Pudding Pups to pee and dig holes in your Play d'Eau 'hoods?

[haifen]

An interesting observation by recent maty convert/mts heretic claeric on MTS points out the potential clue to the next installment of teh Horror by EAxis:

http://store.thesims3.com/setsProdu...=OFB-SIM3:18618

The Winter holidays are all about family and thinking of others, including our beloved pets. There is no better gift than a Mochi's Doggie Present for your favorite pooch. This wonderful present is decorated with a lovely bow and a plush "Mochi the Dog" doll embracing the package.

Thoughts? It seems strange to me for them to mention "our beloved pets" and our "favorite pooch" and give us an item solely meant to be "for" pets...when we don't have pets!

And I am gonna take it as a hint.

I personally can not wait to see what annoyances and levelling up chores will be featured  in the EP. I mean who doesn't love skillinating petz?! With rotten.com kinda curiosity I wonder how they'll yield to the furries...

Sadly I know not to get my hopes up for any REAL sheep this time. 

[ShortyBoo]

I really hope Pets won't be the next EP. I'd much rather see a remake of Seasons or Nightlife. Real dates in bars & night clubs & weather are much higher on my wish list for the game than pets are. And I'm hoping when they do the Pets EP for TS3, they'll do it better than TS2. I want more pets besides dogs, cats, birds and fish.

[Georgette]

More exotic pets like tarantulas, turtles, lizards, snakes and (not so exotic) rodents would bring a bit more variety, but I doubt that would happen. I think pets will most likely be the next expansion pack - kids love puppies and kittens and the sheeple will probably quite happily buy new breeds of cat and dog from the store for ridiculous prices.

[uknortherner]

Ugh. I didn't bother with pets in TS1. I didn't bother with them in TS2, and I certainly can't be arsed with them in TS3. I second the call for a Nightlife-style EP, if only to introduce proper bars and clubs into the default hicktowns.

[Papercut]

I really hope Pets won't be the next EP. I'd much rather see a remake of Seasons or Nightlife. Real dates in bars & night clubs & weather are much higher on my wish list for the game than pets are.

Same here. Those remakes plus an OFB-style pack and an urban/apartment pack are the only expansions I really care about.

I'm pretty disappointed with the sequence TS3 EPs seem to be taking. Adventures and pets should come later, what we really need is stuff to expand on the basic gameplay, especially when it comes to social interactions which are really stripped down at the moment. The main problem with WA is that it adds bugger all to the base hood and basic gameplay. And TS2 pets added nothing to the gameplay except for pets. There wasn't even any new hair or much decor IIRC.

No doubt Pudding-Pets will be the same. I can't wait for the new "Animal lover" and "Hates animals" traits. The anticipation: it burns. Oh, and I hate to see what kind of goal-orientated tasky stuff Humble and co will cram into this pack - I'm betting there will be Pudding-Pet opportunities - like: "Send Rover to the park and have him make friends with another Pudding-Pet!", and I bet they'll be able to collect stuff too.

I hate that kind of crap. I rarely skilled up my TS2 pets beyond the "don't scratch furniture" skill. None of them ever had a job either - because they're pets, dammit! They're supposed to eat, sleep and occasionally fetch a stick! Not have careers.

[Moryrie]

I second Papercut's requests. Those actually sound interesting, and like they can add something to the gameplay. Pets? No.

 I haven't played the other 2 sims games, but from what I know about pet simulations that I've heard reviews of or messed with in the past, the things are more complicated than REAL pets, which simply shouldn't happen. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that I only deal with cats as a rule, and cats, while they have personality quirks, basically are happy with a large supply of dry food, water, and a sandbox you change twice a week.

And the way sims 3 sims take forever to do anything, changing the litterbox will probably take longer than brushing their teeth and washing their hands, which already takes too long.

[YoungOldPrude]

The Sims2 Pets was utter crap. At least with The Sims Unleashed we got a host of other things besides the path-blocking, game-play-slowing pixels that TS2 Pets spouted.
What did we get in Unleashed? An expanded Neighborhood (a really big deal back then, trust me); the ability to plant (admittedly, we had annoying garden pests in the shape of gophers and bunnies, but hell, at least the dogs and cats could be trained to kill them); there were new careers, and probably quite a few other things that I cannot recall right now.

TS1 had it together. TS2 had it together to a point. TS3's open neighborhood and the style-chooser-thingy earn it points in my book, but altogether it's nothing that we haven't seen before.
I really feel that Pets are the last thing that TS3 needs right now.

[Rainne]

I'll take the pets if I can run over them with my Vespa.

[J. M. Pescado]

Honestly, I think you're reading more into a single object than there really is. There's no evidence to support the idea that pets is next. And besides, does it really matter what order they come out in?

