More Awesome Than You!

So after several days and a certain amount of poking at it, here's our scoop: The Good, the Bad, and the Randomly @Toaded.

The Good	The Bad
From the neck down, CAS is technically superior to TS2's in every way.	The wardrobe selection is cripplingly limited and restricted. From about the nose up, things go downhill fast: TS2's upper headbrow generator is far superior to TS3's, especially in the eyebrow and forehead department. Puddingface is always a problem.
	New Sim Genetics engine largely nonexistence. TS2 had a simple Mendelian genetic model. TS3 has NO real genetics. A sim inherits a feature, apparently 50/50, from one of its parents. The analogue features of male/female often produce disturbingly bad results. when a genetic feature is expressed on the wrong gender. I have not had an opportunity to experiment with what happens if a sim changes its hair in a mirror and then breeds: It is distinctly possible that visible features are instantly genetic and that the game has no record of a sim's "natural" look at all.
Graphically, TS3 is much better than TS2 when displaying sims (well, with the exception of the Puddingface, but that is aesthetic and not technical). Lighting appears superior to TS2.	Game can appear excessively dark. Graphical quality of many objects is inferior to that of their TS2 counterparts. Example: Bar glasses are now hexagonal instead of round. No doubt this is deemed an acceptable degradation in quality, but it shows how they're getting away with this: Many objects are probably using lower-poly model versions.All observations made using maxed graphics, so don't blame my hardware. TS3 really cuts corners in objects. I notice this even though I am not at all a connoisseur of objects!
There is much more gameplay in the base game than in TS2's base game.	Gameplay is not a toy. Games are things you beat. Once you mine this out, there's nothing left.
Open neighborhood and ability to move around and save on the move is an improvement that unlocks new gameplay potential.	Legacy Playstyle may be practically enforced. There are troubling rumors that the "Story Progression" disable to keep your sims from messing up on a large scale may, in fact, NOT ACTUALLY WORK, and while the behavior may be reduced, sims left unattended begin to randomly spawn with random other sims and disappear or die. Random sims will flood any available unoccupied house.
Trait system seen as an improvement over personality bars system.	Most traits remain cosmetic at best. Doing an "Extreme" version of an action is not really any different from the regular action, other than that a comical descriptor is attached to it. Very few traits actually produce visible behavioral changes, except for the insanity traits, which are essentially a justification to allow a specific sim to be more irritating than usual.
Job-based gameplay greatly enhanced over TS2	Results do not always make sense: You frequently receive lower-ranking townie as your "boss".
Most objects arbitrarily recolorable.	Cripplingly small assortment of actual objects. Recolorability is frequently used as an excuse to provide only awful defaults, resulting in the user effectively having to pick his own colors. Those not artistically inclined will find this far more difficult than before. Actual selection of objects is cripplingly limited, as the actual number of usable objects is even less than base TS2!
Build mode technically superior to TS2's	Marred by flighty user interface. It is very easy for the game to misplace things or otherwise do things you don't want them to do. Rooms can end up misdrawn or misplaced due to unresponsive tools which have been overly sfx'ed
Binning, deleting, killing, or moving in sims does not appear to cause runaway bloat anymore...at least, it APPEARS not to. Only when we dig inside the files can we truly confirm that there is no detritus. But at least I can't see the filesize expanding wildly, and staging an evacuation of your One Fambly doesn't appear to destroy too much.	Neighborhoods aren't likely to last that long anyway. At least it appears you can rip up a fambly and move it without too much devastation, due to the fact that the lack of a memory system eliminates the need to retain residual data about sims.
Sims slightly smarter, less likely to pee on the floor.	However, their object usage behavior, particularly with, say, chairs, is flat out retarded. An example an obvious case: Place a bar on normal home lot. Observe how all your sims now decide they MUST go and take up dining table slots to drink...even if you've provided them with plenty of in-room seating on proper barstools AT THE BAR. The stupid chair-seeking behavior is FAR inferior to TS2's, where sims would prefer the best in-room chair over any chair outside the room, and avoided unnecessarily leaving the room. In TS3, sims will traipse all over the house to find an arbitrary chair for reasons manifestly inscrutable...and there isn't even a comfort motive to justify this behavior anymore!
Money in basic gameplay is no longer trivially easy to come by.	Free Cash Handout on Move Out shoots this firmly in the foot, just like the 20K handout, except now you can abuse the exploit with only a few clicks every time. Your sim fambly can never, ever, move out or otherwise seperate without accidentally exploiting this. If you want to intentionally not exploit this, you will have to use the famblyfunds cheat. If it's there and still works. Of course, there's little point in advancing homes beyond "furniture scattered across a lawn, because of the IDIOTIC CHAIRSEEKING BEHAVIOR which basically eliminates the usefulness of room partitionment and frequently turns it into a liability. At best, a FEW rooms benefit from being seperated...most other rooms may as well be the Chairs On The Lawn Room: It's not as if being in lawn-furniture stops your sims from thinking the room is now well-decorated...in fact, they are more likely to believe a room is well-decorated as lawn-furniture than as actual rooms! Relative cost of walls is greatly increased by the the decrease in money, anyway, so the cost-benefit ratio of walls is decreased, especially since benefit can be negative.

The Randomly @Toaded
Despite all the doom and gloom, it looks like there may be a ray of hope (Even though "ray of hope" is the kind of name I would give to a combat lazor.):
It looks like the way TS3 is structured MAY in fact be highly moddable, perhaps more so than TS2. Here's where it all goes to shit: Unfortunately, the scripts are also compiled, encrypted, and digitally signed. We have had success in breaking through the encryption, but unfortunately, they are also digitally signed to SPECIFICALLY PREVENT THE GAME FROM ACCEPTING THIRD-PARTY MODIFICATION. We have also been able to partly decompile them: However, the scripts are implemented as monolithic blobs. This makes it very difficult to do any kind of small contained mod, meaning you are only table to use mods from ONE source at a time, effectively. The other major problem is that the decompilation process produces code that is full of errors and will not compile. We're talking thousands of errors that must all be fixed. And this will be a pain in the neck that has to be dealt with every time patches come out or expansions are made. yay. Maintenance hell. Also, you pretty much now have to be a "real programmer" to even attempt modification: Code in TS3 is much lower-level than TS3's SimAntics bytecode. It is much more powerful, but also that much more inscrutable. What does this mean? Hard to say, it's not an issue which personally affects me. Will we get more because "real programmers" can apply their existing skills, or will we get less, due to the massive incompatibility issues, the fact that you essentially have to choose  to play either EAxis, or Awesomemod, and not some mix-and-match combo of Awesomeware, Jeffyware, and Squingeware like you'd like to in TS2. At least the support will be less of a pain in the ass.

Of course, none of this matters: Scripts are digitally signed with private keys to permit only official modification. It is possible to hack the game to make it WORK, but there's no telling what conflicts it could cause down the line, as EAxis will surely try to shut it down, and the techniques used to achieve this hackage may not sit well with, say, the Evil That Is SecuROM. Yes, SecuROM may prevent you from being able to mod your game now. On the other hand, you can have your fucking no-censor without any of this. All you worthless sheep can get it from the guy who made it when he posts his result and GTFO. You make me physically ill. Naturally, if cracking is required to make such a thing work, discussion of hacks will likely end up utterly verboten in the "Light" community that is non-Awesome circles. Support the Municipality! Donate to the Awesome Empire.

So, are you going to attempt TS3 mods, or are you giving it up as too much of a royal pain?  It doesn't really surprise me that they apparently went to a lot of effort to prevent third-party mods, but it's still kind of disappointing.

ETA:  Something else I'd wanted to ask you, when you'd decrypted the game code:  Since TS3 sims seem to be better at autonomously taking care of their needs, would it be possible to turn TS3 autonomy algorithms into TS2 hacks?

