More Awesome Than You!

• A cheap shower tub.  Instead we get we get 2 showers, 4 tubs, and one really expensive showertub.  How many tubs have you encountered in real life that didn't have some dinky showerhead and cheap curtain?  EAxis's priorities are screwed as usual, since showers are more functional than tubs in the game.  Yes, tubs can eliminate the Stressed moodlet and can give +10 mood from the Ducky, but usually the time required isn't worth it.
• Recessed lights.  Or a basic ceiling dome light.  None of the ceiling lights are appropriate for most rooms, instead they all hang down fairly significantly.  Purely aesthetic, of course, but annoying.
• The piano.  Seriously, who plays guitar in an orchestra?
• The changing table.  I don't like how trivial diaper changing is now.  It's so fast and trouble free you might as well change the larva's diaper every time you pick it up.  It also means we have even less reason to buy tubs, since they're no longer required for scrubbing larvae.

 - Gus

I miss actual BABIES!  I had pics of all my sims giving their babies their first bath.  It was really cute.  I know that Pescado is going to stomp me for saying this, but I liked it.

And it's not an object, but I miss sit down/family meals.  Everything else they do SO SLOW, but eating they snarf in moments before their family can even make it to the table to sit down and eat.

don't know what I'm doing wrong, but most of my sims are spending a lot of time in the kitchen so the eating meals together thing isn't that hard (and don't we all spend lots of time in our kitchens).

a hearty hear-hear for the lack of cheap shower/tub combo.

I want a toaster, er a toaster oven - but well something else for them to cook those fricken' waffles in besides the oven.

And I, too, really miss the piano. But, I also remember that the code for the piano was something that was broken every time a new EP was released... maybe they gave up?

I suppose we should be grateful that the guitar isn't the flypaper that the older musical instruments were.  I stopped buying most of them in TS2 because guests would beeline for them and then play until they got too tired, hungry, or had to pee, and leave.

 - Gus

I have to say I agree.  Part of the problem is that the Sims no longer actually SERVE the meal by setting out a plate for everyone in the house.  They have to serve themselves.  The fact that the sims actually EAT instead of blabbing to each other is an improvement, since (without pescado's mod) group meals took FOREVER in Sims 2.

However, they could have done something cool with this -- perhaps have an OPTION for family meals, where everyone will wait for the family to sit before they start eating.  To make it appealing, they could give you a moodlet, particularly for family-oriented sims.  This actually makes sense.

I miss a lot of objects too, but the things I miss the most are a lot of the social interactions.  By the end of Sims 2 expansions there were a lot of interactions.  If I don't cheat, my Sim's children all barely even know each other.

Objects I miss, the hot tub, diving board, shelves and all my decorations!

 :o No diving board, piano or baby bathing? That's kinda dissapointing  :-\ I don't have my game yet (comes in a few days from Amazon). I wonder what else will be missing...

The objects themselves aren't as big a deal for me as other things I miss.  I wish the influence system had been enhanced rather than dropped.  The only way to get other sims to interact with each other seems to be to invite one of them to join a conversation, which doesn't seem to function very well.  Arranging group activities doesn't do much - I switched households to follow a daughter's family, and even though Mom had just picked up a romantic interest, getting them in the same room never spurred any type of interaction whatsoever.

Playing one family through generations works for me, but what good are townspeople if you can't manipulate them and bend the entire town to your will?  Shouldn't the point of a seamless neighborhood be to affect what happens in the neighborhood?  If the game is going to be more goal-oriented, my goal is to start a neighborhood WOAR... with actual WOAR, plus WINNING.  

My sims also miss building shrines to themselves.  I used to purchase a community lot, bring all the family portraits there, and either pass it down to the next generation or create a family of Servo caretakers.  Everyone would "gift" their paintings, and every so often I'd switch to the caretaker household for setup.  Now, the paintings can still be passed on, but it's a pain to move them from house to house.  Maybe the designated heir has to move into the founder-ghost's place once a generation for an inventory transfer... hmm, that might work.

I also haven't figured out how to establish an underground with SEKRIT LEET training facilities like I had in Part Deux with a core group of sims enticed into back rooms for poker and counterfeiting, though admittedly that functionality was due to Inge's key set, not the game itself.  Setting up a household for the purpose might serve for training, but the membership aspect is still missing.

Tubs do not get you clean. You are bathing in your own filth.

Yes please. The light I most used in TS2 was a custom item, a recessed microlight. Second most used was also custom and was a wall light that hovered at about mid-calf height.

Didn't base game TS2 give us piano, guitar, and bass? Or was the guitar and bass included in Uni? I can kind of understand why they gave us a guitar if they were only going to give us one instrument (portable, true busking). The music quality is fantastic. But yeah, I'd love to see the piano back, plus a violin, drum set, and sing-a-long boom box. Most buskers here in Chicago are singers, drummers, or on violin.

I do not get this no-bathing thing. Imagine not bathing a real toddler for seven days. It's not pleasant. Heck, two days isn't pleasant.

My personal wish-list (for items):

• Cooperative games. Sims are always wanting to play a game with each other, but catch doesn't count. Unless all parties are teen+, that restricts you to chess only. How many people do you know who play chess? Why can't we have board games, or even Don't Wake the Llama back? Or cards...cards aren't restricted to the gambling type of setup they used in TS2. No Skip-bo, no Uno? No Old Maid or Go Fish? These were staples when I was a kid.
• Better beds. 90% of the beds are Energy 5 or under. Uh, why?
• Shelves. Collectibles = shelves. Why have we no shelves?
• Half-walls. They are such a big part of how I design and delineate space that their absence is almost painful.
• Recolorable fencing/stairs/roofs. This is nothing but an intentional oversight on EA's part.

What about cheap coffee pots? We get two expensive espresso machines but no bargain store versions? Unless they are one of those things that will eventually pop up in the $ims $tore...

I completely agree!  What were EAxis thinking when they choose the items they put in the game?  It's not like it would've been hard to include the cheaper shower tub, lights, etc, etc.  They recycled so many other things from TS2 why not more of the useful stuff for middle class sims?

