I don't know... I'd only call it "render" if it has transparent background. Go try google the preceding EPs renders. They all have transparent background. I want consistency here, but maybe I'll have to wait. Oh, UL is the only one whose render never made it to publication. Google that too.

Personally, I think they need moar lens flare. Maybe in the Time Travel pack...

;D

Will we be able to place lots for houseboats in existing worlds like Bridgeport? The whole "can't place lots on unrerouteable terrain" needs to go away...

I can't wait for this EP. Mermaids, hopefully available in CAS. house boats!! I think It'll be one of the best EP's yet. It said that in the Limited Edition that it has the most objects and stuff ever in an Expansion Pack. I ordered mine yesterday.

I'm also really looking forward for this. More than any other EP's so far.

That question has been raised several times. There has been no reply. Hopefully I'm wrong, but as it is an obvious issue about how this will integrate with pre-existing worlds, and the lack of response, official or unofficial, suggests to me that the living on the water will be a one world trick pony. Unless you edit the EA worlds yourself in CAW and can add the content that way.

Whether we can use the houseboats in other worlds is a good question. A lot of EA's worlds have sims no routing paint painted in the water. I wonder if it will interfere with boats, has anyone noticed if it interferes with swimming?

New screenshot from SimsVIP: http://simsvip.com/2013/03/31/islan...ent-screenshot/

I like what I see in that shot, nice for a castaway type play or even an old fishing boat. Nice.

I like the way the small portion of the world looks in the picture. And I wonder what the stand on the left is for. I'm totally going to read way too much into that and assume Sims can sell stuff from it.

I think it's just a table or something. The balloon things don't seem to be attached to it, so they might be just lights.

Not being able to have boats in our current worlds wasn't something that even occured to me. Can't this "no routing" issue simply be changed by coding from the EP? Isn't that what EP's do, add new coding and change current?

Well first off I'll say that I can't speak for the expansions made by the Salt Lake team - I don't know the ins and outs of their process or how they make their decisions. We do have an approach that we're comfortable with at Redwood Shores though.

Generally what gets cut is determined by considering the core themes / pillars of the expansion pack and taking into account how drastically we need to alter our numbers. It's also a balance across a multitude of disciplines. For example... say you're 20 days over on animation, by cutting to get within scope you're also likely subtracting from other disciplines. Once you cut down on those animation days, you potentially find yourself with a surplus of programming time that then needs to be filled.

There's no formula for it; it generally involves producers and designers sitting down in a room and arguing for what's integral to the pack vs what we feel we can lose without irreparably harming the product. One of the most important aspects is weighing the time estimate vs how important the feature is. No matter how "cool" a feature is, if we don't feel that the impact it has on the game is significant enough to justify its time estimate, it's generally thought that time can be better spent elsewhere within the pack.

I will say that I think our philosophy for how we approach scoping has changed over time. I'd say that early on in Sims 3, when we needed to cut to get within scope we'd try and snip off little bits of features here and there, and try and preserve as many features as possible to give the sense that we weren't really losing much. When you really think about it though, this may lead to you being able to say you have more features, but each of those features has less depth and is ultimately less satisfying. Over time I think we've recognized that and changed so that now when we have to scope, we'll cut an entire large feature which gives us back a big chunk of time, and we'll use any extra time to add more to the remaining features so they're more complex and have greater game play for players. I personally think that results in a better game, but it's certainly painful for us when we have to make those cuts. Nobody wants to remove cool things from the game.

IMO it biggest issue in the Sims right now is the fragmentation of features.

For example, things like bands from Late Night and gigs from Showtime should have been joined together, as well as the various skills from University and the careers from Ambition and the base game. Likewise, there are certain redundancies that could have been avoided (such as the many lot types). These are probably examples from earlier on when there wasn't enough time to fully develop these features- and as such, players got only bits of what they really wanted and lots of very similar features that were not compatible with each other.

I hope this is done sometime in the future, maybe as a patch or maybe dressed up as an expansion pack. Ultimately, consolidating existing features and eliminating redundancies help the game become deeper without creating entirely new features, and also create incentives for players to get more expansion packs.

this was posted quite a while ago by SimGuruGraham on Twitter.

And since sims can swim everywhere in all oceans, why couldn't they sail as well! And lot placement most likely will change also, since a recent broadcast showed dock lots partially on water. And even this was posted by SimGuruRyan:

I hope the image I saw momentarily appended to my post was an accident, because I'd hate to feel like I couldn't trust posting here. I do enjoy chatting with the community and having open conversations so we can all have a better understanding of each other's perspective.

I think it may be a part of an April Fools joke. I thought we may have had a hacker coming in and messing with our posts, but then when I checked the date, I knew that it could only be because of April Fools Day. Cheers...

It's April 1, sorry. I noticed that too and immediately thought the mods might be screwing around unhelpfully, but that seemed... ...unlike any of them. Well. No. It doesn't. But they'd all have much better judgement than to do it you given the outreach you're doing. GIFs appear to be the order of the day. A couple of years back the entire site turned a leathery brown and filtered all our posts into some sort of quasi Ye Olde English for the day. :P

...apparently they now show up for like everyone?? Whoa, okay I swear it's not me doing that! *looks at higher-rank mods* D: Poor Graham, coming to MTS on this particular day when everything always goes crazy...

Ahh yes, everyone's favorite day of the year.

Wait, is it Chuck Norris Day again?

I was just told by a reliable source that those floating concrete things were made just for testing purposes. What we'll actually get in the game is this:

pico22, you mean your pic isn't part of April's fool and that we'll be getting huge floating wooden ducks? Not sure if I do want. Na-ah.

Wait, is that floating Chinese Dragon houseboat part of your post (in which case, great image) or is it part of the day's celebration (in which case it is a remarkable random coincidence)? I think any pics posted today are subject to immediate suspicion.

OT, I saw that shot of the houseboat with Bridgeport in the background. I'm hoping that means I was wrong in assuming it wouldn't work in other worlds, although I'm still curious/skeptical about how that will actually be implemented in game. I suppose you could just float a house out on a slab and use a boat to commute to work, or the town, but I would expect that setting up attached to a pier makes more sense for game play. For example, how would you have a car, when you have no lot to place a parking spot on just so you could buy one and keep it in your back pocket (along with the boat when you're on land, I guess).

So That's reason everything is going weird. I can now rest in peace.
EDIT: I'm not dead by the way, just to be clear.

BWuahaha, damn april fools!