I was thinking Iceland. The northern lights, hot springs and funky coloured, blocky houses would fit. Also, I don't know a lot about Iceland but I remember therebeing a huge ass volcano that disrupted half the world's air travel fairly recently... Would that account for the black beaches?

I actually would love to see a screen shot of a Sim building a sandcastle with that black sand, if just for kicks. Maybe it'll turn into Swamp Thing as a special world-exclusive creature for the Diamond Edition.

Anyone expect it not to be a routing disaster?

It really does look like Iceland to me but where is the harbor?

I have wanted a northern town for a long time and I guess this would look OK if you cover it with snow. But it's really ugly in those pictures.

From what I've seen from the store, they alternate world builders. I'm picking up on particular designs and styles, like the painting and the style of the house. The Person who built this world build Hidden Spring, so I'm no expecting much in the way of "amazing" to be honest.

It's like every other store world is really good looking, similar to EPs. Lucky Palms and Monte Vista (maybe lunar lakes) were all build from the same world builder. Hidden Springs and This (and maybe Sunlit tides) are the same builder. This particular person needs to know what mountains and good aesthectices are. The whole "paint the edges of something for effect" doesn't really work unless the colores blend well together. The two are VERY different from each other, in contrast and it looks more bad than good. Then, the plethora or colors thrown over everything... and the hosue styles... I can't.

I'm wmre worried than anticipated, tbh.

I think you are right about that. Iceland does come to mind.

I actually like the look of the world, the landscaping and colors, even the street layout. I am not a big fan of the buildings so far. They look odd to me against the terrain paint. I would like to see more close up shots though before I can outright say they look ugly.

I am all for different worlds. I don't know about most of you but I get tired of the same style. Now whether I will pay for this or not, probably not. But I guess I will have to wait and see.

Iceland does have a lot of geothermal activity. Then again, so does Alaska. The last time I was in Alaska, I had to contend with two active volcanos: Redoubt and Augustine.

Actually, white sandy beaches seem to be the exception rather than the rule -- except maybe in Florida. Besides, at those latitudes, one really does not go for a swim in the ocean. Many years ago, I was at a beach on the Gulf of Finland and stuck my toe in the water -- and that was as far as I went.

And northern communities do tend to be rather junkie and ugly. There is an Alaskan architectural style known by the locals as "Alaska Ugly."

In anycase,I want to get a hold of teh CAW file for this one. Add some fishing boats and probably a dock area with stacked containers and a couple of container ships. Also, a Russian Orthodox church to add a little of that Alaskan feel.

Sounds very ... fantasy to me. After prodlems with previous worlds I am not getting this unless it has something amazing to offer me.

I get what they were trying to do with the darkened ground but it looks like a there's been an environmental disaster. Like an oil tanker crashed and a tsunami brought it down on to the place. I guess that could also explain the ugly buildings and really boring looking layout. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the architecture though and wait till I can see some closer shots of them. Nice skies, sure, but who's going to pay $20 or so for skies?

From this post, I guess this is what the creators was going for: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/po...0.page#10189015

I will admit that I am ignorant to Iceland or any of the northern countries, I am not into that type of setting. Give me sun and fun in the heat, love the Caribbean Islands and southern hemisphere.

Some are saying the roofs are new, but I am not seeing the screen well. I do see green roofs and wondered if that is why the ribbed, green roof is taken away?

I do agree with it looking like an Icelandic world with the dark ground colors and the ugly houses with their colorful rooves. Here's some pictures for reference: http://www.baldhiker.com/2011/07/29...jafjallajokull/ & http://www.en.iamistanbul.tv/news/w...of-iceland.html (you have to scroll down a bit for the last one)

Scandinavian house designs vary quite much from country to country. It doesn't look anything like Sweden or Denmark. Maybe you can find similar styles in Norway but I think it looks distinctly Islandic to me.

If they don't release it on disc, I can't be bothered. In all honesty.

I think the black sand beaches were a good idea IN CONCEPT, if only for movie makers finally being able to remake that "Wicked Game" music video, but the IMPLEMENTATION.........well, all I can say is I seriously hope that isn't what the finished product looks like.

From the look of some of the early images, it appears to me that a lot of the weird-looking multicoloured buildings in the first screenshot of the downtown area may be displaying as their low-poly, low-detail model- the sort you see for inactive, faraway lots when the game isn't focusing on rendering them properly, or when you zoom out too far in map view mode. Perhaps it might be best to wait for closer, clearer screenshots of the buildings and news of what the premium content will be before completely writing this off as a total disaster- the images of waterfalls and large bodies of water with sims swimming in them, for instance, look more promising than the badly-shot map view ones.

oh yargh! That's not just a liver condition, that's an automatic move to the head of the line for a transplant!

Marketing 101. When you "leak" some sneak previews, you leak the good looking stuff first. So if these screen shots are the pick of the litter, then this dog might end up making Candyland look attractive. And if this is based on Iceland, I hope the country can sue for damages to national image from this disastrous depiction. Besides, the Icelanders really could use the money right now.

Oh, I'm not disputing that, this is a real mess marketing-wise so far. Just saying that we don't really know huge amounts about the world as a whole yet- we just had two badly-shot pictures, two better pictures and a vague theme to go by. It's perhaps best to reserve judgement until when we've seen more details and know what the new content is- it isn't an inherently awful idea for a world, after all.

It looks like an old northern town and I love it I'm glad they're putting more variety in places to live even if most people think its ugly.

And if the hot springs don't freeze over in winter my sims will be moving there immediately and will probably have the brightest, ugliest house of em all~

Whoever takes the pictures does a really bad job at marketing, but at least they're showing us what we're getting. If the items are good, we'll see. The worlds, the lots... just no.

And what's this I hear about venues. Why multiple?

Edit:

Look at this image very carefully, in the background, at the rocks.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/simsvi...in/photostream/

They've been copied and pasted. Even the terrain paint.

And, apparently, we're getting hot air balloons. Do not want. Unless, a Sims can fall out and die, then by all mean, give it to me.

Are you sure the hot air balloon isn't just a reskin of the one you can see floating around above Sunset Valley and some of the other maps, though? Not the first time they've appeared in the game as world decorations.

your right! bye

your right about that :lovestruc

We'll have to wait and see for that. I'm not sure either - I'm just the messenger.

Also, I overlooked it before, but there are new roof colors. At least 4. Because of the lighting, I'm not sure if there are various other shades and hues to go along with it. THAT I'm actually looking forward to - maybe in a patch? Hopefully, one of them will be a white trim roof (which is dirt easy for EA, or anyone else, to do)

I hope we get more pictures of whats in it, so I can decide if this is worth it or not.

If you mean those two mountains, one is a mirror image of the other. I don't get it. Why would they do that?

I actually like this a bit. I'm not in love with it but I like the nordic look of the place. I like the way the houses look like houses you could find in Finland. So far EA is in love with making hot worlds, it's a nice change to the always sunny experience we have so far had.

I hope sims get some new trait/interaction about the northern light, not just the generation watch stars interactions. If the lights really are part of the sale, sims should acknowledge their existence.

The hot air balloon could be fun, if you can really follow your sims in the sky Maybe next we can get airplanes or helicopters, or sky gliding. Now that would be cool.