What New Expansions Do YOU Want?
Hi guys! I thought I'd create a discussion to talk about what kind of expansion packs you would like to see in The Sims 4, but there is a catch: I only want to discuss NEW ideas for expansions, ...
Forum Discussion
I'd like to see a SP with clothing and items in the 1800's style. That'd be pretty cool. Maybe even an old fashioned town to go with it?
As for new expansions, that's a tough one. I do really like the idea for a farm EP on the first page, and BOY do I have a tonne of suggestions for that. Most of my ideas are in the spoiler tag. Otherwise this post would be huge.
So, firstly, we'll need somewhat larger lots for that (they may need to make a bigger town for this as well to fit the lots in).
Farm Pets:
.Chickens are a must have! They could even be animals you could have in smaller lots because chickens don't take up too much space. You can feed them food scraps, chicken feed, or have them come out and peck your garden clear of weeds. You can harvest eggs from them aaaaand maybe if EA wants to go there, meat. Although I'm not sure how they'd plan on doing that because honestly even though I've personally lived in a house where we ate fresh meat from time to time, it's something I never ever want to actually see the process of.
.Sheep, gotta have a flock of them, or at least two because they get lonely by themselves. Gotta shear them when they get too fluffy, harvest some wool. Have them in a big pen and feed them grass or whatever sheep eat! (I think they eat hay if I remember correctly? We only owned one sheep when I was younger and it sadly passed away from eating some bad hay :( )
.Pigs (oink oink), They love mud baths! You can bathe them in some butter milk and make them squeaky clean! (they'll still stink though). Feed them slops! I don't quite know how this would work out because the only thing I know you can harvest from a pig is bacon but pigs are pretty awesome. They're big fatties and so long as you don't fall over in their pen they're cute. (note: if you fall in a pigs pen they may eat you.)
.Cows, I've always thought of cows like giant dogs that can crush you if they sit on you. Have them graze in a big paddock, collect their poops to use as top quality manure! (have you ever seen the size of a cow poop? I've stepped in one once, it wasn't nice) Trip and fall in the cow poop and you'll need to take a bath because your hygiene need is now down in the red and you are filthy and stink real bad. Harvest milk from cows to make tasty treats!
.Horses, we ALL want horses I think we can agree on that. I didn't play with horses much in TS3 but things I think would be good for horses in this game would be to make horse care more realistic, clean their hooves, brush and tend to their coat and mane, if they're wild train them up and get them used to saddle and halter. (please no "bits" for their mouths. Can't imagine how much pain they're in to have a metal bar in their mouth while you ride them) Horse shows would be nice for showing off how pretty and well behaved your horse or pony is! Also I think horses should be quite customisable like cats and dogs and we should have a variety of breeds to choose from and also a height slider so we can really get that level of diversity. I want a huge clydesdale that towers over my sims!!!
.Goats, maybe goats are too much to ask for... maybe not. My sister had a couple of goats. These are another type of pet you could potentially keep in a medium to large sized lot if you divided your space well enough. From goats you could harvest their milk, I'm gonna go off on a tangent here because I think this is a fun fact but goats milk is actually pretty good if you have eczema or lactose intolerance. My sister and her kids couldn't have normal milk but goats milk was just fine for them, she also made things like feta cheese from them. Goats milk does taste of goat if you have it fresh so I think sims who drink goats milk should have a negative "tastes goaty" moodlet and as an invisible trait once they've drunk enough goats milk in their life they won't get a bad reaction to it, and if they have it as toddlers through to childhood then they'll never get that bad reaction to it.
extra ideas about animals
.So I know I said you can harvest manure from the cows but prettymuch all of these animals have viable manure for gardening depending on what plant you're using it for. So I propose we just make it so you can collect all types of manure.
.for non household pets (so everything except horses) we should be able to do some customization so we're not bored of seeing the same thing over and over. So maybe we can pick breeds, colors and patterns when we add the farm pets to our lots. and some breeds may have certain benefits over others. Like for instance with chickens, bantams are "good layers", they lay lots of eggs but they also get broody more often (meaning more baby chickens if theres a rooster around), their eggs are also small because they are small. Also I'd really just like to be able to get a silkie chicken in game I mean have you seen them? They look hilarious.
