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Retail shop is pretty disappointing
Last week i opened for the first time my own retail shop. I opened a toy store and although it is fun, cause of what it is. But this game.. god, it is so lacking. I have found that even in the retail business its very limited and boring.
I knew the general complaints about having less option than ts2 open for business; how the cash register isnt even used by customers to pay at, that customers dont stand in line anymore, no shopping backs etc.
I cant think of anything else than some pointless social interactions with your customers that seem all the same and have no meaning, customers standing randomly in the store waiting to pay for their stuff, no pre-set opening/closing times/working days, the weird way of selling a product that doesnt make any sense. The blue bar above their head? When its practically empty they still buy products as fast as when its full.
Customers who are not getting help, just storm out, but thats it. There is no window popping up about what they are saying/thinking of the store. They also always come back after a few sim hours to start all over again with the buyin process.
I have the same customers every day! Customers are not even restricted to the theme of the store. I have more single sims that buy children toys, than actual kids or parents with kids. Its such an empty addition.
Also why cant you hire sims from the social menu? Why cant i add household members to the staff? Why cant i make uniforms for the store manager or household members? If you are not hired as staff, you dont get to wear uniforms? And the door locking options are also not helping when you have to choose between household members of staff.. why not both?
I only like the new addition to transfer money from your household to the store, so you wont spend more than you should and you can have a good look at what your finances are.
But seriously, is that it?
I knew the general complaints about having less option than ts2 open for business; how the cash register isnt even used by customers to pay at, that customers dont stand in line anymore, no shopping backs etc.
I cant think of anything else than some pointless social interactions with your customers that seem all the same and have no meaning, customers standing randomly in the store waiting to pay for their stuff, no pre-set opening/closing times/working days, the weird way of selling a product that doesnt make any sense. The blue bar above their head? When its practically empty they still buy products as fast as when its full.
Customers who are not getting help, just storm out, but thats it. There is no window popping up about what they are saying/thinking of the store. They also always come back after a few sim hours to start all over again with the buyin process.
I have the same customers every day! Customers are not even restricted to the theme of the store. I have more single sims that buy children toys, than actual kids or parents with kids. Its such an empty addition.
Also why cant you hire sims from the social menu? Why cant i add household members to the staff? Why cant i make uniforms for the store manager or household members? If you are not hired as staff, you dont get to wear uniforms? And the door locking options are also not helping when you have to choose between household members of staff.. why not both?
I only like the new addition to transfer money from your household to the store, so you wont spend more than you should and you can have a good look at what your finances are.
But seriously, is that it?
27
Comments
A lot of my complaints overlap with yours:
complete forum tutorial
Thank you @MDianaSanders for halloween-fying Golluma
yes, that one! The animations the sims in a retail shop use are the same as their daily activities and conversations. What big effort did they make to really make this a new EP with new additions to what the basegame already had? The only new thing i see what sims actually do is stocking and grabbing the ipad out of their pocket and stand there for 1/2 sims hour to close the deal (a bit too long to be honest, but ok). For the rest, they add some new options from the menu, but they all go without animations or without sims even moving a muscle.
Its seriously dramatically lacking and plain.
If they're going to do it, though, I do wish they had stuck to the basic model TS2 retail implemented (with improvements, of course).
I put a flat on top of my bakery so my retail lot was essentially my home lot (literally never went home) but it would have been nice to run the store from my actual home as well. I like the addition of retail lots, but why remove the option to have a home based business as well? Options, Maxis, options!
I didn't mind the tablet as an option to ring up, but the cash register should have been functional for that as well. (Options! Let us customize these things so that we can have a tech savvy modernized store or an old world boutique complete with ancient cash register). My medieval sim looks ridiculous ringing up her bakery goods with a tablet. -.-
The way the sale goes down with everyone just chatting it up feels lackluster.
