OK, so I'm pretty close to buying but not quite there yet

Shaobun

Here's why:
Things from GTW:
- If your Sim has the "No bills" aspiration reward then they can be in the business lot without having to worry about paying bills. That means unless you have sims coming home from school or work you can just stay on your retail lot. Pretty close to having a home business.
- If you make a retail business you would like to actually be a customer of, you can sell it to npcs and everything will be restocked automatically. No more grinding for the same items with every single family.
- Teens can work in retail businesses (unsupervised)
- being able to make copies of things
- photography & baking obviously
- This picture: (perhaps explainable by the new secret lots cheat, wallpaper or backdrop item - i'm dissapointed if that's the case)

Promising Patches: (which shows they are making valuable improvements to the game)
- There is a cheat now for letting you edit secret lots
- being able to move entire lots including landscaping and place bigger lots on smaller ones
- basements and an extra floor

Things that still have me doubting:
- Detective and criminal careers completely unrelated
- SimGuruJill said Sixam doesn't have any editable lots
- No way to turn off aliens
- Careers are run like events
- Only one sim can be followed to a career
- Sims in the same household with the same career will not see each other at work (seriously kinda ridiculous), sims in the same career from different household might run into each other
- NPCs generated for job convenience and then disappear having no significance on our towns
- The base game is buggy and was made as a 32-bit executable - so chances are it has a short shelf life (and will be completely unable to cope with multiple expansions)
- babies... just everything about and related to them I don't like (mum can't interact with them at hospital for example)

jackjack_k

Good points!

For me, I expected Careers to run like the Events, because Careers in Ambitions ran like the Opportunities already in the game. There's only so much you can change in the engine, per expansion pack. So they need to decide on a way of doing things early on

Secondly, SimGuruJill said there were no editable lots on Sixam. However, there is a cheat to edit them, but you won't be able to edit them as a standard feature

Shaobun

Thanks @jackjack_k
I guess I expected it but I don't like it
I know about the cheat, I mentioned that under promising patches and also when talking about possible explanations for the very interesting screenshot (which I believe you found! So thanks for that too!). I just prefer to actually have lots that you can designate as "residential", "retail", etc so they operate in the way I want (who doesn't want bills delivered to their home address in space?)

EsnesNommoc

Wait wait wait, it's been confirmed that teens can work at retail lot ALONE?! :OOO Do they need to have parents that work there too or can they build the lot and work on their own? :O If that's the case then awesome!

cherpar

EsnesNommoc wrote: »

Wait wait wait, it's been confirmed that teens can work at retail lot ALONE?! :OOO Do they need to have parents that work there too or can they build the lot and work on their own? :O If that's the case then awesome!

Simguru graham said that all household members were owners of the shop, including teens. From what he said, he implied that a teen could run the shop.

cherpar

Shaobun wrote: »

Here's why:
Things from GTW:
- If your Sim has the "No bills" aspiration reward then they can be in the business lot without having to worry about paying bills. That means unless you have sims coming home from school or work you can just stay on your retail lot. Pretty close to having a home business.
- If you make a retail business you would like to actually be a customer of, you can sell it to npcs and everything will be restocked automatically. No more grinding for the same items with every single family.
- Teens can work in retail businesses
- being able to make copies of things
- photography & baking obviously
- This picture: (perhaps explainable by the new secret lots cheat, wallpaper or backdrop item - i'm dissapointed if that's the case)

Promising Patches: (which shows they are making valuable improvements to the game)
- There is a cheat now for letting you edit secret lots
- being able to move entire lots including landscaping and place bigger lots on smaller ones
- basements and an extra floor

Things that still have me doubting:
- Detective and criminal careers completely unrelated
- SimGuruJill said Sixam doesn't have any editable lots
- No way to turn off aliens
- Careers are run like events
- Only one sim can be followed to a career
- Sims in the same household with the same career will not see each other at work (seriously kinda ridiculous), sims in the same career from different household might run into each other
- NPCs generated for job convenience and then disappear having no significance on our towns
- babies... just everything about and related to them I don't like (mum can't interact with them at hospital for example)

I know where you are coming from. I will give the active careers a go, but I don't particularly like the event system either. I don't know how repeatable they are. The main interest for me is retail, photography and baking skill. Like OFB, I suspect there will be a lot of replay ability.

