I was thinking about Makin' Magic, and how the spells available included things like turning pets into human sims, and using an item from Superstar to power a fame spell. Back in sims 1 and 2, people were okay with packs interacting with elements of other packs, and sometimes actively supportive.
I'm not a fan of MFPS, because it felt like they held back content from C&D in order to fill out the pack without adding anything meaningful. But I'm thinking about magic, and how we won't see fame affecting spells, weather affecting spells, or anything of the sort because those would be one pack requiring another. So how much would you be okay with elements of one pack being specifically made to involve elements that came in another?
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I feel that as long as it does not cut down on the quality or the enjoyment of the game, I have no issues with them adding aspects that would touch on the other packs in the game. And as long as it is not a requirement to have another pack for it to work properly, such as the whole Cats & Dogs EP and My First Pets Stuff pack fiasco. That I do not like one bit. With those two packs and the way they handled it looked like they were just trying to grab people's money. I actually waited till those two items came on sale, and only spent 27.48 US dollars, there was no way I was going to pay what the original cost was to those two.
It'd be cool if the pricing of the packs became more dynamic based on what the player would be able to get out of it, but I don't see that happening.
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For example Strangerville comes with weather anomalies iirc. As a non-Seasons user I do not experience those, but I still get very nice environmental effects, therefore I'm not envious of Seasons owners.
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As someone who has played since TS1, it boggles my mind that this is now seen as a negative thing. I was never bothered about other people using features I didn't have, just because they had packs I didn't. That was just a consequence of the buying decisions I made.
If a pack is a mini-version of an expansion, it feels cheap.
If a pack can stand on its own, but it acknowledges existing things, it's fun.
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Lets make this a reality!
As a simmer that has all the packs and plans on continuing to get them all of course I want to see this happen.
Get Together = Creating groups and doing new activities together with with those packs, + More Icons.
Seasons = More Holiday traditions and Icons, a new world with possible different seasonal effects.
Strangerville: New creative Ways to Defeat bosses
Jungle Adventure New ways to traverse Temples and Evade traps.
Get to Work: With more Life States
- New things for Scientists to Study, Gadgets to invent.
- New Inflictions for Doctors to treat.
- New Cases for Detectives to Solve.
- New things for Retailers to Sell
Parenthood: New ways on How to parent and discipline your supernatural powered spawns.
Get Famous: Be Famous/Infamous for how you use your supernatural powers to warrant additional reactions.
I forget what City Living was about.
I'm Hoping Magic Users can cast transformation spells
Human, PlantSim, Ghost, Frog, Fish (Base Game + Realm of Magic)
Alien (Get to Work + Realm of Magic)
Insect (Outdoor Retreat + Realm of Magic)
Vampire Curse (Realm of Magic + Vampires)
Mermaid Transformation (Island Living + Realm of Magic)
(Controllable) Cat, Dog, Raccoon, Red Panda, Fox, Wolf (Realm of Magic + Cats and Dogs)
Realm of Magic + Seasons = Weather Spells
Future Packs
Realm of Magic + Werewolves = Werewolf Transformation.
University, New things to study
I was hoping on Vampire Pets, if Vampires and Cats and Dogs, were a thing.
I wanted to create an actual Blood Hound, and If we had Farming Vampire Pigs, and... omg I hope Pigman is a Spell in Realm of Magic. Like if a sim is a Glutton, a Slob, and Lazy, and a transformation spell went wrong...
My Mood:
This.
MFPS could have stood on its own if it added more to the game--not just rodents, but perhaps birds as well. It also could have added objects that were usable by both the small animals and cats or dogs, if you had them. (I would totally put my guinea pigs on a pet bed and let them run around on it. That would have been adorable.)
I think it's great when the packs interact with each other. I'm always happy to see more of that. I especially loved when Seasons introduced more ways for vampires to be out during the day and how Get Famous uses all sorts of things from other packs to add fame to your Sim.
It is very sad to see how my first pet stuff turned this into a negative direction. MFPS came way too soon after pets, was advertised primarily as dlc for dlc and not seen as a pack of its own. Dividing the matching child bedroom furniture over two packs and many clothes being just recolors of existing clothes certainly didn't help.
But there is definitely room for interaction. It has happened in the past.
- in sims 2 the gipsy NPC from nightlife sold cures for all lifestates from all packs a player owned.
- in sims 2 with pets and apartments (witches came with this EP) installed, witches could get a familiar.
Even sims 4 already did a few attempts
- all the options for clubs added with other packs.
- the crystal helmet from get famous gives a special buff when used with one of the crystals from JA
- mermaids are said to be able to call a thunderstorm
In general I think there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to interaction between sims 4 packs. How about a few extra seasonal holiday traditions tied to other packs like pumpkin carving, using hot tubs or watch movies? Or a clothing line to be used indoors for people who own seasons. And the upcoming realm of magic would feel very disconnected from the game without any interaction with vampires.
As long as these interactions are additional options to packs which feel complete on their own, I think they will be part of what makes a good game a great game.
Context MFPS has 62 items
- 4 of them are just the same cage with a different rodent cause clutter is fun (so really 58 items, 1 with 4 varieties in catalogue)
- 2 of the hairs are actually the same just one with an ombre
- 5 items look purposefully split from c&d(the bookcase, cat lamp, cat chair, child's desk and art table match the c&d bed and dressers to a T, and cat stuff obviously would have fit it more)
- The 6 human CAS clothes are retextured base game meshes
- 25 of them is for cats/dogs (almost half), of which that furniture is only very simple modified meshes of stuff to c&d(which was already lacking, 2 pet beds in the pets expansion only?)
The problem with mfps is that it was so soon to c&d, its box art could mislead kids into thinking cats or dogs come with it, the meshes are so lazily done, and it was full price when you may have half the content locked out from you.
It felt like a deliberate marketing move to hold content back from c&d to keep riding that pet hype train a month or so later which was why it was so bad.
A "Small pets pack" with 2-3 small pets (pets, rodents, birds? They've made the models already) and only a small handful of c&d items would have been better, the way seasons added a swimsuit for pets. It shouldn't be half a packs focus. Those clothes options and c&d specific items should have been patched imo.
MFPS is the dark side of this. Half of its content is only usable if you have another pack. Plus, there were lots of complaints before then that C&D could've used more pet furniture and other touches, so the pet stuff seemed like a way to cynically capitalize on this. A lot of the content is also lackluster, and some furniture items were clearly part of an existing set in C&D. Overall, it was very transparently cash grabby
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