Cottage Living Rags to Riches (Sims 4)

Kendrick Barker-Ito and Willow Fitz-Moon became best friends as children, just like their moms from my Snowy Escape Rags to Riches LP. They are now teens and similar to what their moms did as teens, they are now ready to embark on their own rags to riches adventure, for them it will be in Henford-on-Bagley!

Challenge Playlist (this will go live at 1 pm Eastern on Aug 7, 2021)

Cottage Living Create a Sim overview (this will go live at 12:45 pm Eastern on Aug 7, 2021) *

Goals for this Challenge:

At least one, probably both, will complete the new aspiration. Note that Kendrick is the main sim who needs to complete this aspiration.
Raise animals (a cow, a lama and chickens).
Try to befriend both bunnies & birds & get at least one of each to help with the gardening.
Complete some village errands.
Complete and keep as many cross stitch patterns as they can (between the two of them).
Buy/unlock as many animal outfits as we can.
Willow will complete the Knitting Aspiration and we will try to unlock as many CAS knitting items as we can.
Before aging up to young adults they both need to:
- get a grade A in high school,
- max the manual labourer career (part time), and
- have at least 4 positive character values
Hopefully these best friends will become something more and they’ll end up having a family together once they become young adults.
Both will complete the fortune aspiration.

Note we will start with the following lot challenges:

Simple Living (Cottage Living)
Off the Grid (Base Game)
Reduce and Recycle (Eco Lifestyle)

To remove the Off the Grid lot challenge they will have to pay a fee of 10,000 simoleons. We may remove the the Simple Living lot challenge once one of them maxes both the cooking and gourmet cooking skill, however they will still need to buy the ingredients except for seaweed (there’s currently a reported issue with that, see EA AHQ link).

Our sims becoming Best Friends Forever as children

Rules:

To start with nothing with a goal to get rich (in this case to complete the fortune aspiration as noted above).
To not use painting as a way to make money until they have at a minimum completed the first three tiers of the fortune aspiration (the only exception is if we decided to work on the painting aspiration before they meet this goal, they may sell their 3 cheapest paintings to the collector for the second tier of the painting aspiration).
Generally to follow the rules from my Rags to Riches guidelines, one exception is that our sims will have part time ‘jobs’ as teens since that’s included in my goals noted above: https://maplesimmer.video.blog/2020/05/05/sims-4-rags-to-riches-guidelines/

Note the lifespan I’ve chosen is ‘long’.

Here are our sims and their traits:

Gallery link if you’d like to play with them: TBA

* Cottage Living Create a Sim Assets

By Age Group:

Screenshots of my spreadsheet breaking down Cottage Living Create a Sim content by age group:

By Clothing Categories:

Screenshots of my breakdown of how create a sim assets are categorized in categories other than everyday (only done for the age group ‘teen and up’ 😊 )

Where to Contact Me:

If you have any questions or if you looking for a supportive group to share your sims’ adventures come join my Facebook group and share anything sims related, be it sim creation, sim builds and your sims stories or challenges! We also try to keep it updated with Sims news and it’s a great place to ask any sim related questions, including questions about the game, game updates & Sims gameplay challenges. 😊https://www.facebook.com/groups/maplesimmersimssanctuary

Homeless Decorator (Sims 4 Dream Home Decorator Rags to Riches)

My latest let’s play is a rags to riches with Dream Home Decorator.

Our decorator is spellcaster Eileen Blake-Driver, who is the child from my Rags to Riches Discover University Let’s Play (‘LP’). She has recently aged up to a young adult; I thought it would be fun to use someone with some history from my other LP’s and Elaine has lots of history since her mom Dora Driver was originally born in house 3 of my Drifter Challenge (the twin of the heir Dominique) and her dad Noah Blake was from my Foster Child LP .

Eileen also has responsibility for her younger brother Colin, who is still a child, as their parents are out of contact in the jungles of Selvadorada. They thought they were moving to a small furnished home in Glimmerbrook, unfortunately it was unsafe and it took the last of Elaine’s funds to demolish it so they are now starting with nothing!

The first part went live on Saturday, June 12, 2021. Link to the playlist

Goals:

1) Become a Decorator and max the career.

2) After starting with nothing, build a two bedroom, one bathroom furnished home.

