OK, so why would I want this mess?
Sagana:
Quote from: seelindarun on 2009 May 29, 20:28:30
I keep launching TS3 after reading about this or that cool thing, to find I'm not as enthralled as I thought I would be. It's really not a bad game concept, but I simply have not become attached to any of the sims I've made. Their traits do not make them any deeper, or more complex than their TS2 counterparts. The game still requires the engagement of my imagination to make them live, but the wall of text spam repeatedly slams me out of immersion.
This, exactly. I don't think the game works at all for storyteller types. Ok, I can't do 20s or Wild West or something because there's no custom content yet. That's no big deal. But I also can't do a modern character without the game messing up the personalities (and yeah, taking an "extreme" shower doesn't make someone a daredevil and I'm sick of "extreme" games of chess <eyeroll> after about 2 seconds.) No matter how 'base' the base TS2 game was, I could still make MY characters. I can't do that in TS3. I can only make game pieces who want to learn to cook because they happened to make dinner or pick up shiny things because there's one laying around. I admit I've never been big on the "humor" element anyway. Any of the jokes tend to get old really quickly. But I'm even disappointed with the gardening. It feels unrealistic and I don't want to grow cheese and eggs. :p Bah. I don't think modding can make this game into something I enjoy. It's broke at the base of it. Pescado can probably mod it so his characters have the right wishes, but like TS2, I bet he can't give that to rest of us. For TS2 the non-immersion parts were ignorable so I could have that anyway. For TS3, not so much.
mibsywibsy:
Quote from: Sagana on 2009 May 30, 11:48:20
This, exactly. I don't think the game works at all for storyteller types. Ok, I can't do 20s or Wild West or something because there's no custom content yet. That's no big deal. But I also can't do a modern character without the game messing up the personalities (and yeah, taking an "extreme" shower doesn't make someone a daredevil and I'm sick of "extreme" games of chess <eyeroll> after about 2 seconds.) No matter how 'base' the base TS2 game was, I could still make MY characters. I can't do that in TS3. I can only make game pieces who want to learn to cook because they happened to make dinner or pick up shiny things because there's one laying around.
How the hell is that any different than TS2, though? In both games, the Want trees are pretty much completely deterministic, and adding "life" or individual personality to a Sim pretty much comes 100% from player imagination and creativity. What the text says when you click on a shower to play that animation really doesn't say anything in terms of storytelling or whatever. Whether you come up with a cool personality and plotline for any given Sim is mostly going to come from you, because in both games there's not all that much going on that's not going to be the same across every single Sim you have.
Now, TS3 currently sucks for storytelling and sandbox play because Story Progression Toggle is borked; but if that gets fixed, honestly, it's probably going to be a slightly better game for storytellers, because if you're the type who likes to make up the story of your Sims as it happens through random stuff in play, the space for random crap is a bit bigger in TS3, because of Traits and the random missions at jobs, having actual bosses/coworkers - but that's really just a matter of slightly more inspiration fodder, really; unimaginative people will still probably fail it up and write crappy stories; creative people will come up with amazing ones no matter how barebones the game is. Have you ever read a Legacy? 99.9999999% of them are boring as shit and basically the same thing, because the lives Sims are pretty invariant (skill up for career, get promoted, acquire mate, breed, raise spawnlings, die, repeat with next generation) and most "Storytellers" don't bother to make up enough of a personality for their Sims. More random shit occuring = more stuff to get inspired by, or directions to take the plot, although in the end I think the quality of most TS3 stories will probably be as bad as those in TS2.
If you're talking about just using the in-game engine to make dolls of your pre-existing characters and act out the storylines you want through animations, that's machinima, and whether TS2 or TS3 is better for it comes down to the aesthetics of the Sims + animations + CC, not any of the ways the game handles personalities or Wants or any of that shit. Your complaint about the gameplay itself makes, like, no sense, because for machinima people, the gameplay aspects pretty much just get in the way, which is why there are poseboxes, animation mods, etc etc, and really SRS BSNS storytellers are always cloning their Sims willy-nilly and constructing enormous sets that they don't actually play.
There's a lot that pisses me off about TS3, but in terms of the storytelling sandbox specifically, the "it is game, not toy!!111eleventy!1" argument makes no freaking sense. Lack of CC, SPT, potential unmoddability, yeah, sure, but I really don't get where "zomg it forces you to do grindypantsery!!!" comes from. Not much more than TS2, really.
EsotericPolarBear:
Quote from: J. M. Pescado on 2009 May 30, 09:47:23
Quote from: LauraW on 2009 May 29, 20:44:31
I LOVE Bartle and I think maybe you have something here. Sims 2 appealed to a variety of people on the hierarchy, maybe killers a little less than the others. Sims 3 appeals to the achievers most of all I think, maybe a bit to the explorers although once you have collected umteen rocks and seeds, it gets a bit boring. I have taken the quiz in the past and am a socializer, which is probably why I enjoyed Nightlife the best and the lightbolt attractions. The chat nests are very nice but again, its all the same thing. Building a romance is so easy and so predictable compared to Nightlife.
I don't really think the Bartle typology really applies to the Sims as a single player game, necessarily. I mean, I'm a Killer. This probably comes as no surprise. However, the Sims is simply not where I choose to explore my Killer nature. It's single player. There's no one to kill!
Fight Club
Zombie Apocalypse
There's some bleed through of that thar killar nature. :P
mibsywibsy:
Quote from: EsotericPolarBear on 2009 May 30, 13:52:53
Quote from: J. M. Pescado on 2009 May 30, 09:47:23
I don't really think the Bartle typology really applies to the Sims as a single player game, necessarily. I mean, I'm a Killer. This probably comes as no surprise. However, the Sims is simply not where I choose to explore my Killer nature. It's single player. There's no one to kill!
Fight Club
Zombie Apocalypse
There's some bleed through of that thar killar nature. :P
Yep! Plus, pretty much all my RL friends who play the game at all are basically all about using it as a torture/humiliation simulator. Locking Sims in rooms with no doors and starving them, burninating them, and of course the infamous pool ladder trick - Maxis put in a joke about that in TS2, FFS!
One of the guys where I work actually made Sims of all our interns and took great glee in making them pee themselves, etc. >:D It was hilarious.
Scotty:
They removed the pool ladder trick! That was my favorite way of eliminating butt fugly sims that I didn't want. :(
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