.We should get a herding trait for dogs so they can help you herd the sheep, farm cats can help keep the mice away and farm dogs can get obsessed with the animals. There should also be a herding related skill for the sheep dogs.
Items:
.Compost bin/Compost bed (which is basically just a larger compost bin). You can throw weeds, green waste and poo in here to make compost for your garden that you can harvest and put on your garden beds and pot plants
.Farming areas (dunno what to call it but basically a field for you to place your crops in)
.Crops: Things that I can think of right off the top of my head would be wheat and other edible grains (like rice and barley or whatever), fruit and veg, or crops that can be repurposed into items or fabrics (like cotton for... well cotton, or trees for paper).
.Farm stores (storage): Looks like a shed, different sizes for different sized farms, it'll be where you store your harvestables and crops, once you buy a farm store you can use a menu to manage your harvest, choose to withdraw some items (like milk so you can make cheeses and other things), or sell them off for a profit, you can also see your profit and loss statements from here like in businesses with GTW, Dine Out, and Cats/Dogs, this is where you can buy farm perks if you have racked up enough perk points.
.Chicken Coops (Size ranges from small to large. has a limit for how many chickens can be stored in each), this is where your chickens take their siestas and lay their eggs.
.Paddocks (same with the size range, small to large), keep your herd animals in these. Maybe you can set them up like a house and designate that area as a paddock for a certain type of animal with a gate.
.Stables, for the horses. Enough said
.Farm equipment, not really sure if we could do vehicles here but we could have automated things to harvest and water the plants. Maybe some old rusted farm stuff for clutter.
.Farm hands you can hire, less like staff and more like maid and butler npcs. They'll help you tend to your animals and crops.
.Rustic paints and wall papers. In the town I lived in the houses had corrugated iron roofs and walls were generally painted plaster board or brick. Everything kinda looked old style and homey. It'd be nice to have more items like that in build mode.
CAS stuff:
.Not really much I can mention, overalls and straw hats would be a nice addition, maybe even some shirts and pants stained with motor grease with rips and tears from working in them. If you're working the land you're definitely going to need a good supply of hats and stuff.
Skills:
.Farming skill, like gardening but for farm stuff. Might include caring for your animals/herds/flocks better and "evolving" them for better quality produce
.Herding skill for the dogs
Places and events
.Farmers market. If you run maybe a small hobby farm or just have a bunch of harvestables, you can take a table down to the farmers market and sell your stuff for a profit. It could also maybe be one of those timed events like the flea market in CL is.
.Community garden. If you don't live in a farm you can hire a patch down at the community garden to plant your stuff in.
.County Fair. This could be an event sort of place like the flea market in city living. You can enter your farm animals in events at a show. Talent contests for your cats and dogs, horse riding contests to show off how well trained your horse is, herding contest for your sheep dogs, and contests to judge the qualities of your other farm animals (chickens, sheep, cows, goats, pigs) that you can win ribbon prizes, cash prizes and unlockable items in build mode from.
Side show alley at the fair for the kids so they can win prizes from entering into the games, the higher the associated skill of the game the higher chance they have of winning a prize!
It'd also be pretty cool if the county fair had some rides like bumper cars or roller coasters, haunted houses or whatever. Nothing too huge obviously otherwise it'd be like the tycoon games but I'm sure a few things could be put in. Even if the sim disappears into a rabbit hole during the ride.
As for farm houses and stuff, EA if you do make this please please PLEASE do not make us buy a farm lot like we buy businesses. Back where I'm from the people who own the farms most frequently live on the farms, I even knew a family who owned a large enough farm land that there were two separate farm houses on the land that housed two generations of their family. Part of the charm of that life was living in the land you worked and always being close by if anything on the farm required your attention, and the farms I lived around did require their owners to be there.
If you're going to make this work though when I say you need large lots I mean LARGE, perhaps two or three times the size of the largest lots we have currently. In truth it'll never span as far as some of the farm lands I've seen but it'd be a pretty decent simulation of one.