It does not surprise me that EA has truly locked down the code. They were surely horrified at all the "mature adult" hacks that were available for TS2, and so decided to put all the modders who were or could be responsible for such travesties out of business.

I wouldn't blame you, Pescado, if you do not want to dig into the code. It would serve the players who buy this half-assed piece of whatever it is right.

It would only validate EA shitty coding and perhaps put your awesomeness in legal jeopardy to do so. It's up to you, and we're not the ones who are going to have to sit up late nights trying to unmanglelate the borkedness.

I pity anyone who thinks it's easy to hack or mod any game, especially this one, which was designed not to be modded.

However, more power to you, if  you should do so.

I truly will be in awe of your powers if you actually can do it without going insane or getting caught by EA.

Can they actually take any legal action against him for distributing mods?  But yeah, like she said, I totally understand if you don't think it's worth it.

I can't imagine JMP ever doing something he didn't want to do :-)  If he takes on the code, it'll be for the personal satisfaction of defeating it.  And if anyone can wrestle it to its knees and behead it, it's JMP.

Oh yeah, I'm sure he's not going to make mods just because the peasantry whines that they want them.  I'm just trying to make it clear that that wasn't what I was doing.  I'm probably not even going to be playing much TS3, though if Pescado does make mods for it I might reconsider.

It depends on which threshold is reached first. It's sort of a race to see how my dislike of the game ramps up. Observe the following sample:
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/tmp/pir.jpg)
As you can see, the red irritation line races against the black patience line and the green power line. If the power line catches up with my level of irritation, I become a modder. If the red line hits my patience first, I quit. Graph is sample and not to scale.

I wasn't the one who did the decryption. As for turning TS3 autonomy algorithms into TS2 hacks, TS3 autonomy algorithms still suck, they just have more braking conditions...which is essentially what the unreleased Macrotastics-based AI did, only BETTER!

Did?  Did you stop working on that shiny?

Modability (including creation of CC) is probably the one feature that has contributed most to TS2's longevity so I'm stunned that EA could have gone so wide of the mark on this one. I did suggest ages ago that they might go down the route of licensing a tool for the creation of CC and this would certainly fit with that. Does the digital signing effectivlely replace GUIDs for uniquely identifying content? I expect that EA would rather be in control of the master database than let a third party do it as in TS2/SimPE.

Where at?  I figure I'm overdue anyway.  Is the subscription link valid?  Cheeseserver?  

USE YOUR THUMBS!  :D

Someone's working on a mosaic hack? sweet.

Ah, don't forget the buggy game speeds that some appear to be having.  This isn't delusional (maybe...most likely) as I've noted after a few hours of play last night that while my female sim was off watching a soccer game at the stadium, hours were going by at the same pace as the normal speed, yet I had switched it to the fastest.  I played around with the different selections of speed, and this game wasn't having any of that.  Everything stayed at normal speed.

I've yet to have the tribblebabies happen to me, and the speed is the only thing giving me hell.

Re: the seating issue, I had a sim living in a home without any seating. She took all her meals to the bathroom and ate sitting on the toilet.

She's lucky she had a toilet.  If we don't give our sims toilets I wonder if they dash out of the house to use a public one?

No Inge they pee themselves, the counter to this is to install Steel Bladder bonus trait, they never need to use the toilet again.

Barf! I won't touch TS3 AT ALL if there are no mods by Pescado or TwoJeffs.

I'm also ready to partake in open warfare if EAxis gives T$R's "artistes" access to their encrypted codes. Not that something like that would ever happen, right? Right?  >:(

I think that it's much more likely that EA will host TSR at the Sims 3 Store.  That way, they can skim a bit off the top.

Xuriel in fact that would be a really good thing to happen, TSR is easier to infiltrate than EA studios. Meaning the codes could be given to the people who need them most.

That's exactly what I was thinking, Aner - EA gives their proprietary CC-making tool to TSR, and three days later coconut has it up for general-purpose download.

Oh dear! I forgot all about coconut!! There is hope!!!

*dances awkwardly*

It's hard to believe even EA could be so retarded as to prevent/discourage CC-making in a game series where one of the major draws so far has been CC.

And damn, does it ever need it, what with the lack of furniture.

I agree on the lame things with sims 3 - Examples of shortcuts [I've got a high comp, these are not problems with my machine]

Lattice is -not- alpha-ed.  It is black for spaces, not clear.
Some of the textures are incredibly blurry.
Familyfunds -does not- work, however, the cheats that do work - motherlode, kaching, moveobjects on/off, snapobjectstogrid on/off and testingcheatseneabled on/off.  For builders, we were told there would not be a floorelevation cheat - we were told wrong - however, there is some lighting issues that make hiding the deformed walls much more difficult.  However, it is usable, and not -super- noticeable.

When you say that modding it will be something in the nature of problematical, do you mean just game behavior mods, or new objects?

And my problem with CAS is that the hair styles more or less universally suck, and there is no way to make thin, natural-looking brows.  Clothing is somewhat limited as well, but the separates are much more fun to use in 3.

Insanity Prelude:

My guess is that they want to be able to monopolize all CC and charge for them themselves. If they block all third party content then all the sheeple will have to go and get all their shtuff at the Sims 3 Store. Kaching!

Yes this is getting a bit out of hand.  It's only the *scripts* that are gonna be problematic.  The actuall choreography of what the sims do.   All the rest looks open and moddable.   Even the things like the rate the sims get hungry and their bladder fills, and how attractive different objects are, are moddable.

AHA! I've noticed this too, and wondered if I was just going crazy. The speeds definitely seem screwy-- the game also drops down to three sometimes when I choose four, even though I usually choose this when my Sims are at work or sleeping.

This is intended behavior.  I don't think speed 4 is even faster then 3. It just goes on until sim finishes his current task, then it automatically goes on 1 (or maybe the previous speed). It helps if you don't want to watch sim sleep or task closely, but don't want to miss something later.

typing in "help" to get a list of some of the cheats works. I really want to know what enableLlamas does.

Nothing. It's just a joke cheat.

With that "we're locking this down so you can't mod it, nyah nyah" attitude it sounds like they really wanted to turn this into a game instead of a toy.  The thing is, the section of the market that they are now going after aren't likely to play the Sims no matter what EA do to it.  Just look at the reviews in the game magazines - they'll usually feature a comment like "I don't play it myself, but my mother / sister / gf does".

Oh yeah, said the suits at EA, let's ignore what made this franchise so popular and go after the stereotypical "real gamers", who would never play what they perceive as a chick-game in a million years.  This time around EA aren't just ignoring what their long-term customers want from the game, they've deliberately removed some of the elements that made the Sims franchise so popular with its playerbase.  Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

It was the ability to turn the game into whatever we wanted by mixing mods from different modders and the wide availability of high quality, free CC that made the game so popular and long-lasting.  If we'd only ever had the opportunity to play it unmodded and with only EAxis content, the game would have died years ago.

And this "you can't mod it" stuff causes problems with bugs.  We've been relying on modders like Pescado for bug fixes ever since TS2 base game, because EA aren't exactly fast at releasing patches - and sometimes their patches have added as many problems as they fixed.

Absolutely, the last one I read trotted out the 'it's not a real game anyway' line and would only be interesting to anal, compulsive gamer 'completists' (whatever that might be). 

It's not faster than 3, in fact it's not a new speed at all. If you read the tutorial lessons (feel free to P&L) it says that the Fast Forward option (i.e. 4) just sets the time to 3 until the current action is completed, then reverts back to normal speed again. It's just a convenience feature to skip through boring but lengthy actions. Hardly a ground breaking feature, but comes in handy.

Just on that, I am so sick of reviewers and their multiple disclaimers of "not that me and my gonads would ever actually choose to play the sims". I mean, how fucking insecure - just review the damn thing and stfu about your Y chromosome, or give the job to someone who does choose to play the game.

