I could've also added they said "open water gameplay" but I have no idea what they meant exactly by it...

Trailer pretty much spoke it for that one. However, doesn't seem like we'll be receiving diving

Thought it was mentioned somewhere diving is a new skill. There's also a screencap where you can clearly see a crystal on the sea floor.

Doubt it's as unique or fleshed out as Sims 3, but it doesn't seem to be incorporated in one way or another.

The trailer makes it seem cute enough, but still doesn't feel like it'll add much new or noteworthy content compared to previous instalments packs of a similar nature? The beach clean-up seems to work exactly how I thought, but I feel like once the novelty wears off after one or two attempts it'll feel like a grind to keep doing it in order to keep the world clean (I like that the world changes depending on it's cleanliness though).

Other interesting bits found in trailer: fishing in a boat-esque, food stall (*crosses out from bingo card), reuse lightingbending animation for fire dancing/power lol

I think the main draw for this pack is the world and beach life.

I have to wonder how the beach-clean up works- I think it'll be building off of Strangerville's world-changing code, but it'll be interesting seeing if they make you go through a checklist of things to do.

It's honestly tough to say. I mean clicking on piles of garbage and watching your sim sift through them would definitely get dull, but if it's incorporated with an active career it can work. Being able to affect the condition of the island is a nice touch too.

Whenever I see a new pack, I always try to imagine what I could see myself doing in the game with that pack. Currently, it seems like you could explore the mermaid life state, explore the new career, presumably explore a new aspiration (have difficulty picturing there isn't one), and I think you could explore things like interactions with dolphins and those elemental spirits. At the very least, that's a lot of different gameplay aspects to screw around with and explore, so even if some turned up lackluster, I still see the pack being in the same ballpark as Seasons.

Worst case scenario would be if Mermaid powers are about as extensive as Alien ones (read mind, disguise, aaaaand that's about it), there's no new aspiration or a barebones one that takes 5 minutes, and both dolphins and elementals have nothing going for them. Then we'd be stuck with a new career and a pretty world, but obviously that'll get old quick with nothing to do.

Another side note, I did NOT see that many recycled animations. Digging through garbage seemed to have new animations when they could've recycled animations for trash piles, so I actually consider that a good sign. The wavedasher riding had some extra animations too, which is above the bare minimum we've come to expect from them.

To me, the best we can do to gauge how good a pack will be right now is to look for hints of laziness or signs of new features. For once, it actually feels like there's more new signs instead of hints of laziness.

There doesn't seem to be much features that could be utilized outside of the world. Limit lifeguard and swimming, and that will be a joy kill. As for it being an expansion pack for TS4, its theme (I may be bias, but I think many will find too) is quite good.

Probably not for other worlds because they'd have to re-code each individual area, plus tbh that island in Windenburg is the ONLY other neighborhood that could qualify for this. IF they actually went back and patched that Windenburg neighborhood for this, I'd be impressed, but I sincerely doubt they do.

By Sims 4 standards, this pack seems pretty good. I don't really expect any more depth than necessary for the features - if you take them for what they are, they're decent, but if you expect more you'll be disappointed. I don't think the mermaids will have much to them - they don't seem to have their own under water world (unless they're rabbit holes, and that doesn't really count), and whatever powers they have doesn't really make up for that. I don't really mind the disguise feature on them, as you decide yourself if you want them to be disguised or not, what is more concerning is that they can't really do anything as mermaids but swim in the ocean (and maybe talk to the dolphin). Real depth in my eyes would be actually having underwater lots where only mermaids could live, and that sims could visit with oxygen tanks. Guess they ran out of imagination and/or resources - again.

New EP, probably same price as previous EPs and it'll be released June 21st. There were leaks yesterday and ~ an hour ago they gave us the official infos during their EA Play presentation.
Here's the official trailer btw


And here's the presentation with some more infos from Lyndsay and Duke

I assume it'll just be something for the new world, unfortunately. Shame too. Open waters and boating in every world is one of the reasons I love Island Paradise in TS3.

As for what we know for sure is in this pack, I'm actually kinda excited. So far, everything looks great.

This is my concern too. If you rank the lifestates in terms of unique abilities and functionality from best to worst, the list probably goes:

-Witches
-Vampires (Sims 4)
-Servo (Sims 2)
-Genies
-Werewolves
-Fairies
-Aliens
-Plant Sims
-Mermaids
-Zombies

It's great to finally see a new life state, but Mermaids have always been one of the budget life states with very little to do. For Mermaids to actually be interesting, the team has to actually go above and beyond. This pack looks promising in terms of extra effort, but there's still about 5 years of laziness and barebones design under the Sims 4's belt.

