I agree that clubs are decidedly more useful for sims that are just starting out. The skill rate is increased during a club meeting and then the money bonus of selling crafted items is a real help. I created a painting club too, although, to be fair they really were painting slaves as all the were allowed to do was paint and listen to the radio. They weren't allowed to do any socialising, eating or sleeping. lol My sim made quite a lot of money in a couple of days as well as picking up the perk that increases job performance.
To be honest, it did feel a little cheaty but then again if I'm doing a dynasty I use
slaves helpers anyway. This just allowed me to have helpers that I didn't have to take care of any of their needs. Nice.
I then made a new game and tried out the DJ and dance skills. My fav, but I knew that before I even bought the expansion. There were a few very immersive game play moments when it really was like being in a nightclub. Very cool and very fun. My sim joined the Powerhouses as you've got to be fit so you can dance all night, right. Then skilled up and joined the DJ club (can't remember it's name right now) and eventually joined the partyhause (spelling?) club as it seemed to fit in with his socialising, out all night life style. That's where things got a little interesting. I didn't realize that one of their requirements was to be romantic with everyone.
My jealous sim started flirting with the leader. Fair enough I though, he must like her. But then she flirted with someone else... and then someone else flirted with him... and so on. The chaos was real and had me laughing as I sat watching this all unfold. Not very conducive to skilling up but pretty entertaining.
Next game was all about being mean. It was great! My sim joined the rebellious club, The Renegades, and had a time of his life. He over threw the leader by back stabbing him and talking trash. Then changed a few of the activities. What better way to get a rocket built than by making your rebel club help you out. So my sim fought with the 'enemy' club, built a rocket, skilled up in logic and rocket science of course and again bought the perk to increase his job performance all within quite a short time frame. Fun. I then decided to mix it up a little and had my sim flirt a little with the leader of the enemy club and build up the romance bar a little between them. Once that was done I then threw a club gathering in a location where the enemy club was and sat back and waited. I'll let you explore that kind of scenario for yourselves. It was a lot of fun.
I have played about 6 hours so far and have only seen about a third of the new world, which really is beautiful. I can see how powerful the club system is for a new sim and also think it changes the game play quite a bit for me. I had to really change my style of play which at first felt very awkward but worth it for the fun. The good thing is that I can still play my preferred style if I want as I don't have to use the club system if I don't want to.
There are some interactions that I really miss. I don't know if the patch changed that or the expansion pack but I really miss the ability to take a screenshot and assign any emotion to it so my sim can reminisce and get into that emotion in a split second. Now the only emotion available for a screenshot is the emotion your sim is in when the screenshot is taken. Bummer.
I also couldn't get 'play chess with...' to work either. I had to form a group with the sim I was with first, which felt a bit silly. A group of two sims... hmm. I also got hit with the 'toilet bug' where my sim would cancel all actions to go use the toilet every few minutes or so. I just side stepped that by buying him the Steel Bladder reward and deleting his toilet. Hope his visitors 'go' before visiting is all I can say. I'm pretty sure EA will patch a fix for this soon as it seems pretty common going by the bug thread and the forums. I'm also a bit stumped about the easels in the world. It seems a bit strange that they have to stay filled with townies paintings forever... which could be a very long time if you play a generational game. Weird. I guess you could run around starting paintings on them all in a new game so at least your sims could use them when they want but really, who's got time for that?
I really enjoyed how the game adapted to my choices as a player. When I was playing my social sim his phone never stopped. He was invited to parties, club gatherings, outings etc. When I was playing my mean sim it was quite different. The only people who contacted him were his club members, which really worked as after all it would be nuts for his enemies to be inviting him out or txting him.
So overall I like Get Together. I don't know if I will use clubs all the time but I suspect I might once I become more familiar with them. I really love how I can customize a club to basically anything that is in game now. I can see me creating a club for a specific goal and then just disbanding it once that goal is accomplished. I think the world is beautiful and some of the community lots are quite stunning. I really love the size of the world. The neighborhoods feel very open and large. I think it's a winner.
*edited: Sorry about the wall of text, didn't realize I'd written so much, congrats if you managed to read it all folks!
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update on toilet bug, SimGuruDaniel is looking at this now. Nice. Now fixed in Dec 17 patch
