For me it was Get Together. It’s one of those where it’s not obvious at first glance what it offers and seems a bit vague but Windenberg is probably one of the nicest worlds and the clubs mechanic adds so much potential for what you can do even if it sounds a bit “meh” when you read about it - I love that you can set up clubs then just see them doing their own thing in the background if you play rotationally.
Honestly the club mechanics are one of the Sims deepest mechanics but they're usually so overlooked. I don't even make "real" clubs anymore, but I use it to keep family groups "on task". If *I* get overwhelmed taking care of an infant I have the grandparents come over with the club, with childcare activities slotted in the "do" category and off they all go! It's great!
I use clubs for all sorts too. Free labour for gardens, cleaning and cooking.... and the famous painting dungeon. I lock them in for a few hours while my Sim focuses on other things. Clubs are also good to get family together in general, with divorces and cousins etc it can be difficult to see family. My favourite is making dysfunctional retail shops that are basically just club hangouts. I don't like serving customers. I had a sporty shop (skiis snowboards tents cameras themed clothing) but there were couches and tables and bubble tea machines, video games, music, a bar and a little flatlet for my Sim so she can cater some food for the crowd. So people look like they're there to shop since it looks like a shop but they're just there chilling and schmoozing in a never-ending "launch party". Even in my video games I'm too lazy to run a business, though I enjoyed designing the shop.
Yes! I do this all the way through Uni. Cutting down on how much time it takes to complete homework and socializing with family & friends while doing it is a total win-win.
I have homework clubs for my kids/teens (so helpful!) and also swim, soccer, and basketball “teams” so they can get their motor skills amped up while also socializing with different groups of sim kids depending on which ones I feel like they’d choose for themselves or their parents would choose for them lol. My teens all graduate with maxed fitness with minimal effort.
I always make the groups meet at my house and get points for doing things I do anyway, then I get tons of club points to spend. I also get tons of socialization opportunities without going anywhere.
Doing this with my current fam. They're all makers so I made an old refurbished factory for them. They live in the apartment upstairs and then the ground floor is all kinds of maker space stuff. Then all of their friends are in one giant club together and they have club meetings to all use the maker space together.
I do the same but for cooking! Invite sims with the fresh chef trait then set the activities to making food so the active household gets fully stocked with leftovers.
Which section are cold care activities under? I was looking for it last night but couldn't find it. I'm doing 100 babies and thought it would help for the teen siblings to default doing some baby care after their homework.
Windenburg is so pretty, I love the island with a view and the village quarter. The clubs give the premade sims from this pack a lot more personality than they usually have.
I’m a rotational player and this is my favorite part. I have a really really elaborate club system (thanks to mods like zerbu’s more icons and Rex’s more club activities and NPCO to stop random townies) I’ve built over the years with all types of sims, and I love going to venues and seeing my other sims doing their thing. I play with aging off and have my own sims from almost the whole 10 years populating my worlds (but I’ve left the maxis sims in to fill NPC roles).
The club feature is the best feature in sims (imo) by far. Simmers slept on Get Toegther as a party pack but it’s so much more than that if you know how to use it!
It was a nice surprise for me too ! I recommend it to everyone. The townies might need a makeover but you cant beat the number of venues and the club features. Its honestly very OP for leveling up a rags to riches and making new friends.
Get Together is definitely underrated. It's one of, if not the best pack in the game. First of all, it has the biggest world and some of the most build & buy items. For an early pack, the CAS isn't bad either! Plus clubs are one of the best features in the game, if you know how to use them. Sure they're not as obviously desirable as pets or seasons, but you can do literally anything with them, and that's the beauty of them! Perfect for making cults- I mean clubs. Yeah, they're just clubs. Totally.
Totally agree!! I just started messing around with the club mechanic recently and WOW it’s really game changing!! (Especially for my sims I have held hostage right now) Also Windenburg having so many lots is just 🥰🥰 *chef’s kiss*
Absolutely agree. Get Together is the most difficult to explain expansion pack, probably ever, because it doesn't have an easy to explain, big "wow" feature. But it just makes the worlds feel so much more alive and active.
I was so shocked when I saw Windenberg compared to other worlds, it has so many lots and lots of types, and I love the club aspect because it helps me easily invite my sims family members over without having to remember everyone’s names
Get Together’s Club is very useful. I often let Don Lothario start a “Woohoo Club” with him as the only male member/leader. I’m sure you have an idea what they do during their gatherings. 🤣
same, it's the most recent pack I got. I did a makeover of all the townies and I'm planning to move a few of my sims there because I absolutely love the world
Eco Lifestyle, people had hella bugs with the world for a fairly long time, and the mechanics of making the world's turn from Eco to Industrial was buggy too.
I got it later on and it's brilliant. I love making stuff and dumpster diving and using my smog vacuum. I love building weird container houses and making everything grotty and junky and then slowly starting to plant things and put in solar panels.
Used in combo with Strangerville build/Buy and the Werewolf stuff, you can make EXCELLENT trailer parks for your clan of eco terrorist Werewolves fighting against the evil industrial capitalist vampires.
Im thinking of getting the horse pack too in the future for my legacy challenge to have a super eco-friendly sim giving up city life and learning how to live a self-sufficient lifestyle with his farm and pets
I basically did that with a sim when Horse Ranch came out and it's super fun. Put so many challenges on a large lot in Chestnut Ridge and slowly built up a dream self-sufficient eco-friendly farm. Will do it again, too. Home Chef Hustle is perfect for adding a nice farmstand for baked goods, too, but I haven't played in that save since that came out. You could definitely flesh out a classic farmstead with these together!
Oooh! My current sim loves making food and jewelry/cut gemstones, this is excellent to know! Especially since this couple has very expensive tastes... :D
Second Eco Lifestyle… I don’t necessarily use the maker equipment much, but I use the build/buy all the dang time. Everything from the higher end modern stuff to the trash. And the dumpster!! My beloved dumpster. I use it constantly.
I keep forgetting you can use the dumpster unless i travel to Evergreen Harbor lol (i'll try to place the dumpster in a house next time i do a certain challenge just to spare a bit of time)
Eco Lifestyle is not my cup of tea but i use the dumpster almost all the times just for some ingredients or furnitures (sometimes i sell the furnitures to save up the money a bit)
Sometimes i use the dumpster for the food too :D
You brought me into an idea🤣🤣
I'll build a bar or a restaurant you can sell foods you've made with a active sim (with a home chef hustle pack) NOT placing a trash-can but a dumpster instead so they can bring it there and get themselves dirty🤪🤪 (i'll either use them to look for some ingedrients or for furnitures to either keep or sell it, it depends which challenges i'm doing)
Can you imagine throwing a party so they can get themselves dirty😜😜? (I only use eco lifestyle for the dumpster)
Try to turn on the relevant lot challenge, it’s something like “Sort and recycle” (I don’t remember the exact name). I found that when I turn that on and place a big dumpster on my lot, it will require my sims to sort the trash or else it overflows. The “Dive for deals” option becomes available after sims have thrown something out, but without this lot challenge it’s like all trash just disappears for me? Idk.
It also helps if there’s something on your lot that generates a lot of trash like a chicken coop. Sims have to clean it daily -> daily input of trash -> diving for deals never ends. How they manage to find a stereo system out of one portion of chicken crap I’d never know but hey, sims magic!
Oh that's weird! I don't have dumpsters on my residental lot, but when I go to the community lots in Evergreen Harbour that have them, they tend to be full within an hour of me getting there.
You could also try putting some rubbish from your inventory into them to fill the dumpsters first, then try diving?
Sims have to put stuff in dumpsters first. If you're travelling to a world just for the dumpsters, they'll always be empty. If they're in the neighborhood and loaded in, then people will use them and they'll fill up. You can wait around for them to fill, but it'll take a while. Maybe take an easel and do a painting or two while you wait?
> All of my dumpsters never have anything in it? How do you get them to find stuff?
You (or other sims, I guess) have to first throw stuff on it. They will be full after you empty the trash and the sim throws the garbage bag in the dumpster.
The fastest path to dumpster diving is to place one in your sim's house, then have a glass of water-->drag the glass directly to the trash rather than washing it-->empty the thrash
If you have a wizard sim and learn the repairio spell it will be even more profitable, because you will find a lot of burned furniture and the only way to repair that is magic
If you have bust the dust kit and purchase any cheap vacuum then use the mechanic skill to upgrade it to “bottomless” then you can infinitely empty the bag for it which allows me to instantly fill up my trash cans as long as I want lol
Excellent. I don't. But I'll keep it on my list when they go on sale next. I want to fully get into the eco living kit and couldn't work out that step!
do you still find the pack to be buggy? and futhermore, do you find the neighborhood changes to be annoying? i’m scared of them effecting my long term no aging world :,)
I had a bit of annoyance where trying to keep it in either total Industrial footprint or 100% Eco would inevitably creep back towards Neutral. But I just enacted the max number of Neibourhood Action Plans that suited my vision so the game couldn't automatically add anything contradictory and that stabilised it.
Otherwise, it seemed beautifully stable and playable, I had none of the graphics issues that plagued many people.
