I had a question about this pack that I'd forgotten: is rent fixed? Like do apartments have preset weekly taxes in the form of rent? Noticed Carl's Sims 4 guide listed fixated rent prices for apartments, and never really paid enough attention in Let's Plays.
Reason I ask is because if the rent is fixed, I'd hate that too lolololol. The rent amounts listed are VERY low, and one of the only nice things I like about Sims 4 is that bills are decently high. If you have the Yuma Heights Mansion in Oasis Springs for example, you definitely wanna earn at least 12k a week. Carl's Guide has the Penthouses costing $3,500 in rent though, so if that's a fixed 3.5k instead of a 3.5k added onto bills for furniture, then honestly I think that sucks. The game is already easy enough, but fixed bills would feel like cheating.
@DeservedCriticism rent is fixed but doesn't include furnishings so it's easy to make a place more expensive.
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I would invert the question and ask why people are so intent on telling 'everybody' what they supposedly hate? Are we so worried that the bottom of the casserole is going to burn?
Of course, there's nothing that "everybody" hates nor likes and that's especially true of a game with a massively diverse base like the Sims 4. CL had several missteps in my opinion due to time and money I'll assume because I don't think it has anything to do with talent. Not being able to customize Festivals and being severely curtailed in the ability to customize apartments led to a lot of discord and dissent, mine included upon launch of the game. Those feelings have lingered as people late to buying the pack have stumbled upon the issues at varying times and posted here and elsewhere about it leading perhaps to the perception that people are always complaining about the pack.
That said, at the end of the day and despite my complaints which still exist of course, CL is a good pack with great short to mid-range play ability and appeal and an excellent long term environment in which to stage your game. It's packed with a variety of objects and provides another truly different world from the rest of the Sims 4. San Myshuno does create a skillful illusion of a truly large city- the best to date in the series. No, you're not going to wonder around forty square miles of true city and we're NOT going to be able to do that until we all have a Cray on our desktop. However, what you can use and the backdrop that surrounds it, is done well and will immerse you in an Urban feel. I would say in all honesty that City Living is my favorite EP to date overall with Get Together a close second and Get To Work a somewhat more distant third.
* apartment living: especially the small problematic apartments. I like having a range of lifestyles reflected in my game like having a family stuck in a tiny flat, or having a young couple taking their first steps into the adult world! I don't want all my Sims to own their own detached home right off the bat.
* basketball: I was so excited to get this back and I've added the hoop to loads of lots, like parks and even in driveways in the suburbs. I love having another activity for my Sims to do with their friends, especially teenagers at the weekend, who I send to the park to play basketball with their mates.
* games console: this is such a typical object and it's great to have it back! Teens can spend hours locked in their room with their console, or the whole family can gather in the lounge for gaming night!
* Market stalls and vendors: I love these and basically have one on every community lot! I just wish they auto-hired an NPC.
* Flea market table and gallery wall: I LOVE retail in The Sims. I'm obsessed with it! I love owning a retail business with GTW but these objects give me a first step on the ladder, for Sims who are just starting out, or who just have a bit of junk to clear out of their inventories. They let me have retail on my home lot too!
* politics career: I've always loved this career, having two parties and having rival politicians campaigning against each other! I was using mods for this, but I'm pleased it was added officially and there are so many nice interactions that come with it.
* work-from-home option: I really like this! Just last night I chose wfh for my politician but sent him to 'work' at the town hall I'd built. I love that it gives me a way to play careers actively in a flexible way. I desperately want them to roll out this option to other base game careers, and all future careers too!
* This is a small detail, but I recently found I could buy paintings directly from the easels when townies autonomously painted around town. My non-artists now have some original artwork for their walls created by other Sims!
* A CITY!!! I just love having different environments to tell Sim stories. I like creating a background story and customising my Sims by their environment. So having a city is important to me. I love the Spice District the most and just wish there were a few more community lots in this area!
My major issue with it at the moment is that it spawns too many Asian sims. By the second generation of my game, just about all the spawned sims are Asian or Arabic.
Ha ha! Me too! My game is spawning middle-eastern vampire Sims like crazy at the moment! I hope the devs tune down the new pack themed townie spawning a little. It's a bit OTT.
Since I'm between classes, here is my extremely brief and totally subjective opinion:
CAS
Eclectic and eccentric; I'm very happy with it.
World
Too much FX, not enough substance.
Gameplay
Love singing, basketball was lamely executed, the new careers are okay, and the festivals are lots of fun.
