More Awesome Than You!

I'm not buying Sims3/Securom, but I'd like to know what I would have had to buy to play it.  My Dell Dimension has old-style PCI slots (PCI 2.2 I'm told) & I suspect that all the in-spec cards will be PCIe or AGP.  So am I saving the cost of a new graphics card or a new PC?

EDIT - These are the revised specs published here http://thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/newsItem.jsp?item=236875146

THE SIMS 3 MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

FOR WINDOWS XP
    * Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
    * 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
    * 1 GB RAM
    * At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
    * 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
    * Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
    * 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
    * 1.5 GB RAM
    * At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
    * 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least:
    * Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above.
    * 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
    * 0.5 GB additional RAM

SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS

NVIDIA GeForce series
    FX 5900, FX 5950
    6200, 6500, 6600, 6800,
    7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
    8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
    9600, 9800, GTX 260, GTX 280

ATI Radeon™ series
    9500, 9600, 9800
    X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
    X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
    2400, 2600, 2900
    3450, 3650, 3850, 3870,
    4850, 4870

 
Intel® Extreme Graphics
    GMA X3x00 series

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slower. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly. Intel integrated chipsets featuring underclocked parts will not perform adequately.

Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants will have low settings selected, but should run satisfactorily.

Please note that attempting to play the game using video hardware that isn't listed above may result in reduced performance, graphical issues or cause the game to not run at all.

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.

It was up on the BBS yesterday, today it is removed and instead says "Help not available".

I noticed it did not say an internet connection was required, and wondered if they removed to update it.

Well, it looks like my rig would have the processor and RAMz to play, but I would need to upgrade my video card (hypothetical situation only - TS3 is still L&P). 

Wow, those specs seem awful low. My old computer met those specs and it was hell trying to play on a community lot, even with all of the settings turned down to low. Forget dorms or vacations too. So they want to run a huge neighborhood, with God knows how many sims on those specs? Good luck with that!

I asked for a new graphics card for [insert next week's festival name of choice here]. My machine currently cannot cope with large lots or multiple storey buildings, there is no way it could run Sims 3.

From http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=98bf9aa3ff5515a64a8dc6746bd6e36f&directoryID=225

EA response to question about specs for TS3

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

It is hard to give an accurate answer right now, but be sure to choose a High-End computer. Your Computer must be at least a Core-2-Duo 2.0Ghz or higher, 2 or 4 GB RAM, a stand-alone graphics card with at least 512MB non-shared Memory by Ati or nVidia, never buy an on-board graphics card, to play the game. Of course game may need a lower or higher configuration than this, but this system is good for a ideal quality gaming experience.

If there is anything else we can help you with please let us know.

Thank you,

EARep Rick
EA Online Support"

In that case, TS3 will not be part of my gaming plans until the next time I feel like building a new rig.

Those specs certainly sound like a more reasonable assessment than the earlier ones, which sounded more like the TS2 specs with a higher end graphics card.

What would be the best thing to do? Buy a very large box case, and go with agp vga only so you can upgrade every 3 months for the EP in the sims3? It's very un-nerving for this game to include secuROM also, with most of the serious sims 2 players informed I feel sales will be very poor for Sims 3.

They are referring to a system with Vista, as XP can only support (with modification) 3.5 GBs as issues arise at 3 GBS or higher with XP.  On-Board Graphic Cards are the worse possible feature of any gaming rig.  The only thing you'll need to upgrade is your graphics card, more so if you are using Vista as your ram will be drained.

In all honesty, Sims 3 is going to be popular because it is open, but at the same time the larger the city the worse the lag will become.  It will be like playing a high-end MMORPG on dial-up with millions of people >.<

Those specs sound a lot more like I was expecting.

A lot of people right now can't afford to build a new box, so I wonder if the sales of TS3 are going to be anywhere near what they are projecting. One of the nice things about TS2 was that the base game would run on lower end boxes at the time. My computer at the time was a couple years old, but it still ran the base game and UNI on med-high settings just fine.

Sims has always been more demanding than most games that came out around the same time; I don't see why that should change now.

Yeah, I'm not buying 3 either.

Agreed. I'm also pretty skeptical of their projected sales for TS3, more so because of the specs than Securom. I know several of people who play TS2 that either just don't get what Securom is, or haven't run into problems with it on their system yet. Particularly for people who aren't particularly tech-savvy, they may not even *know* that their computer problems stem from Securom. On the other hand, none of my friends (including myself) are hardcore gamers, and buying/building a new computer just to the run TS3 is out of the question. Even for those who don't know/care what Securom is, if the demands for the game are too great, they'll just stick to what runs on their computer.

It would appear that the EA marketing department wants to keep the specs for TS3 approximately the same as for TS2.  So, we may see very unrealistic (low) "minimal system requirements" on the TS3 box.

(Marketing groups rarely care whether the specs are accurate.  They care about what will convince people to buy the game.)

The original spec's for TS2 were very low and when the game finally came there was no way it would run on my P3 that met them. So I bought a new computer. It exceeds these current minimum spec's but I really want to see the recommended spec's. Given Rod Humbles vision for Sim City was rubbish, I'm waiting to see if TS3 will be worth the effort and expense to upgrade.

No way I could even Arrr that, then, unless I bought a new computer. Mine's a P4 1.6 GHz with 512MB RAM.

I find the specs amusing. Some of the early interviews about TS3 claimed they were planning on making the specs *lower* than TS2, so that it would work on "your grandma's computer". That is now revealed to be blatant L&P.

I plan on building a gaming rig next year anyway. Or like a media rig because I do a lot of short films and stuff. While my laptop is plenty capable, overheating is an issue for me. I'm just going to go out and build a rig anyway just for the cooling systems. Its definitely going to be high end, no doubt. I was planning to go Mac though, because I like Macs better for media use, but hate gaming on a Mac. I may just go windows, but not Vista. DO NOT WANT. I've very happy with XP Media Center.

Besides, I'm getting a macbook automatically when I start my online classes with Full Sail. So that will make 3 laptops and one PC when all is said and done. My other laptop is having an issue staying on, and I don't think its overheating. The battery is fried due to heat, but now even with the power supply plugged in, it shuts off after 30 minutes or so. So I had to get a new one. No problems yet *knock on wood*, but occasionally if the fans are blocked, it will overheat and shut off, which sucks.

Oh well.

I suggest just ordering the computer in pieces: It will be cheaper and you won't be including Vista in your costs.

Maybe requirements closer to the later expansions. There's no way they could claim it'd require less than the original game and still have it be an improvement over TS2. The original box requirements are only an 800mhz processor, 256mb ram, and a 32mb video card. But by the time you get to Apartment Life the requirements rise to 1.3 GHz (2.0 GHz for Vista) and 512 MB (1 GB for Vista) ram. Same 32mb video card though.

I can't picture any serious quote even by EA claiming they were going to let you use your Pentium III and GeForce 2 to play their sequel...

At the same time, they're also unwilling to say that people with crappy computers get smaller towns that their computers can handle. And since sims you don't control now bunnybreed without your input, well, you figure it out.

The townies will breed on their own  :o? Even if a TS3 notowniewoohoo was possible I just don't think I want it, it sounds very bad. Even though still want to buy a new gaming rig this coming year, newegg has some nice boxes for under 900.

Breeding uncontrollable sims would be a nice feature if we could trust that EA would do it right. It's a little annoying to play a third generation family and have them attend uni with the same dormies that their great grandparents went to uni with.

However, we all know that EA won't do the breeding correctly. My other families will be off aging and breeding without any sort of input from me, while the NPC family still won't age. Or my uncontrolled sims will breed with only the fugliest NPCs.

And of course, let's not forget the fact that since character instances are NEVER CLEANED UP, the number of characterfiles will bloat out of control.

4GB RAM for a game? Pffffft.

(http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/7759/shines1ap8.jpg)

The new "revised" specs do not surprise me in any way. They're closer to what I opined in my piece on RYG, and I'm sticking to my opinion, even after they have revised them.
Simply put, TS3 will require more memory and computer than you can afford or want. It will suck your computer into a big black hole with Securom, and never let it see the light of day.
DO NOT WANT.

Well, what'd you expect? It's like the base game, only the ENTIRE GAME IS A SINGLE GIANT LOT, so figure out how many RAMs that would take up.

See, that would shit me. I can see myself having a laser mouse spaz out and finding myself half way across the neighbourhood from the house I'm attempting to play.

I get the impression from previews that you'd probably have to zoom upwards really far in order to get that sorta distance. Most angles you'd normally play on you couldn't see halfway across a neighborhood. It's a bit hard to tell though, since not one preview has showed actual gameplay. And I'm pretty skeptical that zooming is that seemless... That said, the latest preview showed a car sequence, and it looked like a slightly closer version of watching a car in SimCity 4. I imagine when you're looking at things on that level they aren't terribly detailed.

I don't want to sound like I'm defending the thing. My current computer won't even touch the game, and EA offering 4gb of ram as a potential requirement is pretty wtf inducing. I'm not skeptical as to whether that's realistic or not, particularly if you want things to be as seemless and fluid as their current previews do.

I was amused to see that they claim support for the ati x1950. This proves they have no idea -- based on practical experience -- what hardware the game will work on. Many incarnations of the x1950 are plagued with fan-speed problems (including there being no way to force changes to fan speed control with standard ATI overclocking tools). The card is unique in being unsupported by all other overclocking tools (that I could find). The only effective way I could find to fix the issue was to overwrite the card's BIOS with a 3rd party effort. Since failure in that task would mean I'd need to get another PCIe card to see what I was doing to flash it back, I decided to see how it would last. It ran for 8 weeks at 88°C (when idling ... my bad!) before it finally fried in its own stupidity.) Last time I buy without first Googling the product's name along with a variety of sample problem words, like overheating, crashing, failure, etc..

I have an x1950 from powercolor with the artic cooling fan (they mod the original fan off the radeon and put the arctic cooling one on to ship) - works like a charm and I've never had heating issues with it. I have 3 other case fans on that desktop, but my system with that GPU in it idles at approx 34°C in a non-air conditioned and poorly ventilated room.

I'm sure you could find plenty of examples on the list that have problem spots. I've got a 6600 GeForce card that requires more power than the manufacturer claims and has all sorts of driver issues (as in, updating to the newest drivers is apparently a bad thing), but that's hardly EA's fault.

Like I said. If only I'd bothered to Google before ordering, I could've got a decent version. The cost of modding the Sapphire card replacing the fan, and probably the BIOS too, exceeded my estimate of the value of doing so. The card had been installed for three weeks before I checked and found exactly how hot it was running.

I have a dual core amd on my gaming rig... and a damn good video card, so I'm hoping that it will work.
However, I'd actually prefer a smaller town, so I'm wondering if we can choose the town's size, much like the way we can choose lot sizes. That would be cool. :D

You can't even choose the town's name. And you can't choose where to place lots, only what to build on them. So no, you won't be able to choose the town's size, although you could manually kill off most of the sims and bulldoze most of the lots.

No doubt you'll have to wait for them to release the separate editing tools EP to do any of this. I get the impression that EAxis initially want us to be playing their vision of TS3 rather than creating our own; why expand functionality when you can take it away and make the players pay to add it back in later?

I doubt they'd do a whole tools EP, could definitely see it riding as a feature of some silly expansion full of content you may or may not want though. A tools only EP would involve doling out a ton of core features all at once, after all.

I wish they showed more gameplay shots, all the info they've released now seems like pure scripted machinima. You can't play the game at that angle. There seems to be a huge focus on what all the NPCs are doing, and near zero focus on what you can actually do.

A friend of mine has an interesting theory:  EA knows that TS3 isn't as much fun to play as TS2 was, so they are avoiding showing us the gameplay in the hopes that we'll buy it before we find out how horrible it is.

I know I definitely would not put it passed them.

For months now I have been predicting that all tools that will be available to make custom content or even to customize any part of the game will be EAxis "sanctioned" or only available through that detestable Sims Store and, if they are not going to get us through their hording the first available customizing tools, then they will get us through the EPs.

What is to stop them from creating a "Neighborhood Explorer!" EP where people could have simple things like the ability to move lots wherever we choose, or create new lots, or even expand the single neighborhood for as far as a system could handle? They could also include new walls, build mode options, etc. to stuff in this new EP and the only way to get what should have been shipped in the original game is to buy the new EP. I see them trying to nickel and dime everything they can out of this game and the best way to do that is through EPs and SPs.

Also, something to keep in mind is that EAxis is a struggling business like many others in the current economic climate and they are not only trying to bring up today's numbers, but also make sure that their Quarter 4 profits for 2010 and so on will live up to what they forecast. Rather than take time to create something that will be well-tested, generally fun to play and can reach as wide an audience as possible, they renege on what they have already promised (ie: making the game playable for "old, clunker PCs") and ensure that they can drag every last dollar out of the people who are guaranteed to buy their lousy product.

I don't think it'd be practical. EA seems to love micro transactions and selling the same stuff to you over and over again, but I think charging for the tools would be a move even they could recognize as poor. Charging for tools you previously gave away is bound to cause backlash, and reduce sales. Additionally it caps creation to some degree. You inhibit the community, which is for the most part producing completely free content for your game, for an expansion's worth of profit? Lastly, the Sims 2 and Spore are the most pirated games on the planet right now. You release an expansion that's pure tools, and you've just created the world's most pirated expansion without even trying.

I wouldn't put it past them entirely, but even EA recognizes the free ride they're getting with the Sims community. You can inhibit to some degree, but to block it off entirely unless you buy a $40 expansion seems like you'd be shooting the IP in the foot for a minor gain.

I sort of suspected that it'd be a return to TS1. I'm already pretty certain that most of the so-called buildings shown in the screenshots are just eye-candy that playable sims cannot actually enter.

The previews seem to show people moving about inside houses outside your house of focus.  My problem would be whether or not I'd really want dozens of sims moving about outside my range of view.

New trailer posted by 1UP:

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/23079

Again, no gameplay. It's just another video to show off the "snazzy" customisation you can do to your sims and their houses. I found it to be nauseating and dull.

Apologies if this is a re-hash already addressed in the thread, but isn't that the same as how it was for TS1? Cinematics only, no actual game play until the game was fully released?

For some reason the default link wouldn't work and I had to watch it in super high definition. Anyway...

I like the huge range of sliders for creating sims. I do think that's a great option, given that everyone in the original game had identical bodies, and more delicate facial adjustments required editing outside the game in Milkshape. As far as pure "content" goes yeah, that's a waste. I like the ability to paint cars, since bringing that closer to the user is more freedom, although every example they showed was shit. I'm hopeful that their "HAY GUYZ I JUST GOT PHOTOSHOP" wallpapers are a sign you aren't held back in the ability to create them, because most of the examples were atrocious.

Still, no gameplay is ugh. It's a game, not a platform for people who make crappy machinima.

Like Spore's Creature Creator?  EA charged for full access to that.  In Sims terms this was like charging for full access to Body Shop.  They tested the water with Spore's Creature Creator, to see if people would pay for tools (and people did).  Of course they're going to go further with charging for tools for Sims 3.  Sims players have proven we will buy anything with the sims name on it - even overpriced crappy store stuff.

From what I've heard they want to inhibit the community when it comes to creating content, and they fail to understand why this will be a VBT.  I've heard rumours that EA have done a deal with TSR to be a preferred partner site for TSR.  The rumour I've heard is that we will have to go to TSR (or other partner sites) to purchase any CC.  If this rumour is true, then it's a clear sign that EA don't understand that the success of the Sims franchise has been due in part to the wide availability of free CC & hacks.

The creature creator is the thing they released before the game, right? I think I tried the trial but it wouldn't run on my shitty 4200 Geforce 4. I've never played Spore so haven't really paid it much attention after release. To my understanding though the creature creator is included entirely with the game, yes? I think that's closer to EA knowing people will buy stupid preorder shit no matter what.

I can think of a worse example: Fable II had a preorder edition, which cost an additional $10. I think it netted you an early version of the casino games in the game itself. They're all heavy on luck and short on strategy. One is essentially slots. In addition to that, it included a code to unlock some small content in game. A weapon and some clothing located in a chest early on, and a dungeon later in the game. Except this code wasn't included in a lot of preorders. So what they inevitably had to do was set up an online request form, which only required you had a Windows Live account (and if you've ever set up Live! for either XBox, you've already got that). So I got the bulk of the limited edition content, because all it did was unlock content already present on EVERY SINGLE COPY of Fable II.

Live! in general has quite a few games where downloadable content that costs money is clearly just unlocking content you already have but has been purposefully hidden in order to charge you for it. EA has a somewhat notorious example with The Godfather. The 360 version removed in-game cheats that other versions contained, and offered them as pay for downloadable content. And then there's examples of them offering "weapons" in multiplayer games, effectively subsiding advantages in competitive first person shooters.

Still, if the extent of the matter is they charge for bodyshop 3 early, well, it's not a dealbreaker for me. I'd just arr it or pass it by. I don't think the average user is going to be creating groundbreaking content before the game is out. I'm sure most people don't have all that much stuff from 2004 in their download folder still anyway.

edit: I checked the discussion page of the wikipedia entry on the Sims 3, and found this tiny gameplay video (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/article5311511.ece). It's not actually that short, but the resolution is hard to make things out. So far it looks like the Sims 2 with slightly better models and floors that show regardless of what floor the camera is located on.

If you've got any solid links to those rumors Kyna I wouldn't mind reading them. I don't want to sound like I'm apologizing for EA or anything, but I am hopeful the game will turn out well. So far from what I have seen, which is very little, it does look great, although Spore did too, and I don't think anyone had that live up to their expectations. Either way it will without a doubt eat ram for breakfast, and dumb decisions will obviously be omni-present. I'm kinda leery about the focus on filming the thing. I don't play the game to upload shit to youtube, I just wanna play a game.

Sorry, I don't have a bookmarked link, but I remember visiting the BBS recently and seeing a Maxoid mentioning "preferred partner sites".  I don't often visit the BBS, and I usually only go to the BBS when there's an interesting link posted here or at one of the other sims sites I visit.

The rumours I mentioned were not at the BBS, and were primarily speculation about what EA meant by "preferred partner sites" & who these preferred sites were.  Conclusion was that TSR was probably one of them.  Given that TSR is a paid CC site, it was speculated that TS3 CC will only be available through these preferred sites.

I think I saw that, something about the BBS not allowing links to the booty because of it hosting TSR/The Store content or something to that effect? I'm hoping that's just something limited to BBS retardedness, and the speculation beyond that is just rumors gone wild.

Well, the booty doesn't host store content, not that anybody on the BBS is necessarily intelligent enough to understand that. The idea of EA potentially pairing up with TSR is flat-out appalling. Not only would they be suppressing a huge amount of their community by saying "only the people we approve of are good enough to create custom content for your game!", but what about all the younger ages that play the Sims? There are plenty of 12s out there who certainly don't have money to go out and pay for new custom downloads, especially on top of the already fairly pricey game itself.

I certainly hope you're right about rumors gone wild. However, EA has grown increasingly money-grubbing recently, and every time I think they've hit rock bottom they find new lows to reach.  ::)

Why did you specifically mention TSR?  Do you know about a definite link between EA and TSR beyond the rumours I mentioned?

TSR are making an illegal profit by charging for CC, just like any other paysite.

Didn't EA and TSR partner up for (now dead (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11810.0.html)) EA Land?

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,10998.0.html

I point to the Legal Threatz (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,13946.0.html) as proof that there is no such relationship with any paysites, at least not currently. EA was concerned only with links (to a website that Pescado does not own) for downloading their garbage products, but made no comment about downloads (available on a website Pescado does own) for garbage garbage from paysites.

I think it was just speculation on the part of the people who linked to the BBS. Something about how the Maxoid worded the ban to the Booty or something.

Aha, found it: http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=4e81567021bcc3744668c12a5a66d0f5&directoryID=2&startRow=1&openItemID=item.2,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23#fbe743ae7dba176013c319ba0b97704c

"A lot of our Simmers have been posting links to PaySitesMustBeDestroyed which is not ok. This site often posts content that is either from our TS2 Store or from partner sites which are pay/subscription based. This is considered linking to pirated content."

