THE HORROR: The REAL TS3 Scoop As It Unfolds

[J. M. Pescado]

You're pretty much doomed to be shouted at. Only instead of people shouting at you for criticizing the game, you will be shouted at for your horrible grammar and abuse of punctuation.

[Caz]

As a lover of Maxis sims... I am severely disappointed with this game. I was hoping to find Brokes, Pleasants, Newbies, Simovitches, Oldies, Burbs, etc. Basically the ancestors of the Pleasantview sims and the Sims of TS1. However, the only returning Sims appear to be Goths, Bachelors, Mrs Crumplebottom and Kaylynn Langerak, which makes no damn sense as she shouldn't even be born yet.

How disappointing. I wanted to see Bob and Betty alive. Now they apparently just don't exist.

And the game itself... well, it's confusing, and all the boxes can be annoying. I dislike how the game practically tries to force you to play one family. Sims are pretty good at looking after themselves. One Sim actually woke up in the night to go and feed herself.

Is it just me or do Sims take forever to even get a crush on each other, let alone fall in love? I had two Sims flirt with each other repeatedly and they aren't even in love. Just best friends. Strange, I seem to remember that in TS2 if Sims so much as looked at each other funny, they would fall in love.

And it creeps me out when I bring up the pie menu and the Sim's face is staring at me. It's so dang creepy.

The buy mode is very perplexing. I eventually found a birthday cake in Outdoor Cooking. Yeah, I don't get it.

[Angelina]

well im sorry, as i said on my post i am trying this on a mobile phone, so please excuse the grammar, punctuation and any spelling mistakes. I am trying my best when every five minutes i get disconnected from wlan.

[vcpink]

Is it just me or do Sims take forever to even get a crush on each other, let alone fall in love? I had two Sims flirt with each other repeatedly and they aren't even in love. Just best friends. Strange, I seem to remember that in TS2 if Sims so much as looked at each other funny, they would fall in love.

no, confuses me too, especially since i can't get Cornelia and Gunther to woohoo, they're friggen married for christsake...

[chobeegal]

You're pretty much doomed to be shouted at. Only instead of people shouting at you for criticizing the game, you will be shouted at for your horrible grammar and abuse of punctuation.

Errr, Pes, she did apologize/explain any bad spelling/grammar/punctuation in her initial posting...
e.g.

Sorry if there is any spelling mistakes using my phone.

[Angelina]

You're pretty much doomed to be shouted at. Only instead of people shouting at you for criticizing the game, you will be shouted at for your horrible grammar and abuse of punctuation.

Errr, Pes, she did apologize for any bad spelling/grammar/punctuation in her initial posting...
e.g.

Sorry if there is any spelling mistakes using my phone.

                           thanks

[phyllis_p]

Is it just me or do Sims take forever to even get a crush on each other, let alone fall in love? I had two Sims flirt with each other repeatedly and they aren't even in love. Just best friends. Strange, I seem to remember that in TS2 if Sims so much as looked at each other funny, they would fall in love.

no, confuses me too, especially since i can't get Cornelia and Gunther to woohoo, they're friggen married for christsake...

Sounds like married life to me  

[anaximander]

Re: The interaction non-options:

One thing I've found is that the menus are gradually contextual - after you've done a few "romantic" interactions, more and more "romantic" interactions will appear - IE you have to kiss for awhile before you can give a massage, etc. I think it's an interesting aspect to gameplay, but I haven't decided if I like it or not.

[professorbutters]

I have to say, TS3 is more of a "game" than TS2 was. Unfortunately, GAMES have poor longevity. TS2 was a toy. You made your OWN games out of it. TS3 is a game: You play it their way, beat it, and dump it for the next shiny thing.

Aha. This is helpful to know.  Aside from everything else (the doughy looking Sims, the neighborhood aging), I don't think people who use TS2 for storytelling purposes are going to like this very much. Also, the Exchange problems going on right now are providing yet another example of classic EAxis customer support (i.e. none.)