As for new expansions, that's a tough one. I do really like the idea for a farm EP on the first page, and BOY do I have a tonne of suggestions for that. Most of my ideas are in the spoiler tag. Otherwise this post would be huge.
So, firstly, we'll need somewhat larger lots for that (they may need to make a bigger town for this as well to fit the lots in).
Farm Pets:
.Chickens are a must have! They could even be animals you could have in smaller lots because chickens don't take up too much space. You can feed them food scraps, chicken feed, or have them come out and peck your garden clear of weeds. You can harvest eggs from them aaaaand maybe if EA wants to go there, meat. Although I'm not sure how they'd plan on doing that because honestly even though I've personally lived in a house where we ate fresh meat from time to time, it's something I never ever want to actually see the process of.
.Sheep, gotta have a flock of them, or at least two because they get lonely by themselves. Gotta shear them when they get too fluffy, harvest some wool. Have them in a big pen and feed them grass or whatever sheep eat! (I think they eat hay if I remember correctly? We only owned one sheep when I was younger and it sadly passed away from eating some bad hay :( )
.Pigs (oink oink), They love mud baths! You can bathe them in some butter milk and make them squeaky clean! (they'll still stink though). Feed them slops! I don't quite know how this would work out because the only thing I know you can harvest from a pig is bacon but pigs are pretty awesome. They're big fatties and so long as you don't fall over in their pen they're cute. (note: if you fall in a pigs pen they may eat you.)
.Cows, I've always thought of cows like giant dogs that can crush you if they sit on you. Have them graze in a big paddock, collect their poops to use as top quality manure! (have you ever seen the size of a cow poop? I've stepped in one once, it wasn't nice) Trip and fall in the cow poop and you'll need to take a bath because your hygiene need is now down in the red and you are filthy and stink real bad. Harvest milk from cows to make tasty treats!
.Horses, we ALL want horses I think we can agree on that. I didn't play with horses much in TS3 but things I think would be good for horses in this game would be to make horse care more realistic, clean their hooves, brush and tend to their coat and mane, if they're wild train them up and get them used to saddle and halter. (please no "bits" for their mouths. Can't imagine how much pain they're in to have a metal bar in their mouth while you ride them) Horse shows would be nice for showing off how pretty and well behaved your horse or pony is! Also I think horses should be quite customisable like cats and dogs and we should have a variety of breeds to choose from and also a height slider so we can really get that level of diversity. I want a huge clydesdale that towers over my sims!!!
.Goats, maybe goats are too much to ask for... maybe not. My sister had a couple of goats. These are another type of pet you could potentially keep in a medium to large sized lot if you divided your space well enough. From goats you could harvest their milk, I'm gonna go off on a tangent here because I think this is a fun fact but goats milk is actually pretty good if you have eczema or lactose intolerance. My sister and her kids couldn't have normal milk but goats milk was just fine for them, she also made things like feta cheese from them. Goats milk does taste of goat if you have it fresh so I think sims who drink goats milk should have a negative "tastes goaty" moodlet and as an invisible trait once they've drunk enough goats milk in their life they won't get a bad reaction to it, and if they have it as toddlers through to childhood then they'll never get that bad reaction to it.
extra ideas about animals
.So I know I said you can harvest manure from the cows but prettymuch all of these animals have viable manure for gardening depending on what plant you're using it for. So I propose we just make it so you can collect all types of manure.
.for non household pets (so everything except horses) we should be able to do some customization so we're not bored of seeing the same thing over and over. So maybe we can pick breeds, colors and patterns when we add the farm pets to our lots. and some breeds may have certain benefits over others. Like for instance with chickens, bantams are "good layers", they lay lots of eggs but they also get broody more often (meaning more baby chickens if theres a rooster around), their eggs are also small because they are small. Also I'd really just like to be able to get a silkie chicken in game I mean have you seen them? They look hilarious.
.We should get a herding trait for dogs so they can help you herd the sheep, farm cats can help keep the mice away and farm dogs can get obsessed with the animals. There should also be a herding related skill for the sheep dogs.