I've probably clicked around too much to reasonably find the thread that linked me there, but I believe the TSR connection was just a guess from the thread that brought me to the Maxoid post. Like, "Partner sites? Must be TSR!" that sorta thing. Nothing definite.

The thing is that nowhere has EA stated who these partner sites are or how the partnership affects simmers.  Speculation and rumours will continue until EA state who their partner sites are, and how these partnerships affect simmers.

What I've heard is most likely is that the EULA will be differently worded for TS3, and that the only creators able to develop CC will have to be in partnership with EA or licensed by them in some form.  EA have seen how willing simmers are to pay for CC and now they want their piece of the pie (as was demonstrated by the introduction of their online store).  EA conducted a survey a while back regarding CC sites, nearly all the sites listed in the survey were pay sites, and many sites with free content (such as MATY, Simbology, MTS2, GOS, InSim, SimLogical) were not included in the survey.  If EA do go down the route of limiting who can produce CC, they will be killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

If PMBD were doing something illegal, I'm sure EA would have sent their lawyers after them for the content that is hosted there.  Instead, their lawyers sent a letter to MATY regarding content that is NOT hosted here.

I'm not too worried yet. There's just too many details they'd have to work on, and the rewards seem pretty damn obvious to be worse than potential gains. Their store is pretty damn benign compared to TSR, and I doubt they could get away with giving you imaginary points for creating content and expect to regulate it with any relevance, ala Peggy G Zone, especially if they made it the ONLY way to get content.

They know sharing is a huge thing, they know that people are willing to spend millions of man-hours producing free shit for their game. TSR can't be that lucrative that they're willing to irreparably damage their IP to emulate it as the only way to get stuff. It's a given that any large restriction would kill a lot of the incentive to create stuff.

So, it turns out that EA is a sinking ship, according to the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/19/ea-blackbox.html

I love the last line of that article, "The announcements come a week after EA said it was cancelling plans to open a new studio in Vancouver and after the company lowered its expectation for revenue and earnings for the 2009 fiscal year." Isn't this tantamount to admitting defeat about TS3 before it even comes out?

When I saw a recent gameplay trailer I was stunned at the extent of how much of The Sims 3 has been recycled from The Sims 2. Not surprised, as I figured it would probably happen, but not quite as much as what I saw.

Interesting to see the EA spokesperson is called Colin Macrae. Unless EA are now "reanimating" dead corpses to save on expenses or something .

I don't think this means TSR is partnered with EA. It probably means the website is partnered with the official Sims website. The quoted comment is about website/bbs policy, not EA's business policy.

Actually it makes sense to do development using existing content as it's quicker and cheaper. It also gives the target audience a reference point to compare with, which can of course be a bit of a double-edged sword. I'd wait and see just how much of what we're getting in trailers makes it into the final game.

Given that the game is still months away at best, anything written is speculative.  If you cared about being perfectly accurate, you couldn't say anything at all.

I think EA lost control of TS2.  At some point, when it is possible to customise skins, lighting, replace every bit of default content, and produce custom animations, it is fair to say the game no longer looks or feels like the one EA shipped.  One of the forgotten requirements of owning a copyright is the owner's responsibility to vigorously defend it against infringement.  If Rolex didn't regularly pursue the vendors of counterfeits, they could actually lose ownership of their mark.

I'm not saying that EA has actually lost anything, nor that it matters now that TS2 is at its end.  No machinima artist has tried to profit using TS2.  However, I think they could probably mount a fair argument in court that they also have a claim to ownership, if all of the visible content is user-created.  From EA's point of view, this is not a position they'd want to find themselves in again with TS3.  While a large and lively community of CC creators does help sell the game, there's also a rational incentive to keep it within limits.

You have to consider the size of EA, the Sims alone couldn't sustain the entire company. It's like Activision/Blizzard. Everyone knows WoW is going to be a success, but it's a company bigger than just one game. I would think even a shitty Sims 3 would sell well, at least at first.

Oh yes, that's what I thought. Things like the sounds and stuff are probably just placeholders. But the basic mechanics of the UI and game engine seems so similar to The Sims 2...

It doesn't work that way. Reskinning Microsoft Windoze doesn't let you claim copyright over it, either.

Doesn't work that way. All your content are belong to EAxis.

A EULA is only as good as your ability to defend it in court.  I didn't mean that anyone could claim ownership of the game by modding it.  I meant that if you made a video using TS2, in which all of the creative content was user-created esp. animations, you might be able to claim copyright (in whole or part) of the video.  A test case like that is only feasible because EA permitted a massive quantity and variety of CC to be made in the first place.

I don't think even the most customized copy of the Sims 2 would have any chance in court of being mistaken for a different game entirely. Animations in particular aren't terribly common as far as custom content is concerned, and they're usually pretty primitive compared to the originals. Either way, you'd have a hard time avoiding using default animation in a video of any decent length. You could get a whole bunch of custom furniture, grab custom clothes meshes for everyone, use custom eyes, makeup, bajillion polygon hair, and your game would still look close enough to the original that someone only passingly familiar with the thing would know what it was.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Colin_Mochrie_2006.jpg)
You rang?

Wait, what? Colin died?! When did that happen? Bummer!

Colin McRae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McRae) appears dead, but Colin Mochrie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Mochrie) is thankfully still kicking.

DUDE. I was not happy, and was hoping there was a spelling issue at hand. Thanks for the reassurance.

Too much death this week. I are sad cat.

Here's a thought: TS3, what is it REALLY? (http://pc.gamespy.com/dor/objects/564180/the-sims-2/images/the-sims-2-20051024021917424.html) These pictures date from *2005*. They look like *TS3*. *TS2* was supposed to have this. Naturally, it did not. But obviously, these pictures came from SOMETHING. So what is *REALLY* in TS3, hrm? Probably none of the stuff we've seen.

That picture makes the sim look much more normally proportioned than the ones we ended up with - except for the waist and hips, which are still too small.

That looks A LOT like the Playstation 2 version of TS2. GameSpy may have filed it wrong.

Edit: A friend who plays the game mainly on PS2 just confirmed that that version of the game does, indeed, look like that.

I can also confirm that those screenshots are from the crappy console version. I would also like to submit that the graphics are far, far worse than anything on the PC Version that didn't come from FeeEssen. Seriously, what the heck is that amorphous silver pod? (http://ps2media.gamespy.com/ps2/image/article/660/660970/the-sims-2-20051024021921955_640w.jpg)

Consider how much it looks like TS3, though.

So they're going to make TS3 with stuff they didn't get done for TS2? What a bunch of lazy bastards..they can't even be bothered to make anything new, just remake the stuff they "forgot" to put into TS2 and call it Sims 3!

Yes, quite an achievement-fool all of the sheeple all of the time!

"Hey, kids, you want to see what you didn't get in the last Sims game? Buy the new one, and really screw up your computer with our lousy coding and incredible specs. Don't forget to buy a new rig, as well!"

Fire-breathing toddlers?

The original L&P promotional videos Maxis made for TS2 had fire-breathing toddlers in them (among other things that never made it to the game). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkxO2hrQFWA

Ahem yes. I saw that trailer some time ago. I was referring to MaryH's post, regarding what EAxis seem to have forgotten to put in the game.

Ah, ok, umm, never mind...

No problem, it's late in the year, everyone's tired I suppose. I need my customary two weeks at the beach which I am SO not going to get this year. Anyhow, I'm ready for TS3 if it ever does appear, I got my fancy graphics card.

I also would have liked to see bodice ripping. :D

I concur.   8)

From I heard, they claim that TS3 will has less graphical requirements than TS2 (which I can partly believe considering how... retarded it looks)? In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just an altered version of the TS2 engine. Look at some the videos and you'll see what I mean, as it looks more like a modified TS2 than a new game with recycled elements.

But then, there's this little gem (http://www.edge-online.com/blogs/john-riccitiello-writes-edge) from the Chief Bastard himself, who claims that his ickle sweet corporation is full of love and compassion for their games.  ::)

Ah, yes..the Chief Lyin' Bastard of them all:


Don't think so..what was he drinking before he wrote this?

Here's a picture for you all to ponder.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/16lyzgo.jpg)

(http://i42.tinypic.com/zl3fvo.jpg)

Sims 3?

No, it's not.

But it sure looks like it, doesn't it?

It's the Sims 2 clone, The Singles.

So, basically, this is where the hideous sims in Sims 3 are coming from.

Rofflecopterbuscuitsbbqmylittleponies!!1!!!!

Except the joke is on anyone stupid enough to buy this crap.

The hideous dough-faced sims in Sims 3 are a lot worse than that. At least those facial features are in the right proportions.

That's just another bit of evidence they use work from the community to make their games.  I was actually working on a toddler project for TS1.  My role was to create the special baby, which would turn into the toddler made by another person on the project (I am sorry if you're reading this I have forgotten your name lol!).  Anyway the toddler was made from that little dragon in the game, and it would run around breathing fire.   We didn't quite get as far as programming out the fire-breathing bit.

Picture doesn't do them justice. The Singles have the exact same vacant, glassy-eyed expressions that sims in Sims 3 have, and their faces are waxy. Plus, like the sims in Sims 3, their heads are too small for their oddly-shaped bodies. That whole "I'm melting! I'm melting!" thing is just awful. I think the similarity is why I can't stand the look of Sims 3. The Singles looked so bad... there are no words for how bad they looked.

That woman has the tits of a 80 years old  :-X.

It appears to be "Attempted Futuristic Shower #1". And I'm still peeved we never got Chicken Checkers.

I thought it was meant to be a sauna/steam bath, like the one that came with Superstar.

Pity, as showering under a metallic mustachioed nose just seems, well, right.

Those are some seriously jiggly boobs in that video.  I didn't notice it at the time, but I wonder if anyone did and was disappointed when the game came out? :P

More than the jiggly boobs, I'd like to see the "blooper" takes where the jiggle animation is still being tweaked (ahem) and the models are flinging themselves through the air all boobs akimbo.

(If for no other reason than "boobs akimbo" is one of my favourites phrases I so rarely get the chance to use.)

"'Boobs' Akimbo" would be a lovely name for a Chicago gangster or perhaps a glad-handing despot.

New L&P:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/946/946029p1.html (http://pc.ign.com/articles/946/946029p1.html)

The new video with Ben Bell is all the same spew that's been going on for months, and all the footage of Sims 3 that was shown was seen previously in "produced" advertisements.  That looks too "perfect" to be Sims 3, in my honest opinion.

And watch the video for the parts where they show Sims 2.  They purposely make it look like crap.  The game stutters and the graphics aren't set as high as they can go.  They purposely make it look shoddy when showing the Sims 3 L&P.

I have a problem with a game that is being kept so secretive that it's still a mystery on how it's actually going to look.  Even the reviewer stated, "I didn't get a lot of play time, mind you, but I did get enough to get a tantalizing glimpse of the brave new world."  Seems to me the TRUTH will come out when you start playing the game much longer than 10-15 minutes.

I want to believe that Sims 3 is going to blow me away and surprise me, just like the Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.  (I'm still amazed by that).  But everything in my gut tells me to not trust EA and all the BS they keep spewing out about the game.

In 30 more days, the truth will finally be revealed.

Looks like the reviewer isn't familiar with TS2 with EPs.


TS2 has had that since Seasons.  It's not new.


In TS2, with EPs, it isn't Gossip/Chat.  It's ABGx - admire, bust-a-move, gossip, some other interaction.  Bust-a-move came in with Uni, but I forget which EP changed it from a 3-action cycle to a 4-action cycle, perhaps it was NL?

A couple of things do attract me to the game. For example, the ability to use all materials on all objects would certainly be a huge improvement on the current situation (think how many fewer downloads will be necessary, if one texture can be applied to all  objects instead of just one).

On the other hand, I have the suspicion that at least 90% of what we've seen so far really is just L&P, and will prove to be untrue or at the very least exaggerated in such a way that the reality can do nothing but disappoint. A lot of what they're saying about the game sounds really unlikely.

Can't wait to see what the truth is. We can P&L when howls of disappointment and rage are filling the BBS. Those of us who are more rational about setting our hearts on this new toy delivering on its promises, will of course escape such bitter disappointment. I would love it if TS3 turned out to be a wonderful game, because, hey, I like TS2 and want MOAR of the same, but if it's a big FAIL, I'm not going to have a fit over it.

Yes, but EAxis loves to claim old shit is new. It's all part of their newspeak. Old is new, bugs are features, stupidity is intelligence, and we have always been at war with Eastasia.

Hah, I wish. It's too EASY for sims to make friends, to the point where it happens on its OWN and I have to STOP it from happening.

I agree, the personality thing is the most interesting aspect that I've heard about so far.  There has been a trend over the last couple of EPs to put in features that are advertised as coming in TS3.  The way EAxis described the zone and the benefits of LTA before FT's release sounded very similar to the way they talk about moodlets.  Apartments are a step towards seamless neighbourhoods.  It's as if they want us to familiarise ourselves with these features so that we're not totally surprised by the differences in TS3.


If I do decide to get Sims 3, I won't be paying for it due to SecuROM.  I'm not going to pay for spyware that was responsible for messing up the computers of friends.  I still haven't decided whether I'll ARR it, although I probably will just out of curiousity.

I like the new personality system and texturing also, but I don't see how personalities is really going to change things for people who like to control every aspect of their sim's lives.  Personalities will mean more to the simmers out there that like to leave their sims alone and see what happens.  On that aspect, Sims 3 could be interesting.  Honestly, I wonder how in depth it really is, and if it is really all that different from the personality traits we have now.  Sure, it sounds different, but will it actually PLAY differently?

The textures is definitely one of the most useful new things in the game.  I'm curious if the texturing will be neat, or if it will look rather sloppy compared to someone actually taking the time to texture the object separately and put more care into it.

The seamless neighborhood is another great idea, but I worry how this will turn out.  My computer has over decent specs for Sims 2, and it still stutters a bit when I have "show neighbors" on.  I can't imagine how bad it will be when I can see the whole neighborhood out there.

And why is this game a "prequal" in the timeline?  Seems to me like they are taking two steps backwards, unless they really are trying to tell us something.   ;D

...

My first thought, honestly, was: How can something be a prequel, or for that matter a sequel, to the Sims?

Then I remembered the families that shipped with the game. For instance, Sims 1 had Mortimer and Bella Goth as adults, and Cassandra as a 6. In the Sims 2, Bella is gone, Morty is an elder, Cassandra is an adult, Alexander exists. (Heh. In my Sims 1 game, Morty and Bella had a boy after Cassandra, and I named him Pugsley. Alexander will always be Pugsley to me.)

I think that says something about EAxis' family-building, that they only rated as an afterthought.

EDIT: Imagine the Bella Goth theories... "If you breed Sim A and Sim B under the next full moon, and then get Sim C abducted, they'll have a little baby Bella! And if you send the mother to the hidden lot, it will be TWINZ!!1!"

Argh no.  I just had a horrible thought.  We'll be seeing the return of "how iz twin babbiez formed?"  TWINZR2CUTE!!!111zomg

Have you seen the previews of changing house exteriors and cars, though? It reminds me of the skins we get with Spore. That's a big, fat, DO NOT WANT. They look positively awful.

I suspect the whole "whatever texture you want" will be like the creature creator, where "whatever" is fairly narrowly defined.

Also, this mysterious "sharing" system seems a little dodgy, like they haven't actually worked it out yet.

That was a big WTF? moment for me while reading the article and I immediately began to question the validity of anything this reviewer has to say about the game.

The more I hear about this sequel, the more it sounds like the game will simply play by itself in front of me, like a movie of sorts. If the sims are doing everything on their own in this "seamless neighborhood," then I see little reason for me to even intervene in their lives. In theory, I could just let them go and they would make friends, get jobs, date, marry, have kids and die all on their own. The only interaction I see necessary would be making sure that their curtains matched the rest of their furniture when I first moved a family in a lot.

I honestly went into the article trying to be positive and thinking, "Perhaps it can't be all bad." but I am just as full of DO NOT WANT as I had been earlier. The game is about to launch in less than month and I still have not seen anything worthwhile. The "new" screenshots are not intriguing, we still know very little about actual gameplay and my hypothesis about the only custom content available being filtered through thesims3store.ea.com has yet to be abated.

You are wrong, or did you not get that memo; we have already won over Eurasia.

I read this as "making sure that their curtains matched the drapes". Ahem.

Examples of the fug:
(http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2285/cargb4.th.jpg) (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cargb4.jpg)
(http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7726/houseickkt3.th.jpg) (http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=houseickkt3.jpg)
I have a serious question. Are the designers on any sort of hallucinogenic drugs?

THAT'S what it reminds me of!  I knew there was something.  Sadly, I think the texturing in Spore will look and work way better then what they are planning in Sims 3.

Zazazu: these pictures bode well for the future of More Awful than You.

I can say that, at the very least, that the flowers and plants around the house look nice... it'll be nice to be able to construct decent yards with basegame plants.

The patterns, though... bleh!

Oh man. My self-Sim would totally live in a house like the one in the picture you posted, Zazazu.

There are some rumors that it is going to be delayed (http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26755100). I dunno, it sounds like something they would put out anyway and then just release a patch.

Blargh, this game is looking more and more questionable by the day. I honestly think it's going to be a buggy, more unstable, dumbed down version of The Sims 2 (and by that I mean they will slap their "new" AI onto TS2 engine). It reeks of half-ass too. It doesn't appeal to me at all, which is a contrast to when The Sims 2 was first announced and I was ecstatic.

From what I saw on the video, it sorta looks like the Mah-veal-ous new "personality" options only affect idle and walking animations. Like the way the FT hobby animations take over EVERYTHING.

I do have some borderline odd taste (this is my bedroom set..at least the nightstand and dresser (http://www.theroomplace.com/common/product/ProductInfo.aspx?itemid=237696&ChildId=237696)), but I know how to match colors. And seriously, there's such a thing as too much pattern.

Food for thought:
"And of course the self installing sims3pack files for houses, sims, pattern presets."

Do they mean that the game will automatically install files without the players permission? Or that when you download a bed or table it will install without you having to push a button?

Self-installing generally means that it works just like the sims2packs - you open the file, and it extracts itself to the folder without you having to place the files manually, so everything goes just where it is supposed to.

i wait with baited breath for sims 3 clean installer, in that case. ;)

The other day I noticed that MTS2 is going to expand to the Sims 3-as if anticipating a slew of very unhappy people who can't stand the textures, houses and other things that are going to be in Sims 3.
Needless to say, MTS2 is going to stay around a while, as well they should, because if the disaster unfolds as I personally believe it will, EA might just have to pull back the game and redo it. It sounds almost unmanageable by any computer or player. It looks half-assed and will be loaded with all kinds of stuff like ads and Securom.
Not enough shiny to make me even think about getting it. I'm looking forward to the nuclear explosion that will happen when it is released and the clouds clear to show all the sheeple at the BBS going into comas because they can't run it.
"Yo gram's computer", huh? Not on your life, buster!

When does TS3 reportedly drop again?  Mid-February?

Supposedly February 20th.

Something smells fishy. :P

I... wut.

"I also learned that ghosts are playable, can marry living Sims, and even make ghost babies."

http://thesiddog.com/tag/the-sims-3-creators-camp/

...I'm sorry, but WHAT? A ghost can marry a living Sim and have babies with them.

I have to ask. HOW? I'm imagining a ghost or normal male jacking off inside their normal or ghost partner and hoping they're aiming in the right spot.

So THAT'S what those puddles of liquid that ghosts leave behind are...

Someone's got a quote of a post with EA saying it won't be out till March or later.  Details here: http://simlogical.com/slforum/index.php?topic=2328.0

And so the delays begin. I wonder if they will try and sneak in another stuff pack in the mean time?

Good catch, Trixie. I assume neko meant bated breath.

I've always imagined that the conversation when designing a EP/SP would go like this:

"We're going to do a new ep, it's going to be around elders, since we've ignored them for so long. Some new clothes, new hairs and some antique furniture."
"We better start updating the code then. What do elder types use?"
"Well they pee a lot, so we'll need to change coding on the toilets."
"Oooh, don't forget watching sport on TV, my old man does that all the time. Better change something in that too."
"Chess! Old people play chess!"
"My Mom gardens, so how about we update some plants, but only from every second release, and replace the oleander thing with something of a totally different shape and footprint, to surprise the players."
"Excellent ideas, get to it people!"