I really wish there was:

• A better selection of meshes for clothes/hair and a better selection for make-up.  I know that EAsxis has never been good at making make-up but all they had to do this time was mock-up where the crap goes.
• Stages.  Most of what I used TS2 for was building.  Not having stages is killing me.
• Cheap looking pillars.  Yea, sounds kinda weird but the cheapest pillar looks too nice, IMO.  What if I want to make a run-down house?
• Optional Cell phones!  One thing that drives me crazy is when my sims out on the town and they keep getting harassed by callers.
• Some kind of influence system.  I used to have friend slaves to do all of my sims chores for them.  Now their forced to do everything themselves unless the cleaner is living with them.  (I do think it's kinda cool that you can ask sims that live with you to "take out the trash" or clean around the house.)
• Some place to do a public woohoo!
• Sims with wants of interacting with other sims.  While I get wants to invite so-and-so over or kiss so-and-so I miss the wants you could get in TS2.  I had a sim once wish to fall in love with someone when she first met him without checking him out first or anything.  I miss the want to woohoo (I still haven't seen it).

Video games count for "play game."  I use that fairly often because it satisfies the Wish immediately, you can fit at least 4 Sims into one game, and Sims will play from any nearby location, even if the chair doesn't quite face the TV.  However, if they're going to put "play a game" Wishes in, more activities should qualify.

You're right that all the various collectibles demand a display system.  Beyond tucking them on top of dressers, anyway.

I'm OK with much of the stuff they left out, since much of it showed up in expansions.  It's the basic stuff that bothers me.

And you're very right about stairs, fences, and roofs - if everything else can be re-textured, why not those?  The stairs in particular scream for it, since the existing color / texture selection isn't very good.

You might be able to get ratty-looking columns by fiddling with textures and colors.  The game lost the "interior unfinished wall" texture I often used for garages, but I was able to make a good substitute by grabbing one of the paneling textures and replacing the fancy wallpaper with flat gray and the pillar color with a wood texture.

 - Gus

I direly miss a low-end coffeepot. None of my sims are nearly pretentious to drink a 'Lite Foam Banana Latte' or what have you every morning.

Stages would be nice, as previously mentioned--I have seen some well done bathrooms/bedrooms using those.

I miss photo booths as well. Even a clothing booth would be nice--the utter lack of public woohoo is disappointing.

I know it sounds silly, but I miss the cheap doors. You know, the ones that were just flat and plain? I used those things all the time.
I also miss the cheap counters. Actually, I just miss a lot of the plain stuff. All those things would mesh nicely with Create-A-Style. I hope that when the bright minds get a hold on object creation that we'll see some straight conversions of some TS2 objects; at least the ones that don't have their own unique animations and such.

I miss seasons the most. Rainstorms and snowstorms were such a great break from the always sunny, summertime Sims world. I hope they're just planning to do what they did with Sims 2 and introduce seasons in an EP down the road. Sooner rather than later, please. I also miss the greenhouse walls, doors and roofs. They had great build uses other than just greenhouses. You could do some really creative stuff with them.

I second (or third, or fourth) the demand for a cheap coffemaker. What kind of household doesn't have a $10 coffemaker? Who drinks lattes at 6:30 a.m., let alone banana chocolate frappes or whatever the hell they are?

Half walls, stages and standalone staircases are other wants. And of course, hot tubs.

I see they incorporated the usable diagonal slots on corner counters and multiple slots on surfaces. Once more EA copies the community's brightest ideas and never acknowledges the source.

The things i miss most are seasons and the hot tubs.  I always loved seeing it raining or snowing added some nice realism to the game that was sorely needed.  As for the hot tubs they were a great way to socialize.  Cram 4 people into one and let them bake for a couple hours.

I miss cribs that actually makes Babies/Toddlers sleep when you put them in, instead of Sims leaving them there for 8+ hours when they are awake and could do things like play.
Why EAxis thought that baby/toddlers only could fall asleep at near fainting when other Sims falls asleep anytime puzzles me.

I really miss group-activity objects like Hot Tubs, Dart Boards, Bubble-Blower, Poker Table, "Bingo Box" (don't remember it's name), bowling alley e.t.c where Sims would talk to each other while doing stuff.
There are so few group activities in Sims 3, I had a party at the beach for one of my Sims for a job opportunity and realized there wasn't much to do at it, you just talk, talk, talk, talk...
Guest: I had a blast!
Me: I'm bored!
I miss the volleyball net from Sims 1, it would have been a blast at the beach party, but the only thing you could do there was talk or make drinks.

I like for my Sims to do some group activities together even if it means they won't skill up - like the Doll House.
Block Table gives some mechanical skills for children, but I still use it afterward because it looks like they have fun playing and socialize with other kids playing too.
But adults just do boring things like dance badly together, watch TV, play video games and watch people play guitar.
Staying friends with other people is just click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click... the game constantly lets me know I'm not friends with people anymore.
I've stopped caring about getting friends, visiting other Sims are equally boring (they don't have any fun objects to use), so the only friends my Sims have are through work where they get friends automatically.

I want Sims to be able to have fun without me having to decide everything, that's why group activity objects were so great for gaining friends in Sims 1+2.
I guess rabbit holes will fix that in expansionpacks, where they add a nightclub and you can choose "Play poker" and you pretend your Sim is playing...

They also destroyed weddings.
Even in base game Sims 2 there were arch, the wedding cake, the champagne bottle...
I usually hate Sims parties with a passion, but weddings always felt special in Sims 2, so I would throw a party anyway.
Here they just exchange rings and - voila - don't blink because you might miss that you had the most important day of your life.
There's no difference between private and public weddings, if guests would bring me wedding gifts, then I might consider having public weddings again!

Two-story columns.

Edit: and scary ghosts!

The piano, violin would be nice too. Something that children can use.

Shelves! Half-walls. And the stage.

A big aquarium dammit! I refuse to keep 13 fishbowls in my house. I want one big one with room for 10-15 types of fish. Then you'd look more like a fish enthusiast and less like some crazy fish hoarder.

I also want the activity table to have an option to draw. Seriously, the paper is there! Gief painting skill.

All of the above, plus windows with shutters. There are some architectural looks that just cannot be achieved without shutters. Actually, I mostly hate the selection of windows in the base game, not just for the selection itself, but because they changed the size of some windows from TS2 to TS3: The mission-type rectangular windows most significantly. Whereas they used to be placeable on a wall segment and pretty much fill it side-to-side, they no longer do that. So a wall of windows is only truly achievable if one wants a more modern or high-tech look, not on a house which sports a more traditional (e.g. Victorian or Craftsman) style. They also changed the traditional-style arch (with the multiple glass panes) from two tiles wide to three, a design choice which still leaves me scratching my head.

I love that I can coordinate textures with CAST, however, the underlying architectural styles themselves still need to work together, and I don't find that the base game does that very well. As per usual with EAxis.

There are shutters, just not stuck onto the windows themselves.  They're in there somewhere with the decorations in buy mode.  I forget which subcategory and I is too lazy to look.