Im hoping if I keep my saves games seperate, ie retail only and no scientist/ dcr, there will be less opportunity to discover aliens. I think if we don't discover them they will remain hidden. If I run into the NPC and it's giving me weird options, I'm outta there! Hard to tell how effective it will be, but only time will tell.

on the plus side, there is no preload or pre order incentive ( if one were to be influenced by those things) so plenty of time to make a decision and read/ watch reviews after release.

Shaobun

cherpar wrote: »

Im hoping if I keep my saves games separate, ie retail only and no scientist/ dcr, there will be less opportunity to discover aliens. I think if we don't discover them they will remain hidden. If I run into the NPC and it's giving me weird options, I'm outta there!

on the plus side, there is no preload or pre order incentive ( if one were to be influenced by those things) so plenty of time to make a decision and read/ watch reviews after release.

Clever, so very clever! I'm going to be taking my time with the decision to get it or not (and doing the usual post-release research) but I really like the idea of just keeping things in separate saves if I do buy it! Hopefully I can just avoid everything that may unmask aliens while still doing baking, photography and retail.

altad1

Shaobun wrote: »

Here's why:
Things from GTW:
- If your Sim has the "No bills" aspiration reward then they can be in the business lot without having to worry about paying bills. That means unless you have sims coming home from school or work you can just stay on your retail lot. Pretty close to having a home business.
- If you make a retail business you would like to actually be a customer of, you can sell it to npcs and everything will be restocked automatically. No more grinding for the same items with every single family.
- Teens can work in retail businesses
- being able to make copies of things
- photography & baking obviously
- This picture: (perhaps explainable by the new secret lots cheat, wallpaper or backdrop item - i'm dissapointed if that's the case)

Promising Patches: (which shows they are making valuable improvements to the game)
- There is a cheat now for letting you edit secret lots
- being able to move entire lots including landscaping and place bigger lots on smaller ones
- basements and an extra floor

Things that still have me doubting:
- Detective and criminal careers completely unrelated
- SimGuruJill said Sixam doesn't have any editable lots
- No way to turn off aliens
- Careers are run like events
- Only one sim can be followed to a career
- Sims in the same household with the same career will not see each other at work (seriously kinda ridiculous), sims in the same career from different household might run into each other
- NPCs generated for job convenience and then disappear having no significance on our towns
- babies... just everything about and related to them I don't like (mum can't interact with them at hospital for example)

I'm getting the EP, the retail aspect alone is enough as I have so wanted this to return. I hadn't even thought about the no bills aspiration that's a really good point

I think it would have been better to make aliens optional.

I was expecting the careers to run like this, and the but I think it's a real shame that they don't have more of an impact on the town. It would have been good even if our sims don't go to hospital for everything to have a Doctor who is a Family Practitioner that our playable sims had the option of visiting if they were unwell.

Shaobun

I agree, I really wish we could visit a doctor when our sims get sick. I suppose I knew careers would be quite goal orientated. I just hoped that the goals would be like aspiration goals rather than event goals. Or that there would be some feeling like they weren't just rabbitholes we can enter. I was hoping that these buildings would be a part of our town, and that we would see and interact with sims we know. I find it really sad that if you have two scientists in the same household they will never work together. I don't see why each sim couldn't have their own list of goals in a tab so we could play multiple sims.

Glimmer50

I wonder if there is an option to turn the event goals off? Like when you give a party you can turn off having events and just have a regular open ended party.

