This week’s brand new trailer revealed more details on the operations of Social Clubs in The Sims 4: Get Together! A social club is a gathering of Sims who share a similar set of characteristics that follow a set of rules governed by the club leader. Club leaders are marked by a golden crown above their club’s symbol.
When forming a Club, your Sim needs to decide upon a name and icon to represent their club during social gatherings.
Each club is comprised of a list of requirements which can be set by age, career, marital status, financial status, trait, and skill levels. You can freely choose which set of rules should be applied to the club. However, be aware that this may disqualify potential candidates when they fail to meet the requirements.
You may also choose a list of activities your club wishes to engage in. Whenever they do these activities, they’ll gain points which can be spent on special perks. You can also choose activities your club refuses to perform, like being mean or getting in fights.
Here you can spend the points you’ve earned on various perks like skill boosts, social bonuses, club handshakes, and club vibes. For example, you can purchase a vibe to set your club’s mood as being playful or energetic.
And last but not least is the Club Hangout, where your Sims can relax in a house filled with activities you provide. At Simcitizens, we happened to notice the diving platforms, one made out of rocks, and another with a modern design.
Maxis recently spilled the beans on their next stuff pack coming to The Sims 4. This time you can swap out your old and dusty kitchen decor, with new sleek and stylish cabinets and stainless steel appliances. Transform your kitchen into a modern marvel, by purchasing new items like the Ice Cream Maker! This one of a kind device lets you create ice cream in 30 different flavors using toppings such as banana slices, whipped cream, and sprinkles. But the new content doesn’t stop just there, as Sims will be offered new trendy, yet casual clothing and hairstyle options to choose from.
As a special treat, Simmers will also receive a FREE dishwasher in a new patch coming later next week. Hopefully this can be seen to help fill some of the remaining gaps in the Sims 4’s base content.
Hey Simmers! Today we’re taking a look at setting up a Bakery in The Sims 4: Get To Work!
Bakeries, unlike other retail spaces, require a kitchen, equipped with a counter top, stove, and fridge. Certainly, Sims with cooking and baking skills are also required. It doesn’t really matter which of the two skills they have, as long as they can efficiently cook a meal.
After setting up the general layout of the store, have your Sim bake a meal and place it on the counter. Click on it once, and select the “Set For Sale” button to allow customers to purchase the item once the store has opened.
Next you’ll need to place the “Baker’s Cousin Display Case” in the main dining area, and drag your baked goods onto its shelves. This shelf greatly extends the time-frame until the food expires, sometimes making it last a week or more!
Though optional, another object you can place in your bakery is the “Lice Cold Retail Freezer.” This allows customers to quickly purchase your baked goods without having to go through the checkout process. However, there’s one little caveat, which we’ll talk about a bit in an upcoming section.
Opening Up Shop
Once you’ve finished placing your Baked Goods on display, you can open up your store in one of two ways. You may click either on the Cash Register object or the Retail Store Icon at the lower right corner of the screen. From here click the “Open Shop” button and wait for the customers to come strolling in.
Shop and Employee Management
When a customer is ready to purchase an item, a shopping cart icon will pulsate overhead. Click on the customer and select “Ring up Customer” to complete the transaction. After a customer completes the transaction, it’s very likely for the display case to become dirty. In addition, if you take too long to fulfill a Sim’s order, they’ll get angry, and stomp out of the store. That’s why it’s imperative to have one Sim focus on sales, while the others focus on cleaning and restocking.
Now you may think that hiring employees might be the best way to fulfill those tasks, but there’s one major problem. Bakeries aren’t very profitable. An employee, even at the starting salary, can take a huge drain on the store’s profits. Obviously you can get around this with cheating, but if you’re trying to play fairly, you may find your employees too expensive and incompetent to efficiently help with the store.
If you do hire an employee, keep in mind that you need to dismiss them after about 9 hours, or else they’ll start complaining. After working for a few days they’ll ask for a raise. Even the prospect of giving the Sim a raise, will most likely put your Bakery further in the red. It’s best to just fire them when you’re starting out, and use family members in their place.
Item restocking can place a further dent to your profits. While the store is closed, use the price markup feature in the “Retail Shop” menu to sell your baked goods at a higher price.
If you plan to sell items from the Lice Cold Freezer, keep in mind that you will not be able to restock them after the purchase is complete. This means you must cook the item from scratch each time an item is purchased from the freezer.
Other Baking Devices
The Whipped Dream Cupcake Factory allows Bakers to create cupcakes, donuts, tarts, and muffins. The higher the cooking skill, the more kinds of cupcakes you can create. As the Sim reaches Baking skill level 3, they’ll gain a new interaction to decorate their treats for an even sweeter presentation.
The Cupcake Factory will occasionally require cleaning and restocking. In addition, it appears to have a “failure” condition, releasing confections at an “Okay” quality. This seems to happen more often if a treat requires a particular ingredient, like apples, or bananas.
Baking Skill Level
Here are the list of items you can create with each Baking Skill level.
