Personally, as it stands I would not ever trust EA or any of their developers under them for that matter. The attitude and overall mentality of the current video game industry generation is disgusting. Some consumers do not care to stand up for not only themselves but we as gamers/consumers are all in this together regardless whether some agree or disagree it will affect all of us. Just that some don't care and those that do get the shorter end of the stick since we refuse to reward mediocrity and terrible customer service. Therefore instead of encouraging companies to put forth their best some are encouraging to put forth their worst which leaves no room whatsoever for any real improvement, innovation, advancement, etc.

Why spend so much time and money developing a game when you can spend less time with a minimal budget and some will still buy anything with the developers putting in so little effort yet selling said product for an expensive price which does not warrant the asking price for said workmanship. So those who seek only the quality games there are few game companies that actually deliver instead of it's just business and ching ching. If some want to give EA, its developers a free pass then be my guest. But it won't be me.

Thankfully, there are still some game companies that don't fall into doing everything possible to rip off their fanbase/consumers.

An option to turn on loading screens? Lmao, weird flex but ok. I just don't see why not have it better optimized open world so it doesn't lag as much as TS3 and it be settled.

I'm trying not to be judgmental here, but for whatever reasons known only to them some players apparently do not like the open world structure and not because of game performance as they find it too unsettling to be satisfying. Or at least this is what I have been hearing them say for years and it was apparently (before my time) a huge issue to get over when trying to enjoy TS3 after having played TS2 for a long while.

If you give these players a world with 100 residents, then they want to tightly control 100 residents and many are unable to accept the idea that at least some if not all but one (or two) households should be allowed to do what they want on their own as long as their progression is orderly and makes some kind of logical sense. The idea behind my fantasy of EA offering a choice is that this is what some players do seem to want.

For those that don't trust EA there's going to be paralives
https://store.steampowered.com/app/...nced%20builders.
The building tools look amazing, I don't like the look of the characters, and I have no idea what game play will really look like. Of course with games like this that are crowdfunded you never know if it's going to actually come out or not.
I'd personally really like to see games if different genres with sims mechanics. I want to fight! And go on adventures. But also build my house and raise a family over many generations.
There was a game I'd funded, can't remember the name right now, that had all those features but then when coronavirus hit the devs stopped working on it and it's probably never going to happen.
There's one good thing about big game companies is you USUALLY don't have to deal with that particular brand of heartache.

*hums to myself*

I know about Paralives, it looks promising but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll think about supporting it when it looks more concrete.

I am in fact still Going Through Sumn! But! I have made it through the Sims 1 and 2 soundtracks; they're really good and I think they have a calming effect on me. I'm on the Sims 3 soundtrack now and I feel like crying. Out of nostalgia or pure happiness? Who knows. It's so good and I find it funny that some of the tracks have been used in things like commercials and movies.



Mayhaps I will listen to the Sims 4 OST to see if I like it and how it compares to the rest, since I don't really pay attention to the music in 4 for some reason.

Link broken. Things is, from one thread I found out that EA has actually pliagiarized these soundtracks instead of producing their own.

Hm, fixed the link, but aw fuck, the plagiarism thing ruins a lot of the fun for me. Although I can't imagine that they plagiarized all of the tracks in the Sims 3; did they plagiarize the soundtracks of the Sims 1 and 2 as well? And I'd certainly hope that they wouldn't plagiarize the Sims 4 soundtrack. Do you happen to have a link to the thread? I'm in the mood to do some reading.

I believe its only TS3 base game soundtracks. Maybe not lot of them. Sadly I don,'t I'll able to retrieve the link will look for it once I have time.

I'm happy for those who are interested in Paralives and I do hope the game lives up to expectation at the very least, but personally, I am not interested at all. If I'm going to get excited about an upcoming life simulator then it must be at least everything TS3 is and so much more. Plus, I prefer more realism than a stylized cartoony art style. I'm looking for something that is complex and in-depth and Paralives just isn't it for me. Whether a life simulator will ever exist of that nature that I seek...maybe it will never happen but at least there's TS3 then.