Shutters are on the same location as curtains, one of the decoration tabs.

Its a bit easy to miss but they are there.

The Piano
Hot Tub
Diving Board
Wedding Cake (Why did they take that out?)
Two story windows, doors and columns
Stages! (Why did they take that out?)
Diagonal pools
Wedding Arch
Big Aquariums

That's what I get for assuming that they should be where they used to be, and/or for not investigating every speck of available decor prior to thinking about building! Thanks, folks. It does make sense for shutters to be a decorative item, but I am also amused by the fact that they must have got that idea after some object modders put out shutter items for TS2.

I miss the pool table (billiards).

I miss drums.  Kids can play drums.  Drums are in orchestras.  Can no longer sim Jack and Meg. (We've got money and a little place to fight now).  I'm shocked they killed off the other instruments, except that it's obviously a money making opportunity for EA, particullarly when they can just reuse the recorded bits from TS2.  I had felt the instruments from TS2 were the most impressive part of the game.  yep, Plenty of room for a 'Music' EP in TS3. $30 please.


Turn off ringer?  I don't know if that stops the sound wave tho.

I beg to differ.  My sims flock to the guitars I buy, especially when their career or LTW has nothing to do with it.  I'm constantly having to chase someone off the guitar so my musicians can skill for promotions. :P

It's not an object, but I miss the old romance animations. The TS3 "kiss" animation is essentially a tiny peck, and the "make out" animation is just a series of pecks that lasts for about 15 seconds. The TS2 animations were over the top but at least they conveyed emotion. And there were some really sweet animations like the slow dance, etc. Romance in the TS3 is so dry and boring. I used to love pairing sims up in TS2 but that's lost its appeal in TS3.

I also miss the cuteness of toddlers in TS2. The TS3 ones are dead eyed and creepy, and although it used to annoy the hell out of me when TS2 toddlers wandered everywhere I find it unsettling how TS3 toddlers can stay in one spot for hours and not go anywhere.

Also, not having a piano, or at least a violin, is stupid since classical musicians are highly unlikely to have gotten their start playing on a guitar. And the lack of any classical instruments is doubly stupid given that the game actually has a classical music career branch.

Stick the guitar in the sim's inventory then only that sim can use it, and they will be able to use it under free will.  This is how you can avoid TS2-style flypaper-instruments.

Agreed, that is what I have to do as well. 

"Have to do"?  You make it sound like a chore or hardship.

I think it's one of the plusses of TS3, that I can click on the sim's inventory and have them start playing guitar wherever they are, whether at home, at a comm lot, or visiting a friend. Not to mention that I know the guitar isn't being used by some random sim when I want a particular sim to use it.

Not sure if it was worth giving up pianos (and 6's music skilling) for, but I love the feature.

If you only turn off the cell-phone ringer, the sim still gets the sound waves.  If you turn off the Main phone in the house, then no more sound waves.  And my sims still get those random opportunity pop's, without having to stop what they're doing to answer the phone.

Larva and Toddlers are no longer interesting to me.  I totally enjoyed having spawn and sproglets in TS2, but for TS3, it's a chore in order to get to the interesting stages.

I also miss genetics that actually produced something interesting to look forward too.  Now each generation is the same as the last generation, because they all look the same.  I've got one line of males that spans 6 generations and they all look exactly the same.  EAxis went and gave the "First-Born" effect a whole new meaning.

This and the complaint about genetics, also the new WooHoo icon, which honestly looks like an irradiated mutant cartoon heart, melting and crying from the pain of it all.  Also the new baby model.  I have never seen a larvoid baby in my entire life, save for maybe in a hospital.  You do not take them home and continue to enlarvanate them.

Fie on the "scale up" system of social interactions, maybe I'm tactless or something, but I don't have to make stupid faces before I can tell jokes, my partner and I don't have to flirt before we kiss, it's just another stupid time-eating aspect of the game.  I miss not having this stupid system.

I agree with everything you said here.

The "First kiss" looked like something very special in Sims 2, they made a very big deal out of it, the Sims 3 "First kiss" looks like 8 year old kids giving each other a kiss for the first time...
I loved in Sims 2 where they looked nervous to give their first kiss, puckering their lips and closing their eye... then realize they actually liked it!
That emotion isn't present in Sims 3.
Romance has also become so tedious when you have to get other Sims "in the mood", then they suddenly are in a bad mood and push you away like you are some kind of pervert.

Even though toddlers have 90% of their original animations, I think there's just something very wrong with their sounds.
When they play with a toy, they sometimes scream at the top of their lungs, which doesn't sounds like they are playing.
First time I heard it I would drop everything I did, because I thought the babysitter was abusing the kid.
I liked it better in Sims 2 where they were giggling, even if they giggled "loud", but it didn't sound like child abuse.
The same thing happens with adult interactions too, it sounds like you offended a person badly and they scream at you, yet they get plus points on their friendship bar.

I knew something fundamental was missing from the game.  And the parents could stand around and cheer.
 

I miss the green glow milk, because unjustifiably much more time has to be wasted on larvae now. The little buggers themselves, well, they were annoying in Sims 2, they are annoying and  has longer life stage in Sims 3.

Oh, and genetics. The main reason why I'm certainly back to 2 as soon as I beat 3 -- legacy style is not for me, it appears. Lemme go back to my breeder ways.

1. Pianos
2. PIANOS
3. Shelves
4. - 10. FUCKING PIANOS !!1
11. Water plants*

* or am I blind? The Landgraabs *do* have water plants, but I've been unable to find them in build mode.

At least we have fountains and rugs - the lack thereof drove me mad in the TS2 base game.

Water plants are just lumped in with regular plants.  I remember seeing cattails and possibly some water lilies.

Hm... I was sure that I'd examined every single plant in all three categories (flowers, bushes, trees). Will look again, thanks.

ETA: Yes, found them. Thanks again, Roflganger :)

I just checked - cattails and lilies are under "shrubs". 

I really miss Cooperative games, Shelves, Half-walls, cheap coffeemaker, genetics, Hot Tub, seasons, ...

Sims making food and then actually eat it (for some reason they create something to eat when they are hungry, but at the last minute they decide to do something more important then eating like... reading a book...)

I also hate how every baby seems to be born with cell phone in their hands. (Why can't cell phones just be optional...)

Lot's of custom clothes, make-up and hair...

Yes, I know about sticking it in inventory.  The point is that they do in fact seem to have a disproportionate attraction to them.  The sims I have with guitars in their inventory tend to whip it out and start playing it every time I let them idle as well.


