"Loanet;c-17897905" wrote:
Okay, let me put it this way - Does this hold up to a Game Pack? ANY Game Pack?
Pick a Game Pack at random. Vampires. Dine Out. Jungle Adventure. Three radically different packs. Dream Home Decorator doesn't stand up to their content. Its gameplay is based around two things - the Build Mode and the new Likes and Dislikes system, which is BASE GAME - Sims seem to base their appreciaton on whether they Like the items in the room, or Dislike them.
To be worthwhile, Dream Home Decorator really needed a new world.
(Disclaimer: I'm really fine with people wanting more out of this pack, also I like all the below packs for various reasons)
Ok, just for the argument sake:
Outdoor retreat has a whole world locked under vacation mechanic, went there for vacation once, aside from my sim getting hit twice by a lighting, nothing interesting happened, never used the gameplay again the way it is meant to be used. Can't even use the world it came with unless I'm on vacation.
Spa day has four or five intractable objects and a new lot type, sure it's reusable but also not the peak of gameplay.
Jungle Adventure stands slightly better than Outdoor retreat due to amount of stuff it comes with and a more outlandish quest, always if you like to play in a vacation world.
Strangerville got massively criticized for having the player to repeat same thing over and over again with new save (and that quest plus one fairly standard career is the only gameplay it has.)
Vampires have a new life state with very underdeveloped rpg leveling system as it's only gameplay (let's not even go into the miserable state it went after the nerfing), the only reason it stands solidly on its own is because vampires have a strong lore outside of the game and most players are familiar with it, plus it gave some bb variety. Strip it of that and how many vampires will you have fun leveling over and over again and how many garlic wreaths are you going to make (in a world where vampires don't even visit you anymore)?
RoM fairs better than Vampires in some sense because there is an additional secret world to it and NPCs that take active roles in your day to day life (not nerfed unlike vampires)
Journey to Batuu, too ambitious for its budget, and a bit weird choice (again locked as vacation world). From and rpg point of view very poor gameplay design.
Dine out only holds out if you like to build and visit restaurants (since people are saying that this pack is only good if you like to build, and it's a completely valid argument, but it can be said for many other things as well.)
Out of all of them, the Parenhood is the only one with good balance, so you see there are problems with everything if one is willing to go there.
So yes, it does hold to previous packs. Could it be more? Sure, like everything else.
You are bringing the like and dislike system, which is something I wanted to address for a while. There is no such thing as free base updates, Likes and Dislikes were getting developed to be included into this pack, same with bunk beds (we clearly got an early access) the side effect of it was that we got free updates. Same things happened with scared moodlet, Paranormal pack wouldn't be the same if sims would just get tense. So while it doesn't work exactly in direct correlation I imagine, some of budget do go to the free updates (the people at Maxis don't work for free, the money has to come and be allocated in some way)