I agree that the gameplay is somewhat limited, but what bugs me is the poor graphics. I got a new computer for this game with good specs and I have many complaints, in particular the double chin effect and the massive lower lip shadows in CAS make creating sims, which is one of my favorite pastimes, really frustrating. I've also noticed that the sims hold their heads at an angle in CAS which makes it more difficult to work with. And I hate that all the kids look alike, not at all like their parents.

My gameplay is choppy and the sims in game look really crappy. Their faces look bruised and their bodies are angular and awkward. The lighting sucks, sucks, sucks. In addition, I've tried not to get too attached to any of my large families (I always have max # of kids) since with the messed up story progression (I've since gotten Awesome Mod but that has to be uninstalled and reinstalled with new patches and at regular intervals) I just had to nuke them when the kids grew up. I'm not easily bored and I could probably play the same game over and over and be happy but I really loved my beautiful/celebrity sims in Sims 2.

Of course I absolutely LOVE the beautiful vistas and being able to watch the stars and moon rotate, the gardens and many other beautiful scenery things, including the ponds and fish. So I'm not ready to stop playing...but I'm not ready to stop complaining either...lol.

But I'm also kind of bummed that the first ep will be another Bon Voyaage type - which I reallly hated - rather than something to improve the non-existant social interactions - which is another glaring fault of the game. As many have said, there are practically NO social interactions. I've had some of my gardening/painting sims live their entire lives without really meeting anyone.

I'm really disappointed that EA seems to have had no clue what really drives dedicated simmers when they "developed" this game..tho' it seems they really did minimal developing.

TS2 ep's usually included additional things to improve gameplay, eg LTW's came with University, so although actually going to Uni was boring it was worth getting the ep for the addition of LTW's.

TS3 ep's are likely to include things like additional social interactions because it means more people buy the ep and EA get more money!

If they don't seriously overhaul the social interactions in the first ep, they're even more out of touch with the fan base than I thought.

Oh gosh you all are making me so nostalgic for Sims1. And you know what, I doubt you will miss the graphics from Sims3 if you load Sims1, and here's why--I have found that in order to have maximum control and orient myself properly in the game at all times so I don't zoom too far in and get lost or go so far out I miss details, I have to sort of put myself at a distance and angle that gives me almost a Sims1 camera perspective! And on my computer at least, even when I run on highest settings that my system can handle, the whole image still looks kind of blocky and scratchy like it did with Sims1. My computer renders Sims2 in such gorgeous eye-popping details but with Sims3, though I get really beautiful outdoor scenery, inside, where most of the action takes place, it looks so "retro" to Sims1 for me. LOL--but with bigger people.

I do think I had the best parties with Sims1. There just seemed to be more to offer the guests. LOL--yeah I guess cake dancers really made the party. I also miss the weird teleporter tubes you could use instead of stairs. I haven't yet gotten teleporter reward object for Sims3 so I don't know if it's comparable to the one in Sims1. The Sims2 has elevators, but that's so...normal....nice...yawn...

Ooh, here's another thing I miss from Sims1 that I thought for sure would come back in some form in Sims2, but it never did--the snotty celebrity sims! When I got Superstar, one of my aspiring actresses kissed up to a male celebrity to the point he actually condescended to visit her at her home and romance her. But it was so funny--he was so narcissistic and stuck up that I found her interactions with him were incredibly limited...pretty much to actions to feed his colossal ego. While it wasn't entirely the game I'd hoped for, I did think that pack did a fabulous job spoofing Hollywood. The crazy fan who kept showing up in the backyard of my aspiring actress was a hoot, too. I miss that kind of humor. If we could have Sims Superstar type update for Sims3, I'd love to see an option to boost your superstar status by adopting an orphan--the more you adopt, the more magazine covers your sim would earn and their superstar moodlets would soar! It would be horribly offensive, I'm sure, so they would never do that--but then again, that's part of the fun--take a few risks and sneak in a few laughs. Oh yes...and have them get little dogs you can carry in a handbag--THAT would make all the Paris Hilton sims complete!

That's what I'd like to see come back to Sims3--the goofy humor poking fun at real human foibles but in a uh...Simlike way. It seems to me they got away from that and went more toward building in these odd slapstick actions that make absolutely no sense and evoke no recognition of any real social situations. Like the endless water balloon fights, the pillow fights and now...with Sims3, the endless playing in sprinklers. I guess yes it can be cutesy to see adults playing like kids...once in a great while or in a specific context. But to build it in as a randomly repeating behavior is obnoxious, not funny. We end up having to mod that kind of crap out of the game.

Cake dancers spoofing real life strippers, drunken gnomes--now THAT's funny!

Last edited by summersong86 : 12th Aug 2009 at 05:00 AM. Reason: Can't spell, can't keep SIms2 and Sims3 straight, doh!