Rules:

1) In the first two weeks only make money from her job, photography (mainly selling photos from her job) and if she has time, from handiness.

2) After two weeks we will revisit this limitation and decide if we need to use other ways to make money to meet goal 2) from above.

Update, you unlock the ability to write design books in the Decorator career. Once you unlock this, feel free to also make money from books.

If you’d like to play along, Eileen and her brother Colin are on the gallery.

Ignore the alternate form of Eileen, that’s currently a visual glitch with spellcasters born in game. Unlike other occults (ie Aliens, Vampires & Mermailds), Spellcaster don’t have alternate forms.

If you’d like to see Eileen’s mom’s challenge, and eventually watch Eileen as a toddler and child, here’s a link to my Rags to Riches Discover University Let’s Play: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyPCBQSeZfrIrWL1uFuBK7FXQYL5IZ_Wl

Link to my updated Rags to Riches blog post:
https://maplesimmer.video.blog/2020/05/05/sims-4-rags-to-riches-guidelines/

If you have any questions or want to share your own Sims game play with other Simmers head over to my Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/maplesimmersimssanctuary or my discord, https://discord.gg/aJaX7Pca8A

Sims 4 University Challenge

I will be doing this challenge with my Chapman family, originally seen in my Rags to Riches 7 Toddler Challenge, then as ‘Super Kids’ and then ‘Super Teens’. The challenge starts when your eight sims are enrolled/enrolling in University. I recommend you use sims you’ve played with before, and if you want to maximize the amount of scholarships available, all should be young adult.

The first part of the Let’s Play for this challenge is scheduled for Saturday, May 22, 2021.

Playlist link

Goals:

All 8 sims need to get distinguished degrees (see note)
Hard mode: do four courses a term & complete the degree in 3 sim weeks.
Medium mode: do three course a term & complete the degree in 4 sim weeks
(I’m doing the hard mode)
Each sim must hold some type of job (full time, part time, incl the sports or esports, or freelancer). If do freelancer, or anything that requires doing gigs, do at least one gig a week.
Each sim must join a minimum of 1 student organization and particpate enough to at least go up one level, preferably max it.
Each sim must complete the university aspiration, which is a knowledge aspiration.
Optional added challenge: Have enough money so each sim gets a nest egg to start on their own (you can set the amount). My family consists of one mom, ie the sim who was originally the primary caregiver and seven children. The mom gets the home and needs to be left with 50k. I’m looking for input as to whether each kid should get 50k, 100k or another amount. Once that’s been decided I will update this post with my goals.

Note: If you are starting with brand new sims, as I mentioned above, you need to play with them long enough so they each have enough skills to get into a distinguished degree. I usually prefer starting with teens and then when they are ready, age them up and have them apply then.

I recommend playing with aging off (this is what I am doing) while your sims are at university and having them live in one of the two university neighbourhoods in a converted dorm (ie a dorm converted back to a residential lot).

I have put my sims on the gallery if you’d like to play with them. There will be two sets, one that has been accepted into university but hasn’t yet enrolled: https://tinyurl.com/4z2fpmwr

Plus one that has already enrolled in university (enrolled but not started any classes): https://tinyurl.com/yf3pw3nj

Note regarding my sims: Since they are all young adults (the mom is just a much older young adult), the family on the gallery will not have the relationships.

In order to reestablish a relationship you can do any of these options after first putting them into a new household through Create a Sim (added bonus they should keep their starting funds noted in the gallery description):

Make them all siblings,
Age up the mom to an adult, though I’m not sure what that will do to her scholarships or
If you use MCCC, first set the relationships of the siblings in CAS & then in live mode use MCCC to restablish Norah as their mother (you can do all relationships in live mode but it’s easier to just have to use MCCC for Norah).

Here are the details of all the sims in my Let’s Play:

As mentioned about, these sims are originally from my 7 Toddlers Rags to Riches Challenge, then my Super Kids Challenge and finally my Super Teens Challenge. 😊

If you’d like to use their house, which is modelled after the stand alone student dorm in Foxbury (vs the penthouse ones), here are the details & the link: https://tinyurl.com/ps499cjv

If you’d like to see the spreadsheet I set up to track their course work, homework and class attendance, here’s a link to it on my google drive. This was done using Microsoft Excel.