Honestly, it was a good pack but it still feels like a hand-holding approach to gaming. Not enough freedom, not enough challenge. Gremlins are more annoying than anything, for instance. I miss seeing hugely random and uncontrollable setbacks that I would be forced to overcome. After a couple nights in a gremlin apartment I'm just annoyed and the place is littered with electricians' bodies.
My major issue with it at the moment is that it spawns too many Asian sims. By the second generation of my game, just about all the spawned sims are Asian or Arabic.
Yeah this issue is ridiculous. I really miss sims spawning with regular names. It seems like every townie is Arab or Asian no matter what they look like either.
It really drives me crazy new features seem to be a little excessive. It is why I have about 10 no autonomy mods.
I bet the names you consider "regular" are considered abnormal in most Asian counties...
forgot about the basketball. probably because i haven't played basketball. just one example tho of a lot of different things that CL gives us to do and places to go that weren't available before. wish sims desire to play basketball wasn't so strong that they will leave in the middle of a conversation to go shoot some hoops. guess if i want to converse with them, i'll have to join them in shooting some hoops. lol
the food stalls are a nice addition. i'm not a programmer so i don't have a clue how difficult it is, but i do wish that the game would put npc's in the booths and not townies.
a lot of the complaints are about the lack of content. the way i look at it, all the other towns have 4 venues and a park. personally, i rarely go to the museum or library. i'm more into the bar scene. CL gives us two karioke bars which i really enjoy visiting. CL also has a gym and art gallery, as well as a park which is unique in being set up for having weddings at. So CL gives us 4 venues like all the other towns. Except for the gym, CL gives us unique venues which gives us something different to do.
as Cinderellimouse so aptly put it: it's a TOWN! so best of all, i get lots of new townies to socialize with. in addition to giving us the ability to do a lot of things that we weren't able to do before.
i'm not into living in an apartment, but i do enjoy visiting the gym or karioke bar, and going to the spice festival. also love the ability now of giving your home or venues up to three traits.
I like CL very much - the atmosphere of the public places in the evenings is unique in the whole series. I always visit the spice festival and I enjoy the singing skill. I only wish the city had more lots. Where will we place our washing salon when the laundry SP is released??
@DeservedCriticism rent is fixed but doesn't include furnishings so it's easy to make a place more expensive.
So if I have a Penthouse or an Apartment with 5 million worth of furnishings, it's still $3,500 a week or whatever in bills, regardless of property value? Yeah that's lame.
In my opinion the game needs to be "harder," not easier. It's not even about difficulty per se, but I always hated it that it was almost impossible NOT to be a millionaire in Sims 3 and I prefer it when my rich sims just have mansions, but only 40k in reserve or so. Sims 4 - one thing I can praise it for - has the best bills in the sense the average end-game mansion costs about as much as a level 10 career earns in a week, meaning only really rich sims can live there and keep a profit. Looks like Apartments throw that out the window though and just let anyone have a Penthouse.
City Living has since made me a much more skeptical player. I bought the Vamp GP because I like vampires and there's some cool options, but in the grander scheme of things I plan on holding off. City Living was in no way, shape, or form worth $40. I didn't even think it was work $18. If Maxis would allow ala carte purchase of stuff I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. In my opinion, city Living is the weakest EP to date. Not for lack of marketing though, for a lack of substance.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
@DeservedCriticism Apartments in City Living have a fixed weekly rent depending on the size, district, and somewhat according to lot traits (There are particular permanent lot traits in some apartments that can't be removed). When a Sim moves in, they pay a fixed deposit amount. If they move into a furnished apartment, they also have to pay up front for the furnishings the apartment comes with. Furnishings are not included in the rent amount. Unfurnished, they move in to a totally empty apartment (no basics, not even a toilet paper roll).
A wealthy Sim could have a heyday with some of those apartments as they can renovate the inside and furnish them as they wish, and still only pay the fixed weekly rental amount as long as they live there.
Penthouses are not rented but owned. They work the same as owning any other house in any other world. There is no rent or deposit, they buy it. Their weekly bills are not fixed, but are dependent on the value of what they have and will be charged accordingly, just like a house.
@DeservedCriticism Apartments in City Living have a fixed weekly rent depending on the size, district, and somewhat according to lot traits (There are particular permanent lot traits in some apartments that can't be removed). When a Sim moves in, they pay a fixed deposit amount. If they move into a furnished apartment, they also have to pay up front for the furnishings the apartment comes with. Furnishings are not included in the rent amount. Unfurnished, they move in to a totally empty apartment (no basics, not even a toilet paper roll).
A wealthy Sim could have a heyday with some of those apartments as they can renovate the inside and furnish them as they wish, and still only pay the fixed weekly rental amount as long as they live there.
