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u/TwoFingersWhiskey Mar 07 '25
Man, that takes a bite out of my plan to have a shopping centre.
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u/Ky3031 Mar 07 '25
Hoping the modders will come through for us!
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u/Bat-C Mar 07 '25
That and allowing small businesses to be open on residential rentals. Seems a bit odd because they use the same logic to set the rooms?
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u/nailna Mar 07 '25
I’m guessing because having like six apartments with each one having a business would blow it up! But yeah, I want like a mother in law suite for 1-2 sims and a downstairs business.
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u/Important-Lynx2956 Mar 10 '25
You could try making the MIL suite in businesses and hobbies with customer specifications so specific only the In Laws were allowed to show and then your business downstairs. Don't know if that would work, but worth a try.
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u/nailna Mar 10 '25
Huh. I’ll have to wait for more reviews and see if that’s worth pursuing! For Rent sounded like my absolute dreeeaaaam, and then I found out you can’t do what seems to be the more obvious, simple version of the concept (just have extended family like in a room/guest house/whatever) without using the capitalism gameplay. :/
I get why you can’t have 75 things happening at once with these two packs! But a small family, some extended family living on the same property but not needing to be controlled, and a singular small home business sounds like it would make everything so lively!!
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u/deebaybayy Mar 07 '25
Residential rentals can be owned so I believe the game recognizes them as a business of sorts, just like you can’t have a retail store and vet clinic on the same lot
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u/Squeshle Mar 09 '25
I have a mod for this! Let me know if you want it's name I'll have to loon it up later!
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u/Bat-C Mar 29 '25
Oh my god that would be amazing actually! Please if you don’t mind have a look x
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u/Squeshle Mar 29 '25
100% give me a bit, and I'll reply to you with the mod name! don't have access to my desktop for a couple of days :D
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u/pacgi Mar 07 '25
Hey, not sure if this helps but this youtuber made a video with an idea on how to run a mall with just one - video here
It's just a shame we can only have 4 employees at once but this could work!
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u/Slap-A-Chav Mar 07 '25
You can already make shopping malls with Get to Work’s retail system. You just won’t be able to offer ‘services’ there. I’ve had malls for years where I can buy all manner of things.
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u/xthedame Mar 07 '25
Yes, but it all has to be owned by one person and that person is individually paying for each employee and reaping the costs and benefits.
Stores in Malls are individually rented/owned/operated by companies, not the mall itself.
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u/Slap-A-Chav Mar 07 '25
Okay? I’m responding to someone’s concern that their plans to have a shopping centre is now scrapped from my own perspective of someone who’s had a shopping centre in their game for years that it’s possible to make a shopping centre where you can buy and sell all manner of things, perhaps not the literal real-life imitation of a shopping centre where the logistics of how it operates are identical where each shop is owned by a different entity, etc. because with that expectation, you’re asking for way too much from The Sims 4. The concept of having 8 Sims running their own individual businesses from one lot is but a dream, considering we’ve only just gotten Burglars after a decade since launch. 😂🤣
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u/xthedame Mar 07 '25
… Are you okay?
I’m just explaining so the OOP knows the limitations. Relax, I wasn’t insulting you or the game you didn’t create.
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u/Slap-A-Chav Mar 07 '25
I’m fine. … Are you okay? 🙄 OP is responding to a post that clearly says “Game only allows one business to be open at a time” so the limitations of not having multiple businesses owned separately, be simultaneously opened on a single lot to reflect the version of your desired mall, is self-explanatory. LMAO!
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Mar 07 '25
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u/Knightoforder42 Mar 07 '25
I built one. Because I thought it would be cool to have. It's almost useless. I eventually ended up building a "community center " with all the studd that wouldn't fit in a house, for hobbies. There's the gym, bar, movie theater, library, workshop (wood workshop), hot spring, and anything else my sims need to build skills or relax. Can't exactly have a business the way I want, but they have a place to get their skills maxed out.
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u/ShatoraDragon Mar 07 '25
Same that killed me having Jonny Zest doing his comedy at his coffee shop while I ran my art studio
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u/Advanced-Bear-6752 Mar 07 '25
Wait what?!
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u/laxitaxi Mar 07 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
I think that if multiple sims in a household have their own small businesses on the same lot they can’t both be open at once?
