TS3 L&P

[Skadi]

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.]

[Jelenedra]

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!

[spaceface]

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. 

[Inge]

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

[J. M. Pescado]

Which thread, and what PROBLEMS?

[Inge]

Which thread, and what PROBLEMS?

Quite.  It didn't happen.   

[J. M. Pescado]

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

[Inge]

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

[nekonoai]

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

Something smells fishy.

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

Or do I?

[BastDawn]

Urgh.  I went to Parsimonious 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.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

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.

[Theo]

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

[BastDawn]

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.

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.

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.

[Inge]

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

[nekonoai]

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.

[Solowren]

No elf ears?

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

[Alex]

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.

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

[eevilcat]

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.

[MaryH]

Or do they want to make ZOMG MOAR MONEYS by making us only get stuff thru the store?

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!

[BastDawn]

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

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

[Ashman]

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.

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?

[Sigmund]

Looks like there's a few different release dates floating around now. Spring4Sims has an article about it here. 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).

[Alex]

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.

[Inge]

...and change the package format

[Zazazu]

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.

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.