I keep seeing people complaining about this and my sims have never done it that I've noticed, unless they're either not hungry or they've burnt it.   I like the fact that they don't automatically cram a plateful down their gullet regardless of how green their hunger bar is. 

This isn't an object, but I miss Physiology. My sims are so tired all the time now! Also, I dislike new coffee. The "buzzed" and "crash" things may be realistic but they are also ANNOYING.

I also miss some career and lifetime points rewards, like the edumacation bookshelf and the lie detector machine (it was lolworthy).

And, of course, the exaggerated facial expressions/movements the sims would make. I feel that Sims 3 sims are much more static than Sims 2 sims, which is taking away some of the delight.

I'm not a fan of the larval babies either. I liked their little flailing legs. Also, they're rather boring as you can't do anything with them, really. I mean, sure, I love that you can sit around on the couch watching tv while holding them now, but meh. Not even a danglemaster? Or will that come in an expansion pack? STOP NEGLECTING THE BABBYZ!

And what's the point of potty training toddlers if you still "change their diapers" after they are trained instead of bathing them?

The lack of instruments is incredible and sad. I would love a music related stuff pack, with TONS of new instruments. It would be nice to bring back the saxophone (it was there in TS1, but not playable), viomolin, bass, effing PIANO, drums, maybe even some bongos, tambourine, flute? Would it be too much to ask to be able to play more instruments? :P I just want something that children can play. Why can't they play the guitar? I had guitar lessons when I was a 6! :P

If you want to go with portable instruments, then a keyboard instead of a full piano would be cool. most of the rest of the instruments I suggested are fairly, if not completely, portable. :P

I'm with Zaza on the more board games front. More games in general. But no fucking myshuno, kthx.

It'd be nice if they could play/swim on the beach. I'm sure they'll open that later :P

I also wish there was a shelf with the tv where you could place the video game system. Because we all don't have our systems on the floor, do we? :P Mine are on the tv's lower shelf with the dvd player. :P

Beds need to be more powerful. It takes too long to sleep now. :P LESS SLEEPING DO WANT!

Clearly, you've never experienced a real toddler. ;) They go until they drop, literally.

Fish tanks instead of bowls. It would be cool if you put the wrong kinds of fish together they'd eat each other. :P

Toddler table only being half functional is LAME.

I agree. Except Seasons killed the hot tubs... or made the hot tubs kill the sims.

OMG THIS!  I was just thinking that the other day.  There is a ltw to have 13 perfect specimens of fish in bowls.  Right. Because I want every available tile in my home to contain a coffee table with several fishbowls on it.  I don't know if you have to have them all in separate bowls at once but it's the principle of the thing. Aquariums would add a whole new dimension to keeping fish.  You'd have to separate the salt water from the fresh water ones and make sure you were putting the right species together etc. 

Along with most people I think it's exceedingly lame that there is nothing you can do with metals and gems other than clutter your house or inventory with them.  Opening up functionality with xpacks is one thing but putting an item in the game that's essentially useless just looks like laziness.  Finish it or leave it out EA.  >:(

I really hate the fish bowl, I feel bad putting anything other than a minnow in it. I wish that they'd give the sims the ability to look at their fish again and not just feed them, isn't that the whole point of pet fish?

I guess this is not so much a "miss" as a "why the fuck didn't they put that in to begin with", but a cheap freaking laptop would be nice. The ability to use items from inventory is really one of the best features about TS3, so why why why isn't there a cheap laptop option - like maybe equivalent to or slightly more expensive than the cheapest computer. It's doubly annoying given how badly hacking pays as a "career"; it's a fourth of their starter money if I want to have my Computer Whiz sims go hack in the park. A cheaper gaming console would be nice, too.

Whoever was talking about lack of social games was dead on. I really miss Myshuno, the dart board, the hand-held gaming system and especially the mp3 player from Uni - the "rocking out" animation was so great. Pretty much anything (especially anything cheap) that Sims could do together and build social/fun with is missing, except for chess. I suppose I can accept them not wanting to put in too many items from expacks, but there was so little in Uni anyway and they already gave us cellphone.

I just played a pregnancy/baby/toddler for the first time last night, and I have to agree with everyone else that the ultra-larval babies are weird, at best. Pregnancy seems to have gotten some interesting changes, but babies now creep me out, instead of just being a timesuck.

This is not a missed object, but someone above mentioned objects being too attractive, like guitars--another one is the garden sprinkler. Every time a Sim is idle now, s/he wants to go play with that stupid sprinkler. This would make sense for kids or those with the Childish trait, but a Neat Sim just traipsing off to get messy in the sprinkler? I don't think so.

And I really, really miss the ability to customize lot sizes. About half the lots in Sunset Valley are far bigger than I like to build on. I want compact, dense residential areas, not sprawling McMansions and suburban horrors.

Seconded. I really want to stomp the autonomous playing with the sprinkler. I had a scientist with a nice garden + well-stocked pond, and he used to fish whenever he was idle, but now that he got a sprinkler, he spends hours in it. Strangely, his kids seemed to prefer reading pregnancy books when idle. They weren't even bookworms. And pregnancy books for 6s? Colour me confused.

I have had the pregnancy book issue with other Sims as well, who were not bookworms and had other books available to them. Maybe the pregnancy books are extra-attractive?

Mine can't seem to keep away from Adventures of Raymundo. They have around 50 books, between the many that Sara wrote and Nicole's two. But nope, it's all about AoR.

The sprinklers annoy me, too. I've been thinking of just making all parties swimwear, because with four sprinklers out in the Huge Garden of Perfection, that's all guests do.

Dang. My kids too, always read pregnancy books; I wonder if it's done on purpose. Adventures of Raymundo is a bestseller in my hood too, among the adults, nip and tuck with Speshul Snowflake.

I won't bother reiterating the objects missed by others (musical instruments); but I personally miss the selection of medium to large indoor plants; right now there is one (a tree) and two medium sized potted plants. I adore greenery and find it makes fantastic décor, but at the moment I am struggling to make rooms look unique given the lack of superfluous plant- and other- décor.

Also, not an object, but I really miss the male pregnancy mod… because I don't play females.

Perhaps they're not just pregnancy books but also educational on where babbies come from.  Which means pictures of nekkid people.

Most of what's been said, I miss.  Also, alien hybrids.  Yeah, I can make a green guy in CAS and he won't have crappy genetics, but the whole alien abduction thing was fun.

