pets pros and cons?

[AlishySimmy]

I might be buying the Pets ep soon. I was wondering what everyone likes and doesn't like about this ep? is it annoying? worth buying?

[katya_stevens]

Pros: If you've played any of the previous Pets EPs, this is a major step up, especially from TS2: Pets. The animals are more realistic, there's the addition of horses and numerous minor pets (various birds, rodents, lizards, turtles, snakes). Like TS2, cats/dogs/horses can be trained, but unlike TS2 the behaviours don't go in to a trained section but instead become part of a pet's personality. Got a cat that likes yowling or had the Loud trait? Scold it enough and it'll drop the trait; scold it more and it'll develop the quiet trait (conversely, praise it enough and if it hasn't already got the Noisy trait, it will develop it). CAH pets start with three traits and born-in-game (BIG) pets get two, but by reinforcement can gain more traits than this (my record is six, and that's just modifying existing behaviour without specifically choosing to train for traits). BIG pets also inherit traits from parents as well as actually looking like their adult selves when young (TS2 had cats and dogs with a base colour and shape; TS3 actually has all the coat patterns, body shape and colours defined from birth for dogs, cats and horses).

Pro/con depending on playstyle: If you train a cat to hunt or a dog to search for treasure, you will quickly end up with more money than you know what to do with. Some of the rare minor animals can sell for $900-$1000+, while dogs can unearth the highest costing gems with little effort.

Cons: It bumps up the requirements to play the game a lot. Cats are reportedly noisy even with the quiet trait (I play with sound off, so can't verify).

[abraven]

The only thing I dont like about it are the constant random strays that turn up night and day. Not to mention Deer and wild horses on my sims doorstep. As sson as they appear my sims ( who arent animal lovers) will want to watch wild animals. Totally unrealistic and annoying.

That said, I agree with Katya in that it's an improvement on sims2 pets.

I think I could have saved my money. the game is awesome enough without it.

[InventerLover]

Pros: Horses are inside the game, too. Other Non-Playable pets are in here too. What I love most from this Expansion Pack is that Horses can travel anywhere as long as you train them, and your sim as well.

Cons: Depending on what specs you have for the game, and depending on how many mods you have, the horse will freeze midway through the jumping post, also I always hate "Unsaddle Me" modlet :(
Kinda sad, but so true. horses are sometimes grumpy (Depending on what trait).

[mithrak_nl]

Pros :
- Having a pet actually seems fun (so far) I really like breeding and training horses.
- I like the layout and look of Appaloosa Plains.
Cons :
- I dont know why, but Pets slowed down my game immensely. I get the impression it has something to do with the new neighbourhood Appaloosa Plains. I noticed that Sims get stuck more often then in other neighbourhoods. So Im going to try one of the others first before I start raging at EA :p
- Routing issues. Interacting with animals shows similar routing issues as with toddlers. One reason why I didnt have families with toddlers. Horses seem to be even worse in this aspect, but so far the fun gameplay makes up for that.
- More retarded gameplay issues. I dont know if they are intended or not, but having sims queue up to disturb my horse when he is sleeping, is just wrong imo.

EA really needs to start fixing routing issues before rushing to the next expansion release imo. It seems to get worse with each expansion.

I really think that the performance issues are because of a badly optimised game and not just pc specs. My sims runs sluggish since I installed Pets, while I can run Skyrim smoothly at highest settings. If I notice smoother gameplay in one of the older neighbourhoods, then its EA messing up a new neighbourhood again.

[Zokugai]

Pets (or at least the big ones, horses and large dogs) have routing issues. Especially horses. Make sure you give them enough room to move.

As a pro? Hm. With Twallan's traveler mod, you can take horses on vacation, which makes that obnoxious WA tendency to use rural, no-vehicle footpaths instead of roads much faster to deal with,

[Howabominable]

The major con for me is the lagging and crashing, which definitely increased with this EP, unfortunately. Also, as others have mentioned the routing issues with horses. You have to be REALLY PATIENT and be prepared to tell your sim to mount a horse 2 or 3 times before they might actually do it. People tell me I have the patience of a saint and even I start screaming at my sims sometimes.

Other than that, it's great. I love the pets, I love the horses, I love the new neighborhood. I couldn't imagine the game without the pets now. I just wish it were more stable.

[DigitalSympathies]

His name is ~Magic~. The only con about ~Magic~ is that you can't touch his eyeballs without them dislodging and you have to feed him through a tube.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4999/screenshot182z.jpg

Take one home today! ^_^

[atomicunicorns]

it's a good ep, but it can crash sometimes. It may be because I have so much cc and/or ep's, but it has slowed my game down a little.
But, the pets are a welcome addition to the game, especially the unicorns!