The Sims™ 4 Eco Lifestyle: Official Reveal Trailer Updated 05/19/20

[sdhoey]

How green is your Plumbob??

EA has officially announced ECO LIVING EP Coming out June 5th.

The Sims™ 4 Eco Lifestyle: Official Reveal Trailer

Read Full Blog Here

New Gameplay Trailer

Gameplay Trailer Blog

EcoStyle LiveStream


Highlights:

New World: Evergreen Harbor

Change the World

In Evergreen Harbor, every action you take and decision you make influences the state of the world around you. The cleaner Evergreen Harbor gets, the more you’ll see nature thriving. You determine whether the skies are smoggy or clear enough to see the aurora borealis glimmering above. Let garbage pile up on the streets of your neighborhood or clean it up to create lush green walking paths in town. It’s up to you!

Upgrade Your Home

New updates in Build/Buy encourage going green, too. For the first time, you can offset your bills with wind turbines, solar panels, and dew collectors. Reduce your eco-footprint and invest in a living rooftop for a splash of bright color. Inside, choose between gorgeous new furniture (sustainably made, of course) or upcycle someone else’s junk into beautiful items!



Make or Break It

Speaking of reclaiming and repurposing things, why don’t you check out a new job as a maker? As you go around town, keep an eye out for collectibles and materials for your next project. Brave Sims might try dumpster diving for resources like dyes, bits and pieces, and ingredients—as long as they don’t mind the smell. Choose the Freelance Crafter career to fill mail and internet orders for your candles, fizzy juices, upcycled objects, and more! Or try to encourage your neighbors to vote for a community maker space where you can all craft together.


Use Your Voice

Unused community spaces are going to waste—literally, as a dump. Rally your neighbors to decide how to use it. To get that maker space, you’re going to need support. Want a shared planting space with vertical gardens instead? Vote for it! Every week, you can join your new community in voting for a Neighborhood Action Plan. Transform the shared lot, promote the performing arts, suggest a weekly workout, demand an upcycling initiative, or explore the many other options on the board. Just know that you could end up wearing a paper bag on your head if things go sideways….






Simguru's on Twitter
SimGuruFrost
@SimGuruFrost
·
1h
Love this trailer Smiling face with smiling eyes We'll have a lot more to show such as dumpster diving and more with our developer Livestream coming later in the month!



Ladders to come with base game update:
 

[sdhoey]

Thank you @MarianT

Pollution Info From Twitter


Thank you @scoed

Carls Eco Lifestyle Video

[ratchie]

It just feels like they have included features that complete other packs. Ladders for tiny living and solar panels etc for island living. Right now I would be more than happy to wait until it goes on sale before buying or at the very least see what other people have to say first.

Rachel

[sdhoey]

Yes, I agree, there are few things that should have been in other packs, but I am liking what I see. I have preordered it because I need to make calls on the IDC when it comes out.

I love the idea of solar panels on the roof.  The Bug Houses will be great for kids if it is possible for them to use them. But as I told scoed, as more gameplay trailers come out, we know more about it.

[ratchie]

The town in it's original state reminds me of my industrial little northern England home town and I am excited to recreate my home. I don't think that was what the game developers were hoping for though lol.

[Teresa]

For an expansion pack it needs to have, should have, more depth than what we got in the trailer.  The blurb offers more than the trailer and there is always stuff that doesn't get mentioned until the pack releases.  So, fingers crossed there are some nice surprises.

I will get it, of course - preorder, because that is what I do - buy everything they release.  Although I probably won't schedule a day of vacation to play. 

[ratchie]

My husband has pre ordered it for me it as a present saying and I quote. You've been playing it more just lately.

dwahhh

Rachel

[Teresa]

aww, that is sweet

[oshizu]

@sdhoey    Thanks so much for this thread!
I'm very excited about this new expansion!  It looks like it might offer a lot of new Build mode objects, which I love.
And I love packs with a story mode. Yes, we already got an environmental clean-up story in IL, but this process will be longer, more detailed, and more pervasive.