On mods, well ... for me that's the dealbreaker. I lost interest in the EAxis vision and borkiness around OFB. Discovering awesomeware brought me back into the fold and sustained me through the rest of the EPs. I can't see myself getting very far with TS3 without it. I had sort of suspected that TS3 might make third party CC and mods more problematic, what with the ghey store concept and all. Screw EA. If I win the lottery I'll commission my own sims game ... with blackjack, and hookers.

They could try, but I intentionally cultivate non-existence on the Internet, precisely to avoid this sort of nonsense. I am not kidding when I tell you that I kill anyone who makes an attempt to find me. If you think you see me on the street, you're probably wrong, but don't make any sudden moves and do not under any circumstances act like you might know me. Or you die. No witnesses.

I think another thing they got annoyed by was the sheeps distributing hacks in uploads and unsuspecting sheep getting them then a new EP came out and "OMFG BUGZ WILL GIVE BENES 4 FIX!!" flooded the boards because they 1) Didn't know they had them or 2) Were too stupid to update them. They probably wasted a lot of time sorting through tons of bug reports only to have 50% of them be the result of a hack.

I guess their dumb packager/installer program shouldn't have done than then.

The problems there aren't caused by the hacks or by the modders or by responsible users of the hacks.  The causes of those types of problems are:

- sheeple who either didn't realise that they needed to clean lots before uploading them, or had heard it was a good idea but didn't know how to.
- shitty EAxis coding that meant that hacks are packaged along with a ton of other garbage that will corrupt your game and shouldn't be part of a packaged lot.
- sheeple who didn't realise they needed to use something that works, such as Clean Installer, to install downloads, rather than anything provided by EA (see previous point regarding the quality of EAxis coding).

True, there's not much they could do about the sheeple, but the biggest cause was the EAxis coding.  Fix that and the related sheeple problem becomes much, much smaller.

If they'd fixed their coding issues with packaged lots then they wouldn't have needed to rip out the very thing that made the Sims franchise work for so long for so many people - the ability to customise it and turn it into something we want to play, in whatever playing style we choose.

You know, those people (like myself) who've been there since the Sims 1, no bloody A, B, C, or D expansion packs, and have to get them all. Completists. Of course, I'm quite happy to be a pirate cat completist, especially since my issues with BV and SecuRom. It doesn't matter how I get them, or even if I like them, I just have this compulsive need to have them. It's stupid, but there it is.

Faizah I'm the same way...if I start a series of something, I have to complete it even if I don't necessarily like it. My OCD, let me sho u it.

So I need to stop reminding people you are L** J*****s?

I have two working hypotheses about this:
1) You are still alive; therefore you must be wrong.
2) You wear a tinfoil hat under the teacosy on your head and your obvious eccentricities make anything you say highly suspect.  Therefore you pose no real threat as regards "outing" Pescado.

1 has simplicity and elegance on its side, while 2 is more fun.

That reminds me, I need to change my sig...

There is no reason that both cannot be simultaneously correct.

This has already been denied vociferously both here and there. There is no reason to suspect that just because someone is a fat, obstreperous jerk that they must also be a stupid, evil bastard, chinwear not withstanding.

My take on it is why would he have bothered to deny it, from both online accounts too, if it were not true?

I won't be downloading anything from that Sims 3 Store....ever. I will simply uninstall the game and continue playing The Sims 2 until it no longer amuses me. EA has effectively ruined The Sims experience for me with their SecuROM and their hands poking about in my purse looking to take every dime they can.  And now, after reading what Pes has to say about the modding limitations, well, suck my big toe, EA. :-*  The modders and CC artists made The Sims franchise what it is today, and if EA can't see that, they don't deserve any loyalty from the fans.

 :-\Well that has completely squashed the little curiosity I had left. I will save my money and build a new Hood instead.

Ah, only the true messiah denies his divinity?

But what if we already know you, but don't know you're Pes online?  I mean, what if you're uncle Fred down the road, but we don't know that uncle Fred =Pescado?

[Uncle Fred is, in this case, a fictional character - none of my uncles are named Fred, and I don't really know them anyway.]

My English is pretty bad. So as far as I understood, custom content such as new objects and clothing is very difficult or impossible to be made for TS3. Am I right?

It's early days yet and Inge and Peter already have a rudimentary TS3 file viewer done and if they are optimistic regarding the modding, I wouldn't worry about it.

As I understand it, it looks like making stuff like clothing and objects is doable.  What is going to be difficult is more advanced modding, like, I guess, Macrotastics and FFS Lot Debugger.

But as stated above, they're working on it.  (And it's not like it hasn't taken 5 years to get SimPe to the point where it can do what it does now. So patience is a virture.)

Wasn't that the point of the whole "make your own thing" thing they tried to promote, or did they reverse that out and decide that the only new content you'll get will have to be bought through the store?

I know the whole 'create a style" tool is up and running, but that is just recolors. Are they seriously limiting new custom made meshes/objects?
Or am I not understanding this correctly?

who knows what they will do... paid subscriptions for content-making licenses, tools that force exchange use, full control of CC...

As far as I understand it, the "make your own thing" they were promoting was always only about the recolours.  The "make your own thing" was always pushed in conjunction with (or as part of) the create a style tool.

Well, what Lerf said in what you quoted is that as he understands it, making clothes and objects -- I'm presuming he meant actually making new ones and not recoloring them -- is doable, but we don't really know yet. I guess we will find out in due time. But it might take awhile even if it is doable ... I'm sure all of you remember pretty well that it took something like six months for people to understand how to make new meshes for TS2. (That wasn't very long after I started playing TS2 and I was like, "Durrr .. what are meshes ...")

What is annoying is that at one point, stairs were supposed to be recolourable, but that seems to have been removed - also, while open underneath visibly, they don't function as if they were open underneath.

The stairs piss me off. We don't have stages anymore and, of course, no spiral staircases! I assume Eaxis will leave that for one of the very last expansion packs. We don't even have a light-wood coloured stair option. There's like, what, six choices? Bah humbug.

Yes, I meant actually making new ones--meshes and patterns--not just recoloring.  And, my husband says I'm a she.  But that's ok, it's hard to tell.  Especially as I eschew avatars.  (it's a religious thing.)

Sorry! My gender observation skills seem to be way off lately. On S2C/MTS2 I made the terrible mistake of referring to Inge as a "he" (sorry, Inge, I lurk and don't pay much attention) and some annoying little twat got all in my face about it. (Honestly, I think that had little to do with why they got all bitchy, anyway. I think I have a "bother bother bother me" sign stuck to me on that forum).

The default gender in this forum is female until proven otherwise. You are not the first one to make the male assumption!

Well, after hearing about the bugs and annoyances and things left out, I think EA delayed the release of the game merely to tighten it's control over The Sims3.  But, heck, such a thing is futile. Did SecuROM work..umm,no.  Is their little Store raking in millions...umm,no. Were they able to keep it under lock and key until it's release date...umm,no. I think it is time for all of us to P&L at EA. I have read the likes and dislikes, and we will have to live with them until the modders get their sharp little teeth into the whole ' We'll show them, HAHAHA ' attitude. We fans will not be denied our Sims or our control over our Sims. We bought the game, the EPs, the SPs, so basically, we own them.  EA doesn't want to play nice, so all bets are off. By not playing nice with us they pissed us off and made themselves a target for a take-down.  And I will financially help anyone who has a part in making this happen. Bell, himself, stated there would be a way to turn off Story Mode and that went bye bye.  And the vids they put up everywhere were obviously off the mark. What the hell?

They have no scruples, and I hate companies that teach their staff the art of double-speak. Good ole Ben sitting there and smiling nicely into the camera, all the while lying through his teeth. And the Maxoids with their posts about no SecuROM. Gawd, what a bunch of losers.  >:(

This thread has brought me out of lurk mode.  If it turns out that the likes of a JMP cannot, or will not, mod the TS3 game and the only new content option is from the Sims Store, the game went from having reached a definite want on my part to reconsidering that decision.

