The Sims Team has published a brand new blog post, revealing some of the exciting new features coming with their upcoming The Sims 4 Community Stuff Pack!
Hello, Simmers! I hope everyone is doing all right in these crazy times. Just stay indoors and stay safe—and maybe play some video games?!
As you are all hopefully aware, our next Community Voted Stuff Pack* is centered around knitting! Sims will be able to kick back, turn on some tunes, and start stitching to their heart’s content. Knit a plushie! Knit a hat! Knit a mailbox? If you’re into that, I guess, we don’t judge. Knitting provides all sorts of creative avenues for your Sims.
I am the lead designer on this pack, and today, I’d like to talk about some of the gameplay that will be included with this Stuff Pack and give some insight into what’s going on in early development.
Create-A-Sim Improvements
One of the cool things we’re adding to this pack is the chance to knit your own clothing. Sims will have the ability to unlock exclusive knitted clothing in CAS, making it available for everyone in their household to wear.
I felt like this was a very important system for knitting, perhaps the most important! While it may sound like a no-brainer, keep in mind that most clothing in The Sims™ 4 is readily available for all Sims to wear.
So, our idea was to create a new UI that displays locked Create-A-Sim clothing items. This way you’ll be able to view things like knitted sweaters and socks (yes, socks!) before knitting them. This will also show you everything your Sim can aspire to create! Knitted clothing needs to be special, not just something every townie wears (I’m looking at you, Eyeball Ring).
To better illustrate what I mean, I provided some UX mock-ups below. What is a UX mock-up? I’m glad you asked! Early in the design phase—after the design is written, but before it is finalized—our user experience designer (whose job is to design UI, among other things) reviews the design and creates imagery illustrating how the feature will look in-game. We can then review this as a team and make changes until we’re happy. Then, when the engineers and the UI artists implement the feature, they know exactly what it should look like. Pretty cool, huh?
Let’s Rock
Next, let’s talk about Rocking Chairs! For a pack about knitting, it just felt right.
Rocking chairs will mostly function like regular chairs, but with a few added twists! Sims will be able to do things like talk, watch TV, listen to music, read books, and knit while on a rocking chair. If it works while sitting, we’ll try to make it work while rocking.
Now let’s talk about Elders. We’d like Elders to have some unique gameplay with rocking chairs, so we’re including a special interaction on rocking chairs called Reminisce, where Elder Sims think back to their days of yore and recall something nice—or maybe not so nice. Maybe something super embarrassing that they buried deep, deep down? Who knows? (I know… but you’ll have to wait until the pack comes out to find out!)
What else does the rocking chair do? Lots of stuff! But I can’t reveal everything just yet.
Plopsy
Also in this pack is a cool feature called Plopsy. Yes, Plopsy.
What is Plopsy? It’s an online store where Sims can sell their crafted art! This store isn’t tied to a career or a gig, so if you wanna make a little art money on the side, Plopsy is here for you.
Being able to sell your knitted items online felt like a really strong feature for this pack, and we weren’t sure if just dragging an object into the Sell button was gonna cut it. With Plopsy, Sims will be able to list their objects online for a small fee in hopes that an internet stranger will buy it. Once a buyer is found, Sims will need to ship the object themselves by routing to the mailbox. Or they can ignore someone’s offer, and try for a better deal.
Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but so can things like Paintings and Woodworking sculptures too! I’m hoping to include as many things as possible that make sense for a store like this. Whichever item you choose to sell, you should hopefully make more of a profit with Plopsy than selling things the old-fashioned way.
Your Sim can also purchase things from Plopsy! If you don’t feel like knitting a hat, maybe someone has one for sale. Listings update throughout the day, so you can keep checking back in search of the perfect item.
Plopsy is still hot off the presses, so I don’t have any screenshots to share. But for now, please enjoy this potential Plopsy logo!
Last but Not Least…
Thanks to everyone who voted in our surveys and took the time to answer my community questions on The Sims 4 forums. Your feedback helps! You guys are amazing! And again, keep in mind all things mentioned here are still in early development and are subject to change, yadda, yadda, yadda (sorry, I need to say it).
While I can’t share everything about our latest Stuff Pack yet, I at least hope you found these sneak previews interesting!
Reticulating splines as a webmaster for Sims Community over the last 12 years. You can find me here writing articles and doing reports on your favorite life sim games, among other things!
I like the online store feature because I sometimes want my sims to have side jobs instead of full time commitments so this fits in nicely as an alternative to odd jobs or freelancing. Also like the locked feature as well for it serves as a reason for sims to knit than for it to be readily available in CAS. I hope they are able to get the rocking to work properly because it would be unfortunate without that feature.
