Gamescom – The Sims 4 Get Together

The Sims 4 Get Together was announced at the beginning of Gamescom.
This new expansion pack all revolves around friends. Whether it is making new friends, or hanging out with your current friends.

There are new skills, new interactions, a new world, new items and much more.

During my stay at Gamescom, I got the opportunity to see a presentation about the new expansion pack, as well as ask your questions afterwards.

The expansion pack is still in development and they are at a pre-alpha stage, so some things may change before release.
All the question that could be answered are in the article.
I have split this article into 2 categories. World and Gameplay.

Windenburg – World

The new world Windenburg is an European inspired world. The inspiration for the world came from different European cities/towns.
It is about the same size as Willow creek or Oasis springs, but they are still building it, so no final answer on this question.
Windenburg has different neighbourhoods, just like the other worlds. It has an old part of the town, a newer part, and a private island, which is more posh.

Windenburg is a regular world you can live in, build your business in (if you also have The Sims 4 Get to Work), or visit venues.
There are also new venue types, a pub and a café. You can set any lot to this venue type, this means you can also build your own, or download some cool ones from the gallery.

Ancient Ruins

Besides venues there are also a few new spots in Windenburg, The Ancien Ruins, Hedge Maze and Cliffside Bluff. They are standard in Windenburg, but if you want them in one of your other worlds, you can place them there too!
One of the questions was if you could build on the beach. SimGuruAzure answered that there is a build able area there. But more information on this is coming.

One of the cool new lots in Windenburg is a massive 64×64 lot! I’m sure this will thrill a lot of legacy placers and of course, builders and players that love big mansions.

Gameplay

The whole expansion pack is focused on friends and hanging out together. So much of the new gameplay features are focused on this as well.

Clubs

One of the major new features is the club dynamics. While we have seen groups in previous games, this feature is new because you can create your own club, with its own terms, your wishes, you can determine who gets to join, and who doesn’t. You can set age restrictions if you want a child or adult only club.

You can not however set a gender restriction. So no girls only clubs or boys only clubs. You could kick out Sims if you really wanted a girls/boys only club 😉 #YouRule

You can recognize who is in what club by their Plumbobs. They have little icons that represent that club in their Plumbobs, and the leader has a little crown on it as well. I asked if the icons would be visible at all times, or only when they are hanging out as a club. And SimGuruLyndsay answered with: We are still figuring that out, as we don’t want to overcrowd, but what do YOU want?
I personally would want the symbols only when they are hanging out as a club. Not at all times. What is your opinion?

Set what your club likes to do, give it a name, set their icon, become the leader, or determine what other club they like or don’t like. This was SimGuruAzure’s favourite part of the new expansion, creating conflicts by making clashing clubs. And see how she can get Sims kicked out of their club.
An example used at the presentation was the “misfits” and the “fitness club”, the misfits didn’t like the jocks. So Azure made the leader of the misfits ask out a Sim of the fitness club. This will cause friction between the misfits. And it can result in, in this case, the leader being kicked out of the club, because she did something the club members didn’t like.
Besides your Sims’ actions, emotions play a role in clubs as well, though, they couldn’t tell us what or how yet, so we have to wait and see.

Your Sim can join up to 3 clubs, but you can only be active in 1 club at any given time. So you have to choose which one to participate in, for example when your other club is on the same lot. How this works exactly will be showed/explained in the next few months. I see it as, you can do multiple aspirations with 1 Sim, but you can only do 1 actively at the time.

When you hang out with your club, the members do practically everything together. Whether they hang out at home, or someplace else. They also walk in groups.

There can be up to 8 Sims in a club.

Skills, traits, aspirations and other tidbits

There are 2 new skills. Dancing, and DJ.
The dancing pretty much speaks for it self. They couldn’t go into depth about if there is going to be synchronized dancing, we will find out more about this skill later (bummer!)
DJ’ing is an activity that is practiced on the DJ booth. And while there was no confirmation about actual new jobs/careers, they could say that you can make mixtapes as a DJ, and sell them. So there is a new way to make money.

SimGuruLyndsay told us there will be 1 new aspiration and a few traits, but couldn’t say more. But yay for a new aspiration.
Along with new activities and gameplay, there will also be new buffs/moodlets.

Now, a new death type, this question got a few sketchy eyes between the SimGuru’s. In the end they decided on: “We can not tell you anything at this time.” So watch this site for more information to come, closer to release.

Items

We have seen a few new items from the trailer and a few drew a lot of attention.
The espresso bar, the walk-in-closet, natural pools and fußball.
Funnily enough 2 of these items were the favourite items of SimGuruLyndsay (the espresso bar) and of SimGuruAzure (the walk-in-closet).

The Espresso bar is where your Sims can get drinks (and if I recall right, food as well, but don’t quote me on that). The espresso bar is made of modular sections. That way you can use it at home as well, without having to place the complete bar. The machine and the bar are separate elements for example. There is also a smaller version of the espresso machine to use at home. What Sim couldn’t use a pick me up?
And the most exciting thing according to SimGuruLyndsay, is that you can take your espresso or food to go!

We have seen a little more about the walk-in-closet from the trailer. We know Sims can woohoo in it. And can try out outfits. One of the neat features is that you can try out outfits with a group. Use the interaction “Try out *Everyday/athtletic/etc* together” to try out a certain look, and your friends will react on it if they like it, or if they hate it.
But something we didn’t know is, that children can play in it as well, so they have this little secure area where they can pretend to fly. Can’t wait to see this in action, sounds so cute!

The natural pools, we were not shown these at the presentation, so all we have seen is just from the trailer. They did however tell us a little more about it. You can make your own natural pools. It works like the regular pool tool. They haven’t added any additional shapes to it though, there are how ever, new ‘decor’ items. More natural plants and sorts I presume. To me, this is my personal favourite.
There will be a pre-build area for your Sims to explore. Or you could of course build your own somewhere.

And of course, the fußball table. Nothing new was said about this, but it is a cool new item your Sims can enjoy together.

One of the great new features though, is that portable items can placed anywhere, so you can create parties anywhere!

There is still a lot we don’t know and I look forward to the upcoming months before the release in November 2015!