Penthouses are not rented but owned. They work the same as owning any other house in any other world. There is no rent or deposit, they buy it. Their weekly bills are not fixed, but are dependent on the value of what they have and will be charged accordingly, just like a house.
Thanks, appreciate the detailed reply from both of you, but yeah as I said I'm just not a fan of that. The apartments cater to something I don't think we ever needed. I'd be like if they made an expansion where...think the best paying career at the moment earns like 16k a week...? If they made a career that earns 32k a week I'd be groaning cause it seems like little more than a cheap and easy reward. A balanced economy of sorts can be lots of fun in a more passive way, but being able to pimp out an apartment for no extra cost is practically a cheat feature.
Very disappointing to see imo when lord knows they TOTALLY overdid it with the ease of making money in Sims 3. That's one of the few features I'd praise Sims 4 as being the best for (bills are more meaningful than 1, 2 and 3, jobs are less lucrative), but seems they just took a bite out of that in a small way. I'm sure some people out there like that, but I don't, so it's just another reason to avoid City Living.
For the OP: I love City Living! I love the atmosphere, views, diversity of people, clothing, food, apartment living, and having everything so close. I like having lot traits, basketball, festivals, karaoke, new jobs, graffiti, and all the new things you can do.
Like everyone else, I also have issues with it. I don't like the over the top annoyances like constant noisy or complaining neighbors and people barging in without an invite or key, having to stay until a festival ends and disappears, or lot traits that harass every day or night, stuff like that. Obviously, I don't like the bugs (thankfully I don't have lag) but that holds for any part of the game.
I do have trouble renovating the apartments because of the limitations in saving or downloading apartments all as one, and having to manipulate around those permanent lot traits that spawn things you have to be able to get to.
When I get tired of it all, I just take a break and play in one of the other worlds for awhile. But all in all, I have terrific fun with it while I'm there.
One reason I hate it is because the apartments are two small. When you decide to start a family you could out grow the apartment very fast. Can't place them in other areas. Sims 2 apartment were better in same ways.
City Living has since made me a much more skeptical player. I bought the Vamp GP because I like vampires and there's some cool options, but in the grander scheme of things I plan on holding off. City Living was in no way, shape, or form worth $40. I didn't even think it was work $18. If Maxis would allow ala carte purchase of stuff I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. In my opinion, city Living is the weakest EP to date. Not for lack of marketing though, for a lack of substance.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
That's your opinion, not mine.
We aren't talking about The Sims 3 here. The Sims 3 had it's strengths and it's weaknesses, similar to how The Sims 4 has it's own.
You like CL? Good for you. I think it's the biggest rip off yet, introducing a whole lot of half baked features and too many gimmicks all together while still maintaining to pull almost all of its 'new' content directly from the base game. Thats my opinion, which is corroborated by personal experience, not by dragging some unrelated pack through the dirt.
City Living has since made me a much more skeptical player. I bought the Vamp GP because I like vampires and there's some cool options, but in the grander scheme of things I plan on holding off. City Living was in no way, shape, or form worth $40. I didn't even think it was work $18. If Maxis would allow ala carte purchase of stuff I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. In my opinion, city Living is the weakest EP to date. Not for lack of marketing though, for a lack of substance.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
That's your opinion, not mine.
We aren't talking about The Sims 3 here. The Sims 3 had it's strengths and it's weaknesses, similar to how The Sims 4 has it's own.
You like CL? Good for you. I think it's the biggest rip off yet, introducing a whole lot of half baked features and too many gimmicks all together while still maintaining to pull almost all of its 'new' content directly from the base game. Thats my opinion, which is corroborated by personal experience, not by dragging some unrelated pack through the dirt.
Yeah, it is disappointing most of what's at the festivals are objects and things from the base, I was hoping for lots of other new ideas. Food carts are nice, but how many times does a Sim want to eat spicy food? It's whimsical but not really as compelling as I hoped they could do. They spent a lot of money it seems on the illusion of a city which is nice, but some buildings only have two apartments...and a high rise is just a house on top of a building, I was hoping my Sims could live on a ground floor or in the middle or something of all those fake buildings. You know not everything on 'one' floor and elevators like in the past. Let alone build my own. Granted it is way too small for my tastes though the back alleys are nice but I can't go there.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
City Living has since made me a much more skeptical player. I bought the Vamp GP because I like vampires and there's some cool options, but in the grander scheme of things I plan on holding off. City Living was in no way, shape, or form worth $40. I didn't even think it was work $18. If Maxis would allow ala carte purchase of stuff I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. In my opinion, city Living is the weakest EP to date. Not for lack of marketing though, for a lack of substance.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
That's your opinion, not mine.