Level 3: (Decorate Cookies Cakes Cupcakes to Improve quality)
The Sims 4: Get To Work is a new expansion pack expected to release in April 2015. This expansion features three “Active Careers” allowing you to see the day to day interactions of your Sim at work!
As a doctor, your Sim will be spending their time at the hospital diagnosing and treating their patients. This starts off with a proper diagnosis through examining the patient from head to toe. Ailing Sims can display a variety of symptoms, from sneezing and coughing, to strange markings across the skin. As your Sim advances through the career, they’ll unlock interactions, object rewards, and be given more options to accurately diagnose a patient.
Doctors will be given unique interactions, allowing them to give medical advice, go on house calls, and check whether pregnant Sims will have a girl or boy. They can even unlock a new romance interaction where they brush their hands across the side of a cheek.
The trailer gave us a peek at new hairstyles included in the expansion!
As the expansion pack reaches towards the release date, we hope to bring you even more information about the other “active careers,” but until then…see you soon!
Can you believe it? The Sims 4 is finally available for Macs! Getting the game up and running is simple, but there are just a few things you need to know.
You see, the Mac version of The Sims 4 is currently only available in digital form. That means, if you recently went to the store to buy a physical copy, you won’t be able to use that CD to install the game. Instead, you’ll have to install Origin, and download the game from there.
First, open up Safari or your web browser of choice and head to the origin.com/download page. Click on the tiny text that says “Download for Mac” underneath the orange button.
After installing and running the application, sign into Origin using your ID and Password. If you don’t have an Origin account at this point, you’ll have no choice but to create one.
If The Sims 4 doesn’t appear within the “My Games” tab, please do the following:
Open up the boxed copy of The Sims 4, and find the product code.
On Origin, click on “Origin” in the top left corner and click on “Redeem Product Code“
Type in the Product Code to download the game.
If The Sims 4 appears within the “My Games” tab, please do the following:
Click on The Sims 4.
Click on the Download button to start the installation.
Your Sims can live out their dream careers by heading to work in the new Expansion Pack. This pack introduces three career opportunities, allowing your Sim to become a Doctor, Scientist, or Detective. Alternatively, if you’re in the entrepreneurial spirit, you can open up your own business and manage its day to day operations.
The Sims 4: Get to Work releases April 2015 for $39.99!
The Careers
Your Sims can take active employment in these careers.
Doctors work at the hospital, treating patients, saving lives, performing surgery, and even delivering babies.
Detectives will make their triumphant return, as they investigate scenes, interrogate Sims, and arrest criminals. You’ll start out as a Cadet and can rise through the ranks to become the Chief of Police.
Scientists can create zany inventions, but will they use their inventions for good or evil?
Open a Retail Business
Perhaps your Sim is itching to run a successful business. Use your retail space to run businesses like bakeries, clothing boutiques, bookstores, art galleries, and more! Customize your store in Build Mode, then choose the items you’d like to sell. You can manage your employees, and schmooze with your customers to get that final sale!
Career Venues
Sims will have new career venues to travel to, like the Hospital, Police Station, and Science Lab. They can even head down to the Retail District and take an active role in managing their business.
New Skills
Sims can use new skills to create even more unique objects. They can show off their creations at home or sell them for some extra cash! Build up the baking skill to entice customers with fancy confections, or catch the perfect scene with the new photography skill.
On our final note, we’d like to announce that Aliens are officially returning. Let’s discover what’s out of this world, when “The Sims 4: Get To Work” expansion pack drops in April 2015!
The Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat adds an assortment of outdoor apparel, from zip-down jackets to warm cotton sweaters. Before you head out to Granite Falls, check out our catalog of the new clothing options available.
New Hairstyles
Women receive six new hairstyles consisting of ponytails, pigtails, and hair buns. Sorry fellas, you lucked out, as you only get two new options to choose from.
New Hats
There isn’t much color variety with the new hats they’ve added. Only one of them contains interesting variations with neatly designed logos and mascots.
Men’s Clothing
The clothing options for men are more geared towards hiking apparel, with zippers on jackets in all sorts of locations. Hiking boots take up the majority of the new footwear, and they even added some hiking sandals and split-toe shoes for comedic value.
Women’s Clothing
Sleeveless shirts and vests seems to be all the rage in this game pack. With the emphasis on shorts and mini-shorts, the clothing options seemed to be more geared towards the more younger and youthful Sims. However, the selection of footwear echoes the theme of the game pack…so put on those boots, it’s time to go hiking!
Children’s Clothing
There’s even more graphic tees and shirts for kids, however they blew it out of the park with those billed knit beanies. We bet the modders are just racing to be the first ones to convert them for adults.
Full-body Clothing
It’s sad to say, but the bear costumes just fall flat, and are one of the lowest points to the new clothing options in the pack. You can wear them no matter what gender or age you are, but they just feel out of place compared to the other costumes in the game. However, it does seem to have an effect that causes Sims to tense up when NPCs wear them nearby.
