Apocalypse! How many are left?

[Lerf]

Only if EA ditches the set neighborhood system.  Sorry.  If all neighborhoods have to look alike then the game will always be fail as far as I'm concerned.  I love being able to make the neighborhood look exactly as I want it and as far as I can tell this is impossible in S3.

[seelindarun]

Only if EA ditches the set neighborhood system.  Sorry.  If all neighborhoods have to look alike then the game will always be fail as far as I'm concerned.  I love being able to make the neighborhood look exactly as I want it and as far as I can tell this is impossible in S3.

Yeah, that's a major downside to the game.

Which is exactly why it makes me question whether TS3 is the better game at its core.

It certainly could have been and maybe it still can be, but after all the hype, it's deflating to find that it's still just theory. 
For all its seamlessness, the world is much, much smaller in TS3.

[fiberglassdolphin]

Sorry.  If all neighborhoods have to look alike then the game will always be fail as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, that's a major downside to the game.

Which is exactly why it makes me question whether TS3 is the better game at its core.

I'm so pissed. I was so hoping that neighborhood tools would be better rather than a relapse to Sims 1 functionality. No adding and rearranging lots, no decorations, no choice of ground covering, no custom terrains. I hope more people complain about it in more visible internet venues.

The reviews of The Sims 3 all seem to be overwhelmingly positive. Are they critically searching for shortcomings at all? How much is EA paying them?

[GelatinousSubstance]

That's why I don't think EPs could make me like this game. I'll be surprised if things change because the direction seems fairly clear at this point.

[Lerf]

I keep getting told that I'd love Sims 3 if I just understood that I'm not supposed to play the game the same way as I played Sims 2.  I enjoy my play style--rotating families in houses I built for them and decorated for them, in a neighborhood I designed for them.  When I try to explain this--or when I bothered--I get told, "Well I never built houses/played any family but a particular Maxis-made family/played any family past the second generation", etc. etc. with a strong sub-text that I was playing wrong all this time and I should just straighten my thinking out and do it the One True Way.

In Sims 2 if you wanted to play the way I do you could, if you wanted to play any other way, you could.  With Sims 3 you seem to be channeled into one playing style.  Why the hell should I bother with it?

[GelatinousSubstance]

I'll never understand this religion. If you don't like it: don't bother with it.

Simple as that.

[maxon]

I keep getting told that I'd love Sims 3 if I just understood that I'm not supposed to play the game the same way as I played Sims 2.  I enjoy my play style--rotating families in houses I built for them and decorated for them, in a neighborhood I designed for them.  When I try to explain this--or when I bothered--I get told, "Well I never built houses/played any family but a particular Maxis-made family/played any family past the second generation", etc. etc. with a strong sub-text that I was playing wrong all this time and I should just straighten my thinking out and do it the One True Way.

In Sims 2 if you wanted to play the way I do you could, if you wanted to play any other way, you could.  With Sims 3 you seem to be channeled into one playing style.  Why the hell should I bother with it?

This - if you like playing with one family, Sims 3 is probably going to be fine for you.  If you don't, well, be seeing ya.

[J. M. Pescado]

If all you want to do is play enforced Legacy-style, Sims 3 is fine for you. If you want to play an entire neighborhood, or anything like something you may have done in Sims 2...well, it's AwesomeMod or forget about it, because with the stock rules, playing more than one house is basically impossible, given that the game will absolutely DESTROY anything you leave in its care.

[Orange Indigo]

My PC was upgraded last month, after which Windoze needed to be reinstalled. If I want to play Sims 2 ever again, I first have to reinstall the whole thing. >9000 EPs, stuff packs and probably patches too. I don't think I'm feeling up to it right now.  

I'm in a similar situation.
My hard drive needed to be replaced about two months ago, so I would have to reinstall The Sims 2 if I wanted to play it. Eh. As much as I do, I think I'm going to move on to The Sims 3 for the time being and hope it gets better. At least I still have TS2, just in case I do decide to go back. (And from the way things are shaping up, I just might.)

[MadameUgly]

While I enjoy looking at some of the silly things sims3 offers (like stealing candy from toddlers, that's hilarious) I have NO desire to own it.

The thought of starting over with sims3 makes me think of those crazy folks who (after having raised their kids to adulthood) deside to squeeze out one more baby.  WHY?!  I have my sims2 game just the way I like it.  I just installed AL and M&G and everything is *knocks wood* going well.  And if I do have an issue I know where to go to help find answers. 

