New Official Sims 4 Expansion Pack Survey
There is a new EP survey with 9 potential new Expansion Pack themes. SimsCommunity posted about it.
https://simscommunity.info/2024/09/19/sims-4-expansion-packs-survey/
Forum Discussion
My favorite was the one with more activities and adventures for children.
Embark on life-changing adventures where children discover new hobbies through recreation and exploration activities that shape their future interests. Create your own sleepaway camp with beaches, lakes, rivers, and pools, where kids can socialize, play, and learn new skills under the care of lifeguards, camp counselors, and babysitters. Dive into endless water activities, uncover camp myths, discover new creatures, make lasting friendships, and develop hobbies to share with the whole family.
It'd be a great pack to bring back Bigfoot. Imagine your kid finding and befriending Bigfoot, and then inviting him into your home.
I think The sims needs a birthing ep. Or added in with updates to get to work or parenting .... something like pandasama has. Or just partner with pandasama since EA is gonna start selling some creator content packs. But the options I'm talking about are like home births i.e. water births. Or like ob appointments or lamaze classes. The pandasama site has mods for all this but you can use them on console. Definitely worth a collaboration to create some kind of pack for this stuff. Other than that I think maybe just work out the quirks and kinks of it all and get it as up to date as possible. Add more hairstyles for kids and for the black sims... things like that.
Seriously, I wish they would develop all of the EPs on the ideas list. The adventure based packs will always be the most appealing to me. Anything to expand Jungle Adventures!
I did the survey last night and picked Ocean World - I’ve been wanting houseboats and underwater worlds / lots (and sea monsters!!!) since forever in my game, I can’t wait to be able to build a pirate ship and have my sims actually sail into a pixel sunset or chase merfolk UNDERWATER or get tangled up in the seaweed or the loving arms of The Kraken.
I also picked the post apocalyptic survivalist EP for the adventure, survivalist career, makeshift shelters, exotic creatures and the entire “nature took over” concept in general. Love it.
I might do the survey again on another device and pick a couple of the other ideas that I really liked, such as the adventurous exploration, fossil hunting, cyberpunk city, time travel ( was there time travel?🤔) and something about building robots on another planet. Oh, and heists, and also van life, OFCOURSE I want to drive around in a van. Exactly, all of them please. Make. Now.Ocean Life - Poor poor Island Living! This is kind of what people wanted from it all along, the sailing and diving. It would then be a sell based on it's island culture life and then mermaids.
Van Life - You know what this would be great for? Those Sims with adventerous trait that I always struggle to do things with. But I think this would also sell for folks based on elder expansion alone. I know I had RV-loving grandparents who treked across the states. And a mechanic career, plus vans, plus...cars, would exicte a lot of folks.
Survivalist World - Oh boy oh boy! You got your survival game in my Sims! As someone who likes Strangerville, this ingregues me as an experience to be had. And again, would be great for the adventerous sims. (Also I see the exotic pets and think of that one guy who wanted dragons)
Fossils Expansion - OH MAN MUSEUMS EXPANSION. Again, this would pair interestingly with Jungle Adventure, as it is a slightly different take on archeology, that of palentology. -glances over at the literal adventure skill- HEH.
Cyberpunk - Oooh, again, we have some interesting things at work since this also goes along with Get to Work and Discover University's robotics and mechs. This could be an interesting theme to explore.
Kids Camp - Kind of an overlap with some of Growing Together's kids expansion ideas alongside Outdoor Retreat. Ehhh. Like it might be nice down the line, I will never object to more child aspirations buuuuuut eh.
Criminal Expansion - Ooh! Ooh! We've really needed an expansion that works for the criminal career! It kinda doesn't work well for storytelling when it's just an average 9-5. Does have some overlap with the law enforcement with Get to Work, which is probably why it only got a few lines. Still I really hope this one gets considered.
80/90's Throwback - I get the feeling this one is going to be real popular because of all of the old Sims features coming back. Meanwhile, what intersts me is the tabletop gaming. I've wanted something like that for awhile now! And some more arcade cabinets would be nice! Nerd stuff for the nerd!
Monarchy - The only thing worse than landlords is the ULTIMATE landlords. Yuck. Can't believe we got a pack ranked lower than For Rent! At least that has the benefit of living in an apartment!
From all the themes listed, the ones about ocean world and van life appeal to me the most, together with the ones about retro life and exploring the coast finding new fossils. The ones that appeal to me the least are about the post apocalyptic life, cyberpunk and monarchy, though in the expanded descriptions they all included some elements I would be interested into like new pets. Camp for kids sounds nice too, but I don't play kids often enough, so it would depend on whether they include anything useful for adult sims too. Crime city sounds interesting too, but only if they do proper pack integration with the previous packs.
I hope they would use all the packs evan means smaller ones.
I do think archeological will work okay as a gamepack
Really like the idea of an expanded ocean pack, especially if it could feature new mermaid CAS features and ocean themed builds.
Would also love a bit of 80s/90s retro. If they do 90s, could they do tye dye?
With most of the other pack ideas, there were bits that I liked, but other bits that I wasn't so keen on. Cyberpunk sounds great but does it have to be gritty futuristic?
Gritty seems to go against the very aesthetic and nature of the Sims games that makes them so enjoyable. The dystopian future trope has been done so many times in games, it's nice to have a light-hearted fantasy world for a change. Am really hoping they keep it that way.
Cyberpunk sounds great but does it have to be gritty futuristic?
