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Realm of Magic - Early Access - Honest opinion/review

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AlbaWaterhouseAlbaWaterhouse Posts: 3,953 Member
*Thanks to EA for providing me with an Early Access code for this pack*

Game Packs are in my opinion the saving grace of The Sims 4 DLC. Apart from Strangerville, I love them all, despite the bugs (Dine Out, I’m looking at you!).
If the team will announce that they will stop creating Stuff and Expansions Packs and will instead release 3 GP per year, I will not be that bothered. I think you get the most out of your money with GPs by far.
So, I was very excited to receive an early copy of RoM. After Strangerville I wanted my love for GPs to come back, I was ready.


*disclaimer: I am not usually an occult player*

CAS

I will address the CAS elephant in the room straight away: there are no items for kids or toddlers, none, zero. That is sad and it irritates me to no end. At least with vampires we got some things for kids! Why do they keep doing this? Give us at least a pair of boots, or a gender-neutral hairstyle, or…a necklace with a broom, I don’t know, something, anything at this point.

With that out of the way, I must say that the CAS in this pack is pretty good. I love when the team doesn’t only focus on one style and pays a bit of attention to different ones. In here we have a goth/darker style, a high-end spooky stylish style, and a more druid/one with nature style. (as you can see, I don’t know fashion terms, I am doing my best! haha)

I believe packs like Vampires, Get Together, and Get Famous are great companions to this pack when it comes to style your sims.

Here are some outfits I made while exploring CAS:

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Male clothes are really nice in this pack and now I realise I only prepared one collage with them…sorry. There are plenty of well designed male clothes in this pack, I promise.
The textures are really well done and many of the items have a lot of detail.

Hairstyles and accessories are very beautiful as well, those new earrings…aaahhh! I love them so much! It is a shame that we don’t get any new facial hair though, some sort of wizardly beard or moustache would have been very welcomed.

BymPyS3.jpg


There is a bug when it comes to spellcasters eyes: you have all the past occults eyes to choose from, however, they don't seem to be working properly. I am not sure if it is something that will be/was fixed before release and it just apply to the early access version. I hope they fix this soon.


I know that even if I won’t really be playing a lot with Spellcasters, I will be using this pack’s CAS assets all the time in my game.
Origin ID is: AlbaWaterhouse
All my creations are CC free.

Comments

  • AlbaWaterhouseAlbaWaterhouse Posts: 3,953 Member
    edited September 2019
    Build/Buy


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    The versatility of the swatches in the new windows and doors is awesome. You could potentially use them for any style of build. The windows can look modern, rustic, or magical. I love the stained glass versions and there are plenty of combinations to explore.
    For a Game Pack I think we get a fair amount of items.
    Like with CAS, I will definitely use all these assets (apart from the more occult looking ones) very often from now on.


    I have to point out 2 things that are a bummer in BB though.

    1 - Why don't we ever get a FULL set for the kitchen? This time around they didn't forget the island counters but yet again, we don't get matching cabinets. And I really don't understand why this keeps happening. Also, the counters we get are basically recolors of a base game one, so the design jobs was kind of done already, why not add the new swatches to those existing cabinets?
    - on the left, the base game set, on the right RoM's one -
    xS5vmLZ.png

    2 - Why do we keep getting items that should have the same swatches but that are slightly off?
    - same swatch, different shades of black -
    VMpLR6c.png
    Post edited by AlbaWaterhouse on
    Origin ID is: AlbaWaterhouse
    All my creations are CC free.
  • AlbaWaterhouseAlbaWaterhouse Posts: 3,953 Member
    Oh, one more thing: This is Circe's home!

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    VzUN4ka.png

    All the sims you see in my review and Circe's home will be available in the gallery today if you like to have them in your game :)
    Origin ID is: AlbaWaterhouse
    All my creations are CC free.
  • WolfNateWolfNate Posts: 2,340 Member
    Ah well as an occult fan I think I'll enjoy it.

