Developer livestream is scheduled for 11 am Pacific on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. It will be on their Twitch and their YouTube. Time Zone Converter for when the livestream will start in your own time zone: http://tinyurl.com/bdf94mcv
Base game update will be Tuesday, February 27, 2024 and the usual time for updates is 10 am Pacific. Time Zone Converter for when base game update will happen in your own time zone: http://tinyurl.com/4ztb8vwy
It’s recently been brought to my attention that you can use cheats* to remove adults (teen and older) from a household with children in it and you don’t get a game over (no mods required**). However, they unfortunately can’t pay the bills***
As a result, I’m going to be a short challenge taking advantage of this fact. My two children, Marcel (genius) & Rachel Booth (animal enthusiast) who are twins, will be starting with nothing on an empty lot. They were born in game, but I aged them up immediately from infant to toddler (they still got happy infant though). As toddlers they got all their skills so they have the top notch toddler trait (I use a mod that fixes the current bug where they don’t get that trait) and a boost to their fundamental child skills.
I’ve now moved them to a new save with their teen uncle (the two children with their teen uncle are on the gallery here if you’d like to play along with them). I then added a random elder and moved their uncle to a different lot and the random elder will be the sim who is removed from the household using cheats.
I have used MCCC to let the children pay the bills. However, if you don’t, or can’t use mods you can limit the length of this challenge to when the bills are first due or use cheats* to add a random sim back into the household to have them pay the bills and then use cheats to remove that sim again.
*i.e. testingcheats on, then use the cheat to remove from household/add to household.
*I’m wondering if this is a glitch or if it’s change that is by design. I’m more inclined to think it’s a glitch.
**though MCCC does have an option that lets children pay the bills, or you can just enable auto bill payment, I’ve opted for the former. You can find this setting under ‘MCCC Settings’ and then ‘Money Settings’ on your Sims’ computer.
If you don’t use MCCC/can’t use mods, alternatively, just invite over the sim you used cheats to remove from the household and in turn shift click on that sim and use the cheat ‘add to household’, have them pay the bills with your sim child/children money, and then use the cheat ‘remove from household’ to remove them again.
It’s been brought to my attention that sims removed this way go into hidden households and are used as homeless sims. You can find them with MCCC, or just add them to your household in the manner I mention here. Just make sure you keep a relationship with them so you can invite them over. You can also do that with any sim, but by using the original sim you aren’t putting more sims into hidden households.
Goals:
Earn enough money to build a small home.
Either complete the four base game aspirations & three of the four Growing Together aspirations (you need a teen or older to initiate the slumber party social event) or if you want to limit the length of the challenge, see how much of that you can complete before the first set of bills are due. Note my Desert Bloom park and my Admiral Wreckage park have completed treehouses on them (gallery ID is MapleSimmer if you want to look in the game vs online).
Join scouts and get as many badges as possible (Seasons required).
Try to get manners, responsibility & emotional control to be in a positive range (Parenthood required)
Optional age up the child/children once they complete their goals (see next point re the birthday cake).
Optional, either move a teen or older in right before you age up the child/children (either using manage worlds or by using cheats as mentioned above for paying the bills) and do the Growing Together aspiration that requires you to have a slumber party. They can also bake the cake required for the birthday. If you don’t choose this option, and if you have Dine Out, you can go to a restaurant and get a cake (just make sure that a cake is on the menu) and age up on that.
Rules:
Start with nothing on an empty lot (your choice as to the lot, I’m starting on the empty lot in Magnolia Promenade).
Optional, no selling into personal inventory until you get a yard sale table (though this requires you to have a pack that has a yard sale table & a way to make money without selling into inventory).
Optional, no having yard sales on home lot until you have a small home.
Lifespan is up to you. I’m playing on long.
For more Rags to Riches guidelines, see my blog post or video.
Teen Phillip Ito-FitzMoon (Cringe, Nosy, with Business Savvy bonus trait from a fortune aspiration) and his younger sister, child Rosalind (Creative) will be joined by teen Hollie Pruett-Meyers (Creative, Geek with Collector bonus trait from a nature aspiration) who was a child in my For Rent Mini Let’s Play. Link to their household on the gallery.
Goals:
For Rent Goals:
Complete all four For Rent aspirations (Discerning Dweller, Fount of Tomarani Knowledge, Five-Star Property Owner & Seeker of Secrets) with at least one sim, though I hope to complete all but the Seeker of Secrets with all of them. Seeker of Secrets will be a goal of Phillip, our nosy sim.
Complete both collections (marbles & tassels) that come with the For Rent pack.