[Why yes I have time on my hands right now. I'm waiting for the baby to escape.]

Hey, delays could be a GOOD thing. It might mean that they're play testing, or going to tweak all the things that are making people kermitflail with giant DNWs...


That was hard to type... but still. It could be good news...

Maybe we'll finally get an EP that includes Middle Age. Screw fire-breathing toddlers, I want crows feet, belly pooches, and silver streaks, DAMMIT!

After what Kate from Parsimonius said on the SimPE site, I hope that Sims 3 is not released anytime soon. What came through very clearly is confirmation of everybody's suspicions that EA might release an unfinished version and expect modders to fix it. If the game is released next month that is most likely what we will be getting.
Anyhow, I finally got around to installing all the clean neighbourhood templates and started an Apocalypse challenge yesterday.  ;D

I deleted those few posts from the simpe thread (with Kate's agreement).  Causing too many problems.

Which thread, and what PROBLEMS?

Quite.  It didn't happen.   :D

Stupid Gray Fatness! Don't delete perfectly good DRAMA and FIGHT! Especially when it involves BAD NEWS.

I've no idea what you're referring to!

Or do I? ;)

Urgh.  I went to Parsimonious (http://www.parsimonious.org) to check it out; there's a series of reviews linked from the first page.  There was no mention about the game itself being released unfinished, unless you count their deliberate choice to prevent texture and mesh importing.  Stuff mentioned in the Parsimonious Sims 3 reviews that pisses me off:

• No ability to import custom textures: you only get Maxis patterns, and they expect the community to produce tools themselves to import custom textures and meshes.  Do Not Want.
• Large file sizes for "custom content" that is generated solely with the game textures.  WTF?  If all the game has to do is reference AFmesh123, pattern38, #E7AFAF, the file size should only be a few dozen bytes AT MOST, not a few hundred kb.
• No elf ears?  I don't know if I'll even bother to try the game.  All of my favorite sims have at least partially pointed ears.  Of course, the fat faces of TS3 would have been unsuitable for them anyhow.   :(
• Elders don't get a fitness slider, so they can't be muscular.  That's stupid.
• They really did reduce the number of traits down to 61.  Boo, hiss.

I liked the Parsimonious reviews because they seem more honest than a lot of the other ones I've seen.  Unless EAxis makes some serious changes, I don't think TS3 is going to be interesting for creators -- there will be zero challenge or satisfaction in making recolors.

To be fair, TS2 doesn't have this ability either. I guess EAxis figures we will solve this better than anything they can do. They are probably right.

But, didn't the same happen with TS2? The only mesh importing tools available were developed by independent modders, AFAIK.

What are you smoking, Pes?  Body Shop came out before TS2 was even released, allowing custom textures for hair, clothing, skins, and eyes.  Homecrafter was released sometime soon after, allowing custom textures for walls, floors, and terrain paints.  This time around, we will get no  Maxis-made way to import user-made textures and will have to wait for the TS3 equivalent of SimPE, which may be too technically difficult for some texture artists to manage.

The game has the bodyshop stuff built in though - that's what it *does* have.  Bodyshop and homecrafter never handled custom meshes natively.

Dang. I wish I could get to parsimonious to check that out.  :-[ >:(

Why would they crap on the CC creators by making it difficult to put new stuff into the game? It doesn't make sense. They always seemed to encourage CC with sims 2. Or do they want to make ZOMG MOAR MONEYS by making us only get stuff thru the store? DNW that... well. not the paying part anyway. ;)

WHAT THE SHIT, NOOO. It's like they really are moving backwards in terms of playability and innovation.

I assume they'll sell overpriced speshul tools for doing that, much like the Spore Creature Creator.

No surprise on the slippage then, I'm still betting it will be released just in time for Thanksgiving. It doesn't even sound like it's gone beta yet so, assuming that they do some sort of community beta test, you can expect yet more delays as 'untrained' users will find yet more bugs.

In one word or less: Yes.

They are going to make the yummy stuff you really want the most the stuff you have to get from the store, and charging  you an arm, leg and your first born-Securom comes free as well with every download, and ads galore.

Profits rulez!

You are right about meshes but wrong about textures.  TS2 BodyShop allows you to import custom textures: patterns made in MS Paint, textures ripped from clothing advertisements, tiled textures originally intended as desktop wallpapers... any texture you can get on your computer can be turned into clothing with BodyShop.  In the Sims 3, you will not be able to import any textures, and will be stuck with using only the patterns designed by EAxis.  There is no real equivalent to BodyShop in TS3; it's the Spore approach to "custom" content.

Pescado: Infinite Sims found the SimPE forum thread on Google Cache.
In case it goes away, here's a really long screenshot, pasted into one image:
http://moreawesomethanyou.com/bastdawn/sekrit/simpe-deleted-sim3.png (http://moreawesomethanyou.com/bastdawn/sekrit/simpe-deleted-sim3.png)

EAxis? Beta test their software before release?

TS3 looks like a metric ton of DO NOT WANT to me from the little info they've released anyway. Why bother paying for arring wasting time with a broken game with a tiny fraction of the features of TS2 and its EPs?

Looks like there's a few different release dates floating around now. Spring4Sims has an article about it here (http://www.spring4sims.com/2009/01/the-sims-3-release-date-might-delay-six-new-retro-artworks/#more-9375). Personally, I think the March one mentioned in this thread is the most believable so far-- surely EAxis wants to throw it out there as soon as possible (since they can't be bothered with time wasting activities like actually testing the game).

Apparently there's a delay. I'm guessing they've come up with a bunch of other bugs, glitches and advertshit to put in the game. They are also probably taking the extra development time to make the sim faces look worse and ship the game with a couple of TSR crap that you will be prompted to pay for upon installation.

...and change the package format :(

Yeah, we've been talking about that. As of Kate (Parsimonious)'s article, the advershit is gone. At least as of now, supposedly due to the public outcry. More like they couldn't sell enough to justify the coding time but figured they'd say it was for the fanbase to save ass.

EAxis has to get the game to a point where bugs and glitches won't be noticeable by what they consider their typical fan (tween, dumb as a box of rocks, obsessed with twins and Bella) for at least a month. For your non-dumbass, that's about 24 hours.

Worse still are the people who seem to be under the delusional belief that some show-stopping glitches are features (and I don't mean in a sarcastic way.)

I find it shocking that they even consider delaying the game at all.  We all know they never bothered testing or holding back any of the sims 2 EP's/Shit Packs Stuff Packs.  As shocking as it is maybe it means they might actually be testing the game this time round?

Also as far as i can find out it seems the games being made by EA Redwood Shores and NOT Maxis.  Not sure if it makes any difference since its all part of EA but one devision might be slightly less shitty than the other?

Yes and all that hassle trying to work out the file formats to make a modding tool, with EA giving less and less developer help as time goes by.  It's beginning to feel like more fun to simply make a new, slicker, set of modding tools for Sims 2 and stick to that.   I just need someone to find out how to kill the gurning and whistling because that's what's putting me off playing Sims 2 mainly.

Yes, if we could only get modders interested in making custom animations for something other than sim pr0n...

Then, maybe, I can has face in rake for really reals?

I'm really not sure if this indicates anything good or not. From what I understand, the base game was also delayed more than once before they finally released it, and it still seemed pretty buggy. (The random choking death of pregnant sims was my particular favorite. Pretty sure that was in the base game.)

I'd assume they have to make more of an effort with the base games, it wouldn't be good business to piss your community off before you got the franchise started.

The pregnant sim death was caused by taking her to a community lot, wasn't it?

New poll at Snooty Sims is hilarious:


Where's the "it doesn't make a damn bit of difference because it's going to be full of bugs regardless" option?

Something else that really bothers me about Sims 3 is the fact that EVERY sim gets a cell phone.... whether you like it or not.

At least with Sims 2, we get a choice.  So, for players that want to create sims out in the boonies, they don't have to give sims phones.  Either they have to rely on going out to town center or something to socialize and "maybe" meet their friends, or they just socialize with family.

I keep noticing that with Sims 3, more and more choices that we used to have and took for granted from Sims and Sims 2 are now being taken away, and EA is telling us how we should be playing it.

Forget arranging your town/city the way you want.  We know what's best for you, so you're going to play it our way -- EA "says".

The more I think about it, the more it's beginning to piss me off.  This doesn't seem like progress to me.  Maybe that's why they made it a "prequal".  They want to give you LESS choices than the original Sims game.   ::)

That would be fewer choices. Plural nouns take fewer; non-count nouns take less. Also note the spelling of prequel.

Perhaps the choice will now be what make/model and which network to connect to...

I really, really hope they have dropped the in-game advertising crap; I go out of my way to avoid it in real life so don't expect to be hit with it in a computer game.

As least the people are not responding like morons. I am very concerned about the (as of my voting) 389 people who do not care about game bugs and are just itching to spend money on something that does not work. I equate it to all the people who went running out to get Windows Vista. "Ooh! It's new and shiny! Let's run to the nearest store to get Micro$oft's newest monopolistic endeavour."

ETA: I have got lips!  :-*
      

Maybe the people who voted for the first option just know it will have bugs regardless so it's better to get it sooner rather than later. Plus, there's all those people who claim not to have any of the bugs in the game.

I think this is just a reflection of cultural trends. And sims life in general, because when your lifespan is about 30 days, you don't have time to walk to a phone. Or perhaps because people just tend to shiftclick and pick Give Cell Phone, ironically because braving the horrid lot load times to go to a community lot tended to make it not worth the hassle, something TS3 is supposed to eliminate (by making the entire GAME lag instead).

I have never played a game in my entire life that has taken so long to load.  To the point where I never, ever change lots.  Once I am in a particular lot, I stay there, until I am done playing the game.  The load times killed me.  I would wander off to do laundry, clean the toilet, run a marathon, and forget...sometimes coming back to a lot full of almost dead sims because no one wants to cook.  So do I understand correctly that FOJ believes TS3 will be laggy through and through?  I do not think I can handle any more sloooow.  I am anxious to hear reports from all the sheeple who rush right out to buy.  If the game play is slow, I'll skip it.

P&L at the bawl's long load times. On Addison, changing to a community lot takes about a minute and a half on my normal account. Couple seconds on the test account. Load times don't annoy me. The insistence that sims have on walking to the freaking mailbox or phone and their propensity to always appear on the side farthest for me that pisses me off. That and patrons deciding to jump rope in my tiny 1x1 salon.

To be fair, I could install TS2 on new computer, and would not have this problem.  I have been waiting on TS3, however, as lame as that sounds.  If TS3 is not deemed worthy, I will transfer TS2 over, because I probably would play if it were not for the extreme slowness of playing it on computer that is old...and has a long beard.

Long load times spoil my enjoyment of the game too.  Unless I'm playing a single sim in a starter home, or some other uncomplicated family, I also tend to stay on one lot. After some hours of playing a 5 sim, 3 pet family with a garden, a home business & puppies on the way, I'm about ready to tear my hair out at the lag.  Clearing the gossip out of a hood helps, so does quitting and rebooting the PC, but it's a pain.

Sounds to me like Sims 3 is going to force you to play one story to the death or go swap lots schitzophrenically(?) to keep up with multiple stories.  I'd bet the single 'hood is going to lag like crazy once you add more than a handful of your own complicated sims.

It sounds to me from the spec as if my PC won't run sims3 anyway - I have old style PCI slots & the list of supported cards doesn't look to include any.  I'm not buying a new PC, to put Securom straight on it!

I used to have long load times... then I asploded my custom content. If you're very, very picky about what you put in your game, it runs much, much faster.

also, moar ramz! I now have the maximum amount XP will handle and my game runs so much better. no more random crashings or triangles of doom! :D

Ah, yes, RAMZ.

Thank you, MOAR RAMZ, for allowing my game to run a full lot in Winter, without it chugging down to the speed of an epileptic turtle...

Mine just chugs for a couple seconds when the snow state changes or someone gets a sunburn. Also before my first appearance change of the day. Dumb salons. I'm back up to 3 gigs of cc, compressed, because I have no self control. Phoenix_phaerie and her blasted manor house set.

I guess the cell phone thing makes sense when you figure that sims (playable and non) will be running all over the 'hood at all hours. Otherwise you might never get anyone on the phone. I personally never give my sims a cell, but that's just because I don't see the point. For role-players who like having medieval 'hoods, this is going to suck balls.

Don't worry, Zazazu, one the EPs will be a medieval neghborhood we can play with! Complete with new template/townies, and no matter what you do, your sims will marry into the royal family!

They can inbreed themselves!

Already working on that. xD  I'd do a story, but I think people would be up in arms or some bullshit. XD Maybe I should do it anyways, to piss people off. :D

DO IT FOR THE LULZ.

Whereas a complete set of Maxis appliances and furniture is now going to be possible, Maxis fails at understanding what Sim players want if they are making it difficult to mesh and do default replacements. Before I even loaded up Sims 2, I hunted down skin / eye / makeup default replacements, because I find the Maxis aesthetic hideous.

Also, not everyone subscribes to the Atwa aesthetic of making an entire room one colour / one pattern and floodfilling everything.

If it is even going to be difficult to import your own texture, so you don't get green and orange tiger stripe and yellow and pink polka dot options and the usual Maxis fug, that's an even bigger fail.

FAIL on the laziness regarding the car animations, where they no longer bother to back it out of the driveway for you, but make it *poof* in and out of existence instead.

FAIL on community lots that are big empty rectangles.

FAIL on only one, unchangeable, base 'hood. We like having different "worlds" to play.

Also, only piloting one primary family (if that is the case) is fail. We play multiple families because the storylines can vary, and because you can get bored of one family and want to mess with another set of characters instead.

I spend more time "shopping" for CC than I do playing, so they are really being idiotic. I blame their buttbuddy status with TSR. They are trying to circumvent the paysite/freesite argument altogether, I suspect, by making it impossible to offer anything innovative and useful and attractive, so all content in sharable mode is going to be as ugly as your usual TSR crap.

Good: bikes, walking to lots, shoes, fatness, and the personality points sound promising. Not enough to tempt me to play a game with characters that are, by all reports, puffy, ill-proportioned, and  eye-searingly fugly.

How does a company with so many opinionated and knowledgeable players, most of whom are willing to offer advice and assistance with things for free, and who have not embraced the new format wholeheartedly by any means, continue to FAIL so hard?

I wouldn't be surprised to see meshes and everything else we are looking for in the form of expansions.  Assuming the game lasts that long.

The "one neighborhood" thing and the look of the Sims are my biggest turnoffs at this point, although it's all pretty irrelevant since my current laptop won't run the game in the first place.

I LIKE knowing that I can create a custom neighborhood, with no Sims in it at all, and make my own story that's unique to me.  I don't want the EAxis-created DRAMAZ.  Pretty much the first thing I did when I got TS2 way back when was create my own 'hood.  The longest I've played any of the premade 'hoods is my Legacy in Riverblossom Hills, and I haven't played any of the premade families there.  The only premades I've played for longer than it takes to get a handle on a new EP are Gilbert and Malcolm.

I was willing to give CAS the benefit of the doubt, seeing as how, based on the EAxis premades in TS2, it's clear that the EAxis people cannot make unique-looking Sims who are not horribly deformed in some way, and it should be assumed that this would carry over to TS3.  After reading Parsimonious Kate's review of CAS, though, it does not give me hope that the Sims won't be doughy.

Plus, the fact that they seem to be shutting out CC, particularly free CC, does not give me The Happy either.  If I thought the EAxis stuff would be as good as, or better than, the stuff the free creators could produce, I wouldn't be as unhappy about it, but their idea of "tasteful" and "quality" is very different than mine.

I KNOW.  If I made a game, I'd be all over the community for their opinions.  I just don't understand - remember when MaxoidSam was like OMG NVIDIA CRASH? IN MY SIMS 2?  WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL US?  That really made me realise how freaking cut off from the community EA are.


This is also baffling.  Surely, surely, there are many people in that company and SOMEONE at some point said "hey, that sim fell all the way outta the ugly tree huh".

With any luck we'll be able to make a tool to import usermade patterns at least, but I have reason to believe they won't be just normal pngs, it will be something a bit more complicated.

I still want to play it. It will still be better than MYSIMS.

Whether it's solid shit or runny shit, in the end it's still shit and it stinks.

There are good points to the game, like the traits system, separate shoes, being able to make real fat sims and the fact that the water and plants/trees/shrubs look way better. But the sims themselves look bad, mainly because of the eyes, skintones, makeup, etc and I really can't see myself playing all that long without real custom content. I've gotten so used to using default replacement skintones and eyes, I don't see how I could stand playing without them. And as far as clothing goes, in TS2, I like very few EAxis outfits, and I'm sure that won't change with TS3, so I'll probably end up with everyone wearing the same couple outfits in different colors.

Roofing textures are still for shit. They can't ever get the scale right.

Someone should force them to work as roofers sometime. Or to photograph houses.

...

Or to beat them until they make something that looks right.

Maybe we'll still be able to pull of default replacements for skintones, but it would probably involve tricking the video card, rather than overriding the game.

moar realistic skins and eyes are usually the first things I go after CC-wise... so... I'm holding out hope. :P

still. ZOMGFATSIMS. (http://nekonoai.mine.nu/emote/eek3run.gif)

How so? I mean, wouldn't it just involve finding the skintones in the game files and replacing them? What's the video card have to do with it? I've never heard of that.

In games that do not include the capability to load override files, a technique used to replace textures involves simply overwriting them inside texture memory.

There was a thread about doing video card fudging to make default replacement skin textures not too long ago. It was deemed too technical for the Lala so I stopped paying attention.


***Or, in other words, Pescado knows how, but didn't want to explain it to a silly Lala type person whom would ask too many questions.

Or he doesn't, and didn't want to try and explain it to someone who might ask too many questions :)

I think this fear is overstated.  I worried about a storyline in which Snowbawl eradicated a bunch of townies, including several children.  I was practically begged encouraged to post it with all haste.  Go and do thou likewise.

I'm familiar with the general principles of how it is done. I have not attempted to put it to practical implementation, but I've seen it done before. It's just not relevant to my interests.

Just a thought in relation to the designers not understanding what the community wants...  The videos I've seen of them show an office full of young people.  I guess that gives them some insight into what teens like in a game, but none whatsoever into what appeals to people twice their age - never mind people twice their age living in Europe, Australia, Japan or wherever. 

A new video is up at a french fan site via Snootysims:
Sims 3 (http://specials.divertissements.fr.msn.com/jeux-video/sims-3.aspx)

It's the usual crap, but there are some new features that they bring up. For example how you can edit the neighbourhood. One thing annoys me though. When the sims get in and out of the car they just show up on the sidewalk, like how the cars vanish. How come they haven't got any animations for such things?? LOL, they claim that the neighbourhood buildings (the ones you can't follow your sims into) are "individual discrete buldings". What the hell is discrete about them?! Aside from the fact that they are little more than a shoebox with a splash of paint on them. And lets not forget the adorable, hacking walk the sims have. [/sarcasm] I'm getting less and less interested in this game the more I see it.

Individual discrete buildings? The 'individual discrete' bit is just saying the same thing twice.

Ok, the techno music and dancing numbers was win. Trying to translate French in my head while someone is speaking English in the background is not.

I kind of wonder where the cars go. Are they put in the sims' asses like their fishing poles?

One of these videos might explain the car thing. In one, it looks like the vehicles poof into and out of existence, and Sims get in and out by vanishing and reappearing, too.

I know a lot of people with this kind of attitude, myself included. Considering the current state of the economy, though, it's an outlook that I'm slowly getting over. It's kind of interesting to compare my friends' attitudes towards purchasing in comparison to, say, my parents, who come from the mindset of "keep it 'til it's no longer functional".

I subscribe to the mindset of "reuse, abuse, misuse". Something is reused until it stops working. Then it is abused until it is clear that no amount of kicking is going to make it work. Then it is misused for things it was never intended to be used for at all.

I use things until they break, which is close to never as long as the item isn't glass. Then, I jerryrig them. My granny cart was free because it was broken. I spent $1.05 on a part and have had it for 11 years.

