Horse Ranch is now on Sale, But it's only a mere 25% off, on the other hand Island Living and Seasons, and all other older EP packs is getting more decent deals of 60% off, and if you don't have the controversial My First Pet Stuff, it's now completely Free.

The only sensible price to get it truly. I don't feel Horse Ranch is worth that much either so the wait for it to drop more in price continues.

They might as well give away Stars Wars too, atm it's only 30% off, and your right about Horse Ranch, and since TS4 isn't going to it's graveyard anytime soon, it's pays to wait as long as it takes..

The new world map leaked. Allegedly, there are 9 lots.

I have been looking for a map. 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Geez! It looks nice, but.....!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR-d4cxS9S4

watching this one now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZN4XObxkAk

Plus the world looks boring and completely unoriginal, it's just there to fill up the pack along with the usual CAS items, objects and radio station, you might as well build your apartments elsewhere.

How did we go from this:

To this?

Someone used topaz filters way too much!

EA admitted a while back that the worlds would get smaller and smaller as the game cannot handle much more. And we are seeing that.

Many of the worlds I have made for 3 have well over 100 lots. I am not sure which one EA made has the most? Let me google?

https://www.teoalida.com/thesims/worlds/

IP has 118. So UM 109 more than this new thing.

The largest lot in For Rent is 40x30. There are a bunch if 20x30 or SMALLER. What is the target laptop of this game? A calculator?

Getting to 100 total lots (including hidden & locked) happened fairly “quickly” in TS4 with Cats & Dogs (2017). Getting to 200 happened during Discover University (2019). We will finally hit 300 lots with For Rent (2023).

TS4 launched 2014. We’re only just getting to 300.

The Sims 3 launched with a MASSIVE 92 lots or 187 with Riverview. With the release of the very first expansion pack, we were given 338 lots. It wasn’t until Ambitions that we could place a lot anywhere, so TS3 had TS4 beat.

Fun facts:
TS3 has a total of about 1,850 lots across all worlds, averaging about 80 lots per world.

TS4 has a total of about 300, averaging 12 lots per world.

It’s simple really. For as long we buy this World Packs that are the size of a Gum Packs to chew for a month, Maxis will insist on releasing world with fewer lots They’re not even consider catering to stronger mechanics for as long low-end players continue buying DLC oppose to saving up for a better gaming PC Thereby, the development doesn’t have the need to use the time to churn out a decent number of lots, impressive mechanics, gameplay objects with animation and etc

Even if you choose to buy a pavk for content, oppose to getting more chairs by browsing CC oppose Steam/EA Play, its still a WIN for EA and not your choice But alias - this message won’t convince and influence the WHOLE community to drop their act :/.

I agree with this, but I'm going to add to it.

What Maxis is calling a 'expansion' pack these days is a joke. Horse Ranch is not a expansion pack, nor is this new one. Sure a person can build apartments in any world, but that doesn't expand on actual game play. Having more sims on a lot doing the exact same things they do on any other lot ( now with more loading screens) is not expansion.

As for your last point, there are too many people now that are riding EA's coat tails in the name of making money. Whether we're talking about people that hide their custom content behind a permanent paywall, to Yibs that are now making packs with Maxis, are peddling creator codes, ect... In short, there is no stuffing the genie back in the bottle. The days of being lied to and listening to endless fluff about the 'best game ever' won't stop until this franchise goes up in flames.

If nobody were making money other than EA, all of these people would find other 'jobs'. Making $10,000 a month just for peddling high-poly custom content to people that more often than not A) can't afford it B) actually use it because they are playing on potatoes is a lucrative lifestyle.

Part of me want to argue on behalf of inflation. Expansion
Packs were originally sold for $30 in 2000, and only saw a price increase to $40 in life with the industry price shift.

The industry is moving towards a $70 bass price, so I assume $50 packs will yield better results?

There is some truth to that. I just had to pay almost 6 bucks for a bag of cheetos. And sodas I used to pay no more than a buck for are like 2.69 now. So it does make some sense that the cost/value/content of things like game items has changed also. But that does not mean we have to like it. Grrrrr. LOL

Over 50 bucks to fill the little tank in my little Honda.... mutter, mutter......

EA isn’t in any position to raise consumer pricing on dlc. EPs have always been priced unreasonably high, we just didn’t complain because they came with cool stuff that we found fun. Did that cool fun stuff cost nearly as much as the full game to produce? No, nowhere close. That’s why dlc is such a lucrative business model, because producers can massively overcharge for it and no one can tell them not to.

