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First year of simming...
Nitroglycol
Posts: 121 Member
So it's now about a year since I came across TS3 on sale on Steam. I got the base game plus UL for maybe $C13. I certainly can't say I haven't gotten my money's worth.
The game is not without its flaws (e.g. it has more bugs than the Wallis-Roughley Museum) - but it's compelling. Way, way more compelling than I'd ever have expected it to be. I've been playing it almost daily for the last year, having never played a Sims game before. And I seem to show no sign of stopping. Not sure I'm too interested in trying any of the others in the series at this time; I think I'd miss the open world of TS3 too much. The look of the game is pretty good, the sense of humour is perfect.
As regards EPs: Having started with UL, I held out through a couple of other Steam sales in the hope of picking up something cheap, and eventually gave up and bought Ambitions at full price. Don't regret the purchase one bit - although the professions there require a different playing style, best done with smaller households compared to the regular careers; it's a pain to micromanage several sims at once in their professions.
Then I spent some Christmas money on WA and Late Night. Of those, WA is great (though I still have to milk it to its full potential); Late Night is the only real disappointment I've found so far. Don't get me wrong, there are things I like about it; Bridgeport is a good city, and the ability to form bands is awesome, but the way the vampires and celebrities proliferate is more annoying than not.
In summary: I've had a blast playing the game for the last year, and hope to enjoy it for many more.
The game is not without its flaws (e.g. it has more bugs than the Wallis-Roughley Museum) - but it's compelling. Way, way more compelling than I'd ever have expected it to be. I've been playing it almost daily for the last year, having never played a Sims game before. And I seem to show no sign of stopping. Not sure I'm too interested in trying any of the others in the series at this time; I think I'd miss the open world of TS3 too much. The look of the game is pretty good, the sense of humour is perfect.
As regards EPs: Having started with UL, I held out through a couple of other Steam sales in the hope of picking up something cheap, and eventually gave up and bought Ambitions at full price. Don't regret the purchase one bit - although the professions there require a different playing style, best done with smaller households compared to the regular careers; it's a pain to micromanage several sims at once in their professions.
Then I spent some Christmas money on WA and Late Night. Of those, WA is great (though I still have to milk it to its full potential); Late Night is the only real disappointment I've found so far. Don't get me wrong, there are things I like about it; Bridgeport is a good city, and the ability to form bands is awesome, but the way the vampires and celebrities proliferate is more annoying than not.
In summary: I've had a blast playing the game for the last year, and hope to enjoy it for many more.
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Comments
My first EP was showtime back in 2014. I wasn't expecting I would like the game so much, nowadays I have all expansions.
I rarely play WA, but I can't live without the photography skill. Regarding Late Night, I also don't like vampires and celebrities, but it's a must have EP because of the bars.
I hope you keep on enjoying the game!
Happy Simming!
I don't like vampires either, but I bought Late Night for the piano. LOL!
AMB is my fave EP. I usually like to micromanage, but with large/overstuffed households, I tend to mix the hands-on professions with the rabbithole careers or self-employment. However, multiple profession jobs in one household can work well together, especially if they have different shift hours, like firefighter and ghost hunter.
WA is one of those EPs where you might never feel that you’ve done it all! You can spend so much time with the tombs and their puzzles, and the skills are great, with nectar-making being especially intricate.
As for LN and the frustrations you're experiencing there, have you tried using the tick box options in the advanced demographics tab for population control, or to opt your active household out of the celebrity system? If not, you may find that changing those settings alleviates those annoyances.
It’s great to hear that you’ve been enjoying the game overall, and I hope that you continue to have fun with it for years to come.
Thats why I bought LN too. And I don't play with vampires. I bought Supernatural for the build objects. I gradually learned to enjoy the occults except for the vampires.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
Thanks. Will have to try that (haven't gone into those settings since installing LN). How fine-grained are the adjustments? Like, could I turn off vampires while leaving plantsims? And in such a case, would any townies who were already vampires become regular sims?
Once you have Supernatural installed you can turn off fairies, witches, vampires, werewolves. Im no t sure what else. This just means the game wont turn your townies into those occults.
Zombies can be prevented from spawning by stopping the phases of the moon from changing.
Plant Sims are not affected.
I play with all occult types but still have them all disabled in options. All disabling them does is prevent the game from turning townies into the occults you've disabled.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
Here’s a link showing what all the options tabs look like, which may be of help: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=27533.0
Without all relevant packs installed, your demographic options will appear different. I have all packs, so I’m not certain whether vampires will be listed as an option for you (as they came with both Late Night and Supernatural). But as you can see from the last image in the link, the pop controls are simple on/off toggles.
If you do have the vamp pop setting available with only LN (and not SN) installed, using that would keep new vampires from spawning. However, this will not affect any vampires that already exist.
There is a TCE shift/click mailbox cheat, which allows you to add or remove specific existing occult types already in the world, but again, IDK if you would have that cheat available without having SN. But using it would remove the chosen occult state from all Sims in the world, causing them to become human, except for any in your active household.
If you don't have the cheat function and you're not averse to using mods, NRaas MasterController with the additional MC Cheats module has a command to add or remove any occult type on an individual or global level.
If you don't have any of these other options to limit vampire immigration, you may wish to not have EA Story Progression enabled, as that process will add new vamps to your town over time. I have always had EA SP unchecked, as I prefer to manage town progression myself, and have never had the vamp proliferation problem that other simmers have experienced.
I hope one of these methods works for you so you can better enjoy the LN EP.
I don't think I'd turn off story progression, though.
That is disappointing (and as you said, ironic) that you don’t have the mailbox cheat to remove vamps without SN. It’s quite handy, especially for those who prefer not to use mods.
So, your options for removing existing vamps (without killing them) are...
•Installing Supernatural, which would allow you to use that mailbox cheat or the alchemy potent cure elixirs, although if you’re not interested in the EP content otherwise, it’s not the ideal choice.
•The LN in-game way to remove vampirism is to take a vamp to the science facility to get a potion, but that requires changing households or adding the vamps to yours so you can control them (and the cure costs §3K a pop), which isn’t really feasible if you have a lot of vamps you want to change to normal Sims.
•Adding mods to remove occult states is the fastest and easiest route, but that may not be something you want to do.
OFC, you may not feel the need to remove all vamps at this point. I have no idea how severe the problem is/was, but if the demographic checkbox keeps your town from being overrun with new ones, you may decide that helped enough.
I was playing in Moonlight Falls. That world comes with a few of each SN occult types in town.
I was playing one of my sims. I changed to a different household and my previously played sim was turned into a vampire.
Since I had vampires disabled I was surprised. But assumed one of the vampires who came with the world must have turned her. I sent her to the science facility and she drank the potion.
So if you have vampires running around town they might continue to turn townies into vampires even if you have.vampires turned off in options. I assume there are 2 different processes for this to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
My first EP was Late Night, when I first purchased the game it was a bundle- base game+ LN+ high end loft.
To this day my favourite EPs are Late Night, Ambitions, University Life and Generations. (I have the other EPs too but I don't play with them as frequently).