More Awesome Than You!

I've read many horror stories about all the issues people are having trying to install this expansion but little about the expansion itself.  I've heard it slows down your game, and that it's overly goal oriented.

So it is worth hmm obtaining? Sims 2 expansions would usually add a load of new animations, interactions and objects that made it somewhat worthwhile, even if you weren't that interested in pets, let's say or going on vacation.  Is this similar?  If it's just a mini game within the Sims 3, I might just skip it and not see my overall game performance degrade.

Well this is my opinion, and I have been playing the Sims since Sims 1.  I have bought or acquired every expansion and stuff pack for all 3 over the years.  I also enjoyed playing World of Warcraft for a bit, so I like quests and opportunities.

If you take out your CC, the game on a decent computer runs great.  My computer is not top of the line but it is pretty good.  I play with my settings on max.  I do have some jaggy moments if I am spinning my camera in a very decorated, 8 sim house (this is with CC installed).  Bouncing back and forth from Map view to Sim can also cause jerky lag.  But to me it is not anymore than it used to be.  With all of my CC in (I have over 500 files currently) the jagginess is increased. Time for some deleting.

As for the game play.  I LOVE the scenery.  I have no idea if it stereotypical landscaping for these regions, I just know that I love to look at the buildings, the landscaping and the overall scenery.  The new objects look great.  I love all of the relics they can gather.  We just need some shelving and invisible slots for tables and coffee tables.  I have not been able to make a Mummy yet.  I keep looking for one..so not sure how they are.

Since I am playing without Awesome mod I can't really comment on the Sims actions, because regular EA Sims are annoying as hell.  Constantly doing retarded things and getting in each others way.  I did notice we can now mass fertilize and I love the shower in a can.  I find taking more than 2 sims on a vacation is rather annoying.  Going through a tomb with 2 sims is usually all you need.  I would have liked it more if it was a little more Bon Voyage.  Swimming in the ocean is needed!

Overall since I haven't totally dissected it, all I can say is I like it, I am glad I got it, and I look forward to playing it with Awesome Mod installed.  It does add new places to visit and they are very beautiful.

This is my opinion and I tend to be a glass is half full kind of person.

Being a photographer myself, I'm really digging the new photography stuff. I just really want someone to make a hack or something that adds a class for it. Getting those first few skill points for it sucks. Basements are very cool. Once AM is updated I'll be making a Vault society. Nectar is also a pretty neat novelty hobby, and I find the science of wine interesting enough. Tombs will probably be fun enough as long as you do them sparingly. Can't wait for some user made ones. The tombs that are in the French houses are really the best, I think.

I ended up buying this expansion pack. Don't know if I'll buy them all, but this one had enough stuff on the side that interested me.

Basically, it would appear that a cap of about 300 mb of cc is called for with this EP, perhaps less.
Its an absolute pain the ass in that regard, but the scenery, the interactive objects, and the ability to have 4 hoods in one savegame means that in the end, I suppose, it is worth it.

Really?  Is there an actual cap?  Or is it just a performance thing.

Where did you read that? Does that include EA Store crap (I don't know if that even counts as CC) or just other cc? Because I've got over 500 MB for EA Store crap and I haven't noticed anything missing. Other cc I have 50 MB of so I don't know if it'll stop me at 300 or not.

To the OP, I like the EP more than the base game itself. Though that might only last for a month, since when I got the base game I obsessively played for about a month and then got bored. So we'll see how long I obsess over the EP. So far I like it a lot and I haven't had any problems that other people have been having.

I gather that "a cap . . . is called for" means "the game will run better if you limit yourself", not "it will only read this many items"

It's 100% worth it for piracy.  There's nothing much that particularly sucks about it, and it's free, so go for it.  To buy, well, that depends on what you like to play.  The exploration aspect is interesting, if a bit simplistic, but there's no replay value for it.  If there's a way to create your own tombs to explore(and share with other players, like downloadable vacation destinations) I'd say it would be completely worth the cost.  Maybe we can get that with the (rumored) neighborhood editor to be released in december.  But without it...I dunno, it's your $$, but I would have felt a bit ripped off if I put up all my cash for something where the puzzles would never change.
There's also three new skills, though I haven't leveled any of them up past level 5 or so yet to see what they do.

I haven't experienced any major lag issues with my game, and I only have 2 gigs of ram and a low end video card, as well as loads of maxis cc(though I haven't added any non-maxis content back in yet).  The only thing is if I've been on vacation for a while, and come back to my neighborhood, sometimes there's a slowdown...but by that point I've been playing for 2 or so hours anyway, so it's likely just a ts3 memory leak.

