Hi! Shtinky here, with my thoughts on the upcoming World Adventures EP!

I would like to give a huge thanks to EA for inviting Holy Simoly to the October 2009 Simposium. It was a wonderful, energetic atmosphere with loads of information and cool things for us to remember the event by. There was a lot of excitement with the attendees about World Adventures, and it was great to be a part of it and be able to preview this EP.

Overview...

Well, I cannot wait for World Adventures to come out! This is absolutely the most eager I've been about any EP so far. Sometimes it's hard to review something you're really impressed with. You tend to skim off a bit of excitement as you don't want to sound like it's all hype. But oooh, I'm excited. Obviously it's up to the individual, but I can't imagine anyone not getting World Adventures. It certainly wasn't a question on anyone's lips at the Simposium. There is something special about this EP, irrespective of whether there were things we begged for more of, as we normally do. In scale and gameplay, in the superb graphics, it's clear that a larger-than-normal effort has gone into World Adventures. It is more than worthy of being the first in line for The Sims 3. Besides, you get to be an adventurer! I'd bet my childhood stamp collection [if I can find it - mum has it] that everyone will want World Adventures sooner or later, if not already. The main reasons I think that, is because this EP offers what we already enjoyed in a previous EP, but then gives us a whole lot more on top of that. I feel that the added direction in RPG-style gameplay is too significant to bypass, even a couple EPs down the track. I also reckon it will be very hard sitting on the sidelines seeing what others create with World Adventures and not be tempted to join in. The creative boom that will occur in the community from the ability to create mini 'games' within lots will be integral, and huge fun. I think as a whole, this EP will be a process of sharing and discovery that's too cool to miss out on in the overall life of The Sims 3. Considering the depth and scope of the collective tomb-building features and how they might be explored in an endless variety of lots, how they eventually might be themed in fresh ways through custom content and the new Create-A-World tool... the potential to be intrigued, entertained and surprised at what the community can come up with in World Adventures is massive. It's something I look forward to almost as much as the EP itself. These reasons aside, [and by that I mean the ones that make World Adventures notably different to previous EPs] in the ways that it is similar, I should not overshadow the fact that it is definitely great fun with loads of impressive new objects and a very appealing theme.

First Impressions...

WA presents itself like an EP and-a-half, or a game within an EP. At the Sims 3 Creator's Camp in January this year, it was very much a case of attendees wanting to jump in and get creating with the new tools. At the October Simposium, it soon became a frenzy to scratch away at the surface of the gameplay and try to discover and screen-grab as many wow moments as we possibly could during our 2 day visit to EA. This is a deep EP, one that remains quite a mystery and perhaps needs a good couple weeks after release to be reviewed properly.

One thing that stood out for me the most was just how far the game team has gone into making the World Adventures destinations immersive and truly exotic. Even if the cool new RPG adventure elements that really open up the gameplay into unchartered territory were not in this EP, the level of detail that has gone into the environments, build items and huge selection of decorative items is top notch and they've created a world far away from Sunset Valley and Riverview, and far away from each other, too.
You can see it in the giant monumental Sphinx of Al Simhara, right down to the smallest of décor items such as incense-burners in Shang Simla. The worlds look soooo good, I could involuntarily clap right now. Here I need to make a point – The WA destinations are not just default neighborhoods for you to build upon like a canvas – they are beautiful, thoughtfully crafted, very individual game worlds. You could easily play these stunning destinations as is. There's not really an aesthetic need to build a single thing anytime soon - only out of your own individual creativity and exploration of the game when you're ready. Gameplay is very strong in this EP, so it makes sense that at such an early point, the opportunity to delve in and learn the game without coming up against an urgent need to build a lot for you to experience your game better, is fantastic. With the fresh new RPG gameplay, as far as adventuring goes, you really need to play a few tombs first and learn the most out this part of the EP before building your first tomb anyway. Not to mention the adventure aspect is a delight to play and will keep you going for ages. And yes, there will be MANY adventure lots and tombs built soon. And you will have to actually play the lots to truly experience the cleverness in each one – it's not like checking out screenshots of a gorgeous lot, and pretty much knowing how it will play. Perhaps because of this close relationship between building tombs and playing them in order to understand the quite intricate gameplay behind them, WA might be the EP that the predominately 'lot creator' fans play and enjoy the most as a combined experience. We'll see! Depends on what comes next, doesn't it. :)

