User blog comment:LostInRiverview/Monthly Question - July 2014/@comment-1441666-20140715113737

I always liked the ordering of the original Sims expansion packs. You started with family and domestic stuff, moved on to expanding the town outside your Sims' home and a few new game play mechanics, then got to taking holidays to entirely new locations and having different weather conditions (only cosmetic in TS1, I know, but still there), and getting pets - all still quite regular in terms of life simulation. It was only then that you started getting more out-there stuff like becoming a movie star or a witch - also cool and I certainly wouldn't get rid of them from the series, but I want to be able to do something ordinary like own a cat before I get more unusual options like becoming a vampire. It had a nice sense of moving outwards from the basics of your characters' home lives to real fantasy-fulfillment stuff over time. I guess I'd like to see that again in TS4, so have them starting with a family/celebration/education themed pack, especially since it seems like a lot of what we've come to regard as the basics of the series won't be in the base game, but could fit nicely in that sort of expansion. However, I expect what they'll actually do is more or less what they did with TS3, bringing out the reasonably-popular and slightly reworked stuff first, holding on to the fan favourites for a few years, and then ending on completely new stuff.