I also really miss NL-style chemistry and dating. Right now it feels like there's no reason to have a Sim choose any other Sim in particular for a match-up, other than "My biological clock is ticking, I need a mate NOW, and you're standing in front of me." Sims are not turned on or turned off by other personality traits, they don't care about hair color; I haven't played a Snob Sim or one with a LTW related to money, but I somewhat doubt those Sims will really care much about the financial status of romantic possibilities, either. Love is simply a vending machine in TS3.

Smart milk.  It takes wa-a-a-ay too long to teach toddlers to walk, talk and potty train.  Actually, I miss a few of the aspiration rewards.  And I'm not crazy about the lifetime aspiration rewards offered, either.

I liked the career rewards they had in TS2.  Most of them were essential in every sim home.

Playing multiple households was one of the things that kept me interested in the sims.  Having to play one household in a neighborhood is boring as hell.  I've already gone back to playing TS2 because of it.

The piano was usually the only musical instrument my sims had because children could play it.

Toddlers and children getting skills instead of the promise of getting to "start" at a certain skill level as a teen.  WTF?

The toddler wabbit for charisma.  That's how my toddlers spent their time in TS2 until they became children.

An actual ultra speed.  The ultra speeds in TS3 are the equivalent of speed 2 in TS2.  I can clean my whole house while my sims are sleeping.

One thing I do find amusing:  When a sim dies, if you leave the urn in the house (don't know about tombstones) the ghost of the sim comes out and does things around the house like read and work out.  My husband ghost would then sleep in bed with wifey until he got sucked back into the urn.  I then found out that wifey could talk to her ghost hubbie.  Cute.

I miss alot of the things mentioned above. Piano, why EA can't the kids learn music? WTF!!

I am a builder and I miss the simple things. Curved staircases, straight stairs, half-walls. Although the fences are nice, like the wire fencing, but I miss my CC fences. I hate the columns, the arches suck.

I would love to use the "constrainfloorelevation false" on my walls and not have that awful shadow that can't be removed. If it can, please let me know. When I use CFE to make 'stealth stairs', I would like them to stay that way with out them flying up in the air after a sim uses them.  I definitely miss individual roof elevations.

Shoot, just will go play TS2.

Well, I do know that toddlers go until they drop, but on the other hand, real toddlers aren't "perfect" like Sims 3 toddlers, real toddlers become overtired at times. And if you put an overtired toddler into the crib, they won't just quietly sit there for a second, then fall over and fall asleep.  :P
So they made toddlers falling asleep right away at near fainting a convenience, but yet they made it impossible for them to even take naps, making it a mayor inconvenience when playing the game.
That doesn't make sense to me at all, that is what annoys me with the cribs, that I can't even nap the toddlers for a while to get some energy back.
Why make one part realistic and the other unrealistic?
And realistically, a real toddler that is left alone in the crib for 5 hours while awake, won't pass the time by simply giggling, they would quickly become upset by the loneliness. (long before 5 hours!)

They removed the inconvenience that other Sims had to wait until a certain energy level to fall asleep, now Sims can go to bed at any time during the day and sleep. (which is a lifesaver when children wake up too early and wait for the schoolbus)
That isn't realistic, yet they changed it so it would be easier to take care of Sims.
So the baby/toddler sleeping issue is just a mayor inconvenience to gameplay and a half-arsed attempt at making toddlers more realistic.


Obviously they are not aiming for realistic toddlers, so why add some realistic features that are limiting gameplay?
It dosen't make sense.

Those are possible in TS3, with an old trick revived -- see this thread: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=344816

Have fun! =)

I was pretty freakin' disappointed by build mode.  Some of the promo vids were very "ZOMG LOOK AT WHAT YOU CAN BUILD NAO" as if there were things you couldn't do in TS2.   As it turns out they just copy-pasted build mode from TS2 into TS3, with the exception of pulling walls and the roof height slider.  Things like fences that double as columns were conspicuously absent from base TS2.  We already waited almost 10 years for them and then they yank them right back out.  Who at EA do I have to kill for a proper covered porch?!  I'd even settle for regular columns that can be placed in a quarter tile.  

Basements and garages attached to houses shouldn't need cheats.  What's wrong with maybe holding down the alt key to get the foundation tool to dig a basement for you?  Maybe if I try to build a wall right next to a foundation the game just automatically makes that wall 4 clicks taller?   Even better would be a pop-up asking me if I want to match that wall's height to the existing walls or not.  If you select no, maybe you get a reminder that stairs will be necessary to make those areas accessible.  

This isn't something that was ever in TS2 really but I miss counter islands that corner properly with regular counters.  As far as I've seen the TS3 islands will corner with a refrigerator or strove, but not with a counter.  WTF EA?   I would also dearly love counters that can corner at other than a 90 degree angle.  I want kitchen islands and peninsula objects in interesting shapes and I want to put sinks in them dammit!  

There's an anti-sprinkler hack that is seperate from AwesomeMod, but Fat Gwilly People haven't asked.

I know it's not an object, but I miss LOTFULLOFSIMS the most right now. 6 screaming larvae isn't enough for me! I can fit in at least 22 more before the first one toddlers up! Someone make this possible, please!

Actually, I miss Lot Full Of Sims too.  But since the game is all of 10 days old, I don't feel justified in complaining about what mods haven't been resurrected yet.  Stuff that was in the base TS2 but not in TS3, though, seems like a reasonable target.

 - Gus

^ This. I love the challenge of 10 or 15 or more Sims in a household.

If they visit the theater you get the option "woohoo backstage" it's the only one I found so far though, maybe there are more places but i'm not sure.
I want more different plants for in the house, 2 and 3 story columns , one tile spiral staircase, and a lot of the other buildmode stuff created by CC makers.[/list]

I am asking, O Masterful of Awesomeness!  *bows*

Will the sacrifice of my first-born sim do?

While placing anything, press and hold ALT for free placement. Depending on what you have around it, you may also need the cheat "moveobjects on".

This I don't mind so much (though I agree it's silly that children can't learn guitar--which should be "music"--until they're teens).  In Sims 2, I pretty routinely had all skills maxed before my teens went to college through toddler/child skillination, smart milk, and the educational bookcase unless I just chose not to do it.

For some reason I thought I'd read that doesn't work with columns.  There goes my reading comprehension again. >.<

I miss the grandfather clock.  My home contains two of them.  I cannot build my house properly without them.  :/

I read in a post that every rabbit hole you can visit has a woohoo option.  It definitely works for the city hall.  Choose tour with so-in-so then click on the building.

Is this an intended pun?

I want to know why they included watch a movie at the theater and watch a game at the stadium but you can't take a date with you.