You know how each expansion has a 'catch', a 'but'. I have a feeling that you wont be able to dive underwater in this expansion, unlike TS3: Island Paradise. I mean if you could, they definately would have showed a glimpse of it in the reveal trailer, it's basic marketing. Not having underwater lots would be a major problem when it comes to mermaids especially, it kinda invalidates them. Hopefully I'm wrong and they just decided to save it for a later gameplay video reveal or something. If diving lots are in the game, they'll probably act like the current hidden lots in the game. Your Sim goes to a specific spot out in the water, performs a diving down animation and then you loadscreen into the underwater lot.

Also, majorly excited about the Realm of Magic game pack, FINALLY WITCHES!

Werewolf above fairies and aliens? Well, referring to TS3'S, I would put below those from the immersion I have from my knowledge.

Well, around a year ago Grant said they didn't even start any work on werewolves. So if werewolves actually are part of the new GP then they must have started work on them just right after that tweet and I don't know if this is enough time for concepts and development?

This is why I miss TS1, TS2, and TS3 world tools. Everything was built from the same tools, just modified.

TS1 and TS2 lots were basically a rectangle you modified and everything was consistent. TS3 worlds all stemmed from a piece of terrain and an ocean mesh. Lots were segmented into other lots. These all made changes universal as they worlds were build from a similar model. TS4 worlds all have a terrain mesh, but the water mesh appear to be a separate piece of content not build into the base. I think this might cause all worlds with oceans not to be routable.

A true classic never goes out of style.

I was 'eh' on Sims 3 werewolves, but a fan of those in Sims 2.

Thinking about it, the likelihood that there's no swimmable water in other worlds makes this almost another City Living- where many features are pack-segregated and only work as-advertised in the world provided.

More questions to ask:

- Where else are mermaids viable? Are you going to basically have normal sims that only have swimming pools to transform in?
- Will you be able to play in the sand in other worlds? What about the water activities and lifeguarding- will you be able to at least do some of them in normal pools?
- Is conservation going to be active only in Sulani? Goodness knows that Brindleton and Windenburg have beaches that are perfect for it, even if you leave out the world-changing element. Heck, Selvadorada and Granite Falls are perfect for the eco-warrior conservationist career- and something like the #TrashTag challenge could have been great for all worlds.

A bigger question is whether we have ponds or not.

Both versions didn't really appeal to me. From an aesthetic standpoint, I've always been a bigger fan of the werewolves that are more wolf than man, not the classic "man who seriously needs a shave" that we've been getting in the sims. As much as I despise twilight, I did think that series' version of werewolves were really cool.

From a functional standpoint, they obviously can't incorporate any of the horror aspects of werewolves (aside from them spreading their ailment through bites) I think TS3 was on the right track with the whole pack mentality. But that game never did group activities very well. TS4 on the other hand, for better or worse, is built around socialization and group activities. Especially after the Get Together expansion.

All they gotta do is give werewolves a badass makeover and find a way to integrate the concept of wolf packs into what they've already got going on with social groups, and we could have some decent, albeit tame (though, no more than vampires), werewolves.



It still pisses me off that we have buyable ponds now but they aren't swimmable.

First signs of cracks, here's quotes from someone who was at EA play:












tl;dr world is small and it's pretty much the same old mermaids we know with limited powers and uniqueness to them. To be fair, from the screenshots I've seen the existing lots are at least bigger than most neighborhoods (seems like multiple 64 x 64s are present), but lot count is still weak. For Mermaids, this person claims they're better than aliens, but that's not saying much since honestly what the hell can aliens even do?

Aspiration count is 1 and trait count is 2: Child of the Island and Child of the Ocean. Not sure what the difference is or why there's two because wtf both seem similar given that the ocean currently only exists next to the island in the entirety of the Sims 4's world.

At least mermaids get any powers, unlike previous incarnations. I like the siren apporach from them, and really... that was what was missing. Give the ability to pull sim anywhere from the world to their current destination and seduce them instantly, and you get a neat power. Allow the said under-trance Sim to mermaids-player bidding? Im not sure if and how many alternative ways of these things TS4 has?

It has been confirmed that ocean swimming is only available in the new world, according to this AMA of someone who attended EA Play:

https://reddit.com/r/thesims/commen..._island_living/