$50 packs help EAs bottom line, they don’t trigger a bigger production budget. It’s also helpful to consider how EA routinely cuts development costs without lowering the price. They have people working on Sims 4 all over the globe and that’s not to enrich the culture of the development staff, it’s to save money. This is why QA work is offshored to the Middle East, and why are art assets are offshored to China. It’s why most of the costly positions in their US branch are contract workers and not full time employees.

EA has to eat the cost of inflation because they’ve already overpriced their content. They can’t shift those costs onto the consumer without it negatively effecting their bottom line.

They are in a position to do it, because it works and makes them money. They set the prices and customers choose to purchase or not? I have bought most of the EPs and SPs I have gotten on sale, but many will pay full price at release. What they are doing is working and that is why they do it.

I argue it because even within TS4’s expansion packs, EP content has declined over a decade. Seeing how much came with a pack like Nightlife, then a deduction with Late Night, then a steep reduction in Get Together (which felt like base game leftovers they didn’t finish in time), THEN looking at the offerings in recent years, it’s bleak.

It’s been a decade and content is still missing. How did we only get one new instrument in all these years, and it’s an organ, which is basically a piano. I forget if we even have an electric guitar.

You are totally right that we are getting less and less. I think for many reasons, but one is that the game cannot handle much and EA admitted that. They built this for a potato and even so it is maxing out slowly but surely.

Looks like with cheats we'll be able to have up to 100-ish units per lot, which I'm sure the builders amongst us (who get the pack) will enjoy messing about with!

https://twitter.com/SimGuruNinja/st...534574374551929

And as Pes used to say, there will be the giant fireball in space probably!

At $40 there is a certain number of players they can guarantee will buy an EP day 1 at full retail price. At $50 that ‘certain number’ is lower. They aren’t in a position to raise prices - yes they set the price, and yes they have the power to raise the price, but from the standpoint of maximizing their early returns they are not in any position to actually do that. Don’t forget - they introduced an entirely new content tier that costs $5. They spent years focusing on $10 packs. Their general pool of buyers is more likely to buy low price content on day 1 versus high price content. I don’t know what you mean by “it’s working” because I never said anything wasn’t working. I said they already charge as much as they can without pushing *more* people to wait for a discount. Raising prices and more people holding off for 25% off is bad for their bottom line.

There can be a maximum of 99 units per save file but the game has a soft cap of 200 Sims. Weird limit but okay. Even if the apartments might be a bit eh, I'm looking forward to the new items.

Also, curious... radiators works. They also appears to come in different sizes as well. I hope they update the ornate one from vampires.

Edit: AC units also work

Maybe this is a semantics issue about the word "position" but they are in a position to do whatever they want. And EA has an extensive marketing and consumer research department I am sure and it knows what it is doing overall in what they are doing as far as selling their products. They have experience since the release of Sims 1 so know what works and what does not. And the corporation watches its bottom line like a hawk.

I'm trying to get through Pixelade's video regarding the whole thing about how there can only be 99 lots per save.

Real talk: How many lots did people actually think they were going to be able to have? Were people expecting to be able to cover every world with nothing but apartment buildings?

I understand I'm not one of those pie-in-the-sky kind of people when it comes to TS4. I've been sitting in cancellation prison as Not Malcolm calls it ( LMAO) for years because I'm not one of those people, but seriously. I don't understand why people continue to do this when TS4 is going on 10 years old next year. She's old, tired and Maxis has no intention of allowing her to rest in peace. The longer Maxis continues to 'abuse' TS4, it isn't going to get better.


Pixelade video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch238cOXHVw

Not Malcolm / Cancelled and in prison video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTjweWU_NyY ( Said comment is towards the end. Said video is about InZoi, not sims)

I'm 100% okay with 99 units per save file. Being realistic about what locations will have duplexes, triplexes, apartments, trailer parks, mixed student housing, etc, 99 units is fine. Most worlds aren't even properly designed for multifamily livings.

It will be nice to split up some roommate households to turn them into psudeo-npcs, but I wonder how the game will handle needs if Sims only have a bed in unit but no fridge, bathroom, laundry, etc. I assume Sims in these units will spawn in random, use a random shared object and leave.

It was nice to know that a water heater can break PER UNIT (if placed in it) and would need to be repaired. I hope there's a better looking, more expensive water heater because the one they put in the trailer looks absolutely awful to put in a home. Same goes for the fuse box. We got two kettles and two squat toilets, so here's to hoping.