How's the Cottage Living so far?

I'm having so much fun. My sim is living in Windenberg and I'm enjoying that as I've never played in Windenberg. I have my oversize crops started. For the first batch I wanted to get nine harvestables so I could stock up for cooking but my sim autonomously talked to them and encouraged plant growth and now they're at four. So I turned autonomy off. :p I have two bee boxes and one each of the bug boxes from EL. I still haven't purchased any farm animals. Maybe today.

It's pretty good I'm enjoying it.

I really like this pack, but...I really love chickens! Oh my, but they did an excellent job on all the animals but the chickens are my favorite, right after the llama, cow comes in 3rd.

I'm having some difficulty making friends with the wild critters to help manage my garden so I've had to toss a lot of dead plants, more than all the years I've been playing Sims 4, lol.

I'm having a blast just caring for the animals. My sim's llama, Fernando, got so annoyed at her he snatched the clippers out of her hand and threw them. :D

"GalacticGal;c-17943836" wrote:
I can now add that the EP is CHALLENGING, which is a good thing, although I find myself tired by the end of a gaming session. I have decided to switch houses (per rotations) on a daily basis, just trying to keep the crops alive and the animals Happy. Because we all must be happy, happy, happy. Oi! The Llama spits, the Cow knocks over the full pail of milk, the chickens won't produce chicks. I had only one before I began a brand new game save. Poor Sarah Jane got off on a very wrong foot with the Llama, she almost cried, which broke my heart. LOL This after trying to stay in one week per household. It's simply not working. So, I do that back and forth bit. She's finally met the Sim who became the love of her life in reality. Love Day is coming, so he'll invite her out on a date, since planning an Event is borked. Tried to have a simple dinner party between the families wherein, the suitable Sim and his parents would dine with the planned bride in the hopes of cementing the 'contract of marriage', if you will. Things were done differently in the 18th century among the Well-to-Do. Ahem. Got as far as the Host, the Guests, but no matter who I chose as the Caterer, it wouldn't let me choose the time or venue suggesting I had to satisfy all categories. Face/palm. I went back in twice, but no luck. It's borked. So, I used MCCC to develop the relationship between the families and as I stated earlier the Groom-to-be, will ask the intended Bride out on a date wherein he'll propose. We'll see how that works. If that's borked, too, I'll just have him include her when he goes to a venue. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But, that's only because EA has systematically dumbed down the game starting with Sims3. A baby can play Sims3 — with ease!

But, I do love the challenge. But the problems with the crops are sucking the life out my enjoyment of growing them in the first place. I've yet to make it to my first festival. Sarah Jane baked a blueberry pie that turned out normal. That won't come close to winning, I'm supposing. So, she'll have to purchase more blueberries to keep practicing. I'd like to see her win. The pumpkins seem frozen in a certain state of growth. They're green so far and not at all very large despite fertilizing and encouraging them to grow. I suppose once I figure out how it's to be done, things will be better. I am still loving it, despite it all. LOL

Hmmph. I entered some 'excellent' quality llama wool in the competition. The only other entry was 'normal' quality, so I figured I had it made, but nope. My llama did win, however, so I completed the aspiration, finally.

Update. My Groom-to-be brought his intended Bride to the festival, where he entered a chocolate egg of Excellent quality. She suggested that he help out, due to his nature, so he decided to accept a Challenge, two, in all. Suddenly, after watching her parents acting as two of the judges, I presumed, the festival came to a close. Nobody was declared the winner. I'm disappointed. Did I miss something? I will take them to the next festival, just in case. But he lost a perfectly excellent egg with nothing to show for it. Not even an honorable mention. Sheesh. What's up with that?

As for the challenges he accepted, he's running into all kinds of problems reaching the goals. Can't find the spicy mushrooms, the food store booth is closed, and apparently the river he fished in wasn't the correct one. :open_mouth: After he caught three fish, the goal wasn't fulfilled. Is this borked? Or did I have him fishing in the wrong location?

Still enjoying the game, but being patched again just yesterday has me a tad leery. I use mods. I'm taking a chance continuing to play with them in place, but it's not as if I've never had to restart before. Yikes.

I upgraded the townies, then I gave my Prairie Gables household new clothes & upgraded their farm. It's so nice to actually have a cow instead of that horrorable cowplant. :D :p

Im torn....the amount of bugs introduced is ridiculous. As far as the pack, I have the same sentiment as many others, this is 100% without a doubt a gamepack. If this was a gamepack for $20 I would say this was my fav gamepack since Jungle Adventures. As an expansion for $40 plus tax? No.....I wrote a list of new gameplay and compared it to other expansions and gamepacks and there just isn't enough there. My fav part of the whole pack other than the world, clothes, and furniture are def the chickens. They were so well done. So well done in fact that they almost make the cow and llama useless.....they don't even feel like they are from the same pack. You can own multiple chickens, breed them, show them at the fair, collect eggs, and more....the cow and llama.....meh.

Also, the whole canning thing, such a big thing they kept talking about and I was absolutely shocked to find out you cannot spread jam on bread or baked goods....there is even a mod where you can. It is ridiculous that all you can do is eat the jam straight out of the jar.....no one does that (I mean, Im sure some do, but you know what I mean).....also, picnic baskets are ridiculous. You literally can only use them on a table which to me, defeats the purpose of a picnic. I find it hard to believe they couldn't have coded spreadable jam and picnic baskets usable on the ground.....then again my husband works in the gaming industry as an engineer and despite knowing what goes on behind the scenes, some of the decisions made by this team or the higher ups always baffles me. If you can get this when it goes on sale for like $20 bucks, def get it, but at $40? Nah

I'm home from vacation and finally downloading! Hope I don't run into a ton of bugs. I have so many plans for my sims with this and can't wait to play!