We aren't talking about The Sims 3 here. The Sims 3 had it's strengths and it's weaknesses, similar to how The Sims 4 has it's own.
You like CL? Good for you. I think it's the biggest rip off yet, introducing a whole lot of half baked features and too many gimmicks all together while still maintaining to pull almost all of its 'new' content directly from the base game. Thats my opinion, which is corroborated by personal experience, not by dragging some unrelated pack through the dirt.
Yeah, it is disappointing most of what's at the festivals are objects and things from the base, I was hoping for lots of other new ideas. Food carts are nice, but how many times does a Sim want to eat spicy food? It's whimsical but not really as compelling as I hoped they could do. They spent a lot of money it seems on the illusion of a city which is nice, but some buildings only have two apartments...and a high rise is just a house on top of a building, I was hoping my Sims could live on a ground floor or in the middle or something of all those fake buildings. You know not everything on 'one' floor and elevators like in the past. Let alone build my own. Granted it is way too small for my tastes though the back alleys are nice but I can't go there.
Yeah there's a whole lot of illusion being sold there.
Apartments are easily the worst part of the pack for me. I wanted them really bad, and at the end of the day they are glorified residential lots that are surrounded by decoration and can barely be changed. Zero flexibility there, but to some that doesn't seem to matter. The 'apartment gameplay' the pro-CL crowd hyped up fell flat because it's consists of neighbors visiting and some special effects - something all three Sims games featuring apartments managed to include.
I got the pack for $18, so it's not like I can complain too much - but honestly, there's so little there I still feel ripped off. It's not like I can use apartments outside of the city world, or for any purpose other than how Maxis determines. Festivals are all together worthless, they pretty much throw unused content in the players face (does anyone else remember them saying no one uses the voodoo doll? Guess what's a prominent part of the humor festival... surprise surprise)
Expansion packs for this game are just terrible. Get Together was void of content, as was City Living, and GTW is linear as can be. For all we know this could be intentional. What better way to shift from EP/GP/SP to just GP/SP when the EP's get shoddy reviews.
ETA: With apartments being largely locked into place, they should have given us 2-3x the number we got. This would be a non-issue if we could make other apartments with/without shells. When they fail to provide the necessary tools for that they have set themselves up to fail, which they did big time with apartments.
My major issue with it at the moment is that it spawns too many Asian sims. By the second generation of my game, just about all the spawned sims are Asian or Arabic.
I have this issue. I get it's supposed to be a diverse city and that's great, but it's almost doing the opposite. There are no white or African American Sims being spawned there. I've had to edit a few townies in cas.
As for the pack, I'm enjoying it. It's added some life to my game, but I'm glad I bought it on sale for £15. I can enjoy it for what it is, whereas if I'd gotten it full price I would've felt ripped off.
City Living has since made me a much more skeptical player. I bought the Vamp GP because I like vampires and there's some cool options, but in the grander scheme of things I plan on holding off. City Living was in no way, shape, or form worth $40. I didn't even think it was work $18. If Maxis would allow ala carte purchase of stuff I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. In my opinion, city Living is the weakest EP to date. Not for lack of marketing though, for a lack of substance.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
That's your opinion, not mine.
We aren't talking about The Sims 3 here. The Sims 3 had it's strengths and it's weaknesses, similar to how The Sims 4 has it's own.
You like CL? Good for you. I think it's the biggest rip off yet, introducing a whole lot of half baked features and too many gimmicks all together while still maintaining to pull almost all of its 'new' content directly from the base game. Thats my opinion, which is corroborated by personal experience, not by dragging some unrelated pack through the dirt.
Yeah, it is disappointing most of what's at the festivals are objects and things from the base, I was hoping for lots of other new ideas. Food carts are nice, but how many times does a Sim want to eat spicy food? It's whimsical but not really as compelling as I hoped they could do. They spent a lot of money it seems on the illusion of a city which is nice, but some buildings only have two apartments...and a high rise is just a house on top of a building, I was hoping my Sims could live on a ground floor or in the middle or something of all those fake buildings. You know not everything on 'one' floor and elevators like in the past. Let alone build my own. Granted it is way too small for my tastes though the back alleys are nice but I can't go there.
Yeah there's a whole lot of illusion being sold there.
Apartments are easily the worst part of the pack for me. I wanted them really bad, and at the end of the day they are glorified residential lots that are surrounded by decoration and can barely be changed. Zero flexibility there, but to some that doesn't seem to matter. The 'apartment gameplay' the pro-CL crowd hyped up fell flat because it's consists of neighbors visiting and some special effects - something all three Sims games featuring apartments managed to include.