I already had reservations about the style of game play.  I like to set up scenarios and things to accomplish amongst my Sim families.  I like micromanagement and have great fun rotating play of families in a neighborhood.  I fall in the camp of those who just plain don't want their Sims living their Sim lives without direct supervision.  Since Mr. Pescado and others that are now playing TS3 do have good things to say about the game design, as well as pointing out shortcomings, I figured I could play both TS2 and TS3.  There is no law to keep me from playing TS2 for the familiar style of play that I know I like and swapping to TS3 for a change of pace, except now I'm not sure I want to invest in TS3. 

I am not totally surprised to hear the scripts are designed not to accept 3rd party modification.  As soon as I realized there was to be a Sims3 store, I suspected such might be the case.  It is, however, most disappointing to see it confirmed in this thread and this is what could actually keep me from buying the game.  IMHO, the Sims franchise has been kept strong via mods and cc for the game created by some immensely talented individuals that exist within the Sims Community.  It's difficult for me to understand why EA is not comprehending by now that if a fan base feels to be a part of the game via creative involvement…. that they stay loyal to the product.  It's win win for both EA and players for the community to be involved.  EA has a bunch of unpaid employees keeping their game going strong and the community gets what it needs/wants.

I have to also add that fixes and game play improvement provided by the modding community are of ultra importance to me.  I actually consider myself to be a lightweight as to the number of hacks in my game but I have 40 or so installed.  That doesn't reflect a glowing endorsement for playing a Sims release as is and/or even patched by the company.  In case anyone wonders after reading the prior statement, all but one of my hacks has come from MATY so my game is not riddled with conflicts.  The Hack Conflict Utility is a must have, again my opinion, to help ensure conflicts remain at bay.

I will be keeping an eye on this thread for further info about modding possibility/feasibility, especially after the game officially debuts, just in case there is a difference between the leaked and official disk version.  I know that's doubtful but can't be ruled out with certainty until someone has an actual disk in hand.  At that time, if JMP's red line hits the black line before the green line hits the red line, odds are TS2 was my last Sims installation.  That won't devastate me, though.  Thanks to the modding community TS2 is a game I thoroughly enjoy, with the exception of EA needing to issue an M&G patch.

It doesn't offend me if people mistake my gender, it's not like you can see my lumpy chest from where you are :)

I still remember reading magazine articles where some senior EA rep is saying things like "No that won't be possible when the game ships, but clever modders will find a way round it" - and I take that as my invitation to try and find a way to hack the game with their blessing.   They'd be laughed out of court if they tried to sue us for making mods or tools, having gone public with things like that.  As well as precedent where for years they have at the very least turned a blind eye to the game being reverse engineered for this purpose, if not frankly celebrated and shared the results!

If I were to receive a C&D notice, I would respect it.  Until that time I am going to assume they're as happy about hacking now as they have always been.

There are no memories and no records of "Opportunities" achieved, or anything else achieved.

It is doing my head in.  I *like* creating a sims history, it's imaginative and helps me give personality to my sims.  This is the biggest DONOTWANT for me so far. 

*delurk*


This is one of the things that bothers me the most. I want memories and I want the photo album back. Those are how I keep my story straight even if I don't write a single word I still have record to refer to.

I actually suspect that making new body meshes will be trickier than objects, because you have to adjust for -every- single permutation - I hope I'm wrong, because the hair styles blow goats right now, but it does worry me anyway.

it turns out that he can, and will.

Does anyone know where the Garden section is? One of my sims want to garden, I can't seem to find the section for nothing.

There is no such thing : to garden your sims needs to have seeds (or fruits, veggies) in his inventory, and he'll plant them by himself. (click on them to bring up the pie menu) There no need to put down earth, there's no greenhouse or composter.

Do you buy the seeds or do you find them like with the bugs and crystal rocks?

With a high enough gardening skill you can plant all vegetables you can buy at the supermarket, although you can also find them at various quality levels. Special seeds have to be collected. Seeds are all over the town, even in the "forests". Haven't found the Omniplant seed yet, though.

Yeah, you can find seeds or plant fruits and vegetables. Also, when Jocasta Bachelor gained her first point of gardening skill it automatically gave her a few apple, tomato and grape seeds, but I don't know if that occurs for all families.

You can also plant eggs and cheese, 'cause we all know that they come from a bush in real life too.

AS for the Omniplant, don't know where to find a seed, but there is one behind the geodesic dome. You "feed" it a fruit/vedg/etc, and that's what it grows.

I've read that, but how does it work?

Check the graveyard if you're hunting down new plants- there should be a Death Flower bush somewhere around there.

I never planted eggs and cheese, but they are used for fertilizer on the plants and bait for fishing.  Reminds me of the homemade, stinky kind my father use to make. Yuck! Caught really large catfish from it, but my sims can only get goldfish so far. Use that for fertilizer in the garden and bait.

Putting cheese out in the garden doesn't give my Sim the option to plant it. Were you joking, confused, or does she need higher Gardening skill?

When she got to the 3rd level for gardening, she wanted to fertilize the plants. I clicked lessons in the option panel to see what I needed to do and she had cheese in inventory that I didn't want to go bad. I can't figure out how to get it in the fridge, no matter what I read.

I clicked on cheese and eggs and she went to the garden and used it. She is at level 5 now. So I don't know if that makes a difference.

Oh, you meant fertilize plants with cheese and eggs, not grow cheese and egg plants. Okay.

Has anyone been able to get the groceries and harvested food in the refrigerator? I can't figure it out and my sims have suffered with negative moodlets for spoiled food in the bum pack.  I have clicked on the appliances and stove to cook foods that they have in inventory, cause I shop by recipe, but they still get the items from the fridge and not the inventory.

Just drag it from the inventory to the fridge. Sounds stupid, but it works.

I read that you CAN plant eggs and cheese as well as fertilize with them, but need high gardening skill, very high. Didn't try it myself though.

ETA: I find it very very frustrating, that you need to drag supplies one by one. When I have 6 apples, 8 tomatoes and 5 grapes I'm thinking about eradicating those trees for good and never do gardening again. Maybe someone knows a shortcut, like holding a specific key?

I did that, it ended up on the floor. Then I had to get my sim to pick it up, to put it back in inventory.

You need to complete an opportunity then it gives the sim (family?) the ability to plant egg and cheese plants. Recently got another opportunity to bring in 10 excellent cheese plants that would have "a meaty suprise" haven't finished it yet, but it may give the ability to plant some types of meat.

Fridge needs to be highlighted, when you point at it, then it means you are putting fruites inside. The same goes for books and bookcase, garbage and garbage can and objects to sim.  Alternatively, you can "open" fridge and drag supplies into the opened window.

Haven't tried the "open fridge" option. Will try that tonight. Thanks.

Like: Gems. Because of the high environment moodlet, they have a similar effect as snapdragons, but finding them and having them cut is a lot quicker than mastering the flower craftable in TS2.

Hate: "Your Sim is behaving inappropriately. If this behavior persists, I will have to ask them to leave." (Paraphrase.) Apparently 'inappropriate behavior' means showering during a sleepover, which results in your hosts running over to ogle you disapprovingly in the bath. The idea is interesting, but once again EAxian stupid fails in the execution.

Like: The "look in" function on windows. You can peer into neighbor's houses without being invited.

I haven't found a shortcut for loading all food at once (grr), but if you click on the top left corner of the inventory item, it will select the entire stack.

Great!!! Thank you! I was starting to lose hope, that there is such an option.


I find this strange too. They are sleeping over after all, aren't they expected to shower in the morning and eat breakfast? And it seems that it is a two-way street, the sim you invited to sleepover won't shower and will starve to death unless you serve him something. And while you can serve to the guest, no one will serve to you, when you are a guest :(

I guess that just like with apartments, it's the selectable sim that "owns" the house and its objects while he is visiting.  He'd have to entertain his hosts to a meal instead.

