@elulu8 I haven't heard any official news on Sims 5 but I think we'll still have a couple more years at least to go with Sims 4. I'm just guessing on that of course. The sale prices are hard to predict. The most recent sales had Expansion packs at 50% off and Game packs at 25% off. Those have expired but sales like this have been quite frequent lately & I would not be surprised to see another one start soon. The current sale has the Dine Out and Parenthood packs at 50% off.
As for which packs to get, that all depends on how you want to play your game. My first two packs were City Living and Get Together because I wanted more worlds and many lots to build on. I also wanted variety, city life vs country living, urban vs rural, etc., but that's just me. You should research each pack and watch the trailers on Origin to see which ones appeal to you the most. Personally, I love City Living and the Spice Market in San Myshuno is still my favorite neighborhood to live in with all the food vendors, buskers, luchadors and raccoon weirdos (EA's name for them, not mine), protesters, people shooting hoops at the basketball court, there is always something going on there! Some players don't like the noisy neighbors from living in an apartment and that's fine too. For me it just adds to the challenge, like having to get up at 7 am to get ready for work and your neighbor across the hall decides to party till 1 am! xD
Seasons is an awesome pack and it's still my favorite. It does not come with a world (which is why I added it later) but it pretty much multiplies all of the worlds you do have. For example, Willow Creek in the summer feels completely different than Willow Creek in the middle of winter. The seasons change gradually so early spring feels different than late spring. Heck even the days feel different from one to the next-- one day might be sunny and warm and the next cloudy and rainy. I love listening to the rain and wind and blizzards in the winter. Many of the worlds are totally gorgeous in the fall and winter. You also get holidays with Seasons-- four main holidays and lots of random funny holidays like "Talk Like A Pirate Day". You can customize any of the holidays, so if you'd rather have a Sims version of Christmas in your game instead of Winterfest then you can do it. If you prefer to create a Sims version of Kwanzaa or Hanukkah you can do that as well. In my game I created a Sims version of 4th of July called "Simsdependence Day" with fireworks and bbq's. Seasons adds things like ice skating, snowball fights, and building a snowman in the winter or roller skating and water balloon fights in the summer. In my opinion, EA really did an awesome job with this pack.
There are many other great choices and really it's all up to personal preference. I don't think there are any wrong choices here.
I'm just a regular Sims player, I do not work for EA, Sony, or Microsoft.
@elulu8 Yes, you can have pets in an apartment no problem. I'm partial to cats so many of my apartment Sims own cats. Cats seem easier to me because they can use a litter box. Dogs are a bit trickier because they need to go outside to go potty (or they'll use a balcony, yuck). You might have to take them on walks for this but it can be done. Also, I'm not sure if neighbors will complain about a dog barking. I'll have to test this sometime. I've never had a neighbor complain about a cat.
So for Vet Clinics, almost all of the residential lots in San Myshuno are apartments and they will not work for this. There is one regular residential lot, the Old Salt House, that should work fine, though it's a bit on the pricey side.
The Old Salt House
I really like the sound of city living and I love that it adds a new world. I also don't think that I will get sims 5 right when it comes out and will wait for a sale or even the anniversary. Ive heard that its coming out in 2021
@elulu8, if you think you will prefer City Living then get City Living! I really love this pack and use the clothing, hair, and Build/Buy mode items from it all the time, and still regularly attended the festivals!