Just a quick comment about enforced "Legacy-style" play: most Legacy players I know don't only play one houseshold. Often they play multiple households, continuing to play the spares when they move out.  I never had a huge problem with Generation Two Sims wandering around when Generation Six came along: sometimes I found useful things for them to do much later on.

If I get it,  which doesn't seem very likely, it probably won't hold my attention for long.  I much prefer toys.

[Piffle]

Question for you awesome people:

If the retail disc does turn out to be infected with SecuROM, will the cracked .exe from the arr'd version work to get around it?  I've been trying to decide whether I'll return my pre-order if it does happen.  I'm leaning toward "lying liars don't deserve my money", but I want to make sure of my options first.

Also, is it just me or do these Sims seriously run to fat?  The thin end of the scale just looks on the slender side of normal; shouldn't we have emaciated Sims to balance out the obese ones?  Or at least have a couple string beans running around.

[vcpink]

If the retail disc does turn out to be infected with SecuROM, will the cracked .exe from the arr'd version work to get around it?

if the arr'd version really is really real and not a pregold version yes, if not, IDK

[phyllis_p]

If the retail disc does turn out to be infected with SecuROM, will the cracked .exe from the arr'd version work to get around it?

if the arr'd version really is really real and not a pregold version yes, if not, IDK

If the versions aren't the same, I'd imagine it won't take long for someone to come out with a proper no-cd crack.

[kennyinbmore]

I doubt the  arr version isn't the version being released on June 2nd. If it was released prior to Gold status, I think there would be a case for that.

[vcpink]

I doubt the  arr version isn't the version being released on June 2nd. If it was released prior to Gold status, I think there would be a case for that.

yes, in all likely hood this recent leak is mostly identical to the one for 2 June, of course barring any changes made when the booty was plundered.

[TashaFaun]

yes, in all likely hood this recent leak is mostly identical to the one for 2 June, of course barring any changes made when the booty was plundered.

Is your shift key badly damaged?

[vcpink]

yes, in all likely hood this recent leak is mostly identical to the one for 2 June, of course barring any changes made when the booty was plundered.

Is your shift key badly damaged?

Actually yes, it is a little fitsy... sorry.

[TashaFaun]

Actually yes, it is a little fitsy... sorry.

Good to know, otherwise I would have assumed you're just a lazy idiot. 

[vcpink]

Actually yes, it is a little fitsy... sorry.

Good to know, otherwise I would have assumed you're just a lazy idiot. 

No, not lazy, just an idiot. The problem is that the keyboard takes a moment to recognize that I've pressed SHIFT and when I type quickly it doesn't register the stroke as a capital letter. Other times I get the shift on the first few letters of an acronym but it'll conk out in the middle making my letters FUBAR and look like this FuBAr. I really hate that and I need to get a new keyboard, but that's really off topic now isn't it?

[Zazazu]

The people making it sound horrible are over exaggerating, IMO.

One post Tasty Tourist knows more than KBC, news at 11.

Well, there's a tendency to overcriticize, especially in this situation. Because EAxis should have learned by now. All-in-all, it's a pretty good game that definitely has potential and in many ways is more challenging than TS2, but some of the bad points are screaming for mods. Others are balanced by the good. Yet others just aren't fixable...Build mode is extremely awkward, and there seems to be some problem with placing windows where they'll initially appear okay, then the next second the wall is filling them in. Vertical scrolling in Build and Buy doesn't work well for me.

Inge, two of the sims' shadows by the picnic table are behind the table/other sims.  You can see the other sim's shadow to the right of white-skirt-wearing woman's butt.

Ok I see them now.  That's a relief!  There's something not quite right still, but anyway it's better than nothing.

They are jagged and, yeah, not quite right. This was my light reflection beef from before.