I've never been a fan of siming retail, though, and TS4's take on it definitely hasn't swayed me in that regard. It was fun to explore a new system, and I would do it again if I got bored in my game, but the experience wasn't versatile enough to feel rewarding to me.
I don't think i have looked at any GTW stuff since then. I do use the science objects, but that is about it.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
You can use your business reward points to purchase an option to ring up customers faster, clean, restock, but I didn't notice much difference in the speed, to be honest.
i did that. i bring two members of my household to the store. one of them helps his friend out, but to not have the same options as staff members is really annoying. he cant wear the uniforms, uses the door if its locked to everyone but staff members etc.
The videos from retail that I've seen are so confusing because it doesn't look like stores at all, it just looks like some sort of event where everyone is chatting among themselves. Even when they buy things, all you do is chat chat chat.
The fact that there aren't fitting rooms anymore is also so disappointing. It makes no sense to me to see sims trying out outfits in the middle of the shop. I loved having my sims go to the fitting room and come out with a different outfit and then look at the mirror. Again, it was not only fun but added to immersion. To me, it's all about the little details, and like always, TS4 falls short.
It could have been more fun to go shopping at them too, but as is, it is not a "fun" experience. "Buy" is basically the only option. It would have been more fun if they had options to say something like "such and such store is having a mega sale on today! Head down for great savings!"
I like going to my stores for immersion purposes but they sure could have been made more fun.
On top of that, Magnolia Promenade was just a real dud in terms of having a businessy/shopping kind of feel to it.
GTW is a useless EP in my game. Has no significance and zero replay value. I would even value the stuff packs more than it.
thank you thread
I feel the same way. Basically, I only use the CAS items
Sometimes I just have to ignore that GTW exist, only in that way I can play... (Besides OFB aspect, there is no sense to me that my sick sims can't go to the hospital p.e). Meh
It's such a shame Maxis is just leaving GTW to rot, the retail functionality could really use some work
I agree with most of what you said, but for this part, technically the entire household owns the store and so they all can work in it by default. Idk about kids though; probably just teens and up.
If you're wanting an EP, get the newest one get together. It's so much better than GTW.
I actually think this is a bit of a problem with the game. I'm not sure how complicated it would be, but I would prefer to have the ability to decide how a household is set up. Not just how they're related but how the hh itself is arranged. So, if I've got 2 roommates and one of them is a single mom, I can set up the hh so these entities are separate. My single mom and her kid would have one set of finances, the other single would have their own set of finances. Likewise with businesses. I'd like to be able to determine who owns the business. Is it the wife? The husband? The couple? I don't think it should automatically default to belonging to the whole hh.
I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
I'm enjoying it but I haven't played through any whole career yet so if I had to do it more than once, it might be an issue. But since I play for stories instead of completion, I usually handle sims differently anyway--one might be an overachiever and do everything, while the other is a total slacker and may never get a promotion.
I haven't touched much of the retail side, either. It seems like it's both complex in the sense you can put up anything for sale, price things yourself, and you have to track inventory, restock, etc., but that it's also a bit lacking in areas (i.e., the discussion about hiring your own family members) like the cash register not functioning for sales (it's for store management), people not actually buying anything (they act like it but it doesn't get added to their inventory), no one lines up at the register, you have way to many returning customers, and so forth.
I like it for storytelling because I have a couple of stories where the sims have a retail store. Not sure I would get it specifically for gameplay if I didn't tell stories.
I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning psychopath. Reaper
"If you build it, they will come." - Movie: Field of Dreams
I was looking forward to the bakery aspect and maybe even having a friendly neighborhood grocery store, but it was a pretty big disappointment. I feel ya on that one, OP. The clothing store part is kinda okay, but... it still drives me crazy.
And besides, I wanted to have my sims live above their store. What?! Don't even get me started on Magnolia Promenade! Well, there's not much world for me to get started on....
My opinion? Don't get the EP unless its on sale. The only things I use in it are the CAS items.