[tizerist]

does it really matter what order they come out in?

With an average six month gaps inbetween each EP, I would give a full-blooded YES to that.
If they have the dimwittedness to give us pets before businesses, then new levels of corporate blindness have been reached.

[Papercut]

While I'm not happy about it, I can kind of see why they might choose to release Pudding-Pets sooner rather than later. They probably don't want to repeat what happened with TS2, where for several years every second post on the BBS was "wen r we gettin PETZZZZZ?"

Also, wasn't Pets the highest selling EP? If Pudding-Pets is as popular it will look good to EA stake-holders, as EA can point to it and go "see how successful our second EP is! And there's plenty more EPs to come!"

WA is the big riddle, I reckon. Even sheeple have been wondering why they chose to release it first.

[sewinglady]

I don't know that any of it matters to me any more. I'm so not happy with the game since installing WA that I think I may have finally reached Sim Overload and be done with this expensive time-waster after all.

[Drakron]

Looking at "World of SimcrAft"(WA in case you miss it) it seems they were testing what could be done that wanting else, they know have the idea of how to link different neighborhood that I think was the main purpose of the expansion, kinda like University was for TS2.

Pets is just too much work, you have to create the skeletons, meshes and animations for then besides also the new socials and that crap that just takes a lot of time, why you think in TS2 Pets was the 4th expansion despite the base game already showing they were working on it?

Its just easier to make something like "Nightlife" as the workload is lower.

[kazebird]

Pets is just too much work, you have to create the skeletons, meshes and animations for then besides also the new socials and that crap that just takes a lot of time, why you think in TS2 Pets was the 4th expansion despite the base game already showing they were working on it?

This is where you are wrong. They recycled most animations for TS3 basegame, and will most likely do the same for pudding pets.

With that said, I highly suspect it was just a typo on the object's description. EA isn't exactly known for their competence in literacy (General Practioner anyone?)

[putti]

I don't have WA and I don't intend getting it either, I didn't patch my game and it runs fine.
Never patched any of my Sims 2 or Sims 1 games and never had a problem. I got all the EP's for all of them, but this time around I'm only getting one, if it ever comes out... and that is weather.

They made the towns look so realistic and don't include weather in the base game, how realistic is that!
Did I say realistic, I take some of it back. Cars drive through each other for crying out loud!

I hate looking at sunshine day in and day out...I want rain and snow and everything what goes with it.
Grabbing an umbrella before you go outside, puddles and mud, snowdrifts and so on.
I can dream!

[Drakron]

This is where you are wrong. They recycled most animations for TS3 basegame, and will most likely do the same for pudding pets.

"Recycle" is the wrong word as TS3 animations work different that TS2 animations, they might have the original animations frames around but hey, so they did from The Sims that in case your forgot had 3D Sims in what was a 2D world.

Also ALL pet meshes have to be done from scratch as TS2 meshes are unsuitable, now lets add the texture work and the whole thing became a lot of extra work, just because you cannot see the forest because of the tree does not mean its not there, animations are part of the workload even if they have leftovers there are substantial technical work implementation that is what consumes more of development time this days.

My point stands, its too much work and they could wipe out 2 expansions by the time they finish with Pets, again that is pretty much how TS2 did Pets, Pets might be EP3 but I doubt its going to be EP2.

[J. M. Pescado]

"Recycle" is the wrong word as TS3 animations work different that TS2 animations, they might have the original animations frames around but hey, so they did from The Sims that in case your forgot had 3D Sims in what was a 2D world.

No, the animations are definitely recycled. You can tell, they are EXACTLY the same, even when doing so causes them not to line up anymore. You don't recognize Irritate.../Annoy as the generic "mean action" pose now, even though the sims no longer stand close enough to actually poke their victim in the nose?

[haifen]

"Recycle" is the wrong word as TS3 animations work different that TS2 animations, they might have the original animations frames around but hey, so they did from The Sims that in case your forgot had 3D Sims in what was a 2D world.

Are you channeling bangelnuts?

[Dragon Slave]

"Recycle" is the wrong word as TS3 animations work different that TS2 animations, they might have the original animations frames around but hey, so they did from The Sims that in case your forgot had 3D Sims in what was a 2D world.

No, the animations are definitely recycled. You can tell, they are EXACTLY the same, even when doing so causes them not to line up anymore. You don't recognize Irritate.../Annoy as the generic "mean action" pose now, even though the sims no longer stand close enough to actually poke their victim in the nose?

Every now and then I catch a glimpse of something different, like more vigorous jaw movement for making out, and there's a new animation thrown in here and there, but otherwise it's all regurgitated stuff we've seen before.  If TS2 animations work differently and can't be converted, then it's possible they worked from a different source, like the animation files saved in whatever format they were initially created in.  Just as a guess.