But he can't, cause it's  inappropriate. And the hosts eat perfectly well when they need to,  just don't serve to the guests  :P

If you click and drag from the top left corner (the one that is slightly more blue than the background of the veggie of food) you can drag an entire stack to the fridg. That helps a lot in moving stuff.

Nope, grow them. My sim maxed out the garden skill, so I'm not sure exactly when the option appeared. You can also fertilize plants with other food ingredients, the hugher the quality of the fertilizer, the higher the quality of the plant.

I guess EA didn't want to mess things up by giving us real chickens and cows so we might produce these things in a non-magical way?  ;D

Thanks for the tip about moving whole stacks of produce to the frige. My sim has been gardening a lot and as a result she had about 100 of each vegetable and it was too tedious to move one by one. Did anyone find a way to sell only certain produce to the store? It seems to sell everything in the inventory.

Click 'buy groceries'. The Buy window should come up, along with an accompanying Sell window there somewhere. That's how I remember it, anyway.

Same here.  Hell, I create memories in SimPE for my dormies and adults townies/downtownies and CAS adults!  What's the point of them doing anything if there're no memories?  And don't even talk about sims running around living their own lives! Hell no! TS3 just cannot work for micro-managing storytellers like so many of us are.

What I want to know is - why is the only way to see the relative value of the produce through that sell window? Planting better produce produces better produce but I have to go to the store and threaten to sell it before I can see what is better and what is not?! Phail.

You can hover over the produce in the inventory and get the condition of the produce. Also before harvest, hover over the plant and get an idea of the condition of the produce.

Produce is stacked in my inventory and I have several plants. There is no definative type / level of produce in my inventory because nice is stacked with outstanding etc. I wish to replant the highest quality produce to improve my garden and fridge the rest. ATM I must go to the store and sell all which is below my desired planting level for the plants I wish to propogate to weed out the undesirables. Alternatively I can plant everything and delete the undesirables.

Either way I find it very undesirable myself.

Look at your stacked produce. Do you see the upper left corner that looks blue and raised a bit? Click it and you will get a seperate window that shows each item one by one, sorted by highest quality first. You can also click and drag that corner to move it in bulk.

Clicking on most objects in the inventory shows their sell value. I haven't really paid attention to whether that works with items in stacks.

Ah, I had discovered the moving in bulk, but not the opening up of stacks.

Three days playing and I only just discovered how to copy custom textures from one object to another  ::)

Is there another way of doing it than saving the texture? I hate clogging the chooser with textures I use only in one room.

Yes, I want to know too. I have too many new textures in the game and buy/build has slowed down. I was gonna delete them cause I just wanted to save the one on the objects not in the catagories.

Using the CASt tool, click on an object with the desired texture on it - say, a couch - and drag the pattern on to the intended object - a chair - in the room/house.  This should ask you to choose a channel for the material to be replaced (so you can pick whether your pattern would replace the chair's fabric or its legs.  Then you can click on the chair and save it as a preset.

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c126/Blackcat007/ScreenShot068.jpg)

Can't you just colour the objects in your room and then delete the presets when you don't need that pattern any more?  If they're just presets you shouldn;t lose the colours off the stuff in your room.

You cannot delete the preset presets, but you can delete your own saved presets.

This being unable to delete families, presets, and other annoyances is .. well annoying. I guess that is why they gave us the "custom content only" checkbox?

My thoughts and impressions after playing the game for 1-2 hours/day for 5 days...

Good
 - I like the CAST system.  It's intuitive and makes it easy to have a room with matching decor.
 - The sims are smarter in that they will actually work toward goals autonomously.  For instance, if I have promised them that they will increase their athletic ability, they'll actually go and exercise without me telling them to.  That's not the best example since TS2 sims would exercise autonomously, but I'm too lazy to think of a better example.
 - I really like the traits, it's easier to have sims with likes and preferences and uniqueness.
 - Other than the sims themselves, it's perty.
 - The houses are laid out much better than Maxis houses usually are.  I don't feel the need to tear down every house and build my own just so that my sims can get from point A to point B without walking some stupid ass route.
 - Children are less annoying because you can send them out into the neighborhood alone and basically ignore them.
 - There's a lot more to do.  Some have listed this as a bad thing, because it does take so much time to keep needs met, have a job and get a love interest - but I like that I have to actually decide what to focus on for a particular sim.  It won't be as easy to max out all skills, have 100 friends and 50 lovers while raising a family of 8.
 - The jobs are better.  Others have commented and I agree with them on pretty much everything.
 - Kids autonomously do their homework AND they keep it in their inventory, so no more games of "where's the homework".

Bad
 - The sims are so ugly, especially ones born in game.  I normally kill ugly sims on general principle, but there are so many I don't think it's possible.
 - My game crashing to the desktop.  I've updated my drivers and reinstalled, but no dice.
 - I really hate the neighborhood screen and the way that you have to go to certain places to be able to do things there.  For instance, you can get a part time job at the cemetary, but on the neighborhood screen, if you filter by jobs, the cemetary doesn't have an icon.  WTF?  Also, I need a cheatsheet of what you can do at each location.  I can't remember where to go for a cooking class, so I spend 15 minutes clicking every little frickin icon...grr.  Same thing with trying to figure out where your sims live.  They need a text/list based way to do what you can do from the neighborhood screen.
 - Kicking sims out.  Apparently, they can move into *any* open lot, even one that they can't afford.
 - The newspaper.  I have 2 issues with it: 1.) if I have to read the goddamn thing every day to find out if someone I care about died/moved/had a baby, make it more like the SimCity ticker or a icon on the toolbar that I can access without needing my sims and 2.) list the mother and father's full names for baby birthing.
 - Babies and toddlers take forever to grow up.  I know that I can speed this up with a cake, but it still annoying.  Also, there's nothing to do with them for the most part.
 - The clock is weird.  At first it was really, really slow - even at 3.  I updated my drivers and it doesn't seem as slow any more, but now it'll randomly go into super, turbo mode and 1/2 the day will be gone in 12 seconds.
 - Random babies with no mother/father.  This has been commented on as well, but it is super annoying to switch to a sim who was previously a bachelor to find him suddenly with a baby girl that does not appear to have a mother.  Did he adopt her?  Was she left on his doorstep?  Did he somehow clone himself?  These things matter.

Other
 - I'm playing with story progression enabled and free will on high (on purpose).  I tend to only like one sim at a time, so TS3 actually fits my playing style very well.  Mom and Dad have 3 kids, two are satanically ugly and one is less so.  I kick out the two and continue to play the one I like.  Later, I zoom out to the neighborhood and see that Ugly #1 has gotten married and had a kid, I switch to his house and to see what's up, while I provide a little god-like advice to his life.  I like this and appreciate the variety and surpise; what I don't like is that I don't know what the hell happened between the time I kicked him out and the time I started playing him again.  Did he have a different girlfriend?  Does he have other children?  I don't need a full memory of every single person he met and everyone he knows that got an A+, but I would like a short summary of major events tracked in his life.
 - I really want to control what last name babies and husband/wives take.

Edited to add:
 - A new annoyance is that if you change someone's hair and then switch to a different household, their hair switches back to their "genetic" hair.

The thing that scares me about this is that even though I'm like you and I'm okay with focusing just on one household, even switching over to another household (to check in on new developments) for just a few Sim hours, even less, could result in me returning to my main household to see that they've moved out, died, adopted 60 ugly babies, etc. I do not want this.

So far the moving out and random dead-age hasn't happened to me and I've been playing for about 150 sim days.  All of my sims are accounted for or have died of old age (although I can't find the headstone for one that died while I was away).  The ugle babies and/or unexpected pregnancies when you return are a given and happen pretty frequently.  Some of my ugly sims that have been kicked out have merged themselves in to other households, which makes it a pain in the ass to find them later.

