Now Mingham. To be fair, I'm pretty sure boxes are impossible on the quantum level in your universe.

(Scumthorpes ... 'nuf said, LOL!)

They haven't gone into specifics yet, but I'm assuming a vaguely Sunlit Tides-esque map will be included in order to showcase boats and resorts. Which brings me to another point- contrary to some people's fears that all the upcoming expansions are going to be World Adventures-esque travel-based ones, I don't see any evidence that Island Paradise will have anything to do with subhoods. Everything said about houseboats so far seems to imply they're permanent residences, and how can you possibly run a hotel or rentable home if your sim doesn't normally exist on the same map as it? I'm pretty sure this is a regular expansion, and I'm glad it appears that way.

(As for existing maps and boats: Most maps at least have a river, which one could probably still place a smaller houseboat on. Lucky Palms will be an interesting case due to the potential for replacing its imitation houseboat lots with actual, literal houseboats, Sunlit Tides might actually suit boats rather well once someone comes up with a routing fix for it and Barnacle Bay is an island)

There will be a new world with IP. One of the Simgurus confirmed this in the Aurora Skies thread on the official boards. He or she said it would be a chain of islands.

I'm exited about this EP, we'll finally have boats, and proper ones, not decorations. I'm just curious about how they will work, and how to builld them. Running a hotel is awesome - it would actually be awesome even if we could only stay at a hotel, like in TS2 Bon Voyage, but running a hotel/resort is even better, as well as the ability to sell things (kinda OFB feature, how I miss OFB!). I'm not that exited about mersims though. Since Supernatural, I'm sorta fed up with occults - besides, if those mersims will be creepy (like fairies... well, at least, I don't like them at all, as well as zombies), we'd better not have them at all. But I have to see and hear more about them before I can say whether I want them or not. Anyway, new realistic aspects of gameplay always attract me more. If EA implements the option of travelling to other worlds (or make the new world visitable like WA locations) that will be cool.

But wouldn't sailing your boat off into the sunset, out of sight of land, kind of be the ultimate small sub-hood you could devise for you and your sweetie to inhabit?

I am sort of curious to see how EA is going to pull tis off, fro a wolrd building standpoint. Consider that a large world currently is 2048 squares to a side. Since each square is abot 30 inches (2.5 feet) across, this means that a large world takes up on squrea mile, moe of less) This is not an awful lot of space to pilot a boat.

I see no reason EA could not make a larger world, particularly if it is mostly water. In fact a water world might actually be easier for a computer to render. Since we are taling about virtual space which really is unlimited, I don't see why EA could not make a mega large world with many virtual islands.

I hope there's a way to own a houseboat and regular house at the same time. I'd like to have a families living permanently on houseboats, but I'd also love to have a family living in a houseboat during summer and moving back to their regular home during autumn. Or a sim who lives in a apartment and throws parties in his/her boat every now and then. It should be possible without moving back and forth and potentially losing their old house because of story progression. At least houseboats will be nice vacation homes for traveling, but it should be possible to own two homes in the base neighborhood by now.

Lag?

I should think that virtual boats have a better turning radius than those in real life, so they don't require as much space to maneuver around...

Graham did indicate this was a major development in the Sims world -- a huge innovation for gameplay. So I'm excited to see how it works.

ETA: W00T! I'm a space pony!

I have no idea what that means...

Has anyone seen Graham's new Tweet?

Oh please. Give me a way to skip all woohoo animations, THAT might be worthwhile. Frankly I can't get excited about yet another thing I have to tap my fingers and roll my eyes through until it's over and I can actually play again.

More woohoo animations, not less. And I want the pre-woohoo cutscenes we had in TS2.

Oh God. I can see the lag already. Or the bugs that put your sim's mother into the cutscene with him instead of his wife XD

Fine, as long as those of us who don't have a penchant for watching soft porn can set it in the options to skip the silly things.

Are you asking if there is going to be a new world? Since they said, when they announced IP, that the world would have many islands to explore -- I'm thinking yes, there will be a new world with the EP.

Helicopters plz

The Victorian era ended a long time ago. Welcome to the 21st century where romance is not a dirty word.

I absolutely fell in love with Don Lothario because of the cutscenes. His lot was the first one I played when I installed Sims 2. I really miss all the cutscenes, alien births, taking your teen to college, graduating college, moving in a new home, etc.

But a college-bound vampire would end up burning to death due to the length of the cutscene, not giving you a chance to have them rush inside the dorm. So much for a memorable moment. That was my last time playing with a vampire. It was too traumatizing to experience.

We have parasols now. It makes it all better. <3

Silly Frankie... everyone knows vampires only attend night school.

Not according to EA. They apparently enjoy bending the rules a tad. The vampires in The Sims 2 should've at least been given an exclusive nocturnal cutscene. Then again, I'm truly silly for ever forgetting that this is EA we're talking about.



I didn't know that they prevented vampires from burning in the sun. I just haven't tried playing with a vampire in The Sims 3 yet, so I definitely overlooked that.

http://simsvip.com/2013/02/06/islan...eel-animations/

Looks like we get to have some interactions with or reactions to an octopus, sharks, sea turtle, etc.

Are the octopus and sea turtle new?

Vampires are affected by the sun, but not as severely this time. Their needs will drop faster when they're exposed to sunlight than they do at night or when inside, but not to such an extent that they die within a minute of being outside like in TS2. The unique vampire death this time around is linked to running out of blood rather than sunlight exposure, so unless the increased motive decay resulting from being outside totally depletes their Thirst bar they should be fine.



Yep, there definitely haven't been any sea turtles or octopi before. I assume they'll be something vaguely akin to larger versions of the snakes, birds and other minor wildlife added in Pets in gameplay terms. And if these creatures are visible and have animations, that'd suggest that scuba diving may not be a rabbithole-type interaction after all. This actually sounds quite promising.

Two things I wonder about when looking at that information, though:

- There will apparently be sharks. Please, please, PLEASE let there be a new "eaten by shark" death in this one. Just a cartoony one where a sim is swallowed in one bite a la being eaten by the cowplant- that'd make the entire expansion for me.

- At least one form of marine life can be talked to. Underwater. Possible evidence of a unique Mersim ability if they do respond to popular demand and make them the new life state?

Omg, I definitely feel like this suggests we're going to be able to follow our Sims underwater now! Octopi!!

Tweet from first focus test group session (today)
Graham Nardone ‏@SimGuruGraham
I'm like a proud papa watching people drive their houseboats around

Jan 31
Graham Nardone ‏@SimGuruGraham
Just had my houseboat successfully dock for the first time! It's incredible how much the game has progressed over the last week.

Sheryl Riley ‏@AgentSheryl
@SimGuruGraham What use to happen when you tried to dock?

Graham Nardone ‏@SimGuruGraham
@AgentSheryl Most recently it'd route fail and the simulator would hang for 10 secs. Before that, asserts, script errors, etc.

Doesn't sound like Edit Town to me...