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Q: How long ago/when did the idea for this Expansion Pack come about?
A: We’ve been considering what we wanted to do as our first expansion since the time where we started wrapping up work on the base game. I know for us, the idea of opening up a large chunk of your Sim’s day so you can follow them to work and explore all the hijinks they get up to there was compelling… plus, it was a great opportunity to bring back the beloved Open For Business theme from The Sims 2. What really convinced us though was seeing a lot of feedback from many of you! Following your Sim to their job has always been a top request, and there’s been overwhelming support of bringing full retail stores back into the game.
Q: Were there any other names thought about other than ‘Get to Work’? (And if so, what were they?)
A: As for alternate names… well… Originally the studio wanted to name it “The Sims 4: On The Job”, but out friends in the UK let us know that has a different meaning than the way we Americans think of it, so that got shot down pretty quickly 🙂
Q: What is your favourite new feature in GTW?
A: I love the Scientist Career and the invention constructor object. It’s really cool and the animations are super cute!
Q: How many colours options is there for the Cash Registers?
A: There are 2 cash registers. The one you can buy right away has 3 recolors. The one that you need to unlock via Perk Points has 4 recolors.
Q: Was Magnolia Promenade based on any street or town? It looks very New Orleans 🙂
A: We wanted to keep Magnolia Promenade in line with Willow Creek. It’s like a part of the same geographic area with a commercial/retail feel. New Orleans was one of the places we were inspired by to give it a walkable promenade type feel but we try to draw from multiple places.
Q: Why are employees of stores not doing their assigned tasks? Ex: I assigned an employee to ring up customers. There were 3 customers ready to buy and the employee just kept dancing even after being berated for slacking.
A: Hi GurlGamer… Employees are tricky Sims, always looking to get out of doing work when the boss isn’t keeping a mindful eye. When you hire a Sim, be mindful of their Work Ethic skill. The lower it is, the more often they’ll start to slack instead of working. When you catch one slacking (having fun, or chatting with other employees), be sure to go over to them and select Manage Employee -> Berate For Slacking. That’ll get them back to work… for a period of time. They can always choose to start slacking off again after awhile. The more you use the Manage Employee interactions on your employees, the higher their Work Ethic skill will rise, and the less they’ll slack off… so keep managing them!
Also, if you have an employee who you’ve told you Ring Up Customers, they may be in the middle of interacting with other customers when someone else decides to buy. Give them a few minutes to stop their current conversation, or jump in and lend a hand if the store is getting too busy.
Have fun!
Edit: Oh – LBDX, I hope this helps answer your question as well!
Q: Can we live/build a home in Magnolia Promenade?
A: Absolutely
Q: What’s you’re favourite new object from GTW?
A: I love the cloning machine. That one’s a blast.
Q: Will we be able to use the cell doors on normal homes? 🙂
A: You can unlock the cell walls to use in your home when you reach level 3 of the detective career and the door is unlocked at level 5.
Q: I acually did, my question was more about wether or not it had found its way / if something of this sort is under consideration. Also I had a question regarding how you can play 2 different open carreers in one household? I read you would have to choose one as rabbithole but would that be a perminent decision or could I choose each time my sims get to work (even if work hours were to be different)?
A: One Sim can have an active career each day, and whichever you follow to work first you’ll be able to control at their workplace. You can freely swap back to a Sim at home, but only one Sim’s career can be active per day.
Q: One question — will the money spent by Hank Goddard on a gnome and a plate of donuts go into the retail account of Eliza Pancakes (who owns the store).
A: In your scenario… yes, if you see Hank Goddard buying a gnome and some tasty donuts at Eliza’s store, when you switch back to playing Eliza her household will actually have that money!
Q: Another question — will the 3 employees who show up during off hours have wages, and is it possible to assign their uniforms?
A: As for the extra employees who show up when visiting a store that you don’t own… if it isn’t someone that you hired, then they’ll be in a standard retail uniform, and their wages won’t actually be deducted from your account. You’re only charged upkeep when you yourself are there managing your store. Any employees that you hired for a store will still show up wearing their assigned uniforms when you visit it with another household though, so if you’ve hired three of them you can totally customize that experience!
Q: Screenshots have been blurry since the 03-26 patch. Can you please take a look at this and hopefully fix. Thanks so much!
A: Thanks for flagging this! We’re looking into it. We definitely want to see great screenshots from Get to Work!
Q: Is there a way to let aliens wear more then those suits. Like they can when they are disguised?
A: Hi pepperjax1230, yes, aliens wear their work uniforms when they’re on duty whether they’re in disguise or not. When your Alien’s in disguise they have access to all the clothes normal Sims can wear.
Q: Is there new poses when taking a selfie with the new camera?
A: Yes, there are different poses your Sim will get into when they take a selfie with their phone and when they take a selfie with another Sim on the new cameras.
Q: Is it true that if you make an alien in cas they have access to the wormhole device meaning it’s not locked?
A: Hi catloverplayer, even an Alien needs to work their way up the Scientist career ladder in order to build a wormhole generator.
