I'm glad that it's a bit easier to have pets in this expansion, I used to always get excited about making and owning pets in TS2 but quickly became annoyed with how needy they were. But sims as a whole were more needy in TS2.

I ordered mine with free shipping so it won't arrive until next week, so I'm hoping many of the major kinks have been worked out by then.

My guess would be their custom content, computer specs, or possibly even just having a messed up computer would mess up their game.

I'm having no issues at all apart from the fuzz thing which doesn't bother me too much.

Does anyone know if wild animals spawn in custom hoods? Glendalough, for example?

I'm playing Gracie Loveland and her cat Babycakes (Appaloosa premades). Nicely done house... quaint victorian decor with a steamy sex parlor for her bedroom, complete with saddle and rope (no she does not own a horse )

Adopted a second kitty because I wanted to breed Babycakes. Been having a lot of fun having the cats learn to hunt, and seeing what they catch... Babycakes and the tom, Rembrandt, sealed the deal when he offered her as a gift a rather valuable beetle he'd caught... right after that they ran off to the doghouse to make some kittens Later Babycakes took the beetle out of her inventory, in the house, to play with :O I wanted her to give it to her mistress to display, but apparently you can't regift... was flagged as ungiftable since it had already been gifted!

One thing that has surprised me, btw, is that cats don't need a pre-placed spawner to hunt. "Stalk prey" is a self-interaction, and it apparently spawns a critter whereever the cat does it.

How did you teach your cats to hunt? I can't figure out how.

Pets actually seems to load and play smoother than before. Go figure.

I havent played much, but I am loving the collections feature! I tend to have favorite things I like to add for my different types of rooms and lots. Now I can place them all in a collections folder and spend less time searching for items and more time playing. Well done EA!

Cats can practice hunting with a toy from the toy box. After they get a skill point that way, they can "stalk prey" outdoors.

Both my cats also got the "hunter" trait trained really quickly, after just a couple of skill points in hunting. If anything I thought that was a lil TOO easy

so we all all agree that it is faster and more smoother with pets?? I had the same happen when I got World Adventures but then it got slower with Ambitions. I hope it stays smoother!!

I like it. Overall i think EA is finally starting to get their groove on. The kittens are adorable, and the Riding skill is a great way to earn major simoliens and have some challenging gameplay at the same time. I love the open feel of the town, and the comical way unskilled riders sometimes mount their horse backwards. My only real complaint, if you can call it such, is that once again there are NO Mutton Chops for my male sims. I would have thought they would have been perfect for the Western feel of the town.

I'm having a great time with it! I had some issues in create a pet (my custom made dog took FORVER to save, I thought it was a hang but it finally worked after 10+ minutes), but once I got playing I've been super impressed! I'm probably just biased though, because I've been playing with the sims version of my real life dog, and my selfsim. I haven't had any bugs so far *knock on wood*, and the routing has been all right.

My dog doesn't listen when my self-sim calls him. VERY realistic.

I've gotten it and my impressions at first were how I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of lagging in Appalosa Plains. I had bad lagging in Bridgeport but when I first started playing I thought the reduced lagging was due to taking out custom content, but I have already put back the hair/clothes and objects packages and I still don't get any lag.

About horses though I don't like how they can't run to your sims destination when they are riding them. On a horse, it will take you hours to get across town. Save horse riding for your shorter travels Also, I do like that horses have a wish to be ridden by sims. It's encouraging.

Everything else is alright, a little bit buggy though when two of my sims were making out on the couch there was some kind of jump bug when they were directed to do something else. I'm not worried about that though but sometimes it's like they don't test their games before release because I've encounted this just shortly after moving a new family in haha.

Overall, I enjoy the expansion. One thing though- You can't put multiple birds in a single bird cage but you can keep one or more in your sims inventory and still carry em around and whatnot, and you can just switch out which bird you want in the cage.

Blah, not the premade factory! That's where all the pudding-faced NPCs come from.

Here's to hoping that there is enough diversity in the Pets department because my town can do much better than mustering out different-coloured pet clones.

They will escape if they stay too long in your sim inventory. Thats how I lost Shadow, the Womrat.

has anyone grown carrots yet? are carrots just for horses or are there any new recipes?

I'm actually really enjoying this EP. I had created a Ragdoll in CAS and made her anxious. As soon as I loaded up my new family she ran and hid under the couch. It was so cute. My cat is a scaredy cat in real life and hides any where she can fit her fuzzy body into. They seem a lot more realistic than they were in the sims 2. I haven't played dogs at all yet so I can't really comment there.

Horses are definitely an interesting addition. I love horses and had been waiting for them to be added into the sims since the sims 1. This being said, I still find myself enjoying playing the cats more.

There are some things that do bother me though. They walk really slow. This especially bothers me with the horses. The sims walk faster than they do. Also, it bothers me that the horses can get out of their pens whenever they feel like it. I just don't want my horse milling around my yard at 2am. It kind of defeats the purpose of a fence.

All this being said, I have only played for a couple of hours so there could definitely be things I've missed. This could also be a little biased since I'm a huge animal lover.

I didn't expect them to live forever in there. You can't feed anything that lives in your inventory.

Oooh, lovin Country music station so far!

It's an issue with certain video cards; it was discussed at length on the official forums.

It seems that 'Make gourmet pet food' was in the patch not the game, as I don't have it yet, but am patched up and my sim just got the option on his fridge.

Just thought that was quite funny.

I have an odd question to any who have the game, can cats/dogs eat raw meat from the store?

Omg I was wrong about horses being slow. My sims riding skill wasn't very high. They go faster as your sim gets better I suppose.

I think why some people may be disappointed is because they had it way overhyped or too excited. Ever since Pets and Skyrim were announced, I have been reading both forums for both of the games and I can see people saying this will be the best exp or game yet! Now I am excited for these two as well (Don't have Pets yet, getting it tomorrow) but overhyping the game is only going to bring disappointment when people remember that bugs would likely to occur among other things.

I have tried myself not being so excited though, although it's hard and I keep telling myself it probably won't be that great, either games so when I do get them, they will be good enough. I just hope not too many bugs and glitches crop up

Neither can be befriended and adopted.

I had a look on my friend's copy yesterday and I'm going over to his place to look at Appaloosa in CAW now and review it the way I did for Hidden Springs. First impression is that it's extremely well designed. Beautiful work. I haven't had much time to look at it, but I've been promised as much time as I need to make this review. Images probably won't be as good as if they'd come from my machine, but I'll see what I can do.

Long time lurker/downloader, first time poster. I got Pets yesterday and I've got to say, it's probably my favorite expansion since World Adventures. I did experience some minor routing issues, but since I have a couple no-foot tapping/complaining mods in, it didn't take much time for the sims and the pets to sort out the issues.

I really like that, through proper reinforcement, you can change a pet's personality. Just like a real animal, reinforcement seems to be stronger if you catch them in (or right after) the act.

My own (personal) problem is that I can't decide how autonomous I want my animals to be. I tend to micro-manage my sims every action--only because, even with their IQ set at the highest levels, sims seem to make themselves miserable without my benevolent hand (or mouse, as it were).

Do anyones sims put animals in their inventory instead of their terri...cage. (I dont know that word in my language!) their cages?? I make my sim play with his squirrel and he always puts it in his pocket instead of back in the cage again!

I need an updated card myself, apparently mine isn't recommended for the sims at all XD
So, while my first impression was a nasty one, it'll probably help my game as a whole.
Bleh.