Sims3 (as it is now) doesn't have anything new to offer.  If I want weird looking sims, I can play the PS2 version of Sims Castaways.  If I want a GAME (collecting seeds and all that stuff) I can play Animal Crossing (for DS) or Castaways.  And if I want a litle of everything (GAME and "playing dolls") I can just fire up my new sims2 neighborhood and work on my Build a City Challenge (or get back to my neglected stories).

It will take some really interesting expansion packs to make me open my wallet for Sims3.

[Orange Indigo]

If I want a GAME (collecting seeds and all that stuff) I can play Animal Crossing (for DS) or Castaways

I agree with you on that point.
I think the collecting rocks/seeds/bugs part of TS3 is obnoxious. It just clutters game play in a completely unnecessary way. I would rather get real features - i.e. more careers, more objects, more animations, more skills, etc. - that actually enhance the game. The collections just seem like they were supposed to be part of another game. I already own games with these features, but the difference is, in those games, collection is a major part of the point of the game.

Sending my poor sims across town to pick up three ~unknown~ seeds is pointless.

That's a bit off topic, though.
So - I've now decided, if I have the spare time, I'm going to reinstall all of my TS2 shit and get the proper mods.
I sincerely doubt that will happen anytime soon, though.

[GelatinousSubstance]

I must be alone in that part. I think the collectables were a good idea, and it's not written in stone anywhere (that I know of) that one must do it in order to play the game. It's just an option.

In fact, I would have liked more in that aspect. But I'm wondering if that's also what part of the bane is for me.

TS3 strikes me as half-assed. It seems, to me, that the team tried to cram too much into the base game without giving any of it any real direction.

[Orange Indigo]

I must be alone in that part. I think the collectables were a good idea, and it's not written in stone anywhere (that I know of) that one must do it in order to play the game. It's just an option.

In fact, I would have liked more in that aspect. But I'm wondering if that's also what part of the bane is for me.

TS3 strikes me as half-assed. It seems, to me, that the team tried to cram too much into the base game without giving any of it any real direction.

That's part of my complaint.
It feels like collectibles should do something more than what they do, which is fill trivial wants and little else. If there was a real purpose, I wouldn't find it to be so completely pointless and aggravating. It could be a good idea; it just isn't in the form it is now.

[Issy]

I wasn't too impressed with the gameplay in Sims 3 the first day I got it.  I stuck with it a few days to give it a fair chance and found it to be enjoyable for short periods of time.  Now after playing it on and off for a few weeks I still can't get used to the look of the Sims.  The toddlers and children still freak me out, they remind me of the Chucky dolls.  No matter how different I make them look in CAS they seem to have that hollow scary look ingame.  Anyhow, after getting to the top of a few careers with a few sims I'm really bored of it now.  The animations are also something I can't seem to enjoy. Having to stick to just romantic actions in one tree and losing it after making some other action in another tree makes socialising somwhat of a chore for me.

I installed my Sims 2 again about a week ago (with only the expanions that I enjoy most) and will be rebuilding my medieval neighbourhood.  I uninstalled my Sims 3 and most likely wont be going back to it anytime soon.

[Cynarra]

I am sticking with Sims2 and have no interest in the Sims 3.

[drace]

At the moment, I have both installed. I'm far from having finished exploring TS3, which I'm more enjoying than I thought I would, but I got the game for exactly three reasons: the Create-a-Style tool, the body shape sliders and the character traits. Nice features to play around with, though it's definitely not enough to compete with my established TS2 neighbourhood.
If I could choose, I'd have TS2 with the three features mentioned above, heh.

But as it is, I think after I'm done exploring, I will mostly stick to TS2, while only occasionally playing TS3. There are a couple of nice features/details to not entirely give up on the latter, but I do prefer the former, because I feel like I have much more control over things there.

As I'm the type who still plays Alpha Centauri, which is totally the cutest game ever, I think TS2 will stay with me for a while longer.

[dorquemada]

Back to 2 after getting completely fed with voodoo crashing of 3. 2 feels quite boring now....but at least it's bloody stable.

[tedw]

That's part of my complaint.
It feels like collectibles should do something more than what they do, which is fill trivial wants and little else. If there was a real purpose, I wouldn't find it to be so completely pointless and aggravating. It could be a good idea; it just isn't in the form it is now.

The rocks, butterflies and insects don't seem to fill anything other than a promised wish (although the rocks can get you money), but the seeds do have a purpose imo.  They are part of the gardening skill and its associated challenges and opportunities.  This may not be the style of gameplay you want, but they do lead to further interactions in the game, and directly to fulfilling one of the LTWs if you give this to one of your sims.