On the other hand, I'm concerned that our new "neighborhood" will be one small zone with 5-6 lots in it.
I haven't preordered yet, but I might not be able to wait until the pack goes on sale. Depends on future trailers and reviews, I guess.
Love the hippie-esque clothing, too.

(I'm a tad disappointed that the pack doesn't seem to be set in Wales....)

[MarianT]

One thing that really pleases me is that apparently you can place the community lot in any world, the one where your Sims vote on what it will be. So it's not just about cleaning things up but about building a community. I just hope that getting other Sims to vote for what your Sim wants isn't too tedious.

I like what I've seen of the clothing for children and the new hairstyles. Candle-making and fizzy drinks were not on my list of crafts that I wanted to see, but I don't mind.

[scoed]

OK my first thoughts on the trailer were very, very negative. I hated the concept. It seems to based on content already in game. Your actions having an impact cleaning the world, well it was a major selling point of island living. World turning more dystopian? See Strangerville. Eco themes? See the free off the grid lot trait patch, Island Living and Tiny Living. We have heavy environmentalism already. The pack seems very been there done that. Also given in the last year we had two eco living type themed packs and now a third, things are getting to feel a bit political and preachy. I wasn't a bit happy about the pack.

Well more I here the less annoyed I am. I am still trying hard to find a reason to buy it. The main gameplay theme is eco living and that theme is already done and it looks like it is just stuff recycled from Island Living, Strangerville, City Living and Get to Work. The clothes in my opinion are ugly hippy were I don't want in my game. Build/Buy has some things I want but $40 worth?

Then we have the crafts. None of them seems to add much. Candle Making? At beast it is a mood altering skill filling the exact role as Flower arranging. Upcycling? We have wood working already in game filling the same role likely that has real utility beyond making stuff for the home. Upcoming knitting skill will feel any role upcycling will likely have that handiness doesn't. Fizzy Drinks? Now we have 3 food skills already and bartending. I doubt this will add important new gameplay.

Ladders are coming as a patch so no pack needed.

So we are left with a changeable public lot. Is a lot we get to vote on and an ugly new town worth $40? That looks like it is it for new stuff. OK There will be at least one new trait, new harvestables, dumpster diving, a new aspiration (likely a play through type), and maybe a new death by flies. Honestly I don't see the value.

But sadly I will likely buy it if the death by flies is a thing. And bug farming is a thing that strangely appeals to me. But the ugly CAS crap that every spawned sim will be wearing as the AI always picks the worse clothes possible.

P.S I was going to post new info as it was posted in the official forums, twitter, the website news page and other official sources but I am just not feeling it and buried in the replies no one would read it anyway. I just can't get excited over rehashed content that feel like what we already have. That is why I deleted my earlier moved thread. It was repetitive, and I just don't see me doing what I normally do. Based on past experiences no one will noticed buried in the replies and I have zero excitement for this pack. I just don't see the point. I am not 100% sure I am even buying this dumpster diving pack of recycled and reused content. Honestly I was more sold before the trailer when I first seen the leak.

[scoed]

Carl posted an excellent video on Eco Lifestyle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVXNK5CMWLY

[mousef]

Ehhhh... I'm a fairly hippy-dippy eco-conscious type and I kinda hate this. People on reddit are calling the pack "Get Gentrified" and I agree, it seems very tone deaf.
Having My First Pet vibes with all the content that could have been included with other packs. And does anyone really want more very specialized and enormous crafting stations?
At least the ladders will be a free update.

I do like the grungy world though, it would make for some interesting apocalypse gameplay. And the freelance crafter career.
Would never ever pay full price for this, and I'll wait for reviews before dropping Animal Crossing and coming back to Sims lol

[MarianT]

Some new information:

Pollution will appear in all worlds except the destination worlds and Strangerville. But there will be a toggle so you don't have to have that if you don't want it.

