General News

New Sims 4 Expansion Pack: Get to Work

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Earlier today, I was able to participate in a conference call hosted by Rachel Franklyn (The Executive Producer in the Sims studio) and  Ryan Vaughan (Producer of Sims 4).

While the trailer was leaked earlier today, the conference call gave us some very juicy details about the first full expansion pack for The Sims 4.

The first expansion pack this coming April will be titled “The Sims 4: Get to Work”.

It is being touted as a combination of The Sims 2 Open for Business and The Sims 3: Ambitions

There are three new careers being added with this expansion pack, but not in the traditional sense. The three careers are Medical, Police, and Scientist. This helps explain the absence of these staple careers from the original game. Rather than include them as vanilla rabbit hole careers, the devs opted to save them for this pack which makes sense since they are being done in Sims 3: Ambitions’ style. Where as some of the other careers chosen for vanilla rabbit hole careers (such as secret agent and astronaught) would not be as feasable to do as a hands-on Ambitions style career. It also points to that they haven’t forgotten about the original careers that have been around since the Sims 1, they just wanted to expand on them.

 

The first of the three new careers is Medical. This is what we were told about it:

Your Sim will be able to diagnose and cure illnesses at a brand new hospital venue. There is a new surgery table item that a skilled doctor can use. (No word on what happens if a non-skilled Sim tries to use it). And for the first time in Sim’s history, your Sim can actually deliver babies! No details were given about the possible benefits of the new hospital births versus the home births but it DOES hint at possible story progression. If the game is to generate ‘ailments’ for your doctor Sim to deal with while on the job, presumably it will need to include women in labor. While this could just be random female Sims who are generated, give birth, and vanish from existence once they leave the hospital, the potential is there for townies or other non-player Sims to randomly get pregnant and need to come in for a delivery.

 

The second new career is the Detective career, an echo of the old Police career from earlier installments. Here, your sim is tasked with investigating crime scenes, finding clues, and will receive a new police station venue where you can interrogate suspects. This also hints at possible story progression as the game would have to generate crime scenes…and criminals for your Sim to investigate and interrogate. Just as burglars of the olden days existed as real NPCs in the world even after being generated just to rob your house, the same could be true with the criminals.

The third career is Scientist, who can experiment and craft new items with the brand new invention constructor. To quote Ryan Vaughan, “It [the invention constructor] is like a combination of a 3D printer and Jarvis from Iron Man”.

While it doesn’t look like this career will have its own venue, the complexity of the objects and the inventions sound like it will be vast. No confirmation of being able to make servos, but he did say you could “use your inventions for good or evil”. We will have to wait for more details to come in the following weeks to know exactly what kinds of inventions can be made.

 

Open For Business

 

The fourth new “Career” is that of a business owner. By every sound of it, this is exactly what we got from the original OFB in the Sims 2 and that is a GOOD thing. You can make ANY kind of retail business, from clothing to art galleries to bookstores. It sounds like you can sell both build mode items as well as your Sim’s own creations if you wish. You can hire and fire Sims, set prices, and shmooze the customers into buying. It was not made clear if restaurants where Sims order food or ‘club’ style venues where Sims pay a fee just to enter and stay on your lot will make a return, but with or without them, this is going to be a very awesome addition to the gameplay (and likely the subject of my next challenge).

 

Two New Skills

There are two brand new skills being introduced with this expansion pack. Baking and Photography.

Baking sounds like an expansion of the cooking skill in the same way that gourmet cooking is, and ties into the OFB, where your Sim can run a bakery to sell their wares.

Photography has me the most excited. When giving feedback about the announcement on the call, I presented a hypothetical idea of a Sim obsessed with toilet paper able to make an entire business selling it. Rachel Franklyn added “You could sell toilets along with the toilet paper and then use the photography skill to take pictures of toilet paper and sell those too.”

Let’s break that down a moment. “…use the photography skill to take pictures of toilet paper and sell those too.” If I am interpreting this statement correctly, this means that portraits are back in the game. If you are able to capture something via Photography and make it into an object depicting the subject originally captured, this missing bit of functionality could be making a return. There was no mention of painting and if it will be able to capture portraits for paintings the way that photography could with the camera, but presumably yes, if they’re developing the technology to accomplish that. Again, this is just speculation.

 

More information will be coming out in the following weeks so keep your eyes peeled. This is a very exciting time for the Sims 4!

Posted by Pinstar Legacy in Featured, General News, Legacy Challenge Rules, Sims 4 News

Latest Sims 4 Update Adds Genealogy and Family Trees!

TS4_440_GENEALOGY_1k_WhiteThis week marks the 15 year anniversary of The Sims franchise and to commemorate that achievement EA and Maxis are giving us lots of cool gifts to celebrate! Most importantly for Legacy Players, the game now includes Genealogy and Family Trees, something that we know many of you have been requesting for quite some time now! So rejoice! You can now view family trees.

MinervaFamilyTreeA word of caution though, you may want to back up your save files before updating. It seems that this update has caused some save files to revert to previous saves. That’s not something that you want to happen in your Legacy Family!

This newest update also includes new Valentine’s themed clothing and items. For more information, check out the full news post at the official Sims 4 website!

 

Posted by Mystic in General News, Sims 4 News

The Sims 4 Apocalypse Challenge is Live!

Sims 4 Apocalypse Challenge

Hey everyone! The time has come! It’s the end of the world as we know it! The Sims 4 Apocalypse Challenge has been released!

You can find the rules here. We also have a FAQ sheet and scorecard for you to check out.

Not sure how to get started on Pinstar’s latest challenge? Check out his getting started video below.