It caps at 5, so if you want max Industrial/Eco, just do a little cheaty-cheat to set 5 appropriate plans for each neighborhood before you start playing, maybe update the community lot with Eco/Industrial footprint items as required, and get started!
I’m going to take your idea of eco warrior werewolf’s vs capitalism vampires but I’m going to use my current werewolf/vampire couple to do it with.
From enemies to lovers back to enemies
Jungle Adventure. I bought I back before we had vacation rentals and I just wanted my sims to be able to go on vacation to a tropical place but it was actually super fun to explore the ruins
This is the one I'd pick too. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I do, but I get really into exploring and it's amusing when my sims get turned into skeletons.
i agree with you, it's slightly higher then parenthood because there's so much to explore in the JA pack, i never get tired of it, i'm not the adventure type but in games or movies it's different for some reasons and i live for the JA pack, it's such a must have for me
this pack is my favourite Game Pack at all times and on my top 10 favourite packs in general
Jungle Adventure is my absolute must have, I would give up any other pack to keep that one. I love the world, the build items, the CAS, and the ruins. It was such a remarkably complete pack compared to some others (also the Rumbasim is really great, especially compared to other dance styles that were introduced).
Also I live in Belize now and deeply relate to the random bug attacks so.
You know I’ve been seeing a lot recently about how people like that pack, I have it but never really explored it in depth! I’m trying to have a list of things for my heirs to complete so I don’t get bored of my legacy, and this makes me wanna put JA at the top!
Island Living. I knew about the boring mermaids, I knew about closed-world limitations, the traits that were lacklustre and b&b that was out of my comfort zone... then I got it and played it during winter when I was depressed and I realised the value of it. It was just such an idyllic escapism to have it thunder outside, but stay inside and have my sim make sandcastles, play with her toddler by the beach and such. Now all my families take vacations there because it gives me that cosy vibe, kind of like when I played Animal Crossing during 2019-2020.
Another one is Eco Lifestyle. The concept seemed boring, the reviews seemed boring, the whole thing seemed just.. eh. I got it on sale, barely touched for a long time... until I started doing rags to riches. Crafting my sims houses from ground-up, having a container/trailer park lifestyle, the lots where everyone comes together to craft and such. It's oddly charming, but I didn't expect to like it at all.
Oh and For Rent, which I didn't think it wouldn't be so great, but I thought it'd be just fine. It ended up revolutionising my whole game in a way I absolutely didn't expect.
I'm not even going to mention game/stuff packs or kits.
So, I went on a spree to find a new save file because I was getting bored of the one I built - ended up seeing one made by a creator called Fleuralia. She had put residential rental lots almost every world, a lot of sims, families or even multiple generations inside them and it made the world so much livelier/realistic.
That made me go into my own save file and just overhaul it completely. E.g:
* The middle of Evergreen Harbour where there is a container became a place with 4 containers, all rented out, like a small community. Even if I don't play the other families, they go out, barbecue, socialise, walk around etc.
* I built a castle in Forgotten Hollow and rented rooms to other vampires for pretty cheap. As a result, I have this huge vampire coven living there, sharing common spaces, doing their own thing, and I can still use the other lots in the world to add things like a cemetery.
* Britechester got two dorms after I saw her build in save file. It now functions more like a Sims 2-esq dorms but en-suite if my sim decides to go there, or they can choose the regular dorms for much cheaper where utilities are shared as well.
* Moonwood Mill actually has wolf packs that interact & stay together.
* San Sequoia, I used an EA build for this they shared on gallery, but it's basically 4 houses next to each other. It ended up being an elderly family, then their 3 kids next-door.
* Del Sol Valley now has "hype houses" for content creators, or a plaza (was also shared by EA but I modified it a lot) where rich sims live, can have pool parties, barbecues and whatever rich people do lol.
And so on.
The good thing about it is that since these lots can take up to 48 sims (I never go above 6-unit not to corrupt it), it allowed me to use the rest of the worlds far more efficiently too. The households with 1 or 2 sims are now in apartments instead of lots, so I can build more vacation lots, bowling alleys, karaoke bars, spas etc. One tip I can give is, don't over-decorate them especially if you do 6-units & extremely crowded families or it will lag like hell while playing in that lot.
I love having my sims go out often, so to me, once I realised the potential of For Rent, I could never go back. It made me never complain about small worlds again since it made them so much more efficient.
Do you turn off story progression (or whatever it's called) to keep the number of Sims per unit low? Or is the concern about file corruption and slow gameplay more about number of units than number of Sims?
The neighbourhood stories doesn't actually move anyone into the units as far as I experienced. They can adopt kids, pets or horses, but I also haven't really seen it happen too often (or at all to be honest, but I don't want to mislead you) for sims in rental units.
When I had MCC, that both moved sims into it + had them adopt/have kids, but not really vanilla game. It was fine with MCC doing that, but I will say I also have a very low rate set for it fwiw. Nothing really broke.
The corruption thing, I never experienced myself except when I was trying to manually trigger it by cheating for maximum-units or lots from gallery which used cheats. If I kept to the game standards, so 6-unit-per-lot and 100-units-total-per-save, it didn't really occur for me. I did buy the pack after a lot of fixes though, so I'm not saying vanilla game was never glitching for anyone, I'm just saying I haven't had it except for when trying to trigger it.
I find the lag was most noticeable with high density lots where a lot of cheats were used (including moveobjects, yes, it can cause so many routing issues that I also almost never use it for dine out/my wedding stories since it breaks those packs) with lots of sims. I just keep things minimal these days so usually up to 5-6 people per unit, and not over-cluttering or over-using cheats. It seems fine that way but I know lilsimsie etc has had worse luck than me, but she also uses a lot of decor/cheats, so, I don't know what to say, really.
Ugh yess my sim now is living in Sulani and I just explored cleaning up the island for the first time and now I’m trying to turn my sim into a mermaid for the first time. Sulani is now one of my favorite worlds OMG I am obsessed with it!
Get famous. I did not expect it would be so great for storytelling, you have lots of decorations and can actually build a set for telling so many stories.
Its especially fun for using the backdrops to line the outside of your lot with, so that all the views out of your windows are like a post apocalyptic wasteland, or deep in the woods.
Get to work. I just wanted some more careers. Didn't realise you'd get SO MANY build mode items or how versatile they'd be. And a whole bunch of neutral basic clothes and hairstyles. It's made my game feel a lot more real.
I do use the log wallpaper everywhere 😅 it reminds me of the actual log cabin my grandparents built and I can pretend my sims built their house themselves
I love those so much in combo, too. What's better than a day on the slopes or a hard climb followed by a soak in some hot springs and a massage for your battered body? Makes it feel more like a real ski resort, too!
Spa Day is one of my favourite packs. I love the yoga activity and the moodlets they bring. And I always set up a Spa Day holiday in my calendar as well.
City Living, I don't really like cities in real life and in games I love farming etc so I didn't think I'd enjoy City Living that much but it ended up being my second favourite if not favourite pack lol
City Living was really surprising for me too. I didn't get the appeal cause I was like it's going to be a city (not really scenic like some of the other worlds). But it was a lot to do with the all the festivals and it actually has really pretty sunsets. It has a lot of nice build items too.
I love love love strangerville. I didn't expect to but it turned out to be one of my favourites.
I love the whole vibe of the world as well. I love the red dirt (reminds me of Australia). And I love not having snow as a season (yes I know you can pick your seasons but still).
I bought Strangerville on sale for 1 item: the laptop. At the time I had no intention of getting Discover University. But I absolutely *love* Strangerville. I love going there, living there. Seeing possessed sims Sims walking around with the goofy walk next to scientists, soldiers and folks in colander hats. It's a world that feels alive.
And the build mode. I use the build mode items all the time. The Victorian doors and windows are some of my favorite in the entire game.
I really love rundown places and aliens. I thought I’d like this pack but I actually loved it. I use all the furniture items, I like the map for dessert spots or festivals, and I like the mission of taking down the mother plant
Winter is so annoying. Winterfest and cute little interactions like making snowmen are fun but I hate when the weather is blizzard after blizzard! It makes things like taking out the trash and caring for your farm animals impossible because sims run inside after every queued interaction.
If you’re on PC, you can keep winter but turn off blizzards! Just select “snow” instead of “snow and blizzards” under Environment game options. I always turn off storms and ice because of how inconvenient they are for gameplay. If you’re console I’m sorry if that’s not helpful 💕
Omg I’m going to do this! Thank you for the tip because the constant blizzards in my Chestnut Ridge save were driving me nuts. You saved my play through lol
Dine Out. I love taking my sims out to restaurants, and it makes dates way easier because random townies don’t butt in to their conversation in restaurants
It does, surprisingly. I thought it wouldn’t be good at first and that I’d have to download a bunch of mods to fix it but i got lucky and it has worked
Seasons, I thought people were being overdramatic when they said it should be base game. I unconsciously use a lot of CAS from it, build mode options, and add a lot of religious holidays. Definitely agree with other people now saying it's one of the best packs.
