After being an early adopter of TS, TS2, and TS3, I finally jumped into TS4 a few days ago. I had sworn that I'd never purchase or play TS4, starting over with a small, somewhat dull core, and even moving back from the open world of TS3. But the sale was good, and honestly it was a whim. Long story short, I've had enough fun with it that I purchased all of the packs, even those not on sale.
I have concluded that in its present mature state, it's a really fun game. I do miss the open world of TS3, but the game engine never really supported open world very well. I needed mods to keep the game functional for more than a few days. TS4, on the other hand, seems pretty smooth. I have exchanged open world for quick loading screens (I kept waiting for splines to reticulate); for sims that don't bump into each other and then spend 30 in-game minutes tapping a foot; for sims that are smart enough to move around and/or phase through each other to get to items, and who can hold multi-sim conversations while doing other activities; for a game that hasn't (yet) slowed to a crawl with dozens of stuck and/or mis-routed sims throughout the game world; for a game that hasn't spawned abandoned vehicles across the game world; and I could go on. I'm glad that I wasn't one of the early sufferers, but I'm glad that I bought it at this point.
In keeping with the theme of the thread, here's a tip that drove me crazy for about two hours. I did major modifications to a really well designed house that I downloaded from the library. Saved it; then couldn't find it in my own library. Went back into build mode, re-saved it to my library; then still couldn't find it. I thought I had encountered a major bug. Turns out that the house had a custom book from a mod, and I didn't have the library set to show files that contained custom content. When I finally realized that I had to click the check box to show custom content, almost a dozen copies of the lot showed up from where I had repeatedly saved it.
So here's my TS4 rookie tip: If you can't find a lot or household that you "know" you saved, make sure that you have the custom content box checked on your library.
EA Staff
