Is World Adventures worth buying?

ritaroxy12

Clues in the title: Is World Adventures worth buying? Tell me the good points and the bad points. What makes this game so special? Is it actually worth buying or should I get another one instead?

Currently I have:
Base game
Generations
Pets
Seasons
University Life
Island Paradise

GreenCats

World Adventures gets a lot of hate, and I can understand why. Many people feel that the quest-driven adventure system is just not what the Sims series should be about. The tombs don't change and don't even reset so it's only really fun on the first play through or a long time later in a new neighbourhood. The selection of outfits is also really limited, although there are some fun eye liners.

The expansion pack was very buggy on release, and though a lot of the issues have now been fixed, there is still a major problem with game corruption when you travel. If you want to avoid this, install Nraas Traveler; otherwise you'll just have to make frequent backups of your saves.



All that said, I really, really love this expansion pack and it's actually one of the last I'd be willing to sacrifice. I hate having my sims cooped up in one town, and I love traveling to the beautiful World Adventures destinations, which are definitely among my favourite worlds to play and build for.

The tombs can be fun every now and then, and they allow you to collect some beautiful relics for your sims' homes. If you're not afraid of a challenge or of cheat codes, you can even learn to build your own.

And if you really don't want to do them, you can just spend your time doing other things. Mostly my sims fish, shop, learn new recipes, swim in the ocean (requires seasons) and meet the locals. I especially like to have them meet their future partners abroad, because it keeps my home town from being so incestuous and introduces new hidden traits to the gene pool. Oh, and in France they make nectar and in China they learn Martial Arts, which are two of the most fun skills in my opinion.

Having to level up visas bothers a lot of people, but you don't have to do this. There's a LTR that adds 3 days to your vacation time, meaning that even at no visa level you get a 6 day vacation, which I think is plenty. Oh, and I adore the entire build/buy catalogue.



My verdict on the expansion pack would be that objectively there are a lot of problems with it. Unlike some other expansion packs, World Adventures requires a fair bit of work and work-arounds in order to be able to play it the way you want to, unless the way you want to play happens to be exactly what the game prescribes. But if you put the effort in, it can be a very rewarding expansion pack, at least I find it to be. Here's how I got my game the way I wanted it:

- I am customizing the destinations with venues I have built and downloaded. Like all EA towns, China, Egypt, and France do not include objects or venues from other expansion packs, so they can be a little boring if you're not doing the tombs, unless you add bars, resorts, etc.

- I have a sim who has completed most adventures and so has most of the relics collections. I move her in to any build I want to contain these. Subsequent owners get good moodlets when complete relic collections are placed in a room. Also, they're really pretty :-)

- I installed Nraas Traveler. It's really this mod that makes World Adventures one of my most treasured expansion packs - ok, I'll say it, my favourite expansion pack. It adds ALL installed worlds to the travel dialogue box, meaning my sims can go on vacation to Hidden Springs, Monte Vista, wherever they want. This mod also cleans up the travelling process to deal with common errors and allows you to enable weather in vacation destinations. Finally, snow in China during winter and sunbathing in Egypt all year round!

- I installed Nraas Tempest, which allows me to create custom temperature settings, e.g. really, really hot in Egypt.



So, yes, I love this expansion pack, but I understand that it is not for everyone. I would certainly recommend it over Ambitions, which in my opinion is even more repetitive and quest-driven that World Adventures. Oh, and the firefighter and ghost hunter careers are now unplayably bugged for some people. I do like the sculpting and inventing skills that came with this pack though.

I don't really have a strong opinion on Showtime. I like the clothes and hairstyles that came with it, I think Starlight Shores is a really beautiful world, and the careers can be fun to play the first time round (although they get pretty boring after that, at least to me). It just might seem a little lacking in new interactions if you aren't super super keen on being a magician, singer, or acrobat.

Into the Future, the final EP you are missing, is well-made I think, and I enjoy a lot of the objects (especially the new kitchen stuff!), but the time travelling game mechanic is not to everyone's tastes. I've only visited the future once, for about one sim day - it just wasn't for me. If it doesn't sound like your cup of tea either, I would recommend World Adventures over it.

ritaroxy12

Thank you so much for all your help GreenCats! I will probably get it and install the mods to make to run smoothly. Did you download yours from Origin? The game that is, not the mods

Also could you send me a link to the mod sites please

KatAnubis

ritaroxy12 wrote:

Thank you so much for all your help GreenCats! I will probably get it and install the mods to make to run smoothly. Did you download yours from Origin? The game that is, not the mods

Also could you send me a link to the mod sites please

We're not supposed to link to the NRAAS site, but if you google it, it's easy to find. You don't have to sign up to get the mods, only if you want to post to that website (in which case you have to first sign up for the wiki site, then the website, but there are instructions on the site to explain how to do that.)

ritaroxy12

KatAnubis wrote:

ritaroxy12 wrote:

Thank you so much for all your help GreenCats! I will probably get it and install the mods to make to run smoothly. Did you download yours from Origin? The game that is, not the mods

Also could you send me a link to the mod sites please

We're not supposed to link to the NRAAS site, but if you google it, it's easy to find. You don't have to sign up to get the mods, only if you want to post to that website (in which case you have to first sign up for the wiki site, then the website, but there are instructions on the site to explain how to do that.)

Okay thank you for letting me know

ritaroxy12

Which version do I need? There seems to be a lot

GreenCats

Yes I downloaded it from Origin. Most of my games are digital versions :-)

Probably the latest one, but it depends what patch level you're at. It will tell you in your launcher if you're not sure.

KatAnubis

Unless you have not kept your patches up to date, you'll want the most recent version as that one is the most up to date.

I recently updated my computer and when I had to reinstall, I had to go to the most up to date patch. I never used any of the mods because my game (without any updates past Ambitions) ran just fine. However, with the updates up to date, I have had a horrible time so I finally broke down and got Traveler and Overwatch. So far, it's doing better. (I only have WA and that's because all the other EPs had things I didn't want in my game, even though they had a few things that I did want. To me, it just wasn't worth the money.)

SimmerChloe

I have to say, out of all of the expansions, WA is definitely the best! All of the sub-worlds included are beautiful! Most EPs usually bore me after a while, but WA is still interesting The only thing I ever encountered that was an issue is some bugs, but all of those have been fixed through patches.

ritaroxy12

Thank you! Yes I have all of the patches, my game crashes if I don't so my game is always up to date

GreenCats - Didi you have any trouble with getting your 1000 free SimPoints? Where they there straight away?

GreenCats

I had no trouble but I got mine shortly after release so things may have changed. I'll ask on my My Page for you xx

ritaroxy12

GreenCats wrote:

I had no trouble but I got mine shortly after release so things may have changed. I'll ask on my My Page for you xx

Thank you so much!