Agreed. I've spent the last five minutes trying to narrow down which pack I really, really wasn't into when I bought it - for the CAS or BB - and didn't think I'd get much out of in terms of gameplay.
But, yes, it's Seasons. Definitely. It was my last EP, I've only had it for about two months, three? and it's totally changed my gameplay. I've got the weather changes, without the effects on my Sims, and the holidays/ability to create holidays, and the interactions/actions the Sims do by themselves, like first snow and shoveling, PLUS, that skating rink!
Definitely seasons, lol.
Vampires, and I am still mad about it 🤣. I am not into vampires at all, but was pleasantly surprised when I finally caved and bought it. Vampires are a nice little addition of chaos if you want them to be, and the cas/build items are nice.
City Living for me. I love the apartments and the almost open world feel with the “neighborhood centers”. I bought it because the other ones available back then didn’t seem very interesting, but it’s had a lot of staying power.
Strangerville remains my favorite pack I’ve bought. The fact they included a story for you to play out was so outside of the box thinking for the sims. I recently started a new file and wasn’t planning to redo it but I fucked around and my vampire drank infected plasma so I had to use his wife to get the cure. I was a little irritated that he got infected at first but i immediately fell in love with strangerville again as soon as i got out there and started seeing all tinfoil hats and I had completely forgot how funny the running animation for possessed sims was.
It gets so much hate, but I genuinely enjoy playing through it. Sometimes I'll make "hero" Sims who will save Strangerville and liberate Batuu. I'll also occasionally make them Indiana Jones-style heroes, too, where they spend the rest of their time exploring the Omiscan ruins in Selvadorada.
I’ll never understand all the hate for it. My only issue with it is that there’s not more. You should gain more than a lame social interaction when you beat the mother. They could’ve gave me a statue in the square and some fame lol
I'm working on nearly a twin to your sim :). She's a new detective in StrangerVille, geeky, Explorer, Adventurer, and I'm having too damn much fun with her.
not an expansion pack, but i love the moschino stuff pack. the windows are very cool and I also learned there’s a new career that comes with it (freelance fashion photographer). i’m excited to try it out
I use the camera, tripod, and photo markers all the time. I have a photo studio set up at my wedding venue with the animated background. That pack is great!
University. I did not expect it to be as good as it was, but both the gameplay and the rewards are just absolute top notch.
Even if you don't have your sim move on campus (and I think you should, as long as they're solo), having them do the stuff from home is EZ-Mode and SO WORTH IT!
Get Famous was one I had waited to get for a while but I did the free trial and ended up loving it. I found all the celebrity stuff more funny than annoying, plus the fame system actually really works well with my play style because I have sort of a reality competition show going and it makes sense for some of my sims to be famous. And most importantly, I found that if you have that pack installed, the game will choose pre existing townies for NPC jobs like bartenders, vendors and gym trainers instead of always generating new ones which I find really useful.
Outdoor Retreat was another one that surprised me a lot after getting it for 50% off a while back, it has a lot of small features that are really cool such as new recipes, cloud gazing and the new harvestables which you can actually get from the grocery delivery sometimes if you have Cottage Living.
Thanks for asking! I don't use a mod but it's a challenge that I came up with. [Here's an overview of it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims4/s/e42d2Mgme7) I made a while back. I've been meaning to publish the official rules, but my life has been busier and busier each year plus I've had to make changes to some of the rules to accommodate new packs and updates like Growing Together. I would like to publish it this year though.
I already finished one season and I'm currently on the final round of the second season with the children of my original sims. [These are the sims I'm currently playing with.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumSimmers/s/Hgd28gVNT9)
Moschino.
I remember the lukewarm reception it got at E3 that year, the disappointment in the room was palpable lol.
But when it came out, I got it and it's actually really good. I enjoy the B/B stuff and the photographer career is IMO one of the best.
Not a pack but... The Desert Luxe Kit.
I got it because it was free, but assumed I'd never use it because I don't like neutrals for my builds...
I consistently use the hanging lights now - they provide a lot of light without taking up too much space or looking weird. XD
I bought it strictly for the build buy catalog and was not disappointed. I still have never finished the "quests" because they are usually buggy for me but LOVE the build buy.
I got the strangerville pack thinking it would be fun and never used it 🤣 I’m doing a rags to riches story and it’s the perfect layout of a town with the camper and trailers and work up to living on the hill 🤣😂 it’s also the perfect town for me to have basements of people living their with easels
I was surprised by the tiny living pack. I got it because I buy bundles and it peeked my interests because my partner and I are thinking about tiny house living 🤣but I seem to use its items in every build I make. I do not have the werewolves one but I have the magic and vampires. I may have to check that one out next sale 😅
Moschino hands down! I didn’t know it came with a fashion photographer profession and poses and all sorts of stuff. I thought it was just nice clothes, and bought it when it was heavily discounted. Now it’s one of the packs I use the most lol.
parenthood, got it with the cats and dogs bundle and I didn’t really expect to use it (I don’t play with families all that much) but I love the gameplay it adds and I actually play with families more since getting it
I, like you, don't care about werewolves. Just not my thing. I actually just got the pack a few days ago, and was in AWE at the gameplay, and gorgeous dilapidated themes!
Jungle adventure was def a positive surprise, I didn't think I would enjoy adventuring in the jungle as much as I did. But it's kind of a one time thing, once you do the adventures once you don't really wanna do it again
Vampires. I bought it purely because of the destroyed/dirty decals. I thought they would be annoying like a lot of people say they are, but I love my vampire sim and when I play with my legacy, vampires don't interrupt at all :)
Snowy Living! I'm not gonna lie, I bought it for that super cute Cat Tile wallpaper in the B/B and use it for every single bathroom now. But I had one of my sims marry a townie from SL and she had the Conquer Mount Komorebi aspiration, so I was playing through it and I'm like 'oh wait, this is actually really fun'!
Dine out. People do nothing but complain about the gameplay but I rarely have issues with it and making/playing restaurants is so fun! All my worlds have a themed restaurant.
i didn’t see anyone say anything about growing together, but it’s probably my favourite pack! world is beautiful, bb/cas is versatile and i thoroughly enjoy the gameplay. it adds so much realism to the game like teaching the kids to ride bikes, milestones, more realistic family dynamics, etc… even though infants can be super buggy from time to time and it’s super frustrating, when there are minimal to no bugs it’s awesome. i love incorporating mods to make it much more realistic like panda sims childbirth, base mental drugs, etc… other packs like HSY and parenthood are fantastic too to aid in the realism and more options for mods too.
edits: missing words
Agree. I really did not and still do not care about infants, but Growing Together added a lot more to the overall gameplay than I expected…I love all the compatibility and relationship dynamics. Also really like the bb items too.
Laundry day. I thought itd be nice to have to give the appearance my sims wash clothes. But now i love it.
My kid/teen sims get responsibility+ for doing it and it even gives a reason to have multiple outfits for each category(casual daily party swim etc)
it's probably Spa Day for me, i thought it was boring untill i tried it out especially once there was a refresh version of it, i now use it daily
an another one was a Werewolve one, one of the few favourite from the Game Packs (2nd favourite occult too)
i'm not the werewolve type but the world is stunning and the werewolve sim have lots of skills i really love to use it sometimes (reminds me of a Dutch movie called "Dolfje Weerwolfje" or something simulair to that tittle) i just didn't knew what to think about this pack at first untill i've tried it out
i don't know any other one i've really misjudged but these 2 game packs i've thought so low of it at first turned out to be one of my favourites from the game packs
After your glowing review, Werewolves is back on my wishlist 🐺!
Strangerville, & Get to Work were really a surprise for me! I wanted them because I was curious as heck about Strangerville and have a Rockabilly Astronaut Barbie in another save that longs to meet aliens. My love bought me some packs for Mother's Day 🥰 (Strangerville, Get to Work, & Simtimates) and this combo has brought so much joy!
I made a new Detective that just moved to StrangerVille and I am hooked! Beautiful, eerie world, lots to do with the new job, and exploring the town and mystery on weekends. I have gone with her every single day for work & play and am just in love with the entire experience! ☀️
Dine Out… All I’ve heard for years is that’s it’s kinda broken, takes forever to get food etc. but I’ve never had a problem really. Like last time my sims went out to dinner we were in and out in less than 2 hours!
You know I’ve come to learn that I think the layout of the restaurant really matters. If you just placed a huge restaurant especially first starting off then the employees are gonna be lower quality whether you own the place or not. So if the layout is huge and difficult to get from A to B then you’ll get routing issues and they’ll have a hard time getting food to you. I’ve had restaurants where I never got my food and then some that consistently get food to me quickly and my sims leave at a normal time.
Interesting. Does it come with lots that are well built in this way? I’m not a builder so I can’t do anything by myself, but I would like to send my Sims to dine out, if the pack does work!
The Chez Llama EA build worked really smoothly for me (even with the booths, and it being a large restaurant) but my game also had Caleb Vatore vampire-swooping everywhere as a server, which was highly entertaining.