We're bombarded with advertising day and night to get things that will "improve" our lives-when in fact, they don't improve anything except the advertiser's and manufacturers' wallets.
I go by the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Sims 2 was and is still pretty damned good for a game (once you have it modded to your personal liking, and mine is heavy) and if EA is trying to "fix" it by putting out another game that will require even more modding if they allow it, I think most modders will just give up in frustration for not having any tools at all to work with.
"It's shiny! It's new! It has to be good!"
Sure. Buy into the hype and forget the borkedness that will reign supreme in Sims 3. Don't forget to be nice to those who can fix it properly-for they have the power of god for this. I'm sure Pescado, Delphy and the small army of modders will be just so overjoyed to hit this game with all the sticks they can find.
If only EA had spent half of the time they're wasting on Sims 3 by fixing the problems that exist in Sims 2, they would have had more people playing it and a better game. Instead, they've really dug their own grave, not learning a damned thing in the last 6 years.
Can I say it now? "I told you so!" It will fail miserably and will truly end one of the most profitable franchises in gaming history.
EA has it coming to them. I can't wait to see them go down in flames.

Speaking of old stuff that's still good, yesterday I dug out my old copy of Final Fantasy VII (on four CDs) and, with a million patches, got it up and running on Vista.  Ha ha, Sephiroth, you may have beaten me twelve years ago, but now it's time for a rematch! 

Is there a patch that adds a mouse control to FF7 for PC? I once tried to get into it, good recs and all, but a keyboard-only fighter RPG? You gotta be kidding me.

It's a console game. Why would it use a mouse at all?

I couldn't find any mouse patches but the graphics are supposedly improved and the characters can supposedly have hands now instead of cubes.  (I couldn't get the hands patch to work and I don't remember the old graphics well enough to compare.)  But it wouldn't run at all until I downloaded patches to make the movies play.  Stuff like the motorcycle chase goes by at about 4X the speed it's supposed to.  (Thanks Vista.)

Since you can assign keys to the various commands, maybe a clever person could map them onto a mouse?  Then there is the "joystick" option.  A "joystick" is a primitive tool that apparently people in the olden days used to whittle out of wood. 

I have no idea how  console controller works, but those few console-to-PC games I played did have mouse control, hence it is technically possible to make a mouse-enabled adaptation...unless that FF7 is a Dosbox type console emulation thingy rather than standalone product.

In my version of the story, Sim A is the time-travelling ghost of Michael Bachelor, and he's the father and the brother of the Strangetown Bella but only the brother to Pleasantview Bella.  The Bella's would be dizygotic twins from two ova and sperm from two different fathers, perhaps by Jocasta Bachelor having simultaneous woohoo with Michael's ghost and Simis Bachelor.  Ew?

It's a turn based game.  It's not that hard to play with a keyboard.  The big dragon will wait patiently for it's turn to come up after you've told your characters to hit it with their swords.

When strategy is not required, you can just place a heavy object on the enter key, and your presence is not required either.

FFVIII Strategy:

1. Cast sleep.
2. Draw Magic from enemy.
3. Wrap rubber band around the O button.
4. Walk Away for two hours.
5. ???
6. PROFIT!

Yes.  This differed from the FFVII strategy though:

1.  Equip one character with Knights of the Round + HP Absorb.
2.  Equip all characters with Mime.
3.  Chain cast 5+ minute long summon spell
4.  ???
5.  PROFIT!!!

LOL honestly. Once you've seen a summon once, do you really need to see the same sequence every single f'n time after that? bleh. ;)

I've only played a couple of mouseless minutes. There was my avatar on some train, literally on, then some dudes popped up out of nowhere and started bashing the pixel guy, I couldn't find a key combination that would hit them, plus maneuvring when you can only move on two axes (as in plural for 'axis'. Not stereotypical dwarfish cutlery) is kind of tricky, plus no pause, plus truly horrifying music...so it was enough for me to decide that maybe the fabled plot wasn't really worth it.

The review on Parsimonious definitely caught my interest, but especially after reading the bit about Create-A-Sim (we can't customize eyes other than color? WTF?), I'm just going to sit back and wait and see how things play out.

My impression now is the TS3 is largely being marketed as the Sims game in which you can't do anything that most long-term sims players have come to count on doing.

EA: "We have heard and understood the desires and petitions of you, the gamers, and have therefore decided to deliver a new game in which you can do none of those things."

They did that when they ruined sim city, with simcity societies too.  They wanted to attract people who weren't into sim city, and managed to alienate most of their current simcity fan base.  You'd think they'd learn from their previous mistake?  

Fake Edit:
Never mind, I nearly forgot that we were talking about EA games.

Oh crap.  I was looking forward to playing it later this month.  Still at least it gives them a chance to eliminate some of the worst bugs.

Are you serious?

...and create some others to take their place.

Actually, I'm rather glad it isn't going to be out yet. I'm not done with TS2 yet, by any means. I am still enjoying playing it and what I've seen of TS3 looks really discouraging.

Yes, I like the sound of TS3.  The traits sound much better than the current personality system and I prefer the seamless neighbourhood.  I'm not really a micromanager and I would prefer that families, that I'm not playing, age themselves.  Obviously it does depend on exactly how they've implemented these elements and they may have fucked that up.

Well, I'm not surprised they delayed it, since I was kind of expecting one. I am surprised they delayed it all the way until June, however. Why such a long wait, I wonder? It's not like they showed a lot of concern for TS2 bugs, at least in the EPs.

I'm not surprised. When you've got people saying "I wouldn't even pirate that!" it pays to take another look at it, and at least try to squash a few more bugs. (Or be seen to be trying, because that's just as good, right?)

At this point, well, I wouldn't even pirate that. They've got to do something amazing between now and then. I started out willing, nay, determined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but each new snippet of information has just ground that right into the dirt. Not worth the bandwidth.

Coming next: a remake of SimFarm in which you cannot farm!

I think the most amusing thing is that EA appears to have released this info slightly prematurely and so took it back down again.  Now the BBS is going mad (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=4284ff99a8aa040fcd87e5a1c6bc25dc&directoryID=225&startRow=1&openItemID=item.225,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23).

Funny comments. Someone is choosing to believe it will be out on 20th. Must be like choosing to believe in intelligent design.


lollollollollollollol

Someone else is looking for an articel, I hope they find one, whatever that may be.

Yes, because a press release on the official site is totally not proof.

My hope is that part of the reason they are delaying four months instead of the one I would have expected is because they are adding neighborhood creation tools. That is what I would need to actually want to acquire it. I don't actually expect that to be the case. No. I'm sure they'll squash a couple bugs, create two game-killing ones in the process, and find some new shiny feature that will appeal to the tweens...ooh! I know! Free automatic plastic surgery at teen stage. Bigger boobs and nose jobs, whether you like it or not.

EDIT: Release seems to be pulled now.

I like this response best in the thread discussing the Fiscal Quarter News (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=2ba2f9cb81b9ddd11489c2a79869034c&directoryID=225&startRow=1&openItemID=item.225,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23).

Ah, the case of the wandering "o"s. Gotta watch them letters, slippery little bastids.

As it is, EA posted a very huge loss for the last quarter, which was posted today.They're laying off an additional 1,000 people in the wake of a very disappointing Christmas season, and that will make the release delay even longer. When you have nobody testing it, or working out the bugs, you have to push the release date back a little bit.
June 2 is the most optimistic date they've given. I'm of the mind that it might be until September, given their financial woes, or longer. They have to do something drastic to improve the quality so that they can have some sales when it is released-as it is right now a huge number of Sims 2 players are turned right off by the "features" that Sims 3 has been given, and thus the sales are not going to improve unless the quality does.
They're just very desperate for some more money, anyway they can get it. They have to have this game sell well enough to show their investors and stockholders that they're a viable company, and not get put into a Chapter 11 routine by force.

To be fair, 20010 would be a bit of a wait.

I laughed, but suddenly I'm concerned. That '20010' thing, the 12 probably thinks that's the correct way to write it. Horrifying thought.

Think about it, a 12 would have been born in the 90s, 1991-1997, give or take a year depending on month of birth. Their only decade change thus far would have been to 2000. 2001, 2002 ... 2008, 2009, 20010... It must seem perfectly logical, to a 12.

(Also, it's ever so slightly disturbing to think of people on the internet being born in the 90s, especially the latter half of them. It makes me feel old, though I'm only a 24 myself.)

24 and complaining... sheesh.  Kiddo, we could still get you into the babby roaster.   :P

Or perhaps the person who wrote it made a typo. You never know.
*Tsarina feels really weird for defending a BBSer.

Good god what the hell could possibly take an extra 3 months?  These people couldn't make a game without bugs if they had a lifetime to work on it.  They're better off releasing it now and letting the talented people fix the bugs like JM.  I bet in 3 months they'll achieve virtually nothing where as JM would take mere DAYS to fix the bugs.

Edit: By the way anyone looked at the official forum?  The sheep are going insane.

Yeah, and Snooty Sims melted. If it comes back up, I recommend it, many funny people there, bring pop corn.

Their 2009 fiscal year ends on March 31, and 2010 fiscal year starts April 1, 2009.

That is what the delay is for-their accounting. Any losses for the game would be put into next year's sheets. Doesn't mean really that they're going to improve anything. I think it's for the figures and making the stockholders happy.

In short-same old borked game, different day.

I wish they hadn't quit working on Sims 2.  We could've had another "borked" EP to play around with by now.  I had hoped awhile ago that they wouldn't quit at Apartment Life, because more can be done with Sims 2.  Superstar would have been great for Sims 2.

I hated Superstar and was thrilled when they didn't release it for TS2. :P The creepy obsessive fan? Urgh.

I thought the Obsessed Fan was funny..... well, and creepy.  I read somewhere that the character was based on someone in the Maxis staff -- which again is creepy.  Maybe it's Rod Humble in disguise?  Or perhaps that's him in his true form.

"EWWWWWW!!!!!!  BUY MY NEW SIMS GAME!  IT'S SO UBER COOL AND U WANTZ MOAR!  EEEEEEHHHHHH"

(As he's jumping up and down making gasping sounds)

Had EA made a Superstar expansion pack for The Sims 2, the only reason I'd get it would be for the joy of clicking "Smite {annoying celebrity}" on the batbox.

I miss the Tragic Clown. Does anyone notice it is on the milk carton? Sometimes it's Bella, other times it's him. Anyways enough Nostalgia.

I think they delayed it because the last creators camp didn't do so well. I think the delay is one of the better things to look forward to. Think about it. All the baby, moronic, egotistical, badly dressed, ugly 12's wait the delay for The Sims 3, their whining and expectations growing. Finally to be crushed when they get the game realizing it is crap. But the best part is when their parents start complaining to EA, because their obnoxious, stupid, ignorant monsters didn't get exactly what they wanted.

Their press post is back up.  I'm guessing the idiot who runs the website updated it too early so they had to quickly remove it again although of course by then everyone already knew.

http://thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/newsItem.jsp?item=1183392783


Sounds completely and utterly despicable.  Although it sounds EXACTLY like the kind of thing EA would do.  I doubt many other game companies would push back their release dates to mess with their share prices.

By the way notice how they never once use the word "delay" anywhere ever.  As if it was always going to be June 2.

So that's the market they're aiming for and not actual players of the game.

I agree. I enjoyed replacing the default celeb asshats with my own celeb characters.

I was carrying my dumb immortal fish to new place this morning on the bus. This guy sat down next to me and asked if my tank was my project for a science fair. He seemed serious.


I'm 30.

Take all the time you want, EA.  I'm still waffling on whether to buy Uni or not.  Of course by now it probably comes with Securom.  I shall continue to waffle.

I guess I'm not the target customer.

Oh you gotta be kidding me just saw this on snootysims.


So they're celebrating their delay by putting out a movie and a bunch of screenshots?  Does anyone else find this completely retarded?  Also i think the boxart looks like ass.  The stand in ones they had until now were much better.

The problem isn't so much that the families you're NOT playing age themselves, the problem is that the families you *ARE* playing age themselves so that you cannot play any OTHER families as well. Nobody would mind if it was just the families you DIDN'T play aging themselves, the problem is that you can thus only play one family. :P

I believe they said you can turn off aging for households.  Which means you can more or less play several families without them aging themselves.  Although with how the game is built one does wonder even if aging is off will townies marry or impregnate your sims screwing up their lives?

And this is why punctuation is so important, kids.  Look at how this sentence might mean several different things depending on the simple comma:

1) Although with how the game is built, one does wonder even if aging is off, will townies marry or impregnate your sims, screwing up their lives?

In this example, one only wonders if aging is on, and even if it is off.  One wonders: will townies marry, or would they rather impregnate your sims, thus screwing up your sims' lives.

2) Although, with how the game is built, one does wonder, even if aging is off will townies marry or impregnate your sims, screwing up their lives?

In this example, which is likely what is intended by the sentence, we see that the sentence now means that, given the manner in which the game is built, one wonders whether townies will marry or impregnate one's sims, even if aging is off, thus screwing up their lives.

...and finally (and my personal favourite):

3) Although, with how the game is built, one does wonder even if aging is off, will townies marry, or impregnate your sims screwing up their lives?

This sentence now means: Given the way the game is built, one wonders even if aging is off (presumeably if one ages, one does not wonder?) whether townies will marry (each other?), or will they simply impregnate your sims who are screwing up their lives anyway.

The simple comma.  Learn it.  Love it.  Use it.

Grammar makes my brain explode.  If I understand what you've written i believe it's #2 that i intended.

Why are you people so obsessed with grammar anyway?  Is it a technique for killing trolls?

Trolls, tards, anyone with less than two neurons, et hoc genus omne. Including, apparently, you.

I doubt it is an obsession with grammar. It is simply a matter of being able to communicate properly. If you write coherently, no one will have the need to spork you.

Ahh i see.


Seems like an obsession, anyway as long as i can manage to give the gist of what i intend it's fine.  Besides plenty of people seem to enjoy correcting crappy grammar like mine.


I haven't been active on this forum for years.  I don't even remember making all those posts.

Them's fightin' words.

Yes! Did you not read the press release? EA is excited about this new release date because it will give them more time to promote the game:

Sigh. I was already downloading Mosaic betas before these youngins were born -- and I'm only 28.

Darlin', there is no 28. You are 24.

FAQ describes it quite well.

Not everyone can be born a lolcat.    :(

When I read Parsimonious Kate's review about the "neighborhood aging" thing, the impression I got was that if you toggled the aging so that unplayed families didn't age, NO ONE aged, including the family you WERE playing.  My understanding was that it would be more like TS1, where babies grew up, but then aging was frozen for them.  Adults didn't become Elders, Teens didn't become Adults.  For me, at least, the ideal situation would be one in which aging could be turned off on a house-by-house basis, so that the irritating premades could die alone and unloved, but Sims I cared about could just hang out as they were until I got around to them.  Has anyone else gotten the all-or-none impression about aging?

Of all the things they could have given us, why'd they choose neighborhood aging and doughy Sims over something almost any player would get use out of--namely, a way to clone born-in-game Sims in CAS and package them to the website or to a file, so that we didn't require a third-party program like SimPE to share our pixel people.

Granted, my desire for TS3 was already low, but if this (http://thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/community.jsp?type=event) is the best people can do with respect to making their own SimSelves, I think I might actually have negative desire for the game now.  My TS2 SimSelf might not be a carbon copy, but at least she's recognizable as me!  Those two TS3 SimSelves would be hard to identify as being avatars of actual people.  My first instinct was "albino rhesus macaque" and "Bodie from Locke & Key."

Yes yes I wandered off into the wilderness of reality for a moment.

I agree with the comment that this is looking to be the "SimCity Societies" of The Sims series. There's the same thought process behind it "Let's take everything everybody loves about the previous games and get rid of it, and then we can replace it with new half-assed crap! Everyone will buy it, because we're EA!"

I guess it's a punishment for being so foolish. When they get the game they will realise it doesn't work/is slow/is crap/not as fun as The Sims 2, but when they go back to play they will have realised that they destroyed countless hours of work on the game. When The Sims 2 came out, many people couldn't get it to work very well on their computers and some, like me, kept playing the original game in the mean time. Kind of indicates the level of enjoyment one receives from a game when they erase all trace of it seconds after hearing of a sequel. Especially when they've done it for a clearly inferior sequel...

To be fair, we're talking about the avatars of some simmers whose actual appearances are unknown to us. It's quite possible that they really are that ugly, and most likely really are that fat.

I think it would be a refreshing change to switch from family to family, knowing that life would be carrying on without my intervention.  Even going back to a previously played family after a generation has passed doesn't disturb me.  I'm sure there will be things that piss me off about the reality of this but I think I would be more annoyed if TS3 was just TS2 with better graphics.

I played most of the Sims 2 premade families for a bit, if only to sort their lives out and get them jobs that corresponded with their LTWs etc. None of them caught my fancy enough to want to play them further than that. I would be delighted if they could then carry on by themselves without my intervention, preferably age up and die. The problem is that in Sims 3 they would probably move out to their own houses and continue to reproduce, and you would find your town filling up exponentially with millions of unwanted playables.

Are we taking bets on this type of thing yet?

I am hoping there will be the ability (of course through a hack or something) it create clowncar... because I would create a nice sized clowncar and then let them age, etc on their own while I play someone moar important, like maybe myself, or someone more interesting. It would be interesting to see what really happens to the clowncars when they're left alone. Now, it's kind of tedius to take care of all those sims, because i actually have to go see them if I want them to progress in life.

But I would like the ability to turn off aging by lot, so that if I was looking at someone less important for awhile, the important sims wouldn't do anything foolish.

I'm not shocked that the date was pushed back. Sims 2 was pushed back, wasn't it?

They have a weird fiscal cycle. Don't most places go from July-June? I know we do here, and other places I have worked have been the same. But then, this is EA... so of course they would have a screwy schedule. :P

The Oversoul does not approve of this lack of control. Sims must believe they can make their own choices, but must be kept within bounds. If they are not being closely watched, who will smite Romance sims who can't keep it in their pants after marriage? Who will grilled cheese zombify them when they persist in pursuing everything with a skirt? How will sims know they are not to have more than the perfect number of four children if those who violate the sacred number are not punished immediately, to awake at dawn with all of their children taken away and a plate of roasted babyfat at the door?

This is unacceptable.

We do January - December. Weird, I know. It doesn't seem like many places have their fiscal year on the traditional year marks.

Like I said, I'm going to wait and see how the finished product turns out before I decide whether to acquire it. I feel bad about being interested in it at all, knowing what bullshit EA's likely to pull.

And yes, I got the impression that turning off neighborhood aging was an all-or-nothing deal too. That is unacceptable, and if it does turn out that way, it's a dealbreaker for me.

Edit: Those minimum specs could be a problem too. My computer doesn't quite meet the ones it puts up for Vista, although it runs Sims 2 + all EPs excellently so who knows...
(Sigh. The constantly climbing requirements for gaming PCs are why I'm mainly a console gamer.)

It would make playing a MATY hood that had more than one playable household almost impossible, I would think.  All of MATY could conceivably age and die within one rotation.

On the other hand, it would increase the lulz of random events occurrences (i.e. after playing the Lorelei house for 5 sim days, and then moving on to the Jelenedra house, one discovers that Jelenedra has had 3 kids, Khan (her husband) has left her to move in with Tigerlilley, and the Charlatan has moved in, potentially causing a BFBVFS).

lmfao Jolrei XD

I like the idea of universal aging also and seamless neighborhood.  It's a new way to play, and a new way of thinking.  I don't like many other things about Sims 3, though, which as been beaten enough to death.

Multiple families would be great ** IF ** we could create multiple neighborhoods that were different from each other.  For multiple families within the same neighborhood, it would be fun to create families that you don't have much intention to play much or at all -- just to see what they do.

I'm thinking that I'll probably play a main famiily, turn aging off to check out another family and make choices, then go back to my main family and turn aging back on.

If you're playing multiple households in a rotation, I would imagine the best method would be to turn aging off, play all families but one for a specific length of time each, then turn aging on and play the final family for the same period. This doesn't prevent sims from doing things you don't want when not being played, but it does keep aging in sync without provoking rapid deaths.