Here’s a screenshot of the spreadsheet which covers their first week of classes as an FYI:

If you have any questions, feel free to join my Facebook group Sims Sanctuary or send me a tweet on Twitter. Either is also a great way to share how you do in this challenge. My Facebook group is a friendly and supportive place to ask any sim related questions and for sharing anything sims related, be it sim creation, sim builds or your sims stories &/or challenges! 😊

Sims 4 Ghost Hunters Challenge

With the arrival of the Paranormal Stuff Pack I thought it would be fun to do a challenge! The let’s play of this challenge will be coming to my channel later today. I’ll add the link when it’s available.

The premise behind the challenge is to have a sim or sim and their family, depending on how you like to play, start with no simoleons in an empty, haunted house. If you wish, the house can have a fireplace and the painting of Guidry, though this will increase the starting value of the home that you will need to pay off.

Challenge Goals:

Earn enough money to do the following:
- Furnish and decorate the house (home must be fully functional once it’s furnished),
- Pay off an expert to rid the house of the ghosts permanently (the value of the lot and house when you started, use cheats 📝 to remove the money once you have the funds) and
- Have a small nest egg leftover (you can set this up front, if you’d like an easier challenge, then 25k, if you want it to be harder have a goal to complete the fortune aspiration and also have a nest egg of 100k).
Your main sim also has to:
- max the 5 level medium skill
- become a freelance Paranormal Investigator
- successfully complete at least 15 gigs, at least 3 each of each type (easy, medium and hard)
Collect and keep at least 5 unique items obtained from Specters.

Once all the goals have been completed the house can be turned back into a regular residential lot and your sim(s) can carry on with their regular lives.

Rules:

Cheats can be used to give your sims the home, to remove money and to reset them when needed, but not to give your sims an advantage. Other rules/guidelines are the same as those in my Rags to Riches Challenge Guidelines as this is just a variation on a rags to riches challenge.

📝 Cheats Used:

‘Freerealestate on’ to move your sim(s) into the house.
‘Testingcheats on’ or ‘testingcheats true’ and then ‘money 0’ to set your funds to nothing 🔷
To remove the money, calculate what your money should be after deducting the original value of the house and lot then use the same money cheat used to set your funds to nothing.

🔷 If you don’t want to use the money cheat, temporarily add a sim to your household and then move them out and transfer the money you want to remove from the household with them (this would include any money they brought in with them).

Here are the gallery links if you wish to play along with the same family and their home.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment here or to head over to my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MapleSimmer/

Alternatively, you can come join my Facebook group and share how you do in this challenge, or in anything sims related, be it sim creation, sim builds or your sims stories &/or challenges! We also try to keep it updated with Sims news and it’s a great place to ask any sim related questions, including questions about rags to riches or other challenges, that either I, or other members, can try to answer. Sims Sanctuary

House 7 Drifter Challenge: Overview and Meet Our Bachelors

House 7 of the Drifter Challenge is scheduled to return on February 4. Playlist link

There are two parts to house 7, in the first part we have a bachelorette challenge to see who our drifter will marry & in the second part our Drifter and the winner of part 1 will start their life together. In both parts we can only control the Drifter (with some exceptions noted in the rules on Vihisha’s blog post and summarized below).

If you have any questions, or would just like to share any of your sim related game play, head over to my Facebook group, Sims Sanctuary.

Part 1 of House 7:

Meet our Bachelorette:

Our bachelorette is our heir from house 6, now our drifter, Gabrielle Driver, she is proper, a cat lover and creative:

Meet our Bachelors:

Which bachelor will win her heart? (EA ID of those who created them is included with their pictures):

Some bachelors were already spellcasters, but for those who weren’t, I had one of my sims who knew the spell to convert sims to spellcasters do so, so they are all now spellcasters. Here are our bachelors as originally uploaded to the gallery, which in some cases includes families, if you’re interested in adding them to your own game.

Zechariah Wood & Family (Tiger_Lover_78)
Rodney Donald & Family (katbos20963)
J.L. Wyatt (SoulGal7)
Ricky Campbell & Family (Simslover163)
Giovanni Graham (BipolarPrincess)
Levi Crowe & Family (Mammabird672)
Liam Rooney & his twin (Mamabird672)

The bachelorette challenge has detailed rules on Vihisha’s blog post (link here), and will take place in Gabrielle’s family home in Willow Creek (the Oakenstead lot) and it will comprise of a mix of elimination challenges (painting on Day 3 and fishing on Day 5, dates, parties and the relationship of the contestants with our heir Gabrielle will also have an impact. During this first part aging will be off.