Back to talk about another thing that I adore about the Sims 3: the Story Progression.

Yes, base game unmodified Story Progression for the Sims 3 isn't quite the best, but the fact that it's a thing in the game at all makes me elated.

The world my sim(s) inhabit is alive. While I'm playing my active household other sims are getting married, divorcing, having babies, becoming enemies and friends, growing old and dying, among who knows what else instead of just existing on a map view with a bio until I myself decide to take action and do something with them.

Is that not amazing? It's alive!

Been getting back into TS3 after getting an SSD, having a good time. I wouldn't say I play this over the others, but I am playing more often. The quick load times after getting the SSD really help me not go insane.

I've been playing Sims 2 a lot lately, and I realized I LOATHE rotational gameplay with every ounce of my being. I don't know how I was able to put up with it before The Sims 3. I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate that I'm forced to play rotationally if I want to keep the ages of my Sims synchronized. I hate that something as silly as Cassandra dying of old age before her father can even happen. I just can't with this style of gameplay. I don't know how some people do it, let alone PREFER it over what The Sims 3 offers.

So, when it comes down to the MAIN reason I play The Sims 3 more than any other game, I have to say is the synchronized aging AND story progression. That's more important to me that the open world, CASt and all the other great features TS3 has. And it's why I could never get as invested while playing older and newer Sims games. They either lack one of those features or BOTH.

So yeah. Now I'm more convinced than ever that I won't ever enjoy another Sims game unless it has these two features. I don't want to play rotationally, I haaaaaate to play rotationally, and if The Sims 5 wants to have a chance with me, it better provide a way for Sims I'm not playing with to move on with their lives, get married, have kids, do their own stuff, and age with the Sims I'm controlling or I'm not buying.

My TS2 Sims always are not synced. It doesn't really bother me, since I use that game more for building neighborhoods, houses and running OFB businesses than actually playing Live Mode. I will say this, if I did actively play TS2 Live Mode often, I would probably end up getting annoyed too.

Honestly my favourite feature of TS3 is CASt, even though it is slow loading all the custom patterns I have installed, I think it's worth the wait being able to decorate and design my own objects. I love doing that in TS3. I'll take an object and just spend the better half of 30 minutes creating new designs for it. I also love that EAxis gave us the randomize (dice button) for it too.

I have never been a rotational Sims player. One thing I remember about 2 is that I think I sent someone to university, and then sent the grandson to the same dorm and the same dorm mates were there. That was just crazy to me.

I have gotten each version at release. Played 3 a month or so and fired up 2 again. Lasted about 10 minutes and then uninstalled it. There were many good things about 2 but I no longer had any interest in it.

This is why, in my personal opinion, both the Sims 3 and Sims 2 are near equal in quality despite some others lines of thought.

The different games simply suit different people's personalities and their needs. The Sims 3 may not be suitable for those who like to control everything down to the last detail, and the Sims 2 may not be suitable for those who, like me, prefer to have a much more hands-off approach to their gameplay.

I've been playing TS3 with more of the controlled approach. I use NRaas mods to edit game generated sims in CAS, so they're not ugly fatsos, and using register to assign roles. I've got a smaller world (Cloverdale Lite) which I've added lots to and they're all owned in-game by me. I also use the real estate feature and buy all the houses and then a 8+ sims mod to make all of the non-role sims in my town controlled under the same uniform family so I can switch between them at will and without them losing wishes.

However, I leave free will on so the ones I am not controlling will still do random things.


That said, with a little TLC Sims 3 can be adopted to the controlled approach and isn't as restricted to a hands off approach one might think.

I absolutely f**king love having kids in The Sims, watching the ones you don't continue with move out, make their own families, invite them over, have grandchildren visiting grandparents, have cousins play in the park etc.