You can get details in this thread: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/975294/eco-lifestyle-simguru-maxis-sourced-info/p3

[scoed]

I bought the pack today. As I read I seen things that shown that the devs did listen to my (and many other people's) major complaints of the last two EP. First, unlike the last two packs this pack effects play nearly everywhere. I think that should be a requirement to be an EP. The last two EP were self-contained and I was vocal about that. Also, people been begging for the ability to switch invasive features off. They did that here as well. I think for listening and doing the pack right that deserves some love. I was going to post about it when I first read about it but I was not able to post write away then @MarianT beat me to it.

I am still not really sold on the recycled content. I don't like it when games get preachy as the Sims have become still. But I love this game overall. I honestly want to want this pack. Them showing they might have heard my grips and that of others was enough to get me to buy. I am already regretting it. Now let us hope EA hears the complaints about this recycled idea of a pack. But if they have to reuse ideas already in-game at least they are doing it right. That is something.

[scoed]

Carl put out another Eco Lifestyle video.

https://youtu.be/UxKrlc8kv9w

[Brian_Z]

"Could be honey, could be liberal's tears"   XD

[scoed]

Ok here is undisputable proof The Sims is going down hill. They are posting on Tik Tok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@simgurugeorge/video/6826952130457341189

But it is more information on the environmental changes of the new world, I guess.

[sdhoey]

Ok here is undisputable proof The Sims is going down hill. They are posting on Tik Tok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@simgurugeorge/video/6826952130457341189

But it is more information on the environmental changes of the new world, I guess.

I see nothing wrong the TikTok post. It is not proof that The Sims is going downhill. TikTok is not for everyone, just like Twitter, tumbler or instagram isn't for everyone. So we can just take it as a funny, cute post from a guru that happens to use the app.

Have a happy day.

[Brian_Z]

TikTok is not for everyone, just like Twitter, tumbler or instagram isn't for everyone.

TikTok isn't just another social media site, it's a very shady Chinese operated one.  The folks at Maxis ought to know better.

[Brian_Z]

The SimGuru's questionable choice of platforms aside... Wow, that looks like Buffalo, NY!  Now I'm kinda getting excited, because what's being shown is very much like what's finally happening in downtown Buffalo.  There are many old grain elevators, which have gotten to the point where they MUST either get demolished or repurposed, and they're going for some really interesting repurposing.

[scoed]

@sdhoey01 the post on Tik Tok was mostly in jest. I  not a fan of Tik Tok but I was trying to be funny when pointing out a new source of information the gurus never used in the past.

[sdhoey]

New Gameplay trailer link added in the first post.

New Gameplay Trailer

[sdhoey]

EcoLifeStyle Lifestream May 21st @11am PT

"Join us May 21st @ 11AM PT on http://Twitch.tv/TheSims for a deep dive into the The Sims 4 #EcoLifestyle w/ host
@SimGuruGeorge
/
@SimGuruJill
.  We'll be covering CAS, BB, world, gameplay, and new free content coming to The Sims 4 base game! Party popper"

EcoGuruFrost on Twitter

[scoed]

It is official for all those who wished to take their lovers to a dumpster, pull them in and make sweet woohoo in the dumpster, now you can. I love new woohoo locations. Yes, this one sounds like you will need to visit a doctor to get a few vaccines and antibiotics after, but it is a new woohoo location never the less. This pack is so grungy, maybe I will finally get my fleas I always wanted. Yes, I know better than to hold my breath, but compared to dumpster woohoo, a few fleas are positively sanitary. Here is hoping.

[Nindigo]

I'm also looking forward to this pack. The bug farm in particular for some reason.

[scoed]

I wouldn't say I am looking forward to the pack, even if I bought it already. I am looking forward to any new deaths, the new woohoo spot, And the post apocalyptic look of heavy pollution. Not looking forward to the eco stuff, but the anti-eco stuff. Yes I love the bugs. Fit well into the post apocalyptic game I want to play.