Thanks very much to everyone who provided bachelors, which included Tiger_Lover_78 (link to her Sims YouTube channel), katbos20963, SoulGal7 (link to her Sims blog post), Simslover163 (link to his Sims blog post & Sims YouTube challenge), BipolarPrincess & Mammabird672.

While not required, I am using the Sims Info mod to get the exact relationship numbers when determining who has the highest/lowest relationship. Here’s a link to the mod if you’re interested in using it. https://modthesims.info/d/576053/show-search-sim-info-mod.html

Part 2 of House 7:

Part 2 of the challenge is similar to other houses where we start with nothing on an empty lot (this time on Springscape Residential in Oasis Springs). The goals for this part of the challenge are as follows:

As a minimum create a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house worth at least 40k simoleons,
Complete the Soulmate Aspiration with our Drifter,
Produce & raise The Heir to the Young Adult life stage.

Please let me know if you’d like to play along, the bachelors, in some cases with their families, can be found on the gallery (see EA IDs mentioned above) and I can add my Drifter, with or without her family if you’d like.

Details of what we can do with non-played sims in this house (as of Feb 3/2021):

Use the options available through their portrait in the bottom left hand corner
Change their aspirations
Drag items in or out through their inventory
Redeem their points in the Rewards Store
Answer phones
Respond to pop-up events
Use the following interactions:
- Change outfit
- Alter Disguise (Get To Work needed) – Alien exclusive
- Drink Medicine to cure Illness (Get To Work needed)
- Spend Power Points (Vampires needed) – Vampire exclusive
- Select Weaknesses (Vampires needed) – Vampire exclusive
- Purchase an Antidote on the computer when poisoned (Jungle Adventures needed)
- Drink an Antidote to cure poisoning (Jungle Adventures needed)
- Drink Rabid Rodent Serum to cure Rabid Rodent Fever (My First Pet needed)
- Spend Fame Points (Get Famous needed) – Celebrity exclusive
- Spend Talent Points (Realm Of Magic needed) – Spellcaster exclusive
- Open Spellbook (Realm Of Magic needed) – Spellcaster exclusive
- List, Un-List and Mail Off items on Plopsy (Nifty Knitting needed)

Bachelors Needed for House 7 of the Drifter Challenge!

Gabrielle Driver is about to age up to a young adult so I’m looking for 7 bachelors for the bachelorette part of house 7 of the Drifter Challenge which is coming to my channel very soon!

Her traits are Creative and Cat Lover, along with having a Muser trait from choosing the Painter Extraordinaire aspiration.

Please no custom content and they must be unplayed (ie no skills, etc). I’d love it if they came with parents/siblings; if they do, I will place their family in my Drifter save.

If you’d like to provide one (or more) comment here and please upload them to the gallery using the following hashtag: #MSDrifterH7Bachelors

Gallery IDs of the creators will be shared in my video introducing them & in my Drifter blog post.

Link to my Drifter Blog post as an FYI: https://maplesimmer.video.blog/2020/04/27/drifter-challenge/

If you have any questions about the challenge or the Sims 4 in general, please come join my new Facebook group, Sims Sanctuary.

Rags to Riches: Snowy Escape Edition

I’m back with another Rags to Riches, this time the focus is the new expansion Snowy Escape.

Link is here and the first part starts Sunday, Dec 6, 2020 at 1 pm

In this Let’s Play we are following our teens Alice Barker and Celeste FitzRoberts, both are spellcasters who were born in my Life After Foster Challenge LP. They’ve decided to set out to the new world of Mt Komorebi and take on the challenge of starting with nothing. Their parents have given them the summer (2 sim weeks) to get established (ie get a small home) and if they do they can stay and continue to pursue their dreams.

