Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Which Pack is Best?
hellokitty1496
Posts: 243 Member
I'm thinking of buying either Island Living, Realm of Magic, Strangerville, Dine Out, or City Living.
Prior to buying, what are the cons and pros?
Can you ignore the bugs/glitches and still enjoy the content?
Have those problems been fixed?
Prior to buying, what are the cons and pros?
Can you ignore the bugs/glitches and still enjoy the content?
Have those problems been fixed?
1
Comments
I played through strangerville twice and I use the cas items and the windows/doors a lot. I moved Bella Goth there with her younger kids after her husband disappeared in one save. It was part of my storyline not culling.
Really, I use stuff from island living alot. It' was actually the first world I completely redid and filled up since Newcrest. I really enjoy it!
I made one spellcaster and played for a bit but still prefer realism when playing. Last week I had my single Sim hook up with Darell Charm (I forgot he was a spellcaster) and they had an ancient bloodline daughter but I lost interest. I can't get into the magic thing but you may enjoy it.
I played City Living a bit but I have vertigo and I can't handle the bouncy thing the camera does when I play apartments. I use cas and buy build items all the time. The wood floor is awesome!
Just a note: The bouncy camera thing also occurs in Windenburg on certain lots. I usually build on the island and avoid downtown.
Dine out is great and would be my favourite but the bugs are impossible to ignore. If you fancy paying for a 6 hour meal that your sims don't even finish then by all means... That said though, I use the BB and CAS a lot. I've had no problems owning a restaurant either. Just eating at one.
Island living is beautiful and it adds a bit of fun game play but not near enough to be labeled and priced as an Expansion. I'd suggest buying this on sale.
I love the BB and CAS in RoM, but I also love them in Strangerville. They both come with worlds that I use a lot. The Strangerville story can be ignored, but if played, it's fun the first time but doesn't really have a reply value once you've seen how it ends. Some of RoM's potions are still glitchy and the potion of immortality will still indeed not give your sim immortality even though they have the trait making it completely useless.
City Living I think has to be my favourite out of your choices. It adds so much with the festivals and apartments. The world is well done (if you are into cities and concrete) but I do feel like it's "alive" when my sims go out. I like all the CAS and BB (although not as much as Strangerville or RoM but it's still right up there with my favourites). I also feel like, for me, it has the least amount of bugs/glitches. I know there is a sale on right now but out of everything you've listed, and knowing what I know now after playing all of these packs, City Living is the only one I could actually recommend still purchasing at a full price.
City Living is alright. I enjoy the festivals, apartments & karaoke bars. I think this is the pack that started all those horrible NPC outfits, though.
Realm of Magic is amazing, lots of gameplay involved, a cool world & easy to shove onto the back burner if you don't feel like playing it at the moment.
Island Living is also fantastic, I've only had my sims living there a little bit, I use it mostly for a day trip spot.
Dine Out is meh to me. You'll like it if you enjoy the business owning aspects of the game, but I'm not a fan of that. I do enjoy taking my sims out to dinner from time to time, especially to the experimental food place, but one household member always seems to inevitably get food poisoning. Don't worry, it's not fatal, just makes them sick for a couple of hours & they can get compensated if they complain.
Realm of Magic: Two lovely worlds (though both small), and I have always loved witches in the past, but again I have found I haven't yet used it all that much.
Strangerville: Totally gorgeous world, not huge though. One of my favourites, surprisingly, and I have actually played the mystery three times and am about to do it again. It can be a little repetitive going through the mystery if you are ploughing through it fairly quickly, but I tend to space it out at a slow pace amongst normal life and I also play rotationally anyway.
Dine Out: Probably my most used pack out of the ones you have listed, I am always sending sims out to eat. It's nice that we can make our own restaurants and even customize the uniforms, we can have McSims, fancy restaurants, run-down restaurants, lots of different types in different worlds. Take families there, go on dates, just eat out for a change to being at home. The bad point is that sometimes it can take a long time to get your meal served.
City Living: A fairly good pack, and I like that you have city areas to play in just outside the apartments (the one with the basketball court is my favourite). Neighbours can be annoying though, and it is also a shame that the elevators are just teleporting methods and we cannot build our own apartments.
Ooh, lovely packs.
Island Living
Ideal if you're looking for a tropical location. There's a nice underlying conservation theme on the islands where you're cleaning up the trash left around. The island actually does start to change and brighten up (more flowers and trees developing colour etc) and there's some lovely events that occur in the main town. Very beautiful and atmospheric. If you've got Seasons, it adds realistic weather patterns for a tropical location. I often use this for the beaches and I've enjoyed creating family beaches for me sims to take their children out. Right now, I've got a couple of Sims in the Conservation career and they've got a club set up for conservation activities. I really enjoy it and use aspects of it in my every day gameplay.
