Island Paradise - First Impressions

[Teresa]

Mermaids will show up regardless.  There is no way to shut them off so townies everywhere will be slowly going scaly.  In non challenge games, you have the ability to place dive lots but they can be glitchy and it requires a bunch of tweaking/cheating to get right from what I can tell.

As for challenge games, we'll know more very soon.

Oh and two out of three of the diving skill challenges can be completed with just snorkeling.

Ah ok, I hadn't seen any mermaids yet in my game (I am playing in Dragon Valley).  I thought they were in the water like fish spawns, I didn't realize they were the new creature.  As you can tell, I have absolutely no information on this expansion yet.  My head has been buried in the sand somewhere.   

[ElliOop]

I've yet to get my own copy, but I watched my friend play with hers yesterday and what stuck with me the most was the astounding amount of pathfinding issues her game had in the new neighbourhood. She plays a completely vanilla game sans CC, mods or downloads, and is all patched up, too. Very strange! (Perhaps I'm a bad friend, but I hope those problems will be resolved by the time I can afford my own copy in August, heh.) Also, is it just me, or do the houseboats travel quite slowly? Or are there engine upgrades that you can buy?

[Bluebonnet]

With the handy skill you can upgrade the houseboat to fast speed, autopilot and fog horn.

[Turoskel]

Okay so my first impressions based on a few hours of play, I like it all so far.

I bought 'You're on a boat' for my two sims, it's a nice little houseboat but the bobbing isn't so good, I have always suffered with bad motion sickness and get terribly sea sick so just watching the house bobbing up and down was making me feel woozy, night time on fast speed I had to zoom out to map view till they woke up.

So not sure if I shall stick to dry land for a home in future, maybe I'll adapt to it.

I checked them into sparkling sands for a couple of nights to try that out, I had no idea about the weddings that was a big surprise, two women got married while I was there, one was called Minnie Mousse  When my sims got hungry I did the dine with interaction, it didn't really work as I expected, they did sit together but they wolfed the food down in seconds then got up to get more, I thought they would interact a little more, the other guests seemed to.

The diving is fun although on my first trip to Rocky Reef one of my sims came straight back up again for no reason I could see and then of course couldn't dive again for ages, that was a bit annoying but I just sent him home and had her carry on alone. Already had a shark attack but she beat him soundly and got one of his teeth, was worth other 1000 and extraordinarily unusual, much better than being eaten by it.

I've also been playing with the free resort, up to 4 stars so far, I admit I cheated for cash to fix it up, but this is more of an exploration of how stuff works than a proper game. So far it's been relatively easy, my staff have been pretty good it's my sims who are the problem, they will keep talking to them which stops them working. And while she was off diving one day he decided to skinny dip and all the staff got in with him, I zoomed the camera back to the resort to find them all lounging naked In the hot tub 

There was something that I was very pleased to see though and that was more stuff in CAS for the other age groups and not just all young adult/adult things, the toddler clothes are adorable and it's always good to have more elder clothes for dynasties.

I'm a little disappointed in the choppiness of the boats, it seems to lag then jump forward every few seconds which is something I noticed on one of the live broadcasts, I remember thinking at the time if it does that for them and they surely have a better computer than me what will it be like on mine? I just find it a bit strange, you can drive a car all about town without that happening why does it happen on the water.

But other than laggy boats and my misbehaving sims I like it.

[Puppetmaster1]

Totally loving it so far!

The Scuba Diving is really fun, and my second favorite Sim interaction of all time after playing in a band.

[Susinok]

I do love this expansion but my game is very glitched. Both my Sims have self-employed careers, so the resorts are off limits. The game freezes up every time I try to check into a resort, whether my sim owns it or not.

Now diving has become glitched for me. My sim is randomly teleporting to the surface, not even when he is near a cave. Plus all caves teleport my sim to a nearby beach, so I can't get any treasures from them. So the diving career is a wash for me in this particular game as well. I gave up the diving profession because I couldn't get enough money from cave exploration to advance. Fishing raises the diving skill, but what fun is that?

I will re-start with a brand new game and see if I have better luck.