Another notable thing is the scale of things. If a monument is big in real life, then it's big in the game. Not just the size of a house, either. The spacious destinations accommodate genuine monuments that make your sims look tiny – beyond anything I've seen before. There's even a sense of more air – big enough space for a fireworks extravanganza, for panoramas framing giant pyramids, or for the scale of the special fx you would see in the sky, blazing out of the eyes of the ginormous Sphinx. In my previous Sims games, I've always had the feeling that the world was only a little taller than a house. It was cosy... but World Adventures is moving into big game worlds.

So is this Bon Voyage?

With all the information now available, it probably doesn't need to be asked anymore but I'll cover some points, anyway. I loved Bon Voyage, but World Adventures can be an exotic holiday or a life-threatening adventure, while BV is more like a R&R retreat. You're almost getting a new game due to the adventure gameplay alone. For instance, in BV you could learn local customs, in WA you can train to be a martial arts master and win tournaments, or become a photographer, vintage nectar-maker, or live the life of an adventurer and go tomb-raiding. The most threatening thing in Bon Voyage if I remember correctly was getting sunburnt, bees, or realising there was no telephone in your hotel room for ordering room service. :) When your Sim goes on an adventure in WA, there's a risk they will die and not return home. I like that very much. I will feel a great sense of achievement having a Sim that has gone on many adventures and survived them all. It's a really cool development in The Sims 'universe' to have something so serious at stake in activities, such as a Sim's life in their adventure quests. It's less safe and ramps up the investment for the player. I know Sims could die before... but coming back to your computer and seeing that your Sim has died because you forgot the game is running, or because you forgot to put a fire alarm in the house is not the same. It's about gameplay decisions in adventuring, and the repercussions of choices that put your Sim at risk of death. What wholesome fun! So apart from that, one rather straightforward difference between BV and WA is that because this is The Sims 3, there's an extra niceness to the effects, textures, lighting etc so it's the combination of improved graphics in Sims 3 and the very detailed artwork that make the exotic features of WA that much more pretty and impressive.

Some extra cool, general game advancements

Yes, it's true! Create-A-Style now works with FENCES! And STAIRS! And... well, STAIR RAILINGS! Ohhhh, joy. Not being able to recolour fences and stairs is one thing that frustrated me to the point that I developed this thing where I chewed on my own hand. It's gone now, but it got a bit awkward for a while. Okay, anyway - thank the Al Simharan gods for this being now available in World Adventures. In fact for this paragraph, I'm going to call it Fence Adventures. I'm going out on a limb here and guessing there was a fairly significant technical reason for designable fences/stairs not being in The Sims 2 or base game of The Sims 3. Otherwise it would simply already be in there along with all the other obviously Create-A-Style things, or designable things in Sims 2. So huge kudos goes to the team for overcoming whatever obstacles might have been an issue, and putting this on their list of 'things-the-community-wants-even-though-it-will-probably-take-a-lot-of-resources'. We did bring up how important designable fences and stairs are at the The Sims 3 Creator Camp in January, and many people have mentioned it in general. Thanks for listening, guys!! It's not like this big EP needed this new feature to 'fill it out' either.

Deformed Terrain Lots! You can build a fortress on a perilous slope, or a seaside cottage on a gentle incline. Whatever your inclination, lots can be on neighborhood hills and you can build your houses against these slopes, instead of just raising and lowering terrain within a flat lot. Imagine for a moment the wonderous neighborhoods of interesting terrain that will be created with the Create-A-World tool - plus the ability to build lots on those deformed areas. mmmmm.... throw in the ability to import textures into CAW such as cobblestones for the roads... and we're in for some pretty amazing neighborhoods to play this christmas!

Random things I'm going to mention while going off on the occasional tangent...