A wonderful festival for your starter Sims (especially if you don't like playing with money cheats) is the Humor and Hijinks festival! That festival has you choose if you want to be on the Humor (comedy) or Hijinks (mischief) side and then you drink the corresponding drink for which side you choose. Once you do that , preform either humorous or mischievous actions and if the side you joined wins the contest with the most interactions in their respective categories, then you get a bunch of expensive items as a reward. Both sides will gift you a bunch of fireworks if you win (which if you are poor, you can sell off for a nice amount of Simoleons) and the Humor group's winning gift is a stand-up comedy microphone (I think worth 500 Simoleons) and the Hijinks group's winning gift is a voodoo doll which I think is worth 900 Simoleons! It is a nice way to have families starting off with low funds , quickly get a little cushion to their bank accounts without you having to resort to money cheats! 😇
As for the rumor that TS5 is coming out in 2021, I wouldn't hold my breath! 🤨 There is nothing official that there will even be a TS5 (although I think there will be and I think they probably have started working on it). Like I said earlier, about a year and a half ago, a Sim Guru stated that there will be at least 3 more years of content coming to TS4. That would mean that we have at least 1 and a half years left of TS4, and then add the fact that each time EA has released the last pack of a Sims version, it is about 6 months between that and the new version. 🤨 So that would put us at June of 2022 at the earliest !🙂 Then add to the fact that TS4 might go on a bit longer than even that , plus the fact that certain things going on in the world right now have slowed down some companies rates of production. But even without that it still shouldn't be any earlier than June of 2022. I don't work for EA, but combining patterns from past release intervals, with logic, and with what the Sim Gurus have actually said, this is the earliest I can see TS5 being released. 😉 I would rather wait for a better game anyway than rush one that doesn't work. And while it is possible that TS5 could be relased by 2021, it wouldn't be until very late 2021, and that is still very unlikely. 😉
The good news for you is that you will have longer than you expected to enjoy TS4! 🙌 As for City Living, I always love when my Sims learn to appreciate spicy foods (because I love spicy foods) and learn to master chopsticks (because I am lousy at chopsticks unless it is to handle large pieces of vegetables or meat. 😃 I just can't seem to get the hang of eating chopsticks with rice 😳🤭 … but then again I usually prefer to eat my rice with a spoon so I can get every last grain! 🙌).
Hopefully later you can get Seasons and Get to Work! And I agree with @xJaimerTheGamerx that the Parenthood Game Pack is excellent for people who love to play with families in the game! 🥳 It makes your Sim families feel more like an actual family and not just a collection of different aged Sims living together! ❤️
Please update us on which you end up getting, as well as your thoughts on it! 😇
Here are a few parting pictures from City Living:
Hi @elulu8 - good questions. 🙃
To answer your most recent questions, there are a few lots in San Myuchino that are not designated as apartments and you could replace the default lot with a vet clinic if you want to. And in one of my households, I have a sim with two big dogs and who is a vet with her own clinic in Brindleton, so I can vouch that it’s also really easy to live in San Myuchino and travel to a vet clinic in a different neighborhood as well. And yes pets are definitely allowed in apartments!
Right now there seems to be a bug (in my game at least) that is preventing dogs from being able to autonomously use elevators to relieve themselves outdoors, but that hasn’t always been the case, so presumably it’s temporary - and I’m not even sure if everyone is experiencing that same bug. (I just use the whistle icon to call them to me while I’m outside the apartment and then ask them to do their business, so the workaround is pretty easy cheesy if you do find that you have it. The dogs will go back inside on their own when they’re done so you don’t have to go through the hassle of putting them on a leash.)
Regarding Sims 5, I’ve heard unofficial rumors that the base game might be released later this year to coincide with the Sims 20th anniversary but it seems pretty late in the year for that to still be unofficial. In any case I think your should be able to get a lot out of Sims 4 even once the Sims 5 base game does come out. Ive actually been playing since the original Sims was released my freshman year of college, and one thing I remember about the transition from one Sims version to the next is that the base game always seems to lack a lot of the functionality I’m accustomed to enjoying when it’s first released but before there’s much additional content available, so I would alternate between the previous version and the newest for a while.
All three of the expansion packs you’re considering are excellent choices. City living expands gameplay thru the rent feature and includes more active shared community spaces in addition to the various festivals throughout the week that are a lot of fun and can be enjoyed by households that live in every neighborhood. I really enjoy the periodic ‘seasonal’ variation to gameplay that Seasons adds, in addition to the ability to enjoy all of the different holidays (plus it includes a calendar function so you can customize and modify the holidays exist in your game). And get to work has the three active careers, all of which are fun, and allow you to follow and actively play your Sim at their workspace. I think the scientist career in particular has a lot to offer (bonus: it made me laugh a lot, the first time through). Those are just highlights from my perspective, to add to the awesomely detailed feedback you already got from @RandomBuzziness. Honestly, I think you should get all three!
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Note on edit: revised a couple of the more egregious voice to text translation errors I missed initially. 🙄