I got the pack for $18, so it's not like I can complain too much - but honestly, there's so little there I still feel ripped off. It's not like I can use apartments outside of the city world, or for any purpose other than how Maxis determines. Festivals are all together worthless, they pretty much throw unused content in the players face (does anyone else remember them saying no one uses the voodoo doll? Guess what's a prominent part of the humor festival... surprise surprise)
Expansion packs for this game are just terrible. Get Together was void of content, as was City Living, and GTW is linear as can be. For all we know this could be intentional. What better way to shift from EP/GP/SP to just GP/SP when the EP's get shoddy reviews.
ETA: With apartments being largely locked into place, they should have given us 2-3x the number we got. This would be a non-issue if we could make other apartments with/without shells. When they fail to provide the necessary tools for that they have set themselves up to fail, which they did big time with apartments.
My Sims moved back to WB, where I have more freedom to tear down the whole 'world'. It's rare they even visit the new city. Not much to keep me going back, though some of the objects have proved useful for other things. But they were also in older packs so not much new there, either. The one excitement I got out of CL (seems so minor) was I sent one Sim from WB to a festival. She is a pretend witch. Her inventory was full of fireworks. I didn't have any room in her tiny cabin in WB so I put them outside her house in the backyard. A fire started in her living room one night and spread to the fireworks..that was worth at least five dollars to see her whole house (except for upstairs) catch fire. my story the vampires did it, because she was trying to control them. Just one of the very few bright spots I got from that EP's objects. ETA: I didn't dream they would cause a fire to spread because they were right up against the wall, and it just kept going and going..ROFL..that was worth a trip to win some fireworks.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
City Living has since made me a much more skeptical player. I bought the Vamp GP because I like vampires and there's some cool options, but in the grander scheme of things I plan on holding off. City Living was in no way, shape, or form worth $40. I didn't even think it was work $18. If Maxis would allow ala carte purchase of stuff I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. In my opinion, city Living is the weakest EP to date. Not for lack of marketing though, for a lack of substance.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
That's your opinion, not mine.
We aren't talking about The Sims 3 here. The Sims 3 had it's strengths and it's weaknesses, similar to how The Sims 4 has it's own.
You like CL? Good for you. I think it's the biggest rip off yet, introducing a whole lot of half baked features and too many gimmicks all together while still maintaining to pull almost all of its 'new' content directly from the base game. Thats my opinion, which is corroborated by personal experience, not by dragging some unrelated pack through the dirt.
Yeah, it is disappointing most of what's at the festivals are objects and things from the base, I was hoping for lots of other new ideas. Food carts are nice, but how many times does a Sim want to eat spicy food? It's whimsical but not really as compelling as I hoped they could do. They spent a lot of money it seems on the illusion of a city which is nice, but some buildings only have two apartments...and a high rise is just a house on top of a building, I was hoping my Sims could live on a ground floor or in the middle or something of all those fake buildings. You know not everything on 'one' floor and elevators like in the past. Let alone build my own. Granted it is way too small for my tastes though the back alleys are nice but I can't go there.
Yeah there's a whole lot of illusion being sold there.
Apartments are easily the worst part of the pack for me. I wanted them really bad, and at the end of the day they are glorified residential lots that are surrounded by decoration and can barely be changed. Zero flexibility there, but to some that doesn't seem to matter. The 'apartment gameplay' the pro-CL crowd hyped up fell flat because it's consists of neighbors visiting and some special effects - something all three Sims games featuring apartments managed to include.
I got the pack for $18, so it's not like I can complain too much - but honestly, there's so little there I still feel ripped off. It's not like I can use apartments outside of the city world, or for any purpose other than how Maxis determines. Festivals are all together worthless, they pretty much throw unused content in the players face (does anyone else remember them saying no one uses the voodoo doll? Guess what's a prominent part of the humor festival... surprise surprise)
Expansion packs for this game are just terrible. Get Together was void of content, as was City Living, and GTW is linear as can be. For all we know this could be intentional. What better way to shift from EP/GP/SP to just GP/SP when the EP's get shoddy reviews.
ETA: With apartments being largely locked into place, they should have given us 2-3x the number we got. This would be a non-issue if we could make other apartments with/without shells. When they fail to provide the necessary tools for that they have set themselves up to fail, which they did big time with apartments.
