Get to Work released! First impressions....

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Blaqhawk
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Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Blaqhawk »

NORMALLY.....

I'm not the one starting these sort of threads... :pan:

This must be a terrifically busy time of year lately...

Anyway, moving on...

So, Get to Work came live on Origin at 9pm last night pacific time.

But I only got into it today really.

So far only looked at the detective line and I must say it certainly adds some life to the game in a way that wasn't there before. It seems a bit laggy certain points, but I am on older desktop, so maybe thats just equipment age. On the whole, I like this approach; it is definitely connecting the player to the sims more. I haven't played much else lately yet in terms of the other careers or the self employment section, but I am overall very happy with this so far.

Come on folks, stop playing dead. :lol: Those who have actually got this expack, please post your thoughts.
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Abby
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Abby »

Hahaha i know, back in the day the forum would be buzzing with a new release!
The game isnt released here in Europe till the 2nd, buying it the minute it comes out. So excited! Cant wait to hear more reviews from people!!
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Moggy
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Moggy »

It come out tomorrow for me too! Can't wait!
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Taube
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Taube »

I got it last night and played way too late, and then some today. Here are my thoughts in no particular order, plus a silly picture from the hospital.

I like it, though I still think I won't play the professions in my legacy. I played a sim in the doctor career and went to five days of work with her. They basically function like dates or parties, with you having to fulfill certain objectives to earn "gold" for the highest work performance. It took me two days each time to get her a promotion even though I got gold every day. The hospital is neat but not very functional. There is a receptionist, but she (or maybe he in your game) is useless! I had to check patients in myself. At one point, there was this crowd of 4 or 5 kids standing around at the check-in desk waiting. It was pretty funny. The picture is below.

Being a doctor (or an intern, as my sim started out) is a great way to meet people, because you have to socialize with your coworkers and patients. It got a little repetitive, but there were new tasks with the promotion, so maybe it'll get more interesting later on. There was a non-stop influx of patients, but they don't seem to get sicker or impatient from waiting, and there is a new group the next day you work, so it doesn't seem to matter if you don't finish all of them. You have set work hours and get sent there and home automatically, but you can choose to finish early (with a penalty) or stay late by an hour to finish up.

I also had my sim try out the photography skill. You can take selfies, selfies with another sim, or pictures of something else in the world, including other sims. Better cameras give you more options, but you start out with your phone camera. Interestingly, the "take picture" interaction with another sim does not produce a photo. You have to use the official photo interaction. It produced small but cute photos that I hung on the wall. I'm wondering if better cameras can produce larger photos, but I don't know that yet. Even with the phone camera, you can apply filters.

There are a lot of new clothes and several new hairstyles for men and women, and a ton of build/buy stuff. I'm really happy with this aspect of the game. However, all of the new makeup seems to be meant for aliens (or your weirder sims) so that was kind of disappointing. I was hoping for new useful makeup choices.

Apparently (haven't tried this yet), you can meet aliens by being a high-level scientist and inventing a portal, then traveling to their world. You can have babies with aliens. I haven't seen anything about finding aliens in disguise like they mentioned, but maybe that has something to do with the detective profession? Not sure.

I haven't tried retail at all yet. There is only one blank lot in the new neighborhood (the others are businesses you can buy, I guess), so there really isn't room for lots of multiple new businesses. However, a lot of the build/buy items are tailored for businesses, so it looks like you can build a pretty cool store.

The baking skill works almost exactly like cooking.

Overall, this adds new gameplay, though how much of it is legacy-applicable depends on your style. You don't progress in your career - I think - unless you're there with the sim, which is a major downside. Photography is awesome and I'm looking forward to playing with it more. Pretty happy with CAS except the makeup. Looking forward to aliens, but it sounds really difficult. OFB-lovers should be pretty happy, though there are no options for venues or home businesses, which were my favorite. I'm still glad I bought it, since I had expectations going in that this would not mostly be for my challenge sims.