Q: I noticed that the same customers show up in my store, but are starting to spend more. Is there a hidden customer loyalty system? Customers seem to spend between the low end up to $3K range. But I have paintings in the $9K range I’d love to sell. What do I need to do to make customers spend more??
A: We don’t have a customer loyalty system per se, but customers will arrive at your store with an initial price range in mind of what they want to spend, and the items you have for sale will affect the type of customers that arrive. There are multiple tiers of what customers are willing to spend… behind the scenes there’s actually a big matrix of different price ranges that we match to the items you’re selling, but you can simplify it by thinking of your customers are low, medium, or high spenders. We determine what types of customers primarily come to your store by calculating the mean average price of all items that are For Sale in your store. Most of the customers that arrive will have a price range near that average… so in your example, most of the paintings you’re selling likely average to around 1.5k. That said, we do send customers who don’t match your price range as well… it’s just rarer. In those situations, those customers may have a chance to buy that 9k painting – it just won’t happen as often.
In addition to customers with different price ranges, some of the customers who show up will specifically be socializers, or loiterers. If you suspect a customer isn’t really looking to buy, politely ask them to leave to make room for a real shopper 🙂
Q: Employee management – my employee isn’t doing what I tell him to do (like clean store). But he did do his own thing and started working with customers & increased sales. I didn’t chastise him since he got a sale & increased his sales rank. But my store was soooooo dirty…I really needed him cleaning. Any tips on employee management?
A: My main tip for Employee Management is to just stay on top of what they’re doing and keeping an eye on them. If they’re doing things to have fun, or if they’re chatting with other employees, they’re likely slacking and you need to select Manage Employees -> Berate For Slacking. Nearly all of the interactions in the Manage Employees section will help raise your employee’s Work Ethic, and as they raise their Work Ethic skill they will slack less. Also when you berate an employee for slacking, the work they go back to doing may be different from what you originally assigned them… so make sure you’re assigning them the work task you actually want them to perform if they’re not doing what you want. If an employee has nothing to do in their current task (like if they’re supposed to Ring Up Customers, but nobody is currently ready to buy), they may switch up their behavior and help answer customer’s questions as well in the meantime.
Mainly the employees are there as a separate set of helping hands… keep an eye on them, but make sure you’re pitching in and working when they get swamped as well!
Q: Who’s the main character in the SUL SUL trailer and who made him? I noticed he was in the original promo trailer. Do you guys plan on putting more of these guys into the gallery?
A: We can’t add everyone from the videos, but we’ll see what we can do! As @SimGuruBChick said, keep an eye on the Maxis tab in The Gallery!
Q: How do you take selfies?
A: The option to take a Selfie is on the phone in the “Entertainment” menu (the icon looks like a speaker). You can take a selfie with another Sim by selecting “Take Photo With…” on the camera or phone.
Q: If I unlock all career reward objects using the cheat and upload the build to the Gallery will the unlocked objects transfer to the Gallery? I’m sure this has been asked before but I would like an up to date answer. I’ve been avoiding putting anything in my builds that is an unlockable but would like to use a few things if possible. If they won’t transfer then it’s not worth messing with them. 🙂
A: Hey there WolfEyes! Unlockable reward objects do transfer through the Gallery, and other players can download them and use them just fine! Downloading a reward object will not actually unlock the object for you though, so you won’t be able to place additional copies of it, or select a new one from the catalog… you’ll only have access to the one you downloaded from the Gallery. So, go forth and use the reward objects with confidence!
Q: Will the Sims buy stuff in your store without having to spend years to convince them?
A: Hi Plumbot, I can address this one specifically.
The amount of convincing and selling you need to do per customer is largely based on the Mark Up prices you’ve set in your store. If you’re operating at a 50% mark up, you’ll need to interact with each customer and give some personalize service if you want them to spend their hard earned money. Alternatively, if you set a 5% mark up, customers will see that value and your objects will practically sell themselves!
Essentially, the salesman / customer interaction is as challenging as you want it to be, based on how much money you want to earn. Want more money? You better get to work 🙂
Another thing to keep in mind, is that you don’t need to fully convince every customer to actually make a sale. The blue bar over their heads represents how close they are to buying. At the time when they decide to leave your store, they’ll make a final purchase / no purchase decision that’s influenced by how full their bar is. Because the bar also goes up while they’re browsing the store, you can be relatively hands off and still make some money.
Finally… use your Perk Points to buy Business Perks! They help all sorts of various aspects of your store. One of the rewards is called Serious Shopper, and purchasing it means that all of your customers will arrive with a higher initial purchase intent. It’s great!
Q: Will the Get to Work expansion “Expand”, upon more ways ways of your sims running a business with future packs and updates?
A: Yes, opportunities for various retail stores will certainly continue to grow as more content is released for The Sims 4! The system was very much built to be flexible and allow it to easily accommodate more content. Most items that get added to the game will end up being things that can be sold – I’m excited for all the possibilities that are yet to come 🙂
Q: Does GTW have any new blinds/curtains??