[Joria]

I do love this expansion but my game is very glitched. Both my Sims have self-employed careers, so the resorts are off limits. The game freezes up every time I try to check into a resort, whether my sim owns it or not.

Now diving has become glitched for me. My sim is randomly teleporting to the surface, not even when he is near a cave. Plus all caves teleport my sim to a nearby beach, so I can't get any treasures from them. So the diving career is a wash for me in this particular game as well. I gave up the diving profession because I couldn't get enough money from cave exploration to advance. Fishing raises the diving skill, but what fun is that?

I will re-start with a brand new game and see if I have better luck.

Been playing this game for quite some time now, actually stopped playing DV for this, and yes, it is VERY glitchy.  I almost gave up.  There is a fix for the dive problems though but sometimes it doesn't work but usually does.  You use the cheat console, type in testingcheatsenabled true, then click on the area and choose build/buy on this lot.  That allows you, (as opposed to your Sim), to go down into the water.  Use the hand tool to lift the cave up and drop it right back in place.  Don't move it, just lift it a bit.  Then undo the cheats and have your Sim retry the cave.  Unless they are the right level for the particular cave they won't get far anyway.

I ran into that same thing of my Sims popping back up.  I just exited the game and came back and they were fine.  Resetting them didn't seem to help.  Since I was playing to learn and didn't have any qualms about cheats at the time, I used the tce and just removed the decompression thing from their motives so they could go right back down again.

Treasures in the caves are nice but are not great money makers really.  Treasure chests found in different dive spots and on islands are easier/better and just consigning sea shells and sea creatures always brings in a lot of cash for me.  I do have the Savvy Seller, (I think that's the name), LTR though so she gets much more for her consignments.  Eels, squids, and octopi bring in the best cash and do some of the more rare shells.

Snorkeling also raises the diving skill and will get you the occasional goodie.  I'm not sure if swimming raises it but being more athletic seems to help it raise faster.

Neither of my Sims are employed.  If you are running a resort employment is totally unnecessary and does cause a lot of glitches.  Between what my Sims get from their diving and the resort profits they are quite wealthy and can now afford a really nice home of their own.  Don't bother to check into a resort anyway.  All that does is allow you to use the VIP room.  Just click on a tower and use it to "freshen up" or "turn in for the night" or whatever.  It costs you nothing and you still get all the free food you want and as far as I know, doesn't cause the freeze issue.  I will say though doing everything really slowly and saving almost every time you do ANYTHING helps as freezing seems to be a general issue no matter what.  Pathing issues are a problem as well as are the employees at a resort either not working or just yelling at stupid stuff all the time.

[Susinok]

I did the build cheat on the caves and it worked! Much better. After clearing caches and restarting, the lag is less, too. Onward. Next up is to try out the lifeguard profession.

[Turoskel]

Well I just finished the lifeguard job, I'm trying the Grand Explorer LTW, it was...........okay.

It improved once I got the faster swim and I found sitting on the chair surveying more successful than the running about the beach survey, they always seem to have their back to the victim but on the seat they spot them fairly quickly.

Some days though it was really strange, no sims on the beach at all then like buses 3 or 4 show up at once and proceed to drown themselves, and quite a few just as his work day ended and he was off the clock, he still got the money and experience at least.

So having got the Island and reached level ten, funnily enough he got his last promotion 'demonstrating' mouth to mouth on his girlfriend, glad he didn't do it that way on the other ladies, I quit the job and started him swimming home to his houseboat which was just along from the Sparkling Sands Beach and he goes back to doing the slow breast stroke and no longer that nice fast crawl which was disappointing, halfway home I notice that a sim is drowning across the water on the other beach opposite his home, well not his job anymore so he just swam past 

Really not sure if I would do the job again, I will miss that swim though, and I think his girlfriend might miss those demonstrations she certainly seemed to enjoy them.

Might try the diving now but I think I shall go fix those caves before I start, I reinstalled everything a couple of days ago and my game is running smoother but still getting odd glitches, like the diving reset, and also if my sim stayed over at his girlfriends or her with him they would reset out of bed about 5 in the morning, not if he was at home alone though, very odd, I'm hoping that might sort itself when they move in together but I want to get the islands first.