Get as many secrets as possible (there are about 30).
Hold a potluck and pool party at least once (the two new social events that come with the For Rent pack).
Teen Goals:
Teens must complete the Admired Icon and Goal Oriented teen aspirations.
Teens must have at least three positive character values before they age up to young adult, but preferably all five character values will be positive.
Other Goals:
Complete the fortune aspiration.
Complete the Making Money scenario.
Our Ito-FitzMoon sims must have two children to carry on the Rags to Riches legacy in the next generation (the siblings can each have one each, or one of them can have two). They can have more children, but only two are needed for the next generation pack LP (whatever pack that will be!).
I will work on other aspirations that seem to suit their goals of making money, etc., but those are the defined up front goals.
Rules:
Start with nothing on the 20×20 empty lot in Tomarang (ISDA Riverfront, Koh Sahpa). While on this lot sims can only use things that are portable, the only exception is they can have a small garden, though with no trees.
No selling into personal inventory or marking up prices until our sims have paid off the yard sale table they start with.
Travel is restricted to Tomarang, San Myshuno, Magic HQ & to the high school neighbourhood. They can also visit the vet clinic in Brindleton Bay if they have a sick pet. Otherwise they must book a vacation rental in the location (see Note I below) until they complete the Fortune Aspiration.
Once the sims have saved enough money they will move into a rental.
Once at least one sim has completed the Discerning Dweller aspiration, they can move into their own owned residential rental lot.
Once they have completed the Five-Star Property Owner aspiration they can move off their owned residential rental lot if they wish.
They can make money from anything as I find being a landlord isn’t lucrative & needs other sources to support it.
Lifespan is up to you. I’m using a long lifespan & aging up as certain goals are met.
For more Rags to Riches guidelines, see my blog post or video.
Note I: Worlds I consider as one world:
Oasis Springs & Del Sol Valley
Willow Creek, Newcrest & Magnolia Promenade
San Myshuno can be accessed freely from any world.
Updated to add Thunder released a Bug Fix mod for the issue with weeding while gardening after I released my video: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bugfix-tend-fix-94711697 Note this bug fix requires Lot 51 Core Library which is also linked on their bug fix post and Thunder states that it is compatible with LittleMsSam’s gardening workaround fix.
Note that the links that follow are just a handful that I saw that seemed ‘popular’, here’s a link to EA AHQ to see what other bugs are reported and if you don’t see your bug, and have tested in a mod and cc free game (which means nothing in your mods folder but the resource file which the game automatically generates), then do a bug report making sure to fill out the template. https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/bd-p/The-Sims-4-Bugs
I also cover what I noticed was coming in the Base Game Update and some information from some tweets from after the Livestream.
Create a Sim
Showed the CAS for males and females, teen and up. Showed CAS for infants through children (female sim used)
They also mentioned the four new aspirations & five new traits, these were also mentioned in the blog post
Four New Aspirations:
Location: Fount of Tomarani Knowledge (all about wanting to explore the world & immerse themselves in this culture)
Deviance: Seeker of Secrets (all about snooping & having a ravenous appetite to know about your neighbours and the hot gossip)
Popularity: Discerning Dweller (all about wanting to be a great tenant & great neighbour too)
Fortune: Five-Star Property Owner (This Sim wants to be the best Property Owner the world has ever seen!)
Five New Traits:
Cringe,
Generous,
Nosey,
Child of the Village,
& Elder specific, Wise. You can assign wise if you create an elder sim or it maybe earned when a sim ages up to elder if they had level 10 logic or genius trait (but didn’t seem to be guaranteed). Elders can also get it through the Growing Together self discovery system.
Build Mode
New hot tub has faux rock facades.
New grill, which is a reward for one of the two new events (reward for a good potluck)
New mailboxes – for single home, for duplex and for apartment
Marbles and hopscotch (only children can play with marbles, but anyone can collect. Hopscotch primarily for children, but teens and up can use).
For Rent signs (one for ground and one for wall)
No shoes from SE moved to Base Game. Can set it on shoe rack and there is a new sign for the For Rent pack.
Also showed new awnings, doors, rugs, curtains, curtain ‘rod’
Pressure cookers and kettles.
Note new colours are being added to some base game appliances (so there are more colours to match the new pressure cookers and kettles & ice cream maker/popcorn maker)
Will also be able to boil water in microwave in addition to using the kettle.
Also showed new foods.
Mini fridge
Another narrow dishwasher (but needs full counter)
Squat toilets
Toddler potty
New plants
Water heater, air conditioner, electrical fuse box, solar water heater & radiator.
Water heater &electrical fuse box have gameplay associated with them for any lot.