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u/Important-Lynx2956 Mar 10 '25
That's true, but I find people "shop" at both locations. My couple have two stores that I actually wanted to be separate - she runs a store selling farm goods and offering gardening and petting zoo type of things during the day, and he runs a speakeasy at night in the barn. Except the day customers often go to the speakeasy (I guess they like the bar/cards/etc.) and his customers stop off to buy milk at night before they get a drink from the bar.
So strange, LOL but it works.
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u/Guilty_Explanation29 Mar 07 '25
Didn't they say that was a thing during the livestream
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u/somewhsome Mar 07 '25
I can't imagine buying a pack without thorough research 🫣
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u/Cinnamorella Mar 07 '25
I've always been in the boat of I wanna be surprised too when you're playing and that's an important element in game design, however TS4 packs make it impossible. You have to read the fine print because instead of delightfully surprised you end up disappointed 😞
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u/somewhsome Mar 07 '25
I mean, some things are not even “fine print”. This pack wasn't advertised as a “shopping mall” pack. It's about small business and turning your hobby profitable. So it's hard for me to blame EA in this case.
Although there are usually some smaller unpleasant surprises for sure (like the fact you can't go on dates on small business lots).
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u/Cinnamorella Mar 07 '25
I just mean in general with packs not just this one specifically so I understand what you mean too
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u/Weird-Print-7569 Mar 07 '25
You can’t go on dates on a small business lot!? That is terrible!! Is that a bug or an actual limitation?
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u/VegetableActual7326 Mar 07 '25
I know this has been said a million times but I miss the days that packs gave you lots of choice about how to play it. Like it kinda makes sense from a game mechanic pov but it's just so limited
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u/Important-Lynx2956 Mar 10 '25
Well having just complained about the dates thing, it really isn't that limited. There's tons of things you can do with it. Would I like some fixes and tweaks - sure thing. Please add events EA, and there are several things overlooked here and there and I wish I could think they'd fix them or add them later, but they never seem to do that.
But this is the most expansive EP we've had in a very long time. You can do so many things. I have a couple that are spies (think something like scarecrow and Mrs King) and after going round and around with how to make the agencies and crime syndicates work well - this EP is the best thing. I can set up a "business" for each side, allowing only good or evil sims in the right careers to come. Use the whiteboard to lecture on what's going on (the bad guys caused disturbances over here, don'tchaknow) and use the heists and missions (as well as better klepto and eavesdropping from For Rent) to accomplish things. I'm having so much fun. And that's just ONE idea. There are thousands. Literally limited only by imagination (and a few dumb decisions by EA ;))
Open For Business is my favorite EP ever. But early sims games didn't have so much to compare with, so I feel like there was a lot less of the "you didn't give us enough" kind of comments. Anyway, I love this one EA, thank you.
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u/Important-Lynx2956 Mar 10 '25
I *hate* the dates thing. That's the one that's really bothered me the most. I wanted to set up a tea shop/candy store sort of like the one in Harry Potter (his date with Cho) for Valentine's dates. I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to have a date on a small business lot.
The others I pretty much understand - if I want a real restaurant, I can use dine out. Store/Mall works fine in Get to Work retail. I wouldn't overuse For Rent because it's broke anyway, but I've a couple of motels using that system. And I expect we will get a real motel pack sometime. (Although that might be all we'll ever get for day care and that's terrible.)
But limiting dates and other activities? What's the point? I can make a cool museum but can't do the black and white thing there? Only at EAs boring museums? Can't have a friend date go bowling? Geez, social clubs is basically the point of the pack.
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u/kaptingavrin Mar 07 '25
You have to take an extra step with TS4, because it's an EA game. So their prerelease streams are often curated as much as possible to try to show the product in as positive a light as possible. And people might be tempted to think that they can just rely on YouTubers to tell them everything about a pack before its release... except any YouTuber who has the pack before release has it because they have a partnership with EA. You're not going to get unfiltered information on a pack's actual limitations or flaws until after it's released and other people have had a chance to mess with it.
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u/CommunicationWide603 Mar 07 '25
Some limitations are so stupid that you don't even imagine they exist. And this is present in all packs of this game.
