So... I just went through about five different moods while watching the trailer four or five times. Am I a Sim?
Immediately upon seeing the trashy streets of something resembling an urban ghetto, I got excited. I've been wanting a low income zone for poor and destitute Sims. But as the trailer went on, my interest shifted up and down, to curiosity, to "meh", to "that's interesting", to "huh", to "trash flies!" to "um...wut??" and pretty much ended with a big question mark.
To sum up: I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the pack itself. But the first thing I need to do is get this off my chest...
So, we got Realm of Magic, a Game Pack, highly and consistently requested for years with endless gameplay potential, with a bazillion threads of players throwing out magical ideas, enough to easily be a full Expansion Pack, cut down to a smaller DLC, thus disappointing a lot of people when it came out because it felt like it should have been bigger.... Meanwhile, this Eco Living concept, which comes from a Stuff Pack idea, which already had thematic DLC added to the game, with an Off the Grid lot trait and a conservationist career in a different EP... this concept, which, yes, was requested at the time of the Laundry vote, but then tapered off in favor of other requests... gets a full Expansion Pack?
This is very frustrating and it's what makes me keep questioning why content is prioritized the way it is. I'm not saying this pack shouldn't exist, or that it's bad (I still don't know enough about it) but what I don't get is why highly requested content gets minimized all. the. time. while seemingly random concepts get upgraded to the forefront. Is it a socio-political agenda with EA? If it doesn't market well to the "feel-good" audience then it gets pushed to the wayside? Look, I generally enjoy Sims 4 for what it is, and I look forward to new ideas and try to keep an open mind (loved StrangerVille, and it was a GP not an EP, which seems appropriate). But I don't think I'm alone when I say that too often, development decisions just don't make any sense from a player's perspective. I don't want a "feel-good" game, I want the options to make my game the way I prefer to play it.
This pack looks like it should have been a Game Pack while Realm of Magic should have been an Expansion Pack. I also think that the Conservationist career in Sulani, which took up a bunch of development budget so we didn't even get underwater swimming or diving (hello, Mermaids came with the pack! This didn't make sense) should have been tossed out if this Eco pack was already in the making (which it no doubt was, considering the length of time an EP takes.) So two Expansion Packs within a year both now have their main focus around environmentalism? I have to repeat the question of another user on this thread... Are devs running out of ideas? Or are they indeed just stretching themes out to repeat between multiple packs these days for the money?
And does this mean Happy Haunts will be a full EP that will include everything they listed in the vote plus Zombies and Cemeteries and a playable Ghost overhaul and proper mourning for death and morgues and ceremonies and exorcisms and seances and ghost hunting and Grim careers? Or are the Occult players going to get rooked again?
Also, I agree with others that Tiny Living could have and should have been a part of this EP. It all leaves kind of a bad taste, to be honest.
I'm not trying to bring down the hype, I may actually like this pack, at least the urban trashiness of it, though it will probably be a "wait for a sale" for me, but I felt a need to speak out about my observations.
That is all I really want to say critically. Further posts will most likely be about the pack itself.
EA Staff