You should probably set the maximum sim age on the low setting (25?) to compensate for the bonus days.

Then it's a good thing my modding skills are rank beginner, then, because all the ideas I have for mods would infuriate you. They're all about introducing spontaneous actions and events into sims lives to cause CHAOS. Because that would make playing the game more of a challenge.

That's why the Sims 3 doesn't look too bad to me, at least in terms of sims' lives progressing when not watched. The trait system seems OK, too. It's the locking down of moddability and the promise of ultraslow gameplay on my ancient machine that bothers me. Oh, and the new, improved SecuROM.

For me, the "doughiness" in the facial features isn't about fatness.  The faces just don't move right.  To me, TS2 Sims look like cartoon versions of real people, so the fact that the faces don't always move naturally isn't a problem, because you don't expect cartoons to obey the laws of nature.  The TS3 Sims look more like someone tried to make a real person out of a cartoon, and that's where the weirdness comes in for me.  The faces are just real enough that the cartooniness doesn't work, but still too cartoony to be real, and the whole thing comes off as slightly creepy.

Aside from that, given the limitations of recreating yourself in Sim form, SimSelves often look LESS odd than the actual person, at least if you're creating a SimSelf keeping the possibility of breeding in the back of your mind.  So if those two TS3 SimSelves are somewhat idealized versions of themselves, I weep for their actual appearance.

Yes, I imagine that if/when we all start doing things with TS3, it will only be a matter of time before workarounds are found for a number of "annoyances".  The community time issue is likely one of the least troublesome, as you have noted.

I also gathered that aging on/off was all or nothing. But I am also sure I read at Parsimonious, that you can have multiples of the same neighborhood. Like parallel universes, so I guess I will just have 1 family in each that I care about.

Yes - the one thing that is still making me consider acquiring TS3 is that if the AI is good enough there is a definite possibility for lulz.  In fact, I'd probably enjoy just creating a neighborhood full of sims with incompatible personality traits and just sitting back and watching them make drama, but it would probably not be lulzy for long enough to merit the time it takes to torrent, and I have little faith that the AI would actually be that good.  And, when you get down to it, the reason for all the hours I've put into TS2 is that I actually start to care about what happens to the sims and try to write a unique story for most of them.  If these sims are going to be doing their own thing when I'm not watching them, I doubt I'd really start to care about their lives that much.

I'm just not even thinking of Sims 3 as a sequel to Sims 2. For me, it's better to think of it as a completely different game. I will keep playing TS2, of course, but I will ARR TS3 and play that as well. Keeping them separate in my mind keeps me from being pissed off about all the shit they're doing to TS3.

Chaos is allowable. Chaos can be fun. However, if I'm not able to view things as they happen, punishment (and the occasional reward) cannot be doled out properly. I pretty much let my sims do what they want, but actions which go against the mores of their community are punished severely. It makes me giggle.

I'm not even going to bother touching this game.

Suck-u-rom, gamebreaking glitches on end, crashes etc.

I don't want that on my computer.

(http://schoolbus.tv/files/mugi/other_images/20071226_nothankyou.jpg)

It'll be interesting to have a matytown reset... (and even more interesting to have an awesomeland reset) for ts3.

You know, looking over one of those L&P videos with the sims just fading in out of the cars REALLY reminds me of Societies, because that's exactly what happens in Societies, too. TS3 really *IS* Sims Societies.

I figured they were just finally putting out Simsville.

You'll probably find they borrowed bits from all sorts of their games as a shortcut.  Why reinvent the wheel?  I wish they borrowed the water from that sailing sim I had.

Same here. Although I notice they did away with the idea of *all* buildings being rabbit holes, including the homes. Also, I don't remember if sims in Simsville were supposed to leave their lots or not. I only remember that there was a dog roaming from lot to lot.

I had a lot of hopes for Simsville, but it certainly sounded boring the way they described it. Kind of like Sims 3.

It did look interesting, but they said it seemed too boring. Maxis had the ingenuity to put it to rest before they made a mistake. EA only thinks "Oh unreleased game? We'll mix it with shit, slap The Sims label on it and sell it. Damn the consequences!"

I was pleased to hear of their $641m loss though. They had that one coming for a long time.

Sounds like you are describing "Spore", except they really did release it.  Or perhaps EA did and said "Damn the consequences!"

I figured that EA games didn't think there would be consequences.

"Put a sims or simcity label on it and they will buy it.  It's not like we have thinking and discriminating customers or anything."

Er, no they don't, and EA knows this very well. You oughta see Snooty Sims' forum-full of "ohmygodhowamIgonnasurvive 4 four monthz!" wailing all over the damned place about the delayed release of Sims 3.

I made the mistake of pointing out that if that was the worst thing that ever happened to one, they were lucky. Shouldn't have, because all the 12s' went apeshit saying "oh, no...you just don't unnerstand me...I'm a speshul snowflake with all kinds of speshul life events...waaaah!"

These are people who are going to be voting in a few years, if they aren't already. God help us all!

Hey, EA Games listens to its players, and they will put in Sims3 the things they like the most. There will be triplets, in TS3, right?  ::)

If anyone happens to have any imaginary Sims 3 packages lying around, this viewer http://www.simlogical.info/Sims3ToolsForum/index.php?topic=17.0 will help you see what is in them.   Also copes with Spore packages.

Found this gem of information on the games different options:
Alala Sims (http://alalasims.com/thesims/thesims3/eventovip_en.php)

It's actually quite extensive. But I still ask myself, why are there no pool diving boards? Is that such a hard thing to do? And apparently we can have sims with skin colors such as blue or pink, but they're pretty much good for nothing. No vampires, no aliens, nothing.

So a method of killing sims that was available in TS1 & TS2 is gone for TS3 :(

I am sure there will still be FIRE.

It's more likely that they're trying to concentrate their losses in FY2009 with the hope that FY2010 will show a profit.  Basically, if you already know that you're going to be under water in a given fiscal year then it's to your advantage to take all your losses in that year and defer (potential) profits to the next year.  If it works out then you can tell investors "yes, we lost money in FY2009 but look how we bounced back in FY2010!"

TS3 will sell well, no doubt, because there are so many players who will buy any Sims game just to give it a try.  Whatever I may think of EA's technical and creative decisions, I have to admit that pushing out the release of TS3 was probably a good business decision.

From AlalaSims.com:
This:


and this:


If pregnancy is anything like it is in the Sims 2, then it's a major do not want. I imagine me never getting Sims pregnant in 3 if it is.

I wonder if there will be an in-game cheat object, like the tombstone in TS2, which allows a player to accelerate pregnancies.

No there won't be. Haven't you been paying attention? The sims are now smart and take care of their needs. They do not need to be babysat or rescued from their own stupidity. Therefore, locking them in a closet with nothing but a bbq is not going to work anymore. They'll probably whip an axe out of their butt and knock a hole in the wall to escape.

Doubt that. More likely the MOAR PEE that Rod Humble has repeatedly promised us will come into play, as the sims pee themselves out like Brynne.

This is an interesting idea, but ... does it only affect the baby's behavior as a baby?  I do not want babies whose personality for their WHOLE LIVES is entirely determined by mom's mood while pregnant.  I would have a lot of bland, boring, well-behaved sims.

I wouldn't worry about it. The facility to edit all that will almost certainly emerge early.

It will if you have anything to do with it.  ;D

At last count, Pescado wasn't writing the modding tools.

Your count is wrong, then, because I'm definitely interested in the subject. I just never got into it in TS2 because by the time I noticed, there was already an existing set. My specialty does tend to be "take it and run with it", as opposed to "writing things from scratch", though. I'm not the best at starting a coding project, but if someone has a base from which to start, I AM very good at taking it and running with it in a spree of furious coding.

From what I've read, bad mood during pregnancies will push the kids' traits to "evil", but I hope there will be other ways to get mean sims, like neglecting them during childhood or just encouraging them.
As for the pee obsession: One of the achievement boni (?) is called "iron bladder" - I think there must be a reason why such a bonus even exists.

Ah, streets lined with puddles.   Yay.

I'm wondering what sorts of epidemics will inadvertently come with the seamless neighborhood.  I left a lot running overnight once and returned to find the whole hood sick with trashroachian flu.  With everyone's aging on, that's your apocolypse challenge right there.  Or there might be non-lethal epidemics - walking out of the house one day to find that every Sim in the neighborhood has learned an often-inappropriate gesture or song, like the "hang loose" alien brainwashing just set in.

Turns out the game was delayed simply so they can "market it better."

They must be getting worried...  ::)

A source or a link, please.

That rumour was doing the rounds at the BBS, IIRC.

It's pretty obvious that the delay is simply because the game is not even nearly ready for release.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thesims3/news.html?sid=6204057&mode=news

JR mentioned it in a conference call to analysts: "In the case of The Sims 3, Riccitiello said, "We see this as being one of the most important launches in our company's history, and certainly in the upcoming fiscal year." He added that the delay was called in the interest of investing more time and effort to make the marketing campaign for the game more innovative."

I too personally think it's because it's in an unfit state for release (but since when has that ever stopped them before?) but then again, something like this seems very typically EA.

It's probably a combination of "too buggy even for EA to release" and "have already written 2009 off as a loss for the fiscal year due to Spore, and want to push Sims 3 to the 2010 fiscal year."  Sadly, that was my first thought when they announced the delay, particularly a delay of that duration.

I know someone who works retail. She didn't even know about the delay yet. In fact, they have it in their back room, just waiting to be put on shelves.

If stores already have it... I doubt it's for any game-changing purpose, unless they want a patch on release.

That is just... scary. *Envisions EA as a gigantic vampire sucking all life out of it's merchandise*

Show of hands: How many of you want to bet that there is going to be another Sims 2 expansionpack before Sims 3 come out?

EA has said no--the extra time is going to be spent working on Sims 3.

And besides, everyone would be pissed off. Especially the modders.

If this is true, and not a mistake or simply bullshit, it would be a massive DISASTER, because there is only so long it can sit in the back room before someone pirates it, and a pirate version *4 MONTHS* before the release of the actual game would DESTROY sales.

Pix or it didn't happen.

If that is the case, it's only a matter of time before someone gets a copy. I know when I worked at Toys R Us, some of the new employees would sell the games in the back that weren't supposed to be officially released, to customers if they asked for them. And some employees would buy them before the release date too, especially when the store manager wasn't around. And there's always the slight chance of some employee at some store walking out with a copy hidden on them. I wonder though, if the game leaks this far ahead of the release date, would EA just ignore it and pretend it didn't happen, or would they rush to release the game to get whatever sales they can before it's too late?

EA makes their share of mistakes, but not allowing customers to give them money for something is not the sort of thing they'd come up with.

I'm guessing that the reason for the delay is the obvious one - that a major part of the game is so incomplete that they can't even pretend that it's ready.

If the delay is strictly to jockey around earnings, it seems to me that they'd release it as soon as possible after their fiscal year ends on March 31.

If it's to "come up with an innovative marketing strategy," who in the Sims world is unaware of the game, and who else would they reach in four months that they haven't already reached?

This would be awesome. I'd laugh harder than when I watch Bill Cosby: Himself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs0cYJUqJys&feature=related) Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey!.

In the game manufacturer's world, isn't there such a thing as "going gold", which indicates the game being released is about to get pressed into DVD or CD format?
EA would undoubtedly advertise that fact.
I think your friend might be mistaken, and is confusing another game for the Sims 3 game-which has not been manufactured yet-by even EA's sloppy standards.
It would truly be a disaster if this was the case-as Pescado pointed out, a pirated copy of it available four months before the actual release would swamp EA's sales under the water.
I'm sure that the master copies are very safely tucked away in a vault somewhere-and nobody but senior people even get to look at it.
They're guarding the crown jewels very carefully, I daresay. They can't afford anything less.

To be fair, the advertising for TS3 has been kind of shoddy compared to what they did for TS2. The television commercials in particular come to mind, since I haven't seen anything that widespread for TS3 yet. Maybe that's what they're aiming for between now and June. *shrug*

LOL!

That's the name of the Best Toy Ever Discovered By Ferretkind.

A portrait:
(http://i43.tinypic.com/wujcdc.jpg)

A short sample of the sound that drives them wild with glee:
http://www.4shared.com/file/85142142/cf52c596/Jeffrey_Toy.html

You're the first person I've met who might have figured out the reference from whence Jeffrey the Toy's moniker came.

I kinda hope she is wrong. I haven't had a chance to ask for clarification/pics yet, but I'll be doing so the next chance I get.

She works at a Wal-Mart in the electronics section, so... She's in the right spot to look out for it. And part of her job would be stocking it. I admit that I was extremely surprised when she said that she hadn't even heard of the delay and that they had it ready to do.

Maybe your friend is thinking about SimAnimals?  Isnt that new?   ???

She is most likely a stupid person. I mean, she works at Walmart. Anything with a "Sims" label probably looks the same to her.

She's probably sitting on a stack of pre-order boxes.

I suppose people get easily confused with so many sims titles. The torrent I downloaded with Pet Stories - from 2005 I think - was labelled The Sims 3.  ::)

My daughter works in retail too, in the electronics section and she has seen no Sims 3. Of course, we are in the UK so supply and demand might be different here. She says they usually get pre-orders of new games about 5-10 days before release, so she said she will keep an eye out for it. She deals with stock control and ordering (which is basically just ticking off and writing the amount needed of certain items) and Sims 3 hasn't even been on the list yet.

Actually, she might be seeing the advertising "empty boxes" that will go up when the Sims 3 is officially announced-they're usually put up all over the electronics department when the game is released in order to advertise the fact that it is available for sale.
Or then again, she could be just confusing one label for another game. There isn't that much difference between the UK store supply and demand procedures from ours. Just a matter of days between the two.

From Snooty sims: http://www.snootysims.com/thesims3/screens/thesims3-104.jpg
Is it me or is that hideous?

I think it's intended to be hideous.

And thanks for reminding me that I won't have an "adult clothes for elders" mod in TS3.  Another reason not to rush into it when it's released.

Wasn't that supposed to be a fake vampire family? And yeah, she/it is hideous allright. I looks as though she has a black hole in her forehead. Is it a headband or a case of bad hairday/haircut?

I would say both. Awful headband and terrible hair. But that dress is perhaps the fugliest of all.

FWIW, Walmart's website has the release date set as June 2, just like Amazon; I seriously doubt they have a stockpile of the game sitting in their backrooms.

I'll assume she is mistaken and is actually sitting on a pile of empty boxes.

Dear god, what IS that thing? That hair is god-awful and that makeup probably required a trowel to apply!

Ask her to take a peek inside, just in case those ARE Sims 3 games and were intended for sale, until someone at EA finally saw the light and decided that they should not be sold until the game could be fixed up a bit. ::)

Okay, so I guess I'm getting into this L&P now.  Just wanted to go through some of this Alala Sims stuff.


Does this mean Uni got rolled into the TS3 base game?


This is kind of neat.  Should make for some interesting genetics.


Proper shoes and no sandals.  I approve.


The ESL is a little confusing.  Does this mean there's five LTWs?


DARK TREPIE IS DARK


Finally.  The forgotten, neglected step child known as Create a Student makes it's triumphant return.


My Aquarius is sad.


Invisible cricket balls.


So this hood is somewhere in the southeast U.S.?


No wai!


Wut?


How is Brandi supposed to kill Skip now?


Your video cards will a'splode.


I will expect an invisible recolor of the bike the day this game ships.


You can tell by the way I use my walk that I'm a woman's man.  No time to talk.


DARK TREPIE IS DARK


Oh sweet, merciful Jeebus...


DARK TREPIE IS DARK


Moar Bella theories.  Does she live in that house, up on that hill, near that river?


Hur.  Bugersnot.

Is this the toy you talked about?
(http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn65/AnnaTingeling/groanhammer.jpg)

No.  It implies prostitution.  YAs will apparently be prostitutes ("on the game").


Now we have to have servos in TS3.  Hordes of lethal white Krikket Battle Robots, who love sport, music, family life, pets, nature, and the obliteration of all other living things.


See my previous comment on Krikket robots.


WAI!


Perhaps you can set the base square and the upper floor destination square by stretching the stairs.  That would be quite useful.


No further comment.

@ Honorable Aide: Yep, that's it! But I found mine for five cents in a thrift. :)

@ Dark Trepie: LOL, INVISIBLE BIKE!

Funny Trepie is Funny. :D

No, we will not has university right off. Look for that in an expansion pack... or don't. (how well did that sell anyway?)

And yes, we must has invisible bikes! :D

The young adults are basically the adults now in TS2, and the adults are a "middle age" group, which several people have been asking for. I'm glad they put another age group between adult and elder, because in TS2, it doesn't make much sense for them to be in their 20's one day, and the next, they're suddenly in their 70's. The adults in TS3 will supposedly have wrinkles and will look older than the young adults. But college won't be in the game, so I'm sure they'll remake it for one of the EPs for TS3.

Did you see the new pregnancy picture?
If you scroll down to the bottom of the article, you can find the picture...

http://kotaku.com/5149307/knocked-up-a-look-at-pregnancy-in-video-games

Doesn't look that bad to me.

You know what cracks me up about that article? (Other than "Ghost babies? GHOST BABIES?")? They keep talking about how it gives kids a false sense of what is involved in pregnancy, as if games would be the only exposure they have to it. Talk about unrealistic.

Wait a second. So in TS3, if you watch a certain TV channel, it affects how many babbys the sim will have? Gee, that sounds realistic.

Floopy farts hearts at jolrei. Feel the DNA lurve.

Expect the expansion pack, because it will need hardly any work this time. All they need for college now is a way to mark a sim as "going to college" and one of those rabbit-hole buildings to represent the college. Enroll a sim in college by clicking on the building. The building itself could probably contain the code to handle grade calculations. Much less work than Sims 2 Uni. So, if EA has a choice between releasing an original expansion pack that requires a lot of work, and one that requires hardly any, which do you think they'll go with first?

Can't wait to have a pregnant sim skip to the hospital - or those invisible bikes would work nicely.

I suspect that those rabbit-hole buildings are placeholders for expansion packs.

Early interviews with Rod Humble suggested that some may indeed become real buildings instead of rabbit-holes in some future expansion pack. For example, stores. On the other hand, there's one rabbit-hole for each career; I doubt some of the careers, like the business track, will be turned into full expansion packs.

I don't see Going To Work becoming an EP. Who wants to go from watching their sim pee at home to peeing at work instead?

The same people who purchased Open for Business?

That's a bit different. That's not like watching your sim go to work in an office.

I was initially not that hot on OFB, but, since I've purchased it, I've realised it really is my favourite EP.

That said, I am so not interested in seeing what goes on at my Sims' day to day jobs. If I wanted to see my Sims being bossed around, I'd be bossing them around. All 'going to work' would do would be to interrupt the flow of bossing.

Besides, how would that even work? Different sims are in different careers, and all. I can just imagine trying to follow 8 sims through their individual but coincidentally 9-5 Mon-Fri jobs. No thanks!

OFB is the best expansion to abuse because it offers more control over the formerly useless community lots. The actual BUSINESSING is repetitive, and the default EAxis code for running one is horrid beyond all usability. Without Awesomeware, OFB is simply crap, offering nothing but frustration and irritation, but WITH Awesomeware, it is shiny.

That's true, and with Notovny's factories, it is even easy to sell craftables for Profit!

The only things that are completely shit and beyond repair (even with FFS stuff installed) in my opinion, are multi-family apartments. I can never play them for long without problems occurring. I like my sims having rented single-unit houses though, I never have problems with those.

actually, i would like the choice to follow my sim to  work... if only for the opportunity to have an affair with the secretary/coworker. :D

Judging from Ben Bell's explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMDssQV2Q7k&feature=channel

Quote: "You have complete control of the family that you play in the game, and all the other characters are really part of the setting....We've got AI that drives all the other characters forward, so that....all the stories that you are trying to tell are possible." (This section starts at 1:09.)

Playing multiple families in a hood, as most of us enjoy doing, does not seem possible. Yes, you can save multiple copies of the game, but once you go off to play another family, your original played family will not stay the same. What's the point?

"so that....all the stories that you are trying to tell are possible." -  ::) Sims 3 limits how players will play and tell the story, not expands upon Sims 2. What a shame!