Also - there's something up with one of my sims refusing to die. I'm playing on normal speed (life is 90 days) and some ugly husband is now 104.  I want him TO DIE ALREADY!

In my game Mortimer Goth died in my face and he didn't leave a headstone.  Bummer because I wanted to put it beside his guitar in the Goth backyard.  I'm not sure if that is a feature or bug though.

In your face? That...must have been a strange feeling.

Yeah this is one thing that is going to piss me off... In TS2, I liked to create a few households with 8 sims, that I had edited in SimPE to give them jobs and skills and what not, and then use them to become friends with that isnt just some random EAxis Sim, the thought of doing this and then finding out that they have died with out WooHoo-ing something leave me laying on the ground in the fetus position.
Why would EA allow such to happen, Yeah I can see them doing standard things, like viisting parks, skilling up a little. But NOT spending money, getting useless jobs, or DYING!! or having/adopting babies! (this I would like to see a package to disable certain Story Abilities)

Isn't the home lot icon in green?  That was the one place I had least trouble with.  Also, you can send the sim home by pressing that little arrow next to their icon.  Didn't know about the cemetary - thanks.  Now I can make a creepy gravedigger sim.

It's not my home lot I'm having problems finding, it's the home lots of sims I've kicked out.  You have to click on each occupied home to see a picture of the occupants, or go to the "split household" screen to see the names.  This is a total pain in the ass when you are looking for someone.

That reminds me of this shirt: http://tinyurl.com/5ty5s8 (http://tinyurl.com/5ty5s8)

Figure this is the best place to post this.. more just to get it off my chest then anything.
Ive been looking down the side at users avatars and seeing alot of TS2 Sim related ones, and how good they look compared to TS3, they really didnt put much effoct into making it better off the bat did they? *Waits for custom skins etc to make it oh-so-much better!*

This seems to be as good a place to ask as any -

Is it going to be possible to mod the game so that it can use some kind of TS2-style Mendelian genetics, or is the game missing necessary fields for specifying recessivity that cannot be created?  The ability to create new hair and eye colors in CAS could be awesome if it were possible to geneticize them as well.

Has anyone figured out yet what controls Sim attraction?  It appears someone has successfully produced an empty neighborhood now, so if we know what draws Sims together, perhaps we can at least design them specifically for their intended mates and any random hook-ups will be with the appropriate person?

I'm pretty convinced that they can fall in love with anyone in a matter of hours, just by spamming various romantic socials.  Whether they will do this autonomously remains to be seen, though.  In theory sims with opposite traits should not have a lot to talk about and thus have a harder time with relationships, but I expect this can be overcome eventually.

I doubt there's anything like attraction system, yet; in TS2 it come with Nightlife.

Well, the bolt system and aspiration matches came with Nightlife, but even in the base game you could match Sims up by astrological sign, I think...

In the base game, none of that did anything.

Didn't it?  Huh, I could have sworn it did.  My bad.

My sim's family is on it's 4th generation and I have not seen 1 NPC/Townie randomly fall in love, marry and move into a house with someone.  I have seen names in the paper of sims that got married but they were not people in sim houses and they never showed up in an empty house.  Anyone single in a sim house ends up adopting/cloning but never marrying anyone.  Ugly old random guys in random houses is eewwww.

And for you Bella lovers...Mortimer and Bella do not autonomously fall in love get married and make Cassandra and Alex.  Even their traits are retarded and nothing like the old versions.

On a side note...someone tell me where the money tree is!?  I can't figure it out.

Don't you read the War Room's myths and apocrypha section?

I had the Reloaded version, but it didnt run good at all. Well, i got ok FPS, around 60, but it would jitter a lot.

Here's my specs:
Athon 64 X2 6000+
4GB Ram
Radeon 4870 512mb

Im using Windows 7, but i have to turn off AA or else its unplayable. I thought it would run better, but its very jittery. Im gonna try the Razor release soon.

Also, is there any other way to change your active household without going to Edit Town and then change it there. I thought it was like in TS2 where you could just pick a house and start using them. Cause my Sim's wife and daughter moved out to another house, but i have to go Edit Town to get to use them. Seems like it could of been made easier.

AA has always been crap. I never use AA, it turns my nice sharp image into a blurry mass of poo.

What's up with CAS-made sims obtaining methods of transport that they haven't been given by me?  I've moved families into homes and chosen vehicles (or lack thereof), and then later seen those people out and about town with bikes and cars that I didn't actually purchase for them.  I don't think it's related to the problem with story progression mode, because they don't later have those vehicles if I make them my active family.

It's not a dealbreaker, but it's a bit odd.  I would've expected them to walk or get taxis, instead of hijacking cars while I'm not looking!

Is there any particular reason, other than the obvious, why TSR was given the tools to design a custom content tool back in January?

http://www.thesimsresource.com/workshop

Not sure how EA or TSR can continue to deny their relationship after this...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but things are done in a particular way that most third party modding tool developers don't necessarily want to spell out.  This means that, for me, reading what they posted means something entirely different from what it does for you.  I know what they mean and it's not what you think.  In fact I would go so far as to say I am about 90% certain they had no special help from EA.

I don't understand the logic if they did. Wouldn't aiding and abetting third-party modders put a choke hold on EA's aspiration to make people pay for additional content?

As dim as EA can be at times, I think they're fully aware of the impact that 3rd party custom content has had on the longevity of their product.  Also, if they wanted all additional content to come from them, I would imagine that would entail a lot more man hours and money than if they let the community make its own stuff.  I think the store is more gravy to them rather than an attempt to completely stifle the CC community.

In the past, at least, they have recognized CC as a good thing, but that may have been while relatively sane Maxis was in charge. I would hope that they just see the store as an additional source of income, because they CAN, rather than trying to stop 3rd party CC as many seem to fear. There will be CC whether EA likes it or not, and unless they like footbullets more than Jona does (and I'm not saying they don't), they most likely won't actively try to stop it.

Definately something up here...
(http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg160/tizerist/sims3scout.jpg)

I really have to give TSR credit. An impressive number of people seem to read the following sentence and come away with "EA is helping us".


It's not bad, I guess, assuming the reader has no ability whatsoever to see through textual bullshit.

I keep checking that link every time someone posts a "Why is EA helping TSR!?" message trying to figure what they're seeing that I'm not. If it's not this sentence, WTF is it? Genuinely curious.

I really hate the limited, and crappy wall hangings that are available in TS3. I miss my custom paintings and recolours.

It's awfully difficult to make a nice, unique room from house to house. Of course, I'm being impatient - because there's no CC (yet) available. But would it have killed Eaxis to include just a touch more items for decorating and furnishing rooms so that they don't all look the exact same? CAST is wonderful for recolours but, how many times can I stick that stupid picture of sunflowers up on the wall?

Something like this (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/castrostaal/sims/smallpeooeoess.jpg?t=1243811854) is just impossible. Why did they remove the feature for placing wall hangings higher and lower??

Also, can you no longer make Sims paint custom paintings on the easel?  I keep levelling my painting Sim up, hoping the interaction to paint a custom picture comes up. Of course it never does.

It is totally bewildering to me that EA would finally give us obvious feature additions in The Sims 2 that they overlooked for years, only to release a "new and improved" version which lacks these features all over again.

I had one to grow some stuff for another playable sim because, according to the opportunity, she knew nothing about gardening.  At the time, she had probably 4 more skill points in gardening than the sim who got the opp. 

And the moving wall hangings vertically thing...that was what AL or M&G?  It was nice but really it's too recent to expect it to have made base TS3.  Look at spiral stair cases.  We didn't get them til Makin Magic for TS1 and it took til AL to get them in TS2.  I get what people are saying about a new game needing to be better than it's predecessor is NOW but that just isn't EA's M.O.

No one at TSR has a reputation for making hacks or complex tools.  They were not involved with development of SimPE, and people go to TSR for meshes and recolors, not hacks.  It's not surprising that some people think they would be incapable of developing a Sim3 tool without a lot of hand holding.