"Gosh, there's all these sick children hanging around. Should I check them in, Mr. Nurse?"
"Oh, don't bother, Ms. Receptionist. I'm just going to idle here doing nothing. I advise you to do the same. Hopefully someone in the hospital has a brain and will cure some of them." :P
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Blaqhawk
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Blaqhawk »

Heh, yeah, but I also found alien abductions are back... You never see the ufo [at least I didn't], but the sim doesn't necessarily react badly from what little I've seen.. My sim seemed noncommital about, be nice if she'd returned itchin for pregnancy test, but cant have everything.

I most enjoy the science career so far. The trouble I had yesterday with lag seems perhaps localized to the detective career.

I did read on sims forums that some were having issues with the science of doctor professions crashing on them. Anyway, I'd recommend doing a repair on your game even if you havent encounter any issue, for me, I think doing it optimized the installation. Just something to keep in mind...

I was thinking there was a photography related career now but I guess thats just more for retail side of the coin.
I like it, though I still think I won't play the professions in my legacy. I played a sim in the doctor career and went to five days of work with her. They basically function like dates or parties, with you having to fulfill certain objectives to earn "gold" for the highest work performance. It took me two days each time to get her a promotion even though I got gold every day. The hospital is neat but not very functional. There is a receptionist, but she (or maybe he in your game) is useless! I had to check patients in myself. At one point, there was this crowd of 4 or 5 kids standing around at the check-in desk waiting. It was pretty funny. The picture is below.
That's interesting cause I think they do fine normally, but with you doing a legacy, some of it could be a bit cumbersome as far as the game coding goes. The interactive professions, I feel are great perhaps for the start of a legacy where you don't have to micromanage a few sims. but I will try to send my sim normally to work and see what happens. Results later. :lol:

As an aside, I must apologize for not providing any pictures yet. But in my defense, I've played ts4 the entire day yesterday. :rotfl:

I feel that they are on the right track with this line of thinking, there are some issues with legacies and large sim families that could be smoothed out, but I think that given a few more patches/updates, what we got with this expack will be excellent.

They need to remake that nifty little ticket machine and throw that in so that you could have a sports club or such. I don't quite feel this is as open ended as OfB was, but adding that would be a big step toward that feeling, along with more of the base careers having the immersive quality that this pack has brought to the game. In sims 2, if you wanted workplace story, you had to go in and manually set it up. With ts4 now, that is much easier to do because those workplace elements are included now along with a possibility of future development in this area. This is my take on it tho, because I see this expack having opened the way to having every career in the game that the sim disappears for as having an interactive side to it. This would be good for a future career like the education career, where there'd be two sides to that career, one being student and the other being the teacher. This expack has I think brought more possibilities than we realize, all they need to do now is work on those improvements, because even tho it might seem like every career being interactive might be detrimental to an already running Legacy, I don't see it like that in the long run. I think what they did opened up a new horizon for us simmers, and I really appreciate that about this expack.

Now for the sim creator.. You can create your own aliens, but its quite the change from the past.
Spoiler:
Skintones are more a combo of pastel and chrome reflective quality. Not sure on the hair side yet. An extremely limited selection of clothing for aliens, wouldnt be suprised if that disappoints some like it did me.
But I do like the fact that they changed the aliens around this time again to a more strange sort of sim type. Have not yet been to the alien home yet, but I leave that to others to show off and uncover.
Later
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Taube »

The main reason I said it wouldn't work with my legacy play style is that I am a major micro-manager. Hard to do when you're following a sim around making exam beds or taking mugshots. ;) But yes, this does add almost a new type of game that is optional, of course. I'm more worried about what it's going to do to my apocalypse, to be honest. That could be tricky, but I'm sure Pinstar will iron it out.

