What Do You Rate Eco Lifestyle After You've Played???

It's a gamechanger, for sure. My Sim hasn't had time to do much about cleaning up the world yet - she was busy working on her skills - but there are so many cool ways in which Sim actions interact. The neighbours keep voting in changes, some of which are annoying ('Share and Share Alike', though nothing's been taken from my Sim so far), but that does add a bit of realism to the game.

My only complaint right now is that I didn't much care for the adult female CAS (I haven't looked at other CAS yet, since I'm playing a single Sim - planning to add a family now that I've got her skills sorted). One bonus is some of the BB that is only available though the fabricator (the new bookcase, for one). I love the plant ladder (I did not see an option to upgrade it to a cannibal meat wall, alas for those who had more nefarious designs). And I totally forgot about the ladder that came in the patch until I woke up this morning. Going to have to add a ladder to the house today.

Random: the insect farms seem a little, er, buggy, but maybe I'm not doing it right. I gave my Sim the recycling trait, and it's pretty heavily weighted. My Sim was miserable because she didn't have anything to recycle at first (tip: instead of washing dishes, put them in your Sim's inventory and recycle them instead - this also gives you the stuff you will need for the fabricator). And beware of the composting toilet!!!!!!!

"Dianesims;c-17527110" wrote:
I think you have to upgrade the vertical
Planter in order to get it.

"Tashi;c-17527072" wrote:
I just annoyed that I can't find that sustainable meat rack. Has anyone else found it? I sorted by specific pack looking for it.

You need to reach a certain level in the civil designer career, think level 5.

"ncisGibbs02;c-17529114" wrote:
What I liked ?: I really like the idea of the pack. I had a lot of fun playing Evergreen Harbour. There’s good storytelling options.
I loved the lot with the crane on it. Dumpster diving. The new Harris family I played were funny. Living off the grid is challenging but I like that.

What I disliked ?: The only things I didn’t like were most of the houses are plain.
There’s 15 new lots but the world from above looks sparse somehow.
(I know three of lots are community venues that you can change with voting, 2 are apartment lots, one bar etc)

It’s a pity you can’t live on one of the boats seen in world view. I would love one of my Sims to live in shipwreck.

That bothered me a bit too. Big but sparse. In oasis springs I had all my sims living in a close circle around eachother. Some were neighbors directly across the street. For this world I had to spread them all across the map which i don't like but it's not a deal breaker.

As a laptop player I am eternally grateful that maxis houses are plain. When I download houses from the gallery sometimes they are so cluttered they are unplayable. :)

This is only my first impression - but so far I haven't been that impressed. Some points I have are listed below:

- N.A.P (Neighborhood Action Plans) don't seem very purposeful. For the most part you just gain influence from these N.A.P's so that you can vote on other N.A.P's or what the community space becomes. Some N.A.P's just offer another way to make your game easier (increased pay in certain careers, good moodlets, etc.). Really just another way to make your game easier for the most part.
- The Eco Footprint pretty much just stays on neutral unless you try really hard. If you are playing a regular family and not going excessively green or excessively dirty (there aren't many items to go industrial it seems) your neighborhoods will just sit at neutral. Very little impact on the environment from regular game play even if you have all the options turned on.
- The Fizzy Juicer Maker - you basically put the produce into the machine then your Sim walks away from it while it runs. You only collect the juice when you are done.\
- Pollution or being green doesn't really affect your game play - just makes the neighborhood look cleaner or dirtier.

- I have enjoyed the CAS and build/buy items.
- The fabricator is fun - really cool that we can fabricate our own furniture and choose different colours.
- The community space is full of Sims when you go to visit and I'm enjoying it. Not sure I want a lot space up in every neighborhood for a community space.
- If you you enjoy off the grid living this will probably be a fun pack for you. Not for me though.

Like I said - this is just my first impression as I've only played some aspects of the game. But so far I'm not really that impressed with the game play. So far I wouldn't say this game is worth full price.

So far I’m having a really good time with this pack. It’s a bit buggy but all new packs are and most of the bugs will be fixed over time. My favorite additions:
-community spaces: they are fun to make and they are full of other sims. My main save has a garden right now and the sims there are constantly planting and working with the bugs
-eco footprint: I feel like it’s really challenging to send it one way or another and even more so to get it to stay there. I like challenging aspects in the game. It could use a bit of balancing I think but overall it’s a super cool system where you really have to think about your sims and what they are doing.
-N.A.P.: they add personality to the neighborhood and I’ve only really played with one so far. I like them a lot and can’t wait to try more out.
-new hobbies: I’ve only really played with fizzy juice making so far but I really like it. I can’t wait to mess around with the other new options.
-Build/Buy: I love all the soft neutral colors included and the items are super versatile. It’s one of my favorite BB.
-CAS: The new hairs are amazing. I like a lot of the new clothes and I like that they included some really simple clothing in this pack.

