Who misses the indoor restaurant like The Sims and The Sims 2?

[RomerJon17]

Well the indoor restaurant is more interesting than rabbit holes.. Except you can hear music playing inside the building is kinda boring and you can't see your Sim in the restaurant...

Maybe due to specifications or something?

[kewpie]

Kind of. This is odd, but I liked TS1 restaurants the best and I think they got worse in TS2. I remember avoiding restaurants because of some problems with them. Maybe there were mods that made it better in TS2, but I remember being irritated by many of the aspects of eating out there. The main problem I had was that when you were on a date or outing, the eating took so long that your group mate or date would get bored before the meal was over and if you waited until you were already on a dream date, your motives were almost maxed.. so why eat? I also remember that for a long time there was a problem with the chat feature that you sims weren't smart about picking topics. If the sim they were talking to didn't like the topic, relation points would go down and tick the sim off. Sims used to talk a LOT during meals during TS2 and if you weren't careful, you could end up losing friends just by sitting at a restaurant with them. Somehow this got fixed.. I think it was some mod from Pescado, but I'm not sure.

Maybe I'm weird. I liked the idea of the restaurants, but I avoided using them at almost all costs in TS2. I did love the TS1 restaurants where you'd get a 3 course meal that would just appear after you ordered and the dishes would change. Eating was quick and fun. I also miss the buffets at the hotels. I'd always "cheat" and have my sims steal food off the tables of NPCs by waiting for them to pick up a plate of food and then calling them over to me. Then I'd run over to where they were sitting and eat all their food. I think the only thing I didn't like in TS1 was that awful McDonalds stand EA once made and the burgers were bigger than the sims heads.

[Riptide651]

Well then again, you could always use the registers if you have WA, and make your own.

[noxnoxnox]

TS1 in your description sounds a lot of fun to me.

[owl_face]

I also loved the restaurants in TS1--they were simple, but it was always fun for my sims to take a date there. I also liked the Sushi bar that came with Superstar (I think). I was never such a big fan of the restaurants in the TS2.

I do use the WA registers to make cafes, but I really miss the maitre d' podium from TS1 and TS2.

[Nightlight]

Well then again, you could always use the registers if you have WA, and make your own.

Sure but it's not the same thing.
No one cook the dinner (there isn't a chef).
No waiters.
No one wash your dish :( .

[pico22]

TS1 in your description sounds a lot of fun to me.
It was. My TS1 Sims always had dates in restaurants. To suit their mood I built quite a few of them, as different as possible; the building part was a lot of fun too, and then trying them out.

TS2 restaurants were a let down for me as well, but at lest they looked and functioned like real restaurants. In TS3 I built exactly one; it started as a TS2 type but ended as a pitiful self-service joint, serving plastic food from under the counter: and the toilet facilities stink. As such, it works fine but it certainly is not a place where you would like to take a date,

[crocobaura]

I loved TS1 restaurants because you could have custom NPCs with restaurant specific uniforms. I also miss the coffee and pastry carts.

[calisims]

My feelings are pretty much the same as kewpie's. I loved building restaurants in TS2, but taking a date to one was a risk because your timer would time out during the meal unless you waited for your meter to max out. I did love being able to propose while seated at a table, and I miss that in TS3. (You could do it at a table at home, too, it didn't have to be a restaurant).

But I really miss TS1 restaurant dates, playing footsie under the table, making out in the booths.

[crocobaura]

My feelings are pretty much the same as kewpie's. I loved building restaurants in TS2, but taking a date to one was a risk because your timer would time out during the meal unless you waited for your meter to max out. I did love being able to propose while seated at a table, and I miss that in TS3. (You could do it at a table at home, too, it didn't have to be a restaurant).

But I really miss TS1 restaurant dates, playing footsie under the table, making out in the booths.

I rarely took my sims out for dinner dates, because on dates they usually wanted to woohoo, so dates were mostly stay at home affairs with cadle lit home cooked dinner. ;) For restaurant I used the form group interraction.

[calisims]

I rarely took my sims out for dinner dates, because on dates they usually wanted to woohoo, so dates were mostly stay at home affairs with cadle lit home cooked dinner. ;) For restaurant I used the form group interraction.

I'd take them out dancing, then woohoo in the car outside the nightclub. My Sims were classy that way, lol. But they always had dream dates.
I really miss car woohoo.

[rian90]

I think people are confusing dates with restaurants. The restaurants in Sims 2 were great! You could have your sim family buy a restaurant and work in the restaurant. If you took another family there, you would see the other family members serving you food or behind the bar. I love this about Sims 2. Yes, the dating mini-game was annoying, but running a restaurant/bar was a lot of fun. I had a town that was pretty much self-sufficient, no need for EA careers due to the restaurants and shops. We can't do that in Sims 3.

As for the registers, that is counter service, fast food. I want real restaurants, with waiters and hostesses. I love that we can make different themes for our restaurants in Sims 2...a tea room, a Mexican restaurant, a pizza joint....whatever. In Sims 3, my restaurant consists of a rabbithole rug where sims disappear.

