Island Paradise - First Impressions

[Ricalynn]

What do you mean by fishing score and where did you find this information?

Edit: Found where it says Fishing on two boats.  Testing.

Edit:   Just click on the water while in the boat.  Picture being posted to the Screenshots thread.

[Mikeyspoons]

I did not expect to like this expansion pack as much as I do! I got it a day early (woo!) and have only played for a few hours but I was very pleasently surprised. The new CAS options are fantastic, especially hair choices and there are some fantastic women's clothes, i haven't had a chance to explore males yet. I love the house boats, I didn't want to because they looked so cumbersome, but they strangely work and I really like them. I also like the taxi boat that picks you up to take you to an island.

The town is beautiful, I love how there are islands with maybe one or two buildings on. The modern buildings that are dotted around the map are fantastic and it will become a firm favourite, though I feel the winter season just doesn't suit the place. I am looking forward to building a beach side, modern luxary mansion.

I have started my sim off in the lifegaurd profession and it is pretty fun, I love watching her run from one end of the beach to the other. Although one sim was drowning and one of the ghost townies haunted her (as if she were a piece of furniture) making it impossible to help the sim for about a sim hour, it also didn't count towards my saving someone for her lifetime wish.

I am very much looking forward to getting back to playing. I am about to dabble in scuba diving and I shall be on the search for a merman husband.

Edit: It is pretty creepy when the Kraken silently floats below the houseboat.

[doxxielover]

A small thing I noticed,

Well here is what happened. I did cheats to give myself a lot of money then I built a resort using the Eco Modern blueprints. When I exited out it said I can not open resort because I didn't have a resort tower(the big tower thing) on it. I had purposely not put one because I don't like the look of them. So I suppose that apparently once you reach a certain star level you need a resort tower to continue. I don't know what level or anything it was. Also you cant open the resort without a guest room or lobby, which make sense. I just didn't like the whole having to own a resort tower thing.

[Ricalynn]

You have to have the resort tower of the three types otherwise you don't have room for any of your guests.   Not to mention that's where all the spa services come from.

[doxxielover]

But I had individual guest rooms/ suites. I would think they would count...

[Ricalynn]

You have VIP rooms but even the smallest resort is meant to have somewhere around 40 people.   This is just the way they set it up and they warned us in one of the live broadcasts that we'd have to live with the towers and they wouldn't be recolorable beyond the three variations.

[doxxielover]

Ah, ok I didn't know about that. Thank You!

[MarianT]

I'm definitely enjoying this and have only scratched the surface. I had a few misconceptions, which others might profit from --

First of all, snorkeling in the swimming pool either doesn't build diving skill or else builds it very slowly. As Carl recommends in the guide, a class in scuba diving and snorkeling in the open ocean seems to be the way to go. And "loves to swim" helps, too.

If you played with Open for Business in Sims 2 and were worried that running a resort might be complicated (as I was), it's not. The tips people have given in the section on resorts are excellent, and it should be easy to get to a 5-star resort within a Sim week or two. My Sim has already started making money just from a 2-star.

You can't re-color the different towers that are needed for the resorts, but you can build shells around them, which I did with one I set up in Dragon Valley. (And I plan to give my family in Dragon Valley a swan boat.)

You can't chat with the desk clerk if you're a guest at the resort, but she or he does show up in your acquaintances, so a friendship is possible.

[Snufflesxx]

So far, I'm loving this and I don't think I've even scratched the surface of it yet! I've tried building a houseboat for my Random Town Jump family (who are currently in Monte Vista but I followed the tutorial and built a port without any problems) and that's about halfway finished.

There's a lot of new clothing and hair (at least for YA women) but I'm not too keen on a few of the hairstyles. They look a bit too much like CC. Clothes were great though 

Isla Paradiso is an amazing town and probably one of my favourites. Not many land-based houses though, but I suppose that's because the town is designed for house boats. I haven't actually done much interacting with the townies yet, except for somebody named Matthew Mango (I think).

I had a little look at one of the resorts, the one with the big tower (it was called Starlight Sands or something like that). The only (minor) problem I had was that a load of townies turned up in the check-in area at the same time as my Sim and she did the little stamping foot thing when she couldn't reach the desk. But the other guests soon cleared and my Sim got checked-in.

There are plenty of great new items, my favourite being one of the new loungers which is brightly coloured with toucans on it 

I haven't tried building my own resort from scratch yet but I did have a half-hearted attempt to makeover Hobart's Hideaway (the run-down one that you get for free) but I got annoyed with it and scraped the whole thing. I enjoyed it though 

So, overall, I'd say this was one of my favourite expansions so far, definitely topping Seasons, but obviously that's my personal opinion. I think it adds lots of great new features and now that I have them, I don't think I could ever play the game again without them 

[Louise56]

I love this expansion! It is really fantastic. I make my sim a mermaid with the reward and it is so much fun to play a mermaid. The underwater scenes is breathtaking! I didn't play with a resort yet, but I will try for sure.

[LeuceDeuce]

Awesome expansion.

I have only scratched the surface of it so far.  I have a beach bum lifeguard that lives on a small houseboat.  He spends most of his time playing his guitar on the beach, and throwing parties on his boat.  When money starts to get low, he puts in a day at work just to keep the bills paid.

I've also tried something new with this game, and played my sim family without spending any LTH points on rewards.  It's pretty cool actually

[Shirin]

Well. I have a new one.

It's not an impression, though I'm sure this girl is leaving one!

When switching to snorkelling gear, some hair (and apparently suits) are incompatible. So I just get annoyed with the random changes. But now? My future mermaid sim has taken to snorkelling with no hair - at all. And no suit - at all. Nor does she get the naked blocking like when skinny-dipping or in a shower/bath. It's very bizarre.

[butterfly]

Well. I have a new one.

It's not an impression, though I'm sure this girl is leaving one!

When switching to snorkelling gear, some hair (and apparently suits) are incompatible. So I just get annoyed with the random changes. But now? My future mermaid sim has taken to snorkelling with no hair - at all. And no suit - at all. Nor does she get the naked blocking like when skinny-dipping or in a shower/bath. It's very bizarre.

 I think that is a CC 'outfit' that you can get if you download a sim from the exchange, I had an issue like that where a random tourist was just walking around 'naked'. So, try to look for that thing in your download dashboard and uninstal it.
Hope this helped

[Jamie]

I don't think it has to do with CC. I've had that happen in my game a few times and I never use any CC or mods. I haven't downloaded from the exchange either.

[Shirin]

It's not a CC issue. I don't use CC or mods.