So far I feel like I’ve barley scratched the surface of what this pack has to offer. Rags to riches is a blast but it’s also been fun playing my legacy family. I also really enjoy the new life and personality this pack has breathed into the game as most packs for sims 4 haven’t done that as much as this one. I can’t say it’s the most incredible pack ever yet but I can happily say it’s a wonderful pack I’ll use constantly in gameplay. In all reality I’m between the top two options. I still feel a bit confused with certain aspects of the pack which is the only reason I leaned towards it’s a good pack as I feel like certain parts of it aren’t as clear as I wish they were. I’m thinking the more I play the more sense it will make lol. It also needs some balance with the footprint to stay more stable as it tends to go green or Industrial and then within a little bit of gameplay it’s back to neutral. But I’m mostly really in love with this pack and only have those few criticisms so far. Can’t wait to waste the entire weekend playing instead of cleaning my apartment.

@SimTrippy You are so sweet. And if it were possible, I would happily add you to our family. The more the merrier, plus you're a die hard Sims fan and would fit in perfectly with the rest of us. :D

"SERVERFRA;c-17529573" wrote:
I'm still waiting to see if the download of
Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle is safe for my saved games.
I already lost my beautiful hard work Futuristic save game 1. Even through I backed up my all my saved games, repaired my game 4 times since the 2 update patches and I don't use any mods, MCC or cc. And my PC has Windows 10 with 64 bits, 2TB, NVIDIA 9 & GeForce updated. I even looked up my old saves to try to find my 1st game save but unfortunately it wasn't there.

Thank goodness that my 2nd, 3rd & 4 game saves made it. I guess I have to stop with
Sims 4 Tiny Living. I was so looking forward to getting Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle. Oh well.???

Just copy your entire Sims 4 folder that is in the documents and put it somewhere else as duplicate. I'm not sure how "you lost your old saves" if you backed them up. I've learned as a Simmer that it's always best to have a ton of SAVE AS versions of the same save file too. I've had the same save since September 2014 and that's because I constantly use SAVE AS and keep duplicates regularly. It's a great habit to get into!

I've been playing it most of today and yesterday and I find it very immersive! I feel busy with three Sims just moved into Conifer Station. I think that having N.A.P's makea the world feel real. Things happen out of my control. Flirting and stealing and fishing and all that makes it feel like the townies and NPC's are more rounded individual characters. The interactions are better and the gameplay is more challenging.

The only thing I'm confused about is that I never got a welcome wagon from Knox or Bess?

The world isn't my favourite...too many wide open, empty spaces.

Some things feel slightly glitchy. My Spellcaster randomly makes destressing potion eventhough she isn't skilled enough or has the ingredients.

Sims can take food and stuff up the ladders, but can't seem to take stuff down again.


I might need to take a look at my mods, unless anyone else is having the same issue?

Okay so after playing most of Thursday night, all of Friday and all of today (yes I know, I know lol), I can only say that it keeps getting better the longer I play it. Sure, it has a few things that are less good, like the fact that we can't really fix and sell broken furniture through gameplay - UNLESS we do the civil designer career. I also haven't fully figured out yet how to get more than 1 food stall working at the same time on the market place lot (like, can we?), and they need to fix the bills system because not every lot should get the same base tax of 300.

But ... with those negatives out of the way: this pack is friggin' AWESOME for players like me. There are so many different ways to approach the content it offers and I'm so far from having seen all of it or all the way it interacts with other packs.

I have one sim who's a maker (trait, aspiration & job lol) and it's so fun. She's always been a bit artsy - in another save I had, she was a photographer. Which brings me to: I'm SO happy we have another freelance career that doesn't require my sim to sit down at a PC all the time to program or write. This freelancer trade and the photography one are sooo much more fun, and this one in particular gives you so many options to approach it. Want to make only candles, furniture, or fizzy drinks? You can. Just skill up enough and the choice is yours.

Another one of my sims is living completely off the grid - which is finally no longer annoying! Being an island kid through & through, he's now living on the shipwreck lot, using solar panels, wind turbines, dew collectors, insects, and gardening to sustain himself. This pack meshes with Seasons and IL so, so well that you can easily have a sim do just this w/out ever touching any of the maker/engineering stuff.

The only slightly unfortunate things I have to mention here though are: a) the Recycler trait is just really, really bad. Why would I give up a slot trait for my sim to get tense when they don't recycle? Who gets tense about that? xD Maybe I just don't get it. The green sim trait is fun though! b) Why is there no eco/hippie aspiration w/out the civil designer stuff? Or did I just miss it?

The civil designer stuff, so far, I have honestly only scratched the surface of, so I can't comment on that.

But yeah, it's fantastic. Your sims have completely new ways to make money, the BB / CAS is just kind cool, the world is lovely, and my sims can finally have totally different eco footprints - and yeah, figuring this out isn't always obvious, it takes time, but that's why it's FUN to me. :D

So in short: IT IS AWESOME. I love how many new options it gives us. And I'm just obsessed.

ETA: tried to make it ..shorter? ;)