Cats & Dogs - First Impressions

[MrsFlynn]

Cats and Dogs has been officially launched!! Yay!!



Tell us your first thoughts on this pack!!

[Playalot]

I've played for a couple of hours now. Not even long enough to explore every neighborhood! It is a stunning world. To be honest I was a little speechless when I first saw it. I've been looking forward to having a new world as I was becoming very bored with the old ones but even so it was pretty surprising just how lovely it is.

I pretty much by-passed CAP apart from to grab a dog for my sim. I've never really been into customizing pets so in all honesty I won't be doing that until some time in the future when I'm bored with he new game play but from the very quick look around I took, it is going to make those of you who love to play in CAS really happy! CAP will be a treat for you.

It is very weird to not be able to control your pet. The interactions your sim has with their pet are very intuitive and it's easy to learn how to look after your pet. My dog got a negative mood-well his icon was in the red indicating some need wasn't being met and because I am such a micro-manager I was getting a little annoyed that I couldn't improve my dogs mood. I'd tried everything and then it dawned on me that the dog was probably tired.

I asked him to lie down on his bed, then he fell asleep, easy. Then I decided to see if the dog would solve his own needs so my sim woke him up again and played with him for a short while. It was only a matter of a few sim minutes after the playing stopped that the dog went to his bed to sleep. Problem solved.

So I don't hate not being able to control my pets directly. I'm not 100% a fan yet but it's very early days and I have a lot more to explore in this pack before I can really decide. I think my micro-managing tendencies will have to take a back seat though. I still have to try playing with a cat, which I am looking forward to being a cat-person in real life, but seeing it's past 4am here sleep is needed!

First impressions of the world? Thumbs up, I'm a fan.

[jillz]

I’ve had a chance to play for a few hours and have a little feedback. I happily moved a family into a new lot in Brindleton Bay and went for a walk on the beach. My Sims met 5 stray dogs on his first walk. Five!!

They were all hungry and I ended up traveling with 3/5 to the dog park and bought food bowls to feed them all. They were all good dogs (Brent) and I wanted to adopt them all. I took 3 of them home with me and tried to get high enough friendship to keep them (couldn’t figure out how to adopt a stray yet, I got up to good friend level and there was still no option). Gave them baths, let them sleep indoors, played with them and they would eventually wander off to continue their life as a stray. And then I was thinking about where all these stray dogs are coming from who are these Sims that aren’t taking care of their pets and dropping their unwanted animals off in Brindleton Bay and it made me sad :p

Secondly, turn off the poodle/bedlington haircuts for strays. Or make it a very low chance that haircut comes up in the randomized options. Again, most of the strays I saw with the exception of a couple had weird cuts and random coats and they looked like the wacky townies.

Lastly, I found it a little strange you could call up the stray dogs you have befriended and invite the to hang out at your current lot like an NPC townie. I mean, I understand why it’s in the game, it’s just strange. “Hi, Rover. It’s Brant from the park the other day. Do you wanna come over and hang out at my house? I just got this new squeaky ball I really wanna try out “

I posted this on r/thesims earlier today. Everything other than this is fantastic. I LOVE Brindleton Bay, create a pet is VERY robust, the new buy/build objects are AMAZING. I am just about to login in again and try to figure out how to adopt a stray cat or dog. I'll let you all know if I can figure it out.

[eaglezero]

I tried downloading it when I was able to and the download is broken or something because it won't finalize. Checked on the official forums and it's apparently a common issue.

“Hi, Rover. It’s Brant from the park the other day. Do you wanna come over and hang out at my house? I just got this new squeaky ball I really wanna try out “

 

[Carl]

So.. wow. I didn't follow news of this one closely, so opening it up for the first time and seeing the huge list of breeds in CAP was a real stunner. I made it a third of the way taking screenshots before I decided it could wait for later. I think if you have a popular breed in mind, they've definitely got you covered. That said, half the breeds in this list, I've never heard of - that's just a testament to how much effort was put into making sure most people could find the dog they wanted. Haven't even looked at cats yet, cuz I think it'll make mine go bonkers and I dont yet have the energy for that. It'll be fun for later.

SimGuruDrake actually sent me a review copy, but the email never got to me.. so I'll be a few days behind others in making content for the site. Bummer eh.

[eaglezero]

Ok I got it working. I LOVE that we don't have to control the pets - that makes them much more fun to me. I think the new furniture is great. My favorite objects are definitely the bay window seat things. I've been sticking them in every awkward corner of my houses.

I was able to quite easily make a cat and dog to look like my own. With my cat I picked the breed option and then had to color over everything to get the coloration and change the head and eye shapes because my cat's head is pretty far from breed standard. I couldn't find a way to change the paw pad color, but I doubt they're terribly noticeable in game. With the dog, mine is a mix of two breeds and picking those and randomizing the mixer a few times actually got me something really close, then I just had to change eye/nose colors and paint over the ears.

And this came with the latest update but I love that you can make things smaller - now I can finally buy that stupid big $12,000 statue to waste some simoleons in pursuit of the mansion baron aspiration.