Air conditioner and radiator have some functionality if you own seasons.
If you don’t want functional ones, they have decorative versions.
Pool floatie (reward for the other social event, pool party).
Also showed the furniture, which was based around some different woods and some plastic chairs, new kitchen counters and more.
Dingy decals to make things look grungy and lived in.
Residential Rentals
Showed from map view some existing residential rentals.
Note they aren’t just apartments, you can have duplexes, townhomes, in law suites and single room rentals.
They then showed how the tool worked using Pique Hearth (Pancakes’ home but placed in Newcrest).
They did who what it looked like with the cheat that removed the unit limits (cheat is: bb.increaserentalunitcap on/off )
They also stated that there is a save limit, which was already mentioned in the blog post (they said 100, but the blog post says 99 per save). Note Rebecca said she tried the limit, and she didn’t recommend it. 😊
Rating depends on what’s in the unit, but there’s nothing required.
They also mentioned the limitations. You can’t build them on Sulani water lots, penthouses or in vacation worlds (also mentioned in the blog post).
Note if you want to start over, you can essentially assign all rooms to one unit and then start over.
World of Tomarang:
They showed the world, two neighbourhoods.
Morensong – bustling downtown/busy city with four lots including one that starts empty (40×30, they had their livestream family on it), a national park, a residential rental lot (has one premade family who owns the lot and one empty ‘apartment’) and regular residential starter home. This is also where the night market is, which seemed to start at 6 pm. There is a rabbit hole temple.
Koh Sahpa – more relaxed neighbourhood with two empty lots, a lounge (with the new hot tub), a regular residential lot with a premade family & another residential rental with three units, one of which is empty, the other two are occupied by the premade family from the gameplay trailer. This has the tiger sanctuary, which is a rabbit hole.
I heard third hand that the lots were built by EA.
Gameplay:
They showed their livestream family.
There are few things that will pull things out of their units into the common space. They’ve tweaked autonomy so that sims are more likely to use exercise equipment, grills, do gardening, use laundry (if you have Laundry Day and use laundry). They also mentioned that the mold ghost has some interesting interactions for gardening but that they hadn’t had any luck getting a mold ghost during their practice runs.
The lot they had built had the main home and two rental units which both had a bedroom and bathroom, and the living room and kitchen were shared space.
Coming to base game is the ability to switch to a household by selecting the door/lot, vs having to go to manage worlds (though you can still go to manage worlds).
They showed renting out the third unit (the second unit was rented by the male sim’s father). They showed the ‘Fill Vacancy’ screen. Maintenance starts as ‘poor’.
They showed some of the rules you can activate. No Noise, No Loud Noises, Maximum Occupancy (infants don’t count towards it), No Trash Overload, No Ghosts and they thought there was also a No Pets rule but they were only playing with base game and For Rent.
There have been some sims added who will be available to rent out to. You can rent to sims who aren’t already living in the world.
Note they show the option to ‘unjustly evict’ which can change to be ‘justly evict’ if the tenants have broken rules/not paid rent, etc. But if you unjustly evict you may be subject to fines.
They show the rabbit hole temple that’s in the Morensong neighbourhood. There’s a children’s play area in the neighbourhood area. They also showed the night market area. They show a rabbit hole building that’s a Fish Market where you can buy food.
Night Market:
Lights up at night, seemed to start at 6 pm.
Craft Stall: There’s a craft stall where you can buy various things, including two different tassels, which are collectibles you can find throughout the world through various means and as you discover them you unlock lore and when you complete the collection you unlock an item. You can also get marbles, which is the second collection that comes with the pack.
Food Stalls:
There are three food stalls, Vegetarian, Drinks & Desserts, and Non-Vegetarian.
They then travelled to the Hoh Sahpa neighbourhood.
The Tiger Sanctuary (rabbit hole), is close to the lounge. It’s not open at night, but you can sneak in, but if you get caught you may get banned (they didn’t get caught but had gotten caught on previous attempts while doing trial runs for the livestream). During the day you can Visit or Support the sanctuary. You can experience fun and interesting stories, and if you support the sanctuary, you may be able to bring home ‘something adorable’ (I expect the toy tiger). They got a pop up for sneaking in and had a choice of two options and got some animal crackers. You can see glowing eyes at night (the tigers).
They also show some nosy interactions (spying on sims).
There’s a ‘cave’ in this neighbourhood that you can explore and learn more lore.
