The crack won't bypass the launcher - it doesn't with the later EPs for Sims 2 either.  To bypass, you need to switch which exe you shortcut to, in this case, the TS#.exe

And is there confirmation that the download manager does not have securom?  That is the reason I wasn't going to buy a copy, since to get the other neighborhood and spend my $10 would require me to use it.  But if it doesn't install spyware rootkits onto my machine, I'll encourage EA to be good boys and girls, and keep not using securom by buying a copy.

Hmmm - I know that my first writer to get to a 9 or a 10 skill got the option for writing fantasy novels.  But my next writer got romance instead, which ticked me off because I wanted her to be a fantasy genre writer.

Haven't seen the other genres yet - the satire and historical, or the vaudeville ones.

I disagree that all the sims 3 paintings -by sims- are crap.  I've gotten some really pretty impressionistic paintings of the waterfall area. It does seem to be somewhat random, but I do prefer it to the sims 2 method.  And if I don't like a still-life, I just sell it.

Maybe some of the fans should give it a go - do a write-up and contact Blizzard [or another company that has decent customer service] and code a sim-type game that is good.  I don't mind shelling out money for something that I like and that isn't designed to screw me over.

Heck, I'd love to see sims 2 as a real MMO, not like the Sims Online debacle.  Or maybe like the Neverwinter Nights game - online play and offline play.  That would be awesome.  I'd do it, but I'm not much of a coder.

They failed in not supplying us with uppern and lower body sliders.  Both men and women can have different proportions.  In addition, but not all fat people are shaped like a pear.  I'm still shaped like an hourglass, just a generously proportioned one.  In addition, some guys are shaped like triangles, with nice broad shoulders and narrow hips.  That's hard to manage, as much as having a curvy slender woman is.

That's the thing that bugged me with sims 1 to sims 2 - there are so many -new- things they could do with expansions that making us wait for seasons, apartments, university, pets, magic, etc. is lame, especially making us wait again.

In addition, they removed pianos.  Why in the hell did they remove pianos.  Why did they make it a guitar skill and not a music skill?

I remember that study and I agree.  Sims 3 as it stands is horribly unbalanced.  Its designed for people who wish a game -or- want to make stories.  It is horribly designed for people who like to build, like myself.  Its like building in Sims 2 before we got stages and with half the tricks from 2 disabled.  But when I want to play with a sim, instead of build, then 3 is great.

*laughs* I suppose it could, if not for the fact that its watermelon on the avatar's head, not a kumquat at all.  The point I was attempting to make to the now banished annoyance was that there is -no- excuse for glaring spelling and punctuation marks.  Even being dyslexic isn't an excuse.

Here is my abbreviated review of the game.

Gameplay - I find it a lot more fun than sims 1 or sims 2, at least until Makin' Magic and Superstar came out for the former, and Seasons and Apartment Life came out for the latter.  I normally only play one sim at a time anyway, so limitations to one family, for practical purposes, is fine with me - if you prefer complete control, than this might not be the game for you.

Building - Honestly, while the addition of being able to pull and push walls around is nice, most of build mode sucks.  Building stairs is cumbersome and still lacks the ability for diagonal stairs and recolouring.  Roofing can not be individually adjusted which means putting a pointy tower roof with a normally pitched roof is impossible - I learned this while trying to build the house from Coraline.  Its still a neat house, but it really doesn't look quite right.  You can not nestle a column onto a fence, even with moveobjects on.  I can go on and on about the limitations.

CAS - Create a style is actually well done - it is better than homecrafter or bodyshop, unless you make your own textures or meshes, which a lot of folks don't.  I've had no problems making gorgeous clothing [even with the crap meshes to work with], gorgeous walls and gorgeous furnishings.  A colour wheel, a palette and a number tool give you a whole ton of tools for finding just the right colour and using it over and over again - in fact, the only problem I've found is that the tools for hair and eye colour are not as good as the tools for everything else.

Sims - Making decent sims is not that hard, and while the EA made ones are doughy, they are -not- as homely as the ones in Sims 2 - which is a plus.  On the downside, most all the male young adult and adult sims are taken, which means aging up some poor sim - or starting off with a couple.  I don't like that aspect, but its something that I can deal with.

EA - I am offended that they basically left out -half- the game's objects and fashion stuff and are turning around and charging far more than the game itself is costing.  While its oh so kind of them to give us 10 shiny whole dollars to spend, I've seen estimates from $80 on up to get all the objects.  With the economy the way it is, it is offensive to me that they are doing this, especially since I've played since Sims 1 and remember the weekly Thursday downloads of -good- stuff.  Also, everything I've heard indicates that while the game itself does not ship with securom, that their download manager has securom, and thus to get the free extra neighborhood and any of the store stuff means getting securom as well.

Personally, as games go its fun, but the strings attached make it something I'm less likely to -spend- money on getting.

Oh, and I'm dyslexic.  Do you know what I do when typing?  Unless I'm in an MMO and about to die, I -spellcheck-.  I make sure my spelling makes sense because 'hsit' does not make sense, but this does.

And when I have typed in another language, I do the same thing, since with my limited vocabulary, I could accidentally say that my mother is a kumquat, which also would make no sense.