Tomb Creation 101 & 201

Before I start, there are two guides that were given to us at the October Simposium - Tomb Creation 101, and Tomb Creation 201. Some attendees have made these available to you already, I know Steve over at TSR has included them in his review here and they're over at IGN here. I would say in most cases the text is lifted straight off the original guides, but have a look around anyway. 101 and 201 are great guides to tomb building and an overview of all the traps you can create. It's also an insight into just how HUGE this 'game' area is within World Adventures. I think that is part of the mystery of this EP - we can't fathom how big it is until it's released and the community dive in and explore it extensively. I won't mention everything in my review about tombs - there's about 8 pages of solid text in the guides.

Another handy page - Sim Programs has listed all things WA and where you can find reviews, screenshots and information leading up to release date, here. This is great, as all the attendees have gleaned different things from their experience.

Mummies!

If you acquire your own sarcophagus, you can sleep in it and turn into a mummy! When a sim has been cursed by a mummy, they have 14 days to cure themselves or they will die. You can try to fight mummies, but unless you're a top-tier martial artist, you can't beat them in combat. You're best to run away or trap them somehow. I love the fact that the martial arts skill can be used in adventuring in Al Simhara, and not just a linear skill path for the goal of tournaments in Shang Simla.

The Sphinx

To cure themselves of a mummy's curse, your Sim must appeal to the Sphinx by sitting in front of it's giant paws and meditating on the question. If it works, a swirl of bright gold energy flies out of The Sphinx's eyes, sweeps round the air above and throttles into the Sim. Another attendee, Eden, mentioned something about having to solve an enigma to be cured, so check that out over at Edenstyle.it here. It's a spectacular moment in the game, due to the sheer size of the Sphinx and the beautiful effect that takes up a lot of space in the air too. There's lots of big impressive stuff like that.

The Eyes of Horus

As if teleportals weren't already cool. The Eyes of Horus are like ancient stargates. Place the left eye in one area of the destination, and the right eye in another. Nice Egyptian-inspired idea. Very cool things can be done with teleporting to secret underground tombs that have no other points of access. All part of the fun adventure gameplay!

Dive Wells

If you dive into a well of fruit nectar, it can take you to another world. Just like in real life. Dive wells are extremely deep and can be fun for a quick swim. You can give each dive well a name, so when your Sim jumps into one they can teleport to another specific well. I won't go into any more detail here, it's all in the Tomb Creation 101 guide. Oh okay one more thing - you can colour the water - how cool is that?

Pangu's Axe

It's a big axe. Or a big guitar, I'm not quite sure. In any case your Sim can smash giant boulders that get in the way of a good adventure path or treasure. First... you must go on a quest to find it! How...? Well, that wouldn't be very adventurous of me to say, would it.

Al Simhara

The Egyptian themed destination is big and open, with a river cutting through the desert landscape, and has the look and feel of the Nile River in Egypt. There's a really cool visual effect when you find sand-blown Egyptian buildings with piles of rubble leaning against them, all blending in beautifully with the sandy terrain raised and lowered to be uneven around them, to give that 'half-buried in the sand dunes' look. It's nicely done visuals like this that make the worlds a little more organic than what we're used to.

Shang Simla

This destination is very lush, mountainous and misty green. It's very satisfying to build in this destination, there's loads of details to decorate your Asian-style world. I did hope to find more windows for this theme - I could only find a single window and a double window. Both are gorgeous, especially the round arched double window, but after placing them around a collection of small buildings on my lot, it did get a bit repetitive. However, there's stacks of decorative items that will push your Shang Simla lots into very immersive, detailed environments. Beautiful things like floating water lilly lanterns, exotic plants, and clutter objects like carts - even broken carts. Add onto that the martial arts objects and I think there's plenty to play with.

Champs Les Sims

It began as the least enticing destination for me... but it's rich story-book elegance and refined activities are growing on me, now that my rather base and jittery excitement over the introduction of martial arts and death-defying adventure is calming down. And it does have a scooter! That was really helpful info, wasn't it. Champs Les Sims is a yellowy-green European province with rural agriculture for nectar-making, museums, and frogs you can eat! I for one plan to build a world in CAW with a big circular road going round the Arc De Triomphe and see if I can get my Sims to go round and round. On scooters.