At first, I was disappointed in the fact that when our Sims get sick they can't go to the hospital to get well. I was hoping it would be an option but I didn't want to have to do that every time someone gets sick because that could get old fast and time consuming not to mention forcing me to load each time a Sim was sick. I just wanted it to be an "option" like when you have a baby you have a choice to either go to the hospital or have a home birth.

Good luck with your decision. Sounds like it will be hard for you because there are things you like and things you don't. I would wait for some "Lets Plays" and see how Aliens work if I was you. Me, I like Aliens in my game so I don't care. If I get tired of seeing them I plan to go into manage households and delete them. I go in there anyway and get rid of old folks. And like you say maybe they don't come around unless you discover them in the science career but to me it sounds like any Sim can realize they are an alien. So, once the cover is blown then I think they are around but you can drag them in to CAS I guess and disguise them again. But that might be a pain.

Hopefully, you will eventually get the option to turn them off in game or someone will make a mod.

Sigzy05

Shaobun wrote: »

Here's why:
Things from GTW:
- If your Sim has the "No bills" aspiration reward then they can be in the business lot without having to worry about paying bills. That means unless you have sims coming home from school or work you can just stay on your retail lot. Pretty close to having a home business.
- If you make a retail business you would like to actually be a customer of, you can sell it to npcs and everything will be restocked automatically. No more grinding for the same items with every single family.
- Teens can work in retail businesses
- being able to make copies of things
- photography & baking obviously
- This picture: (perhaps explainable by the new secret lots cheat, wallpaper or backdrop item - i'm dissapointed if that's the case)

Promising Patches: (which shows they are making valuable improvements to the game)
- There is a cheat now for letting you edit secret lots
- being able to move entire lots including landscaping and place bigger lots on smaller ones
- basements and an extra floor

Things that still have me doubting:
- Detective and criminal careers completely unrelated
- SimGuruJill said Sixam doesn't have any editable lots
- No way to turn off aliens
- Careers are run like events
- Only one sim can be followed to a career
- Sims in the same household with the same career will not see each other at work (seriously kinda ridiculous), sims in the same career from different household might run into each other
- NPCs generated for job convenience and then disappear having no significance on our towns
- babies... just everything about and related to them I don't like (mum can't interact with them at hospital for example)

Great stuff you have there, I for instance didn't know that 2 people from the same household in the same career couldn't see each other in workplace, that's kind of lame...I guess I could pretend they worked at diferent hospitals in the same town but it's still lame...

Also the copying thing will come with the patch too.

Shaobun

Sigzy05 wrote: »

Also the copying thing will come with the patch too.

Thanks, it makes sense but I did not know this. Does anyone have any ideas how this could be useful without a store? I'm sure there would be something interesting that copying could allow... I just can't think of anything right now.

Sigzy05

Shaobun wrote: »

Sigzy05 wrote: »

Also the copying thing will come with the patch too.

Thanks, it makes sense but I did not know this. Does anyone have any ideas how this could be useful without a store? I'm sure there would be something interesting that copying could allow... I just can't think of anything right now.

One thing I can remember, for example when your sims paint they make random paintings within the style you choose. Let's say you would like to have 2 or more of the same painting for decorating your house, this would be handy for that reason.

MVWdeZT

Well, for one thing, it means your writers can keep copies of the books they write.

Shaobun

@Sigzy05 & @MVWdeZT Ah! Cool, yeah I can see how it'd be good to have multiple copies of a painting you really like (especially since they're randow) or copies of a book (especially if it's a skill book or something)

Lenne42

I like your post! It's got the pros and cons. Others just post the pros or the cons. I'm hoping that (just like previous games) mods can fix some of the things that we want changed. I think the aliens will stay disguised. He said that it was weird to see them in the shops like that. Specifically that this wasn't the usual. And the only way to visit Sixam is using the portal or rocket ship. Just don't do that and I believe the aliens will stay hidden. If not there is a Mod that lets you change NPCs clothing without controlling them. So maybe just change the few you see into their human disguises and they'll just stay that way. Problem solved lol. I'd also like the option of taking my sick sims to the hospital. Whether a mod can enable that (like copy the pregnant sim code onto a sick sim) we shall see. The only thing I don't see a fix for is the connection btwn detective & criminal. Our criminal sims in TS3 could end up in jail so it would be nice if that happened in TS4. Even a notification "John Smith was arrested for *insert criminal activity* and has been detained in jail for x amount of hrs* would be acceptable. Although I see that getting old if you're trying to get promoted and keep getting arrested lol. Maybe that's why they didn't dd it.