    Also everyone says Sims 4 too easy I enjoy that about it. Also seriously magic has always been "make things simple" Till you learn Decursify you might run into a lot of problems
    Occultism in Sims is family-friendly and should not be watered down to cater to realism players
  • Dglbr1969Dglbr1969 Posts: 854 Member
    Thanks so much that was good of you to post. Agree about the counters not having cabinets though why? All the other stuff looks amazing, just cannot wait now!!
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  • rjssimrjssim Posts: 1,335 Member
    This looks good! I love the looks and style of the new worlds. I really do hope that EA follows up with a full out expansion adding even more of this kind of content to the game. This is definitely going to be the best game pack, there is no doubt in that.
  • Paigeisin5Paigeisin5 Posts: 2,139 Member
    I agree seeing pre-mades from older packs and worlds running around The Realm is weird. And the fact the teams gave their Sims magical abilities before we even started to play the pack is just wrong. I always delete the pre-mades when I start a new save but a lot of players don't. I am probably wrong, but didn't the gurus say we wouldn't see this during their live stream? I understand the teams' reasoning for creating the Sages so they are available to teach our Sims the ways of magic, and adding two families/households with some skills in their respective crafts, but they went off the rails a bit when they randomly assigned magical abilities to pre-mades in my opinion. In doing that they took away some of a player's control over who has magical abilities, and how many one might want in the game.

    The new world of Glimmerbrook and the B/B assets are very nice, and I am looking forward to using them. But I think I am going to wait to buy it. The new animations are nicely done, but the gameplay itself looks a bit shallow and too easy. I was hoping there might be more complex gameplay in this pack, but it just doesn't seem to be there. Again. Thank you @AlbaWaterhouse for taking the time to post your lovely pics and writing your review. And the new kitchen counters and lack of cabinets are a big disappointment for me, as well as the other Game Changers I have watched today.
  • SimmyFroggySimmyFroggy Posts: 1,762 Member
    @Paigeisin5 I think (someone correct me if i'm wrong) they didn't mention anything about premades and townies showing up in the Realm, just that the townies won't do magic in the regular worlds.

    Thank you @AlbaWaterhouse for your review. Glad to see you found an angle to it that made the pack enjoyable even if occults aren't your thing :)
    avatar art: Loves2draw1812
  • Paigeisin5Paigeisin5 Posts: 2,139 Member
    @darrenfroggy Thanks for clearing that up for me. :) Perhaps I was simply hoping pre-mades from past packs wouldn't suddenly be granted the ability to roam about The Realm or have magical abilities assigned to them. But I still don't agree it was a wise move.
  • SimmyFroggySimmyFroggy Posts: 1,762 Member
    Paigeisin5 wrote: »
    @darrenfroggy Thanks for clearing that up for me. :) Perhaps I was simply hoping pre-mades from past packs wouldn't suddenly be granted the ability to roam about The Realm or have magical abilities assigned to them. But I still don't agree it was a wise move.

    It would absolutely make sense if it was only Glimmerbrook-specific townies. But I don't know if the mechanic is there to limit them that way.
    It's just weird because I'm guessing they won't be Spellcasters if you grab them from the household management :/
    avatar art: Loves2draw1812
  • ExxCeeExxCee Posts: 353 Member
    Oh my soul those windows/doors <3 can't wait! Only... 7 hours and 9 minutes to go :neutral:
    Origin ID: ExxCee
  • AlbaWaterhouseAlbaWaterhouse Posts: 3,953 Member
    Paigeisin5 wrote: »
    @darrenfroggy Thanks for clearing that up for me. :) Perhaps I was simply hoping pre-mades from past packs wouldn't suddenly be granted the ability to roam about The Realm or have magical abilities assigned to them. But I still don't agree it was a wise move.

    It would absolutely make sense if it was only Glimmerbrook-specific townies. But I don't know if the mechanic is there to limit them that way.
    It's just weird because I'm guessing they won't be Spellcasters if you grab them from the household management :/

    You are correct, I went to check on that after seeing Miko from City Living doing magical stuff like there's no tomorrow back in the realm. She is just a regular sim.
    I believe it is a decission based on culling and such issues. They decided to have existing sims spawn in the new lots so the game wouldn't create more random sims just to fill up the Realm. But I think it was a wrong call to make.
    Origin ID is: AlbaWaterhouse
    All my creations are CC free.
  • mustenimusteni Posts: 5,403 Member
    Thanks @AlbaWaterhouse I enjoyed you review :) I'm a little bit disappointed that the pack doesn't seem to bring in any challenge. I suppose some can be created by not being prepared to remove the curses and letting them linger... not sure if it's possible to have them for long or if it will make things complicated. I can think of some other self imposed limitations to make things harder but certainly wouldn't hurt if the game itself had some. Also I don't want to see my nonplayed(?) sims suddendly doing magic. I can see why they would do that but it doens't seem right :/
  • rjssimrjssim Posts: 1,335 Member
    I just want to say thank you for showing the images. Unless it is a short trailer, I am not a fan of watching the videos because I don't have the patience to sit through them, lol! Thanks for sharing this.
  • SimburianSimburian Posts: 6,906 Member
    @AlbaWaterhouse
    Thanks for the feedback. Judging from your later posts about Circe and her cat it all depends on where your imagination takes you. I am also going to make an elderly witch with one of my witches I have already made after Spooky stuff and free Halloween downloads, but now thinking of Nanny Ogg and her cat Greebo from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. His world had those waterfalls falling off the edge of it and I wonder if the idea came from those.
  • SiliCloneSiliClone Posts: 2,585 Member
    Finally more Build and Buy that can mixed with the vampires game pack!
  • SimaniteSimanite Posts: 4,833 Member
    Thanks for sharing!
  • ChazzzyChazzzy Posts: 7,166 Member
    What about the aspirations?
  • MonaveilMonaveil Posts: 652 Member
    Thank you for your review. It was very insightful.

