Sims 4 Expansions, are they worth the money anymore?
It seems increasingly more obvious how little effort is going into the new Sims 4 and the accompanying Expansions. The Sims 3 Expansions gave you a lot of stuff, loads of different interactions with people, objects, careers etc. Now it seems like you pay almost the amount of the base game every time you purchase an Expansion and you're left wishing there was more to it.
The Sims 4 base game is basically already a stripped down, cartoony version of Sims 3. You can't travel the map in vehicles, your Careers are pretty plain and after hours of gameplay you're bored of sitting and watching your sims develop their skills. Even though the base game is boring, the expansions don't amplify that base game much at all. It might seem like they do because the base game is so bland that any addition becomes exciting to begin with. But with a closer look at these Sims 4 Expansions, a good knowledge of the expanse of stuff that we got with Sims 3, the Expansions aren't giving us what we are paying for anymore.
The final straw for me is the newest University Expansion for Sims 4. I used to religiously play Sims 3 University because you literally moved away to become a full time student. You got to attend lectures, do projects based on your chosen course and enjoy a pretty exciting campus, with bowling alleys and food places on campus.
In Sims 4 University, you get close to nothing for the near £40 you spend on it, and don't expect a refund from EA. No sir, you fell into the trap, deal with the lack of money and gameplay on your own.
I could only stand playing this new expansion for a couple of hours. I applied for university that I got rejected for because of course a new Young Adult sim doesn't have high enough skills on their first day of existence to match up to the weirdly realistic standards of the Sims 4 universities, of which you are given the option of two for seemingly no reason? So you apply for a scholarship, get in, move into your new dorm. Oh boy! The bit everyone loves, creating your own space, a place your young sim can express themselves and decorate to match their cool university aesthetic ... oh wait.... no sorry you're not allowed to enter build mode in dorms. Despite being provided with a poor single bed, a desk and a shared room with another sim, NO KITCHEN and a poorly designed bathroom, you cant enter build mode to edit that building unless you enter cheats which we all know can make your computers or games freak out and crash. What can you add in the dorm? Well if you go to the little stall outside of your dorm building, you can buy some university stuff, which includes:
-A small fridge which you can only have quick meals from because there's no kitchen.
-A microwave, where you gonna put it? Dunno there's no kitchen.
-Some bland posters, university flags and boring rugs.
-Cacti and plant pots to put on your desk.
-Books for your course.
-Guitar and an easel.
You place these items in Live Mode, so make sure you're facing the right way when you place them because there's again, no way of going into build mode without cheats that didn't work when i tried.
So what DO you get with Sims 4 University? Well they brought bicycles back. There isn't much point to them because you still need to travel to lots via load screen, but you can cycle around campus for a bit if you feel like it. You can go to class but it's the same as careers, you just wait for the sim to come back as you stare at the outer walls of a building. You're given insane amounts of homework for your modules that you cant even complete 1/2 of in a day. Theres a couple of student bars, on the older campus the bar is a really big punch in the face from Origin and EA to players who have been in it for the long run. You're provided with a beer pong table, a bar and some of the most unimaginative building layouts in the history of The Sims. The libraries are just normal libraries with computers dedicated to research work as well as regular computers.
For an expansion that boasted "decorating dorms to suit your sims personalities" and preparing your sims for a better life or better job, they sure have given us the bare minimum of an Expansion for £40. Real Universities are more exciting than this expansion pack and I loathe my university.
The Expansions used to be game changing, they used to alter the worlds your sims lived in forever. Pets gave us multiple kinds of pets, not just cats and dogs and then small animals for an extra £10. Seasons gave you town park events where you didn't have to buy a "spooky stuff" expansion just to carve pumpkins and get more costumes.
At this point I won't be surprised if they tried to release a "My First Dorm" Stuff Pack just to rake in more money.
I would say the best Expansions so far have been the Get To Work, City Living and at a push Get Together Expansions.
I would also urge players who have somehow avoided the trickery of Expansions to put that money into Game Packs. Game Packs have given me the more interesting additions to the game imo. Camping is fun, parenthood is what i actually expect from an expansion, it changes the way you interact with your sims kids and affects them based on your actions. Strangerville is fun once and then you basically never use it again, don't recommend.
I can see some stuff packs being good but my point still stands that there doesn't need to be a "My First Pets" Stuff Pack when you have an entire Expansion based on pets that in the Sims 3 were one combined thing. Same goes for Spooky Stuff and Seasons and Kids Room Stuff and Toddler Stuff. They could be combined into an expansion.
It just bums me out that such a well loved game has stooped so low to try scam young and loyal players into overpaying for next to no content or for content split into separate packs that together cost near to hundreds of pounds. AND THEN THEY HAVE THE CHEEK TO REFUSE REFUNDS.
Whats your guy's opinions on it? Are expansions worse? Are they worth almost the same amount of money as the base game?
