I was just wondering why they would make the new world have an autumn theme? I mean, yeah, they can do anything they want.. But wouldn't it be out of place? Sims walking around in shorts and tank tops etc.. What if they were to give us pets and weather in the same EP? When you think about it, it would sort of fit.. animals and nature...

Anyway, I'm just musing, really. :P

Or, like in Sims 2, Seasons is next, and they just want to make sure we know it. =P Instead of hiding a subtle hint, they're just saying "BOOYAH! It's Autumn! We only have one season left, and it's coming with the expansion, so hang on to yer britches." And I guess they got tired of spring/summer green towns, so they're giving us a splash of variety. Really, Sunset Valley was Summery, Twinbrook was sort of Spring-like, and since LN came with a city that could be either, it's only fair we get more red and orange trees for a change.

Anything to give me some plant-life variety makes me happy. But I am hoping this is one of the hidden 'hints' to the next EP. I can't wait until we start getting more information. Since Town Life Stuff is going to be out in less than a week, I'm hoping for more screenshots at the least pretty soon.

Maybe instead of a season ep, they'll release one season each in 4 other expansions to force us to buy them all.

Dooon't even joke about that!

I agree about some of the wildlife looking really out of place in most of the city maps - deer for example - but racoons would be great. They'd fit right in. Only place I've ever seen a non-pet Racoon was on a roof in Boston.

I really like the idea of spawners for wildlife, but I almost feel that it would take away something about seeing them.
Personally I think there should be certain circumstances and requirements met within a town or lot for certain animals to show up. If the environment is low, you get pesty racoons. If you have lots of gardening plants and a big garden, deer etc. It could stop animals looking out of place, but would still give a variation to what you'd see. Because on the bridgeport hill area you may see things like Deer on occasion, but not really in the city main.

I'd rather there be an equivilent to the social worker for pets, and you can call up and adopt one and maybe get one which was taken away from someone else? But runaway pets if the owner scolds them or they don't like them would make sense, maybe be more like with teenagers though, they bog off but you can call the police or an animal catcher, if they're wearing a collar you're more likely to get them back, and you get fined for letting them lose.
Although I've known people who have taken wonderful care of their cats, but the cat has simply moved on to a different home, and I know people who have taken in 'stray' cats which are clearly not strays, fed them and given them a bed outside, then the cat moves in of it's own accord and the old owners are out a cat. But cats are funny like that I guess.

Possibly to hint that a Seasonal themed pack is either in development or in the planning process. The colorful trees may in fact be an obvious "Easter Egg" which the majority of people over-look.

I think you are right about that. Or well, I hope you are

Not sure if it was already confirmed or not, but I got a reply from simgurugraham via twitter that there will only be two sizes of dogs, again... so it seems like chihuahuas the size of spaniels and whippets the size of great danes are back! You'd think they would have introduced a third or fourth size. I understand that a slider would be asking to much, but simply a small, medium or large size option shouldn't be that hard. Damn.

edit - having re-read the tweet I can see almost a glimmer of hope that there may be slight variation, as he says they build out their breeds from those two distinct sizes... but most likely he means they just randomly chose which medium dogs are big and which are small and expect us to put up with it. (Already hoping that some enterprising modder will put together a slider for height, leg length, body length etc. like they have for actual sims. Even if it will make some of the animations not fit, I'd rather have the variation)

tweet link: http://www.tweetdeck.com/twitter/SimGuruGraham/~S1Bae

I live in a small city, and if you leave the main city, you will definitely find some deer. Actually, a car hit a deer downtown once, so...

I'd like people to remember that while deer and raccoon are AWESOME and I want to see them in some places... ...there are no raccoons in France, Egypt, China, New Zealand, Australia, and whole massive heap of other countries that players may or may not make with CAW. Spawners appeal to me because they allow an iota of control over the local fauna of a town.

What would be great is if when you make a town you had a choice to make it country or city, or even an inbetween suburban selection. EA could add that to the existing neighborhoods. Sunset-suburban, Bridgeport-city, Riverview and new city-country.

I'm reasonably certain that those countries don't have real vampires either.

Yes, but some countries DO have real raccoons, and fauna is emblematic of certain countries.

Did we discusses yet the new profession that will probably come with Pets? Since every EP is giving us a new "profession" instead of the old "carreers" it would be cool to have a vet profession.

Oh, that would be really cool. Somebody mentioned a vet career some pages back, but I hadn't really considered it as a profession, just a normal career. If there is a new profession, I hope they give us a new lot for it as well, like the fire station and stylist building. I didn't like having to have the daycare in my house.

i'm guessing that the strays aspect will work similarly to how it does in real life (or at least how 'realistically' from my experience) and you'll see them roaming about the neighborhood as well as by your house. i wonder if they'll go as far to have them appear more often at restaurants? or if there will be a sim trait of animal-loving, and animals will tend to appear by their house more often? i liked the idea i saw someone post about having stray spawners, that way the sim city hall doesn't get overthrown by stray dogs.