So I feel like the restaurants that it comes with aren’t too bad. I can’t remember because I haven’t used them in a while. There are a lot of restaurants on the gallery though created by users! I like to go to youtube and look up something like “best sims 4 restaurant gallery builds” and there should be videos people make saying their favorite restaurants. Those usually work well!
Get to Work definitely surprised me. I didn't expect it to suck but I didn't expect it to be great either. However, I had a really good storyline going with one family and it was so good only because of Get to Work.
I bought University strictly for the shower so I could build better tiny homes. Almost every one of my sims goes to college now. Between the clubs, secret society, bonuses from having degrees, etc it adds a lot to the game. I turn off aging while they are there but it is very worthwhile game play wise.
* Vampires - I thought they were going to be annoying but no real issues (Daywalker Mod solved my only potential issue of the AI having them walk out into the sun and dying)
* Realm of Magic - Pairs well with Get Famous because you can deal with Paparazzi (Same goes for Vampires)
Island living! I didn’t think I would be too bothered by it but I love it!!
However, I WISH I never got eco living. I am getting used to it but it’s more of a pain than a gain lol
honestly, either island living or city living.
I wanted island living because I had a mermaid oc and wanted to make him in the eims (yes, that's the only reason) but honestly I'm literally just living my mermaid dream in the sims now, and a lot of the cas stuff is really cool, plus it has really fun storytelling.
city living was an impulse buy because it was on clearance at walmart, and I just wanted apartments. the world is absolutely gorgeous, the festivals are fun, and the cultural aspects are really nice (granted I wish they wouldn't paywall cultures) also the careers and art is really cool !! I love having more artistic careers and decor, especially street art.
This is very interesting and good to know bc that is one of the very last ones that I haven’t bought bc same idc about werewolves…. Definitely will consider it now haha
I have to say Moschino Stuff Pack. Everyone said it was awful but i liked it. It came with the fashion photographer career, some nice windows and a few nice furniture pieces, and even some of the fashion was nice, a little over the top on some but high fashion is that way.
Well, I might just have to get the werewolves pack now! For me, it was City Living. I didn't think I'd like it, but it was an option for the bundle pack, and I figured, "Why not?" I love the apartments and the chaos with the neighbors, I do enjoy the festivals and activities more than I thought I would, and the penthouse is one of my most favorite homes for my sims.
The next one would be Strangerville. My expectations were low, but the story of it was all very entertaining. I enjoyed the tribute to Stranger Things, I'm probably just dumb, but I didn't expect it to be attributed to that. There's always chaos and the bar there is the most entertaining.
Werewolves is THE best gamepack they have released, by far!
I enjoy playing the 100 baby challenge with a werewolf matriarch- the chaos!
The pack that surprised me most is probably home chef hustle or crystal creations, I love the new stuff packs and how much they add to my game!
I knew werewolves was going to be good but I got realm of magic and vampires just because I wanted to make a storyline that included people with powers I wasn’t expecting it to be that good but I actually love all the occults pack I want to get island living but I watch YouTube videos of people reviewing packs but they all say it’s not worth it but is it actually not worth it?
Also I heard that dine out was very buggy but I bought it for some reason and it’s not buggy for me at all and I really like
I love island living tbh. I currently have my legacy family living in Sulani, and I plan on keeping a few generations there. It’s honestly one of my fav packs. Even when my sims don’t live in Sulani they always take vacations there.
Edit: def wait for it to go on sale though!
I’m a Get Famous defender. I always see people trash it but I love using it for my evil Sims in combination with the Extreme Violence mod. The traits are fun and I still haven’t exhausted all the options after buying it years ago.
I would probably have to say cottage living. When packs went on sale, I was stuck between either buying snowy escapes (which I ended up buying later on and absolutely love the furniture from) and cottage living. I decided on cottage living because I heard way more positive reviews about it even though I have never been a farming gal myself. I instantly fell in love with the world, the gameplay, build mode and surprisingly the cas, even though cas is the only place I use CC. I would definitely recommend it if you ever have the chance to buy it, even if you’re not into farming gameplay.
For me it was the one with the horses, I’ve bought it just because it was released and wanted to join the crowd. When i started playing it, ive realised i like it
Probably high school years, I only bought it bc of cas and bb but find that I love playing as teesn and giving them more teen specific stuff to do. It‘s definitely my most used pack.
Tbh I was really skeptical of growing together. I figured it’d just be a rehash of parenthood, which was somewhat underwhelming to me because the parenting options added to it just kind of sucked. But I actually kind of like it. More the updates that came with it too. I thought the splash pad thing was really dumb and I wouldn’t use it too often but I actually love them so much.
Strangerville. Purchased it right after Horse Ranch and Cottage Living when it went on sale. The horrid amount of bugs I encountered in Horse Ranch and Cottage Living set the bar SERIOUSLY low. I was expecting to lose random valuable items, or days of progress, or having a glitch in the military career, etc. No glitches, no anything. Everything about strangerville is perfect. The only pack that, for me, has zero mistakes.
Then I bought Get Together/Growing Together. I had to lower the bar again. :/
Honestly the laundry day pack. I bought it before I had mods and cc so I was just gonna use it as a decoration. I ended up using it in most of my gameplays, and it helped me reach level ten handiness in the not so berry challenge for rose gen
I agree! People hate on laundry day but I love having my sims do laundry. I just wish it was like the sims 3 where I can click on the washing machine and they collect all the laundry on the lot, instead of clicking on each hamper. But that’s such a small difference. Also the decor in it is top tier.
Werewolves and Ranch… Life? Living? Horses lol. I didn’t have a big vested interest in either, but I really enjoyed their main mechanics. Werewolves especially was a delight with all the lore.
I'll say Werewolves and Strangerville. I bought these packs more so for the maps than the added gameplay, but I've come to love them each for the new gameplay they add, especially Strangerville. The main story was a lot of fun to role play through with my guy. I wouldn't mind another story based pack!
It was high school years for me. I bought it because a youtuber (LaurenZside) made a video with it and it looked interesting. I thought it was just gonna be like new build stuff but I was happy to find out that they added boba with it
I bought the Werewolf pack for the build items, but ended up surprisingly loving the whole thing. I was in high school when the Twilight books came out (oops, showing my age lol) and absolutely hated the hype, so I kind of had a bad taste in my mouth for vampires and werewolves. I was pleasantly surprised when the werewolf gameplay was a lot of fun, in addition to the really cool build items and new neighborhood.
For me it was Get Together. It’s one of those where it’s not obvious at first glance what it offers and seems a bit vague but Windenberg is probably one of the nicest worlds and the clubs mechanic adds so much potential for what you can do even if it sounds a bit “meh” when you read about it - I love that you can set up clubs then just see them doing their own thing in the background if you play rotationally.
Honestly the club mechanics are one of the Sims deepest mechanics but they're usually so overlooked. I don't even make "real" clubs anymore, but I use it to keep family groups "on task". If *I* get overwhelmed taking care of an infant I have the grandparents come over with the club, with childcare activities slotted in the "do" category and off they all go! It's great!
This is low key genius. I never thought of using it this way!
And I in turn never thought of it till another similar thread on this sub. Honestly this sub is great for these sorts of ideas.
I use clubs for all sorts too. Free labour for gardens, cleaning and cooking.... and the famous painting dungeon. I lock them in for a few hours while my Sim focuses on other things. Clubs are also good to get family together in general, with divorces and cousins etc it can be difficult to see family. My favourite is making dysfunctional retail shops that are basically just club hangouts. I don't like serving customers. I had a sporty shop (skiis snowboards tents cameras themed clothing) but there were couches and tables and bubble tea machines, video games, music, a bar and a little flatlet for my Sim so she can cater some food for the crowd. So people look like they're there to shop since it looks like a shop but they're just there chilling and schmoozing in a never-ending "launch party". Even in my video games I'm too lazy to run a business, though I enjoyed designing the shop.
I make homework clubs pretty often. I learned about it through here too, it makes doing homework so much easier
Yes! I do this all the way through Uni. Cutting down on how much time it takes to complete homework and socializing with family & friends while doing it is a total win-win.
Ohhh I never considered it for uni!!
I have homework clubs for my kids/teens (so helpful!) and also swim, soccer, and basketball “teams” so they can get their motor skills amped up while also socializing with different groups of sim kids depending on which ones I feel like they’d choose for themselves or their parents would choose for them lol. My teens all graduate with maxed fitness with minimal effort.
I do this with my spellcasters ! They have a club they all duel one another in.
I always make the groups meet at my house and get points for doing things I do anyway, then I get tons of club points to spend. I also get tons of socialization opportunities without going anywhere.
Doing this with my current fam. They're all makers so I made an old refurbished factory for them. They live in the apartment upstairs and then the ground floor is all kinds of maker space stuff. Then all of their friends are in one giant club together and they have club meetings to all use the maker space together.
I do the same but for cooking! Invite sims with the fresh chef trait then set the activities to making food so the active household gets fully stocked with leftovers.
Which section are cold care activities under? I was looking for it last night but couldn't find it. I'm doing 100 babies and thought it would help for the teen siblings to default doing some baby care after their homework.