Anyway, played the detective career for a while after getting my doctor sim up to the point where she could perform surgeries. I liked it. The "crime scene" we went to was The Blue Velvet nightclub, and the witnesses were just random neighborhood sims milling about. It was fun to find clues, but the busywork back at the station was a little mind-numbing, in my opinion. I'm sure that, just like the doctor career, it gets better the further up you go. Today is "experiment with scientist" day for me. I'll report back on that.

On another note, you can now follow your pregnant sims to the hospital if you choose to send them there when they're in labor. Personally, the surgery machine freaks me the hell out, especially for something like birth, so I wasn't too pleased with how it went, but mother and baby were fine, and the father spent most of his time having a "pre-parental freakout" and running around the hospital. :lol: One cool thing is the mother got a birth certificate for the baby in her inventory. I like that a lot, but I have no idea whether you get it if you send her to the hospital without following her. Time will tell. It was a cute bit of realism, but the surgery machine . . .*shivers*.
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Abby
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Abby »

Downloading as we speak, cant wait.
I am a bit worried about how its going to pan out with my legacy too, like with ambitions in TS3 I just didnt have the time.... Maybe ill just have to make the time. :P
We'll see anyways.
So excited, will post an update on my initial thoughts!
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Moggy »

I bought the box because I like lining them up they look so goo together but then when I got home my disk drive died so it seems I have to download anyway. sigh lol
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Blaqhawk »

Seems I have a few results to report on....

The science career does work normally as far as promotions received sending them to work as normal. You don't need to worry about those being too much of an issue, just look at the next level reqs first, there might be another time where you have to join them, but not sure on that. For me., Science is the easiest one to cope with.

Started a full fledged alien couple family today, possibly may send them to the park and see how the locals react to their disguised form... They really are cute together, its cool playing with the alien related actions... Alternative is to make em paint and craft up a storm and just collect their works for later to sell at retail... watch how the various sims react.

My science career sim got her 4th? abductions today... Not sure if thats a feature of the science career or just random...

Yeah, I can see where if you like to micromanage, its not necessarily the best thing, and yet, you won't know if you don't try. Need to revisit detective game and change the guy's loner trait out... That career is murder on him otherwise.
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by TeeVee »

I downloaded it last night and I swear I was just going to install it and mess around in CAS and then before I know it, I'd been playing an alien sim for 4 sim days in the Science career and it was 3am! :shifty:

I'm really enjoying it so far. I keep forgetting to put my alien in her human disguise so she gets discovered by everyone she meets and then she gets embarrassed about it. Woops.

Haven't explored much outside of the Science track, but I like the fact that you can choose not to join them - I decided my alien would be a legacy founder and so far it's working out well for me to join her every day. She's already at level 3 after 4 days so it's really easy to get promotions by going along with them (although that last day she had to find 10 collectibles to re-stock the lab and all she kept finding were capsules (which don't count) so she did terribly that day!).

Anyways, I've no doubt I'll be posting my first chapter of the legacy at some point today if people want to check out some screens of the game (shameless promotion :lol: )
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Abby
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Abby »

hahah TeeVee, I downloaded it at midnight aswell, installed it and was literally so tired I decided to to bed! Sooo unlike me. Haha

Anyways, ive played for about two hours so far, with my legacy. One of my heir's has joined up in the detective career so thats all i've played so far, and has only been to two working days as his first day was a friday, then had to wait two days. >_> He's just been promoted to level 2.

I love how interactive it is, and i think the detective career so far is really cool and interesting. So far its not bothering me being away from the main household during the day but i can see myself choosing to not go with them when i get further along the line and want to stay controlling the sims at home. Havnt really looked at the new CAS hairstyles and clothes yet, so i'll let you know what i think of that.

My sim had the first baby at the hospital aswell. This option is AWESOME! I love it. Haha
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Blaqhawk »

Yeah. there's a few weird glitches... Had a sim abducted from right in front of some visiting sim and he never batted an over it.... Something that needs a fix....

