Why is the Horse Ranch An Expansion Pack?

We can only speculate. Livestream is tomorrow so hopefully you'll have your answer then. ?

Why not? If it was a game pack we would probably get less stuff. Probably no mini goats/sheep etc. I wouldn't mind a game pack focusing only on the horses, but I'm not mad that they made it an expansion pack instead.

Probably due to budget.

Creating horses requires a lot of new animations - both for the horses themselves (anything from walk cycles to reactions) and for any sims interacting with the the horses. Game animation can be very expensive, because it's difficult and time-intensive to do them well, and those animations are going to eat up a large chunk of a proposed pack's budget. They might have talked about whether it was feasible to do horses as a game pack, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was always planned for an EP for these reasons.

i think from what iv seen think ep is right

I am speculating that besides the costly animations (horses, sheep, goats) adding the horse trails throughout the world made world building much more complicated. It is also possible they had to go back and change previous worlds to accommodate horses -- at least I hope they did, if that was needed, because I really want to ride horses in Henford-on-Bagley.

I never really thought of horses, as the main point of a pack, being an expansion pack. I always thought it would be a Game Pack. Or to be part of an expansion, something like Medieval. I've preordered since I want horses that much, but I do hope it'll be worth it. The build/buy stuff looks great, but the game play will, to me, be what determines if I think it should have been an EP or GP. fingers crossed.

I think it depends on the resources needed for a pack. How many people have to work for a given amount of time to create a pack. As others have said, horses require a lot of work (allowing different breeds on cas, animations to walk, jump, interact with different lifestages). Unfortunately horses seem to take up so much resources that there is little left for other features, just like with the cats and dogs EP.

"jcp011c2;c-18289041" wrote:
I never really thought of horses, as the main point of a pack, being an expansion pack. I always thought it would be a Game Pack. Or to be part of an expansion, something like Medieval. I've preordered since I want horses that much, but I do hope it'll be worth it. The build/buy stuff looks great, but the game play will, to me, be what determines if I think it should have been an EP or GP. fingers crossed.

I would also have preferred horses in a medieval themed DLC. Let's hope we can do something with them in Henford on Bagley, which can look a bit more historical.

What makes this horse ranch so special that it will be an expansion pack?