Goals for this challenge:

Get a small home by the end of the summer (two sim weeks). All days are vacation days so they do not need to attend school during the summer.
Reach the top of the drama club that they are currently in before they can quit.
Maintain their positive character values (at least 4).
They must have/get a grade A in high school.
Both must max the rock climbing skill and at least one of the other two new skills (snowboarding and skiing).
They both must complete the two new aspirations.
Complete the new Simmi collection.
Vacation in at least two other worlds.
Reach a total value of 200,000 at a minimum (ie total of the home’s value and their money).
At least one must marry and have a child when they become a young adult.
Someone in the household must join the Salaryperson career and at a minimum reach the point where they choose their branch (this can be a spouse/significant other that comes in later).
See how famous they can be as skiiers/snowboarders (requires Get Famous).

Rules/Guidelines for this challenge:

Our sims start with no money on an empty lot and they must pay off the value of the items they brought with them, excluding the homework books, before buying anything (two journals & one crocus, value is 53). Generally to follow the rules from my Rags to Riches guidelines, link here: https://maplesimmer.video.blog/2020/05/05/sims-4-rags-to-riches-guidelines/
Note the lifespan I’ve chosen is ‘long’, if you’d like to play along you can choose the lifespan you want.
If our sims want to go to other worlds they must vacation there (exception is using glimmerstone to go to Magic HQ, visiting a vet clinic if they get a pet and it’s ill, going to the hospital & if they start university, visiting the campus or library). For the purposes of this challenge, Willow Creek, Newcrest & Magnolia Promenade are considered one world and Oasis Springs & Del Sol Valley are considered another world. Rental lots have been placed in one of every world except Strangerville, Forgotten Hollow & Britechester.
If anyone moves in they can’t bring any money or furniture with them. If they do, use cheats to remove the money.

Character Background & Related Let’s Plays:

Alice & Cecile were born and raised until they were teens in my Life After Foster Child Let’s Play if you’d like to see them when they were younger.

While that let’s play focused on their parents as young adults, their parents were originally from my Foster Child Challenge Let’s Play.

Alice’s mother is Jasmine Barker (father is Darrell Charm who came with Realm of Magic) and Cecile’s parents are Eviee Roberts and Clark Fitzgerald. Please note that both Jasmine Barker & Eviee Roberts were provided as toddlers by BeckyXD (Origin ID) and raised to young adults in my Foster Child Challenge. Evie met her now husband Clark as a teen & he joined the Foster Child family and was raised to a young adult and they then married at the end of the challenge. 😊

If you’d like to play along, here’s a link to where they are on the gallery or if you prefer to play with my save, which has their family and the Foster Child Challenge sims. It has been updated to add rental lots to many residential worlds as noted above in rule 3 and updated commercial lots. This save may use items from all packs up to and including Snowy Escape.
Maple Simmer Snowy Escape Save

If you do play along I’d love to see how they do, come join my new Facebook group and share their adventures, or any of your sims, sim builds and their adventures! Sims Sanctuary

It’s also a great place to ask me any Sims related questions you may have. 😊

Nov 10, 2020 Game Update (The Sims 4)

This week’s game update was a big one. It added a lot of new things to the game, there were a lot of bug fixes, some new issues, including crashing across all platforms, particularly PS4, and broke a lot of mods. Here are links to my various videos on the update, as well as links to the update notes, bug reports, forum post re mod impact & various tweets re the issues.

Video overview of What’s New & Common Issues that Were Fixed
Video overview of New Issues
Video regarding the Crashes & Info to Provide to EA
Video overview of the Mod Impact

Also, if you’re on Windows, here’s my video on how to clear packs from your repair queue if your game repair is taking too long.

Here’s my video tutorial on how to prepare for game updates:

Video playlist with all videos on the update

Supporting Links:

Update Notes

Forum post tracking the impact of this weeks game update on mods/cc * https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/983508/broken-updated-mods-cc-snowy-escape-nov-2020

* only mods/cc that don’t raise the game rating are tracked here. If you use the 18+ Basemental mod, make sure you have the version released since the game update as it is causing Script Fail errors.

