Hey guys,
I will be reviewing the recent addition to The Sims 3 Store: The Stones Throw Greenhouse Venue. This particular venue set was released on November 15th, 2012.
Included in this review also is a link to the Collection File of the Greenhouse found below:
http://www.mediafire.com/?u2nvn48srcqt3fv
One thing to note is that all the items in this venue are not for individual sale, and in order to get any of them, you MUST buy the entire venue set.
The Venue is priced at 1700/1900 Simpoints on sale until 1/01/2013. Sadly the discount seems like it's not a good deal, so in the later part of the review, I hope it is worth it.
This venue set comes with 32 items, which includes: 2 Premium Content Items, 10 CAS Clothing, and 4 new Glass Roof Sculpture pieces. The size of the lot is 40x30 so it should fit in many worlds without any issues! Below are the pictures of everything of the lot place in Moonlight Falls:
Seasons:
Winter:
Rain:
Note: It does not protect your indoor areas from the snow!
There are three gardening areas, two indoor, and one outdoor.
The Outdoor gardening plot has the following plants:
- 4 Tomato Plants
- 4 Onion Plants
- 4 Grapevines
- 4 Lettuce Plants
- 2 Bell Peppers in Plant Pots
- 1 Lime Tree
- 1 Life Plant behind the Gardening Station
The Left Indoor Gardening Area has the following plants:
- 3 Garlic Plants
- 4 Tomato Plants
- 7 Lettuce Plants
- 7 Bell Pepper Plants
- 7 Potato Vines
- 2 Onion Plants in Plant Pots
The Right Indoor Gardening Area has the following plants:
- 2 Bell Pepper Plants in Plant Pots
- 3 Bell Pepper Plants
- 5 Tomato Plants
- 5 Gravevines
- 4 Watermelon Vines
- 1 Flame Fruit Bush in the middle of the Watermelon Vines
- 2 Garlic Plants
Also there is an onion plant in the lobby outside of the left gardening area.
When calculating everything up, the price of the individual items add up roughly to 2875 Simpoints, which is a pretty big amount when combining all 32 items. With the set costing 1700/1900 Simpoints, you're saving pretty much over $10 for this set.
The first Premium Content is the SwiftGro Gardening Station. This object takes a whopping 6x6 spot on the lot and can be used by children to elders. This object has 5 options below:
- Water Plants
- Talk to Plants
- Identify Seeds
- Open Composter
- Use Composter
For the Water Plants option, the sprinkler system overhead will turn on, watering all the plants under it as shown below:
The Talk to Plants option allows you to talk to the plants using the megaphone. This raises your Gardening Skill, but also can help make the plants grow healthy too if utilized.
The last option is of course what it says, Identify Seeds. I think that's self-explanatory so I don't need to explain how that works. ;)
The second Premium Content is the Plants VS. Zombies Sunflower. This lovely singing plant will add sunlight to your plants along with providing music to dance with your sims, and even Zombies! There is only one option with this plant, which is the Dance! option.
After a period of time, the Sunflowers release sunlight onto the ground shown below:
Sims can even pick up sunlight and put it in their inventory for a short period of time:
The rest of the 30 objects include brand new Glass roof sculptures for your Greenhouse building and other new options in furniture, decor, and even clothing for the first time in a Venue Set!
Below are the pictures of all of the items:
CAS
Females:
Males:
Overall Review:
Price: 8/10- While the price is on sale only for 1700/1900 Simpoints, it may not seem like a huge deal. However, after adding up all of the items, especially with the premium content, they added up around 2700-3000 Simpoints (If by judging the Store Team, they would charge 100-200 for the indoor pot planter, and probably 100- 200 for the Glass Roof Decor). Honestly, this was worth my money personally because I enjoy making greenhouses, and this is a step towards a full glass home.
Theme: 10/10- Who doesn't like a Greenhouse theme? I think this was one of the most requested type of content to have since Gardening came out in the BASE GAME. While this would fit very well in Seasons, it would have fit well with Supernatural too as that was focused in Gardening also in one aspect. Plus, Gardening came with the base game, so this makes a nice addition to make things easier for gardeners.
Design: 8/10- I love how detailed some of the objects are, including the wonderful stencils they added to a whole bunch of. Plus, I love the overall design of the lot itself along with the addition of the glass roof pieces. The store team did very well in introducing a "staged" Greenhouse and with or without the premium content, it would just "LOOK" like one, not be an actual one. There are some issues though with the glass decor objects. With Season and snow, it seems like even if you place the roof decorations on top, snow will go through. However, you have to go through twists and turns to make it so snow does not show up, which can be a pain to deal with and difficult to do if players do not know how these roof decor work.
Thankfully, I was able to make enough adjustments so the inside of the building is not covered in snow.
Thankfully, I was able to make enough adjustments so the inside of the building is not covered in snow.
