Discover University - Early Access - My first honest impressions

Gameplay

I have not had the chance to play for very long until now so this is just scratching the surface.

University enrollement

I love that you can get rejected and that you can't get into the distinguished degrees easily. I was afraid it would be just like Realm of Magic where you simply travel through the portal and ask a sage to become a spellcaster and that's it, done deal!

https://i.imgur.com/OGpIn8G.png
(I wish no every sim would get this moodlet though. It could be for ambitious sims only for example)

What I don't love is that you can't apply to a specific course or university directly, the application is a general one.

Once you get accepted I don't know how you get out of it :D
I wanted one of my sims to study computer science in Foxbury and thought that by having level 3 of programming and videogames it should be fine, but it wasn't. That's totally fine, I like a challenge. The problem is that I then was forced to enroll her in another course because I couldn't unapply or cancel. I did so hoping that once she would be enrolled in a different degree I could make her drop out or decide to stop her studies. But I don't know how to do it and now she is stuck. I feel so silly, maybe there is a very easy/obvious way to do it but I can't find it.

The UI for university looks messy and is not very intuitive, I wish they would have added it to the Seasons' calendar for Seasons owners and that they would have maybe made a simplified version of said calendar for the people that don't own Seasons.

https://i.imgur.com/JCtv78w.png

I have not had the change yet to advance much on any degree so I really can't comment on how this is unfortunately. It feels fuller and more fun than the livestream conveyed, that's for sure.
You get homework an dneed to write papers, you also get special objects depending on your degree. You can choose how many classes you take per semester if you wish to make your stay longer you just need to take less classes. I wish we would have 3 lengh settings to choose from though like we do with seasons.



BIKES

https://i.imgur.com/BlCyi0I.jpg
really pretty surroundings, but it's all fx...

Now, this is a sore spot for me.
In my opinion, bikes should not have been a part of this EP. Why did they decided to add bikes to the game via a university pack? I really don't understand it. You shouldn't add bikes to the game for Teens+ only, it is just not right. Bikes should have come in a pack about family life or hobbies for example. Parents would teach kids to ride a bike, toddlers would get tricycles and so on. Like this, what they are doing is using resources from a university pack into giving us only half of the bikes. Then I assume further down the line they'll give us the other half. It just doesn't sit right with me at all.

Roommates and dorms

I love that you can get roommates in your residential lot and that you get to pick them. It is a shame you can't pick the roommies in dorms but that's life I guess.

Dorms feel actually really alive and there's always something going on. Some roommates will decide to invite other sims over

https://i.imgur.com/GV2pi7s.jpg

And if you lock your sim's dorm room (can't recommend this enough, seriously! and once you are at it, lock your computers too!), roommies will generally hang out in the common areas and be social or do their own stuff

https://i.imgur.com/CEtBamz.jpg

I added a cafeteria to my dorm build because I didn't want my sims to live off microwaved food and the subsequent bad moodlet. What I didn't know is that some roomies bring fancy food like roasted chicken, lobster thermidor, etc very very often. I think it's hilarious but also a very over the top. After only one sim day this is all the extra fancy food that was brought.

https://i.imgur.com/JauTD4d.jpg
So, no need for a cafeteria really! :D

A little nit picky thing: I wish the instant noodles wouldn't look like the nice ones from City Living
https://i.imgur.com/cSFFhk1.jpg

Ping Pong

The ball looks like a disk when you watch your sims play and it doesn't raise the fitness skill nor the relationship of the players between each other (at least I couldn't see). Ping pong only raises your sim's fun slightly. But I like to have it in game, I really do.
https://i.imgur.com/Hw7feuz.jpg

Soccer

Soccer is not really soccer but juggling a ball. Nice addition but don't call it soccer. The rabbit hole for games doesn't help either.
https://i.imgur.com/BVt51FD.jpg

Laundry in dorms is possible. I have my active sim do it without any issues. I haven't seen any roommate use it but I didn't play in the dorm long enough.

Rotational play

I am a rotational player and was really concerned about how university would work.
Unfortunately, time doesn't stop for anyone and if you have different households with sims enrolled in university. I have 2 households at the moment to test how I could do it. In a dorm I added 3 sims I wanted to send to uni from different households, and then I have a residential lot with 2 other students.
For starters I have stopped aging for everyone since I don't want my sims to spend almost all their Young Adult life in university.
I haven't had enough time to see the full effect of jumping from one household to another but so far the days go by and they don't go to class or it counts as basic assistance. I am pretty sure they will fail if you don't have them do their homeworks but I can't confirm.
I hope between all of us rotational players we find a way around it.

Conclusion

So far these are just my first impressions and gameplay wise I feel like I have a lot to explore, which is a good thing because I didn't feel that way after 5 real life hours of Island Living. I am going out of town for 4 days now and won't be able to play on the weekend, I actually can't wait to explore the EP more, again, a really good sign!
I am definitely more positive than I was before getting my hands on it. I am sorry I can't give a more detailed gameplay review but I have only played for a few hours, real life gets in the way sometimes.

Thanks for reading!