Island Living; is it lacking?

It lacks gameplay, but living in the world is a nice change of pace and scenery compared to other worlds. It's a pack mainly for the experience rather than the game play I'd say. Off the grid living I would say is the worlds best feature, playing off the grid forces you to use the world to its entirety and emphasizes recourse managemnt in a way that other worlds just don't provide. Island Living plus Outdoor Retreat (mainly for the campfire and tent objects) go really well together.

It's so lacking, especially for an EP, that I don't play it. I do enjoy some of the things from it, but gameplay is a disappointment. I had hoped it would be more like a fixed version of Sims3 Island Paradise. I loved having my Rock Star Sim relax by scuba diving. Now, it's a rabbit hole. face/palm.

I loved that I was able to finally turn my Ariel sim into an actual Mermaid & I like the Island.
It just missed houseboats & hotel resorts.

The world and build items are fantastic. The conservationist career is meaningful and I love how the environment change depends on the amount of conservation efforts. I made a club for conservationists (I have 7 conservationists in my game) where they clean the island together, hunt for illegal fisherman, help to plant coconut trees, and etc. I am no longer a fan of mermaids because they just spend too much time in water autonomously. So instead of a mermaid system, I want to see a conservation awareness level where sims can gain points by cleaning up/comb beach/spreading conservation awareness. I want conservationists to be able to give talks/speech about conservation.

I remember back last June, I was really excited to get my hands on the new expansion pack. The trailer looked incredible. I dived in making a completly new save file, with a family who I pretended lived in Sulani for centuries, but the young generations were starting to break of from their elders traditions etc. However, I felt if I hadn't added this rich family story into my game, then the pack would've been lacking. There is no real game changers with this pack. (most worlds have swimable or wade areas now) since recent patches. Boats, are definatly the main one and floats, but there was soo much more potential. I like Pel'am (I forgot the name :smile: ) story with saving the wildlife, was the best part of the pack; but yet it felt repetitive. The festivals, were random pop-ups and I only ever saw 2 or 3 over a few months playing. Prehaps if there were more new gameplay changers, such as resorts/hotels or maybe running an island B&B would've made this pack much more versitile with others. I feel like this pack items mostly only work within the world of Sulani. However it still wasn't a bad pack by any means.

Love Sulami and the items in this pack. But one of the main things which drew me into The Sims 3 Island Paradise was the Resorts. Would LOVE Resorts

I just have fun there. Could it be better, yes. Still it is one of my most used packs for my play style.

As much as I love IL, I wish it were fleshed out more like CL.

Heck, I take it back. Island Living is one of my favorite packs!

It's my favorite pack but like every pack there's a lot of things that feel half finished.

The conservation career firstly, is terrible. It's just a rabbithole job and the only out of work task you get is "talk to others about conservation", there's no daily tasks making use of any of the new conservation features added it's just pointless.

Then there's the "Island Elementals", what is there to even say. Just why would they put something in that's completely unbuilt upon, they're just a random group of ghosts that you can call and they just stand around and serve no purpose nor do they have any backstory. Just why? Same with the dolphins, they're cute but pointless?

Then there's the mermaids, a half finished occult. There doesn't seem to be any mermaids built into the game the only mermaids you have is mermaids you create and they don't really serve any purpose. There's a couple of mermaid interactions but no explanation on what these actually do until you use them (atleast have a popup saying gives flirty trait or whatever when you hover over them). They're just a bit meh and there's nothing really built for mermaids in the game.

However I do love the open-world feel of the world, the waterfall is cool, the world is gorgeous, and I love to have something different to play in other than American suburbs, the CAS is nice, it's just a few dumb decisions like the above stated that ruin it. Personally I'm not bothered about the lack of resorts as this is more of a traditional castaway type pack rather than a vacation pack which I guess a lot of people wanted it to be

my key problem with IL is that mermaids had SO MUCH potential and they're just so lackluster. No skill tree, no major abilities, limited CAS for them, tails that expose their butt (which, why??), no underwater world or world exclusive to them, vampires were just done so well, any occult that doesn't have a skill tree now just looks so plain next to them. Why hype up that mermaids were a major aspect of the pack, when they're so poorly done?

I think the CAS, BB and MOST of the pack was done well. unlocking the oceans, Sulanese culture and the world is beautiful.