Thus far, I've not had any issues with it. A lot of people were upset because while there is snorkeling and scuba diving, they are limited to the buoys at sea. There is a mod out to change that, if it's something that's likely to bother you. So that was worth mentioning
Realm of Magic
This is another very nicely done game pack. There are three types of spells for your spellcasters, so there's variety in the 'type' of spellcaster they are. The Magic Realm itself is beautifully done and very different - very otherwordly, you could say. Also very atmospheric with a completely different sky so it's definitely worth a look. Glimmerbrook is also very beautiful. It's also easy to ignore the spellcasting aspect, as others have said, if you're looking for 'normal' gameplay sometimes.
I don't really have any downsides to this one. It's great if you're wanting spellcasters in a particular save and easy to ignore them if you don't. Quite flexible, really.
Strangerville
I actually only bought this one myself recently (I'm setting up a group of paranormal/supernatural investigators so this seemed perfect) so I can't pass much comment here. I haven't even got around to looking around the world itself yet. Hopefully though, the opinions above will help you out a bit
Dine Out
I fell in love with this one when it was announced. I adored creating, playing and running restaurants in Sims 2 and was always frustrated when I couldn't as easily for Sims 3. So this gamepack is a must for me because you can do all of those things. I find it easy to get restaurants created and set up custom menus and uniforms for the staff.
Once again, I'm not having problems with the pack. A lot of people are apparently still having problems but I won't comment on those since I'm not experiencing them myself. If the restaurant is busy, it can sometimes take a while to get served; I often have at least two stoves and around 3 or 4 waiters/waitresses for optimum service in the restaurant but that's up to personal preference. My current restaurant, Eden, has 1 chef and 3 waiters and seems to run quite smoothly, although service can be a little slower during peak hours. This doesn't bother me because it feels realistic to me but if it's likely to irritate you, then it's worth consideration. There might be mods out to speed that up but don't hold me to that.
City Living
Okay firstly, I'm not even a city person. I loathe them in real life. So I've surprised myself with how much I LOVE this pack. I use it all the time. The festivals are really good fun, very different. The backdrop is incredibly atmospheric and the cityscapes are amazing from a higher perspective, particularly in Uptown. The Flea Market is probably my favourite of the festivals
The main downside for a lot of people for this pack is that you can't build your own apartments. This hasn't bothered me because I don't feel like they'd fit anywhere else but I do understand it's an issue for a lot of people. So again, it's worth bearing that in mind if you'd be really into that.
Okay, enough rambling!
Island Living (I can't give out my view because I don't own this pack)
Realm of Magic
Pros - New world (it's a beautiful world), new life state, interesting BB/CAS, new death, new aspirations, new gameplay for spell caster, new plants if you enjoy gardening, new households
Cons - If you're not a fan of supernatural, you're not going to enjoy this because you'll see some Sims travelling to your house or community lots with their brooms. When I first got it, and I get one of my Sims visited the realm. Lack of empty lots. At first, it's kinda annoyed me that any random NPC/other unplayed household can become a spell caster (i think, they have fixed this, I can't remember)
Strangerville
Pros - New world, adventure/rpg gameplay (if only you want to play it), new careers, new aspirations, interesting BB, CAS is so so, new death, you can plant bug on someone (if you want to), new households
Cons - Maybe it's just me, I wish that it's snowing, but it's not. Lack of empty lots.
Dine Out
Pros - A new type of business, interesting BB, CAS is okay, you can now, dine out! lol So far, I don't have any problem with the order. They come perfectly on time.
Cons - Perhaps, not only dine out, but I wish that we could hire more employees. The experimental food pictures used to have a bug. It seems like the recent patch just fixed it.
City Living
Pros - New world, apartment style building, festivals, new BB/CAS, new death, new recipes, new stalls, new households
Cons - Loud neighbours!
In general, it gives you a lot of different type of gameplays & worlds. On top of that, if you enjoy building & decorating, the bb.liveeditobjects will give you more than what the packs are offering.
Island Living:
Pros: The setting is beautiful. The furniture with this pack is my favourite in the game. I love the mermaids. I love watching them swim in the ocean and they crack me up with their singing and mermaid dolphin calls. The hair and beach shoes are great. The island conservation career is a lot of fun and has a work from home option. I love that you can make sandcastles on the beach and collect seashells.