[MarianT]

I've played for 2 hours now. My main criticism is that picking up a pet looks very awkward -- kind of a combination of clipping and teleporting.

I made a new Sim, gave her a cat in CAS, and sent her to live in one of the cheap houses in Brindleton Bay, the one near the beach. I love the new clothes and hair. She has the Animal Lover aspiration.

I found that if you click on the pet's picture, the camera will follow the pet, which is how I found that my cat got sprayed by a skunk first thing. She also picked up a present for her owner -- a gnome, which could be sold for $280. The cat has also scattered birds a few times and brought some feathers to her owner. Twice Gunther Munch took them instead, but the 3rd time my Sim managed to get them. There were 3 feathers in the pile.

While on the beach my Sim met a stray dog and managed to adopt him. She did some friendly interactions and offered friendship. The first time she did that the dog growled at her, but after she gave him a couple of treats, he was ready to be friends. When the "adopt" interaction showed up, I had her go for it. The dog's traits are hunter, glutton, and loyal, and he does sleep at the foot of her bed -- on his back. A couple of times the "What's wrong?" interaction showed up. One time the dog needed to pee, so she instructed him to do that. He pooped as well, and she stepped in it, which was cute.

Off to explore more, but I'm happy with the pack so far.

[RiotKitty]

My main focus this morning was to download and just do a quick overview.

Holy Plumbob! Just 30 minutes or so and I must echo Carl's astonishment at the number of breeds available for both pets.

I was initially disappointed that my fave breed only seemed to come in one coat color. I'm not particularly artistic and dreaded having to repaint the base to get a replica of my rotten-little-dog. Then, I discovered the coat patterns tab where I was able to find a coat pattern that duplicates my horrible lovebug.

I'm convinced I'll have a serious learning curve, but I'm pretty excited about tackling it after today's chores are done. *huff-snort*

[Trip]

Lots of breeds but one of my friends reports that there's no Bassett Hound...why? They're well-loved, hilarious, and I love them to pieces.

Honestly this is the funnest pack yet. I love setting the camera to follow my dog and watching him go.

Most of my gripes are related to dog aesthetics. Why are the small breeds so small? I have a cocker spaniel and the game turns him into this puny ankle biter. And I agree about strays with upkept poodle cuts and t-shirts. I guess you can interpret them as runaways vs. actual street dogs.

[sdhoey]

I'm just like "wow". First thing I did was made an attempt at my Shih-Tzu. I was pretty, pretty close. LOL, She is so cute. Brindleton Bay is GORGEOUS. I mean I want to live there. I haven't played much with the EP yet. CAS is great. I am loving the hairs and the clothes. CAP is awesome. I am hoping that I will the guts to be adventurous enough to create an awesome colored pet. So far I am loving it. I can't wait to try out the vet career.

[MarianT]

@Trip, I agree about the Bassett Hound. But I guess that they didn't include one because part of their charm is their stumpy legs. I was wondering if you could breed a corgi with a bloodhound and maybe get the right look.

[eaglezero]

Example of what I'm doing with these benches -

[Nindigo]

So far, the pets themselves remind me a lot of their brethren from TS3. From animations to the shaping of the available breeds - especially the dogs. The most improvements seem to be have been done for the cats; they are now everywhere.

My household has two cats and one dog.

Like in TS3, there are only two sizes of dogs - they are either large or small, but the breed distribution in those categories is much better this time around. For instance, a Black Russian Terrier is now the big dog that it is in real life. However, a Bedlington Terrier is large where it is medium sized in real life. So mis-matches still occur. Ideally, there should be 4 or 5 different sizes. An Irish Wolfhould or Great Dane are really tall dogs that dwarf the common Labrador or German Shepherd. But aside from this, pets are pretty much what I expected with the addition of some new features. They are certainly kept Sims-style.

Playing The Sims, I find that I'm more of a cat person whereas I'm mostly a dog person in real life. Perhaps, it's because pets in this expansion are a bit stereotypical - dogs seeming less intelligent than cats. I wish it wasn't the case. My real life dog never gives me that goofy "I have no brains"-look or move around uncontrollably. She's quiet and contained. Oh, well.

Overall, I do find that Cats and Dogs are a nice and welcome addition to the Sims 4 world. It adds some fresh content, which was sorely needed, and I have yet to try it all out.

[Saltypaws]

I had a rocky start after downloading this game, but after removing a lot of items and some broken mods, I was finally able to play it.  I really love the new town, just have to figure out how to get into the new households, have to rearrange some sims, I guess.  I had a sim buy the Vet hospital and after finally figuring it out, it was rather simple to play.  There was so many messes at first and then realized the robo vacuum was probably for that reason and it worked great.  Overall, not having to manage the pets is actually better, I believe.  Mine have pretty much taken care of themselves and after scolding them for doing something wrong, pretty soon, it says that they have learned not to, for instance, "scratch the furniture" pretty cool that the game had come out on my three day weekend. I really like it and think it was a great addition.

[scoed]

It is safe to say I hate this expansion. Too many bugs. No real content I care about.