Awesome discovery!

I downloaded the latest patch and installed it to check what was new. I opened DeltaBuild0.package and went to the STBL to see if something was changed. Last time I did this, I discovered the Vehicle Enthusiast trait. This time I found tons of new information about pets!

I can't believe EA left this information for us !

Here's a summary of my findings:

• New items: mechanical bull, vending machines (candy, drinks, and healthy food) and ice cream trucks.
• Wild animals: horses (can be tamed), strays (can be adopted), raccoons and deers.
• New creature: unicorn. Can start a fire, teleport, cure Sims, bless and curse Sims and plants, and can be released.
• Competitions: racing and cross country (beginner, advanced, and international).
• New NPCs lifetime wishes: jockeys, zoologists, animal rescuers, fairy tale finders, ark builders.
• New traits: equestrian, cat person, dog person, animal expert, and animal lover.
• Pet traits: likes swimming (dog only), lazy, aggressive, agile (horse only), brave, destructive, fast (horse only), hyper, loyal (dog only), gentle (horse only), hydrophobic (dog only), nervous (horse only), noisy, piggy, playful, proud, skittish, adventurous, cluless, friendly, genius, hunter, independent, neat, non-destructive, mean, quiet, shy, hates jumping (horse only), ornery (horse only), raised by wolves (may be dogs only), and reinforcement.
• Tricks: sit, sit up, shake, speak, roll over, play dead. Trick skill.
• New skill: riding.
• Pet skills: racing and jumping.
• New lots: cat jungle, horse ranch, and dog park.
• Other pets: ants, birds (blue gold macaw, catalina, macow, cockatoo, congo African gray, crow, falcon, spotted sixam, yellow naped Amazon), lizards (anole lizard, ancient dragon, gecko, chameleon, pygmy komodo dragon, agama lizard, texas spiny lizard), rodents (chinchillas, hedgehogs, squirrels, rats, shrews, womrats), snakes (yellow python, garter snake, emerald tree boa snake, malayan krait snake, yellow chondro python, scarlet king snake, San Francisco garter snake, iridescent shieldtail snake, and mini python), and turtles (barbours map, spotted, eastern box, Indian roofed, red eared slider, pygmy, spiny, and western painted).
• New careers: horse(wo)man
• Lifetime rewards: pet clone voucher, young again (for pets), steel bladder (for pets), swank pet bed, pet hygienator, vomit immunity, alpha, atomic grazer, best behavior, fearless foal, equine zen, desert pony, friend of the herd, gardener's delight, and lucky mount.
• Pets can gain or lose traits.
• Horses will nurse from their mother or be bottlefed.
• Foals get negative moodlets for being separated from their mothers.
• Horses eat carrots.
• Pets can exorcise ghosts?
• Dogs can swim.
• Cats can hunt and fish birds, snakes, turtles, lizards, beetles, fish, and rodents. Dogs can hunt too.
• One foal per pregnancy (horses), litters per pregnacy (cats/dogs).
• Horses can kick Sims.
• Horses have excercise and thirst motives. Dogs have destruction motive.
• Pets don't have jobs.
• Pets don't receive opportunities.
• Pets cannot be placed on vacation lots.
• Pets do not have lifetime wishes.
• Cat breeds: Black Cat, Grey Striped, Persian, Siamese, Singapura, Russian Blue, Tuxedo.
• Dog breeds: Border Collie, Collie, Pug, Dalmatian, Doberman, Poodle, Setter, Dachshund, Bull Dog, Highland Terrier, Pitbull, Shiba Inu, Australian Shepherd, Chow Chow, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Newfoundland, Samoyed, Giant Schnauzer, Siberian Husky, Spaniel Springer, Terrier Airedale, Terrier Kerry Blue.
• Horse breeds: American Painted, Friesan, Icelandic, Morgan, Palomino.

There's more information!

Please note that the STBL is not complete yet and the game is still in development so more breeds, traits, careers, etc. may be added or not.

Edit: removed files because of MTS rules, sorry. You can get your own by opening your DeltaBuild0.package.

This is fantastic stuff!! But you might want to remove the file. MTS prohibits sharing game files, and anyone who want to can dig into their own copy. ^_^

Unicorns sound like fun! It'll be a shame if we get no werewolf/shapeshifter, though!

Huh, it looks like pets are going to have wishes.

Woaaaah this is awesome! I actually cannot wait ^_^

There's so much stuff there! D8

I really do wonder if those 'other pets' are spawners. Past experience says yes.

And I knew about deer and raccoons, but squirrels and Komodo Dragons! Hopefully, they wont be narrowed to a fish bowl lol

Apparently you can go to the hospital to get plastic surgery. :o

i hate that the new creature is not human

"Unicorns won't allow themselves to be bred like that!"

Er...