    I can't help but think that it must be very difficult to make wall cabinets that match counters. It's remarkable that they somehow managed to include a matching island counter this time but left out a matching wall cabinet.

    The team has been consistently unable to make objects that have matching colors and/or textures so this must be another thing that's very difficult to do. This puzzles me because sets by custom content creators rarely have these flaws or oversights.

    I watched several streams on Twitch yesterday regarding this pack. They certainly did make the whole magic thing very simple which, I think, is unfortunate. I didn't like seeing the same old premade Sims from other worlds running around using magic. I am so sick of seeing them everywhere.

    I'll be editing all of the premade Sims that come with this pack. Several of the mages don't even look like the Sims used in the trailer. It must be a difficult job indeed.

    I do like Circe's home. You did a great job with it.
  • SimmyFroggySimmyFroggy Posts: 1,762 Member
    @Monaveil Not presented as an excuse, just as a possible explanation: I think, though I'm not sure if this applies to things like cabinets etc, that the designing is sometimes outsourced outside of the main team.
    There's been plenty of talk here and elsewhere about lack of communication within the Sims team lately and it makes me wonder if this relates. If different people make different parts of the catalog, it would be way too easy to create mismatches if there's a communication breakdown.
    avatar art: Loves2draw1812
  • MonaveilMonaveil Posts: 652 Member
    @darrenfroggy

    Very true. I'm starting to wonder if whoever is working on these things has the proper tools. Nobody ever starts to work on a project with the intention of making the end product bad. Something else must be going on.
  • MidnightAuraMidnightAura Posts: 5,809 Member
    Thank you for the review. I enjoy reading reviews and yours is very well written. I’m very frustrated at the things you pointed out like the greenhouse, all townie sims becoming spell casters and the build and buy issues.
  • SimmyFroggySimmyFroggy Posts: 1,762 Member
    Monaveil wrote: »
    @darrenfroggy

    Very true. I'm starting to wonder if whoever is working on these things has the proper tools. Nobody ever starts to work on a project with the intention of making the end product bad. Something else must be going on.

    Too little time, not enough communication, not enough resources for development or quality testing.
    I don't think any of the developers themselves want the packs to go out the way they are but they're also not responsible for deadlines. :/
    avatar art: Loves2draw1812
  • mustenimusteni Posts: 5,403 Member
    Monaveil wrote: »
    Thank you for your review. It was very insightful.

    I can't help but think that it must be very difficult to make wall cabinets that match counters. It's remarkable that they somehow managed to include a matching island counter this time but left out a matching wall cabinet.

    The team has been consistently unable to make objects that have matching colors and/or textures so this must be another thing that's very difficult to do. This puzzles me because sets by custom content creators rarely have these flaws or oversights.

    I watched several streams on Twitch yesterday regarding this pack. They certainly did make the whole magic thing very simple which, I think, is unfortunate. I didn't like seeing the same old premade Sims from other worlds running around using magic. I am so sick of seeing them everywhere.

    I'll be editing all of the premade Sims that come with this pack. Several of the mages don't even look like the Sims used in the trailer. It must be a difficult job indeed.

    I do like Circe's home. You did a great job with it.

    It could be that they focused on other furnite first and then had enough budget to squeeze in the kitchen counters and islands. They are much simpler made (recolours) than most of the other stuff that looks really amazing. Would have loved some cabinets to go with them but it seems like counters/islands drew the short stick to begin with. Just guessing of course.
  • FennaFennFennaFenn Posts: 1 New Member
    Hi Everybody, I have a question.

    Today is the release of Realm of Magic but I don't see it on Origin or on EA.
    Does anyone know what time the release would take place?
    I hope someone can help with that.
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