AL
Thats one of the things that gets me the most. In TS2, I had normal stairs (recolourable), spiral stairs, ladders, elevators, and even escalators. What a drop that was  :P

I concur with the Gray Fatness. If TSR had actually received help from EA, or even HAD HALF A BRAIN and an ounce of foresight, they would have actually made real progress. :P

As it stands, their practice of discouraging independent thought and enforcing conformity to arbitrary rules is not an environment which cultivates the existence of hackers. Rules are meant to be bent and twisted to your ends, like the paperclips you use to eject stuck CDs.

True, but ceilings were included with this game, and those came from the same expansion pack. I agree that EA wants to limit the base game in order to profit from it later, but think they could have easily included the feature in the base game and still had plenty of others to choose from for later EPs. It's just the same attitude that made them develop the store-- "Hey, let's rip our customers off as much as possible!"

This is the worst bit regarding CAS. You can alter cheek shape and height (green) but you cant go near the bit under the eyes (red) , leaving a protrusion with almost bruise-like qualities. The more you cut back on the jawline (and you have to!!) the more it sticks out.
(http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg160/tizerist/sims3cheek2.jpg)

Be realistic.  No matter what they chose to include, there would be no shortage of people griping about what they saved for later EPs.

Look at the toddler table. It's a clear rip from TS2, and even includes the paper pads toddlers could use to draw on. But, in TS3, it cannot be used for drawing, appears to have no social benefits, and doesn't skill. It's like they decided to rip it, but then got bored recoding it and just slapped a DONE! sticker on it.

I agree with that assessment.  If you're going to put something in, do it right.  If it wasn't done by the time the game went gold, then pull it altogether (Warhammer Online pulled 2 whole classes from the game pre-launch because they weren't pleased with them).  What's the justification for having it not build skill?  Since it doesn't, I'll use that tile for something else, thank you very much.   
 

It does build a hidden blocks skill, which gives them logic skill once they become a child. My toddler had level three block skill and was promoted to level three logic skill as soon as she started playing chess for the first time.

I do miss the drawing though. Those little toddler drawings were so cute.

The table builds logic skill?  My toddler used it to no effect.  She built her 3 pre-logic points using the little block sorter.  I made sure to have her use the table first, to ensure it wasn't actually building skill.

Has anyone else noticed how psychic these sims are?  In TS2 you could have a husband cheat on his wife in another room of the house and no one would ever be the wiser (unless they're woohoo-ing of course).  In TS3 the wife will storm to whatever room the husband is in and berate the guest for being rude.  The babies seem to have also inherited this psychic ability because when the husband moved in on his target again the baby got a negative ML because he (apparently) caught his dad cheating.  He wasn't even on the same floor, much less the same room as his father but I guess he's just sensitive to lewd behavior.   ::)
 
ETA:  Since everyone else put a disclaimer about being a lurker...  Blah blah blah, I lurked for years, blah blah blah [/lurk]

Marq

I got the money tree after around the 9th gardening skill level. I want to say I was awarded it rather than finding it. It came as a seed. Not as a tree, like it has in previous sims games. But since it comes as a seed, I see no reason why it can't be found somewhere throughout the town either. But then, how much do I really know?

I planted one in a household, then have been playing another. The money tree grew from a sapling and is either harvestable one day and just showing mature the next. It seems to be stuck at "Excellent" status, though, and hasn't dropped a seed. I got mine from the catacombs.

Wonder if that one of the unknown seeds my sim keep picking up and hasn't grown much. I haven't played much this week, so my sim is at level 5.

Money trees can be found as Special type seeds around town. Trouble is, that so can the flame bush, the life fruit bush, and the Death flower bush. So, basically you have a 1/4 chance of it being a money tree when you find a Special seed.

Once the money tree grows up, and starts being ready to harvest, there is a modest chance that it will drop a money tree seed. That can then be used to plant another one.

I just picked a whole lot of unknown special seeds and planted them. After around 40 seeds i had 6 money trees.

If they all jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?  We can tell from your post count and your profile if you are new, and how long you've been here.  We can also tell from your username, that is right next to your post, who you are.  No need to sign your posts.

Would that be a bad thing?  ::)

Not at all.  I was being hopeful. 

My money tree seeds keep dropping seeds.  So now I have about six in the front yard.   I may have gotten them at level 4 or five but I'm not sure.  Then again money gets thrown at you for almost everything in this game so to me it's no big deal.

Interestingly though the repo man can't repossess any of my sims stuff.  She's a Mad scientist and had performed experiments on most of her stuff (including the toilet).   Twice he's come and left empty handed.  At first I thought it was a lucky game bug but apparently it's no glitch.   

He tries to take them and expresses frustration when he can't, moving from item to item attempting to grab it and finally stomping his feet when he can't get them and making a gesture like "forget it" and leaving unsatisfied.  Semi-amused me.

Actually, spiral staircases came in UL. SS brought curved staircases.

What if Marq has been signing her posts letters before Hook was born?

That's why either you enforce the rules on everyone, or you don't have them.

The rules are meant to be enforced ESP. on noobs. IF you don't like it , well you know where the door is don't you?

Technically, there isn't really a RULE, it's just a pointless practice. It's only REALLY annoying when people insist on signing names that AREN'T EVEN THEIRS.

Look. Check Hook's profile, especially his join date.

Now look at the join date of the people getting poked.

Hook's retardery was grandfathered in, because his retardery predated the MATY rules.

We don't deny that it is redundant, stupid and annoying, just that he is old and doing it deliberately to piss people off, and was doing it before other stupids thought it was a good idea to be redundant, stupid and annoying and then an even better idea to argue about why it is SO MEAN and UNFAIR that they are told to cease with that nonsense immediately.

On the plus side, we congratulate you for picking a most appropriate username.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=basura

I didn't pick it because it was an urban word, I did it because it means trash in Spanish (my native language.)

Oh dear. You so cute.  ;D

The jealousy system is due to be overhauled in Awesomemod.

Hook will get his punishment later.

Hook is Hook. That's punishment enough.  :P

Has anyone finished writing books yet?  One of my sims received an opportunity to donate three self-written books to the City Hall, so I had him work on that. Unfortunately, now that the books are done I can't seem to find a way to actually get them; I looked for some sort of "order copy of book" option on the phone, computer and mailbox, but got nothing. I tried the book store as well, but they weren't on the list. The only place I *did* find one of them was the library, but those books can't be purchased as far as I could tell.

After the book is complete, a free copy should arrive in the mailbox.  I've also received them by joining the bookclub (this may be limited to bookworm Sims).

...Oh. Were they delivered after a specific number of days? Granted, less than a week has passed since I finished them (I think...I did receive royalties for the first one) I guess I'll wait a couple of more days and see what happens, and look for that bookclub option. I don't think my non-Bookworm sim has it, but I might have missed it. Thanks for the answer!

ETA: You're right, mrowcat. They were there when I used the "Get Mail" option. Thanks.

My author usually receives it the next day. Check the mailbox for the 'get mail' option.

You should also check the inventories of the sims on the lot, as it gets stuffed in there, if any of 'em went and got the mail themselves.

Ok, now this is just retarded.
The two Bunch old farts kicked the bucket; result: TWO different Grim Reaper's acquaintances. It's a UI glitch? Does the game pop up a brand new Grim Reaper for every death? Has EA found a new way to have a BFBVFS neighborhoods?

(http://www.fantasiadomain.com/ts3/glitch06.jpg)

Maybe each type of death has a Death. Like Death of Being Sat On By A Giant Frog, Death of Overpowered Fireballs, etc.

That would be logical (and cool), but both died of old age within a couple of days.

Same lot, same family, same play session, same death, same room, too, now that I think of that. That's why I'm sincerly worried about this sign.

