Let's get this straight - I never want to see a Stuff Pack like My First Pet ever again.
But there is ONE thing I think it gets too much flack (aka too much criticism or bad press) on - requiring Cats&Dogs to play the whole thing.
Cats&Dogs was the best thing EVER. It got people who'd never bought Expansions getting it. For some people, it was the only Expansion they cared about. Not everybody could get it, not everybody wanted animals... But if you wanted pets in your house, by the time of My First Pet you would surely have Cats&Dogs. If you want to dress kids and pets identically, some of the costumes (the bee costume and the astronaut) double with OTHER packs (Toddlers and Get To Work). The little pets are rather bland. There are people who might want their kids to have a little pet with no complications, but most wouldn't even WANT My First Pet if they didn't already have Cats&Dogs.
People say, "If you don't like it, don't buy it", usually while buying it. Normally I'd give them a punch in the nose but while very low quality as a pack, it really, really is optional. A money grab that has items shamelessly stripped and recoloured from Pets, yes. A rip-off? Absolutely. Small even by Stuff Pack standards? Yup. 'Forcing' you to get Cats&Dogs? Hardly.
Remember the 'Toddlers' Game Pack? It came out RIGHT after the Toddler upgrade. A lot of those things could have been in the upgrade, but people didn't complain (as much). What made it bearable was the size of the pack and people still feeling good about the free update.
So, do you think MFP gets too much flack? The right amount? Or not enough? Personally I think the flack is... misdirected.
Prepping a list of mods to add after Infants are placed into the game. Because real life isn't 'nice'.
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I personally like the hamster and have them in few sim houses. I really don't use the furniture though except some of the pet stuff (mostly beds) and the silly rugs.. but I can say that about a few packs at this point. So I use this pack as much as basically any other stuff pack and sometimes more since I can make it deviant.
I think the flack it got is and was spearheaded and carried on and lobbied about mostly by people that really dislike the series and yes or course they have some points. Sometimes I think it's more about following the crowd to dislike it and agreeing because it's a popular thing to do. Thing is for me anyway the pack can be entertaining despite some of it's faults. Is it 10 bucks worth of entertainment? Again for me it was and is. I'll get hours of play today out of it just like I've already had in the past.
What worries me most about this sort of not just complaints but ridicule is it might mean I'll get no birds or reptiles in future stuff packs and the sims I really want to have them.. just won't.
It does make sense though that EA were experimenting with the idea. I mean, how can they see what works and what doesn't if they don't at least try?
I think this is quite accurate, at least in my experience. I've been seeing this a lot and I was wondering it sometimes the disliking was becoming a popular trend
I didn't know there was an aquarium table in the game, had to look it up. Thank you for the tip. I always discover new stuff, which would be amazing if it wasn't so difficult to find the stuff I am looking for and that I actually know is in there.
But the idea of one pack adding to another the pack is not all bad. I am not against the idea of including pet outfits or pet furniture as a little side treat in future packs. As long as the main feature can be used with only the base game, which is the case for the rodents in my first pets stuff.
I had that problem too. I got overwhelmed with all the pack's content, maybe because i bought almost all at once. So i've compiled a list with all the new features of all the packs i own (both gameplay and interactive objects). When im doing my stories now, i go and have a look at my list to see if something fits the story. It usually helps making me build better and more complex stories. And i feel like i finally use more content from the packs.
Of course, we have the option not to buy it, which I havent, but it just feels like a representation of a money making machine trying to eek out as much money as they can get for absolutely minimal content, rather than making substantial packs with lots included. I know it's all about business, and making a profit, and it's cold decision making. It just feels like MFPS and TS4 in general really, has taken a turn into making the absolute most profit possible for the least amount of content. Rather than before the focus seemed more on providing excellent and substantial game depth and quality, with a profit coming as a result of that.
