I feel like weather doesn't necessarily make the world more immersive in a video game. It's just there in the background. I don't really see the point of making an entire EP out of something that's so...empty. A few sim days, you see rain and you're like "oh, well. It's raining again. Time to send my sim to work like I do every day". Does the rain change anything about your daily routine? No, your sim just whips out an umbrella from their pocket. Like I said, I just don't see the point at all. Weather should come with the base game.
I've gone through this thread and I still can't exactly grasp what's the appeal, thought maybe people will explain in more detail but everyone's saying pretty much the same. I don't buy the argument about progression of time. If a season is set up to be 5 days, how much am I actually able to progress my sims' story? 5 days isn't a lot of gameplay. Time seems to be passing, but my sims' life stays exactly the same. What's really indicative of the time passing in game, in my opinion at least, are the milestones like pregnancies, promotions, etc. I use mods so my sims can have graduation ceremonies and baby showers, I always try to throw nice and realistic birthday parties. I don't need leaves to fall off of the trees to feel like a year has passed. There are places in the world where it's eternal summer and yet people don't feel like they're stuck in one place in their lives because the grass is always green.
The only appealing thing about Seasons is the activities that come with it, but I feel like in TS4 we can't really count on abundance of them. That's not how they roll with this iteration. We'll get something very boring and scripted probably, I'm sure we can forget about such complex and creative stuff as (for example) ice skating rinks we know from TS3.
I'd be completely content with a Seasons game pack. I want devs to save up this one EP slot for a new, fresh idea instead of something as empty and meaningless as some occasional rain.
