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Contemplating a DU purchase: thoughts?
thesimmer14
Posts: 393 Member
My birthday's coming up on Saturday, so I'm considering using some money I got to purchase DU. I was really unimpressed with what I saw prior to the pack's release. I figured I would wait a little after release to ask the community about it. I want to make sure it isn't a repeat of IL, since many people seemed to like it first... until they realized how shallow the ocean gameplay was. 
Uni isn't my favorite pack, but I'm down for any new gameplay The Sims has to offer. (: Thoughts?
Uni isn't my favorite pack, but I'm down for any new gameplay The Sims has to offer. (: Thoughts?
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The community tends to have they're own opinions to hating it to loving it to just being inbetween. University has never been a big favorite in previous packs to me, especially in the academic part of it. Since the experience and activities in the pack are usually where it's at (actually when I went back to S2 University didn't have a whole lot going on for it).
Even if you decide not to utilize taking your sim to a university the other features in the pack can be used. Like the roommate system. Don't even have to be attending university to use it as your sim can put out a ad for a roommate that you won't be able to control and they'll also pay your sim rent money. Some may be neat, sloppy or just constantly breaking things and it doesn't seem like it's based on their traits from what I've seen. They'll also be bringing food home when they leave the house for a few short minutes to bring something back. Even have roommates inviting their friends or significant other over or just throwing random parties.
The university experience? REALLY keeps your sim busy where you have to figure out a schedule for them, especially if you go the full 4 classes. Between that and my sim joining E-sports she was constantly busy and exhausted inbetween. You get some relief on the weekend to catch up with it all and get some time to have your sim relax and hang out with friends or go to whatever events might be going on. I always saw a lot of sims at the spirit day events cheering, drinking, socializing, and being dared to streak (expect to see some naked sims around haha) and dressed in appropriate spirit colors.
You can join some different organizations on campus and it's not mandatory to be at them, but with my sims schedule found it difficult to attend them at times til I was doing maybe two classes to relieve it or doing it on the weekend.
Your sim can be put on academic probation if they fail too many of their classes if not all of them and scholarships can be taken away. They can even cheat and submit plagiarized term papers. (I did this with mine and they luckily didn't get caught). Or schmooze with your professor to get a higher grade in their class. If you have GF and if your parent is a celebrity they can use their influence to get your sim into a university.
The more I play the more stuff I find out and seeing some other packs being linked up with this pack. For me the $40 was well worth it compared to IL where it was underwhelming as it didn't have that expanding gameplay. You can check out Carl's Sims 4 videos as he always review the gameplay features in them as it's based a lot on facts to what's discovered in them.
Of course, it all depends on your preferences. If you don't feel like sitting around watching your Sim study, do homework, make presentations, write term papers... this may not be the pack for you.
If you are a rotational player, there is a learning curve. I am, and I am so relieved I have been testing out premades instead of risking bad outcomes with my own sims. When you leave a sim during their term, you lose control of their outcome and they can do poorly if they don’t have the skills required (the target levels of which are never made clear), and I think that’s important to know upfront if you plan to play more than one household through uni. I think I have found the best plan for me with playing rotationally. I will simply play them fully through each term and not immediately re-enroll in the next term, moving them onto a regular residential lot in between each term.
There are some bugs they need to work out, but I haven’t had all the bugs reported here, and it’s hard to know which are influenced by mods and which aren’t. I’ve been surprised how many people freely admit they are using mods right now at this early stage of the EP’s release. I have never been a huge user of them (briefly used MCCC but only to fix autonomous actions) and I was careful to remove the mod before patching and haven’t added it back since. I do think it might be a good move to wait until they release a patch to avoid some bugs that are universal. I still don’t regret buying when I did because it helped me get a feel for the uni experience and process, which I am using to prepare the teens I have for uni.
When I was testing out the premades at uni, I had so much fun and found it much more challenging than I expected! It breathed new life into my Sims 4 experience, which I really needed, and I can’t say that about any other pack besides Seasons. I found it really depressing to play this game for so many years without seasons 😞. On the other hand, university is not something I was chomping at the bit for, although I did love it in TS2. I think they did a great job adding more flexibility in attending uni from any world, and when you do live on campus it’s immersive, the roommates entertain me, the pressure feels real and exciting, and I can see a lot of possibilities for different experiences each time I go through it.
Wow, sorry this is so long, I just have had a lot of feels about this game and was so worried I would be disappointed- yet I’m not. 😄
Well LGR"s review is coming this week but I recommend getting the pack. It does have some bugs but those will probably get fixed. The pack is awesome and it adds swimmable lakes in Britechester along with ping pong,juice pong,bikes,soccer etc.