[Joria]

Do you have to do the Lifeguard thing to get an island?

[Turoskel]

Yes after saving so many sims the Mayor gave me Cay To The City, I see what you did there EA 

It's not a bad island actually, I just changed the 30x40 beach plot to a port and moved my houseboat there, it sold the lot when I made it a port but I also put a 30x30 lot on the flat grassy area which I just bought, think I might build a house on it when he has more money, he can stay in the houseboat for now.

It's near Rocky Reef so will be a good place to live while he's learning the diving skill.

I had read a few snippets about getting some of the islands so I'm trying things out, no idea what gives what island apart from the mermaid one obviously, I know it's all on the guide but I want to try and find it for myself, it's always there if I get totally stuck 

EDIT: Ooops seems it's near Pearls Deep not Rocky Reef, I'm still getting a bit lost on this map 

[beardeux]

I've been playing for a couple weeks now.  The good things...I love the map, the houseboats, some of the houses available, the lifeguard swimming (wish they could all swim like that), the snorkeling, diving, windsurfing and all that good beach stuff.  I've found 5 of the hidden islands and met some mermaids.  The whole idea of this EP is wonderful.  If it worked well, I could spend a heck of a lot of time here.
  The not so good...houseboats being deleted from the game along with the families occupying them.  A huge biggie.  The game lag.  It's very jerky and hard on the eyes to watch.  I reset the town every now and then.  That helps a bit.  I think there's just so much going on.  Also I've not seen a single pet or wild animal.  Only one unicorn.  The other thing that is bothersome is the continual resetting of divers to islands.  The caves seem to be the biggest trigger for this.
  At first, I had a couple families on the go.  My houseboat family was diving and my single girl was becoming a lifeguard.  I noticed quickly that it was not a good idea to go back and fourth between lots because my lifeguard lost all her saves count for her lifetime wish.  She was back at zero every time I returned to her.  So I stayed with her until she reached it.  50 drowning saves is a lot and all the CPR only saves didn't count towards her wish.  Very time consuming.  Then while I was with her I discovered that my houseboat family had disappeared.  Ughhh.   I saved my lifeguard to the library so I won't have to go through that again.  Then I deleted the world and started over with my two families.  I had to build by diver family again.  I've now saved them to the library also.  I introduced a third character who has a land lot and an additional houseboat.  His houseboat and all other houseboats with or without families throughout the map, disappeared.  A lot of sims, gone. 

I'm not sure what to do with this at this point.  With all the boats gone, I can't even select another boat to play.  I'd have to save all my families to the library and start the world over again.  I'd be continually rebuilding relationships.  It's not a good option.  I don't want to keep losing all these families, especially my own.

[bubbles]

I bought Island Paradise last weekend and so far I am thoroughly enjoying myself.

Pros: Houseboats are a fun, new, creative way to travel but take forever to get anywhere without an upgrade from a sims with the handiness skill. If the boat has autopilot, then it is probably great because your sims can go to sleep, with the boat set to travel through the night, and awake in the morning at their destination!

Resorts are a lot of fun and are a great source of money. I got Hobart's Hideaway to 5 stars in a week and get 4000 simoleons a day. Your sims can live off this, buy the free houseboat and book a room at the resort for free. They can live a life of luxury for free at Hobart's Hideaway (Once it's fancy enough). Next I will get one of my families in another town, move them to Isla Paradiso and then have them run all the resorts in town, even though they are already super rich.

The lifeguard profession is alright, but quite repetitive. Your life guards can be left on freewill, though, so you can focus on your own sims.

I haven't done much with scuba diving, but I have seen that the camera is quite grainy and my sim was reset when he explored a cave. I will try again and see if I can resolve that problem.

So far, I have unlocked two uncharted islands (The one you just boat up to and the one for a five star resort). I sold the first so the family could build a house and I kept the other for a new resort.

I think that's it so far and I will post more when I get more playing time.

[beardeux]

bubbles - how do you buy a free houseboat?

[bubbles]

If you click on a port with a space when buying a house as usual, you can click what size houseboat you want. The 12x8 Barge is completely free so you now have a free home that you can build on or leave empty.