I found for myself that keeping testingcheats enabled on borked my game by making sims go invisible, and making it impossible for the game to save and exit.  So, I have turned it on, tweaked, and then turned it right back off.  It might cause other problems as well.

Has anyone actually gotten any of the collector specials [gem collector, etc.?] other than the one for identifing half the space rocks?

These are the gems I've gotten - Smoky Quartz, Blue Topaz, Yellow Sapphire, Tanzinite, the rainbow gem, Diamond, Emerald, and Ruby.
The re - Iron, Silver, Gold and Palladium

So, I noticed someone mentioned a pink diamond and a missing ore - has anyone actually gotten these?  I'm beginning to suspect that they don't really exist.

It might be you need to wait a day or so first.  But the toddler still have 70 days or something to aging up, when I used the cake.  PErsonally, if I do have families, I'll do everything skill-wise before aging a toddler.  And make the baby happy before aging to toddler too.

Neat tip - apparently, you can age a sim at -any- time.  Just put down a cake and have them blow out the candles.  I'm playing at epic, but I don't normally even like toddlers and babies - got the toddler all his toy skills maxed, taught him his toddler skills, and then I tried to age him - worked great.  Now if only someone could explain the blond head on the kid [unfortunately, a game crash lost him and his progress.  Wish I knew why it crashes so damn much.

I used to cheat with uni and make maxmotives, and master everything before going home - could usually start normal play with a little extra money.  If I did do a second generation sim, they usually had every skill maxed by the time they were ready for uni anyway.

And the triangular floor tile is in Sims 2 - not sure which expansion though.

I've never had a problem with RELOADED or ViTaility cracks for my sims 2 stuff - I'm not sure how many reloaded to vitality I've had, I think its mostly been the latter, but both have a good rep to my knowledge.

And everyone can make a mistake, that doesn't mean dodgy, it means an error was made - dogy means came with viruses and the like - big difference.

Is it a per sim setting, for the aging scale?  I haven't noticed children aging faster than mine, where I'm testing how child play works.  I know I'll adjust it to default when I test things like toddlers and such, but my child with epic lifespan is friends with Mortimer, Bella and some other children and they are still children halfway through her 100 days a child.

Perhaps it is either a bug that it is acting universally for me, or not acting universally for others.

I actually suspect that making new body meshes will be trickier than objects, because you have to adjust for -every- single permutation - I hope I'm wrong, because the hair styles blow goats right now, but it does worry me anyway.

What is annoying is that at one point, stairs were supposed to be recolourable, but that seems to have been removed - also, while open underneath visibly, they don't function as if they were open underneath.

Two colours for eyes -would- be nice.  As for what ghosts can do?  Apparently they can cook.

But what if we already know you, but don't know you're Pes online?  I mean, what if you're uncle Fred down the road, but we don't know that uncle Fred =Pescado?

[Uncle Fred is, in this case, a fictional character - none of my uncles are named Fred, and I don't really know them anyway.]

Is it bad that I'm most bothered by the fact they couldn't be bothered to put in an upper and lower body slider?  Come on, people.  Both men and women have different proportions.  And most overweight women I know do -not- have an A-cup chest.  Plenty of other games have a teen rating and the ability to adjust the chest out.  And even men have different proportions between hips and chest.  No wonder our sims all look alike in 3

Ooooh!  Okay - right now I'm trying a somewhat asian looking girl with jade green eyes, I'll see what happens with her, though she's going for rock star.

I do find three more fun to play - with sims 1, I didn't -play- until Makin' Magic.  Sims 2, I played for brief spurts when I tried challenges, but mostly I just made things [well, make, since I'm not giving it up yet], and I've played the console stuff.  I'm working up an unbiased review for a friend's new unbiased game review blog.

I like most of the play aspects - gardening ticks me off, and I'll never do another gardening task, unless I'm missing something.  Gathering rocks, you know what you have [unlike the real world] but you can't tell what a seed will grow?  Big freaking difference between lime and watermelon seeds iRL.  I like the gathering and the like, but not being able to buy basic seeds like tomato, onion, garlic, and the like is...maddening.

I think this is actually closer to what Simsville might have been.  The graphics are not innovative, but the play stuff is.  I just think the devs ignored the 2 thirds who like sandbox/modding for the movie and story makers.  I personally like only needing to control one household, but others don't want to lose that control.  And as a mesher who can see the potential with the new system, the possibility that I won't be able to make new meshes annoys me something fierce - that and potentially not have my game-fix hacks.

But it is more fun, for now, to play.

I agree on the lame things with sims 3 - Examples of shortcuts [I've got a high comp, these are not problems with my machine]

Lattice is -not- alpha-ed.  It is black for spaces, not clear.
Some of the textures are incredibly blurry.
Familyfunds -does not- work, however, the cheats that do work - motherlode, kaching, moveobjects on/off, snapobjectstogrid on/off and testingcheatseneabled on/off.  For builders, we were told there would not be a floorelevation cheat - we were told wrong - however, there is some lighting issues that make hiding the deformed walls much more difficult.  However, it is usable, and not -super- noticeable.

When you say that modding it will be something in the nature of problematical, do you mean just game behavior mods, or new objects?

And my problem with CAS is that the hair styles more or less universally suck, and there is no way to make thin, natural-looking brows.  Clothing is somewhat limited as well, but the separates are much more fun to use in 3.