Cons: Ok, I have just one complaint, the decoration for sunblock is not real!! and I spent a ridiculous amount of time putting it in and out of my inventory, trying to click on it, placing it on my dresser, deleting it and repurchasing it, so I could complete an "apply sunblock while tanning" task before I figured out it happens during tanning and you have to click on yourself and you don't need the sunblock item.
Realm of Magic:
Pros: Really fun to learn magic. I really like the secret lot with the Harry Potter Diagon Alley set-up. I've enjoyed dueling the Sims with magic wands.
Cons: I don't really use the spells after I learn them. The potions require ingredients that are not readily available usually.
Strangerville
Pros: I love this game pack! I love that it has a little in-game quest that you follow along. The new world is very nice. I had so much fun completing this one. I love the clothes and furniture in this one too.
Cons: The infected people look pretty creepy at night. Not too much of a fan of their twisted heads and running with their limbs all disjointed.
Dine Out
Pros: Really enjoy going out to a restaurant. I love that you can customize the restaurants and choose the menu yourself.
Cons: Can sometimes be hard to complete a meal if they take too long to order or eat.
City Living:
Pros: I love this game pack too. The Festivals are a lot of fun to go to. The new recipes to learn at all the food stalls are amazing. Living in apartments is great.
Cons: Why does it rain so much during Geek Con? Some of the local townies have terrible fashion sense.
I'm not sure which bugs came with which pack, so I'm sorry I can't comment there, but I haven't really had any problems playing any of the ones you mentioned.
have lots of fun with this personally and use it loads
it lacks some things to be expected of island pack
(namely hammock that was left hidden in game files, hula, underwater, open water in other worlds)
but if you'd like some summer funs for your sims and you are also into beach vibes
it's pretty versatile and fun pack to play with tbh
City Living
also have lots of funs with this
biggest mistake is really that we can't edit or build apartments
and the festivals get very repetitive since there is no toggles for those
but if you like living in city its a fun pack
works pretty cool with university and get together as well
and objects are pretty versatile and useful in many ways
Realm of Magic
Cool concept but bad execution tbh
I have yet to find a way to use this pack in my game in satisfactory way even if I love all things occult
the b/b and cas are cute as heck though so I find myself using them a lot
all in all needs a big gameplay improvements
it just feels like big waste of potential
Strangerville & Dine Out I don't have so idk about those
🏡 Gallery 📖 Stories 🌍 World Project 🥔 MOD/CC Free
Island Living: Island Events, Mermaids, Clothing, Cool Highlight Hairstyles, New Residential Traits, Awesome Objects & Boats VS dirty Island.
Strangerville: (this town belongs with Get to Work),Big Town, Hairstyles, Walls, Flooring & Objects VS Happy Zombie-like people & Motherplant.
Realm of Magic: Spellcasters, Hairstyles, Clothing, Glimmerbrook, Make-up, Accessories, Objects, Flying Brooms VS Curses & Magic World.
Dine Out: Objects, New Meals VS Boring Restaurant.
No pack has any flaws and they are amazing and worth it to purchase.
Island Living in my opinion is the best with City Living and Dine Out at number 2 and 3.
Do the glitches in Dine Out only apply when at the restaurant not the pack itself? What do people use it for if it's bugged?
What glitches are you talking about here exactly?
So, just spamming? I'm used to that, plus, I thought S4S app fixed issues like such.
The most common one involving guests not being served properly, long waiting hours and such. I'm not sure if it's this pack's or a GTW's problem.
Not being served properly at a restaurant is a Dine Out issue. There are long waiting hours bugs for GTW too but that is because of GTW. I don't think GTW retail bugs will affect things outside of retail. If there are people who complain about long waiting hours in restaurants, that would be tied to Dine Out itself and not GTW's fault.
In all the 20th anniversary, this thread got overlooked. Sorry about that. anyway.
IL i have now, it isn't that interesting from my own point of view, never really saw the appeal in sandy beaches, i've only ever been to one and that was an ice age ago. one of my sims is a mermaid now, she felt compelled to go to the island and become one, leaving everything behind except that she needs.
RoM i don't know of yet.
SV i've got, i find the mystery an interesting one, i've even got a few of my own sims deliberately getting infected and possessed just for good measure.
DO, surprisingly i still haven't gotten around to DO even though i've used some of the DO stuff in the past.
CL i've played quite a bit of. the apartment setting is fairly appealing, you can get a decent enough sized space depending on apartment for reasonable rates. you got more collectables and food to discover. Alex Moyer frequents San Myshuno regularly and she's gotten very large over time from the various treats from the stalls (and i don't play her at all). it isn't just her, but other sims have gotten fat as well. CL has such an impact on game play, i'm always going there for one reason or another.