I still don't like the trend of everything being separated but I don't think DLC for DLC is the worst thing in the world either as long as it contains enough content and items to justify the extra amount of money. For example if they made a musician stuff pack that added bands but required Get Famous I'd think that'd be worth it for $10 than opposed to an Expansion pack for Bands on their own. Now they should have been included bands in Get Famous in the first place but an add-on makes more sense to me than making something completely new.
There's no toddlers Game Pack. I'm guessing you're referring to the Toddler Stuff Pack. Anyway, I disagree with a lot of your post, but I do feel that MFPS is nowhere near close to the worst stuff pack and that a lot of the hate it gets is unwarranted. But I don't think many complaints were about being "forced" to get C&D to get MFPS. Just that it should have been free for C&D owners, over a separate pack.
A big issue with a lot of 4's packs is that they appear to be Sims 3 packs chopped up into multiple parts and sold separately as different packs. The biggest example would be how City Living, Vampires, and Get Famous are essentially the Sims 3 Nightlife sliced into 3 separate packs.
Theoretically, yes, but because they were chopped up they are all more developed - City Living has its really nice festivals and is a good way to make money from the ground up, and if you don't like vampires, now you just don't have to buy the pack.
I do think it gets way more flack than it really deserves though. No one *has to* but it, it's only a SP and it's not only been on sale but people can enter giveaways for it if they're not willing to buy it. I agree with those who said it sometimes feels like a bandwagon thing and admitting you like it inevitably gets "ugh" kind of responses.
I'll be honest: I prefer this way of doing things. I know that's not a popular opinion but there you go!
In Sims 3 (and even in Sims 2, if I'm really honest), there would often be some smaller things within an EP that I wanted - not necessarily the whole pack. Now for example, for ages my Sims 3 games verged on the realistic side. I didn't play vampires and it was ages before I bought Supernatural. However, I really liked Bridgeport and the bars, clubs, lounges, the film career and the bands, to name a handful of features. The vampires felt like an afterthought; something that didn't really 'fit' the theme, not for me anyway. Nightlife was the same in Sims 2. I understand why they were put in those packs but I still didn't feel it fitted.
The way it's done in Sims 4 feels more...tailored. I can pick and choose more easily. So if a pack comes out with a theme I'm not interested in, I just won't get it. I won't feel like I have to pay EP prices for maybe a handful of features when the rest is stuff I really don't want. So I feel that City Living, Get Famous and Vampires were all separate themes that, while they may have working in Sims 3 Late Night (and Showtime), they do work better, in my opinion, as separate packs. So if somebody wants the city experience without the fame and vampires, they don't have to compromise and buy one pack with all three features.
Their mistake was in adding content for cats and dogs to the stuff pack, as well as furniture that coordinated with C&D objects. That does make it feel like C&D's sequel. They should have just focused on the small animal theme, and kept the cats' and dogs' stuff in the pack named after them. There would still be people who wanted all their pets in one pack, but the arguments wouldn't be as strong. Also it would have made it so you could buy MFPS separately from C&D and not missed out on any content you paid for.
On PC and PS4, it's sold separately. On XB1, when you buy the bundle and already have C&D, you're discounted the EP price from the bundle.
That being said, both packs are excellent and among my favourites, for other reasons. Cats & Dogs I LOVE the build/buy and cas and the vet career is one of my favs in the game and so is the world.
MFP has amazing cas/build stuff as well that I use on a very regular basis making it one of my fav packs and the odd time I do give my sims a small pet I love that they can study it and it counts as homework and the extra postcard collection from the pack. Since I never play with cats or dogs in my households I've never even touched the features of this pack that require cats and dogs to use and it's still a fantastic pack, so yeah I'd say it gets way too much flack.
So, yeah, putting it into the context of everything surrounding the release of "My First Pet Stuff," it gets just the right amount of flack for what it is, what it did, and what it symbolizes to the playerbase.
the pets clothing
the bedroom/study content in yellow
half of it already in cat&dogs
the caged animals
I bought it but think since then my sims have had one hamster and nothing since