The Good, the Bad, and the Randomly @Toaded
Gelina:
My thoughts and impressions after playing the game for 1-2 hours/day for 5 days...
Good
- I like the CAST system. It's intuitive and makes it easy to have a room with matching decor.
- The sims are smarter in that they will actually work toward goals autonomously. For instance, if I have promised them that they will increase their athletic ability, they'll actually go and exercise without me telling them to. That's not the best example since TS2 sims would exercise autonomously, but I'm too lazy to think of a better example.
- I really like the traits, it's easier to have sims with likes and preferences and uniqueness.
- Other than the sims themselves, it's perty.
- The houses are laid out much better than Maxis houses usually are. I don't feel the need to tear down every house and build my own just so that my sims can get from point A to point B without walking some stupid ass route.
- Children are less annoying because you can send them out into the neighborhood alone and basically ignore them.
- There's a lot more to do. Some have listed this as a bad thing, because it does take so much time to keep needs met, have a job and get a love interest - but I like that I have to actually decide what to focus on for a particular sim. It won't be as easy to max out all skills, have 100 friends and 50 lovers while raising a family of 8.
- The jobs are better. Others have commented and I agree with them on pretty much everything.
- Kids autonomously do their homework AND they keep it in their inventory, so no more games of "where's the homework".
Bad
- The sims are so ugly, especially ones born in game. I normally kill ugly sims on general principle, but there are so many I don't think it's possible.
- My game crashing to the desktop. I've updated my drivers and reinstalled, but no dice.
- I really hate the neighborhood screen and the way that you have to go to certain places to be able to do things there. For instance, you can get a part time job at the cemetary, but on the neighborhood screen, if you filter by jobs, the cemetary doesn't have an icon. WTF? Also, I need a cheatsheet of what you can do at each location. I can't remember where to go for a cooking class, so I spend 15 minutes clicking every little frickin icon...grr. Same thing with trying to figure out where your sims live. They need a text/list based way to do what you can do from the neighborhood screen.
- Kicking sims out. Apparently, they can move into *any* open lot, even one that they can't afford.
- The newspaper. I have 2 issues with it: 1.) if I have to read the goddamn thing every day to find out if someone I care about died/moved/had a baby, make it more like the SimCity ticker or a icon on the toolbar that I can access without needing my sims and 2.) list the mother and father's full names for baby birthing.
- Babies and toddlers take forever to grow up. I know that I can speed this up with a cake, but it still annoying. Also, there's nothing to do with them for the most part.
- The clock is weird. At first it was really, really slow - even at 3. I updated my drivers and it doesn't seem as slow any more, but now it'll randomly go into super, turbo mode and 1/2 the day will be gone in 12 seconds.
- Random babies with no mother/father. This has been commented on as well, but it is super annoying to switch to a sim who was previously a bachelor to find him suddenly with a baby girl that does not appear to have a mother. Did he adopt her? Was she left on his doorstep? Did he somehow clone himself? These things matter.
Other
- I'm playing with story progression enabled and free will on high (on purpose). I tend to only like one sim at a time, so TS3 actually fits my playing style very well. Mom and Dad have 3 kids, two are satanically ugly and one is less so. I kick out the two and continue to play the one I like. Later, I zoom out to the neighborhood and see that Ugly #1 has gotten married and had a kid, I switch to his house and to see what's up, while I provide a little god-like advice to his life. I like this and appreciate the variety and surpise; what I don't like is that I don't know what the hell happened between the time I kicked him out and the time I started playing him again. Did he have a different girlfriend? Does he have other children? I don't need a full memory of every single person he met and everyone he knows that got an A+, but I would like a short summary of major events tracked in his life.
- I really want to control what last name babies and husband/wives take.
Edited to add:
- A new annoyance is that if you change someone's hair and then switch to a different household, their hair switches back to their "genetic" hair.
vagabondher:
Quote from: Gelina on 2009 May 24, 14:51:31
(snip)
- I'm playing with story progression enabled and free will on high (on purpose). I tend to only like one sim at a time, so TS3 actually fits my playing style very well. Mom and Dad have 3 kids, two are satanically ugly and one is less so. I kick out the two and continue to play the one I like. Later, I zoom out to the neighborhood and see that Ugly #1 has gotten married and had a kid, I switch to his house and to see what's up, while I provide a little god-like advice to his life. I like this and appreciate the variety and surpise; what I don't like is that I don't know what the hell happened between the time I kicked him out and the time I started playing him again. Did he have a different girlfriend? Does he have other children? I don't need a full memory of every single person he met and everyone he knows that got an A+, but I would like a short summary of major events tracked in his life.
The thing that scares me about this is that even though I'm like you and I'm okay with focusing just on one household, even switching over to another household (to check in on new developments) for just a few Sim hours, even less, could result in me returning to my main household to see that they've moved out, died, adopted 60 ugly babies, etc. I do not want this.
Gelina:
Quote from: vagabondher on 2009 May 24, 22:42:57
The thing that scares me about this is that even though I'm like you and I'm okay with focusing just on one household, even switching over to another household (to check in on new developments) for just a few Sim hours, even less, could result in me returning to my main household to see that they've moved out, died, adopted 60 ugly babies, etc. I do not want this.
So far the moving out and random dead-age hasn't happened to me and I've been playing for about 150 sim days. All of my sims are accounted for or have died of old age (although I can't find the headstone for one that died while I was away). The ugle babies and/or unexpected pregnancies when you return are a given and happen pretty frequently. Some of my ugly sims that have been kicked out have merged themselves in to other households, which makes it a pain in the ass to find them later.
Also - there's something up with one of my sims refusing to die. I'm playing on normal speed (life is 90 days) and some ugly husband is now 104. I want him TO DIE ALREADY!
Heinel:
Quote from: Gelina on 2009 May 24, 23:07:32
All of my sims are accounted for or have died of old age (although I can't find the headstone for one that died while I was away).
Also - there's something up with one of my sims refusing to die. I'm playing on normal speed (life is 90 days) and some ugly husband is now 104. I want him TO DIE ALREADY!
In my game Mortimer Goth died in my face and he didn't leave a headstone. Bummer because I wanted to put it beside his guitar in the Goth backyard. I'm not sure if that is a feature or bug though.
vagabondher:
Quote from: Heinel on 2009 May 25, 01:32:05
Quote from: Gelina on 2009 May 24, 23:07:32
All of my sims are accounted for or have died of old age (although I can't find the headstone for one that died while I was away).
Also - there's something up with one of my sims refusing to die. I'm playing on normal speed (life is 90 days) and some ugly husband is now 104. I want him TO DIE ALREADY!
In my game Mortimer Goth died in my face and he didn't leave a headstone. Bummer because I wanted to put it beside his guitar in the Goth backyard. I'm not sure if that is a feature or bug though.
In your face? That...must have been a strange feeling.
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