She could just replace her link with http://i27.tinypic.com/20axu11.jpg

From the placement of some of the objects, it looks like surfaces will have a lot more slots! That's always a good thing.
And ceilings! Ceilings are good.
My sister will love the cow-print objects.
That guy has hardly any books on his bookshelf. Does that mean we must actually buy the books so that we can read them? That would be kewl.
It looks like there are ducks or birds or something over near the park benches in the third screenshot. Either that or a bunch of naked toddlers. XD
From number 4, it looks like these are early screenshots, because that table looks terrible. I KNOW they would never settle for that kind of quality in the finished product.
And 5... Lots of matching stuff. Very nice. And a leopard print phone. Kewl.

We have to remember there's over a year to go before we'll play and we aren't sure how old the model the screenshots are from is. For all we know, these could be from a model that's ancient!

I'm sure by 2009 they'd probably give the graphic textures a makeover and polish everything off so it looks more appealing.

I was hoping to see more info on what's new in build mode. Foundations and custom roofs made TS2 a big improvement on TS1. Looking at the neighborhood screenshot under Build-a-Home, I don't see any innovations. In fact, I don't even see any foundations. I hope the tool still exists in TS3. If not, this might end up a pass for me.

(Hopefully some of the more detailed city looking buildings are made with build mode as opposed to being the "plopable" community/job lots.)

Edit: After reading through some articles, my hopes have been crushed. Those lots are indeed the "plopable" rabbit-hole lots and not build mode lots. I really, really, REALLY hope that build mode doesn't get nerfed in favor of all the new socializing structures. The game just wouldn't be as fun to me.

I'm hoping a lot of the downtown architecture we've seen can be replicated on home lots too. It'd be nice to build homes within the town area that match the surrounding buildings, as well as using some of the architecture to create unique homes elsewhere. I imagine it will be the case though - I don't see why not. I'm under the illusion we'll be able to expand the town area by building our own shops, and what not, so why not have similar tools for homes?

"Which of your Sims will live in high-end mansions, cool bachelor pads, ultimate dream homes or low-cost cottage?"

That quote makes me less hopeful that there will be apartments above shops though, like people keep hoping for. Unless "bachelor pad" refers to said apartment.



When the screenshot has loaded on the page, click on it, and a larger version will open in a new window.

ETA - you can see a lot of the screenshots here if you're having problems with the Sims 3 site: http://www.sims.dk/products.view.asp?id=66 (scroll down to the bottom). Snooty has some too: http://snootysims.com/thesims3index.php?id=thesims3

All of the pictures from the official website can be found in the image gallery by going to the site in my Signature for those who can't get on the sims 3 site

I have to say, I'm dissapointed. Even though it is way early on, renember the sims2 video of way early on. Although none of those features are in the game, it wowed pretty much everyone. Sims3 hasn't wowed me, it looks like sims2. But that's just my opinion.

To be honest it looks basically the same as sims 2 with a few cc hacks but it's early days so we will see, hopefully it gets better!!

OOh!! :O

In the picture with the granny reading, is that a ceiling I'm looking at??!!

You guys need to get your eyes checked. Honestly, it's better but not as noticeable as the TS1 to TS2 conversion was to the layman. For instance the skeleton is so much better shaped because clothes fit so much more naturally.
If you guys would stop trying to look for photorealism and sharp details you could see all the subtle little intricacies you miss.
It's sad that there weren't any more new screens (just a few), but at least they are HR. There wasn't any new information really either.

It doesn't even work very well for me. The screenshots aren't loading and its taking forever to load :hmm:

I agree. I don't like the CAS it makes the sims look rather plastic. Sorta reminds me more of The Founders on ST DS9 more then sims. Thats how they look in the console games. The furniture has that same look. At any minute your arm chair my morph into a Sim. Bah you can have it.

I'm gonna download every piece of CC I can for Sims 2 and horde it. You all can move on I'm not playing Sims 3. The progression from sims 1 to sims 2 was much much better.

It doesn't matter at all what it looks like, because CC takes care of that. What matters is how the gameplay will be improved, and that we don't lose anything we hold dear in ts2. That's what worries ME.

I actually like the look of it so far, and I'm sure the re-use of ts2 furniture is just because they had those meshes ready.

Very, very excited about the ceilings...what a sad life I lead.
Although it's little more than we already know, I have to say I'm feeling quite optimistic. Let's not forget it won't be out for a year or so, it's going to get tweaked, but as it is now, I'm thinking it looks great.

Does anyone else agree with me that the Asian lady sims are absolutely beautiful? I think they're stunning to look at, I can just imagine how real they are going to look when the modders are finished doing their magic!

Yes the Asian girls look great, I love that one Asian girls hair, the one in the food prep screen.

Ceilings are win, I never liked putting those CC "ceilings" in, it was too much work.

Agreed! Although an amazing mod job, I've always longed for ceilings that were just 'there'. This is a great feature imho.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zHaM0YPELF4 a Video with all the pictures from the new site, put to music! Yay. :D

The elderly sim looks like Crumplebottom in her jammies.

As a web designer, I think there is absolutely no reason to announce a release date for a website and then put out something so slow people can't view it - whether or not you refresh over and over again. That is poor design and poor product management. To put an entire site in flash when you know it will be flooded on a release date is even poorer design. I'm on a very strong and stable broadband connection and refreshing each page is beyond ridiculous. I'm not in that much of a rush to see the site, nor do I care much about Sims 3 until it is actually shipped, but it makes me angry when companies with so much money and such a huge staff trained in technology put out poor resources on the web.

It could be going so slow because everyone is bombarding their website and taking a toll on their servers designated for that site... So many people were waiting for this day. :D

Pretty much. I checked when I woke up and still got the 'coming soon' page. Checked an hour later and it was up, but I had to refresh a bazillion times on a broadband connection. I just said screw it LOL will wait a few days when everyone and their puppies stop trying to access the page.

I didn't have any problems at all in accessing the page. I refreshed once at the beginning and that was it.

So did everyone sign up for the newsletter thing?

I agree completely. There is so much difference between what we've seen of TS3 compared to TS2. I think the jump from TS2 to TS3 was always going to be a little more disappointing than the jump from TS1 to TS2.

TS1 and TS2 are so different, but only because technology advanced so much between the time of TS1's initial release and TS2's. TS2 could probably still get away with being released now and pass off as a pretty decent game. I quite like that the style of TS3 is very reminiscenct of TS2, they haven't jumped the gun and avoided the style they've created for the Sims, but improved upon it to bring it bang up to date.

I think where TS3 is concerned the major changes will be in regards to game play anyway.

Canada isn't an option. I hate that.

I can't access the site very well. I did notice it comes up better with IE than Firefox, which sucks. Besides I've get the slowest connection on gods green earth. I'll just have to wait a day, or maybe late tonight when most are in bed. Insomnia does have its advantages. :/