Finally, I will be streaming the Apocalypse Challenge tomorrow morning at 10 am EST on my Twitch channel, for those of you interested in seeing it live! (Mistakes will be made I’m sure!)

Posted by Mystic in Apocalypse Challenge, Featured, General News, Other Challenges

The Sims 4 Apocalypse Challenge is Coming

Inspired by the Boston Scenario of the original Sim City, The Apocalypse Challenge starts things with a bang!

Inspired by the Boston Scenario of the original Sim City, The Apocalypse Challenge starts things with a bang!

 

Originally created in The Sims 2, the Apocalypse Challenge challenged your Sim to move in to a region devastated by a nuclear disaster and rebuild it from within. This challenge is getting a full update for The Sims 4 that will be released before the end of the month.

The challenge features a laundry list of restrictions that make life difficult for your Sims, but with a catch. While most challenges that you play have rules and restrictions that apply for the whole challenge, the Apocalypse Challenge’s restrictions are temporary. Through in-game actions you are able to remove various restrictions from your sims, making life a little easier as you play. However, this challenge introduces strategic elements to it. Lifting one restriction means NOT lifting another until later, thus you must plan out carefully your family’s plan of action.

Continue reading →

Posted by Pinstar Legacy in Apocalypse Challenge, Featured, General News, Sims 4 News

New Gaming Website!

RoadLessPwnedTwitter

Hey everyone! Pinstar and I just wanted to make a brief announcement that we have started a new general gaming website that will cover reviews, news, previews, interviews etc throughout the entire gaming sphere (not just Sims). There isn’t much there yet, but we are working on adding new content every day!

Before you worry, no, we are not abandoning The Sims Legacy Challenge website. This website will continue to run and be updated as per usual! We will be running both.

You can check out Pinstar’s SimCity BuildIt guide on the new website at http://www.roadlesspwned.com/simcity-buildit-analyzing-local-services/

You can also check out my review of Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat at http://www.roadlesspwned.com/sims-4-outdoor-retreat-review-2/

Posted by Mystic in Featured, General News

Sims 4 Career Top 3 Charts

business careerWith the introduction of two new Sims 4 careers and the rebalancing of the existing ones. I took some time to do some deep analysis of the new career landscape. Many of the nitty gritty details of the careers can be found on the Career guide I wrote for SimsVIP right here.

However, while I was writing up the guide for the trees, I began to notice some things. If you take a step back and look at all the careers, side by side, you start to see patterns. It was from this further analysis that I present to you my guide to the Sims 4 Top 3 Charts! I will give you the top three career/branches for each category. Some of the choices are based purely on hard data, others have some subjective components to them. Without any further ado. Here are the Sims 4 Career Top 3 Charts! Note that all of these rankings are based on reaching the top level in that given career/branch.

Continue reading →

Posted by Pinstar Legacy in Featured, General News, Sims 4 News

Merry Christmas from The Sims Legacy Challenge! We Have a Present For You!

12-24-14_4-30 PMHello everyone! We hope you all have an amazing holiday season! We just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for the amazing support that you showed Pinstar and I this year. We had a bit of a rough year in real life, but being able to interact with all of you and share our love of Sims with you has been amazing and has helped us get through the tough times.

As a bit of a Christmas present we wanted to let you in on a little (ok, it’s not really that little) secret project that Pinstar has been working on. He is working on bringing the popular Apocalypse Challenge from the Sims 2 over to the Sims 4! We know a lot of you have been clamoring for this challenge since The Sims 4 was released. This challenge is huge in scope, moreso than even the Legacy Challenge, so it takes some time to get written up and playtested, but it SHOULD be up in the next month or two. So keep and eye out, I will try to update you on Pinstar’s progress with it when I can!

In the meantime, if you want to play the Apocalypse Challenge for the Sims 2, check out the rules here.

As an aside, if you don’t already own the Sims 4, it is currently on sale on Amazon for $20 off the regular retail price. So get it while you can!

 

Posted by Mystic in General News, Sims 4 News

Legacy Challenge Rules Update (for the November & December patches)

Legacy rules change

Happy Chrismahanakwaanzaka! Here are some updates and rulings for the Legacy Challenge in response to the changes made in both the November and December patches.

 

  • The 11th death type, death by drowning, is now required to finish the “Collect every death type” point.
  • * The Athletic and Business branches are now required for the “Get a sim to the top of each career” as well as the “Have a Sim reach the top of every branch”
  • After it was found that ghosts were guzzling potions of youth built up for the Deviance score, you may release their spirits if you don’t want to risk a thirsty ghost finding your potions.
  • You may fully utilize the new time off, vacation days, and family leave system introduced.
  • Note that job promotion requirements and aspiration requirements have both changed…but the rules and scoring for these has not (Besides the additions of the two new careers mentioned earlier.)
  • Added a new heir law to the heir selection page – Democracy. With Democracy you can have others vote on your heir.
Posted by Pinstar Legacy in Featured, General News, Legacy Challenge Rules, Sims 4 News

We Now Host the Sims 2 Apocalypse Challenge!

littlenemo-nuclearHey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that we are now hosting the rules for the Sims 2 Apocalypse Challenge! They were originally hosted by the Apoca-Borg website, but the owner of the site has recently asked that we take it back over. Currently I have Pinstar’s original Sims 2 Apocalypse Challenge core rules up, and I am working on adding the additional rules for the expansions. It’s a HUGE challenge so it will take some time to get it all up, but if you are interested in checking out the core ruleset for the Sims 2 base game, then head on over to the Sims 2 Apocalypse Challenge rules! I will also be adding a scoresheet in the next couple of days as well.

This is rather appropriate timing too… I won’t say more than that though 😉

 

Posted by Mystic in Featured, General News