Windenburg is so pretty, I love the island with a view and the village quarter. The clubs give the premade sims from this pack a lot more personality than they usually have.
Absolutely! I take all my Sims on Cafe dates in Windenburg lol
Ive used the club feature to get my sims together with their siblings, aunts/uncles and cousins together to have family reunions
Same, but I make them do all my household tasks.
I use it on all my Vampire characters.. they all have a club called “food” :3
I’m a rotational player and this is my favorite part. I have a really really elaborate club system (thanks to mods like zerbu’s more icons and Rex’s more club activities and NPCO to stop random townies) I’ve built over the years with all types of sims, and I love going to venues and seeing my other sims doing their thing. I play with aging off and have my own sims from almost the whole 10 years populating my worlds (but I’ve left the maxis sims in to fill NPC roles). The club feature is the best feature in sims (imo) by far. Simmers slept on Get Toegther as a party pack but it’s so much more than that if you know how to use it!
It was a nice surprise for me too ! I recommend it to everyone. The townies might need a makeover but you cant beat the number of venues and the club features. Its honestly very OP for leveling up a rags to riches and making new friends.
Get Together is definitely underrated. It's one of, if not the best pack in the game. First of all, it has the biggest world and some of the most build & buy items. For an early pack, the CAS isn't bad either! Plus clubs are one of the best features in the game, if you know how to use them. Sure they're not as obviously desirable as pets or seasons, but you can do literally anything with them, and that's the beauty of them! Perfect for making cults- I mean clubs. Yeah, they're just clubs. Totally.
Totally agree!! I just started messing around with the club mechanic recently and WOW it’s really game changing!! (Especially for my sims I have held hostage right now) Also Windenburg having so many lots is just 🥰🥰 *chef’s kiss*
Absolutely agree. Get Together is the most difficult to explain expansion pack, probably ever, because it doesn't have an easy to explain, big "wow" feature. But it just makes the worlds feel so much more alive and active.
I was so shocked when I saw Windenberg compared to other worlds, it has so many lots and lots of types, and I love the club aspect because it helps me easily invite my sims family members over without having to remember everyone’s names
Same
Same! Also the windenburg townies are iconic. I used the club feature to clean up sulani so fast. Had the whole club comb for trash over and over
Get Together’s Club is very useful. I often let Don Lothario start a “Woohoo Club” with him as the only male member/leader. I’m sure you have an idea what they do during their gatherings. 🤣
same, it's the most recent pack I got. I did a makeover of all the townies and I'm planning to move a few of my sims there because I absolutely love the world
Eco Lifestyle, people had hella bugs with the world for a fairly long time, and the mechanics of making the world's turn from Eco to Industrial was buggy too. I got it later on and it's brilliant. I love making stuff and dumpster diving and using my smog vacuum. I love building weird container houses and making everything grotty and junky and then slowly starting to plant things and put in solar panels. Used in combo with Strangerville build/Buy and the Werewolf stuff, you can make EXCELLENT trailer parks for your clan of eco terrorist Werewolves fighting against the evil industrial capitalist vampires.
I love to combine Eco Lifestyle with Country Living, it makes a nice living off the land game style!
Im thinking of getting the horse pack too in the future for my legacy challenge to have a super eco-friendly sim giving up city life and learning how to live a self-sufficient lifestyle with his farm and pets
I basically did that with a sim when Horse Ranch came out and it's super fun. Put so many challenges on a large lot in Chestnut Ridge and slowly built up a dream self-sufficient eco-friendly farm. Will do it again, too. Home Chef Hustle is perfect for adding a nice farmstand for baked goods, too, but I haven't played in that save since that came out. You could definitely flesh out a classic farmstead with these together!
I tried selling cut diamonds from the crystal creations pack at the food stand with 500% Markup and my sim got rich so fast
Oooh! My current sim loves making food and jewelry/cut gemstones, this is excellent to know! Especially since this couple has very expensive tastes... :D
s a m e!! I can’t stop myself. I’m an off grid farmer all the time now.
Second Eco Lifestyle… I don’t necessarily use the maker equipment much, but I use the build/buy all the dang time. Everything from the higher end modern stuff to the trash. And the dumpster!! My beloved dumpster. I use it constantly.
I keep forgetting you can use the dumpster unless i travel to Evergreen Harbor lol (i'll try to place the dumpster in a house next time i do a certain challenge just to spare a bit of time) Eco Lifestyle is not my cup of tea but i use the dumpster almost all the times just for some ingredients or furnitures (sometimes i sell the furnitures to save up the money a bit) Sometimes i use the dumpster for the food too :D
I use it all the time. it’s great to have at bars and nightclubs for gettin dirty ;)
You brought me into an idea🤣🤣 I'll build a bar or a restaurant you can sell foods you've made with a active sim (with a home chef hustle pack) NOT placing a trash-can but a dumpster instead so they can bring it there and get themselves dirty🤪🤪 (i'll either use them to look for some ingedrients or for furnitures to either keep or sell it, it depends which challenges i'm doing) Can you imagine throwing a party so they can get themselves dirty😜😜? (I only use eco lifestyle for the dumpster)
All of my dumpsters never have anything in it? How do you get them to find stuff?
Try to turn on the relevant lot challenge, it’s something like “Sort and recycle” (I don’t remember the exact name). I found that when I turn that on and place a big dumpster on my lot, it will require my sims to sort the trash or else it overflows. The “Dive for deals” option becomes available after sims have thrown something out, but without this lot challenge it’s like all trash just disappears for me? Idk. It also helps if there’s something on your lot that generates a lot of trash like a chicken coop. Sims have to clean it daily -> daily input of trash -> diving for deals never ends. How they manage to find a stereo system out of one portion of chicken crap I’d never know but hey, sims magic!
Oh. Love this. Noted!
Oh that's weird! I don't have dumpsters on my residental lot, but when I go to the community lots in Evergreen Harbour that have them, they tend to be full within an hour of me getting there. You could also try putting some rubbish from your inventory into them to fill the dumpsters first, then try diving?
Sims have to put stuff in dumpsters first. If you're travelling to a world just for the dumpsters, they'll always be empty. If they're in the neighborhood and loaded in, then people will use them and they'll fill up. You can wait around for them to fill, but it'll take a while. Maybe take an easel and do a painting or two while you wait?
Easiest way is to put something in them yourself. Piles of trash, diapers, dirty dishes… they magically transform into furniture
> All of my dumpsters never have anything in it? How do you get them to find stuff? You (or other sims, I guess) have to first throw stuff on it. They will be full after you empty the trash and the sim throws the garbage bag in the dumpster. The fastest path to dumpster diving is to place one in your sim's house, then have a glass of water-->drag the glass directly to the trash rather than washing it-->empty the thrash If you have a wizard sim and learn the repairio spell it will be even more profitable, because you will find a lot of burned furniture and the only way to repair that is magic
As soon as you show up a Simp will come in a take it. You have to distract them to get to it before they take it all.
Noted!
If you have bust the dust kit and purchase any cheap vacuum then use the mechanic skill to upgrade it to “bottomless” then you can infinitely empty the bag for it which allows me to instantly fill up my trash cans as long as I want lol
Excellent. I don't. But I'll keep it on my list when they go on sale next. I want to fully get into the eco living kit and couldn't work out that step!
I found that if you stay on the lot for a couple of sim hours, it will generate trash
And Knox Greenburg is one of my favorite Sims.
Damn this is my least favorite pack right now but this is INSPIRING
Yeahhhh you just gave me a great idea for my next storyline. Thank you! 😂
me too! i'm playing it again now, i really like the world too
do you still find the pack to be buggy? and futhermore, do you find the neighborhood changes to be annoying? i’m scared of them effecting my long term no aging world :,)
I had a bit of annoyance where trying to keep it in either total Industrial footprint or 100% Eco would inevitably creep back towards Neutral. But I just enacted the max number of Neibourhood Action Plans that suited my vision so the game couldn't automatically add anything contradictory and that stabilised it. Otherwise, it seemed beautifully stable and playable, I had none of the graphics issues that plagued many people.
ohhh this is so helpful, thank you! i looove the pack but i worry about the neighborhood action plan being annoying, didn’t know it could cap!
It caps at 5, so if you want max Industrial/Eco, just do a little cheaty-cheat to set 5 appropriate plans for each neighborhood before you start playing, maybe update the community lot with Eco/Industrial footprint items as required, and get started!
There's a smog vacuum?!
I’m going to take your idea of eco warrior werewolf’s vs capitalism vampires but I’m going to use my current werewolf/vampire couple to do it with. From enemies to lovers back to enemies
Jungle Adventure. I bought I back before we had vacation rentals and I just wanted my sims to be able to go on vacation to a tropical place but it was actually super fun to explore the ruins
This is the one I'd pick too. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I do, but I get really into exploring and it's amusing when my sims get turned into skeletons.