I mean, it kind of does, yeah. The biggest theme around cyberpunk, especially all modern takes that propelled it into popularity, are about futuristic tech against a dystopian backdrop. Removing the grit from Cyberpunk would be like releasing a menswear kit built around skirts - it's technically possible, and there would be an audience for it. But the majority of people aren't looking for that, nor are they thinking about that when they think of the subject matter.
Unless you mean you'd rather just have a future pack that isn't specifically cyberpunk. Which is fair. I loved Into the Future. But I feel like a different take on the future is needed, since (if I'm being realistic) Sims 4's take would be vastly inferior to Sims 3's, and they'd probably divide the future pack up into multiple packs for more money. Given we're already on our way to a dystopian cyberpunk future, it'd be a great way for The Sims 4 to differentiate itself from other packs, while still having something that resonates with a lot of fans.
But I do think we can do grit in the Sims 4 and still have it fit in. Werewolves was a fairly gritty pack in terms of BB/CAS, lore and some of the mechanics. The world itself was run-down and abandoned. They were still able to marry grit with the Sims 4's overall tone, and I feel like they can do that with a cyberpunk future pack.
Hmm, that's a good point about werewolves. When I saw the word 'gritty' I thought of gritty drama, rather than the look. What I didn't want was the Sims to go down the route of hyper-realistic violence and gore, extremely depressing drama and traumatic themes, which is what I associate with the gritty aesthetic.
When I think of cyberpunk, I mainly think of the clothing style and neon. I guess what I meant was I liked the visual aesthetic, but not not a dystopian story.
The most appealing idea to me is the sleep away camp. I would love for my sim kids to go away to camp and teen sims to get to work as camp counselors. I got the extended version of this question and I want all of it.
A couple of these gave options to build an aquarium or expand on museums. I would really like to be able to build these things.
The options that have you traveling to trade items and learn new things and recipes also appeal to me, this includes the van life option.
I also got the extended version of the 80s pack and I really hope this comes to the game.
I see a lot of people interested in the monarchy idea which doesn't interest me yet, but I'm sure if it ends up in game I will find something about it that I enjoy.
- I need an Ocean World for my poor Mermaids & Mermen, as well as proper Boathouses.
- I need a CyberPunk Post-Apocalyptic Futuristic World for my Futuristic 2525 Game Save.
- I would like a Prehistoric Adventure World for my Ancient Times Game Save.
- Retro Mall - I love the idea of having newspapers, wall phones, and retro decor.
- Camp - This sounds fun and gives kids and maybe teens something new to do. They can explore and learn new skills while making long-lasting friendships. (I can see all the story possibilities now)
- Monarchy - I wish this weren't modern Monarchy or this would have been in the #1 spot.
- Gritty City - This sounds interesting just not as fun as the previous packs mentioned.
- Exploration (These last five packs don't interest me at all but maybe it's something I would have to see)
- Ocean World
- Van Life
- Post-Apocalyptic
- Cyberpunk
There were several promising ideas in there, though some sounded more like GP content than EP content. But here are my general ideas:
- Monarchy never interested me, and the word modern made it even worse. Historical monarchy would give me items worth using in historical game play, but modern monarchy doesn't make me want to jump up and down with joy.
- Van-life sounds fun, and I'd assume that has to come with cars? Still the entire idea sounded very GP-like. Not sure it would appeal to me.
- The kids camp sounded very GP like, an addition to parenthood and a non-existent school pack. Would probably buy on sale for more kids stuff, which we desperately need, especially clothes.
- The underwater world sounds like a mermaid GP. If done right it could expand on Sulani and be a good compliment, but mermaids never really interested me in the first place.
- Retro world - well I do love history, but the 80/90s perhaps not so much, also it's not that hard to create. GIve me good decades-kits instead or possibly SPs and I'm good.
- Cyber punk - looks cool but not my thing.
- I can't even remember the adventurous exploration. Sounds sort of cool, but we do have packs for foraging and outdoor living.
- Gritty City sounds a lot like a suggestion I made a while back for a really cool GP, and this was one of my favourites IF (and that is a major if) it comes with an update of the GTW Detective Career as well as a revamp of the Criminal career. Another must for me in a pack like that is consequences. Real, severe, consequences. Hefty fines, jailtime, the option to rat out other criminals but suffer their wrath instead, injury, possibly even death. Would they be able to go dark enough for this to be interesting and not just dirty decor?
- My favourite is the Post-Apocalypse, but again with a major reservation. I don't know that I'd enjoy it if this was just a one world thing, I'd want to be able to turn all worlds into a disaster zone, all with their own challenges in the environment. And it would have to come with settings to severely limit NPC-creation. I don't want people in colorful clothing walking their dog outside my "sole survivor" home or knock on the door with a piece of fruitcake. How would they handle the game mechanics to assure this?
Monarchy never interested me, and the word modern made it even worse. Historical monarchy would give me items worth using in historical game play, but modern monarchy doesn't make me want to jump up and down with joy.
I think you would still get historical items you can use with historical gameplay because palaces are old and full of old stuff. I think modern monarchy means that they will still use their cell phones and not use old methods like couriers or messenger pigeons. The only issue I see is that you can only have one king or queen and there's no job adverts to fill that position. Or maybe in true sims style you advance in that top position by starting as a junior butler or something,
You make good points. As with any pack, I will look at the content, the gameplay and then make up my mind.... and then likely buy it at a sale later either way 😄