I also love that you can costumize everything, explore nature etc. I love the little details like asteroids/meteors (?) being able to hit you, protests outside city hall, foreigners visiting the city etc.

I honestly just wish that there were more active careers, and that the ones we had weren't broken. I also wish running a resort could be more engaging/more difficult. I also really wish the expansion packs integrated better with each other.

(...Probably gonna get hate from this, from the TS3 lovers. )

Well, I only play TS3 now, because I can't TS2 work again after borking it with a mod roughly a year ago. Tried the downloadable UC, but it refuse to install. No interests in TS4 and find the first installment boring after playing it my whole teen until TS2 came out.

Although, I don't play the sims that frequently anymore, because TS3 is a bit too heavy for my laptop specs and can't enjoy using CAS (Laaaaaag, take forever to create a few sims) or create my own custom hoods, so I mostly play with the premades once in a while, currently playing Isla Paradisco. Playing the actual EA worlds works great but something I loved with TS2 was creating new hoods and didn't have the lagging and I don't find TS3 has the same mods that were available in TS2.

@Florentzina You could post in the Game help forum, maybe people will be able to help you to get your Sims 2 UC working.

Sim-sample.
Well,while I know that TS2 is now retired, but I'm not sure if you are allowed to talk about downloadable copies on MTS. It wasn't pirated copy, but from a website that upload old games that are no longer available.

EDIT 1: Yes, the file is a no-CD version that is NOT from Origin (a user on here emailed me a year ago about the website I got it from. It's similar download function as mods through the download browser bar)

EDIT 2:
This post on MTS explain same problem I had with installing the file btw (it said it was comparable with windows 2004. I'm a windows 10 which I know is wonky with all of the sims games). It just want to cancel each time I tried. Before I did have the "cannot talk on here" versions of TS2 and work fine until I tried to install the mod that allow you to play with specific EP/SP, but when uninstalling it, it seems to delete some of the installation files, so I decided to uninstall and delete that version.

As far as I know, the only reliable version of The Sims 2 right now is the most updated version of the UC. The problem is that Microsoft blacklisted SecuROM, the DRM software that came bundled with The Sims 2. Last time I tried, Windows wouldn't even let me open the autorun.exe in my original TS2 DVD. The UC removed SecuROM in late 2017, so that version works just fine (provided you use the Graphics Rules Maker).

The only way to play the original TS2 game now would be to install it first on a Windows 7 PC (that's not updated past the Service Pack), use a no-CD crack to remove SecuROM from the executable, transfer the files to your main OS, and manually create all the Windows registry entries.

Oh I see- I thought you meant you downloaded it from Origin. I don't think the rules allow to talk about games from anywhere but EA official.

Eh, I don't think you have to worry about rabid Sims 3 fans coming after you. At least, not on this site. You're more likely to find those type of people on YouTube and maybe Reddit.

I choose Sims 3 over 4 because with the current marketing tactic of videogames, I know I have to wait years before Sims 4 is finished. And the fact that I can't run around the map to bother other sims discourages me greatly. I don't really consider myself a sim fan or anything, I just need something to scratch my RTS itch & micromanagement is the closest thing I can find.

I had a Sims fanatic as a roommate once, I was surprised he has such a purist attitude about the game, you know, those "I don't use mods because it's impure" people. He was upset that I like the Sims 3 but not going to play Sims 4. I tell him I'll wait until EA finish updating the game then I might buy it or I might start playing Sims 4 when Sims 5 is out. He's still not happy. This 1 time, I saw him buying Sims 3 on Steam & complained about lag in Isla Paradiso, I tell him to play on a map with lesser water to ease the lag, or just download some maps from the modding sites. He was like "No, it's impure!". I was like, "Just tryna help ya out, man", it was funny.

@LittleCheshire Were you replying to me? I was talking about the rules on this site which forbid discussion of piracy, but i do sometimes have dreams of rabidSims 3 fans coming after me.