Tomb creation is already in the expansion. With testingcheatsenabled true, there is a new cheat called buydebug on, which shows a new debug tab in buy mode. This is where all the traps, switches, and other little tidbits are. Toss down a floor switch (for example), hold down Control and Shift, and then click the switch. Tada, you have a bunch of new options to fiddle with the programming and setting up of interesting puzzles. I'm sure eventually there will be detailed guides on how it all works, because it can get pretty complex, especially since there are LOGIC GATES.

I can see many fiendish tombs being made with the ability to do logic gates. Doors that need two sims stepping on switches at the same time to open, timed switches, so much more.

Before WA was released I was a little pissed that EA combined Tomb Raider and Indian Jones into one EP and wanted me to solve puzzles as a challenge. But I was intrigued by the idea of being  able to visit other worlds or countries. I had made up my mind that I was going to buy the EP but I wasn't going to solve any puzzles or run into any mummies or other stupid stuff. Well, that all changed within the first 15 minutes of play. The scenery pulled me in first. Then there was the mystery of finding ancient coins of which you have to go into the tombs to get. At every dark turn or switch I was afraid a mummy was going to jump out and grab me.  My sim had more courage than me. I managed to solve the puzzle and get out with my life. Cool! Very cool! I can't wait to travel to the other worlds next but my sim must wait and spend a few days at home first before going abroad again. I won't reveal any more about the game. I suggest to you, though, that it IS worth every penny.....

Yes I meant you will have to limit yourself in terms of CC cause the EP and CC do not appear to mix.
Although over at MTS there has been suggestion that .package files are the problem, and that having the Launcher install the CC to \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\DCCache seems to not slow the EP down much at all.
I dont have much laucher-installed stuff, perhaps you could check that out for us claudiasharon?

My alternate theory is that those people having the problems NEED MOAR RAMS. 300 MB is a figure that seems very consistent with a computer that has inadequate RAMs on top of the drain imposed by Windoze and the minimum requirements for the game itself. Consider the numbers: WA lists a "Requirement" of 2 GBs of RAMs. This means that, because Windoze takes up half your RAMs and the requirements assume Windoze, TS3 will take up an actual 1 GB. This is a figure entirely consistent with what Task Manager will tell you. Now throw in 300 MBs of CC. You're talking now about 1.3 GBs of RAMs used, meaning 2.6 GBs of RAM in your computer (Windoze eats half). Throw in some change for "crap users tend to have running in the background", like spyware, browsers, and other crap, and you're rapidly approaching the 3 GB line of a 32bit system.

Well the stuff I have installed via the launcher are the sims store crap and some exchange crap (sim households). I haven't put anything else in the DCCache via the launcher. I almost have 100MB of .package files though in the mods folder. So far my game is running fine, it loads pretty fast and doesn't lag. When I hit 300MBs then we'll see I suppose.

Oh and apparently I have 3 GB of RAM. Don't know if that actually helps or not. I'm on Windows Vista too.

Thanks for the info, I spent a good hour today (unsuccessfully) trying to figure out how to actually set up all the pieces.

Well, I'm playing on my old computer, with only 1 gig of RAM and lots of CC, and it runs well! So much for the horror stories! No bugs nor crashes so far either. Only annoying thing I noticed is that the food now spoils very quickly in the fridges, in less than a day. Dunno if it's the patch or WA though.

As for WA: definitely worth it, as long as you're not one of the RPG gameplay haters, because there's lots of it in the EP. The neighborhoods are great and EA did seem to put a lot of work in the EP on the lots and locals, the new skills are nicely fleshed out, and there's tons more collectibles (new fruits, recipes, fish, rocks, gems, and now relics too).

Are you using .package files?

Is the food spoilage due to using package files? Any leftover food I put in the frig spoils after about 12 hours or less.

I for one actually love it, Especially all the new stuff they added in CAS. The new hairstyles have a much better texture that the base ones did, and
IMO the new Egyptian eyeliners are to die for. If you have anyone in your life who has had or gone through cancer they added the perfect hairstyle to use for that

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/SephirothIsGod/Kalia2.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/SephirothIsGod/SinnaNatural.jpg)

and some of the new jewelery is really awesome IMO you can see the Necklace and Snake armband on Sinna (Who's Outfit is By Liana). They also added new sliders for the face and some wrinkles in the same category where the birhtmarks are. There also are three new traits, Adventurous, Disciplined and Photographer's eye:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/SephirothIsGod/Kalia1.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/SephirothIsGod/SinnaDisciplined.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/SephirothIsGod/SinnaPhotographer.jpg)

As for the gameplay they added the ability to cut or analyze all items in the inventory that are the same, So no more clicking on each friggin' Space rock to analyze. I personally also love exploring the tombs there's a great creepiness about it, I can't wait to raise my Visa level some more for longer adventures. But then my PC can handle it all with almost no lag on the highest Graphic settings. On a PC like my last I can imagine exploring really would have just been frustrating because that thing freezes when you open Firefox and my new baby is a Quad. I hate having to fix anything on the old one because even though it was only manufactured in 2007 it feels like a damn dino after using the Quad. Alas I still must deal with that wretched POS because I gave it away to my mom when I upgraded. I hope you have at least a Dual core with a good amount of RAM or playing WA might get seriously frustrating.