 I typically play one or two families in a neighborhood and ignore the rest of them. I like the idea of being able to have elevently million spawn, raise them, out all but my favorite and have the other spawn grow and have families of their own and avoid time problems like the great-great-grandchild of my founder going to school with the founder's original children.

I hate rotating through the various families, I have to build and furnish their houses, get them established in a career, skill and breed them, and let them live their lives when I really don't give a shit about the Sim.

I rotate and play everyone. For the households I don't really care about, I make sure they are following their path to their ordained career, and then I just ignore them. If they break the Rule of Four or a Romance sim strays, the punishing commences. If they somehow end up killing themselves, it's no skin off my back. Rarely happens.  Building and furnishing over and over can get dull, even when you like building. I have to do all my homes new. With adding new resident families (one-four, usually just one but I had two this week) every sim Monday, plus move-outs from existing homes, it gets to be a lot.

I can't wait to see how hideous some of the previous default sims look in this game. I know we've seen one or two already, but the rest shall be eye opening closing.

I'm all for better AI, especially since I am terrible about playing the families I make, but I do fervently hope that Pescado can make a hack that will prevent huge life altering decisions. I'm all for having spawns without being directed, I am NOT okay with random marriage and career decisions.

I just have visions of Maxis-fugly idiot Townies breeding like cockroaches and filling up the game with MBs of useless, hideous-looking, unplayable NPCs.

DO NOT WANT.

As I've said before, the first thing I did before even getting The Sims 2 was find and download default replacements and Peshacks. My game had fug and bork and lame for about five minutes, then I shut it down and installed my preciouses, and the fug and bork and lame was (mostly) gone.

I'm a visual person who likes to tweak every setting I can. Making it difficult for me to do so, given that I find the EA aesthetic and 12ish sense of humor obnoxious for the most part, is FAIL. One character pissing herself constantly is rather amusing, and yet in Sims 2, you can leave her "homebase" alone and go play another household when the joke wanes for you. An entire town full of constantly pissing, house-burning, kermit-flailing, poorly-dressed deformed cretins who think tickling and joy buzzering strangers is LULZ is a big DNW. A little juvenelia goes a long way. After you see it 4,000 times, screw it. DNW.

Maybe the game will be smart, and unless there is a nursery in the home of said NPC, the AI won't let them procreate.

I'm getting conflicting information about whether we would be able to mess with other, NPC, household arrangements, though.  If you are restricted to piloting one family and can't have more than one household to manage, how would we get inside these households to remove the sprog pens? And if they are autonomous, as has been implied, no doubt they will just buy babby cots if they reproduce.

So, again, I see the town outside your bubble of god power running amok with Townies being fertile and stupid; yards littered with trash and crawling with vermin, gardens dying from neglect, stinking puddles of unnaturally blue pee everywhere, tombstones in the middle of the road, flaming houses, and so on. You & I know it is unlikely they will improve the AI enough for Townies to make sensible life choices. These are hapless, helpless, incredibly dim pixel creatures that, up to this point, lacked the ability to pull themselves out of pools, or to do minor household repair / cook a slice of cheese toast without risking death.

So the options are:

1. We have SOME control of households besides The One Household To Rule Them All, and will have to spend a lot of time mopping pee and making sure Townies don't breed like rats or kill themselves being stupid.

2. We will have NO control of households other than The One Household To Rule Them All, and the Townies who are supposedly going to carry on with their own lives simultaneously with the denizens in The One Household To Rule Them All are going to render the town a stinking slagpit of corpses, burnination, disease, floods of urine and squalling, feral, orphan babbies on the brink of death.

3. Modification of #1: "living lives simultaneously" with the denizens of The One Household To Rule Them All means that Townies don't do much at all but occasionally get older and drop dead, and exist only to become "activated" in some way by contact with your playables, much like some default EA Sims can be wooed and added to households, or befriended, or fought with, or whatever. Surely nothing can go wrong with this plan, as more and more Townies become "activated" and wander off to wreak havok outside of your sphere of control.

4. Option I haven't considered yet, which is, one hopes, better than the prior 3.

I confess that I have been DNW about S3 to the point where I may have missed some details that would clarify this for me and soothe my concerns. I have read reviews here and there, and this thread, but perhaps I missed some information that would clear this up.

Option 4: You can adjust in an options panel how much life altering AI run sims are allowed to make. Check boxes for authority to get married, get knocked up, change jobs, buy furniture, or spawn. All I know is that I will be VERY irritated if I leave TOHTRTA to make a new CAS to function as a spouse for the next generation, only to have said CASpouse get married before the heir can meet them.

Interesting. I haven't even heard even a hint that this is something being considered, however.

And we are talking about EA, here. That would take mostly-unfukt coding skills.

And yes, I would be annoyed, too, if a CAS spouse wandered off and got autonomously hitched before being used in the storytelling manner intended.

My understanding, from what I've read, is that you can go and play other households, but while you are doing so, the family you just left behind will continue with their lives without you.
So if you move CAS intended spouse into a new house and played him for awhile, the heir of your primary house could grow up and get married to someone else, or die, without your direction.

Do not Want!

Hasn't EA learned a damned thing in 8 years? They don't understand that we want and need to control our little creatures, because they're the only things in life we can control-life is for the most part a very chaotic mess for most of us, and this game does fulfill our need to be the masters of our own little universe.
I don't want to play a game that tells me how to play it. I will play the game my way, under my direction. It's about the only thing I can actively change at my will-the rest of my life is being directed and controlled by forces outside my own powers.
I'll be damned if I let some corporation of bad taste geeks tell me how to have fun!
It's gonna flop bad-let the 12's have it. They deserve it.

Sims 3 is a whole lot of Do Not Want, lol.

This was my interpretation from all the articles as well. Either way, it is complete FAIL, DNW, etc. Part of the way I challenge myself in the game is to keep all the families straight and make sure that the generational lines do not cross too often. I, however, see no problem in leaving a family alone for months at a time while I create a new "line" to filter into the old ones. The day I got the game in 2004, I made a family with two toddlers and I only recently have got those toddlers out of university and married off to other sims. It takes ages to make the whole generation grow uniformly, but still enhances the fun I get from the game. TS3 just takes all the fun out of maintaining the minor details of every single sim I have...and takes the fun out of playing the game in general.

I didn't mind simultaneous time when I thought the "seamless neighborhood" meant , for instance, that you could tell Emma to take a bubble bath, instantly switch to controlling Goopy across town for a while, and then resume control of Emma as she stepped out of the bath. However, it looks like the Seamless Neighborhood is a Gigantic Load of Hooey. The sim family you're playing at any given time can go anywhere in town without a loading screen, but it appears that you need to re-load the entire town to play another family.

I'm guessing that The Sims 3 will be very similar to Apartment Life, with each controllable family living in an "apartment lot" the size of the entire town. Non-playable sims will probably only behave on free will when they're actually out in the "common area" and their time "at home" will be spent standing still while their motives magically recharge. It shouldn't be too hard to keep a non-controllable from doing anything life-changing if you keep your eye on them.

Reviews have stated that time passing for the neighborhood can be halted temporarily. I've seen interviews saying that saved games can be "merged" to combine developments from multiple family threads into the same neigborhood, but I haven't seen any description of how this works in practice.

It's certainly a "small neighborhood" concept, with play largely appealing to Simmers who only play a small number of families actively. I play a huge neighborhood currently but I might be able to adjust because my favorite part of the game is creating Sims and getting them started, meaning that I could make a lot of Sims but have most of them function as customized townies.

I'll probably get The Sims 3 in time but I'm going to wait months after the release before buying it to avoid paying a premium for a hot-mess-o-bugs. I learned that lesson about buying computer games LONG ago.

I didn't get Sims 2 until there were a couple of eps out, and lots of fixes made by the modders. I expect Sims games to be too buggy to play until the modding community has had time to sort it out. Sims 2 was worse than Sims 1 in that respect, and I expect Sims 3 to be worse than Sims 2, so I will also not be an early adopter. Depending on what people report about how the game plays and how buggy it is, I might not get it at all.

I can't stop thinking that this part should be perfect for those who want their game be realistic :P.

I tend to play one family for awhile, and then abandon them for a new one. So the whole 'they live their lives without you' thing is fine with me. Go live your little lives, pixel people! run free!

I know I read from one of the creator's camp things awhile back that besides an option to turn off aging for the hood, there was also an option to make it so townies and other families didn't do anything life-changing like marriage, getting knocked up, getting jobs or quitting jobs, etc. so they'd just do simple things like go to work and visit community lots and simply take care of their needs. If that's the case, it doesn't sound so bad. I don't want my sims to be doing anything major without me telling them to. I like having complete control of my sims and in TS2, I always play with free will off. And from how I understood changing families works, you basically zoom way out of the house you're playing, back into the neighborhood view and zoom back in on the next house you want to play. If that's the case, it wouldn't be too hard to change families.

If this is so then I think I could deal with it.  I believe I read also that aging is slowdownable, so one could compensate for aging done while the player was playing other families in rotation.  And it would enable me to skip families in the rotation who are stuck in a boring spot. 

I was a lot happier when TS3 was a clear Do Not Want, but now I'm a bit torn.  IF one could rotate and play a neighborhood this way I think I'd like it; and the new personality system seems interesting; and the placing and rotating of objects without grid restrictions is nice too.  I even like the idea of being able to color hair/furniture/everything whatever color you want instead of having to mess with recolor files....

...But the sims still look doughy-faced, and the nixing of user-made content is very undesirable.  I like some Maxis stuff fine, but I get bored with it after a while, and it tends to all be kind of middle-of-the-road or just goofy.  Also I can't help but think EA are doing it this way on purpose because they've figured out people will pay through the nose for Sims downloads and they want to be the only act in town.  :P

Speaking of TS3 look what the CC creators made.

(http://thesims3.ea.com/Lila%20Loofer.jpg)

DEAR FUCKING GOD WTF IS THAT THING!

I think that the features are cartoonish enough to fit the waxy, glass-eyed look of TS3, which IMHO makes it way less frightening and yucky than the supposedly "realistic" sims I've seen so far.

THAT THING is what's going to go marry & knock up your favourite sim while you're playing a different family...  :o

That's a scary thought.

HA HA, you come back and the parents are divorced and the youngest kids all look like Ross Perot. DNW!

If you look at the image link itself, that is supposed to be a chick. "Lila Loofer." Mind boggling, eh?

I had not looked at the TS3 site in while and checked out some of the screenshots. Unsurprisingly, I am filled with just as much DNW as ever. This picture is really what does it for me:

(http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/7323/sameassims2wo2.png)

EAxis are supposed to brandishing their shiny new game that is supposed to be a step up from TS2, but there is nothing in that screenshot that I could not create or do in TS2. While I should hope someone would have me examined for a severe head injury if I began downloading or even attempting to create those fugly clothes, nothing in this screenshot tells me that I am looking at something that is "better" than its predecessor. In fact, if it did not have the TS3 logo branded onto it, it would take me some time to realize that this was something other than TS2. It is the same old garbage encased in a shiny box to be shoved down our throats for an even heftier price tag than TS2. DO NOT WANT!

That's when a TS3 omgwtfbbq would come at handy.

The clothes are fugly, but I would like the game in the screenshot for Sims 2!

I'm betting that's just the foosball table that is part of the Xbox version of TS2.  Recycle the console versions and call it TS3.

WTF.

Oh hell no.

 :'(

They made José Eber (http://hairstyles.hairboutique.com/gallery/JoseEbermrDC_462062.jpg)?

Ugh.  Look at this Sims 3 screenshot, specifically at the woman's right forearm.  Texture FAIL.  (And the marshmallows look like tiny eggs.  Boo, hiss!)

http://www.infinitesims.com/images/stories/zoom/ZQGYOV/092.jpg (http://www.infinitesims.com/images/stories/zoom/ZQGYOV/092.jpg)

You know what's even sadder? That swimsuit is a TS2 suit. The only clothing in the shot that isn't is the one piece, and that is just a different texture on the TS2 basic one piece.

The girl looks like she's contemplating whether or not to stab the guy multiple times in the face with her skewer.

Why?  Does does he represent EA art department?

The hell? I have almost no experience with 3D programs, but even I could model a proper marshmallow in about 12 seconds. And the one-piece suit looks like it was made out of that contact paper you find in old ladies' kitchen drawers.

What I don't understand is that eggs have a higher polygon count than marshmallows.

Maybe it's a really sophisticated object and this is one of its 33 stages of melting, each with a different mesh.

Those do look like eggs. Have they ever seen a marshmallow before? I also noticed that the umbrella is clipping the ground on the bottom. I could see it maybe if it were just on the sand, but it's going through the grass as well.

Same white lounge chair, same rusted wtfbbq grill, same damn black & wood outdoor chairs, and the same fugly bikini that looked lame as frick the first time around (but now with added texture spazzing!). Yeah, this "new" game looks ta blow something fierce.

There's that pink building in the background too. It seems like there is a balcony because of the fence, but at that angle there's no bottom visible. So now we're back to no ceilings?  ::)

You mean you were expecting a step forward with a sequel? Now, that is just silly.

Do you want to know what else Liz? The lounge chairs, or whatever they're called have the same mesh as in The Sims 2.

If they put everything in the base game then there is no reason to make expansion packs.  And expansion packs = more $$ from the same people.

I wouldn't even recognize stuff that is from TS2 in TS3 (I didn't realize anything in that pic was the same as TS2) since I rarely use any non custom objects or clothes. I'm just wondering how old that screen is. It looks to be an early version of the game, but if it's not and that's what the game will look like even for people with high end computers, then I'm not impressed. Guild Wars looks better than that and that game has been out several years now. My brother plays it, btw. The only thing I can see in that pic that looks improved over TS2 is the feet. They actually have toes.

The textures in the best screenshots show there to be more texture detail than was in TS2; that follows expectations, because the minimum graphics adapter specs are much higher than in TS2.

Of course, my thoughts do not follow the theme of this thread, which has degenerated into the blind leading the merely unknowing in a P&L tournament.

As far as I'm concerned, more texture detail is hardly reason enough to abandon custom 'hoods, to be required to keep neighbourhood buildings we DNW, to be saddled with a whole new throng of squish-faced townies... all in all, to surrender a great deal of the creative control we've come to enjoy. Who wants freedom to play the way we like when we can have individual toes?!

The again, I'm apparently blind and unknowing. Since you're so much wiser than the rest of us, maybe you'd care to enlighten us ignorant slobs as to what the theme of this thread should be?

Yes, but a P&L tournament is mild compared to the truth that's out there. Let them have their P&L: The horrified screams can wait for a few months.

Six of them on each foot, by my count.

Posted by: J. M. Pescado

Oh, I can hear them now: "my game broked...I can't play this. Halpz!"
We will be inundated with 12's seeking the impossible for the unplayable made by the idiots who believe that they can pull the wool over the sheeple's eyes forever. Sadly, they're right. MATY will be the bastion of sanity if all goes well-or wrong as we know it will.

This is mild compared to what we'll be seeing in June.

I don't see individual toes, at least not on the girl in the lounge chair. The bottoms of her feet look like flippers. I'm of the opinion that they paid attention to what they were doing when drawing the toe lines on the top of the foot.

Bloke standing up, you can see his feet down the bottom. Either he has six toes, his big toe in the wrong place or a huge little toe...

"Lila" seems to have made an appearance in this shot (http://www.infinitesims.com/images/stories/zoom/ZQGYOV/093.jpg).  The expression on Color Coordinated's face is pretty funny.

Definitely six toes. He also either has three abnormally short fingers or they are clipping through his swimtrunks.

TS3 has all five fingers in the models, versus four in TS2, where the two middle fingers shared a set of joints. I see no evidence of individual toes as skeletal entities, although making the appearance of toes on a foot mesh is mostly just a polygon count issue.

I am not as inclined to think the game will bomb popularly as has been expressed here, although I have no doubts that some users will cling to their Sims 2 the way the great unwashed masses bitterly cling to their guns and religion. :)

* SaraMK clings to Sims 2 and a gun, and prepares for the bitter end.

The Apocalypse is nigh! Head for the hills!

I'm packing a gun and my game. I'll fight to the last pixel for my right to play Sims 2!

In all seriousness, though, I think you're being very generous with your assessment. I'd like to be wrong for once and have the game succeed; but the majority of Sims players are over the age of 12, and thus have more taste,and intelligence than EA will credit us for.

We're the majority who will buy the damned thing, not an 11 year old-they have to ask Mommy or Daddy for the money.

Most of the mods and creators of CC are adults. They're the people we're counting on to save the game, and I don't even know if they will have the tools to do it with, or the inclination once they see what they're trying to improve.

I have a gut feeling, though, this is going to be a bad release, and even worse roll-out.
We shall see.

Yuh huh. I never implied that the toes would independently animate. I just stated there are six of them. Meaning that, whether they be boned or polyed, they are definitely too many.

Six fingers is a feature.  TS3 supports inbreeding for realistic yokels and cultists.   :D

Perhaps they'll have a slider for number of fingers, and another for number of toes?

My father was slaughtered by a six-fingered man.  I was eleven years old. And when I was strong enough, I dedicated my life to the study of fencing. So the next time we meet, I will not fail.

I hope there is a finger # slider.

So Sims 3 is like Sims 2's inbred cousin. This will be helpful when the family you aren't currently playing decides to hold a marriage between the uncle and the newly-adult daughter in your absence. Rather than hollering WTF!?, you'll have expected it to happen.

I have not played the game myself, so I cannot be the leader. Let someone else cast the first stone.

(http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w131/kellyq67/boring.gif)

(http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/95/sparklemotion.jpg)

It appears that EA aren't putting securom into sims3 afterall.  So what are they going to use?

http://thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/newsItem.jsp?item=-608201177

"The Sims 3 Copy Protection
March 26, 2009 06:10 AM

Hello everyone I wanted to share news with you regarding our copy protection plans for The Sims 3.

We'll have more information for you as we get closer to launch about everything we'll have to offer on TheSims3.com and The Sims 3 Store, but we have heard your requests over the past months and here is our plan for The Sims 3.

The game will have disc-based copy protection - there is a Serial Code just like The Sims 2. To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed.

We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future.

We're really excited to bring you the game for the PC and Mac starting June 2, 2009. The extra time we've taken to polish the game has resulted in an even better game experience for you to enjoy and we can't wait for you to see for yourself!

Thanks for your passion and your loyalty.
Rod Humble"

The way I'm reading that, it's not saying they're not using SecuROM.  They're saying there just won't be any online authentication.  The way SecuROM functions with TS2, one needn't be connected to the internet; one just has to have an original disk in the drive. 

Sneaky, eh?

 I noticed a few months back they were planning to have the packs labeled "Internet Connection Required", which many people are complaining about because not all parents let their teens play the game on computers connected to the Internet.  I think this is what Rod is referring to when he says "we have heard your requests over the past months".   So obviously they are backing down about requiring an Internet connection for authentication purposes because they are realizing that could have a significant impact on sales.  It's not saying they won't be using SecuRom and it doesn't address the other problems and complaints with SecuROM. 

I can't believe you fell for that, cwykes. Also, see thread in Podium.

Well now, today, MaxoidDrea has gone on record as saying that SecuROM will not be the copy protection used for Sims 3.

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=34397763e1a2b6ecb00de144b73a66a6&directoryID=225&startRow=1&openItemID=item.225,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23#24544fb4d8e3db514dbf288e3dc248e1

There was something by a maxoid to that effect on the BBS.  I should have included that link as well obviously.   

I see nothing but vague hand-waving. Because we ALL know EaxoidDrea is SUCH a reliable source of information, who probably wouldn't know SecuROM if it came and bit her in the face. LIES and PROPAGANDA, nothing more. Even in the absence of SecuROM, this merely indicates they are planning something worse. At least SecuROM is the devil we know. What are they planning NOW, if not SecuROM?

Hey! If we will be able to pick up their trash for them, maybe we can grab the skewer and do it for her!

I wonder if they're planning on going back to using the copy protection they used before BV. I don't remember there being any real problems with it and I certainly don't remember nearly as many people complaining about it. It wouldn't be smart of them to use something worse than SecuROM unless they want more people to pirate the game.