[sdhoey]

It is official for all those who wished to take their lovers to a dumpster, pull them in and make sweet woohoo in the dumpster, now you can. I love new woohoo locations. Yes, this one sounds like you will need to visit a doctor to get a few vaccines and antibiotics after, but it is a new woohoo location never the less. This pack is so grungy, maybe I will finally get my fleas I always wanted. Yes, I know better than to hold my breath, but compared to dumpster woohoo, a few fleas are positively sanitary. Here is hoping.

For some reason this made me laugh out loud that my dog looked at me like I was crazy. LOL

[scoed]

It is official for all those who wished to take their lovers to a dumpster, pull them in and make sweet woohoo in the dumpster, now you can. I love new woohoo locations. Yes, this one sounds like you will need to visit a doctor to get a few vaccines and antibiotics after, but it is a new woohoo location never the less. This pack is so grungy, maybe I will finally get my fleas I always wanted. Yes, I know better than to hold my breath, but compared to dumpster woohoo, a few fleas are positively sanitary. Here is hoping.

For some reason this made me laugh out loud that my dog looked at me like I was crazy. LOL

Thank you.

Here is the Gameplay trailer blog.

https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/news/eco-lifestyle-gameplay

[Brian_Z]

Um... I hope the twitch stream actually tells us something about the pack.  This new trailer is just the teaser with a super annoying voice over.
Also, the bugs are for food.  Yummy.

[sdhoey]

It is official for all those who wished to take their lovers to a dumpster, pull them in and make sweet woohoo in the dumpster, now you can. I love new woohoo locations. Yes, this one sounds like you will need to visit a doctor to get a few vaccines and antibiotics after, but it is a new woohoo location never the less. This pack is so grungy, maybe I will finally get my fleas I always wanted. Yes, I know better than to hold my breath, but compared to dumpster woohoo, a few fleas are positively sanitary. Here is hoping.

For some reason this made me laugh out loud that my dog looked at me like I was crazy. LOL

Thank you.

Here is the Gameplay trailer blog.

https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/news/eco-lifestyle-gameplay

I knew I was missing something, Thanks my friend. I also linked it in the OP.

[scoed]

Sims arriving in Evergreen Harbor have their choice of three different neighborhoods. The community of Grims Quarry is best off, environmentally speaking, though grimy and cluttered with waste. Still, its clean air accentuates its appeal when compared to the middling Conifer Station and rundown Port Promise. Once Sims start making an effort, though, each of these neighborhoods transforms. Go all-in on the industrial-chic aesthetic by turning an old shipping container lot into your new home in Port Promise, or take a leisurely stroll atop of the old train station’s parkway in Conifer Station when Evergreen Harbor finally lives up to its name.

This excerpt from the gameplay blog makes me wonder if each neighborhood in the game environmental status is tracked separately. If so it can be a real pain depending on the system to keep every neighborhood clean if there is a gradual decline when visiting and not actively promoting a clean world during that visit. This makes me nervous. I really wish they would give us some details on this.

I guess I can wait 38 hours or so but each neighborhood having it's own pollution level and maintenance can be a mess. Good thing we can shut it all down. But I don't want to do so just to go beach combing as a family, or have a teen tour a college or two. That sounds annoying.

[MarianT]

Reading that excerpt, I got the impression that the pollution would improve all over the world, rather than in different neighborhoods. But as you say, we'll find out more tomorrow.

[Brian_Z]

Reading that excerpt, I got the impression that the pollution would improve all over the world, rather than in different neighborhoods. But as you say, we'll find out more tomorrow.

Yes, I know I always have worlds I rarely visit from game to game.  I wouldn't want to get everything all cleaned up, and then have a reason to visit say Willow Creek for the first time this save, and find that it's a dump.  And cleaning and maintaining every world separately would turn into the only thing you do anymore.