I hate that by 9 pm downtown is dead. No nightlife for you! My Sim hangs out at the cemetery with the ghosts at night. They like to watch her play guitar!

I miss the violin, shelves for all these gems, fish tank, hot tub, diving board, coffee that refills your energy level, the cheap wall mount shower, and alien abductions.

What hacks I want - pergnancy for all genders, auto sort inventory and bookshelves, fertilize all plants that need it with best fish I have in inventory, a listing in the skills details for the collectibles, and books read.

***Thou do not have the right to complain about what has not been present in The Sims 2 base game***



other then that, i really miss the piano and the charisma rabbit... and the social bunny... and the sim shrink... and some other random NPC's like the gardener;
but as for items, nothing except for the ones mentioned[that... from the base game only]

Says who?  TS2 base was 5 years ago, and for many players, many, many dollars ago.  Where's this rule that says we have to accept being given as little as possible in the base game just so they can milk more money out of releasing the same recycled EPs?  How about they start giving us more value in the base game and concentrating on actually delivering new, interesting content for the game they've promised would be such a remarkable evolution from TS2?  I don't feel like spending 20-30 bucks on an EP just to get the same exact shit we got in Nightlife or University, etc.

What I'm missing more than anything else wasn't a maxis object, but the toddler floor blanket. I hate having to pull someone away from what they're doing just to put the dang things to bed, and I mostly just end up cheating their energy back up.

Also, spiral staircases. I know they weren't in base game, but they've been making em since Unleashed, I'd think they'd have the hang of it by now. I've been playing George Dean in his refurbished firehouse in Riverview, And I wanted to turn the tower part into a multilevel playroom. Too bad there's no spiral stairs and the regular ones won't fit.

Actually, I kind of wonder this too. I remember somewhere in another thread, I was complaining about missing the shiftable paintings option from TS2 (which I still do, btw!), to which someone replied that we didn't get that until AL. This seems like incredibly odd reasoning to me-- if we had to wait for the objects or features in TS2, shouldn't they be available sooner in TS3? We already waited 4+ years for it the first time.

This is the most depressing thread ever. I miss everything everyone has mentioned, and am now in a state of infinite sadness. Or something.

I want more paintings and I want them shiftable dammit!! I don't understand why bastard EA would refuse to let paintings be shiftable in the basegame. That's just assholery right there.

I think it's important to keep in mind that game development costs money.  If TS3 included everything from TS2 and the expansions, it would have cost as much to develop as all of the above.  Well, perhaps a bit less, but it's fairly obvious that the engine had enough of a re-write that code re-use was problematic.

As it is, the game included a fair number of key elements from the TS2 expansions if not all the chrome.  My complaint was more in the way of really basic stuff that somehow got omitted this time around, even as they stuffed in lots of new features.

 - Gus

I missed everything - from the coffeemaker to the bowling alley. I even missed Komei Tellerman and Goopy GilsCarbo! They suddenly appeared appealing and attractive to me, compared to these fugly faces! Missed? Yes - I don't miss it anymore - I play TS2 again, never stopped.
Fortunately, I got the pirated version of TS3 - wanted to test it out, to see what's the big deal. So at least I had the sense not to run out and buy the thing.

While I see the point Gus is making - it takes time and money - I can't think of a reason I would now even consider playing this game when there's perfectly good game on my hard drive already installed, over which I have total control and which satisfies me greatly with both its original and custom contents. And a corporation like EA has money and resources, they are just not giving it for this. They want to suck out some more money, as someone else said here, for the same stuff. FUCK THAT!

So I guess I'll CONSIDER buying it after a couple of years, when all the stuff is back in again, and ONLY if the community comes up with the way to mod it similarly as TS2. 

The only thing better in TS3 are the loading times. Actually, TS3 tought me to appreciate TS2 better. And for that I thank EAxis. Not even the loading times of TS2 bug me now - at the end of that rainbow awaits my hood, replete with gameplay I enjoy and control.

Sadly, I think that a significant portion of that money is going into Humble's pocket. 

While I can see not including everything from all expansions, or even lots of things from the expansions, there are some omissions in this game that just baffle me.

I fear that they are more interested in Sims 3 base being a platform for profits from the Store than anything else.  I envision expansions to this game where, for the $39.99 purchase price, you get the big honor of being able to purchase from exclusive areas in the Store.

I have to agree. As ugly as they were, they had a personality about them. They were unique, and recognisable. But I just don't recognise sims in this game. They all look the same, and it's so hard to tell them apart unless they are seriously deformed or something.

Heh, for me The Sims 2 runs flawlessly and has much faster loading times than The Sims 3, which is horrifically sluggish. So the argument that "The Sims 3 runs smoother and has less loading times than TS2" is a moot point to me.

And for expansions, I wouldn't be surprised to see them merely sell retail packs containing only gameplay enhancements and a few critical objects, with everything else having to be bought from the store.

I was deathly afraid that hideous townies were going to make the game unplayable for me.  I went to great lengths to correct this in TS2, what with replacing the face templates and sometimes completely replacing the default Townies because I was sick of Goopy and company.  And you know, I feel exactly the opposite of how you do about TS3's faces.  Yes, puddingface is a problem, but the worst puddingfaces are acceptable, versus the hideous gorilla-fish hybrids that TS2 regularly generated.

I can't go back to TS2 after playing TS3.  The vastly improved Want system, the wealth of personality traits versus just 7 aspirations - one of which is a joke, and one (pleasure) that I find deadly dull - the entire neighborhood as one seamless lot, the ultra-powerful recoloring tools, even the way the entire neighborhood ages.  There's stuff missing that shouldn't be, and I'll continue to bitch about that.  But I just can't go back.

It doesn't work like that.  Design leads don't get profit sharing at the project level at EA.  At most, they get to participate in the Employee Stock Purchase Program, which is sort-of like free stock options - you pay the cheaper of the price at the start or the end of the period.  So if the stock goes up, you can make a good bit of money, provided you set aside some of your salary for that.

If you're going to ascribe mercenary motives, target EA management, not the development team.


I was put off by the Store at first as well, but then I realized it was pretty much the same as the TS2 "Stuff" packages.  None of which I bought.

 - Gus

Actually, I believe that even the stuff packs were a better deal than the store, if you can believe that. Estimates for everything in the store are somewhere around the $275 range, from what I've read here and at GOS. The stuff packs were about $20 each where I live, and you got 1-2 object sets and a handful of clothes. Even though the store has more stuff, it's definitely NOT almost $300 worth of stuff.