I assume you mean "more people than are already going to pirate their game", since Pirate Cat won't pay for his downloads.

Yeah, I meant more than the people who already do. lol I didn't start until after BV. SecuROM broke my DVD burner and it cost me as much as the game to replace it, so I haven't bought a Sims game since. I just save my money and buy Wii games instead.

EDIT: Has anyone read the EULA for TS3 yet? You can read it here: http://www.simprograms.com/the-sims-3-eula-for-retail-game/#more-5209

I don't know how current it is, but it mentions in-game advertising (I thought they took that out?) and it says you need the EA Download Manager to install software updates. I don't have the EA DM installed now because I'm afraid of it installing SecuROM on my computer, so I certainly don't want to be forced to use it just to patch my game.

Subject to check after the game is out:

The ingame advertising rankles me, and others too, very much. Until I recognized that it can be leveraged to make a new game feature, bu subverting the commercial stuff and replacing it with neighborhood artsy things. We will make Lemonade from this.

Lastly, I had technical issues with the EA download manager here (using it for Spore), which I think were related to my refusal to allow "Flash" to occupy any of my computer real estate.

It turns out that the process to make updates is nothing more than the EA download manager downloading an .exe file to your harddrive, and then running it. And once one person has noted the direct download address of the patch, you can get it without the download manager. This may change, but to date it has just been a marketing tool whereby the URL of the patch isn't published, in the hope that once additional people have the download manager on their computer, they will use it to buy stuff with.

If Drea's not spouting shit, the Download Manager will also not include SecuROM. I'll believe it when I see it.

Here's my optimistic opinion: There is no more SecuROM. Peasants rejoice! However, the patches require EA Downloader, which checks serial number to function. Since we all know that Sims games are buggy as hell, EA thinks this might lower piracy by withholding a fully-functional game. They are partially right, but the patches will be ripped. It has happened in the past for other games.

Here's my actual opinion: Drea is spouting shit. She either has been intentionally misinformed or has been instructed to misinform, as EA trusts that saying "O hai! We haz no SecuROM now!" will bring back a vast majority of the customer base they have lost. Once the customers get the game and have their surprise!SecuROM, too late. EA already has your money, and no contract has been broken/negotiated out of with Sony.

I think Sony will probably change SecuROM's name to something no one has heard of yet.  That way, EA can say, "No SecuROM!" and be sort of telling the truth, for a given value of honesty.   :P

Say hello to ROMsecur.

"It's totally different, we swear!"

It is safe and won't harm your computer. 

SecuROM by any other name is still DRM. 

After seeing the shots of TS3 and One Tree Hill on the Infinite Sims site, I pray that there is CC for this game (free preferably).  If those are the Sims that we have to stare at in the next incarnation of the game, we're in definite trouble.

Although EAxis tossed out a kernel to the consumers by relaxing the tentacles of Securom on TS3, what they need to do next is fire the artists who created the next generation of Sims.  Artistically and aesthetically, the new sims are horrible.

Custom content cannot be left out of the picture. And there can be no way that TSR has to be the only game in town in terms of CC.  :'(

It won't be. Just will take a little time to get someone interested enough to crack the codes of the game and make the tools. EA has made it harder for that to happen, from all I've read.

But if the game really sucks big, nobody will care enough to do it. As it is right now, most creators are in the "meh" mode with even trying to do this.

As are most would-be customers. For many reasons, not a lot of people are jumping up and down for joy over this game, aside from the sheeple at the BBS. They never cease to amaze with their never-ending baaing.

Besides, Securom might be renamed and reworked to another dimension that we have no clue about yet-EA has proven time and time again not to be trusted with their PSA's.

In other words, I'll believe it when I personally see it.

I'll buy the Sims 3 when it has no DRM, including bullshitty launchers.

Ditto. I try before I buy these days and so far, most software is failing: not worth keeping the free version.

It'd be nice if TS3 had a finger slider but that would mean they had some creativity, which they don't. The face sliders appear to be greatly disappointing--the reviews I've read and the pics I've seen, all the sims look the same, some fatter than others. Sad, what a waste.

I'm really hoping some up and coming company thinks 'we can do this better' and makes a swell adult version of the Sims.

And even then, some of those sheeples might end up losing interest pretty quickly if nobody is out there making CC (well, except TSR and whatever shitty retexturing they are up to).

I'm in the "meh" group myself. If and when talented free creators are able to make the game less painful to look at, I'll probably consider ARR-ing it to see how it plays on my computer. TS2 is staying installed, though.

Surprisingly--even to myself--I'm still pretty damn excited about playing TS3. Maybe I'm more of a 12 than I thought, but I feel like most of you are focusing too much on the information that HAS been released and assuming that there won't be anything else. I'm looking at it from the other end of the spectrum and assume they're telling us some of the interesting things they are putting in without revealing the entire game. Sure, they want to draw people in and tell them why TS3 is worth buying, but they're notorious for keeping most of the meat of EPs under wraps until release.

Then again, this is L&P, so there should be plenty of poking, prodding, etc.

I was watching some videos on Youtube and came across a few frightening tidbits:

+Simple Eaxis items can be recolored/textured in game and then INSTANTANEOUSLY uploaded onto TS3 website/Exchange.
... God, what would the 12s do with this increase in power? Not than any of us bother with the Exchange except for laffs anyway, but the very idea terrifies me.

+During one of the videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHOsG5QpkEU&feature=channel), the designer proceeds to "show off" one of the new "features" only to reveal a glitch that makes one of the sims disappear. He explains, "Uh... if there... wasn't a bug, you'd see..."
...Riiiight. I don't know why Eaxis was so surprised that the creators at Creators' Camp were disappointed when this was the sort of shit they "showed off."

I also found a couple interesting tidbits:

+There is a way to customize/replace townies in-game.
Not sure how they're going to orchestrate this, but I'd like to see it.

+One of the designers made mention of uploading another town/neighborhood post-game launch.
I'm not sure if this is really a good thing or a bad thing? It sounds odd that they would release it for download post-launch... another "feature," I suppose.

This may have already been posted, but it's a good walkthrough the new CAS. Nothing new, but extensive. video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWuk8Bhy5RA&feature=channel)

Does it drive anyone else crazy to watch someone else play The Sims? It drives me nuts to see someone else controlling the camera and settling on things that I'm uninterested in. I found myself, while watching a lot of these designer walkthroughs, trying to fix the camera angle/position, hahahaha.

What drives me bonkers about those designer walkthroughs, is when you hear a Sim in the background do the "YooHoo" yell, because their path is blocked.  For the life of me, i can't fathom ANYONE purposely putting up with a completely Vanilla game for any length of time, without going insane.

I'm constantly trying to zoom to characters or change the angles or zoom into things I want to look at in those damn videos. LOL

Isn't this out already? GOD! :P I don't want to wait another month and a half to find out if it's worth it or not. :P

SERIOUSLY. That bothers me too. Why the hell don't they, I don't know, PLAN AHEAD and make sure they're showing off the best of the game? Make a lot as failsafe as possible before inviting a bunch of Sims players/experts in to look? :P


That's really what's irritating and probably grating on most of our nerves. The WAITING. I mean, I don't really care if it's good or not--after all, it's not like I can't always plays TS2--but I want to -know-. The not knowing is aggravating. ><

I expect it to suck. About 1/3 of the information that has been provided has fallen under Do No Want for me, thoroughly enough that it cancels out any of the rather innovative features I'd like (personality types, seamless 'hood, goals). Plus, I keep finding bits of cc that I somehow missed before. My latest was basically everything by Criquette. I spent last night creating a terrain, screwing around with it with the new(er) 'hood elevation cheats, and designing a city scape. Night before was spent tweaking Darlington Shores to give the terrain a more finished feel. I still have things to do with TS2.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/2jb4akk.jpg)
(http://i41.tinypic.com/200tcmc.jpg)

Pretty sure the issue is that developer videos represent the only time the developers have played the game. Perhaps they imagine the yoohooing is a feature someone else implemented for reasons that escape them.
You can't tell me someone playtested FreeTime for more than five minutes and called it release-worthy. It wouldn't have gone gold the way it did if someone had actually played the release candidate.

Emphasis mine. Again with these "features." Hahahaha. Unforunately, I think you're right, Grugly. I feel like Eaxis is sort of bumbling along, which makes me nervous. I've had quite a bit of faith in them, but it is dwindling, especially seeing how poorly they've gone about advertising, marketing, and previewing TS3. : /


Although I'm psyched about TS3, I totally know where you're coming from, Zazazu. There is still SO much to do with TS2 and there is a seemingly endless amount of CC to devour. Bahahaha. Does Criquette have his/her own site? Or is it on a bigger site? *curious curious*

PS, I'm lovin' the work you've done pm Darlington Shores. I'm working on a clean neighborhood myself, and I can only imagine reaching the point you have. xD Hahaha.

Criquette is on MTS2. I had her ferry set before and just checked for other stuff on a lark. Loads of 'hood deco.

DS is good, though I'm hitting that frustrating point where there are a lot of households (16) but the 'hood still has a lot of white space. End of this round, I'll be at 19 households and then beginning of next round hits a Monday at the mayor's house, which means I might get more households added.

Not to push this off topic, but is there any machine out there that would handle Criquette's giant cruise ship? I am not sure if my 4GB system could handle it, and I don't want to find out the hard way.

Anyways, I am very dissapointed by many things I've seen so far.

The Graphics:

- The shine of those so called "sims" eyes creep me out! If they reduced the reflectiveness by about half, it would look realistic, but right now they look like mirrors.

- It seems they greatly softened the facial features in the game, giving them a dough like look. They say "Is moor relistic!!111!11One!!1" but it's not! In real life, people's faces are very defined. Maybe not as much as the townies in The Sims 2, but not as little as these creeps!

- Damn Bloom!! Why do modern games need this non-existent, fake, distracting shine! I will admit, I've seen worse cases than TS3, but it shouldn't be there at all! It isn't realistic! It's "eye candy," and it's ugly!

-The face texture quality seems actually reduced from The Sims 2.

- Why would anyone want to give their sims the eyebrows I've seen! It ruins the character's whole face (If it wasn't already ruined).
Especially the toddlers!

The "Features":

- One thing that sickens me, is that they are reselling the wants and fears system under a different name! They are calling them "wishes." They are even reselling aspiration rewards as "wish rewards." Who does EA think they're fooling? Nevermind. They are fooling the sheep pretty well.

- The idea to make a seamless neighborhood sounds good, but the things it means about gameplay are frustrating at the least. Some may think this will make house rotation a thing of the past, but as said in this discussion, if you don't rotate a sim of yours may marry her uncle!

- I want personality points back! When I first heard about traits, it sounded good. But later when I learned they were replacing personality points, that angered me! I figured traits would be further customization of your sims, but I don't think they alone could define a sim's personality adequately.

-I can't believe they removed the comfort and environment needs! I actually wanted more needs! What I personally wanted were water, and certain vitamin needs. The vitamin needs (Vitamin C, Protein, Vitamin B, and Calcium) would be very slow at decay, but would provide interesting failure states. But no! Instead of adding challenge to the game, they took away challenge in the form of taking away the need for aesthetics, and the need to sit down once and a while. You know, like normal people!

There is so much Do Not Want in TS3, that it is crazy that they would even release it under this kind of economic stress. The smart people in the fan base won't buy it at all, and the sheepies mommys and daddys won't be able to shell out the cash.

R.I.P The Sims Franchise

I agree that most of the CASims in the preview have that "doughy" look, but I feel like that's because of EAxis's aesthetic tastes. I think the program is capable of shit that doesn't look so... shitty. I also hate the "eye candy" sparklies. It's unnecessary!

Do you actually play TS2 with EAxis skins? It's easy to forget what EAxis's actual content looks like, what with the plethora of CC available. Not that I totally disagree that the quality of the texture is lower... I just think that with some customization--even just a step away from EAxis's  premades--may lure some of you back to TS3. If only for a better look.


I didn't really consider the fact that personality points are absent... I'm fond of the traits, personally, but when you mention the lack of direct personality, it is a little unsettling... I think it will take some playing with, but I imagine you can pin a personality pretty well with a series of traits. Besides, I personally prefer to have "gourmand" or "excitable" Sims over "nice" and "neat" Sims. I think it follows their advancement from TS1. In TS1, we have the clean Sims and the food Sims, etc, now we have the nice/mean, serious/playful, and the next natural step would be something more intricate, wouldn't you think?

Then again, I'm the type of Sims player who likes to find out what her SIMS want, and follow that, hahaha. I like them to have their own desires and tendencies, so the traits are really a plus for my kind of Simming.


That's a super interesting idea, Parrot. I hadn't ever thought of that. And it is bullshit that they took out Comfort and Environment. Why? Surely they'll replace them with something else... right? ....Right? D: Bah.

Does anyone else actually look at the L&P TS3 website sends them sporadically? I went and watched the new videos. You can go see Parsimonious Kate talk about primary color skintones. Yippee. :P The video that showcases the landscaping/building aspect (4th video) (http://thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/videos.jsp?sourceid=ea3395) looks very shiny, and I can only keep my fingers crossed that it will come true.

It appears that there's WIND rustling through the trees and bushes?? WHAT IS THIS?! Surely, surely L&P.

I actually support the removal of the comfort and environment "motives". The comfort motive is, frankly, REALLY BORING TO WATCH and pretty much a non-motive anyway, since filling it as a dedicated action amounts to the sim sitting there and doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and frankly, a "sit there stupidly and do nothing" loop kinda hampers the AI. Environment? Also a non-motive. For one, giving all sims a unified environmental preference, often one contrary to what the player would like to see, forces bizarre and artificial decorating choices and frankly, adds nothing to the game, as a sim is not really empowered to change the "environment", and therefore it fails to actually effectively motivate a sim to do anything other than whine. A slimdown of the number of motives on a sim is pretty much a necessity when you consider that the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD is out there peeing its pants all at the same time, no matter which fambly you play.

I await the great flood. Wouldn't that be lulzy?

Good point.

Oh God. xD Not only will the entire neighborhood be peeing their pants simultaneously, but then there will be a mass exodus to all sinks, showers, and other hygiene-restoring items EVERYWHERE. And God knows the amount of 'Yoohoo!'ing going on as townies attempt to complain about their needs. Or the great smog of green stink that will consume the seamless neighborhood. Yuck. :P

One of my favourite things is how they've didn't use their time to add neighbourhood editing that was in TS2 and instead added a whole layer of shit over ghost resurrecting and ghost babies. Whoop-de-doo.

I hate the way they seem to make things easier with every EP. It literally takes effort to get your sims into failure states or death. I haven't played a "normal" game in ages--it's always challenges.

When you can keep a sim alive on an empty lot; when your sim goes an entire lifetime without eating, sleeping, bathing, or peeing; when you can earn a million in a day, you know the game's gotten too easy...

I hate how they dumbed down the Sims 3. I was actually looking forward it, but there are aspects of the game that are a DO NOT WANT, like the whole "just one neighborhood." It reminds me of a weird version of MySims.  UGH!

I agree that they shouldn't got rid of the horoscope points system.  I really loved the horoscope personalities of Sims 1 and Sims 2.I think it would go perfectly with the new traits system.

"As for a plastic surgeon - no, we do not have one in the game. Your Sims resemble their parents or what you made them as. You can change a Sim's hair and clothing, but skin and facial features never changes." Source: Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/live-the-sims-3-interview-tomorrow-blog-entry)

Now this really worries me. I like being able to improve the fuglies.

We didn't get the cosmetic surgery gizmo in the base game in TS2, either.

Truth be told. I never used the plastic surgery machine (Forgotten the name) so it's a moot point for me.

Getting rid of the personality traits is like getting rid of a core part of the game and replacing it with a dumb ed down version that only retards made.
Sorry but it's a huge fuck no for me.

Neither did I, Giggy.

Well, on TS3 website, they now have an animated banner that is reminiscent of TS2 website with moar propaganda.


...I feel like such an outcast, but... I kind of -like- what TS3 might be. ;_; *fail* I know there will be plenty to bitch about, but I think it will be INTERESTING, at the very least, to see what they try to do with the game. I'm glad they're not remaking TS2. I prefer they try something new, even if it is the pits. Would you rather they keep cranking out EPs (and creatures ><) or ShitPacks? Time to move on, I say.

I think the age of the original TS2 graphics is beginning to show, too. I looked at some TS1 screenshots today, and I was shocked! I'm completely used to TS2 graphics, and looking at what appears to be screenshots from TS3, even though obviously L&P, I'm... kind of excited? Then again, I've been playing TS2 on low graphics for a while. Speaking of, does anyone know how to fix troubles with low computer resolutions when using televisions as monitors?

If you're playing TS2 on low graphics, TS3 will also look like crap. As for fixing low resolutions when using TVs as monitors, you simply can't. TVs are shitty monitors and are not capable of high resolutions, being unable to even reach 640x480. You simply should not attempt to use a TV as a monitor, TVs are completely inferior to monitors.

Are you kidding? This is practically The Sims 2: Retard Edition. The same game, but with crappified graphics, gameplay and broken new features. It's pretty obvious that they've just injected their "new" code into the TS2 engine and trashed it.

They're not even meant to be used as monitors. The VGA port really only exists for compatibility with things such Home Theatre PCs.

I haven't used a tv as a monitor since I used a Commodore 64. Monitors are cheap. Get ye one.

I loved Commodore 64.  I played on that and a VIC 20.  I learned BASIC programming by playing on them and reading the manual as a 6 and 12.

I'd have to say that this is not true. Based on what I've seen, the one thing they DID trash was the engine.

My brother's using a TV as a monitor, but it's a 27" LCD HDTV so it works fine. He has a monitor, but he's been using my other brother's TV instead while he's been in Afghanistan. It's kind of huge as a monitor, though.

Using computer monitors as TV screens is great, though. Cheaper, too.

Lots of cables, admittedly, but the resolution is far better.

Its "Online Feature Set"

Official L&P: http://www.thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/newsItem.jsp?item=999736531 (http://www.thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/newsItem.jsp?item=999736531)

Screen grab of launcher from Kotaku:  http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/04/simslauncher.jpg (http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/04/simslauncher.jpg)

Bah, I will defend this. I am looking forward to TS3. It's a game, so I'm gonna play it. Probably won't leave TS2 behind as I did TS1 though.

I mean, if someone offered me a free grape lollypop in addition to the strawberry one I was already enjoying, I would take it. Why not?

For a game where they've rescinded the requirement of being 'online' to play, they're sure pushing the online 'features' down our throats.

Did anyone read this? http://www.simprograms.com/the-sims-3-store-faq-april-2009/

There are some things that bother me about it. Like it says if you download anything from the Sims 3 Store (which includes the free second neighborhood) it says after you download them, they'll show on the launcher and you click to install them to the game. But what about people who bypass the launcher? I don't use it in TS2 so I'm certainly not planning on using it for TS3. It's also sounding like we'll have to use the EA Downloader, but doesn't it install SecuROM? I just hope it will be easy to grab the stuff from the Sims 3 Store because everyone gets $10 in simpoints for buying the game (yes, I pre-ordered the C.E. because I want the plumbob USB drive) so if it's possible to share the items as it is from TS2, then I'd be happy to share anything I get. That is if EA Downloader doesn't install SecuROM.

I found this question interesting:


So that means they're going back to SafeDisc, then, right? I'll still wait for the No CD crack just because I don't really trust EA anymore, and since I've gotten used to the convenience of not having to keep the disc in the drive all the time. But what's strange, is they don't answer when asked about what type of protection is used on the digital copy.  

No, it probably means neither more nor less than EA has some professional communications people working for them and that this one line probably took 2 days to write and 3 weeks to get approved.  It says the "same level" not the same brand, make, type.  It could therefore mean anything, but the use of "base game" is clearly meant to be reassuring.

So I guess I'm right in not trusting them. They keep throwing out the phrase "simple disc check" when talking about the DRM with TS3. Somehow I don't think it will be simple.

Also, they will totally tap you on the head in time before they finish. Aw, come on, baby. Trust them!

Has anyone taken a good look at the TS3 intro they have out now for .99 US dollars?  I am just curious.  Saw it the other day and actually laughed out loud.