[oshizu]

Oooh, I wonder how many new lots we'll get? *rubs hands together in anticipation
While watching the trailer, I cracked up when the narrator claimed she needed to improve her eco-footprint than relocated from a hovel to a 3-story eco-friendly house with all the sparkly-new build items.
If she could afford to build that house, why live in her grungy hut in the first place? It was an absurd transition which made me LOL.

I'm hyped about tomorrow's livestream but usually never make it through all of a 2-hr stream. *checks the time again

[mousef]

Ayeeee the tea was true! Moar apartments! 15 lots total!

As for the free update...
Inventory. Management.
I've been waiting for this for 6 years.

[MarianT]

Probably the best livestream I've seen. I would encourage people to watch because they covered a lot of material. There is definitely enough for an expansion pack here.

Coming in the patch:
Ladders (toddlers and pets can't climb)
Inventory management
Split bills to reflect utilities
Firef…

Evergreen Harbor has 3 neighborhoods with 3 community lot spaces, a bar, and 9 residential lots, 2 of which are apartment buildings that can house 2 households each. Each neighborhood has its own eco-footprint -- industrial, neutral, or green. In other worlds, you'll get smog, but not trash strewn around.

3 Community lots that are decided by voting -- Maker lot, Market lot, and Community garden. It's up to the Sims in the neighborhood, but your Sims can influence them.
Neighborhood Action Plans are different -- 7 or 8, maybe more. In other worlds, your Sims can vote for them at the mailbox. Again, you can influence but it's how everyone votes.

New traits: maker, green fiend, freegan, and recycling disciple
2 new aspirations -- one to make things and one to live green.

Candlemaking -- Children can make candles and they burn down.
Fizzy drink maker
Recycler
Fabricator
Bug houses -- bombardier beetles, beetles, grubs, and crickets

Civil designer career has 2 branches
Freelance crafter

Lots of support for off-the-grid living.

[scoed]

@MarianT I agree. I will be honest, in spite of the fact I bought it, I was not looking forward to this EP. Now I can't wait. The coverage was excellent. The pack looked deep. The pack has a global feel like seasons. Four new CAS traits, are coming. Four. A new lot trait, and a new lot type are coming. How and what you build will actually matter. An active voting system where you can actually loose looks so cool. They added actual variety of play from the looks of things. I never had a livestream affect my opinion of a pack so much for the better before.

The thing I am most excited for is coming free a sortable inventory. That is a huge game breaker. We needed this.

I also love the flies. You can make friends with them, prevent them or they can kill you. I wonder if woohooing in a dumpster can anger the flies. I am going to find out. Things I will make my Sims do in the name of science. If not I guess I will get my sim to die to flies some other way. I will add that ghost to my collection.

One thing I was looking forward to that I didn't see is new recycling containers. Kinda shocking really.

[scoed]

OK they missed some cool things. Like a new harvestable.

https://twitter.com/SimGuruGeorge/status/1263587640554602496

[Brian_Z]

So a bunch of rather bulky crafting stations.  Looks like if you want to get into the crafting part, it's advisable to stuff the ballot box and get the community lot turned into the Maker's Space.

[scoed]

@Brian_Z it is true the crafting objects are bulky. Something I am not a fan of, it is typical for The Sims 4 as a whole. Look at things like the cupcake baking machine. It is huge. The science objects of a microscope and telescope. They are utterly ridiculous. Home versions are never like that in real life. At least give the 3D printer thing prints furniture it makes sense for it to be large. Same for the other crafting stations except the candle making one. I can forgive the bulkiness of the crafting stations as in real life they are bulky.

[scoed]

OK now we have had the Deep Dive Livestream, both blog posts, both trailers, a great many SimGuru tweets from EA, and the Game Changers are allowed to show their coverage, it is time to start talking about our plans for the pack.

Are you buying the pack?

If you are, what are you going to do first?

What are you most excited about and not so excited about?

What are your opinion of the pack as a whole?


I will start.

I am buying the pack. I already have in fact. I always was going to as I am a Sims completionist, but my opinion did a 180. I bought it to have it but almost didn't. Now I am excited about the pack.