A: Hrmm… I know we’ve got some new awnings, does that count for you? 🙂
Actually, try this – it’s really cool. The update from last week just added a new My Packs feature to the main menu. Click on the button with the three plumbobs in the top right corner, and then you can select Get To Work and see every object that comes with the game. Cool huh? Blinds, curtains… explore it all!
Q: Is there a reason Mongolia Promenade is so small? Also Can NPC’s operate a store.bakery if I build it in Manage World?
A: Magnolia Promenade is a neighborhood expansion to Willow Creek; size wise it’s similar to our other neighborhoods.
As for NPC run shops… yes, absolutely! You’ll need to set the store up first, but once it’s up and running, you can visit and shop there whenever you like. The simplest way would be to download a bakery made by someone else from the Gallery… you can just drop it into your world and it will immediately function when you visit it. If you want to make your very own though, you’ll need to buy a retail store, build it as a bakery, set the food For Sale that you want it to actually sell, and then sell the store (you can sell the store from the cash register, amongst other places). Then the next time you visit it, it’ll be run by other Sims and you can buy the food. Enjoy! Nom nom.
Q: Hi SimGurus Well, my main question is when while I’m at work (doctor career) and the patients have the blue heart I take their temperature and offer them food etc etc but when you report to the doctor about the patient’s case they don’t seem to do anything about it is this normal? I find it quite frustrating.
A: Hi Torrence, by “report” to the doctor do you mean transfer? Early in the doctor career, your Sim is mostly just making sure the Patients are comfortable and fed 🙂 As your Sim progresses, they’ll start unlocking the interactions to treat the patients.
Q: I have a silly non-game related question that doesn’t need to be answered ever but how is your office set up? is it fun? Can you all see each other from your desks? That’s all. :tongue:
A: I’m actually yelling things at Graham and Jill right now :smiley:
It’s very fun around here and we all can see each other and talk to each other from our desks. It helps when we need to be creative!
Q: Are there badges for retail performance or do you get a pop up? Also do employees quit as soon as they level up because they are underpaid? This was a really frustrating TS2 issue that required an auto adjusting mod.
A: Heya Nanashi! Employees don’t use badges per se in Get To Work… employees instead have three different skills that they advance while working in your store. There’s Work Ethic, which affects how often they slack off. There’s Sales, which affects how good they are at convincing customers to buy, and how quickly they ring customers up. Finally there’s Maintenance, which affects how quickly they restock objects and clean the store.
Getting your employees to increase their skill level is mostly a matter of performing those tasks… answering questions and ringing up customers will raise Sales skill. Cleaning and restocking will raise Maintenance skill. Raising Work Ethic is a little different… you’ll want to use the various Management interactions on your employees that appear when you click on the employee to interact with them. As your employees increase in skill, you’ll receive notifications about their progress, or you can click the Manage Employees button in the Retail Store UI panel (bottom right corner!) to see all of their skill levels.
As for employees quitting… no, it isn’t like The Sims 2 either. Your employees all have their own job satisfaction, that’s adjusted by a number of things. Certainly if you’re not promoting your employee appropriately as they raise their skills, they’ll start to become unhappy. It’s never instantaneous though, and you’ll always be warned by the employee when they’re close to quitting due to being unhappy. If you want to find out how your employees are doing, again… click that Manage Employees button, and underneath their name it will show you their current job satisfaction level. You can also click directly on the employee and select Check Up On X, and the employee will directly tell you how they’re feeling… I suggest that method, as showing your a caring boss will also help boost their Work Ethic skill!
Q: What about user created items like pairings? Months ago I decorated a house and uploaded it to the gallery for my girlfriend to use, only to discover that the paintings and collectables were gone !
A: You can now upload paintings, photos, and other craftables (even food!) with lots on the gallery and other players will have those things when they download your work.
Q: If we set a career of a played Sim and turn them unplayed, will the career stay what we set it as?
A: If we set a career of a played Sim and turn them unplayed – yes, their career will stay as it is. They just won’t advance in their career as quickly as they would when you join them to work.
Q: Will they be uploading any of the Sims to the Gallery that we’ve seen from the trailers or gameplay demo?
A: Will they be uploading any of the Sims to the Gallery that we’ve seen from the trailers or gameplay demo? You bet! We just uploaded 4 this morning. I love George!!! Check out his swimwear 😉
Q: It was confirmed that aliens can impregnate male/female Sims by Woohoo. If a female alien, woohoo’s with human male, is there a chance for both to become pregnant??
A: If a female alien woohoo’s with a human male, there’s definitely a chance that they both may become pregnant.
Q: How do alien abductions occur? For example, in TS3, it was looking through telescope at a certain time (and having space rocks around the telescope increased chance of abduction).
A: Alien abductions have a higher chance of occurring from things like socializing with aliens, being a scientist, and having science objects – like the rocket – on your home lot.
Q: In the doctor career, will Sims that are being spawned by the game & treated, be in your Manage Households? I was thinking it would be really neat if the Sims that you treat, could become playable at some point if we wanted, especially for those that are coming into the hospital to deliver a baby.
A: There’s totally a chance that you’ll see Sims from your neighborhood show up as patients! The patients are pulled from a mixed pool of existing neighborhood Sims and freshly generated Sims.