Can we also be given different materials to work with not just cotton material for making things. Also could we have the sims blow glass and make it into something beautiful.
Yeah those would be good to add as well. I really like when they add features like this but I do hope they are working on polishing some of the older packs. I would like the retail system to get some overhaul (still having issues with the store not working if the lice fridge is on lot) so we can also buy bundle of items and toddler mannequins (doubt it will happen). Also to be able to sell photos at the flea market or on a display like paintings can from city living.
Looks like they put a lot of thought into this pack! Actually pretty excited for it. Thaks for this update!
Simaddic
5 years ago
I still want relaxing and reading in bed feature but I’ll take knitting for now. I do hope we are able to knit different fabrics (satin, cotton, wool etc) and also able add some of our custom created clothing to the locked list so it can be knitted
Bekah
5 years ago
Awesome!
And how about a sewing machine or work station? So the sims can make other clothing items for CAS or toys and be able to use different materials? Maybe this could be a textiles stuff pack?
Keep doing a great job!
Letitia Nobles
5 years ago
Rocking a baby or toddler feature would be nice just they read them to sleep while sitting on the bed
rayelle
5 years ago
please let give us a loose/droopy beanie toque. please a nice casual fashionable beanie to knit
aimee
5 years ago
This pack looks great! I would love to see some interactions between elders on the rocking chairs and children like for example they could rock toddlers to sleep and children could gather round for them to tell stories.
lindsey
5 years ago
This pack looks AWFUL. Who in their right mind would vote for KNITTING?! not spending my money on this smh.
@ Kai So what else were you looking to be added in a knitting stuff pack that would fit within the money allotted to stuff packs that wouldn’t take away from another aspect of the pack and would be an idea that would be more popular with the people who do want this pack instead of those who don’t?
Shelby
5 years ago
Will this pack be available for older computers? It makes me upset when I cannot get the new stuff with the sims 4 for older computers.
I like the online store feature because I sometimes want my sims to have side jobs instead of full time commitments so this fits in nicely as an alternative to odd jobs or freelancing. Also like the locked feature as well for it serves as a reason for sims to knit than for it to be readily available in CAS. I hope they are able to get the rocking to work properly because it would be unfortunate without that feature.
I hope we can sell potions online lol or even food.
I hope we can sell flower arrangements on Plopsy, and maybe baked items! I have seen items like that on Etsy.
Can we also be given different materials to work with not just cotton material for making things. Also could we have the sims blow glass and make it into something beautiful.
Yeah those would be good to add as well. I really like when they add features like this but I do hope they are working on polishing some of the older packs. I would like the retail system to get some overhaul (still having issues with the store not working if the lice fridge is on lot) so we can also buy bundle of items and toddler mannequins (doubt it will happen). Also to be able to sell photos at the flea market or on a display like paintings can from city living.
I like that idea. I feel they didn’t give us enough features with the flower arranging so it would be nice to be able to sell it online
Very nice!
thanks for that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ZjMWLqJvM&list=PLD0AEEB3C171A0229
Is the knitting going to be like this? I hope it is more detailed with different stitch options like ribbing, single, ect,
Or this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syH8XftrrAc&list=PL7nD8vsMLSFP7TjbE-Pzt7pNTMpKP4pbP&index=8
I hope one interaction with the rocking chair would be to rock your child. That would be awesome!
Great idea!
Looks like they put a lot of thought into this pack! Actually pretty excited for it. Thaks for this update!
I still want relaxing and reading in bed feature but I’ll take knitting for now. I do hope we are able to knit different fabrics (satin, cotton, wool etc) and also able add some of our custom created clothing to the locked list so it can be knitted
Awesome!
And how about a sewing machine or work station? So the sims can make other clothing items for CAS or toys and be able to use different materials? Maybe this could be a textiles stuff pack?
Keep doing a great job!
Rocking a baby or toddler feature would be nice just they read them to sleep while sitting on the bed
please let give us a loose/droopy beanie toque. please a nice casual fashionable beanie to knit
This pack looks great! I would love to see some interactions between elders on the rocking chairs and children like for example they could rock toddlers to sleep and children could gather round for them to tell stories.
This pack looks AWFUL. Who in their right mind would vote for KNITTING?! not spending my money on this smh.
I agree. We wait forever and this is the best they could come up with?!?! So disappointed…
@ Kai So what else were you looking to be added in a knitting stuff pack that would fit within the money allotted to stuff packs that wouldn’t take away from another aspect of the pack and would be an idea that would be more popular with the people who do want this pack instead of those who don’t?
Will this pack be available for older computers? It makes me upset when I cannot get the new stuff with the sims 4 for older computers.
No I believe this won’t be available for legacy players.