Premium Content: 8/10- While I do enjoy the Premium Content objects, I do feel like the Plants vs Zombies Sunflower isn't worth the 500 simpoints should it come out for individual sale. Sure I enjoy some nice music, sunlight, and dancing with it, but that's all it will do. 300 simpoints does sound about right for this sunflower, but it's already out. I do enjoy the nice addition with the gardening station, it has everything a gardener needs into one object. While it may be big, it will help fertilize, water, and help your plants grow. I even LOVE the megaphone addition when talking to plants.
Overall: 8.5/10- Not much I can say, but it was worth my money and I am pretty glad I obtained this set. Very good work from the store team and this is one set I will definitely be utilizing in many worlds. I hope you guys enjoyed this personal review so Happy Simming!
AznSensei
A lovely and detailed review, but I am interested in knowing what steps you took to weather-proof the greenhouse.
ReplyDeleteGlass floors? Invisible rugs over floortiles?
Just extending some walls, removing some on the ground floor, and adding a roof in some places that won't make it seem off ^_^
DeleteI like the rest of the set but I dont like the sunflower, its too cartoonish and unrealistic!
ReplyDeleteWell I find it cute, and The Sims 3 has its unrealistic and realistic traits. I'm sure if you get the set, you can remove the sunflower if you wish ;)
DeleteBut it's just so cute to have, you can't resist using it. ^_^
Thank you for your review, but for PREMIUM content, design should be ZERO because it was advertised and launched *after* seasons, but doesn't take the expansion to account. There are plenty of free CC greenhouses out there for ages.
ReplyDeleteReally confused here:
Delete- Do you mean Premium Content should be 0/10
or
- Do you mean Design should be 0/10
Design should be 0/10. The premium part of premium content works: the sunflower is really cute and the gardening station works as well.
DeleteThe design part is flawed: the greenhouse parts don't work as expected. In order to keep out snow and rain we have to go to such extents cheating it's not even worth it. There are free greenhouses made by fans that work exactly like this one: you *fake* a greenhouse. The difference is we don't have to pay almost $20 for them.
It is inexcusable that EA released this set without prior testing. Absolutely nothing justify it.
I wouldn't call it a 0/10. The Stencils of the items were awesome. the Roof Pieces are 4 objects, out of the 32 objects that came with the Venue.
DeleteYa the lot has issue, and the Roof Pieces are "Roof Decor" rather than actual roofs, but it doesn't definitely deserve a 0/10. I'm sure other players would probably give it a 5/10 or 6/10, but for me the roof pieces were not my main draw, the other content was, especially the Premium Content.
I had gave it a 10/10 before I changed it to a 8/10 because I did not really decide to put the Greenhouse under the snow, because it was aesthetically pleasing to me without Seasons. Once I had put in Snow, I was disappointed, but not angry about the greenhouse roofs.
I wouldn't call it cheating, because I created a workaround without using Cheats or a Mod, so it's possible ;)
Hope that understands.
Hi Chris your review is very helpful and informative. I am definitely considering buying this now before the SimPoints increase and especially that I can't use them for Monte Vista (you have to purchase a special SimPoint Bundle like you do for Barnacle Bay. It would be really great if you give a step by step tutorial on how to fix the roof problem. I have just picked up Seasons which I was hanging for...Question... can you put it in any World even the World Adventures ones...???
ReplyDeleteHi Jacqueline,
DeleteI can definitely post a tutorial if you want. I can have it up in a couple hours.
Also, you could definitely put it in any World, as it's a 40x30 Lot, which should be common in the a 40x40 lots or anything. I kind of wished it was 30x30 as we do have 30x30 lot creations.
World Adventures would work well with this too, I could see this belonging in Champes Les Sims, France or even the upcoming Store World: Monte Vista.
Great venues!! . Selection of suitable location for your event is the best option for having the memorable event.
DeleteAlthough this is a good venue, I still feel it's way too expensive for something that doesn't even fully function as a greenhouse. It should have been made for the seasons, as that is a big part of greenhouses. The premium content is awesome, especially that gardening station. It just feels like EA's trying to suck everything out of us, for something that wasn't completely filled out, right after we just spent money on another expansion pack. I love it, just too much at this price, even with all the items and premium content (they used to give us so much more like this with expansions, really try hard to give us great stuff, now it's all about the store, which I like, but they use it more as a weapon than a tool sometimes) But great review, very informative and helpful, as well as pretty un-biased :)
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous,
DeleteMost of the Store Content as a whole is pretty aesthetic, and if anything everything will be overpriced, and I'm sure you aren't the only one who thinks this isn't worth your money.
If you aren't a fan of the clothing or the decor that comes with it, and only the greenhouse roofs, then I can see the issue being there. Sadly, I'm a builder so I use anything I can with a lot of the build/buy objects that come in the store.
The Gurus are currently working on a fix which we should hopefully get sometime later next week and if anything, there will most likely be a sale of this particular one in the near future.
Word has it the greenhouse has now been fixed. I had unfortunately bought it when it was broken so hadn't used it yet because of the problem with the roof pieces. The included premium content has been handy and works, since most of my sims garden at least some...it has been useful in that way.
ReplyDelete