Yeah yeah, I know, i'm a slow snail and late as hell to the party.

But yeah, the only reason i have the Sims 3 is because i got it on a giveaway last christmas, along with Nightlife and some stuff pack. Only now i've put my eye on other expansion packs, as well as worlds. So seeing 20$ pricetags on the worlds almost made me faint.

Like, that can't be right? Do they have sales from time to time? Is it possible to get them through cheaper means? Because there is absolutely no way I'm going to spend that much on a neighborhood and now i'm grossed out. Ew.

I got mine through a lover but, I had to pay with woohoo.

I had the same reaction when I switched to TS3 a few months ago. Good news is, the ones on Origin do get a decent enough discount during most Origin sales. Still more than I really feel comfortable paying for one, but it's an improvement. And Origin seem to have sales every few months, so you shouldn't have to wait too long.

My reasoning was something like, "Well, i can't afford an expansion pack right now, so i'll buy one of the stand-alone worlds!", expecting they would be like 5€. I don't even want all of them, just Lunar Lakes and possibly the desert one.

Someone recommended me to get an origin key from other websites, but I don't know if that is legit. Plus, i would hate to get scammed. But to be honest, paying 40€ for an expansion pack that came out almost a year ago IS getting scammed. *sigh* no robots for me then

EA hold reasonably frequent sales on the expansion packs and stuff packs, the worlds in the store...not so much. I can only really recall Lucky Palms and Sunlit Tides being discounted. The 'disc'-based worlds (inverted quotation marks as they just give you a code to input) get discounted as well. Monte Vista+Hidden Springs, Barnacle Bay, Dragon Valley, and Roaring Heights (if you're in the EU).

Robots don't come with Lunar Lakes though? They come with Ambitions and Into the Future.

Anyway, I don't know about all serial sites, but cdkeys is legit at least.

Even though I agree that the store worlds are too expensive, something like 5 euros a world would be too little, especially since they come with premiun content included on top of the normal content. Except Riverview, which has none and is free.

When you figure an EP is 20 dollars US, paying that for a world is crazy.

It's especially really hard to justify when you consider how much gameplay the world's DON'T actually add. A couple of venues & some nice houses/RHs for your library, sure... But what does it do that an EP won't?

You don't have to spend any money to get new worlds. There are many great player created worlds available for free. Here is a thread all about player created worlds. Also, this website has information about, and links to download, many different player made worlds. You're sure to find many to your liking without having to feel ripped-off by EA.

I agree, zigersimmer. I recently downloaded a nice neighborhood from a site. It's made gameplay fresh for me, even though I only have the Base Game, Generations, and Seasons.

The site is: http://mysimrealty.com/Sims3_CommunityMain.html

I think of the Store worlds more as Stuff Packs and some of them provide actually more value than those; I at least have never regretted any of my Store world purchases as opposed to some Stuff Packs or EPs even. But I am also a sucker for worlds, so there's that.

Nissun, I also held off on buying new worlds so my game ran on just Sunset Valley and Riverview for a while. Then Origin had a sale a coupla months ago and they had discounts that made the prices more reasonable--made me finally pull the trigger. I think they had some worlds available for around $6 (USD) and they even had a two-world combo for that price.

The alternatives? For worlds, I'd probably be happiest creating something of my own in CAW, but the program hasn't been able to run on my computer for a while. Probably some update messed it up.
Also, as the other posters have said, I hear some Simmers have made fantastic custom worlds (downloadable for free) but I haven't tried any yet.

For expansion packs...still waiting for the prices to drop.

I agree. It seems crazy that the Worlds cost as much as an EP (especially since most of the EPs also come with a new World.) But there must be people willing to pay that much because otherwise they wouldn't price them so high.

yes prizes are high - absolutely but apart from that or especially because of that i always wondered why that sales management works so fine since one can hardly see what one gets. the previews are crap.
thats getting off topic here but i never understood why EA didnt managed to make shots from all sites for their stuff. => likely again: because people buy the stuff.
if there werent sites like "EAs dressingroom something" i wouldnt even know yet what the majority of the Store items actually look like

There are a few worlds for sale at Amazon.

Buying a world from the store is like EP, is adding new world, a new objects with new animations and interactions, is adding a lot of Buy/Build and CAS content

Yeah, you definitely don't want to buy a world and then realize it's terrible and then buy a second world to make up for it. *hangs head shamefully*

What you could do is research all of the worlds and consider the pros and cons before buying one. As somebody above mentioned, each of the worlds comes with new clothing, hair, and 1 unique object. And a theme, of course, such as "Pirates" in Barnacle Bay or "Victorian" in Midnight Hollow. You could also consider how many vacant lots there are available, in case you have expansions and want to plop down community or residential buildings.

But also consider that it barely adds any new functionality to the game, like what you'd get from an EP.

Been there, done that, still regret buying Barnacle Bay.

I rarely play any of the EA worlds for long. If I buy them I try to do it on sale, with as many points earned from watching videos as I can, and that's only for the stuff in them. I way prefer to custom create my own population. I'd design my own worlds, but CAW drives me nuts....

Although to give credit when it's due, both Lucky Palms and Roaring Heights were both well designed worlds from the Store. I have gotten a lot of play time out of both those worlds.