They're selling a not-even-demo for a buck? And I thought the sleazy promo they are planning on LJ was low...

Nothing EA does surprises me anymore.

There's no point to me looking forward to TS3, since my computer can't handle it anyway.  But nothing about it strikes me as anything I'd want in the first place.  Even before I started doing challenges, I made stories for my neighborhoods, and it doesn't seem like storytelling is going to be possible in TS3, or at least not until the modders get their hands on it.  At the very least, we need the ability to clone born-in-game Sims, be able to turn off aging on a lot-specific level, have more than one neighborhood, and be able to force reactions and animations.  None of that seems particularly likely any time soon.

What is this "liveurinal promotion" that all the Urinators are up in arms over? Who cares? Meh.

The check is in the mail. For realz, this time.

Oh, SixApart is trying to turn the community mods into whores, making them post 10 promos for the game for a free premium account and two games. Their vetting has been shoddy, too, because the rep they sent to contact everyone couldn't get her story straight. It's just dumb and the ploy will do nothing more than piss off those who were slightly against getting TS3 more. See, marketing tends to be more effective when you research beforehand and actually observe how your target market reacts to stimuli.

And are they going to GIVE them the game so they can post promos of it? That would make sense. I'm not sure how they intend to have anyone promote the game if they're not actually going to give them the game to promote.

They are giving each of the LJ communities that gets involved 2 games - so 20 games in total.

Their choice of communities to offer to was slightly insane though - some of them had been dead for several months, and a lot of them only had a few members.   Plus Simsecret got an offer.  WTF?

Yup, total marketing fail. It's yet another example of how SixApart and EA do business...stabbing about in the dark, when a perfectly good light switch is right next to their hand.

Online "features" are EA's latest anti-piracy and anti-second-hand-games strategy.  If you can only do things online, and if you are required to register to go online, then pirates etc. are thwarted.

Indeed, it is essentially the perfect anti pirate technique.

That doesn't work with MMOs, it doesn't work with Steam, it's not going to work for TS3.

It most certainly didn't work with Spore, as I was able to get anything I wanted from the website without having crap automatically downloaded.

I thought strange_tomato said something about being able to make elf ears with less hassle. I could be mistaken.

ETA: http://tinyurl.com/ogxxcc (http://tinyurl.com/ogxxcc)
No, whoops, I was wrong. It does look like we'll have more control over the ears, though.

I'm sure they'll sell elf ears as a $10 add-on in the TS3 Store (only available to North Americans).

LMAO. Along with nearly all of the items we see in the previews that will not be included in the final game.

I wonder how strong the copy protection will be on the online download version.  I'm sure people would chip in $5 or $10 each if the downloaded one can be shared.

The problem is that EA thinks Sharing = "OMG PIRACY LOL NO NO BAD SHEEP DRM FTW" or some other retarded way that they're losing their monies. Personally, I think that the only sales will be pirates, and sheep. At least EA might let The Sims go and let Maxis or someone else do Sims 3 II: It's not horrible this time.

I cannot imagine EA giving up the Sims... it's a huge money-maker for them.

Yeah, I agree. My brother says that they have a good thing going because they can keep selling us pretty much the same game over and over again and keep making money off us. He doesn't play the Sims, obviously. But in a way, he's right. I don't think any other game has had as many EPs as the sims games. I know I've spent at least $500 just on TS1 and TS2 with the expansions and everything. The only TS2 EP I didn't buy was Apartment Life.

You're an example to us all.  :P

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/crapola/mistakes.jpg)

Thing is that EA isn't Maxis. They'll do the Sims only when money comes POURING with money. When profits nose-dive, like when all non12's say GTFO, they'll drop it like a hot potato. Once the Money Cow stops making cash, they'll cut her up and sell the meat. (Then someone can do it right.)

Oh, please. Like Maxis didn't? They are just as much a corrupt corporate enterprise as any other, and Will Wright is no better than any other businessman who cares more for profit than about customers. BLS, Maxis-fanboys.

At least when Maxis was a separate company, they had pride in their workmanship. Will, and the other long lasting Maxis employees have been corrupted be EA's "The money is always right" view on things.
If someone could go back in time, and make it so they did SC3000 right the first time, giving them time to finish The Sims, they probably still would. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen.

It just goes to show you that everyone has their price. Will Wright's was higher than most, but he still had one. Obviously he didn't care about his "workmanship" all that much, if truth be told. Otherwise he would have stopped the eternal whoring of the series a loooong time ago.
Once a corporate tool, always a tool. Money talks and bullshit walks.

What people don't realize is that gaming was not Will Wright's dream job.  He stumbled upon it by accident.  It was just a side thing to earn a living.  Will has other things he is/was more interested in as a career, but couldn't make a living doing those things, at least not right away, if ever.  Will Wright is first and foremost an intellectual and an inventor.   Inventing, robotics, and physics, I believe, is what he loves most, and secondarily, he is interested in astronomy and evolutionary theory.  He has dabbled in ideas and research regarding space exploration with telescopes and extraterrestrial life.   Some day we may see him author some books in these areas.  He might have become a college professor in earth science, physics, or astronomy possibly if all else had failed.   More recently, he has stated his goals to be starting up new businesses and selling them (probably to EA).  Yes, the allure of money has altered the course of his life, I believe.  EA paid him $120 million plus royalties for Maxis.  How many of you can honestly say you would have turned that offer down? And now, of course, EA has pretty much persuaded him to sell out the Stupid Fun Club to them. 

Things that happen, stay happened.

Also, I am happy to receive any spare $120 millions that people may have lying around.  I won't even sell out a game franchise.  Win-Win.

Hey! I have this Nigerian mate...

Get him/her to send you pictures of them with shoes on their head.

They really want to sell this game.....this is part of an article taken from NY Times dated 5/13/09 full article here (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/media/14adco.html?_r=2&ref=business)

"Electronic Arts executives wanted the marketing campaign to showcase the new features of The Sims 3, and to get people who might not play the game to understand what it was about.

The focus of the marketing is online, and beginning Friday, Electronic Arts will begin offering three ways for consumers to play with Sims characters on the Web.

There will be a free trial available at Sims3.com and at the Sims 3 fan page on Facebook, meant for people who have never played the game before.

Another option, called SimFriend, lets visitors to the Web site pick a Sim pen pal from among 120 characters, and that pen pal will send e-mail messages. For example, a Sim might send a message asking what type of dinner she should cook for her boyfriend, and the fan picks from options like "Cook an elegant meal." The e-mail chain would continue, tailored to the Sim's personality and skills.

"If the Sim happens to be a kleptomaniac chef, the response you get back might be, ‘Thanks, I went and stole food today,' when what you're expecting is ‘Thanks, I just had lunch,' " said John Buchanan, senior director of worldwide marketing for the Sims line at Electronic Arts.

The third option is called SimSidekick. A fans chooses from 6 characters on the Web site, and an image of the character that is chosen floats on top of the browser as the fan moves around the Web.

The character has site-specific responses to sites that Electronic Arts has chosen, like MTV.com, YouTube, and Twitter. On Twitter, for instance, where the mascot is a bird, a flock of bluebirds descends on the character, and, depending on its personality, the character will jump, wave his or her hands, or respond in some other way."


...not sure I would want a sim emailing me all day.

It will be interesting to see how many flock to the Sims 3 site on Friday.

I do want the little plumbbob drive, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I pay $99 AUD for it.

I find this particularly interesting, and potentially a smart move, if the thing doesn't suck (thoughI strongly suspect it will). However, I'd be interested in knowing just how much spyware crap comes along with this "free trial" before I'd try to download it. Interesting.

As far as I know, it's only a 1GB drive, which goes for around $5 here. So, $10AUD? Rip-off.

It's 2GB actually. I'm not sure what I'll put on mine, but it will look cute attached to my purse.

"Hi Emma, mind if I give your number to my friend Goopy?"


Say hello to SimClippy :P.

HA HA, doo eet.

The more I see player reviews, the more curious I get about the damn thing.

I also think the plumbob drive is adorable. :P But $60 is insane.

Sucker.

Side note: Sony profits are down :) (HELLO! Can you say 'Securom'? I won't buy anything Sony. Appears others feel the same way.)

Sony. Bony.

Curiosity doesn't necessarily lead to moar $$ for eaxis. ;p

The trial version, SimSocial, is almost identical to the game Kudos and after playing two weeks, you then have to wait four hours before you can continue.  It is a browser based game though so no spyware although you do need to log into EA in order to play.

Don't, that's creepy. :o

That's interesting to know Kutto, because I found SimSocial interesting. Might go look up Kudos.

Uh, what? I haven't posted in this thread.

I found SimSocial a waste of my time.  Played for a week and got bored.  The only thing I found at all interesting, was the sliders to adjust my sims clothes.

Ok how come people are managing to post in this new Sims 3 forum http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/forums/show/14.page when it won't let me post unless I register with a valid game serial number?

Did you register for VIP? I did, but didn't get anything further than my welcome note.

ETA: Did you see this, though? (http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/47.page;jsessionid=1FCDEE20CA6AE10729D0450147EE6B03.015055) Looks like EA staff have already been caught making fun of their customer base. (http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/38.page) That's assuming that Lionseatsnakes is a mod, which I'm not sure that I buy.

Oh, and you can register without serial code. Read more.

I can post in it.  There was an option to reserve your screen name for the TS3 site a while back, I'm pretty sure all those people aren't EAxis employees, just fans though.


Yes but kutto and mildlydisguised are such similar words.  Is it any wonder that she got confused?

Yes I did that thing about reserving my name.  But the new site prompts me for my email address when I log in, not my screen name.

I just used the email address that is linked to my EA account.

So did I.  I can see all the Reply buttons etc and it lets me create the post, but when I hit submit it pops up one of those grown-up looking login boxes, you know the sort you get when you are an admin of a windows server?

Hmm.. no idea then.  I just went and created a test post in general discussion to see if I actually could and it let me.  I do get the 'grownup' login box if I try to access any of the rest of the site though.

Perhaps they've marked you out as a troublemaker already Inge and banned you from posting ;)

Posts at the site indicate if you change the initial letter of each field in the URL, i.e. /exchange to /Exchage, you can view pages without having an authorization (copy shortcut, open new tab, paste in address bar and edit).

I was unable to actually download any files, although there appear to be 18 Sims already uploaded.

<* Wes *>

me too.

You have to use thwe "quick Reply" to reply. The other method doesn't work.

I was trying to quote and reply to a post, maybe that is why it wasn't working?  What's the point of having lots of shiny buttons that don't work? :-\

I did.  But now Quick Reply isn't even appearing for me.

You broke it Inge!

Anyone come across this?  I saved it in case they decided to make it go poof.

(http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/LFox/sims404.jpg)

Anyone check out the clothing section?  There is some REALLY ugly crap in there already.

The page ends in /materials, not /patterns. The clothes are awful, but I'm sure everything was just slapped together to test the upload/download mechanism. What disturbs me more is the fuzziness of the previews.

yes.
This 404 page was what I wanted to post about on that distinguished forum. Then I noticed that the so called moderators, were posting stickies of gibberish.  I tried to flag them inappropriate, but when you do that you have to tell why, and spam/nonsense was not an option. 

Hm, I can't see any of the topics in the Forum.  I can see the member lists and it SAYS there's topics there, but they aren't showing up for me.

[Edit to correct reply - totally brain dead.]

PCGamer must have got an advanced copy of the Sims 3.  To my surprise the July 2009 issue which came already had a review of The Sims 3.  So I scanned it.  You can get the article in PDF or a RAR of JPGs.  Pick your flavor.  I hope I didn't waste my time scanning and editing this article.  Tell me your reactions. 

PDF
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6G5HKPVJ

RAR of JPGs
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ARSS0KQ7

If mirrors are needed tell me where to upload it.

Those "fake tech support questions", why are people saying they have been made up by moderators?  Looked like normal users who just happened to stumble upon the forums like us.

Nice little read, it had some good info.  I'm definitely curious to see what the other careers will require you to do to get promoted.

Looks like the new TS3 forum is based on phpBB. I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing.

Thanks for scanning the article.  The careers do sound much better than TS2.  And gaining a new interaction as a career reward is an interesting spin on the TS2 skill objects.

I had a feeling the path finding would still be an issue.  I wonder if that is why they chose to have most of the community lots as rabbit holes.


Also there is news on the first EP from the brazillian hands on event


Quote from Sim Programs (http://www.simprograms.com/tidbit-from-the-first-sims-3-expansion/)

I really hope it includes OFB type features.

It makes a certain amount of sense: Is watching your sim browse shopping racks REALLY that interesting? There's a whole lot of hacks designed to simply eliminate the nuisance of going there at all. Plus, with the entire neighborhood active at once, they have to cut system load somewhere.

So in other words, rather than finishing the damn game, before the game is even OUT yet, they're already going to cut out features that they were originally intending to include and resell them as a seperate expansion pack, essentially charging people extra for the rest of their game. Nice. Is it any surprise that Pirate Cat won't pay for his downloads?

That's always been their MO. I just want the ability to make my own neighborhoods from scratch. This second downloadable neighborhood is not what I'm looking for. Why the hell they had to take such a huge step backwards is beyond me.

They tried it with simcity, when they made simcity societies, and what a flop that was.  None of the simcity loyalists liked the idea.  So I guess they thought they would try it again with the sims?  Fail in one game, so do it again in another.  Doesn't really make sense to me, but that is EA.

Since I haven't seen anything about it on this thread yet, I'm going to post this and hope I'm not screwing something up. *ducks* Supposedly, the game leaked early and a torrent is up at demonoid, though I make no claims about whether or not it is legit since I haven't downloaded it. Personally, I'm hoping to wait until CC is a possibility down the road.

Link: http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1925148/41351368/

I'm downloading it now, I will report in soon  ;D

Well, EA has been bragging about it being out for manufacture for awhile now, so it's not a surprise that, naturally, Pirate Cat is the first to get his paws on it. After all, Pirate Cat doesn't pay for his downloads.

Pirate cat doesn't need to worry about street dates either.

It seems someone posted screenshots in the comments. It seems to be legit, but I'm still not gonna touch it yet. :P

This is hilarious. So it's following on the same lines as Spore so far. Except Spore was only leaked a week before release, right? And this one is leaked two weeks and two days before.

Goodness knows I don't have a job, so I guess I can be a lab rat.

There are only 2 seeders, so it's taking it's sweet assed time.

An RL friend of mine confirmed the torrent is legit.

This blog has it at many free hosts.  Check it out.  It might be faster than the torrent.

http://www.rlslog.net/the-sims-3-reloaded/

I can't get it off of Demonoid since I don't have an account, but The Pirate Bay has a torrent up. I'm going to try it out.

Should bypassing the launcher work the same way as TS2?

Beware: There appears to be some sort of bizarre spyware wrap on the installer, although it WILL work if you extract the ISO manually and unrar the installer. Ordinarily, you'd blame dodgy uploaders for this, but with EAxis, you never know...especially since I found out about it because it's a repeated behavior from...another EAxis game!

This one at Mininova has 51 seeders: http://www.mininova.org/tor/2600472
NFO lists protection as Securom.

I don't have it fully downloaded yet.  Do you mean there is spyware inside the ISO?  I am confused by what you just warned me about.

On the RELOADED version? I've downloaded several games released by them in the past year and I've never had a problem. All the games I've arr'd are either RELOADED or Vitality releases.

Well, I'm definitely not installing it for a while, but since it seems legit and my neighbors have kindly left their wireless unencrypted, why not?  Mutorrent says it should be finished downloading in just five short weeks!   ::)

I'm currently getting it from the links on post 75.  It's at 28%.  I'm shocked the game got leaked so early.  Guess some store stupidly released a copy early like what happened with fallout 3.

Mine's going so slow! It's only 2.9% done and it says it will take 18 hours. There are only 3 seeds, (I'm not connected to any of them) so that's probably why. I wish I had a Demonoid account, though.

I noticed the Wiki article on the Sims 3 which had info about the game leaking today is gone already. So I guess EA knows about it.

35%.  I'm using rapidshare.com to download it so i can get it at my nets maximum speed.  If i'd be using a torrent i'd probably just finish downloading it when the game comes out in stores.

You can bet EA is going nuts about the leak probably already counting the money they think they'll have lost.

I've given up on the torrents, and gone for rapid share too. Should have it within 2 hours, as opposed to 2 days.

Pay up, people. I'm getting around 200kb-330kb speeds from the original, so keeping with it. I don't have a Demonoid account either, yet I'm getting it.

Pescado, can you explain how to unwrap the ISO manually to bypass this supposed spyware?

New forum section title is fantastic!

I hate RapidShare, though. I always get one file and it tells me to wait an hour. Plus, the last time I was there, it wouldn't take the letters they make you type in the box no matter how many times I tried.

I'm getting around 55 KB/s but it's still saying 1 day or more to finish. I might have to go to the RapidShare one.

Check your "Sims3Setup.exe" with WinRAR. If you can open it in WinRAR and find another one in there, along with a "codec.exe", you has it. That's the real one. Copy your CD contents, replace the wrapped version with the inside version.

Problem with places like rapidshare for games is you need to have it downloaded yesterday.  The files get deleted so fast.



I have a premium account since we download alot of movie series, movies and software.  Saves an incredible amount of time so it's worth the money.

I've got 7 rar files downloading at once, each getting 180kbps. Some times I think torrents are hit and miss, if you can get a seeder then great; if not, you're screwed.

Why do all of these downloads appear to be different sizes?  Mininova is 4.8 gigs; Demonoid is 5.6 gigs; the Rapidshare ones with sizes listed are around 5 gigs.

Some are rarred, some are zipped, and some are neither.

Ahh.

I think I'm just going to stick it out with Mininova; I'm in no hurry.

I'm getting between 400 to 500kbs all up.  Not to mention my stupid net keeps fluctuating so its going fast and slow.  I think i need to redownload a few files.  There's always some of these stupid files that stall out near 90% and never continue again.

I got impatient and grabbed the torrent from TorrentSeed. I'm getting speeds from that one between 500-600 kb/s. I hope EA kept their word and didn't put SecuROM in the game.

Cake is a lie, NFO says SecuROM.

Does your father know you are indulging in this kind of unmitigated internets and copyright violation? What would he say? FOR SHAME!

It really has SecuROM? Damn. I was really looking forward to playing tonight. But I ended up wiping my entire hard drive and reinstalling Windows the last time I got rid of SecuROM (I already had to do this to install a new motherboard and processor) and that's not an option again. And I don't know how to remove SecuROM the normal way because I don't want to mess with the registry. I certainly don't want it again, though. I ended up having to replace a DVD burner already after installing BV.

rohina -

He knows I mooch other people's bandwidth, and doesn't seem to care - after all, he's not paying for it.  If he has a problem with my illegally downloading TS3, I don't care.  I'm not in his house, I'm not using his connection, I'm not using his equipment.  He has absolutely nothing to do with what I do in my own apartment on my own computer.

ShortyBoo, I believe the torrent comes with a no-CD crack.  Use that instead of the exe - tada!  No SecuROM.

Registry editing is the only way.

Thank you. I'll check that out. The last two TS2 EPs I downloaded didn't have the No CD cracks right away (I got them later at GCW) so I figured this would be the same way.

@Rhayden: Actually I did get rid of it after wiping my hard drive and reinstalling Windows. But I wouldn't do that again because backing up all my files was way too much work. So editing the registry isn't the only way. I don't have SecuROM on my PC now, thanks to No-CD cracks.

Well, as Pescado is apparently already running the game and giving his expert opinion on it, I think that is a pretty clear sign that there is a way to run the game right now without invoking SecuROM.  When AL came out, on the other hand, I think it was a while before there was a no-CD.

That's a terrible way to get SecuRom when there are far easier methods. AFAIK, SecuRom is installed when you install the Sims; using the no-CD cracks prevents it from being installed AGAIN.

I thought it was installed by running the game using the EAxis executable - at least, I installed AL, used only a no-CD, and have noticed no signs of SecuROM on my computer, without ever having to clean any registries.

Alrighty, so this thread is officially over now that we have some real horror to gaze upon. And remember, THE GOGGLES, THEY DO NOTHING!