[Budgie]

That's part of my complaint.
It feels like collectibles should do something more than what they do, which is fill trivial wants and little else. If there was a real purpose, I wouldn't find it to be so completely pointless and aggravating. It could be a good idea; it just isn't in the form it is now.

The rocks, butterflies and insects don't seem to fill anything other than a promised wish (although the rocks can get you money), but the seeds do have a purpose imo.  They are part of the gardening skill and its associated challenges and opportunities.  This may not be the style of gameplay you want, but they do lead to further interactions in the game, and directly to fulfilling one of the LTWs if you give this to one of your sims.

The seeds are just plain annoying though. I mean, in TS2, we could plant anything as long as we had the right gardening badge. I mean, making it into levels gives it more precision, and I appreciate the variety of food, I just hate running all over the town looking for a bell pepper seed, and instead getting a bunch of unknown seeds that all turn out to be money trees.

[Tikkititi]

I have both installed, but I just don't care for TS3 much. The lack of neighbourhood customisation and the forced legacy-play puts me off. I did play it obsessively for a few weeks when it first came out, but I feel like I have done, if not everything there is to do, then everything I want to do. I just don't care enough about the game to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to collect all the different seeds or insects, or whatever.

I've started a new hood in TS2 and I'm falling back in love with it, I'll definitely stay with TS2 for the time being. If the inevitable mass of expansion packs for TS3 manage to flesh it out a little, I'll return for another go. I'm not holding my breath, though.

[J. M. Pescado]

The seeds are just plain annoying though. I mean, in TS2, we could plant anything as long as we had the right gardening badge. I mean, making it into levels gives it more precision, and I appreciate the variety of food, I just hate running all over the town looking for a bell pepper seed, and instead getting a bunch of unknown seeds that all turn out to be money trees.

Doing it wrong. If you want a specific food seed, go to the store and buy one. Searching all over town for unknown seeds is for when you WANT to get one of the really weird and decidedly nonfoodlike seeds.

[Orange Indigo]

That's part of my complaint.
It feels like collectibles should do something more than what they do, which is fill trivial wants and little else. If there was a real purpose, I wouldn't find it to be so completely pointless and aggravating. It could be a good idea; it just isn't in the form it is now.

The rocks, butterflies and insects don't seem to fill anything other than a promised wish (although the rocks can get you money), but the seeds do have a purpose imo.  They are part of the gardening skill and its associated challenges and opportunities.  This may not be the style of gameplay you want, but they do lead to further interactions in the game, and directly to fulfilling one of the LTWs if you give this to one of your sims.

I was mainly referring to the insects and rocks collectibles.  My sims hardly roll wants for rocks, and have NEVER rolled wants for insects. So, like I said, those collectibles don't have a purpose.

The seeds are all right. The method of obtaining them makes more sense than TS2, but I can't tell if that's a good thing.

[Mootilda]

I've played TS3 enough to know that it's no fun without a good core mod.

Unfortunately, Pes has decided to take the AwesomeMod in a direction which doesn't work for me.  Although he says that it's important to have a toy, rather than a game, I find that he's making too many decisions about how I should play the game, rather than giving me the options to decide how I want to play.  Not that I blame him; he obviously needs to make TS3 the game that he wants to play.  I understand how difficult it can be to find yourself unable to play the game because you are spending all of your time making the mods that other people want.  Unfortunately, EA decided to ruin people's ability to easily pick and choose a variety of smaller mods, the way that we could for TS2.

So, I'm trying to decide whether TS3 could be enough fun that it would be worth writing my own core mod.  At this point, I'm tending towards giving up on TS3 and going back to TS2.

[J. M. Pescado]

Unfortunately, Pes has decided to take the AwesomeMod in a direction which doesn't work for me.  Although he says that it's important to have a toy, rather than a game, I find that he's making too many decisions about how I should play the game, rather than giving me the options to decide how I want to play.

Which options are you missing now? I haven't seen your name in the list of people griping about anything.

So, I'm trying to decide whether TS3 could be enough fun that it would be worth writing my own core mod.  At this point, I'm tending towards giving up on TS3 and going back to TS2.

I think you pretty much need to achieve an extreme level of combined control-freakery and workaholism to really want to try that. One thing you can try is simply meta-modding. Rather than going all out to try to make your own core mod, just pick one that you like and mod that one to your taste.

[Ashman]

I have zero plans on buying TS3. Maybe in the distant future when they come out with a "complete" edition, and even then it depends on what expansions are available. From all I've read here, it doesn't suit my play style at all. Plus, I haven't even finished building my "as custom as I can make it" neighborhood in TS2. I won't even consider TS3 until I'm bored playing that.