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Are you still happy with City Living?
Reaper1340
Posts: 23 Member
With the big sale going on, I'm wondering if I should get City Living. Although I like the CAS and build/buy items, I'm a gameplay first, builder second type of player. With this in mind, I would be extremely grateful if some of you could answer the following...
I know City Living was a fan favorite when it came out but would you say it has aged well?
Has your opinion of this expansion pack changed over time?
How would you rank it in comparison to the other expansions?
Most importantly, how is the interaction of City Living with other expansion and game/stuff packs (namely Seasons)?
Thank you so much in advance for helping a fellow simmer!
I know City Living was a fan favorite when it came out but would you say it has aged well?
Has your opinion of this expansion pack changed over time?
How would you rank it in comparison to the other expansions?
Most importantly, how is the interaction of City Living with other expansion and game/stuff packs (namely Seasons)?
Thank you so much in advance for helping a fellow simmer!
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Either way, from a purely subjective standpoint, I'd say: 9/10, would purchase again.
- Seasons
- Cats & Dogs
- City Living
- Discover University
- Get Famous
- Get Together
- Get to Work
- Island Living
I've read somewhere (can't remember if it was here or Reddit) that the weather system is a bit buggy in San Myshuno, in that Sims don't react appropriately to the changing weather, winter especially. Like they'll play in the basketball court during the freezing winter, haha. Also, if you have Seasons installed, do you get new festivals based around seasons and/or holidays? That would be awesome.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I also really love the new food stall and foods that came with this pack. My Sims are forever going to grab a bite, even if it's just so that they can later continue to cook this recipe at home (because once you finish the meal you learn the recipe). The CAS is fun, but I can't say I remember much of what came in the BB for this pack specifically.
CL works great with Get Together's club system, dance skill, and cafe lot type.
There's a big park in San Myshuno and you can build a roller/ice rink if you have Seasons, or maybe even a bowling alley/restaurant if you have BN or DO and don't want the park.
I tried having a Sim own a dog in an apartment, and that got annoying because of the need for walks and going to the bathroom, so I moved them out. I've not tried having cats in the apartments yet.
One thing about CL with Seasons is that the festivals in CL are all outside, so festivals will experience snow and rain effects, which can be annoying or not a bother depending on how you look at it, I suppose. I love going to the festivals with friends and taking lots of pics while there. But you don't get new festivals for the holidays. It would be so fun if we did though.
For as long as I've had GTW and CL, I've not felt like there was much crossover which again is good or bad depending on your perspective. You can always set up a retail lot in one of the community lots though.
I'm only just now getting GF and I have been too busy to play it yet, so I can't speak on that one and I don't have IL or DU.
Overall, I like CL because it gives me a chance to change up my playing style without completely taking me out of my comfort zone, as life in the suburbs can get boring sometimes.
As of right now, I would say it's in my top three EPs with Seasons and GT.
Hope this helps!
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That's a good question actually. I'm pretty sure that, yes, they do play the occasional basketball in the snow, but other than that the sims respond dinamically to the weather - at least in terms of clothing etc. I also like that your dogs will run out to greet the neighbors in the hallway - which brings me to the pack CL unfortunately doesn't mesh well with at all, C&D. It's too bad that even if you give your neighbors pets, you'll absolutely never see them around anywhere. Never. So, yes, that's the bigger bummer to me but seasons, imho, work quite well in the city and the more annoying things - like everything breaking in the rain at the GeekCon festival - seems to have been fixed. Speaking of which, I think the GeekCon and Romance festivals are really fun. They others I've grown tired of pretty fast. Hope that helps
Even though I feel that they said before seasons released that you could get a Christmas tree spawning in the spice market but I can't remember ever actually having seen that?
@SimTrippy Why do you think Cats and Dogs is necessary? I don't have that one or DU.
to get a boost.
I absolute love it still. It's my second favorite world to date and most families I play end up or start in an apartment.
With Seasons, I heard it rains a lot which can ruin Geekcon. (I never have my sims go to that festival so I've never experienced this myself). One big issue is that you can't decorate the outside your apartment for the holidays, meaning you can never complete that tradition. Aside from that, I've not personally had many negative experiences with it.
I guess one 'drawback' is that you need to go outside to experience a lot of the seasons since you don't have a backyard and you can only ever be on the top floor of an apartment.
I'd say it's worth it but at a sale price only
My Wishlist
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I'm still pretty happy with it. The fact that it has a city,penthouses and some fun objects like the karaoke machine make it one of my favorite packs.
I rank City Living as number 3 out of expansion packs.
My top 3
Seasons
Island Living
City Living
I know City Living was a fan favorite when it came out but would you say it has aged well?
For me personally, yes and no. I send my Sims to Festivals a lot. But lately just to harvest the rare plants during the Romance & Spice Festivals and then send them to sing at the bar. I love the singing skill, not just karaoke but the fact they can also sing while playing instruments. Sometimes I'll have them do the Spice challenge and it's always fun to learn the recipes, gain the chopsticks skill, etc. I like to get produce from a vendor stall sometimes, use the busking station and collect the posters/snowglobes too.