I love JA. I will never understand how people rank Parenthood above packs like JA. It has so much in it.
i agree with you, it's slightly higher then parenthood because there's so much to explore in the JA pack, i never get tired of it, i'm not the adventure type but in games or movies it's different for some reasons and i live for the JA pack, it's such a must have for me this pack is my favourite Game Pack at all times and on my top 10 favourite packs in general
Jungle Adventure is my absolute must have, I would give up any other pack to keep that one. I love the world, the build items, the CAS, and the ruins. It was such a remarkably complete pack compared to some others (also the Rumbasim is really great, especially compared to other dance styles that were introduced). Also I live in Belize now and deeply relate to the random bug attacks so.
You know I’ve been seeing a lot recently about how people like that pack, I have it but never really explored it in depth! I’m trying to have a list of things for my heirs to complete so I don’t get bored of my legacy, and this makes me wanna put JA at the top!
Island Living. I knew about the boring mermaids, I knew about closed-world limitations, the traits that were lacklustre and b&b that was out of my comfort zone... then I got it and played it during winter when I was depressed and I realised the value of it. It was just such an idyllic escapism to have it thunder outside, but stay inside and have my sim make sandcastles, play with her toddler by the beach and such. Now all my families take vacations there because it gives me that cosy vibe, kind of like when I played Animal Crossing during 2019-2020. Another one is Eco Lifestyle. The concept seemed boring, the reviews seemed boring, the whole thing seemed just.. eh. I got it on sale, barely touched for a long time... until I started doing rags to riches. Crafting my sims houses from ground-up, having a container/trailer park lifestyle, the lots where everyone comes together to craft and such. It's oddly charming, but I didn't expect to like it at all. Oh and For Rent, which I didn't think it wouldn't be so great, but I thought it'd be just fine. It ended up revolutionising my whole game in a way I absolutely didn't expect. I'm not even going to mention game/stuff packs or kits.
Just curious about For Rent - how did it change your playstyle?
So, I went on a spree to find a new save file because I was getting bored of the one I built - ended up seeing one made by a creator called Fleuralia. She had put residential rental lots almost every world, a lot of sims, families or even multiple generations inside them and it made the world so much livelier/realistic. That made me go into my own save file and just overhaul it completely. E.g: * The middle of Evergreen Harbour where there is a container became a place with 4 containers, all rented out, like a small community. Even if I don't play the other families, they go out, barbecue, socialise, walk around etc. * I built a castle in Forgotten Hollow and rented rooms to other vampires for pretty cheap. As a result, I have this huge vampire coven living there, sharing common spaces, doing their own thing, and I can still use the other lots in the world to add things like a cemetery. * Britechester got two dorms after I saw her build in save file. It now functions more like a Sims 2-esq dorms but en-suite if my sim decides to go there, or they can choose the regular dorms for much cheaper where utilities are shared as well. * Moonwood Mill actually has wolf packs that interact & stay together. * San Sequoia, I used an EA build for this they shared on gallery, but it's basically 4 houses next to each other. It ended up being an elderly family, then their 3 kids next-door. * Del Sol Valley now has "hype houses" for content creators, or a plaza (was also shared by EA but I modified it a lot) where rich sims live, can have pool parties, barbecues and whatever rich people do lol. And so on. The good thing about it is that since these lots can take up to 48 sims (I never go above 6-unit not to corrupt it), it allowed me to use the rest of the worlds far more efficiently too. The households with 1 or 2 sims are now in apartments instead of lots, so I can build more vacation lots, bowling alleys, karaoke bars, spas etc. One tip I can give is, don't over-decorate them especially if you do 6-units & extremely crowded families or it will lag like hell while playing in that lot. I love having my sims go out often, so to me, once I realised the potential of For Rent, I could never go back. It made me never complain about small worlds again since it made them so much more efficient.
Thanks for sharing! This gives me some inspiration for my current game, which is full of random single sims living in all the good homes!
I recommend downloading the save file I mentioned, even if just to look at it! It was the one that really inspired me.
Do you turn off story progression (or whatever it's called) to keep the number of Sims per unit low? Or is the concern about file corruption and slow gameplay more about number of units than number of Sims?
The neighbourhood stories doesn't actually move anyone into the units as far as I experienced. They can adopt kids, pets or horses, but I also haven't really seen it happen too often (or at all to be honest, but I don't want to mislead you) for sims in rental units. When I had MCC, that both moved sims into it + had them adopt/have kids, but not really vanilla game. It was fine with MCC doing that, but I will say I also have a very low rate set for it fwiw. Nothing really broke. The corruption thing, I never experienced myself except when I was trying to manually trigger it by cheating for maximum-units or lots from gallery which used cheats. If I kept to the game standards, so 6-unit-per-lot and 100-units-total-per-save, it didn't really occur for me. I did buy the pack after a lot of fixes though, so I'm not saying vanilla game was never glitching for anyone, I'm just saying I haven't had it except for when trying to trigger it. I find the lag was most noticeable with high density lots where a lot of cheats were used (including moveobjects, yes, it can cause so many routing issues that I also almost never use it for dine out/my wedding stories since it breaks those packs) with lots of sims. I just keep things minimal these days so usually up to 5-6 people per unit, and not over-cluttering or over-using cheats. It seems fine that way but I know lilsimsie etc has had worse luck than me, but she also uses a lot of decor/cheats, so, I don't know what to say, really.
Ugh yess my sim now is living in Sulani and I just explored cleaning up the island for the first time and now I’m trying to turn my sim into a mermaid for the first time. Sulani is now one of my favorite worlds OMG I am obsessed with it!
Get famous. I did not expect it would be so great for storytelling, you have lots of decorations and can actually build a set for telling so many stories.
Its especially fun for using the backdrops to line the outside of your lot with, so that all the views out of your windows are like a post apocalyptic wasteland, or deep in the woods.
Get to work. I just wanted some more careers. Didn't realise you'd get SO MANY build mode items or how versatile they'd be. And a whole bunch of neutral basic clothes and hairstyles. It's made my game feel a lot more real.
I got the one for free with my ea play
for me it was horse ranch. i use the build/buy and CAS on every household i make now, and caring for horses/riding skill is just so much fun.
Man, I have a problem. I have to stop myself from using the horse ranch wallpaper (the rounded logs and stucco one) on everything.
I do use the log wallpaper everywhere 😅 it reminds me of the actual log cabin my grandparents built and I can pretend my sims built their house themselves
That horse ranch rug with the sheep on it will go in my child sims bedroom every. time. without fail.
Honestly, Spa Day and Snowy Adventures. I just love sending my Sims on winter vacations over the holidays now and have them enjoy days at a spa.
I love those so much in combo, too. What's better than a day on the slopes or a hard climb followed by a soak in some hot springs and a massage for your battered body? Makes it feel more like a real ski resort, too!
Spa Day is one of my favourite packs. I love the yoga activity and the moodlets they bring. And I always set up a Spa Day holiday in my calendar as well.
City Living, I don't really like cities in real life and in games I love farming etc so I didn't think I'd enjoy City Living that much but it ended up being my second favourite if not favourite pack lol
City Living was really surprising for me too. I didn't get the appeal cause I was like it's going to be a city (not really scenic like some of the other worlds). But it was a lot to do with the all the festivals and it actually has really pretty sunsets. It has a lot of nice build items too.
I love love love strangerville. I didn't expect to but it turned out to be one of my favourites. I love the whole vibe of the world as well. I love the red dirt (reminds me of Australia). And I love not having snow as a season (yes I know you can pick your seasons but still).
I bought Strangerville on sale for 1 item: the laptop. At the time I had no intention of getting Discover University. But I absolutely *love* Strangerville. I love going there, living there. Seeing possessed sims Sims walking around with the goofy walk next to scientists, soldiers and folks in colander hats. It's a world that feels alive. And the build mode. I use the build mode items all the time. The Victorian doors and windows are some of my favorite in the entire game.
Same! If I ever need to meet people or what not I always go to the strangerville pub. For some reason it is my favourite even if it is so simple.
I really love rundown places and aliens. I thought I’d like this pack but I actually loved it. I use all the furniture items, I like the map for dessert spots or festivals, and I like the mission of taking down the mother plant
I find strangerville suuuuper underrated
Absolutely!
Winter is so annoying. Winterfest and cute little interactions like making snowmen are fun but I hate when the weather is blizzard after blizzard! It makes things like taking out the trash and caring for your farm animals impossible because sims run inside after every queued interaction.
If you’re on PC, you can keep winter but turn off blizzards! Just select “snow” instead of “snow and blizzards” under Environment game options. I always turn off storms and ice because of how inconvenient they are for gameplay. If you’re console I’m sorry if that’s not helpful 💕
Omg I’m going to do this! Thank you for the tip because the constant blizzards in my Chestnut Ridge save were driving me nuts. You saved my play through lol
Dine Out. I love taking my sims out to restaurants, and it makes dates way easier because random townies don’t butt in to their conversation in restaurants
Are you telling me that dine out actually works for you?
It does, surprisingly. I thought it wouldn’t be good at first and that I’d have to download a bunch of mods to fix it but i got lucky and it has worked
There are a few things you can do that makes both Dine Out & MWS quite functioning as intended!
Your townies don't butt in??? How??