Someone said when you zoom out you can pick a new house to play. how? all i get are filtering options and if i click a house i only get an option to visit the house i clicked with the Sim I am bound to. I've switched houses by going to "edit neighbourhood". is there an easier way?

Not that I know of, and even that had me stumped for a bit. You have to go to Edit Neighborhood, then something like Modify Active Household. Then it yells at you that it'll be wiping your sims' promises (aka, Pescados gripe about want progress).

Oh look, a bug. <truncated, relationship issue>

Is there any possibility that it might be there by design?.
One of the things that bugged me about TS2 was that any of a sim's friends/best friends could instantly be turned into lovers by a single romantic action. This new design might be there to make sure that romances start as romances, and friends stay friends past the critical point...

I started off the relationship with her asking if he was single and complimenting him on his appearance (both under flirt). Neither had commitment issues or any sort of trait that should stop them from having the kiss interaction. I tried with identical sims (trait-wise) and was able to get them to romantic interest in just a couple hours. With these, they were best friends, with me spamming Great Kiss...kiss/makeout, eventually living together, making a baby...yet no status change. Definite bug.

My last question involves game play: While the active Sim family is busy with other things(at work, asleep, working through a bunch of things you've told them to do) can you take the camera and go wander around the Hood? If you do is there stuff going on or does stuff only happen on comm lots when your active Sim is there? I like the idea of being able to spy on, take pictures of and make up stuff about what the other Sims are doing while my playable Sim is otherwise occupied(and boring).

Yes, you can definitely watch other things while any and all sims you are following are off doing other things. I use the time they are off work to track down collectibles or new people to befriend, or just watch others go about their day. The town square, especially, is always really active. You'll get a popup when your sim is done with a class or on their way home, and a little tracker do-job when you have them selected, ala the sim trackers on SC4:Rush Hour.

-The customization options available-- sort of. The actual meshes available are very limited, but the fabric swatching tool is nice, at least at first. After the novelty wore off, I found myself wishing there were more pre-made options available.

Copying styles is actually pretty easy, if not obvious. In Buy/Build, click on the Create-A-Style button (the palette). You can create as normal, or you can click on an existing object part and drag to another object, then pick the "section" to be matched.

[SciBirg]

Interesting quote from bit-tech.net:

...there are problems but that it’s highly likely they’ll be corrected before the game hits shelves. In all honesty though, we’re not sure that’s the case as, from what we’re aware of, The Sims 3 is done. It was actually meant to have been released already and was delayed mainly for marketing reasons – so improvement on the existing product is an unknown quantity.

This is a pretty good and fairly detailed preview. Scroll down and read the last sentence and have a laugh.

[Zazazu]

Here's an album with 17 screenshots and notes on each. Enjoy.

[phyllis_p]

Here's an album with 17 screenshots and notes on each. Enjoy.

That was interesting, Zaza.  It's good to get some shots and insights from someone who is playing.

Is it some kind of reflection on our society that they all seem so chubby?  I know there's been a push for more realistic body types -- and hey, I'm an extra chubby myself -- but jeez louise!  This is, like, overkill.

[jolrei]

Here's an album with 17 screenshots and notes on each.

Thanks for the pics.  The scenery looks fine.

Sims look pretty good indoors???  All these sims look more cartoony than the TS2 sims.  There's also something about their eyes that makes them look like plastic robots or living vinyl dolls.  TS2 sims had a more realistic look.  I found that I wanted to play the castaway sim on the television more than any of the sims in the other pictures.

Hopefully there's some way to create slightly less goofy sims or TS3 is going to get excruciating really fast.

[SciBirg]

Thanks for the look, Z. IMO, compared to how the TS2 sims look right out of the box the TS3 sims don't look half bad to me.

[vcpink]

All I can really think to say now is that I won't be dropping The Sims 2 anytime soon, but I won't be dropping The Sims 3 either. It genuinely doesn't suck massive... well not as far as base games go.