[calisims]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I never liked running restaurants, though I did like running shops and other venues, so the only functionality that I might miss is as a restaurant patron. And in that respect, I don't miss the TS2 version, because of the reasons already mentioned.

[goteampink]

I did love being able to propose while seated at a table, and I miss that in TS3. (You could do it at a table at home, too, it didn't have to be a restaurant).

I miss being able to get engaged over dinner!!! It was a nice option compared to the one way it can be now.

I miss the interactive restaurants as well. Dates are boring when you're watching your sim and a date go into a restaurant!!!

[kewpie]

I'm not confusing them, it's just that I didn't really bother with going out unless it was on non-family socializing dates and outings. But IMO, the eating in the restaurants took WAY too long. Sometimes my sim couldn't finish a meal because he had to pee before the meal was over and once you got up from the table, things got messed up. The only saving grace of it was that when you went to a restaurant or other place off your lot, time froze. Who cares if dinner takes 6 - 8 hours of time if whenever you went back to your lot, it was the same time that you left? Basically TS2 sims could get about 12 extra hours a day (at LEAST. I could tell you stories about chain dating sims, living off of the motive boost and having my sim out for several days at a time. And don't even get me started on Servos. I gave up the experiment after having a servo out for two weeks with no sign of stopping) This is a big part of why I can't play TS2 anymore. It was too easy for me to figure out a way to "break" the game and I could have a sim lead a lifestyle in which they could live in quasi immortality just by never going home.

This is one way people forget that TS2 and TS3 are radically different. If you had a TS2 style restaurant in TS3, you'd likely never eat there because it would be such a serious time suck. If you went to the restaurant right after work, you probably wouldn't have time to go home and sleep to get up for work the next morning. It didn't matter that it was slow as hell in TS2. I mean, who cared about how much time ANYTHING took when time froze for your sim whenever he left the house?

[zigersimmer]

Nightlife + OFB made for some really fun gameplay with restaurants.


This is one way people forget that TS2 and TS3 are radically different. If you had a TS2 style restaurant in TS3, you'd likely never eat there because it would be such a serious time suck. If you went to the restaurant right after work, you probably wouldn't have time to go home and sleep to get up for work the next morning. It didn't matter that it was slow as hell in TS2. I mean, who cared about how much time ANYTHING took when time froze for your sim whenever he left the house?

This is a problem with the game clock in TS3, it simply moves too fast. I've tried Relativity, but then I have to constantly micro-manage the needs bars.

[Miuki]

IMO, anything is better then sims 3 restaurants. How can it be good or interesting to watch the building with the music playing inside or look at two sims sitting at different tables choking on food and then reading books afterwards? A dream date indeed. Or place a register on lot, buy food from it (with really strange animation) and then wash your own dishes? Well, that's not my kind of fun.
I liked both sims 1 and 2 restaurants, they felt like real places, I loved the normal outing options, NPCs, building my own places for different occasions and dinner interactions. I have to disagree about chat problem in sims 2, I could easily change the subject by clicking on sim, thus finding the topic that will interest both of them, or leave it as it is, it added realism for me - not all dates should be dream dates, sometimes I had fun spoiling things.
I agree with zigersimmer on time management - it's just that sims 3 clock is very weirdly paced. Why does it take more then an hour to have a shower in the morning? I could name more things like this, but I guess you know them all.
To sum it all up, I am with both hands for options - I wish EA would make it possible to leave restaurants as rabbitholes for those who prefere it this way for some reason, but at the same time allow the rest of players to build real restaurants with the help of special objects and room markers.

[secretsim]

I thought the restaurants in Sims 2 sucked. The Sims would never sit at the same table. At least in Sims 3, the Sims seem to sit together in the rabbit hole because their relationship has improved once they come out.

[rian90]

I had no problems taking my sims to restaurants in Sims 2...and I don't have a problem in Sims 3 either. If you do, you might try mods that change the time or make the sims eat faster. Relativity works great and there are settings so the needs correlate to the time you set. Again, it works great in my game. I guess we all have our own opinions of what is fun.

[crocobaura]

I thought the restaurants in Sims 2 sucked. The Sims would never sit at the same table. At least in Sims 3, the Sims seem to sit together in the rabbit hole because their relationship has improved once they come out.

You need to form a group first and if there are enough seats at a table they will sit together.

[Miko09]

I have to admit, I enjoyed running restaurants more than taking my sims to them in the Sims 2. Sims 1 was probably the best eating out experience. Overall, both of the earlier series are loads better than what is available in Sims 3

[ikbod]

I did like restaurants in Sims 1 n 2, maybe sims 1 the most - I liked to take a date to the shops and buy them some flowers or candy or something too

[zigersimmer]

I wish EA would make it possible to leave restaurants as rabbitholes for those who prefere it this way for some reason, but at the same time allow the rest of players to build real restaurants with the help of special objects and room markers.

They could totally do this if they wanted. They made interactive careers while retaining the rabbithole careers; they even made some careers hybrids.

But before they could make this happen, they would first have to solve the immense problem of instant eating. I'm afraid that may be more than they can handle.