Monuments

There's several unique temples, monuments, and set pieces that act as shells that you can build fully functional lots within. For instance a huge pyramid, a giant dragon head, and that big kitty we all love, The Sphinx. Temples include The Temple of Queen Hatshepsut [a real Egyptian temple], the Hot Springs Temple, The Tomb of the First Emporer [which contains the king's terracotta army - all of em!!] and even a Fairy Tomb. Other real-life monuments include The Arc De Triomphe, The Eiffel Tower and my personal fave, the epic twin figures of Abu Simbel. We know everyone at some point will build a vacation home within a pyramid - it goes without saying! To be honest there's such a great look to everything in the destinations that even regular buildings and base camps have had great effort put into their construction and visual design. The result is that the entire land is immediately exciting and absorbing no matter where you first step into the world.

Basements

Awesome! You can extend down 4 floors, and you don't need a ground level room to begin with. You can just have a staircase from the ground, and you can even hide the staircase entry using the tomb-building tools. For some of us, that can even mean hiding it from ourselves. The basements can be fully-functional as homes, tombs, community lots etc.

Relics

Relics are collectible items in the destinations, and are also sold by relic merchants in the markets. Relic merchants sell different relics every day! Relics can be quite junky, or one-of-a-kind precious items.

Adventure Journal

I think this is a great idea, especially if you've completed an intricate adventure and would like a summary of all the achievements. Adventure Journals have an old world feel, and their function is to track all activities that occur and collectibles discovered within a tomb.

Visa Points

There are different visa levels when travelling that give you perks as you gain visa points. Collect enough visa points in your travels and you can buy vacation lots. There's no limit to the amount of vacations homes your Sim can own, but unfortunately they can't live in them which I'm rather sad about. Sims can only go for 12 days at a time. I was imagining my Sim living the adventurer life full-time in Al Simhara, travelling to Champs Les Sims every once in a while to catch up with old friends over a vintage nectar. It's probably a game-balance thing. Maybe to do with infrastructure of a regular neighborhood not being functional in the 'destinations'. Not sure, but permanent residency would be very cool!

Tents

They've lived in epic mansions, sure - but now Sims can live as nomads! They can sleep in tents and even shower out of a can. They can also pack dried food to sustain themselves during their subterranean adventures. Supplies can be purchased at base camps or the cute market places in each locale. I wonder if Sims can still pack normal food in their inventory too, so they can just chew on an onion, apple or lump of cheese every now and then.

Pergoda Roof - 'roof curve' slider tool

There's a few new Pergoda roofs, and an impressive thing about them is that they come with a new 'roof curve' slider. It appears under the 'roof height' slider. What's great is that you can curve it to the point that it inverts from a flipped-edge Asian roof, and turns into a middle-eastern pear-shaped roof - awesome for Al Simhara. I haven't been so impressed with this kind of practicality since I was a kid in the 80's, when reversible parkas and the age of reason hit me about the same time.

Fireworks

There's an extravaganza, or a one-off explosion - like this sentence!

Nectar-making

There's 16 grape types of various flavor, qualities and ages, and you can age them even more to improve the quality of the nectar. Aging nectar deep in basements will also improve the quality.You can grow and collect grapes and other fruit, too. Your Sims invest in a nectar-making machine, then change into their swimsuits and jump into the vat to smash the fruit with their feet. They might slip over in the process, too.

Martial Arts

YAY! And it looks great too. During the game demo by Grant Rodiek, we got to see a level 4 martial artist pitted against a level 9. I must say the animations for the martial art combat is superb. The differences between the level 4 and level 9 were nicely subtle and realistic. The level 9 was sharper, quicker, and more refined in movement. Obviously they had more advanced moves, but advancement isn't just a case of 'move-collecting', so-to-speak. It was great to watch. It's still uncontrollable combat - it seems from the demo we don't get to trigger moves as they fight. Perhaps one day we'll be able to have more interactivity in any tournament style activity... that would be awesome!

Martial artists advance levels with green belts, black belts etc, like various real-life martial arts. A bonus is that a top-tier martial artist can teleport. Tourists can have a go at the practise equipment, to our amusement. Practise dummies can be taken home by Sims to help further skills, and meditation is a key to success, too. Make sure you check out the screenshots of combat out there - very cool! I'm hoping for some extra funky martial arts movies to be created by community members!

Base Camp

Base camp is where your Sims can take care of their basic needs, including amenities. It's a good place to stock up on dried food and shower-in-a-cans before venturing into tombs. You can also check out the Adventure Boards which have posts about exciting adventures and exotic business propositions.