As to what I plan on doing first, that is less clear. Normally I dive into play first. But I am so excited about the concept of the new community voted lot I am excited to build one. I have this idea of making one lot that depending on what is active that you can work on every skill, just not all at once as each lot type will have certain skills. Sims 4 skill items are so bulky that having access  to them all is a pain in your sims residence. At the same time learning the new game play systems is my go to and I really want to just dive into the main game play. Then the major overhaul of off the grid is also calling. I am so torn.

I am so excited about the voted on community lots. It makes me want to build and I am more of a gameplay player then a builder. Community voted NAPs excites me as well. Something I have to work for that I don't have perfect control over is so cool. I always love new traits. Sims 4 so needed more of them. But voted stuff wins. What am I not excited about? Lack of recycling bins bugs me. Combined with a recycled recycling theme, just bothers me. I hated the marketing of this pack. It almost talked me out of buying this pack. Worse marketing ever. I also don't like most of the CAS items.

Over all I am not excited about the theme, but I am thinking it looks very well done. I love how it has global reach. It seems to have plenty of cross pack play. It also looks deep. The voting system looks deep as sims will need to work to get what they want. Over all I am excited. New traits, great build/buy items, and the interconnectedness of the game play has me wanting this now. I am excited. Well except for townies that will be wearing the ugly CAS items. Not looking forward to that. Some of those clothes are just bad. Well they will make my homeless dream sim much more convincing as a lot of it looks like it was scavenged straight out of a dumpster. Speaking of which I am so looking forward to the dumpster. Dumpster woohoo is just so trashy. Who can blame the flies for going lethal after everyone rubbing their parts all over the flies home? Death by flies? Yes please.

[sdhoey]

I have preordered it and when I get it, I have to start testing it and seeing how it's gonna play into the Immortal Dynasty.

[Brian_Z]

Definitely getting it.  And definitely stuffing the ballot box for the "Free Love" NAP lol.  Goes perfectly with the... mods I play with.  Very likely going to have a new sim starting with zero funds and an empty lot, surviving through dumpster diving and other scrounging methods.

And yes, I agree about the CAS items.  It looks more like an abject poverty theme.  Do eco conscious people dress like that?  No, they pay extra for normal looking clothes that came with a tag that had a buzzword on it.  And the marketing was appalling.  Yes, the game is rated Teen, but that isn't who plays it.  The kids are busy blowing each other up in multiplayer battle games.

[scoed]

@Brian_Z That sounds fun. I want to do that too. Make sim, put sim on an empty lot, use cheats to reduce cash to $0. Then avoid any easy simoleon generating methods like beachcoming, copypasto, a job and the like. Then slowly build up a house with items scrounged in the dumpsters and built with the woodworking table, and the new skills. That sounds fun. Only income is from dumpster diving and selling stuff made from dumpster diving.

[oshizu]

I don't have to pretest Eco Lifestyle or anything like that, but I preordered it soon after it became available.

I'm playing a Build-A-City Challenge where I'm currently playing my last household (my 14th) of Round 1. I've played each household one week at a time.
After the current week, I'm going to stop until Eco Lifestyle comes out.
I will delete all the EL premade sims and assign the Eco-Master/Knox, Master Crafter/?, and Enterpreneur/Bessr roles to my own sims.
(I read somewhere that we can do it, but I don't know how yet.) I will eventually move two households into each of the three neighborhoods.
I'll be moving some households out of Oasis Springs so I can see how the Community Space lots function outside of Evergreen Harbor.
I'll want my Master Crafter sims to live on 40x30 or larger lots, if possible.

I'm curious how the growth of the community garden will balance with the home-lot gardens. Do we need to choose whether to be there or at the home lot in order to harvest?
Will the community garden make the large (complete and perfect) home garden obsolete? Sine the residential lots are all no larger than 30x20, the pack seems to encourage our sims to visit the community space.
Will I want to add toddler amenities to the community spaces?