So using the wormhole generator thing properly seems to be limited to the science center itself afaik.. I built one, before I needed to and sims been carrying it with her since... That needs to be fixed so if you already have the item built, theres no need to rebuild, rather, the game will jump ahead to the proper step...

So hope they fix these little bugs.

Still enjoying the game a great deal. Need to upload my science sim cause she is really cute.... according to me... :lol: Though she might be already on the gallery.. Morigan Madison I think.

Anyway, ttyl.
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Moggy
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Moggy »

So far I am liking this expansion. Mostly I have just been playing the scientific career and it's a lot of fun. The inventions are cool and doing the little tasks can sometimes do funny and surprising things like make everyone have a dance party! I really want to try retail but I don't have the cash to build a store yet so I am leveling my next generations baking and cooking talents. While only just new recipes I do enjoy all the cool stuff you can bake now. I love a good bakery! The new items seem pretty substantial but I have yet to look at the new clothes and hair/body options. To some up my first impressions about Get to Work in a phrase would be very satisfied and ready to continue. I feel like after a day of playing I still got way more to do which is a great feeling for an expansion.
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Abby »

Havnt experimented with the science career track and aliens yet, that'll be next for me I think!

I thought the whole interactive careers thing would really interefere with my family like it did with ambitions, and I'd hate being away from the home. But I dont with this game, I think its because theyre on their own little lot with the rest of the family being uncontrollable and having their needs met. It takes away the stress of in the TS3 when you had to keep going back and controlling the main household aswell.
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by lumasong »

I've played a bit now, so here goes...

Once thing I noticed right away is there are no changes to aspirations or traits - which means taking on the new careers/building a business is never really presented as something your sim really wants to do. There are certainly reasons to take these options besides aspirations/traits, but it does feel kind of separate from the rest of the game.

I played the Science career to level 8 and had tons of fun. This Sim didn't have a family so I wasn't worried about leaving sims at home. The inventions were interesting, and could be used in interesting ways. The work day had a bit of structure, but you were mostly free to experiment as you liked, and I enjoyed it a lot. It did get a little repetitious (how many times must I force my-co workers to change outfits?) but overall the inventions, abductions, and opportunity to visit the alien world was a lot of fun. You got new inventions as you were promoted, as well as the ability to order your co-workers around.

I have so far played the Detective career to level 9 and there has not been a single change in any of what I can do. It's all the same, and extremely monotonous. I've investigated plenty of crime scenes and none of it seems very important. You pick up non-specific 'clues' and then leave. The same people tend to be at every scene, and there's rarely any indication as to what crime you're investigating. Further, the clues you gather on one crime scene can be used to solve a completely different crime. The clues are nonsensical and there's no need to do any real investigation or critical thinking - just sweep the lot and go home. I've gathered so many clues that I've solved cases without ever visiting the crime scene I was investigating. The interrogation can be fun, but I find that just showing them all your evidence tends to get them to confess, without messing with good cop/bad cop.
There are other things you can do, like taking mugshots or going on patrol, but very little reason to do them when you could be solving cases. Going on patrol just means wandering around with a bunch of angry sims who inevitably get into fights, and then giving them citations. Seems pretty pointless.
My detective sim is a legacy founder and hasn't had any problems with going to work. She works through the week and the kids are mostly at school - she has no spouse yet but lots of kids. The kids spend two hours without me at home and usually can be left to take care of their needs without my interference. If they managed the school day with needs intact, I can always direct them to skill in my absence.

Haven't played the doctor career or started my own business yet. We shall see how that holds up! So far, one great career, one bad one. Maybe things will change when she reaches Chief, but I kind of doubt it.
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Re: Get to Work released! First impressions....

Post by Rhea »

I bought this a few days ago, and haven't found much time to play it. I did play the doctor career to level 10 though and I do agree with what is stated above. It is the same thing for all 10 career levels. I don't get it.

Hopefully some of the others are better?
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