About the traits--it seems there is a way to build some of the jackassery back into the game ourselves via the traits. I think it was on Garden of Shadows--but I'm not sure--someone uploaded a nerdy female sim who is a Hopeless Romantic, Neurotic, and Clumsy and Loser. The people who downloaded that sim said she is an absolute riot to play.

That's where I get into trouble. I find it almost impossible to build those kinds of traits into my sims. So if I'm not having fun, I have only myself to blame. Poo!

Same here... but I think their characters would be more individual and interesting if they all had more traits.... MOAR!

I wish they allowed us to have conflicting traits. I don't know about anyone else here, but a lot of time my personal traits like to conflict. It comes with the best sort of fun. Can you imagine having a good and evil sim ROLFH

Good call DrowningFishy, they should be able to have conflicting traits because people in real life can be like that.

I've been reading your posts for a while now and I can officially declare that I'm in love. That post should be bronzed. I LOVED SS and never got a repeat in TS2.

Thank you.

That post made me remember something happen to me once in sims 3. I was watching my sim do dishes, and I notice came up "HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT PHONE!" and shoo peeping sim showed up. I zoomed out side quickly to see a teen sim in his undies putting away his phone, change back into normal clothes and run away. X_X

That made me LOL IRL. Dang dirty perv.

Then I definitely reccomend the awesome mod hack,speed works really well with this as does everything else and more! Plus,you can make a magic string between your on families that keeps them from aging if you don't play with them...I think it''s awesome !

No...it does not make your game go faster. I had it til patch 1.3. If anything, the story progression at 1:00am was a kill with that mod.

I refuse to try and patch again until 95% of people say it's the bee's knees. Then I will be sucking the teat of Pescado again....damn that old fart.

I don't agree about the graphics,I think that's one of the things that look really great but what bothers me the most is the slow reactions to the orders you give them,that was sooo much better in TS2,so much time gets lost by this,very annoying....and I think we all would be so much happier if the next expansion pack could offer us more attractive objects and an actual nightlife.I think EA is trying so hard to be innovative that they forgot what made TS2 such an incredible sucses and I do hope that by keeping track of the forums,they will actually take our comments into account, because so far they haven't done that very well with their pathes.I think they should be ashamed of themselves that we need hackers to solve the problems that EA created themselves.

This is the problem right there. They are too busy herding the sheep at the official site to ever come here and see what we are saying. If they are I'd eat my hat. They consider MTS a 'Mature' site. If they are here it's to check up on us.

Uhggg.....I can't even talk about them objectively anymore.

Sisaly
I don't think EA teams wil read the fan threads at all besides their own forum.
I bet they even think of us as whiney fans, needy, unappreciative.
Because they look at the game from the point of view of producers/creators. God-like perspective.
They didn't think the same way as we thought that we followed the Sims since TS1, we saw the whole process, we saw the progress, we even grew up with TS series!!!!(And spent lots of money on them too!)

So sad but true.




I help my self by ;
- building my own night entertainment places around town for nightlife fun so that my sims can go out more often to many choices of clubs

- building many recreations around town, such as fun parks, book clubs, cigar clubs, strip clubs etc. for my sims to have more options on entertaining

- building beautiful kid's playground and small parks near the community so that my sims can walk a few steps from their houses to these parks and playground just for fun

- building fitness centers around town with so many treadmills and pump irons. This way you can see a lot of sims coming in and out using services all day so that you can meet so many sims in one place with no opportunities prompting

- building motels for my flirty sims to meet and mate

- for rabbit holes, I created special lots for each rabbit holes(jobs building) as in real life, such as Stadium-Arena for sports/Arena for concerts : Business building/TV station building etc .


- building more romantic places (I called it lovers lane) for my dating sims to go out and make out

I built so much that I didn't have time to play the real game. LOL

I have done it, I have deinstalled sims 3. I remembered when sims 2 came out - I bought it and played a bit and was not so exited about it, especially because of the long loading times. I have played Sims 1 and I liked it, but I hadn't all the EPs it has. I really got into playing sims 2, when a few EPs came out. So I'll just wait when new interesting EPs come out for sims 3 but not so quest/role play stuff like this sequel to Bon Voyage-EP and then I maybe stick to it again.
So I think deinstalling sims 3 was right for me, because it got boring. Building skills, sims living a childish life with no real scandals, way to less interactions, the traits aren't the killer thing which would keep me saying it's really special.
Enough rant here.

For everyone that just thinks the town is the only boring thing of the game, I recently stumbled upon this:
http://www.simposium.de/aForum/inde...ata&dataID=1373

Sorry, it's in German. But they created a new town and it looks kinda interesting. The download link is at the bottom of the page.
Or you do it like little be and build a town of yourself. I admire this because this sounds really like a lot of work.