Umm, let's see.

Bridgeport? To begin with, over the past 40 years I've lived in may cities (actual cities, not ginormous 'burbs like LA), and in every single one only a very, very tiny percentage of people actually lived in high rise buildings. The majority of urban dwellers live in smaller buildings and I personally have never resided in a building with more than five stories, so Bridgeport is fail from the start. Second, Bridgeport is missing anything resembling an associated 'burb. I read where the designers based Bridgeport on San Francisco and LA; if so, then they obviously are entirely ignorant of both. The majority of the City and County of San Francisco is basically suburbish.

Twinbrook? Over half the map is swamp. 'Nuff said.

Just to mention Barnacle Bay and Riverview (not expansion pack towns). BB is craptastic, and as for Riverview, well I've always hated the midwest, so no love lost there for me.

That leaves Sunset Valley, the EA town with less suck.

I want to add that I think Hidden Springs should be a free download for anyone who bought Generations.

Hmm, this town looks a bit, um, boring. It suffers the same issue that same issue that Sunset Valley suffered; it's too perfect, so much that it's kind of ugly, to be honest. While pretty and perfect seems nice, I kind of like variety, as in a city, a nice suburb, a ghetto, an industrial part, and empty space all within the proximity of one world. Also, looking at those pictures, it looks pretty small, and it looks like it barely has enough space for all of the buildings that it already has, so no large families can live in that town without terrible overcrowding. And who in the right mind would pay $20 for this? There are several great worlds that you can download (for free!), or, if you're particularly talented, you could take a stab at creating your own world. But I think I'll stick with Bridgeport for now.

I LOVE the physical design of the world. It's beautiful.

What I REALLY don't like is the way EA builds lots. They are really hit and miss - most of the time a miss. I'm sure it wouldn't break EA's bank to bring in some lot builders, or have the designers stop designing useless and/or furniture (I'm still waiting for a sectional that looks like an actual couch) and design some homes that give the woodland landscape some character, and after that, work on their lot building skills. Did you all see that mansion's exterior? I saw the interior - it's not THAT bad, but as a whole, it's terrible.

I'd like to see more pictures of the world before I decide what I think about it. I'm still surprised that this is a Store world, and not the one included in Pets. Makes me worried about what WILL come with Pets, to be honest. This one seems like it would have worked fine with Unicorns.

Meh. I'll get it eventually, regardless. Just not any time soon. No money + other stuff coming out = nnoooooo money.

EA worlds are great if used as a base, if you want a landscape to work with, without using CAW that is. I will join the masses and say that this world is particularly amateurish. Though with a makeover, the world could in fact be something unique.

There's a video here.

BTW, it looks like the producer doesn't download lots that often. "It's so detailed and really really fancy."

There are tons of free, fantastic custom content, millions of unique, original lots, dozens beautiful worlds right in their official forum and elsewhere for their references...thus EA always manage to put up fugly pre-built houses in their worlds.

I actually think that it looks really nice! It reminds me of Norway, with the mountains and the nature (I've never been to Norway, but how I imagine it). It'll need a little bit of tweaking, but overall it looks like a nice world. We'll have to wait and see (x

I was just about to say something about the eggplant but its already been discovered. I find it odd that EA would let something like a harvestable from their next EP slip into pictures for a different project. Someone was bound to notice it sooner or later. Maybe it's a hint? I would love an Eggplant Lasagna or Eggplant Parmesan recipe

Haven't Sims always already eaten an eggplant when you gave them the Vegetarian trait in CAS? At least that's what I came up with when I wrecked my brain to remember where I've seen that vegetable before.

ETA: Oh, and btw, the video mentions this town as a resort for celebrities. I fear the worst for LN users.

When she says "we wanted to do something different with Hidden Springs - it's surrounded by mountains, and there's a lake near by", I don't think she ever played SUnset Valley, Twinbrook and Bridgeport. lol

The problem with player made worlds, I find, is that more often than not they are too detailed, unpopulated, too large and contain too much CC. I also find this with player made lots; they look pretty, but the excessive amount of trees and shrubbery makes them impossible to play.
For those of us who are, for example, playing on a laptop, the EA worlds are more than acceptable.

But the price is silly. I remember the good ol' days of TS1 where every Thursday they'd release a new object FOR FREE. Oh, those were the days...

This looks like a great world. I can't wait to get it. And ski lodges don't have snow in the summer, the ones near where I live are open in the summer with limited services (you can ride the snow lifts to the top of the hill or eat at the restaurants). Like a previous poster said, it'll be beautiful when we get weather.

As for custom world created by the community, most of the ones I download are pretty but the routing is awful or they have so many other problems they crash frequently. Others are in development, but never get released. That means there are only a handful that can be played. So to me, there really isn't a large variety of custom worlds.