My Sims moved back to WB, where I have more freedom to tear down the whole 'world'. It's rare they even visit the new city. Not much to keep me going back, though some of the objects have proved useful for other things. But they were also in older packs so not much new there, either. The one excitement I got out of CL (seems so minor) was I sent one Sim from WB to a festival. She is a pretend witch. Her inventory was full of fireworks. I didn't have any room in her tiny cabin in WB so I put them outside her house in the backyard. A fire started in her living room one night and spread to the fireworks..that was worth at least five dollars to see her whole house (except for upstairs) catch fire. my story the vampires did it, because she was trying to control them. Just one of the very few bright spots I got from that EP's objects.
I am the same way. I have been making 'apartments' using door locks since door locking was added. I prefer my own to their official ones. I never go to the city world. I don't go to the festivals anymore either. Once you've done it once, you've seen it all.
I also find the city world incredibly ugly. Some areas are nice, but others are just odd and poorly setup. All of the areas feature entirely too much decoration, which kills my immersion. I'd rather stay in one of the other worlds where the deco isn't thrust into your playable area.
CL perplexes me quite frankly - Why have tourists, but no hotel or motels? An art district, but no theaters, dance studios, no School of the arts, no crafts center - no things that make one believe it is a vast place that celebrates the arts? Why call it a city with no stores or city life aspects? It is at most only part way to representing a city in my view. It is City -lite. Heavy on the lite!
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I've moved into an apartment and when visitors come, they wait outside in the street and my sim goes downstairs to greet them. Why don't they appear at the apartment door?
Comments
Reason I ask is because if the rent is fixed, I'd hate that too lolololol. The rent amounts listed are VERY low, and one of the only nice things I like about Sims 4 is that bills are decently high. If you have the Yuma Heights Mansion in Oasis Springs for example, you definitely wanna earn at least 12k a week. Carl's Guide has the Penthouses costing $3,500 in rent though, so if that's a fixed 3.5k instead of a 3.5k added onto bills for furniture, then honestly I think that sucks. The game is already easy enough, but fixed bills would feel like cheating.
I would invert the question and ask why people are so intent on telling 'everybody' what they supposedly hate? Are we so worried that the bottom of the casserole is going to burn?
That said, at the end of the day and despite my complaints which still exist of course, CL is a good pack with great short to mid-range play ability and appeal and an excellent long term environment in which to stage your game. It's packed with a variety of objects and provides another truly different world from the rest of the Sims 4. San Myshuno does create a skillful illusion of a truly large city- the best to date in the series. No, you're not going to wonder around forty square miles of true city and we're NOT going to be able to do that until we all have a Cray on our desktop. However, what you can use and the backdrop that surrounds it, is done well and will immerse you in an Urban feel. I would say in all honesty that City Living is my favorite EP to date overall with Get Together a close second and Get To Work a somewhat more distant third.
I love:
* apartment living: especially the small problematic apartments. I like having a range of lifestyles reflected in my game like having a family stuck in a tiny flat, or having a young couple taking their first steps into the adult world! I don't want all my Sims to own their own detached home right off the bat.
* basketball: I was so excited to get this back and I've added the hoop to loads of lots, like parks and even in driveways in the suburbs. I love having another activity for my Sims to do with their friends, especially teenagers at the weekend, who I send to the park to play basketball with their mates.
* games console: this is such a typical object and it's great to have it back! Teens can spend hours locked in their room with their console, or the whole family can gather in the lounge for gaming night!
* Market stalls and vendors: I love these and basically have one on every community lot! I just wish they auto-hired an NPC.
* Flea market table and gallery wall: I LOVE retail in The Sims. I'm obsessed with it! I love owning a retail business with GTW but these objects give me a first step on the ladder, for Sims who are just starting out, or who just have a bit of junk to clear out of their inventories. They let me have retail on my home lot too!
* politics career: I've always loved this career, having two parties and having rival politicians campaigning against each other! I was using mods for this, but I'm pleased it was added officially and there are so many nice interactions that come with it.
* work-from-home option: I really like this! Just last night I chose wfh for my politician but sent him to 'work' at the town hall I'd built. I love that it gives me a way to play careers actively in a flexible way. I desperately want them to roll out this option to other base game careers, and all future careers too!
* This is a small detail, but I recently found I could buy paintings directly from the easels when townies autonomously painted around town. My non-artists now have some original artwork for their walls created by other Sims!
* A CITY!!! I just love having different environments to tell Sim stories. I like creating a background story and customising my Sims by their environment. So having a city is important to me. I love the Spice District the most and just wish there were a few more community lots in this area!
There's probably more that I'm forgetting about.
Ha ha! Me too! My game is spawning middle-eastern vampire Sims like crazy at the moment! I hope the devs tune down the new pack themed townie spawning a little. It's a bit OTT.
