Building apartments

I'm afraid that building your own apartments is not a feature of this pack (I'd have liked to build midrises and rowhouses, personally). You can customize the interior of any apartment, but not the exterior or public areas. When you have an apartment lot loaded, you do have access to the central neighbourhood area (outdoors) and to any festivals happening there without a loading screen. You can encourage Sims who live in the building to gather in your Sim's apartment (whenever they want) by befriending them and giving them a housekey. You could also use Get Together's Club feature to create clubs of building residents that could gather on another lot or in a resident's home.

Drats. I was hoping I could make a "fancy" apartment complex like the ones they are building in the real world now a days that have the basic amenities like a gym, club house, pool, park, etc.

"pkboo;15620722" wrote:
Drats. I was hoping I could make a "fancy" apartment complex like the ones they are building in the real world now a days that have the basic amenities like a gym, club house, pool, park, etc.

You aren't alone. Apartments in this game are pretty superficial, and at the end of the day they're nothing more than separate lots surrounded by decoration. There's no specialized, or unique gameplay that's came from the way they were built.

I would have preferred multi-household apartment complexes that could be created from scratch in any world, but Maxis apparently didn't see any appeal or value to that kind of versatility. Probably why their game suffers from so many complaints.

hopefully if enough people complain they will eventually do a patch for it like they did for toddlers

"pkboo;15621943" wrote:
hopefully if enough people complain they will eventually do a patch for it like they did for toddlers

I think the fundamental nature of how they did apartments means that that wouldn't happen: the apartment shell is basically neighbourhood terrain. (It just doesn't say "terrain" when we look at it.) The alternative would have probably been either breaking all our existing households (when now multiple households could live on a lot - I'm not sure how this works, but a SimGuru statement in the Simulation Tech thread indicated that it would be a consequence) or having only one household per apartment building again like in Sims 3. Sims 2 had a whole different tech setup that someone explained for apartments which were also limited; I believe that's also in the Simulation Tech thread. (I love that thread.) So pretty much, they had to pick one limitation or another. I doubt anyone is 100% happy with the result - most of us are ultimately #TeamAllTheThings.

@pkboo it wasn't complain that's the reason for why they added toddler, they had been working on it since it came out but they couldn't/wouldn't release it with the game when sims 4 came out. So I have no faith in complaining about the apartments will result in anything unless they release it in another gaming pack with the technique needed for it

"pkboo;15621943" wrote:
hopefully if enough people complain they will eventually do a patch for it like they did for toddlers

Doubtful. They worked pretty hard to downplay criticism against them. So far no feature from a DLC has been expanded in a free patch, so I doubt that apartments will ever be expanded in that way. Could I see them charging players a second time for apartments? Yeah, yeah I can.

Yeah, I hate the limitation and I avoid CL because it is too limiting as far as layout and building. Sad that a modern game can't best a feature put out by older iterations Imho. The traits for a building to me is an distraction to keep most from seeing the limitation and the traits are limited to the city and can't be used in other neighborhoods so you must move your family to the city to get such features.

"pkboo;15620722" wrote:
Drats. I was hoping I could make a "fancy" apartment complex like the ones they are building in the real world now a days that have the basic amenities like a gym, club house, pool, park, etc.

For that you need Sims2.

"SylvanGlad3;15626035" wrote:

"Goldmoldar;15625296" wrote:
Yeah, I hate the limitation and I avoid CL because it is too limiting as far as layout and building. Sad that a modern game can't best a feature put out by older iterations Imho. The traits for a building to me is an distraction to keep most from seeing the limitation and the traits are limited to the city and can't be used in other neighborhoods so you must move your family to the city to get such features.

You can add traits to lots outside the city, though.

I stand corrected on the trait part and it is nice but to me the game is still limited when it comes to building apts outside of CL or using any tools to edit the neighborhoods or lots sizes and where you want to put them.