Regarding the way EA builds and designs houses, I always thought they did the absolute minimum for 2 reasons: to lower the resource requirements for PC's, and to encourage players to renovate the houses themselves. This way a lower-end PC user can install and run the game, and a medium or higher-end PC user can upgrade the house and town to run according to their own requirements and desires. If you look at the houses they are dull, with mismatched wallpaper or outdated colors. Just like what you would get if you bought a used home. So as your Sims save money they upgrade the decorating, furniture, add rooms, change out the windows. Well, that's the way I play anyway. I really love to renovate the EA houses.

There are several detailed, populated, manageable, no CC worlds out there...

The biggest problem with player created worlds apart from cc usage is that more often than not they decide to withdraw them for whatever reason. Currently I'm stuck with two fresh games both in a user created world that were removed from the Exchange again. Both worlds have some errors I wanted to find out solutions for, but, alas, the creators withdrew themselves, too. Later I found out the reason for the withdrawal and it's a bit pathetic, to say the least.
But anyway, following this, the only advantages of EA created worlds over user created ones that I can see is: they don't use cc and they remain online longer

Player created worlds do have problems sometimes. But they are created by players who are giving their time and effort for free. EA's Barnacle Bay didn't even have fish spawners in the fishing spots, and their other towns require a player made fix for their routing problems. I had Sims traveling in France recently, and in one of the campsites the restrooms both had the female only doors, so my poor guy had to go to town to take a piss. And those worlds are made by people being paid for their time and effort.

I have a couple of worlds I made for my wife, she gets into decorating so there isn't to much props but the lots are big . never thought they were good enough to upload but if you want to take a look I will .they are pre generation as my caw quit working with the 1.24 patch[IMG][/IMG]

Sorry if I may have made myself misunderstood. I did not intend to criticise player made worlds. In fact these are the only ones I use at the moment. It was a less than serious comment that EA is at least reliable in that they keep their worlds online longer than other creators may.
I was just a bit annoyed recently when I wanted to re-download a world from the Exchange only to find out that the creator had withdrawn all of their worlds due to some previous argument with other creators. And this at least will not happen with EA worlds, their creators are immune to that

Thank you so much for posting that. In the video, it shows a whole 'nother section of the town and it's this section which makes me want to purchase. In addition to having a much more woodsy feeling, it has beaches!

I was unaware the foot massager chair (availabe in the ea store) actually did anything!! Great, now gimmee a massage TABLE, please.

Also: agreeing with all the (kind-hearted) criticism of user-made worlds. It's pathetically easy to add fish spawners yourself, if that's your only complaint, and having such "simple" houses is greatly appreciated by my computer. I'm still pissed that I had no idea what a "32 bit processor" meant. It means that my computer will never ever accept more than 4 gig of ram. Fuckers. And to upgrade to a 64 bit means that I need a new processor, mother board, video card, compatible ram, and a new operating system. um, yeah. Which means I'm stuck with this piece of shit for another two years. I told the owner of the geek store, the person who has helped me for the last fifteen years select new computers that I DIDN'T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT COMPUTERS ever since manufactures switched to that dual quad core business, hello. An extra $100 bucks at the beginning (to buy a 64 bit) would have saved me a couple FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS and TWO MORE YEARS OF TEARS. I hate him for not recognizing my stupidity. grrrrrr.

Yes, it is pathetically easy to add fish spawners. However, I expect an EA made world that costs $20 to have these simple basic things already in them. It's also pathetically easy to make your own sandwich, but when I pay a restaurant for one, I don't expect them to hand me two slices of bread and some ingredients to assemble it myself.

Also, you can only add spawners to lots. You'll notice in the base game towns that spawners are often located in off lot locations. Those can only be added by the world builder, so a town that is lacking in spawners can only be fixed by the player in a limited way.

Barnacle Bay has one fishing spot that doesn't even have any water on it.

if it is possible to "love" someone based on a single written post without knowing anything else about them...then consider yourself "loved" by me, you've just made my "christmas card list"

"Matt's Christmas Card List"

1: Self
2: Calisims

obviously i mimic and mirror everything you just said

well said...indeed

I've been playing BB for a couple of weeks, saw the waterless, fishing spot. I never really paid too much attention to it, my sims are partyers, so they hardly ever fish. I don't even pay attention to where to fish for certain varieties, even though one of my active sims live right off the ocean.

I have seen lots of CC-less user created worlds that have detail, variety of living styles, and true beauty from actually taking time to work the theme they are portraying. I hope EA employees have seen them also, since the ones I am talking about are in the exchange. Also these worlds cause no lag, so I must conclude EA just doesn't have creative designers for their lots, or using the excuse for making low detailed lots for lower powered computers.

EDIT: @ Calisims: There is no excuse for the world developers at EA to not have the base game spawners in the appropriate places. I think some sections in the corporate offices are not challenging each other enough. I call shoddy work on these worlds in the Sims 3 stores.

Clearly, they were drunk on rum. That's some serious dedication. Perhaps a bit too much dedication.

There's one thing that I liked when I saw the video showing Hidden Springs, though: it appears to have an high elevation mountain,something that I've never saw before. I'mwishing someday we can have a world with a really high mountain (maybe in weather ep?) with clouds surrounding it (because of it's highness).