Most worthwhile expansions and stuff packs?
Yecats:
OFB compliments the later EP's by making any sort of business possible.
You can use OFB to sell the craftables from FT, the produce and fish from Seasons, animals from Pets, and even use the ticket machine for your Uni house parties.
Kyna:
Quote from: Faizah on 2008 December 05, 18:26:14
Quote from: Kyna on 2008 December 05, 08:14:56
I wasn't recommending Pets, merely clarifying the earlier point made about the caged bird. I've never used the caged bird in my game. I only keep Pets installed because I like some of the objects. Or was it some of the walls & floors? Can't quite remember now.
I wouldn't recommend Pets either, but I do like the floor divider 'fences', I use those quite a bit. I think they came with Pets?
Thanks Faizah. THAT'S the reason I keep Pets installed.
* Kyna must be getting senile to have forgotten that.
Sette:
Quote from: zherok on 2008 December 05, 10:36:12
It'd be nice if the expansions built off each other a bit more. I can understand the issue of requiring a daisy chain of EPs to enjoy something, but something like Outerwear is added in one expansion, and not a single EP after that bothers with the whole clothes category.
Somebody on MTS2 was crazy kind enough to go through the Maxis defaults and reclassify all the clothing and hats that needed it. In the process, he/she moved a lot of stuff into Outerwear.
talysman:
My own personal assessment, with reasons:
Uni - adds kicky bag and Hang Out, which are fairly good for friend building, musical instruments, and the Resurrect-o-nomitron, all of which might be available w/o the EP. Adds the YA age stage, assuming you want more time for meeting LTWs. Also added LTWs, I think, but that's almost certainly available with other EPs. Otherwise, useless. Benefits are minor.
Nightlife - adds drivable cars, and as far as I know, EA's been pretty strict about not giving you these with other EPs. Not sure if you can build restaurants on non-hotel lots without NL. Also not sure if dating is available at all w/o it. Dating is definitely a must-have, as boring as it is, because of the exploitability. Free mood and energy boost at the end of the date, and possibly free gifts and an unearned Cleaning, even if your date has lower Cleaning skill than your sim? Sign me up!
OFB - robots, if you want them. A wider range of commercial lots, even if you don't want to build businesses yourself. Create a dummy sim and Motherlode him, have him buy commercial lots, and build all sorts of shops. Plus, it's supposed to be the most stable of the early expansion packs.
Pets - unless you like pets, doesn't add much to the game. Animals are an easy way to get a social boost, though. The floor dividers are useful, but before I installed Pets, I was able to do the same thing with the railroad ties.
Seasons - the most visually interesting EP, and the season bonuses are great for exploitation. Also adds some challenge, since now you actually have to consider building at least a roof, if not walls.
Bon Voyage - adds ninja teleport and tai chi, which I find more useful that just about any other skill. The viral nature of tai chi gave me a good idea for an OFB business: a dojo, which has been pretty successful. Tai chi builds energy, so it's an easy way to extend a trip to a commercial lot. Still, you can probably skip BV. Even though I find my Bigfoot mayor pretty amusing. Bonuses from having a good trip just don't last long enough or have big enough an effect to matter.
Freetime - adds some variety to sim behaviors, but nothing really important. I do find the superpowers useful, though.
Apartment Life - haven't explored AL much, yet. Mayor Bigfoot is now a warlock, and his robot friend wants to be one, too, so this may wind up breaking my game. Can't tell you whether Al is worth it yet, even for magic, but my guess is that actual apartments, with neighbors hanging out in common areas, will make the game a little more interesting. Like the teen next-door neighbor who stayed up all night swinging his little brother around by the arms.
Mansion & Garden - don't have this yet, don't know much about it, don't know if I'll get it. Only have a few of the stuff packs, too. Can't really recommend any of them.
Summary: NL and OFB are definite must-haves. Seasons adds lots of variety and gaming options, so it's also a good choice. Everything else is up to whim.
PirateFaafy:
Quote from: Faizah on 2008 December 05, 18:26:14
Quote from: Kyna on 2008 December 05, 08:14:56
Quote from: zherok on 2008 December 05, 04:13:18
Quote from: Kyna on 2008 December 05, 02:29:34
Going back to the point about kids & charisma & Pets: the caged parrot is the only buyable object that children can use to train charisma. Yes, they can use the career rewards for education, business, law, or politics to train it, but those aren't buyable objects.
Kinda a lot of overhead just for that though. Plus you can't really avoid animals like you can say, an extra lot like Bon Voyage.
I wasn't recommending Pets, merely clarifying the earlier point made about the caged bird. I've never used the caged bird in my game. I only keep Pets installed because I like some of the objects. Or was it some of the walls & floors? Can't quite remember now.
I wouldn't recommend Pets either, but I do like the floor divider 'fences', I use those quite a bit. I think they came with Pets?
I really think the one EP I couldn't live without is also the one I was least impressed with prior to getting it: Open For Business. Sure, community lot businesses might be pricy for the beginning entrepreneur, but even Brandi Broke can run a home business at a profit. It's even possible to deliberately run a business at a loss, if a family has too much money. (Each EP adds a new money-making thing, after all.)
I had a fun competition with my sister to see who could have a teenage Sim make the most money before going off to university/aging up to adulthood. I won by a landslide - Bon Voyage's digging got me quite a few treasure chests, plus a ticket booth at 30$ an hour meant that I didn't need to perform any sales interactions on them to get them to come in and spend MONEYS. Pinball machines are powerful. Basically, everyone stood on the lawn doing viral tai-chi from this one freestylin' grandma.
Of course, I now know that you can get someone to pay 800 simoleons an hour with a well-executed dazzling. Unfortunately, she does now, too, so it's very interesting to do such challenges now.
Personally, I'm loving AL with Pescadoian fixes because of how interesting it is to run lots with NOTHING inside the apartments. Everything's in the common area. It's like an asylum, and it's great fun, not to mention CHEAP! An utterly empty 1x2 apartment is quite inexpensive, you may find.
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