Tweets by SimGuruNick re EA being aware of the crashing issues:

https://twitter.com/SimGuruNick/status/1327120591418220546
https://twitter.com/SimGuruNick/status/1326687038649769985

Post by SimGuruNick on the Sims Forums regarding the Crashing Issues: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/983645/crashing-with-the-november-10-update

EA has indicated that they expect this to be fixed the week of November 20, 2020, per this in game message:

EA AHQ Reports as mentioned in my video:

General bug forum: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/bd-p/The-Sims-4-Bugs

Links for Reporting Crashing Issues:
Windows: https://tinyurl.com/yyunfluw
PS4: https://tinyurl.com/y4rmktyh
Mac: https://tinyurl.com/y2dkmgfw
XBoxOne: https://tinyurl.com/y2n5g9q7

PS4 Issues with Muting Sounds: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/CURRENT-ISSUE-Muted-Sounds/m-p/9716869#M10885

Routing Issues with Open Staircases: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/WORKAROUND-Open-staircase-cause-routing-failures/td-p/9716427

Sims not Aging up with Birthday Cakes: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/OPEN-Sim-doesn-t-age-up-by-blowing-out-candles/m-p/9716468#M160343

Various Reports of Issues with Platforms (ie the new build item):
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/NEEDS-INPUT-Can-t-place-certain-objects-on-platforms/m-p/9723044#M160949
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/NEEDS-INPUT-Platforms-autonomously-raise-height/m-p/9719405#M160692
https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/NEEDS-INPUT-Can-t-place-some-objects-next-to-platforms/m-p/9723604#M160989

Origin Issues due to Missing Windows files (Windows, links for the missing files are in this report): https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/CURRENT-ISSUE-Execution-cannot-proceed-because-MSVCP140-DLL-was/td-p/9716597

Anti Virus, Including Windows Defender, Blocking Origin/The Sims 4 (Windows): https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/CURRENT-ISSUE-Anti-Virus-blocking-User-Folder-Screenshots/m-p/9572695

Repairing Game Slows Down Computer & Takes Forever (Windows): https://answers.ea.com/t5/Origin-Client-Web-Technical/Repairing-game-takes-forever-and-slows-down-the-pc/td-p/9677317

⚠️Crashing Issues Still Remaining Since the Audio Crash Issue was Fixed⚠️

Despite the Nov 17/18 game update to fix the audio crashing caused by the Nov 10 game update, there are still many reports of crashing in the game.

⚠️ One of the main causes of this can be the Father Winter tradition (requires Seasons), the other cause can be platforms. ⚠️

Here’s a link to the bug report (screenshot is from there), EA is aware of the isssue: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/CURRENT-ISSUE-Game-Freeze-Extended-Loading-Times-Save-Game/td-p/9721871

There is a mod that is supposed to prevent the Father Winter Issue, see link at the bottom of this document.

There are also reported issues of crashing on MacBook Pros with an M1 chip, here’s a link to that report: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/CURRENT-ISSUE-freezing-in-CAS-on-Mac-with-M1-chip/m-p/9717611#M39297

If you’re on console and this doesn’t appear to apply to you, here’s a link to a summary of other issues on EA AHQ, I recommend looking there: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Consoles/Read-First-Current-Issues-Game-Issues-or-Crashes-Patch-1-34-Nov/m-p/9168420#M8414

Mods to help with some of the reported issues:

LittleMsSam Random mods includes one for the issue with aging up on a cake and with kittens/puppies not aging: https://littlemssam.tumblr.com/post/175412067973/random-bug-fixes-a-collection-of-random-small-bug

Mod to help stop the Father Winter Issue, however it will not fix the save if it’s already happened: https://www.patreon.com/posts/leroidetout-stop-41967978 (look for the mod with Father Winter in the name)

Mod for the Issue with the Digitalistic Sketchpad: https://modthesims.info/download.php?t=649414

Snowy Escape Expansion Information & Links (Sims 4)

Release date is November 13, 2020 at midnight in your region on Origin (for Mac and PC) and at 10 a.m. PT for Steam, Xbox One, and PlayStation4!

It’s also been confirmed that Seasons is not needed for this expansion.

Price: US$39.99 and should be the usual expansion pack price in your country.

It is available to preorder, however there are no advantages to doing so.

My video overview

Oct 6, 2020 Game Update Overview & Issues (The Sims 4)

Video Link

Time stamp of what’s covered in the video:

1) Issue with Enabling Mods after update
2) Update – What’s New:
i) Object & Food Overview
ii) CAS Overview
3) Skin tones not fixed
4) Updated hairstyles (2)
5) Bug fixes
6) Mod Issues
7) Common Bugs not Fixed

Note new items will not show as new as they were added to base game. I show them in the video (see above links) but they can be easier to find if you filter by base game only (both for build/buy and create a sim).