CAS
Eclectic and eccentric; I'm very happy with it.
World
Too much FX, not enough substance.
Gameplay
Love singing, basketball was lamely executed, the new careers are okay, and the festivals are lots of fun.
Honestly, it was a good pack but it still feels like a hand-holding approach to gaming. Not enough freedom, not enough challenge. Gremlins are more annoying than anything, for instance. I miss seeing hugely random and uncontrollable setbacks that I would be forced to overcome. After a couple nights in a gremlin apartment I'm just annoyed and the place is littered with electricians' bodies.
I bet the names you consider "regular" are considered abnormal in most Asian counties...
forgot about the basketball. probably because i haven't played basketball. just one example tho of a lot of different things that CL gives us to do and places to go that weren't available before. wish sims desire to play basketball wasn't so strong that they will leave in the middle of a conversation to go shoot some hoops. guess if i want to converse with them, i'll have to join them in shooting some hoops. lol
the food stalls are a nice addition. i'm not a programmer so i don't have a clue how difficult it is, but i do wish that the game would put npc's in the booths and not townies.
a lot of the complaints are about the lack of content. the way i look at it, all the other towns have 4 venues and a park. personally, i rarely go to the museum or library. i'm more into the bar scene. CL gives us two karioke bars which i really enjoy visiting. CL also has a gym and art gallery, as well as a park which is unique in being set up for having weddings at. So CL gives us 4 venues like all the other towns. Except for the gym, CL gives us unique venues which gives us something different to do.
as Cinderellimouse so aptly put it: it's a TOWN! so best of all, i get lots of new townies to socialize with. in addition to giving us the ability to do a lot of things that we weren't able to do before.
i'm not into living in an apartment, but i do enjoy visiting the gym or karioke bar, and going to the spice festival. also love the ability now of giving your home or venues up to three traits.
So if I have a Penthouse or an Apartment with 5 million worth of furnishings, it's still $3,500 a week or whatever in bills, regardless of property value? Yeah that's lame.
In my opinion the game needs to be "harder," not easier. It's not even about difficulty per se, but I always hated it that it was almost impossible NOT to be a millionaire in Sims 3 and I prefer it when my rich sims just have mansions, but only 40k in reserve or so. Sims 4 - one thing I can praise it for - has the best bills in the sense the average end-game mansion costs about as much as a level 10 career earns in a week, meaning only really rich sims can live there and keep a profit. Looks like Apartments throw that out the window though and just let anyone have a Penthouse.
Nah, that title belongs to Generations. The Expansion pack that basically took base game stuff, and polished them, and added new "gameplay" that happened mostly off-screen. Apart from a few gameplay objects, and recycling base game stuff and calling it something else, there was literally nothing to it. It just gets over praised because people like Family Play. But there was nothing in that pack that was actually brand new.
The only thing that was made of any effort was the Imaginary Friend. Most of the stuff in the EP was done better on the Sims 3 store.
City Living may not be for some, but if people were willing to pay over $40 for packs like Roaring Heights, then I think City Living does a good job at delivering content.
However, City Living was released too early. It should have been near last. Apartment Life is the smallest EP in the 2/3/4 era, but it's loved because it has little bits of gameplay, but overall just finishes off 2 nicely. I think had Apartment Life been released instead of Nightlife, people would have been more sceptical.
City Living feels like a pack that would bring existing content with new content. Adding some more types of gameplay, but overall doesn't bring a whole new concept. Fills outs what is left, and basically polishes an existing eco system.
I think after a year gap, we needed a pack with a strong concept (Pets, Uni, Bon Voyage) etc. I think a pack that is designed to fill out the base game with more options, was not a good choice 3 packs in.
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A wealthy Sim could have a heyday with some of those apartments as they can renovate the inside and furnish them as they wish, and still only pay the fixed weekly rental amount as long as they live there.
Penthouses are not rented but owned. They work the same as owning any other house in any other world. There is no rent or deposit, they buy it. Their weekly bills are not fixed, but are dependent on the value of what they have and will be charged accordingly, just like a house.
Thanks, appreciate the detailed reply from both of you, but yeah as I said I'm just not a fan of that. The apartments cater to something I don't think we ever needed. I'd be like if they made an expansion where...think the best paying career at the moment earns like 16k a week...? If they made a career that earns 32k a week I'd be groaning cause it seems like little more than a cheap and easy reward. A balanced economy of sorts can be lots of fun in a more passive way, but being able to pimp out an apartment for no extra cost is practically a cheat feature.