Spoiler
Seriously look at this ridiculous puff nugget
https://photorator.com/photos/images/silkie-chickens--30013.jpg
Seriously look at this ridiculous puff nugget
https://photorator.com/photos/images/silkie-chickens--30013.jpg
Items:
.Compost bin/Compost bed (which is basically just a larger compost bin). You can throw weeds, green waste and poo in here to make compost for your garden that you can harvest and put on your garden beds and pot plants
.Farming areas (dunno what to call it but basically a field for you to place your crops in)
.Crops: Things that I can think of right off the top of my head would be wheat and other edible grains (like rice and barley or whatever), fruit and veg, or crops that can be repurposed into items or fabrics (like cotton for... well cotton, or trees for paper).
.Farm stores (storage): Looks like a shed, different sizes for different sized farms, it'll be where you store your harvestables and crops, once you buy a farm store you can use a menu to manage your harvest, choose to withdraw some items (like milk so you can make cheeses and other things), or sell them off for a profit, you can also see your profit and loss statements from here like in businesses with GTW, Dine Out, and Cats/Dogs, this is where you can buy farm perks if you have racked up enough perk points.
.Chicken Coops (Size ranges from small to large. has a limit for how many chickens can be stored in each), this is where your chickens take their siestas and lay their eggs.
.Paddocks (same with the size range, small to large), keep your herd animals in these. Maybe you can set them up like a house and designate that area as a paddock for a certain type of animal with a gate.
.Stables, for the horses. Enough said
.Farm equipment, not really sure if we could do vehicles here but we could have automated things to harvest and water the plants. Maybe some old rusted farm stuff for clutter.
.Farm hands you can hire, less like staff and more like maid and butler npcs. They'll help you tend to your animals and crops.
.Rustic paints and wall papers. In the town I lived in the houses had corrugated iron roofs and walls were generally painted plaster board or brick. Everything kinda looked old style and homey. It'd be nice to have more items like that in build mode.
CAS stuff:
.Not really much I can mention, overalls and straw hats would be a nice addition, maybe even some shirts and pants stained with motor grease with rips and tears from working in them. If you're working the land you're definitely going to need a good supply of hats and stuff.
Skills:
.Farming skill, like gardening but for farm stuff. Might include caring for your animals/herds/flocks better and "evolving" them for better quality produce
.Herding skill for the dogs
Places and events
.Farmers market. If you run maybe a small hobby farm or just have a bunch of harvestables, you can take a table down to the farmers market and sell your stuff for a profit. It could also maybe be one of those timed events like the flea market in CL is.
.Community garden. If you don't live in a farm you can hire a patch down at the community garden to plant your stuff in.
.County Fair. This could be an event sort of place like the flea market in city living. You can enter your farm animals in events at a show. Talent contests for your cats and dogs, horse riding contests to show off how well trained your horse is, herding contest for your sheep dogs, and contests to judge the qualities of your other farm animals (chickens, sheep, cows, goats, pigs) that you can win ribbon prizes, cash prizes and unlockable items in build mode from.
Side show alley at the fair for the kids so they can win prizes from entering into the games, the higher the associated skill of the game the higher chance they have of winning a prize!
It'd also be pretty cool if the county fair had some rides like bumper cars or roller coasters, haunted houses or whatever. Nothing too huge obviously otherwise it'd be like the tycoon games but I'm sure a few things could be put in. Even if the sim disappears into a rabbit hole during the ride.
As for farm houses and stuff, EA if you do make this please please PLEASE do not make us buy a farm lot like we buy businesses. Back where I'm from the people who own the farms most frequently live on the farms, I even knew a family who owned a large enough farm land that there were two separate farm houses on the land that housed two generations of their family. Part of the charm of that life was living in the land you worked and always being close by if anything on the farm required your attention, and the farms I lived around did require their owners to be there.
If you're going to make this work though when I say you need large lots I mean LARGE, perhaps two or three times the size of the largest lots we have currently. In truth it'll never span as far as some of the farm lands I've seen but it'd be a pretty decent simulation of one.