Women on the other hand received some nicely designed outfits with sweaters tied to the waist. They look exceptionally great and fit well with the theme of the game pack.
It appears that, at least since December, Simmers have been plagued with a bug that prevents them from loading up their families. Apparently they got kicked out to the neighborhood screen upon loading the file. This issue has been finally resolved as of today in the January 13th patch!
Another interesting bug that was fixed today made the fertility rate skyrocket, causing a new baby boomer generation! Aside from that, Johnny Zest will finally have his name spelled correctly after seemingly being swapped around for no reason!
Patch Notes: Version 1.3.32.1010
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that resulted in our players being unable to load their household after installing the 12/16 patch, and instead being bounced back to the neighborhood map. The community was very helpful in identifying this issue (providing feedback and save files), thank you!
Fixed an issue where the game would become unresponsive on load if the player had a large number of households, rooms, and lots in their My Library sort.
Sim fertility levels had reached an all-time high recently, and twins were popping out all over! Our specialists have examined the issue, and administered a correction to the abundant babies. Sims should no longer find they are having twins (or triplets) at an alarming rate.
Fixed an issue that prevented career progress from properly tracking the Sims skill progression towards career goals.
Working out on workout equipment will no longer count towards the play chess daily goal for the Astronaut career.
We fixed an issue that was a result of this: let’s say you had a Sim, we’ll call him Joe, and he lived in a household, say the Smiths, and you uploaded Joe, also known as Joe Smith, to the Gallery, and then you decided to add Joe to the Jones’ household by downloading him from the Gallery, thus now creating Joe Jones, and then you edited Joe Jones in Create a Sim, this would also modify Joe Smith.
The “In Need of a Break” buff is no longer in need of a break, and now correctly displays its information in the hover tip.
Zest Johnny will henceforth be known as… Johnny Zest!
Fixed an issue that could result in “bad things” when attempting to merge a Sim from the gallery into a household that already has a copy of that Sim in it.
Fixed an issue that could result in “bad things” when attempting to merge a household from the gallery into a household that already has a copy of that household in it.
We however failed to fix the repetitive nature of some of our release notes.
The Venue Wall Speaker: Spooky has made a return to the catalog after spending some time on the ‘other side’ to re-spookify itself.
Lots placed from the gallery that have used the move objects cheat will no longer delete their moo’d objects when the lot is placed.
The National Park venue now has tuning associated with it… so Sims who show up will know they can leave, rather than lingering around indefinitely, wandering aimlessly with no apparent purpose, direction, or desire (they could have at least played music…).
Fixed an issue that was preventing the user from uploading multiple rooms to the gallery if the rooms were uploaded consecutively.
UI / Text
Fixed an interface focus issue where the eyedropper tooltip was preventing the eyedropper from properly functioning.
Fixed an issue that occurred when opening a modal window on top of an open inventory stack, which would cause the stack to fail to correctly display.
Text will no longer overlap itself in the phone menu if the text string is too long.
You can once again add a description to your Rooms and Lots that you upload to the gallery, rather than using the comment field… which was ingenious!
You will no longer be told twice that you can take Family Leave if there is more than one eligible Sim.
Deck the halls this winter with a wide variety of Holiday themed objects for the Sims 4. From Christmas, Hanukkah, to Kwanzaa, this pack features an assortment of objects like a Menorah, Kinara, and a Christmas Tree. Tacky holiday sweaters and hats are also available for your Sims.
Accent your walls with Holiday Garland and Christmas wreaths. Place some snowflakes behind the curtain for a slight hint of a winter wonderland. You can even click on the Christmas Tree, Menorah, and Kinara to lighten the room. Each of the candles can be lightened individually, to count down to that special day. Get into the holiday spirit, by dancing along to new tunes on the Winter Holiday radio station.
The Pool Tool is now available in Build Mode. Use it to draw pools in rectangular shapes. Its four other options extend to triangular, square, diagonal, and octagonal pools. These can be appended onto existing pools to create complex designs. For example, the “triangular pool” can be pretty handy for creating pools with diagonal corners.
Add some decor with the placement of lights and decals. These objects can be placed both in and outside the pool.
Pools can be built anywhere; from the ground, to the deck, and even the second and third floors.
Pool Interactions
There’s only a few pool interactions you’ll see on a regular basis. You can swim laps, splash others, or sit on the edge and chat. Sims with certain moodlets have access to a few more interactions. They could go for a ‘playful’ swim, or swim faster laps while ‘energized.’
Sims who pee in the pool, gain the “secretly relieved” moodlet. This boosts their playfulness but makes everyone else “uncomfortably warm.”
New Outfits!
This update adds the new “Swimwear” category for Sims of all ages. Women can wear bikinis and one-piece bathing suits in all sorts of colors and styles.
Men can wear board shorts, speedos, and a shark tooth necklace.
Girls can wear bathing suits in plain colors or polka-dots. Boys can choose from 3 different shorts in a wide assortment of colors.
Be ready for the hot summer sun with two new sunblock face paint options available in Create A Sim.