"Schantal;c-17945192" wrote:
Im torn....the amount of bugs introduced is ridiculous. As far as the pack, I have the same sentiment as many others, this is 100% without a doubt a gamepack. If this was a gamepack for $20 I would say this was my fav gamepack since Jungle Adventures. As an expansion for $40 plus tax? No.....I wrote a list of new gameplay and compared it to other expansions and gamepacks and there just isn't enough there. My fav part of the whole pack other than the world, clothes, and furniture are def the chickens. They were so well done. So well done in fact that they almost make the cow and llama useless.....they don't even feel like they are from the same pack. You can own multiple chickens, breed them, show them at the fair, collect eggs, and more....the cow and llama.....meh.

Also, the whole canning thing, such a big thing they kept talking about and I was absolutely shocked to find out you cannot spread jam on bread or baked goods....there is even a mod where you can. It is ridiculous that all you can do is eat the jam straight out of the jar.....no one does that (I mean, Im sure some do, but you know what I mean).....also, picnic baskets are ridiculous. You literally can only use them on a table which to me, defeats the purpose of a picnic. I find it hard to believe they couldn't have coded spreadable jam and picnic baskets usable on the ground.....then again my husband works in the gaming industry as an engineer and despite knowing what goes on behind the scenes, some of the decisions made by this team or the higher ups always baffles me. If you can get this when it goes on sale for like $20 bucks, def get it, but at $40? Nah

People keep saying this... and I'm the first to say when I think a pack should have been another type of pack, so I get it. But here's my counterpoint: I don't measure the value of a pack by a list of features, but by how much time I want to spend actually playing it. In the last week (despite almost a full day of download frustration), I've already spent more time playing this pack than I have played TS4 total in the last two years. It's already well under $1 per hour for me for entertainment value, and I'm not anywhere near bored with it yet. In the end, I suspect it will be closer to mere pennies per hour of enjoyment.

Other people's mileage may vary, of course. If you won't get that much gameplay out of it, then it's not a good deal for you, and that's always a fair assessment. But for me, and clearly for a lot of other people, it has been an excellent value even at full price.

ETA: It's incredibly rare that I buy a pack at full price, so I fully identify with anyone who wants to wait for a sale. And I have commented in this thread and others about things that I think were missed opportunities in this pack, things I hope they'll fix, etc. But overall, speaking only for myself, this is something I wanted for a long time for them to make and I love what they did with the theme, so it was worth it to me to send a message by paying the full expansion price.

"Amapola76;c-17945643" wrote:

"Schantal;c-17945192" wrote:
Im torn....the amount of bugs introduced is ridiculous. As far as the pack, I have the same sentiment as many others, this is 100% without a doubt a gamepack. If this was a gamepack for $20 I would say this was my fav gamepack since Jungle Adventures. As an expansion for $40 plus tax? No.....I wrote a list of new gameplay and compared it to other expansions and gamepacks and there just isn't enough there. My fav part of the whole pack other than the world, clothes, and furniture are def the chickens. They were so well done. So well done in fact that they almost make the cow and llama useless.....they don't even feel like they are from the same pack. You can own multiple chickens, breed them, show them at the fair, collect eggs, and more....the cow and llama.....meh.

Also, the whole canning thing, such a big thing they kept talking about and I was absolutely shocked to find out you cannot spread jam on bread or baked goods....there is even a mod where you can. It is ridiculous that all you can do is eat the jam straight out of the jar.....no one does that (I mean, Im sure some do, but you know what I mean).....also, picnic baskets are ridiculous. You literally can only use them on a table which to me, defeats the purpose of a picnic. I find it hard to believe they couldn't have coded spreadable jam and picnic baskets usable on the ground.....then again my husband works in the gaming industry as an engineer and despite knowing what goes on behind the scenes, some of the decisions made by this team or the higher ups always baffles me. If you can get this when it goes on sale for like $20 bucks, def get it, but at $40? Nah

People keep saying this... and I'm the first to say when I think a pack should have been another type of pack, so I get it. But here's my counterpoint: I don't measure the value of a pack by a list of features, but by how much time I want to spend actually playing it. In the last week (despite almost a full day of download frustration), I've already spent more time playing this pack than I have played TS4 total in the last two years. It's already well under $1 per hour for me for entertainment value, and I'm not anywhere near bored with it yet. In the end, I suspect it will be closer to mere pennies per hour of enjoyment.

Other people's mileage may vary, of course. If you won't get that much gameplay out of it, then it's not a good deal for you, and that's always a fair assessment. But for me, and clearly for a lot of other people, it has been an excellent value even at full price.

ETA: It's incredibly rare that I buy a pack at full price, so I fully identify with anyone who wants to wait for a sale. And I have commented in this thread and others about things that I think were missed opportunities in this pack, things I hope they'll fix, etc. But overall, speaking only for myself, this is something I wanted for a long time for them to make and I love what they did with the theme, so it was worth it to me to send a message by paying the full expansion price.

I actually always buy the packs at full price so the fact that Im saying to wait for a sale says something, but Im glad you are enjoying it. Also, I actually disagree that th amount of content doesn't matter as much. Thats literally how the value is measured...thus why SP, GP, EP, and kits all with varying degrees of items and gameplay exist....thats why you could buy items individually in the sims 3 store because each digital item has a real world dollar amount value. As I said, for some the full price is worth it, but for most....I would say just wait a little bit and get it on sale....