Island Paradise - First Impressions

[blackforest0]

First impression- I'm loving it. The world is beautiful, and I love the water. But, watching the houseboats move up and down is kind of making me seasick. Which, is strange, considering I've been on boats before and never had that problem. So...I may stick to houses on normal, land-based lots.

And I absolutely love the mermaids.

[butterfly]

I'm completly in love wth this EP, I love everything about it. The only thing that I don't like is the lack of buy mode objects, especially furniture.

[fortheloveofcake]

This is hands-down my all time FAVORITE EP!!! I've been playing off and on for several hours and I absolutely love it.

Pros:
-Scuba diving! Fabulous job on this, even though it is restricted only to several dive sites it is still a lot to explore. My sim has found many seashells and treasure chests so far.
-Resort ownership. Love that I can actually run my own sim business again, sort of reminds me of Open for Business from Sims 2, but better. I like that they included three different resort 'styles' and the blueprints are really good.
-Houseboats! My sims will probably never have land homes again. The different sizes are really good and its a great way to start off cheaply with a new sim.
-Multiple water transportation methods. I really like all the different types of watercraft that they included. The seadoo is my favorite.
-Mermaids!!!! While I have not encountered one while diving yet, I have met two on land.
-New clothes and Furniture. Clothing options: excellent. Furniture options: not the best selection they have ever had in an EP but considering all the other fantastic features in the game now, I'll take the small selection. They did a really good job on the items they did include though.

Cons (very minor cons!):
-The underwater view is very grainy and not like the screenshots I have seen. Hopefully this can be fixed with some tweaking of the graphics settings.
-Moving a houseboat takes a really.... really long time. Like really long. Like half a day to get to the other side of an island long.

[Shewolf13]

I am having an absolute blast with this EP.  LOVE the houseboats.  They are amazing. 

[Caitie]

Was going to post info on the new traits and LTWs but Ricalynn beat me to it, lol.  Here's the specifics on each of the traits. (Excuse the quality; I'm having issues with the camera in-game right now and so took these with my cellphone camera).

[doxxielover]

Has anyone unlocked an uncharted island? If so which one and how did you do it? Thank you as I am very interested in this but I am not sure how to tackle it at first.

[Ricalynn]

There are 8 ways to unlock the 8 islands plus a cheat.   My understanding is there is a cave that goes to one, a mermaid leads to another, there is a map. 

[doxxielover]

@fortheloveofcake You have to zoom in to get a clear and colored picture when diving. Its grainy and grey if you are not zoomed in enough.

[Ricalynn]

Hey Doxxie - all screenshots like that should probably be in the screenshots thread.  Would you mind moving them over there please?

I've noticed three types of sharks that can be about and sometimes all three are out at the same time.  Don't drink the water when they are.

[doxxielover]

Ok, so sorry about that! After I posted I was though it should go over in the over. I just didn't want to move it until I was told to in case it was fine. Sorry, won't happen again!

[pallyndrome]

What do you mean 'drink the water'?

[Ricalynn]

Ok, so sorry about that! After I posted I was though it should go over in the over. I just didn't want to move it until I was told to in case it was fine. Sorry, won't happen again!

You're fine.

What do you mean 'drink the water'?

It was a joke along the lines of "don't eat the yellow snow."

[pallyndrome]

It was a joke along the lines of "don't eat the yellow snow."

Oh. I'm afraid I've never heard of that joke either. No worries.

[Tilia]

I am loving the gameplay that's been added and the CAS stuff is fantastic BUT I'm having a huge issue with freezing, which is frustrating.

[SanBlasBobbie]

But, watching the houseboats move up and down is kind of making me seasick. Which, is strange, considering I've been on boats before and never had that problem.

I had exactly the same problem. Especially at night, when I have the speed set so high and the boat rocks like it's in a gale. :-)

I adore the waterfall coming off of Greenbeard's Fishing Spot. Spectacular!

Bobbie