The Romance Festival used to be more fun for my Sims, but lately the same married Sims are attending every time I send them there. Unless you're going there with a date or spouse, it's useless for single Sims to find a love interest. That is, unless you don't care about breaking up couples. I don't do that, but just saying. lol
Rarely go to The Flea Market anymore. It's usually a waste to me unless your Sim is poor and wants to use a yard sale table/gallery wall, need to complete a collection or buy objects with special patterns without using a cheat. It's good for R2R Sims I guess. Don't care for the Humor & Hijinks festival. It's too deadly to Sims with the goofy/childish traits and I don't play very many mischievous Sims anyway. GeekCon is fun, I enjoy that one. My Sims will use the rocket, the observatory, and enter contests if they have the skills.
The implementation of work at home careers was a game changer that is timeless and works well in all worlds.
The biggest way I don't think Festivals themselves have aged well is the use of Situational Outfits. It's gotten a teensy bit better, but it's still awful and the worst part is some NPCs will get stuck in those outfits. Most of the other ways I don't think it's aged well has to do with build mode so I won't comment on that.
Has your opinion of this expansion pack changed over time?
Yes. I'm not as happy with it as I was when I first started playing it once I found all of it's restrictions/bugs/glitches. But again, most of those have to do with build mode. I'm a builder, so yeah. I don't like the hundreds of Sims generated to fill roles either. CL is one of the laggiest worlds in my game and I have a gaming desktop!
How would you rank it in comparison to the other expansions?
For purely gameplay in Expansion packs, my Top 5 would be:
1. Seasons - it plays a part in the gameplay of all other expansions
2. Get to Work - It brought us the first active careers of which Scientist is my absolute favorite, also aliens and retail. It's a great pack in my opinion.
3. Get Together
4. City Living
5. Discover University
Most importantly, how is the interaction of City Living with other expansion and game/stuff packs (namely Seasons)?
On purely gameplay with Seasons, the only drawback I've found is with Festivals, in particular GeekCon. 9/10 times when my Sims attend, it's raining and/or a thunderstorm and of course all the electronics are broken and unplayable. That may have been fixed for some Simmers, but not in my game. In fact, that happens with most of the Festivals. My Sims will usually leave, but sometimes they'll stay to visit the Karaoke bar and have fun singing instead. If it's just lightly raining, I'll at least have them harvest plants before leaving, but that's it.
Speaking of plants, it works well interacting with Seasons in that aspect since your Sim can get plants otherwise only available by grafting, seasonal/rare seed packets, picking Patchy's pocket or using a rocket.
I've never had one of my Sims hit by lightening while in CL or freeze to death. However, I have seen other Sims hit by lightening and turn blue from freezing to death while playing basketball. But, none of them actually died.
For other packs, sometimes possessed Sims will show up at Festivals and I've seen a few arrive on a broom. There was a bug in the past with Vampires where if one was attending a Festival, your Sims couldn't leave because a vampire was 'breaking in'. But that's been fixed.
It works well with Get Famous too for increasing your Sims fame at the Casbah Gallery using instruments, at the Karaoke bars and busking stations for singing and plonking down a mic for comedian Sims in public areas and at Festivals.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, but this is getting too long as it is. Hope it helps in your decision and...
Happy Simming!
As for how it interacts with other packs, for Seasons in particular I actually like it a lot? There can be some inclement weather issues of course, but I don't mind that overly--I usually just download a build from the gallery onto the lot that's an awesome place for my sims to hang if the weather's really bad lol. But I've really enjoyed syncing holidays from seasons with festivals. Now, you can't schedule the City Living festivals yourself--they start kinda randomly and then go on rotations by week--but certain festivals always land on the same day, so if you use the default 7 day seasons it's pretty easy to set things up once you note what season a festival land on. So, or instance, if the romance festival lands in spring I put my Love Day holiday on that Saturday, but if it lands in winter I make it New Years Eve. If the Humor and Hijinks or Geek fest is in fall it can be fun to make one of those days a Halloween themed holiday, and if your like me and tend to get all your Harvestfest tasks done by noon, the Spice Festival can be a fun family outing in the evening for their day off. (Also, San Myshuno looks beautiful in snow)
Other pack things: I agree that it's pretty good for sims trying to Get famous, as there's lots of opportunities to perform. Even without the festivals, there's usually always sims gathered around outside the apartment buildings, getting food from food stalls and such, so it's a real convenient place for your would-be performers to some crowds going without even having to move lots. Going to festivals with clubs from Get Together is great: maybe your sim is in the Renegades, and they all go to Humour and Hijinks, drink that dark tea and utterly dominate the pranksters vs jokesters competition--I've actually often seen members of the renegades show up on their own and do just that, which is pretty neat! As a vampire, the city makes for some GREAT easy snacking, for many of the same reasons as it helps with Get Famous--heck, you can always just knock on your neighbor's door if you get really desperate lol. The only thing I think I'd caution about is that puppies can have a hard time going outside to potty, so maybe only adopt adult dogs if your gonna live in an apartment.
My only real complaints about the pack honestly is--as is often the case--I wish there was a little more in certain areas, like maybe a singing career or aspiration to go with the singing skill and karaoke stuff, or something more concrete to motivate me to go out and try all the different food stall foods, but that's where mods can come in for me. Overall, I quite like the look and feel of the world, and because of the festivals it's probably one of the packs I end up using and coming in contact with consistently the most, even when I don't have any played sims living in San Myshuno. (Also Miko Ojo owns my heart, I've married her in at least three of my saves lol
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