Very disappointing to see imo when lord knows they TOTALLY overdid it with the ease of making money in Sims 3. That's one of the few features I'd praise Sims 4 as being the best for (bills are more meaningful than 1, 2 and 3, jobs are less lucrative), but seems they just took a bite out of that in a small way. I'm sure some people out there like that, but I don't, so it's just another reason to avoid City Living.
Like everyone else, I also have issues with it. I don't like the over the top annoyances like constant noisy or complaining neighbors and people barging in without an invite or key, having to stay until a festival ends and disappears, or lot traits that harass every day or night, stuff like that. Obviously, I don't like the bugs (thankfully I don't have lag) but that holds for any part of the game.
I do have trouble renovating the apartments because of the limitations in saving or downloading apartments all as one, and having to manipulate around those permanent lot traits that spawn things you have to be able to get to.
When I get tired of it all, I just take a break and play in one of the other worlds for awhile. But all in all, I have terrific fun with it while I'm there.
That's your opinion, not mine.
We aren't talking about The Sims 3 here. The Sims 3 had it's strengths and it's weaknesses, similar to how The Sims 4 has it's own.
You like CL? Good for you. I think it's the biggest rip off yet, introducing a whole lot of half baked features and too many gimmicks all together while still maintaining to pull almost all of its 'new' content directly from the base game. Thats my opinion, which is corroborated by personal experience, not by dragging some unrelated pack through the dirt.
Yeah, it is disappointing most of what's at the festivals are objects and things from the base, I was hoping for lots of other new ideas. Food carts are nice, but how many times does a Sim want to eat spicy food? It's whimsical but not really as compelling as I hoped they could do. They spent a lot of money it seems on the illusion of a city which is nice, but some buildings only have two apartments...and a high rise is just a house on top of a building, I was hoping my Sims could live on a ground floor or in the middle or something of all those fake buildings. You know not everything on 'one' floor and elevators like in the past. Let alone build my own. Granted it is way too small for my tastes though the back alleys are nice but I can't go there.
Yeah there's a whole lot of illusion being sold there.
Apartments are easily the worst part of the pack for me. I wanted them really bad, and at the end of the day they are glorified residential lots that are surrounded by decoration and can barely be changed. Zero flexibility there, but to some that doesn't seem to matter. The 'apartment gameplay' the pro-CL crowd hyped up fell flat because it's consists of neighbors visiting and some special effects - something all three Sims games featuring apartments managed to include.
I got the pack for $18, so it's not like I can complain too much - but honestly, there's so little there I still feel ripped off. It's not like I can use apartments outside of the city world, or for any purpose other than how Maxis determines. Festivals are all together worthless, they pretty much throw unused content in the players face (does anyone else remember them saying no one uses the voodoo doll? Guess what's a prominent part of the humor festival... surprise surprise)
Expansion packs for this game are just terrible. Get Together was void of content, as was City Living, and GTW is linear as can be. For all we know this could be intentional. What better way to shift from EP/GP/SP to just GP/SP when the EP's get shoddy reviews.
ETA: With apartments being largely locked into place, they should have given us 2-3x the number we got. This would be a non-issue if we could make other apartments with/without shells. When they fail to provide the necessary tools for that they have set themselves up to fail, which they did big time with apartments.
I have this issue. I get it's supposed to be a diverse city and that's great, but it's almost doing the opposite. There are no white or African American Sims being spawned there. I've had to edit a few townies in cas.
As for the pack, I'm enjoying it. It's added some life to my game, but I'm glad I bought it on sale for £15. I can enjoy it for what it is, whereas if I'd gotten it full price I would've felt ripped off.
My Sims moved back to WB, where I have more freedom to tear down the whole 'world'. It's rare they even visit the new city. Not much to keep me going back, though some of the objects have proved useful for other things. But they were also in older packs so not much new there, either. The one excitement I got out of CL (seems so minor) was I sent one Sim from WB to a festival. She is a pretend witch. Her inventory was full of fireworks. I didn't have any room in her tiny cabin in WB so I put them outside her house in the backyard. A fire started in her living room one night and spread to the fireworks..that was worth at least five dollars to see her whole house (except for upstairs) catch fire.
I am the same way. I have been making 'apartments' using door locks since door locking was added. I prefer my own to their official ones. I never go to the city world. I don't go to the festivals anymore either. Once you've done it once, you've seen it all.
I also find the city world incredibly ugly. Some areas are nice, but others are just odd and poorly setup. All of the areas feature entirely too much decoration, which kills my immersion. I'd rather stay in one of the other worlds where the deco isn't thrust into your playable area.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....