Fog-of-War

Not to be confused with that other thing that makes it really hard to see the game ahead of you, Fog-of-Brain. Fog-Of-War is a classic feature from RPG and RTS games. In World Adventures, it is used to hide the unentered rooms ahead in a tomb. This is really cool, as we won't know whether the adventure we're playing is a quick dash through a dingey vault or an epic journey through 4 levels of a mummy-infested tomb! When building tombs, you will need to place a Tomb Object [Fogger] in the room to activate the fog. Refer to the guide 101 for more cool stuff about this feature.

Area Lights

A little birdie on the game team told me about the new Area Lights! You can now splash areas of colored light indoors and outdoors to add colorful dimension to your lots, and they are invisible in play mode. They come in wall lights, floor lights, ceiling lights too. I can't wait to get these working alongside the changeable colored water in dive wells for some spooky purple scenes, or an opulent gold glow around objects in catacombs, like in the movies when they get to that final huge treasure and it's all glowing and someone takes one little coin with them and it ends up a big mistake and... errr... you know what I mean!

Object artwork

The artwork is gorgeous and I feel it is quite superior in World Adventures. There's no shortage of fabulous intricate sculptures, as typical of these destinations in real life. It will be satisfyingly fun using them to adorn any lot, let alone a tomb. There's loads of objects and vegetation that enrich the environment, blend the scenery more than ever, and add variety and irregular clutter. I think this is the main thing that makes lots more visually immersive in World Adventures than in previous EPs - it seems no expense has been spared in portraying highly-detailed believable objects that thoroughly belong in each of the three regions. In a nutshell, there's more, and there's a high percentage of special pieces. The monuments are beautifully done too, and stand up very well for their size close-up.

Create-A-Sim

This is a big one. The outfits are very high in detail. It was explained that the team went to great effort to age-convert as many outfits as they could in this EP. With the adventurer outfits, the default collection of colors are already perfect combinations of neutral, desert tones. The normal maps are really good and add a lot of light and shade through the stitching and seams - giving these more practical outfits a textured, rugged appearance in the style of Indiana Jones or The Mummy movies. Little extras like crocodile teeth necklaces also complete the character.
The french outfits are a mix of traditional peasant outfits for the rural aspect of the community and contemporary high fashion, which was refreshing. This reflects a more prominent duality in Champs Les Sims - you really can create an old world of rustic, nectar-drinking peasantry, or a cosmopolitan city of contemporary culture, photography and art. Or both.
The Asian outfits are intricate with plenty of channels to get in and create some bold combinations of colours and patterns. The Asian patterns are elegant, but I would love to see even more themed patterns in World Adventures. Want, want, want. :)

Hair

What can I say. If EA brought out a Stuff Pack entirely of hair, we'd be crying soundlessly with overwhelming joy. I liked the hairs in World Adventures, there's quite a few in total that cover hats as well. Some attendees at the Simposium felt there wasn't enough hair. I was happy with what was on offer in the themes for the regions, but I'm all for seeing a few more general hairs thrown into EPs, as we can never get enough hair. There's a lovely long hair with a classic straight-cropped fringe, which is flexible and works well as a traditional Chinese hairstyle, or an ancient Egyptian goddess hair. There's also hair with chopsticks, scarves, plaits, and a cool beaded haircut also in an ancient Egyptian style. A more generic hair is the textured loose bob. See some of my screenshots for examples.

Wrapping up...

Okay. I'm not going to say all that much to wrap up my thoughts on World Adventures. Mainly because it's like being in the final catacomb of a deep tomb in a long and challenging adventure - I just don't know how many people will have made it this far. All I know is... that time has passed and I'm closer to getting World Adventures now then when I started writing this review, and that it's been a fun substitute for me to mentally revisit and reflect on all the features and cool stuff. I had copious amounts to write and I feel like I barely scratched the surface, and this activity has temporarily eased my impatience while waiting for the release date.
I hope it's also served the purpose of providing some information for you, too! Stay tuned for some upcoming translations of my messy, pictoform notes on the wonderful Create-A-World tool...

Thanks for listening!
Shtinky :)