscrupulous Sims could use the opportunity to just buy up the venue and demolish it, instead of saving it. This could also introduce the idea of everything being privately owned versus publicly owned.
To provide still more variety, non-visible institutions could also be included. For example, the power company has run into financial problems and is for sale. Will your Sim buy it up to jack up everyone's prices (giving you a weekly stipend, similar to an investment's interest), or will your Sim endow it with money to become a community-benefit utility that gives everyone electricity for free? Relationship and conversation options could result from these choices.
Integrations with other packs could be included as well. For example, the Charity Organizer Branch of the Politician career from City Living could now be integrated into this Game Pack's gameplay, with donations being linked to venues or causes. Likewise, the regular Politician branch could also be integrated into this. There could be options for other civic-minded careers, like Conservationist and Civil Designer, to have related communication and cause-related effects as well. Finally, the celebrity charitable party from Get Famous could be linked to this as well. New aspirations could build on trying to give away a certain amount of money or to support a certain number of causes, with both good and evil intentions linked. This could be handled similarly to the reputation systems in Businesses and Hobbies and Get Famous, or even cross-linked with them. Finally, children could get started on the charitable path early by having lemonade stand sales or cookie sales that will give them developmental boosts (integrating into Parenthood and Growing Together functionalities).
I've envisioned this as a Game Pack because the amount of new BB objects would be limited. Perhaps a new world could be included, similarly to how My Wedding Stories included one, but it wouldn't be essential. However, if a new world were included, it could focus on an old downtown that needs to be saved, with community and cultural venues that have fallen on hard times. This could, for example, be a way to introduce a new lot type (theatre, concert venue, etc.), and could allow an entire neighborhood to receive cosmetic changes over time, like how Eco Lifestyle handled with its neighborhoods. If this amount of work exceeds the scope of a Game Pack, it could be an Expansion Pack instead. But the key things here are gameplay, rather than BB and CAS.
To conclude, this pack could be summed up and sold as a way for Sims to leave a legacy in the world. Lots of Sims have built businesses, established vast families, and gone on adventures. But who has left a legacy for the rest of the Sim world to care about? Who has really made a big impact that benefits everyone? Enabling this style of play could bring end-game meaning to elders (who are figuring out how to bequeath the riches they've spent a lifetime gathering), focus gameplay on wealthy families (who are acting for good or evil), and make give a boost to the various reputational systems that already exist in the game. It would also breathe new life into community venues that, for the most part, don't change over time and are the least-interesting lots in the game, particularly after a Sim has gotten established. Let's bring fun and meaning back to the museums and libraries! Let's make our Sim family names live on forever! Let's give it all away!