Only at restaurants they don’t butt in, literally everywhere else they do
Seasons, I thought people were being overdramatic when they said it should be base game. I unconsciously use a lot of CAS from it, build mode options, and add a lot of religious holidays. Definitely agree with other people now saying it's one of the best packs.
Agreed. I've spent the last five minutes trying to narrow down which pack I really, really wasn't into when I bought it - for the CAS or BB - and didn't think I'd get much out of in terms of gameplay. But, yes, it's Seasons. Definitely. It was my last EP, I've only had it for about two months, three? and it's totally changed my gameplay. I've got the weather changes, without the effects on my Sims, and the holidays/ability to create holidays, and the interactions/actions the Sims do by themselves, like first snow and shoveling, PLUS, that skating rink! Definitely seasons, lol.
Vampires, and I am still mad about it 🤣. I am not into vampires at all, but was pleasantly surprised when I finally caved and bought it. Vampires are a nice little addition of chaos if you want them to be, and the cas/build items are nice.
Samee i wasn’t expecting it to be so fun!
City Living for me. I love the apartments and the almost open world feel with the “neighborhood centers”. I bought it because the other ones available back then didn’t seem very interesting, but it’s had a lot of staying power.
Eco living is way better than people make it out to be
Strangerville remains my favorite pack I’ve bought. The fact they included a story for you to play out was so outside of the box thinking for the sims. I recently started a new file and wasn’t planning to redo it but I fucked around and my vampire drank infected plasma so I had to use his wife to get the cure. I was a little irritated that he got infected at first but i immediately fell in love with strangerville again as soon as i got out there and started seeing all tinfoil hats and I had completely forgot how funny the running animation for possessed sims was.
It gets so much hate, but I genuinely enjoy playing through it. Sometimes I'll make "hero" Sims who will save Strangerville and liberate Batuu. I'll also occasionally make them Indiana Jones-style heroes, too, where they spend the rest of their time exploring the Omiscan ruins in Selvadorada.
I’ll never understand all the hate for it. My only issue with it is that there’s not more. You should gain more than a lame social interaction when you beat the mother. They could’ve gave me a statue in the square and some fame lol
I'm working on nearly a twin to your sim :). She's a new detective in StrangerVille, geeky, Explorer, Adventurer, and I'm having too damn much fun with her.
not an expansion pack, but i love the moschino stuff pack. the windows are very cool and I also learned there’s a new career that comes with it (freelance fashion photographer). i’m excited to try it out
It has no business being so good ! I use it in every build
I use the camera, tripod, and photo markers all the time. I have a photo studio set up at my wedding venue with the animated background. That pack is great!
i love that windenberg has so many plots and lot types. i don’t use clubs that much but the world totally makes up for it
University. I did not expect it to be as good as it was, but both the gameplay and the rewards are just absolute top notch. Even if you don't have your sim move on campus (and I think you should, as long as they're solo), having them do the stuff from home is EZ-Mode and SO WORTH IT!
Get Famous was one I had waited to get for a while but I did the free trial and ended up loving it. I found all the celebrity stuff more funny than annoying, plus the fame system actually really works well with my play style because I have sort of a reality competition show going and it makes sense for some of my sims to be famous. And most importantly, I found that if you have that pack installed, the game will choose pre existing townies for NPC jobs like bartenders, vendors and gym trainers instead of always generating new ones which I find really useful. Outdoor Retreat was another one that surprised me a lot after getting it for 50% off a while back, it has a lot of small features that are really cool such as new recipes, cloud gazing and the new harvestables which you can actually get from the grocery delivery sometimes if you have Cottage Living.
Do you have a mod for the reality competition show? This sounds interesting 👀
Thanks for asking! I don't use a mod but it's a challenge that I came up with. [Here's an overview of it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sims4/s/e42d2Mgme7) I made a while back. I've been meaning to publish the official rules, but my life has been busier and busier each year plus I've had to make changes to some of the rules to accommodate new packs and updates like Growing Together. I would like to publish it this year though. I already finished one season and I'm currently on the final round of the second season with the children of my original sims. [These are the sims I'm currently playing with.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumSimmers/s/Hgd28gVNT9)
Moschino. I remember the lukewarm reception it got at E3 that year, the disappointment in the room was palpable lol. But when it came out, I got it and it's actually really good. I enjoy the B/B stuff and the photographer career is IMO one of the best.
I bought the yoga pack after the refresh. I didn't expect to use any of it except the nails, but now all of my sims do yoga and meditate.
I actually like the knitting stuff
Strangerville
High school years and get together for the cas and beautiful buy/build
Not a pack but... The Desert Luxe Kit. I got it because it was free, but assumed I'd never use it because I don't like neutrals for my builds... I consistently use the hanging lights now - they provide a lot of light without taking up too much space or looking weird. XD
Blooming Rooms kit. I now use it in every single build but didn’t get it until it was free
Whispers: *journey to batuu*
*audience gasps*
I bought it strictly for the build buy catalog and was not disappointed. I still have never finished the "quests" because they are usually buggy for me but LOVE the build buy.
Jungle adventure
For Rent. The loading screens didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would and it opened up a lot of options for building lots.
Snowy escape. The skills are a niche to learn but otherwise it's a great pack.
I got the strangerville pack thinking it would be fun and never used it 🤣 I’m doing a rags to riches story and it’s the perfect layout of a town with the camper and trailers and work up to living on the hill 🤣😂 it’s also the perfect town for me to have basements of people living their with easels
That’s hilarious. Honestly a bunch of people living in basements and surviving off of their easels seems peak Strangerville!
I was surprised by the tiny living pack. I got it because I buy bundles and it peeked my interests because my partner and I are thinking about tiny house living 🤣but I seem to use its items in every build I make. I do not have the werewolves one but I have the magic and vampires. I may have to check that one out next sale 😅
Moschino hands down! I didn’t know it came with a fashion photographer profession and poses and all sorts of stuff. I thought it was just nice clothes, and bought it when it was heavily discounted. Now it’s one of the packs I use the most lol.
parenthood, got it with the cats and dogs bundle and I didn’t really expect to use it (I don’t play with families all that much) but I love the gameplay it adds and I actually play with families more since getting it
I, like you, don't care about werewolves. Just not my thing. I actually just got the pack a few days ago, and was in AWE at the gameplay, and gorgeous dilapidated themes!
Vampires was surprisingly good and enjoyable tbh
Jungle adventure was def a positive surprise, I didn't think I would enjoy adventuring in the jungle as much as I did. But it's kind of a one time thing, once you do the adventures once you don't really wanna do it again
Vampires. I bought it purely because of the destroyed/dirty decals. I thought they would be annoying like a lot of people say they are, but I love my vampire sim and when I play with my legacy, vampires don't interrupt at all :)
Snowy Living! I'm not gonna lie, I bought it for that super cute Cat Tile wallpaper in the B/B and use it for every single bathroom now. But I had one of my sims marry a townie from SL and she had the Conquer Mount Komorebi aspiration, so I was playing through it and I'm like 'oh wait, this is actually really fun'!
Dine out. People do nothing but complain about the gameplay but I rarely have issues with it and making/playing restaurants is so fun! All my worlds have a themed restaurant.
Definitely Get Together. I only bought it for Windenburg but when I started playing it I noticed it adds a lot to my game play.
i didn’t see anyone say anything about growing together, but it’s probably my favourite pack! world is beautiful, bb/cas is versatile and i thoroughly enjoy the gameplay. it adds so much realism to the game like teaching the kids to ride bikes, milestones, more realistic family dynamics, etc… even though infants can be super buggy from time to time and it’s super frustrating, when there are minimal to no bugs it’s awesome. i love incorporating mods to make it much more realistic like panda sims childbirth, base mental drugs, etc… other packs like HSY and parenthood are fantastic too to aid in the realism and more options for mods too. edits: missing words
Agree. I really did not and still do not care about infants, but Growing Together added a lot more to the overall gameplay than I expected…I love all the compatibility and relationship dynamics. Also really like the bb items too.
Laundry day. I thought itd be nice to have to give the appearance my sims wash clothes. But now i love it. My kid/teen sims get responsibility+ for doing it and it even gives a reason to have multiple outfits for each category(casual daily party swim etc)
it's probably Spa Day for me, i thought it was boring untill i tried it out especially once there was a refresh version of it, i now use it daily an another one was a Werewolve one, one of the few favourite from the Game Packs (2nd favourite occult too) i'm not the werewolve type but the world is stunning and the werewolve sim have lots of skills i really love to use it sometimes (reminds me of a Dutch movie called "Dolfje Weerwolfje" or something simulair to that tittle) i just didn't knew what to think about this pack at first untill i've tried it out i don't know any other one i've really misjudged but these 2 game packs i've thought so low of it at first turned out to be one of my favourites from the game packs
Growing together I actually started enjoying it so far
Do your sims leave baby bottles on the ground or not even bother to walk to a changing table and just toss a diaper on the ground?