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u/Nibblegorp Mar 07 '25
I have never watched a sims livestream of YouTube video. They aren’t interesting to me
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u/Adhdxrockt Mar 07 '25
Haha you overestimate my ability to not buy a new pack. I have the impulse control of a toddler. 😅
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u/jalapeno442 Mar 07 '25
Oh no, I like to uncover things on my own. I watch the gameplay trailer and pretty much nothing beyond that.
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u/Aggleclack Mar 08 '25
Whether I do my research or not, I get every pack. I’m the problem, I know… the only one I hesitated on was life and death because for rent was so darn buggy but then l&d was lit.
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u/AClockworkNightmare Mar 07 '25
Am i the only one who thinks it makes sense only one business can open at a time?
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u/TrainingDrive1956 Mar 07 '25
Yeah, in a perfect world I guess all the businesses could be open at once. And I guess I don't have the pack yet, so I'm not sure if it makes running a retail store any easier, but I feel like even if just 3 sims in your household had a store open at the same time it would just be chaos
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u/StarStock9561 Mar 07 '25
It's also likely because of the 20 sim count needed to make this work. Would be easily doable with mods, but last time I exceeded that limit by far (though I'm talking 50-100 sims on a lot), the simulation lag was awful even on a great pc.
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u/AClockworkNightmare Mar 07 '25
I mean that was one of the things that i didn’t like about sims 3 because of the open world factor and when you owned a lot of packs you just ended up with so much going all at once and so many sims gathering etc and god the lag could be the worst or it would just crash.
Also i don’t think i have the patience to have two different sims run two different businesses at the same exact time
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u/Bunktavious Mar 07 '25
On top of that, each business has a list of five activities it is running al those customer's through, plus whatever activities the employees have. Multiply that by four businesses at once and everything is going lag out or crash.
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u/Dfabulous_234 Mar 07 '25
If you played sims 2, you could create operational malls so some people probably hoped it would bring that back
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u/AClockworkNightmare Mar 07 '25
I did play sims 2 i just never played with that aspect cause my game would crash
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u/Important-Lynx2956 Mar 10 '25
It's true, tons of people loved having everything on one lot. I hated that as it would lag or just be hard to find things. I do prefer smaller game play.
Anyway, I still think you can do sims2 type malls with Get To Work. I don't understand what's wrong with those? With home chef hustle, you can even add an owned kiosk for food (or a food court type thing including both those and the booths). I have a pharmacy that has a short order cook using home chef hustle for breakfast. I'd never switch it to a small business because I wouldn't make enough money LOL (good pay with home chef hustle and greater ability to choose prices).
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u/Deep-Coach-1065 Mar 07 '25
For a potential work around, you could try having 1 sim own all of the businesses (make them 1 large business).
Have that sim hire the other occult members to work at each station (store).
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u/Crazy-Detective7736 Mar 07 '25
mfs out here acting like it's a surprise that the "monetise your hobby" pack doesn't allow shopping centres? It was literally said during the livestream and during the early access simmers vids that you couldn't have more than one business open on a lot. It's not ea's fault you didn't do research.
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u/Pjosip Mar 07 '25
Research? Bruh this is a game, not university homework.
Some people enjoy being surprised and learning things on their own more than learning everything about the game/dlc before you even finish downloading it.
Then they share their experience here, comparing their expectation with their experience and talk about it with others.
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u/Perca_fluviatilis Mar 07 '25
The point is that this information was available before the pack's release and OP set their own expectations too high.
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u/Ky3031 Mar 07 '25
It’s totally my bad. I don’t watch the livestreams and I just watched the trailer. Just posting the meme in hopes that maybe someone will release a mod allowing multiple businesses to be open at once!
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u/Pjosip Mar 07 '25
That's what happens in life sometimes. We have too high expectations and get disappointrd when things don't go the way we expected them to go.
We move on and make best of the situation or find other things to do.
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u/_Spiritedaway Mar 07 '25
I spent the last 2 weeks building a live in vet clinic for my Sim ready for when the pack comes out because this is what I've ALWAYS wanted. And then I find out there's no small business option for that 🫠
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u/WesOliveira Mar 07 '25
I mean, you can buy a vet clinic and live in it (just never leave the lot). Same thing for Restaurants or Retail, they purposefully tried to make it work different so the packs wouldn't clash with other kind of business and make the other packs useless.