EDIT: a note, too: their sons and daughters had the bad moodlet for the mother's death (2 days long), but the father's death the next day didn't give them another moodlet, nor the time added up. Both parents were equally liked by their spawn.

I had a sort of similar problem, in my Razor version, where every couple days it would give me a different maid. I think there were about 5 or 6 when I uninstalled that and installed the Retail version. Now I just have 2 maids, one that comes on weekdays and one that comes on weekends. I haven't noticed any extra spawning (yet).

I have recently noticed some things, in the Retail version (which were probably also present in the Razor version) that amuse me. I like that Sims "upgrade" the compute by jabbing it with a screwdriver - and upgrade the toilet by banging on it with a hammer. Also, I just noticed that mirror reflect the walls of the rooms they are in - even if those walls are down to the player. No longer can my mirrors magically reflect my sim playing guitar outside when they have three or four walls in the way, which had bugged me somewhat in the previous game.

Sometimes this game does make me want to jab my computer with a screwdriver...

My roofs have been @Toaded  >:(
I can't see the roofs on houses I'm either playing or building. I can see the NEIGHBORS' roofs, though, both in live mode and build mode. After I play or enter a house to build, the roof "disappears" forever. I took a house from the lot bin and placed it on an empty lot. I never entered the house, but the thumbnail in the lot description is missing a roof  :-\  Before I placed the house, it definitely had a roof.
A few people have posted about this on the BBS, but not many.
Has anyone else here seen this?

Does anyone else get the criminal career broken if a superspy sim raids the warehouse? I remember someone mentioning that, wonder if it's random borkage or if it's always like that.

Amusing fact of the day: my sim was reading the "Zombies? Zombies!" book when he got the message about his townie girlfriend spawning his son, whom she named Brain.

I've only had one sim in that career so far and had no problems raiding the warehouse (yet).

For my own issue, I can't seem to make Ambrosia no matter what I do!  I'm hoping it's just tight pants but I certainly can't see what it is I'm missing.  My sim is maxed in cooking, knows how to make the recipe, has all the ingredients (as far as I know) but can't make the damned Ambrosia no matter what time of day I try it or what pie menu I look under.

Can someone who has successfully made this dish give me an "Ambrosia for Idiots" breakdown?  I just don't want to think that my game is quite that borked that I can't even cook such an important dish.

For ambrosia, you can't serve it, you can only have it (one plate only). I've seen it under breakfast, but never looked for it under lunch or dinner.  With Awesomemod, it should be there all the time.

Do you have to read the recipe first?

Aha!  Thank you, I didn't even think to look under the single serving stuff.  I knew it had to be me just being a complete idiot (as usual).  I can't seem to store it in the replicator either and I thought that was an option.  Oh well, at least now I can make it.


Yes, you have to buy the recipe and learn that first.

You can't store it in the replicator either.  That's by design.

I'm having the same problem.  I can see roofs on premade houses in the map view and on lots far away, but when I get close they disappear.  Houses that I build have invisible roofs even in the map view.

What kind of graphics card are you using, Elvie?  I'm running the game on Intel integrated graphics for now, so that may be what's causing it.

I'm annoyed that I can't tote an easel to community lots and do portraits of people and things there (the "paint from memory" trick is not the same), and that the newspaper can't be unsubscribed from. Enough with the newspapers!

 I keep wondering if they're just being jerks about it in the beginning when the game is fresh, people are still excited about it, and ready to buy content. Perhaps when things die down and people start getting bored, they'll start plugging CC again. Near the very last few EPs for Sims 2, EAxis seemed to be pretty actively involved with modders. As in, interviews, workshops and other things of that nature.  I'm totally shocked about the change....but then again, when I think about EA being in charge now, it isn't so surprising.  I keep thinking about how wretched they were while trying to buy Rockstar Games...Downright sleazy.

This game makes me irritated for what it could have been, and is not.
The trees, flowers, and shrubs bend and sway in the breeze. The hair does not. This pretty much sums up where I think the focus in development of this game went wrong.  Everything else is just pure rant.

"Story progression" is actually sort of a neat idea. It's too bad it's a lie.  There is no "story." I've just spent some time checking out random sims in my neighborhood--a neighborhood in which my original CAS family is now on its sixth generation.  Here's an elderly sim with the "perfect garden" lifetime want, and the green thumb trait--and as a bonus, he loves the outdoors. He has no gardening skill. Across the street there's a family consisting of three grown siblings (only one of which had a mother.)  These three siblings have lived their entire lives together, and yet they are only the barest of acquaintances.  One of them has the lifetime want to be a master thief, and yet he's chosen the law enforcement career.  Another is a young adult whose "love interest" is an elderly lady.  Down the street lives a family consisting of two parents and two children.  The children are twins, and I am positive of this because I was playing that family when they were born.  Somehow twin one is three days older than twin two.  And on it goes.  Athletic sims who are adults and have no athletic skill, family-oriented sims approaching old age without so much as a friend, much less a love interest, outdoors-hating sims with tons of fishing skill, and on and on. 

If these sims, as EA indicated, are living their own lives, they are doing a piss-poor job of it.

I've come to the conclusion that the clone-babies with only one parent are actually not a bug, but intentional, and meant to mask another problem--sims rarely get married on their own.  I've never seen an announcement yet in the newspaper about a marriage between sims I actually was familiar with--and at this point I'm familiar with all the town regulars. Instead, I see an announcement about a marriage, immediately followed by an announcement that the same sims that just married, also just moved into town. Without the clone babies, there'd hardly be any babies at all, unless the player ran around switching families and marrying off sims.  A few do manage to have love interests on their own, but they don't seem to actually DO anything about it. 

There also seems to be the occasional sim whose existence seems to make no sense at all.  One household had a toddler in it whose family tree indicated she was the daughter of Mortimer Goth and Bebe Hart. That would be all well and fine except that Bebe Hart and Mortimer Goth had both been dead long enough that their other children had died of old age. In my main family's family tree there is a fellow named Johnnie who I've never seen since he was a toddler.  His portrait in the tree suggests that he is alive and well and is an adult or YA--and this has been so for about three generations now. He's not in any of the houses though, and he never appears at the park or any other public places. I suppose he might have moved away--and if he did, he apparently moved to a place where sims live much longer than they do in my neighborhood. 

It seems like even in houses I've played for long periods of time that the sims who live in them don't really get to know one another--much less become friends--unless I constantly direct them to interact with one another.  They just don't interact much on their own--but then, it takes an agonizingly long time for a sim to take a bath, but a few minutes chatting on the phone will raise the social bar to full, so I guess I can't blame them.  In TS2 (with ACR,) I know I can take a sim to a downtown club and be entertained just by continously maxing my sim's motives so I can stay and watch the antics of random other sims. In TS3, I can spend days in the park with a sim and very little happens at all. 

I wish I could drop ACR and my TS2 sims, with their looks and quirks and ability to get into hilarious trouble into the seamless neighborhood of TS3, with its ability to allow sims to marry, split up, and have babies on their own.  Then I'd have a game I really loved.   :-\

Story Progression? Pfft. Okay...I'm boring, and have always tried out a femme fatale in every Sims incarnation as a first family. Gave her all the traits, played for a bit and then left her alone whilst living real life. BF tries his hand out at the game, makes a thief and plays for several days.
Eventually I get play and 'lo behold my femme fatale has adopted a child. WTF? For a commitment phobic, flirty, mean, lucky socialite to ring up and actually want a child is so unbelievably unrealistic it was criminal.  Plus I don't really like the idea of something so major to be left to half cooked AI. Give me the big decisions and continue with the banality of the game please (i.e skill building, meeting friends, etc).

I thought that maybe she shagged some random without protection, but the baby had NO father present in family tree. Strange. Needless to say, entire family was nuked. Urgh why can't they get the game right!??!

The spontaneous spawning has been discussed extensively already. I recommend the awesomemod (Armoire of Invincibility) to prevent surprise babies.