Aine

Great post OP - I especially feel sad that the careers are not 'active' careers as much as they are event careers. Active careers is to me when they are completely integrated into the neighborhood, and not just an 'event' that gathers points and levels. It feels scripted, and not like an actual active career, in where you could tell your own stories, impact the neighbors, have two adults of the same family work together as doctors etc. It's a shame really.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

libra_style

I agree even though certain things in the game seem like alot it really is limited because you can't really do things just because....it's like you need a reason for everything or else you can't explore things...like only be at the hospital if my sim is preggers or a doctor but when normal I can't or things like that....it kinda doesn't make sense.

It appears as though our sims were able to do more and have more with the old gaming engine instead of this "newly" crafted engine that's suppose to make it better. Sorry I kinda went to another place lol

jegoode

What is this "No Bills" aspiration/trait that everyone is talking about? Are you talking about the Frugal Aspiration because I don't see "No Bills" anywhere. If it's different, how can I get it?

Shaobun

A person asked the gurus about it and one of them (Graham I think) confirmed you wouldn't need to return home to pay bills if you had it. I don't know why he would've given that answer if such a thing didn't exist but you're right... I don't see it either in a search on google. I can't actually check my game because the latest sims 4 patch has made it too buggy. Hopefully somebody can clear this matter up for us...?

(Also, I obviously won't be buying any expansions if EA doesn't fix the game and it remains unplayable for me. I'm just assuming the next patch will fix what the last patch broke)

Legobatman3609

Shaobun wrote: »

Here's why:
Things from GTW:
- If your Sim has the "No bills" aspiration reward then they can be in the business lot without having to worry about paying bills. That means unless you have sims coming home from school or work you can just stay on your retail lot. Pretty close to having a home business.
- If you make a retail business you would like to actually be a customer of, you can sell it to npcs and everything will be restocked automatically. No more grinding for the same items with every single family.
- Teens can work in retail businesses (unsupervised)
- being able to make copies of things
- photography & baking obviously
- This picture: (perhaps explainable by the new secret lots cheat, wallpaper or backdrop item - i'm dissapointed if that's the case)

Promising Patches: (which shows they are making valuable improvements to the game)
- There is a cheat now for letting you edit secret lots
- being able to move entire lots including landscaping and place bigger lots on smaller ones
- basements and an extra floor

Things that still have me doubting:
- Detective and criminal careers completely unrelated
- SimGuruJill said Sixam doesn't have any editable lots
- No way to turn off aliens
- Careers are run like events
- Only one sim can be followed to a career
- Sims in the same household with the same career will not see each other at work (seriously kinda ridiculous), sims in the same career from different household might run into each other
- NPCs generated for job convenience and then disappear having no significance on our towns
- The base game is buggy and was made as a 32-bit executable - so chances are it has a short shelf life (and will be completely unable to cope with multiple expansions)
- babies... just everything about and related to them I don't like (mum can't interact with them at hospital for example)

Do we have proof of that? If I remember correctly, the mom stays at the hospital for a few hours. I think your wrong for that last point.

Shaobun

Legobatman3609 wrote: »

Do we have proof of that? If I remember correctly, the mom stays at the hospital for a few hours. I think your wrong for that last point.

Yes, in an interview with a sim guru: (at around 3:25 the link should take you there. I don't know how to imbed video)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fVhFH2snE7s&t=205
So if your mum/dad wants to hang out at the hospital that's fine... but the baby is delivered home without you. At least the postal system seems to work well.