Eco Lifestyle offers numerous new approaches to playing and building. Splitting up the weekly bill components is very clever, adding new depth to off-the-grid lots.
There is so much I look forward to doing in this new expansion. I can't enumerate what I "like best."
As for what I'm "not excited about": these days, I'm more focused on giving thanks.

[MarianT]

@Brian_Z That sounds fun. I want to do that too. Make sim, put sim on an empty lot, use cheats to reduce cash to $0. Then avoid any easy simoleon generating methods like beachcoming, copypasto, a job and the like. Then slowly build up a house with items scrounged in the dumpsters and built with the woodworking table, and the new skills. That sounds fun. Only income is from dumpster diving and selling stuff made from dumpster diving.

Sounds like a future challenge! But we won't be able to do an Eco Lifestyle one for a while.

As for your questions, I already pre-ordered.
What I plan to do first is put a couple of community center lots in my Wisewoman file. The big lot in Del Sol Valley will be bulldozed and one will go there, next to the Zests and the Calientes.

Most of my Sims families are the only households in their neighborhoods, so I might have to move in some families and see what they come up with for N.A.P.'s.

I'm excited about the Neighborhood Action Plans and the Community lots, also about living off the grid. And I want to see those neighborhoods in Evergreen Harbor in their various states.

Not so excited about dumpster woo-hoo (although dumpster diving is fine), death by flies, eating bugs, or the meat garden.

Overall, my opinion is high. My fingers are crossed that this will produce the right amount of unpredictability that TS4 has lacked.

[Brian_Z]

Big lots encourage the building of big rambling mansions, kind of the opposite of the theme of this pack.  So that's probably the reasoning behind the lots being no bigger than 30x20, along with the urban setting.  A basement could probably hold all the crafting equipment, freeing up the yard for the garden.  The vertical garden item looks like it can double the number of plants in a space.  It does sound like you're going to want to grow a lot of different things, if you're going to make all this stuff.
And speaking of big gardens, finally something to do with all that surplus produce!  You can sell it, but there's better ways to make money.  Now you can feed it into the shredder and get bits and pieces, which can be made into things which had nothing to do with the ridiculous stack of spinach you had.

[oshizu]

@Brian_Z
Rather than the big, rambling mansion, I'm a fan of the huge yard.
Don't want to lose our Tiny Living perks, right?

[scoed]

Well I am into micro homes and huge crafting papillons to protect all the oversized skill objects from the weather. Micro home perks rule. Before the last stuff pack mansions everywhere, now not a mansion to be found among my played sims. Even large families have micro homes with papillon kitchens. Only real issue is extremely col or hot weather. You just have to micro manage your sims chothes when papillon living.

I wonder how the whole new pollution/fire/bill systems are going to change my builds. It could change things as much as my micro home obsession. I am so excited.

[Brian_Z]

I'm not really sure how to build a butterfly, but pavilions are very useful for protecting electronics and growing plants with Sheltered status. 

If you put railings around your flat roof, that doesn't make it count as a new floor and add to the tile count, does it?  As long as you place them by drawing, not putting walls then converting them?

[Deklitch]

Are you buying the pack?
No

If you are, what are you going to do first?
N/A

What are you most excited about and not so excited about?
I'm not excited about anything to do with the pack. At this point, I'm more interested in the Naughty Knight Knickers, I mean Nifty Knitting Pack than this one. And from my title of that pack, you can hopefully tell I'm not overly excited about that pack either.

What are your opinion of the pack as a whole?
I'm giving it a miss. It is just another example in the long line of them that I'm not in the target market of the Sims franchise any more.

[Dreamweaver]

Are you buying the pack?
No

If you are, what are you going to do first?
N/A

What are you most excited about and not so excited about?
Not excited about any of this pack which is rare for me. Usually at least one thing catches my interest and I wind up buying it.

What are your opinion of the pack as a whole?
I don't know who this pack is meant for but it's not me.