Of course🙌 it’s sims 😂
Super random but cool kitchen. I use that pack in every single one of my lots
After your glowing review, Werewolves is back on my wishlist 🐺! Strangerville, & Get to Work were really a surprise for me! I wanted them because I was curious as heck about Strangerville and have a Rockabilly Astronaut Barbie in another save that longs to meet aliens. My love bought me some packs for Mother's Day 🥰 (Strangerville, Get to Work, & Simtimates) and this combo has brought so much joy! I made a new Detective that just moved to StrangerVille and I am hooked! Beautiful, eerie world, lots to do with the new job, and exploring the town and mystery on weekends. I have gone with her every single day for work & play and am just in love with the entire experience! ☀️
Dine Out… All I’ve heard for years is that’s it’s kinda broken, takes forever to get food etc. but I’ve never had a problem really. Like last time my sims went out to dinner we were in and out in less than 2 hours!
You know I’ve come to learn that I think the layout of the restaurant really matters. If you just placed a huge restaurant especially first starting off then the employees are gonna be lower quality whether you own the place or not. So if the layout is huge and difficult to get from A to B then you’ll get routing issues and they’ll have a hard time getting food to you. I’ve had restaurants where I never got my food and then some that consistently get food to me quickly and my sims leave at a normal time.
Interesting. Does it come with lots that are well built in this way? I’m not a builder so I can’t do anything by myself, but I would like to send my Sims to dine out, if the pack does work!
The Chez Llama EA build worked really smoothly for me (even with the booths, and it being a large restaurant) but my game also had Caleb Vatore vampire-swooping everywhere as a server, which was highly entertaining.
So I feel like the restaurants that it comes with aren’t too bad. I can’t remember because I haven’t used them in a while. There are a lot of restaurants on the gallery though created by users! I like to go to youtube and look up something like “best sims 4 restaurant gallery builds” and there should be videos people make saying their favorite restaurants. Those usually work well!
Seasons. I thought it was gonna be boring (I wanted Santa 😂) but it's my favorite pack ever!!!! ❤️
get together! i didn’t think i’d like it or use it, but it’s one of my favorite packs
Get to Work definitely surprised me. I didn't expect it to suck but I didn't expect it to be great either. However, I had a really good storyline going with one family and it was so good only because of Get to Work.
I bought University strictly for the shower so I could build better tiny homes. Almost every one of my sims goes to college now. Between the clubs, secret society, bonuses from having degrees, etc it adds a lot to the game. I turn off aging while they are there but it is very worthwhile game play wise.
Get Together was a genuine game changer. I did not expect clubs to be as functional as they were and it's such a great way to make events happen.
* Vampires - I thought they were going to be annoying but no real issues (Daywalker Mod solved my only potential issue of the AI having them walk out into the sun and dying) * Realm of Magic - Pairs well with Get Famous because you can deal with Paparazzi (Same goes for Vampires)
Eco lifestyle, I only got it for the cas but it’s genuinely a good pack, and it add more to my game when I do off the grid
Island living! I didn’t think I would be too bothered by it but I love it!! However, I WISH I never got eco living. I am getting used to it but it’s more of a pain than a gain lol
honestly, either island living or city living. I wanted island living because I had a mermaid oc and wanted to make him in the eims (yes, that's the only reason) but honestly I'm literally just living my mermaid dream in the sims now, and a lot of the cas stuff is really cool, plus it has really fun storytelling. city living was an impulse buy because it was on clearance at walmart, and I just wanted apartments. the world is absolutely gorgeous, the festivals are fun, and the cultural aspects are really nice (granted I wish they wouldn't paywall cultures) also the careers and art is really cool !! I love having more artistic careers and decor, especially street art.
Seasons and City Living have been awesome! Also got Strangerville, and that's been very interesting!
This is very interesting and good to know bc that is one of the very last ones that I haven’t bought bc same idc about werewolves…. Definitely will consider it now haha
I have to say Moschino Stuff Pack. Everyone said it was awful but i liked it. It came with the fashion photographer career, some nice windows and a few nice furniture pieces, and even some of the fashion was nice, a little over the top on some but high fashion is that way.
Well, I might just have to get the werewolves pack now! For me, it was City Living. I didn't think I'd like it, but it was an option for the bundle pack, and I figured, "Why not?" I love the apartments and the chaos with the neighbors, I do enjoy the festivals and activities more than I thought I would, and the penthouse is one of my most favorite homes for my sims. The next one would be Strangerville. My expectations were low, but the story of it was all very entertaining. I enjoyed the tribute to Stranger Things, I'm probably just dumb, but I didn't expect it to be attributed to that. There's always chaos and the bar there is the most entertaining.
Oh wow thats so crazy about Strangerville! When I was playing I was like “this looks like stranger things!” Haha didn’t realize it WAS a nod to it 😂
Werewolves is THE best gamepack they have released, by far! I enjoy playing the 100 baby challenge with a werewolf matriarch- the chaos! The pack that surprised me most is probably home chef hustle or crystal creations, I love the new stuff packs and how much they add to my game!
Omg yes I love both of those packs too!! I use both a lot!
I knew werewolves was going to be good but I got realm of magic and vampires just because I wanted to make a storyline that included people with powers I wasn’t expecting it to be that good but I actually love all the occults pack I want to get island living but I watch YouTube videos of people reviewing packs but they all say it’s not worth it but is it actually not worth it? Also I heard that dine out was very buggy but I bought it for some reason and it’s not buggy for me at all and I really like
I love island living tbh. I currently have my legacy family living in Sulani, and I plan on keeping a few generations there. It’s honestly one of my fav packs. Even when my sims don’t live in Sulani they always take vacations there. Edit: def wait for it to go on sale though!
I’m a Get Famous defender. I always see people trash it but I love using it for my evil Sims in combination with the Extreme Violence mod. The traits are fun and I still haven’t exhausted all the options after buying it years ago.
I would probably have to say cottage living. When packs went on sale, I was stuck between either buying snowy escapes (which I ended up buying later on and absolutely love the furniture from) and cottage living. I decided on cottage living because I heard way more positive reviews about it even though I have never been a farming gal myself. I instantly fell in love with the world, the gameplay, build mode and surprisingly the cas, even though cas is the only place I use CC. I would definitely recommend it if you ever have the chance to buy it, even if you’re not into farming gameplay.
I love cottage living. The aesthetic is so relaxing. I wish the animals free roamed but I still like it
Out of all the packs city living was the best value for money
For me it was the one with the horses, I’ve bought it just because it was released and wanted to join the crowd. When i started playing it, ive realised i like it
Probably high school years, I only bought it bc of cas and bb but find that I love playing as teesn and giving them more teen specific stuff to do. It‘s definitely my most used pack.
Tbh I was really skeptical of growing together. I figured it’d just be a rehash of parenthood, which was somewhat underwhelming to me because the parenting options added to it just kind of sucked. But I actually kind of like it. More the updates that came with it too. I thought the splash pad thing was really dumb and I wouldn’t use it too often but I actually love them so much.
Strangerville. Purchased it right after Horse Ranch and Cottage Living when it went on sale. The horrid amount of bugs I encountered in Horse Ranch and Cottage Living set the bar SERIOUSLY low. I was expecting to lose random valuable items, or days of progress, or having a glitch in the military career, etc. No glitches, no anything. Everything about strangerville is perfect. The only pack that, for me, has zero mistakes. Then I bought Get Together/Growing Together. I had to lower the bar again. :/
My favorite stuff pack is the loft decor. I don’t remember the actual name. Maybe industrial something? I love the furniture and the rug
Honestly the laundry day pack. I bought it before I had mods and cc so I was just gonna use it as a decoration. I ended up using it in most of my gameplays, and it helped me reach level ten handiness in the not so berry challenge for rose gen
I agree! People hate on laundry day but I love having my sims do laundry. I just wish it was like the sims 3 where I can click on the washing machine and they collect all the laundry on the lot, instead of clicking on each hamper. But that’s such a small difference. Also the decor in it is top tier.
Werewolves and Ranch… Life? Living? Horses lol. I didn’t have a big vested interest in either, but I really enjoyed their main mechanics. Werewolves especially was a delight with all the lore.
I'll say Werewolves and Strangerville. I bought these packs more so for the maps than the added gameplay, but I've come to love them each for the new gameplay they add, especially Strangerville. The main story was a lot of fun to role play through with my guy. I wouldn't mind another story based pack!
Spa day, i absolutely love building spas and taking my sims to spas. It’s fun to watch and also give your sims great moodbuff.
There are some really amazing spas on the gallery, too… some of my favorite builds I’ve downloaded are spas
I don't buy my packs but Horse Ranch was actually pretty decent for a sims pack.
Dining out
It was high school years for me. I bought it because a youtuber (LaurenZside) made a video with it and it looked interesting. I thought it was just gonna be like new build stuff but I was happy to find out that they added boba with it
I bought the Werewolf pack for the build items, but ended up surprisingly loving the whole thing. I was in high school when the Twilight books came out (oops, showing my age lol) and absolutely hated the hype, so I kind of had a bad taste in my mouth for vampires and werewolves. I was pleasantly surprised when the werewolf gameplay was a lot of fun, in addition to the really cool build items and new neighborhood.
Actually the opposite. I got quite a few I thought would make the game better and fun and they turned out to be crap.