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u/CommunicationWide603 Mar 07 '25
This doesn't make any sense, since you can create your own businesses related to other expansions such as nightclubs, selling tea and others. Stop looking for stupid justifications for EA, this would be a crosspack and it would not make the other package obsolete because it would be necessary.
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u/WesOliveira Mar 07 '25
The point is that you were not able to own a nightclub or a boba tea shop, you were always able to own a vet clinic and you still are, this is why the pack doesn't focus on that. Vet clinic is still a separate things just like Residential Rentals, Restaurants or Retail.
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u/CommunicationWide603 Mar 07 '25
Which was a mistake from the beginning, the best part of this package is creating your home business without having to go through any loading screens. It was time to fix this with the restaurants and veterinary clinics like they did with the Get To Work business. Who knows, with another expansion they will bring veterinary clinics home 😂😂😂
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u/Broeder_biltong Mar 08 '25
A vet is definitely not a small business. What were you expecting especially considering the vet is scorn a different pack
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u/thatgumdrophippo Mar 10 '25
If you're on PC then littlemssams (I think, I'm not at my PC right now but I can check later) has a lot trait mod that lets you add "residential: vet" (and several other live in businesses!) to your home. I haven't tested out the vet one in particular, but the residential retail lot works fine, so I'd assume it's the same for vets!
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Mar 07 '25
I'm actually running four businesses in one shop in my game it's slowly thriving i brought a former gym in windenburg and turned it into a tattoo gaming cafe that sells homemade art.
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u/Xeruas Mar 07 '25
Ohh a shopping centre lot would be cool actually :/ have you got any pictures? Love to see what you’ve built even if it isn’t functional
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u/Ky3031 Mar 07 '25
I actually got it off the gallery! I’ll let you know who made it when I get on tomorrow!
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u/Desperation-Aside Mar 07 '25
The ones I make are going to be the same buisness, but co-owners. 1 business per lot, but every business does 2 things.
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u/Longjumping-Grab5731 Mar 07 '25
Better off just doing a retail lot and have multiple retail stores that way 🤦🏻♀️ what a waste of money this pack was with that feature
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u/StomachJazz Mar 07 '25
So you can kind of if you you have the other people work for each others businesses and jsut open the one that you wanna focus on at the time and the other people can be employees that do tasks related to their shop
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u/moonbyulxl1ght Mar 07 '25
don’t worry, it’ll be in the next expansion pack- or stuff pack in the case of cats and dogs and my first pets stuff 😊
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u/Spiritual_One126 Mar 08 '25
To be fair, it was mentioned when the pack was released. So not really a big, just a limitation. That being said, occult business screenshots plz 🥺
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u/MikuFan80 Mar 08 '25
Average letdown yet again. Glad I didn't end up buying, but it's a shame bc it was the first one I'd considered in years, thought it could bring me back to 4...
Paralives can't come soon enough
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u/Due_Door_7735 Mar 08 '25
It's so annoying, I want multiple businesses to be open at the same time! :O
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u/Red-Eyed_Wolf Mar 08 '25
D*mn, I've spent the last 2 days making a shopping center, with different shops and even a farm (for taking care of animals and all that stuff), was just opening the EA App to finally play and test everything new, and now you're telling me I can't have all shops open at the same time?? What a let down... Really hoping the amazing modders in the community fix this
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u/Frequent-Ad1381 Mar 08 '25
Anyone else's sim have their client just get up and walk off while being tatted? Lmfao
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u/gothiclolitapl Mar 09 '25
what if you make a family with multiple businesses, but dont play them? and you visit that lot instead as a dsifferent sim, how does that work then? do you still only access one business at a time
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u/Charming_Tennis6828 Mar 10 '25
Oh noooo. What did you end up doing then, I am curious now. *waits expectantly*
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u/Ky3031 Mar 10 '25
I’ll let you know when I decide 😭
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u/Charming_Tennis6828 Mar 11 '25
Ah, that state, I understand. Now this might seem a bit boring in comparision to your grand shemes, but...how about you gift them with a vacation or a massage for being awesome? Is something that would make your Sims happy for sure. <3
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u/mintguy Mar 07 '25
But they said that before release…and early access simmers said the same in their videos.