They then show ‘breaking in’ (not the same as burglars). If you’re successful, there will be a timed event and your sim can snoop and may learn a secret about the sim who lives on the lot. If you don’t leave before the break in event ends, your sim may (will?) get caught. They showed an example of a secret you can learn. You can break in on a regular residential lot too. Also note that this is something you can initiate, this is not burglars, it’s really for snooping. Note that you need to be a kleptomaniac to be able to steal. Note that you can blackmail them (this will hit the relationship, but you can earn money) or you can keep the secret, which can help boost the relationship.
They then returned home before the break in event ended.
They showed the pressure cooker and kettle. The pressure cooker is something that they put the food in and then leave it to cook. The kettle you turn on to boil and you can leave. Once it’s boiled, you can choose from the various options (different teas, which they showed, coffee and hot chocolate).
They also showed the mold. They were allergenic mold piles. They cleaned up the ones in the kids’ bedroom. Mold can form if you have the lot challenge on, which can be on any lot, and you need to leave plumbing dirty for it to spawn. The sims seemed to be dazed from the mold.
Note that there is a second lot challenge that is available for regular residential lots ‘maintenance troubles’. This is a default ‘challenge’ for residential rentals (so it’s not available to turn on or off). For the mold piles, you can clean them, destroy them with fire or you can deploy a ‘Mold-B-Gone Bomb for 750 simoleons. The latter gets rid of all the mold, they showed it at the end). Your sim will dress in a bio hazard suit when cleaning/deploying the Mold-B-Gone Bomb, so there doesn’t appear to be an exterminator you hire.
They showed a maintenance event. You can hire someone to look after it (two options, cheap contractor and expensive contractor) or your sim as the landlord can look after it themselves or they can leave the tenant to deal with it. There’s a water leak, haunting event, they mentioned insects too. So, there are different types of maintenance events.
After the maintenance event, they used dev cheats to put down a toxic mold pile (which made me think it takes some time for it to get that bad). They then demonstrated getting rid of the mold with fire (which gave them the fear of fire). They let the fire go for long enough to get rid of the mold pile, and then they put the fire out. They then got rid of the rest using the Mold-B-Gone Bomb. That got rid of the rest of the mold.
Some Early Access Content went live after the walkthrough. This was only Base Game and For Rent and was an early version, so there could be difference from what comes out next week.
Base Game Update:
Bug fixes from Laundry List (see my separate video).
In addition to the noted bug fixes, it seemed like there are some small ‘quality of sim life’ changes coming in the base game update:
Sinks can be assigned as being bathroom, kitchen, or all (see tweet)
You can switch to a different household from live mode (on the apartment or lot).
More swatches for the expensive base game fridge, stove, microwave, and coffee maker so they will match the new appliances and existing ice cream maker/popcorn maker (the latter two require Cool Kitchen or Movie Stuff packs respectively).
Snowy Escape ‘remove shoes’ option coming to base game.
SimGuruNova Tweets re the Pack from After the Gameplay Walkthrough:
A lot more gameplay, it couldn’t all be shown in one short play through as they happen naturally over time (i.e. more time in game was required).
Answer re where landlords can live/how many properties they can own:
Number of secrets:
Blackmailing vs keeping secrets:
Tomarang ‘Truths’ that can be learned from premade Tomarani Sims:
If you have any questions, need troubleshooting help or want to share your own Sims game play with other friendly Simmers please head over to my Facebook group, Sims Sanctuary or my Discord
Our sims from my Food Stand Rags to Riches Let’s Play, Anna and Rudy Banks, have just had their first child, Elodie Banks. Our goals for this challenge are as follows:
To reach all the developmental milestones as quickly as possible.
To reach as many ‘firsts’ life milestones as we can.
Lifespan is long and we won’t do any ‘firsts’ life milestones that require us to go off our home lot until after Elodie has tried her first food.
Developmental Milestones:
There are 22 developmental milestones in total, 8 Social, 8 Gross Motor and 6 Fine Motor. Here are screenshots of what they look like in your milestone panel (these are from one of the infants in my Growing Together Let’s Play):
‘Firsts’ Life Milestones:
Here are the ‘firsts’ life milestones that we will attempt to get. This list is not exhaustive, here’s a link to the Sims Community article on milestones if you’d like to see their written list.
Infant Mods in My Game:
I’m using the module of Bienchen’s infant mod (considered a Growing Together mod) that reduces how often caregivers check on their infants. This mod also has modules to speed up reaching milestones and also make infants needs decay slower after they reach certain milestones, I do not have those modules in my game. Here’s a screenshot of the full description, though as I said, I only have the less check on infants module.
I have other mods in my game, most notably certain modules of MCCC (excluding the Population, Pregnancy and Woohoo modules).
Maple Simmer 