Fake edit: Here we go! Google is my friend (http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/sims-3/657240-get-everything-sims-3-store-only-275-00-a-3.html).

I really do miss the Servo.  :'( Ahhh, good old times, when you could just do whatever you wa... Oh wait.

Servo?  The servo was never a decent replacement for the TS1 robot.  I still miss the TS1 robot.

Mr Humble is EA management. 

I stand corrected.  I rather assumed that the way his name is bandied about, that he was the team lead.  Apparently, he's "VP in charge of the Sims division."  That's something else entirely.  In my experience, people that far removed from actual development don't do much.  Beyond annoy the development team, of course.  Touting a VP or an executive producer in connection with the title rather than the real lead designer is a typical PR department move.

I was curious who the actual team was, and that doesn't seem to be readily available information.  I guess EA is more interested in The Sims 3 being an "EA Game' rather than a "Will Wright game."

 - Gus

Wasn't this robot called Servo? I thought it'd be called like that.

This. I want a robot that behaves like a robot and does the chores and doesn't count as a family member. Ts2 servos were bad and broke too damn often.

They did to Servo in TS2 what they did to ghosts in TS3 - gave them personalities.

I don't want collections of microchips walking about like demented Chobits persocoms in much the same way as I don't want ghosts going around acting all friendly. I miss the TS1 servo - it did what it was told and didn't answer back!

I don't mind the ghosts with personalities. I just wish they haunted better. They're kind of getting there.

What EXP did servo come out with? OFB? I wonder if they will be released with the L&P business exp people are spreading.

Apparently there's a gold plated Servo in one of the rabbit hole windows (the science building I think).

Snapdragons from OfB.

It's all hugely marketing. I remember talking to a guy who designed and animated 3D figures. He said it's would be quite easy to create a system allowing each player to create custom hairstyles in the sims. EA won't ever introduce that, though, since if they did, they wouldn't be able to mooch money from hairstyles in sim store.

Yeah, but they also like to use it all the time, also at 3AM in a room where everyone is sleeping:(
I agree with all people who mentioned there should be more musical instruments and the skill hold name "music" or something of that kind.

I kinda took it for granted that I'd be able to shape the city to my will, like I could in SimCity games. But poop. I can't even place lots where I like. We're back to the sims 1.

Oh yeah. I'd also love to see sims completely love-dazzed and ready to completely change their appearance, just so they seem attractive to the chosen one. Oh, and I wish I could play match-maker - you know, make some neighbors meet and try to get them hooked together:D It could've been hilarious.

I've been searching for that. You can't even marry off a sim with household full and if you move them out, they will never marry their partner or produce a child the natural way. I know I could handle 12 buggers under one roof.

I'm actually surprised there aren't any shelves, I just end up holding all collectibles in inventories or selling them off, because the aligning on drawers/tables is somehow borked.
The next in line I miss are hot tub and wedding arch. Big aquarium for fishies and something like that for bugs, too (or alternatively nailing them to a board on a wall >:})

I also kinda hope some forgotten items from sims1 will be recycled someday, eg. the lab or the cool brick oven in which you could make bread... (I hope for an EP as good as MM for sims 3, witches in AL really sucked).

I'm wondering when EA finally decides to add bunk beds. It'd unbelievable there aren't any so far:(

From interactions - they're rather good, though could be better - eg. it's kinda dull you can't interact with neighbors' kids they're carrying around. Or I got a situation in which my sim was visiting her neighbor, they were watching TV and the set broke down. My sim had "good" trait and 9 in mechanics, so I made her fix it, the neighbors found it inappropriate. There should be an option "offer repair", because I believe it's what a good person knowing something about repairs would do in such situation.

I miss spiral staircases.   :-\

Same here...much more annoying to me: Fish stay perfectly fine 6 Month+ in a fridge but they die in a fishbowl if not fed within 24hrs.

Even though realism is not a goal in Sims since you can put saltwater and freshwater types together in one pond (hell even my pool has the fish option  :D).
Reasonably well fed fish can easily survive a 2 week lent period.
So I would like to be able to set the feeding minima to about once a week or so and .
I still hope that bigger fish tanks will be popping up at the store eventually.

-le

Edit: OK, one problem solved:I just found CyberOps No Dead Fish for 365 days   (http://www.sims2workshop.com/viewtopic.php?t=3077)which keeps the fish alive as long as you feed it once a year  ;D ;D

Me too  :-[

I miss most of what people have mentioned as well.  I really miss attraction/dating though.  The romance bit seems a bit boring.  Connected to that I miss ACR (which I know is TwoJeffs, not EA).  I hate micromanaging my sims love lives.  It does seem odd that you have to go through the whole dating rigamarole to kiss your spouse.  Also, I'm the only one I'm sure, but I miss pets.  I'm the one who actually liked that expansion. 
Someone pointed out how annoying it is that sims can't play guitar til' they are teens.  Why can't child sims garden?  As a kid, weekend weeding was a normal part of my chores.  I said I would use hacks and stuff for awhile, but I already have awesome mod, default skins textures, and default eye textures.  Still, I am finding it just as addictive as I found first Sims 1, then Sims 2.

Not something I miss from previous versions, as it has never existed.  But I miss it in that I wish it was in the game.

It just came to me while I was reading the requests in the AwesomeMod thread: Why on God's green earth does this ONE GAME, out of every game going, not allow us to bind our own keys? That seems so simple an oversight.  I can see the idiot brigade screwing themselves over to the point where they could do almost nothing in game, but that's what the "Reset To Defaults" button is for.

For that matter, why can't I bring up the game menu by hitting ESC. And why when I type information into text boxes (like names for saved games) do I have to click that stupid checkmark icon instead of just hitting enter?  It's these pre-school-style limitations that make me insane sometimes while playing.

Ah yes, proper bunk beds. They were made for the horror that was TSO, but they never made it to any REAL sim game.

I do also. Targa stairs, oh how I would love to have them in this game. I can't make stealth stairs as they rise up when you level the area.

I miss bunkbeds too.

OK, so you guys have touched on some very warm memories I have of things I loved in TS2, now that I am playing TS3 solely now...

I have to agree - the Romance options kinda suck in the base game.  I do hope they will upgrade w/EPs.  Kissing is boring and too innocent, as well as make-out.  They never grab butts anymore, lol, and I don't recall hearing the purring and growling from before, but maybe I haven't been listening.  Miss the slow dance options where you could REALLY fondle your dance partner.   ;)

I know they weren't made by Maxis, but I really, really miss my love shower and love rugs from SexySims2, lol.  I'm hoping TS3 versions will be out soon!