ScorpioMaurus, could you please tell me where you got the lipstick in first pic?

I had no idea about package files and the food spoiling thing, thanks for the info!

So, are there any special files I should consider deleting to get rid of the issue? This problem only showed up after patching and installing WA.

Might just be horrible fucking graphics settings.

Just FYI I Googled the food spoilage thing and a lot of people are also complaining about this on the EA BBS. So far it looks to me like it's a WA bug and not something being caused by package files. I guess EA is supposed to be looking into it.  

ETA: To answer the OP's question, yes, I think it's worth it. There ARE a lot of interesting things to try out and to do. And I was in the camp that thought the whole idea was whacky (puleeze, Indiana Jones in a Sims game?) mostly because it doesn't fit my gameplay. I'm more into story-telling so I don't particularly like the goal oriented challenges because they just tend to get in the way of my story; this is why I could never play this game without mods because they allow me to fully control whether or not I want to play the silly game the developers made or play MY game the way I want to. I agree with those who say that sims 3 has gotten a bit off track with this aspect - although sims 2 also made players solve puzzles or accomplish goals, it could usually be ignored or avoided and by the time I started playing it it was completely customizable with mods anyway. S3 has way too much goal oriented crap in it that cannot be avoided at all without hacks; if you don't want to go on adventures your sim will never be able to buy a vacation house or stay more than 3 days. There will be hacks to fix this, I'm sure. But with a few exceptions, there's not a lot else to do there.

That said, because the base game was getting boring I am actually enjoying playing the EP. I think it will eventually get boring also, though, and that's the problem with TS3. IMO a lot of player control has been taken away. But you will see lots of different opinions and of course this is just mine.

How does your game run? Do you have .package files in use?

NP it's from TSR by a creator called Lorieen (Glossy Lipstick by Lorieen) and it's a free one so no having to look around PMBD or anything

As for the Egyptian sim her lipstick is by Katelys (Lipstick 05) and is also free just in case anyone was wondering.


No my graphic settings are all on high except shadows and Draw distance are on Medium, That's the way the camera looks in CAS that shows when you choose the Photographer's Eye Trait. The cameras they use in game don't look that bad.
 Then again it could be my GPU drivers I've had some trouble since installing the ATI drivers after 9.8. Sometimes the graphics in the games got screwy and 3 times it went into VPU Recover so I rolled them back to 9.7 and haven't had any problems since.

Sim-Fu video - my sim is the blue belt, this was part of an adventure quest.
http://tinypic.com/r/29dbxue/6

Thank you :)

Your welcome, I had originally put links but then I thought I remembered something about not putting TSR links here. Not sure but I hope you found it okay.

The more I play this game the more I love it, The food spoilage and the Sims Cough Drops not working is certainly annoying but Oh well the adventures IMO are so much fun. I haven't been able to defeat a mummy yet I guess that requires more strength or something. Since my sim has been adventuring nonstop that doesn't leave much time for working out. However in the last day she's acquired around 30,000 Simoleons worth of relics and stones so it's a great way to make money without cheating.

To echo stuff that's been said, WA seems fun. I got fed up with Sims 2 after OFB, so I never got the Bon Voyage thing.

The "adventures" part of WA is fun. Your Sims get a different treadmill to mess around on, plus stuff to collect in inventory for that treadmill (tent, portable food, shower in a can, etc).  Solving the little adventures is fun so far, although pretty much simple & not very complicated in terms of gameplay.  It's not Tomb Raider, and it's hardly Indiana Jones, but it is something to build your Sims' bank account without having to send them away to the Work treadmill.

Time doesn't seem to pass when you're at a different World location. In the new game I set up for WA, one of my Sims left her husband at home to go on a vacation (prompted by a new type of Opportunity in the regular Sims neighborhood).  While she was doing her thing in Sim-France (whatever the name is), her age clock advanced.  When she returned, her husband was a couple Sims days younger than her (the 3-day length of her vacation).

Perhaps this kind of neuters the Sims 3 benefit of other households aging with your Sims since you have the full range of Sims interactions with the Townies in Sim-BFE & whatnot... so grumpy Sim-grandpa's French mistress from decades ago probably never ages a day unless she comes to visit grandpa.  *Le sigh*

It's not a huge bump up on your core Simsville experience since so much of the actual content is in the overseas stuff, but it does add a different variety of gameplay. I just wish it were more tightly integrated with the rest of the Sims 3 universe instead of shunting off a bunch of crap elsewhere. Of course, the benefit of it all being elsewhere is that I can still run it on this crappy laptop with no real video card.

/I want my Sim has to learn Sim-fu in order to fight those Mummies!

What's with the dude watching the fight?  It's like he's waiting for some hair-pulling and shirt tearing...or some mud wrestling  8)

Okay now I have a question. My sim is level 10 in Martial Arts and when she fights there are green motion lines when they spar, Does that have to do with the fact that I have my Visual Effects on high or that she's level 10? Because I don't see those lines in this vid.

View My Video (http://tinypic.com/m/6gad0j/2)

I read somewhere that the Disciplined trait affects that, tho I could be wrong. Does you sim have that trait?

Yes she does, Perhaps that explains it. I thought it was most likely a graphic setting or something but she does have that trait so maybe.

(Edit) I have confirmed that a sim without the disciplined trait does not have the green lines while fighting. Thanks for the info that would've really confused me I think.

I have a question:

I only want the new CAS sliders.  Not really interested in WA.  Do I have to purchase WA to get the sliders or are they in the latest patch?

     Okay, now that I've had a chance to get my game working long enough to actually play awhile, I'll go ahead and give my two cents worth. ^_^

      Well, let me start off by saying, I love it! Sure it was buggy at first, buggy still, and will be buggy for awhile longer. But, for now it still seems well worth it. The countries are look wonderful, and its just so nice to see a change of atmosphere for the sims! I for once am impressed with EA's job at world creation and decor. Before now I always thought they just kinda "Dropped" a few trees here and there, threw stuff together, but it actually looks like they put in some effort! Usually its the player-created maps that always looked best to me. But after going through an egyptian tomb, looking at an underground desert oasis. I was like "Wow" I dont think I could replicate that if I tried...  (Though I've never been good at that sort of thing to begin with of course) And besides this, even the interior decor of some sims houses looks like an improvement. One house I visited in egypt, I remember my first thought upon scoping out the rooms, "Wow! The colors actually go together! It actually matches!" And perhaps its just me, but it seems EA put more time into sim-creation as well, the sims in WA dont look so much like they were hit with the "Random-ugly-generate" button.

     But moving onto the gameplay, Im hooked on tomb exploration. ^_^ Honestly, when I downloaded WA, my only reason was for new items, new tools and new interactions. The tomb thing didnt look that interesting to me, (Except for the idea of making an underground torture chamber lol) I mean... it's the sims! If I wanted a dungeon adventure, I'd play something else. I don't play the sims because I wanna deal with puzzles and traps, and have "Levels to beat" But it turns out not at all what I thought.
     My favorite thing in TS3 was the "Item collecting" feature. I loved collecting gems and whatnot to display in my house. There's a *huge* amount of things to collect! And the fact you have to go through tombs and traps to get the best of them, makes it much more rewarding when you do complete a collection. I mean before, it seemed kinda lame before, my sim walking around town, "Oh a diamond!" (A lil' tune plays) "Oh! an emerald!" (Tune plays again) And for those who want your collections the easy way. There's always the relic shop to purchase vases and treasures without the effort.
      And of course, the other thing I loved, was collecting "Fragments" of special items, such as divewells, or sarcophagus where once you collect all the pieces you can "Re-construct" to have one to use in your own sim home! I have a basement where I store all of my treasures and love the way these look in there. And one last thing with the items, those "Treasure chests" that your sim hunts down in ancient tombs, they can be bought from a merchant in town. They work as "Item storage"!  I always hated having my sim-inventory full, having to scroll through rows and rows of items just to find a book i wanted my sim to read. But I didnt have the space to just "Display" everything before. Now I can drag pretty much everything to store inside my treasure chest for safekeeping.

      One more thing. That new "buydebug" cheat. It is a godsend in itself. I can place tomb objects in my very own sim home, and have access to other hidden objects. Before WA I downloaded bug/gem/seed spawners, (Forgot who they were from) but the one problem I had, was that once I placed them, because they had to be invisible, I couldnt remove them. With buydebug, I have access to all the spawners. While in buy/build mode, they show up as large white blocks. When I go into live mode, they're invisible. I can buy fully grown plants and place them wherever I like, to have a community lot garden, I no longer have to have a sim manually plant everything. I can even set up a community garden to be filled with full grown omni plants.

         Sorry this was so long. But if those bugs could be fixed, I'd definitely be willing to pay for WA. And plan on doing so.