Memories.  I miss the memory icons where you had your first kiss, first woohoo, births of children, had an affair, etc. 

Smart Milk and Career Rewards.  Do you get anything besides lifetime want points (if it was your want) when you reach top of a career now?  I haven't noticed anything...

The larvae are creepy and boring.  I miss powdering my baby's bottom!

Half-walls are a definite missed item.  I never realized I liked them so much until I didn't have them...Shelving is also a definite lacking in the game now.  With all the collectibles, how could they forget a place to store them?

I miss nice water features - the fountain is nice but boring after a while.  Aquariums...how could they miss this?  Being able to sunbathe and swim in the ocean...how could they create such beautiful water and ocean and deny us swimming in it?

I miss being able to go into a restaurant on a date an eat and play with food, toast, surprise engagement, etc. interactions while at the table.  I also really miss the wedding arch and the wedding video cutscreen.

What about woohoo in the car?  It was the fastest route to accidental preggo for my Sims in TS2, lol!  Haven't noticed this being an option in TS3 yet...anyone else?

Musical instruments other than guitar...I cannot believe they took out the piano, drums and violin!  How can you have a music career without multiple instruments?  And WHY can't kids play an instrument other than the toddler xylophone?  What IS up with the paper and crayons on the craft table but no interaction to draw?  I think they just totally missed that one by accident...

Yes! The groping, I miss the groping.


Nah. They missed it out by laziness, more like.

The things I miss the most aren't objects, but part of the gameplay. I really miss the turn-ons and turn-offs. Romance and dating are so hit-and-miss now, and seem a bit pointless, in many ways. I understand that shared traits have something to do with how well sims get along together, but the traits don't really seem to have much of an impact. Even sims with no shared traits can easily become friends and fall in love, because it has only to do with lots of clicking on the user's part. Relationships of any sort are very mechanical now, and take far too much effort on my part. I mostly just cheat my sims into friendships, because I don't feel like clicking 50 times to get my sim to befriend somebody. Stupid EA.

As sappy as it is, I miss memories, too. What's the point of having your first woohoo, or any of your children, if you don't remember any of it?

As far as objects go, the texture customization *somewhat* makes up for the small number of actual objects, but I also think it's really stupid that the cheapest shower gives bad "cold shower" moodlets, and that the only showertub in the game is hella expensive. Also, what's up with the ridiculously expensive "hot beverages maker" that doesn't even boost energy? Give me my cheap coffee maker, and a reason to use it!

In which universe? If you find your showers going cold in the middle of them, buy a better water heater. Replacing the shower, itself, will do nothing.

Definitely, memories and turn-ons and turn-offs were the first thing I noticed gone. It's really depressing that when a sim dies the family has completely forgotten about them two days later, and it's easy to make a sim date ANYONE as long as you get the interactions in the right order. Definitely a step backwards.

I agree! I would like someone to hack that "hot beverage maker" to have more energy. It is so costly, you would think it was worth a good kick.

I'll reiterate the want for memories and turn ons/offs. I also kinda miss the buildable cars - my wrench wielding Handy sim just isn't a -proper- mechanic until she has a few wrecks on her front lawn waiting to be fixed. Hell, I just wish there were more of the skill/hobby items - I miss the flower arranging and the robot building and the different instruments and all the sports equipment like the football net.

And I kinda miss TS2 style social interaction sometimes. Why can't my sims go from asking how each other's day was to back-pain-alleviating massages without spamming flirts first?

I also miss dating, chemistry and the romance interactions of TS2. Now courtship just involves cornering a Sim and spamming a sequence of romance socials until you work them into the right mood. It actually reminds me of romance in Fable 2. That's fine for an rpg type game where romance and family are an optional distraction from the main point of the game, but in a life simulation, romance and family should be something fun to do, not some dreary chore. I can't even bother playing flirty, commitment issue types in this game, I only romance for the sake of getting a breeding partner. In TS2 it was fun to play a multiple partner Romance type, now it's just boring.

I also miss elevators. 

I find it interesting that so many people have mentioned that one can get any sim to fall in love with any other in the Sims3 and miss the chemistry system of the Sims2.  It was just as easy if not more so to make any sim fall in love with any other in the Sims2 even if they had bad chemistry.  Now it may have taken a little longer, but it was certainly easy.  Now with that said, I do miss the fact that in the Sims2, sims could scope the room and would make their preference known by swooning or retching over various other sims.  I really hope they bring back some sort of system where we can more easily tell whom our sims are attracted too.  At this point I am going by the wishes that pop up.  If a sim wants to kiss a certain sim for the first time (or have any romantic wishes related to a certain sim), then I take that as attraction.  

As for objects I personally miss and hope they bring into the Sims3 at some point...

Basketball nets.  These were something I wanted in the Sims2 for the longest time and we finally got them in the second to last EP.  At least we got some playground equipment this time around in the base game.  Parks are my favorite thing to build in the Sims and without basketball nets and playground equipment they always seem lacking to me.  

Vending machines.  Again something that goes so well in parks and playgrounds.  In fact vending machines go well in most any community lot.  I wanted these so bad for the Sims2 for so long and FINALLY got them in the last EP.  Then I used them like mad.  I hope I don't have to wait that long again.

Baby playthings.  These didn't even get put into any EPs at all, but the Store! And not until a few weeks before Sims3 came out.  Still it was enough time for me to love them and want them back.  Though I don't think we will be getting any baby swings in the Sims3 seeing as how their bottom halves don't move now.  Again something I had to wait forever for in the Sims2.  I would be happy with a bassinet or stroller instead though if it means we can use it to take babies and toddlers to the park and beach.

An interactive ocean and beach.  Again something I waited to be included in the Sims2 forever and was so happy when we finally got it.  Interactive beaches were one of the only things in BV that I really loved, but it made the whole EP worth it to me.  And now I miss them three times as much seeing as how there are a couple of beautiful beaches in the Sims3 just begging to be made usable since as they are there is nothing special to do at them except fish.  I mean why have a beach party when it is no different from a party at the park except for the location?

The massage table.  This I sadly have doubts of being included since sims can now get massages at the rabbit hole spa.  Which I don't like because I enjoy watching my sims get pampered.  If I am too busy and poor for massages in real life, then I want to live vicariously through my sims.

Which brings me too...non-rabbit hole community lots.  I don't know if this will ever be any different in any EP, but I really hope it is.  The reason I am not sure if some of these rabbit holes will open up is that most all of them are work places too.  The only way I can see it happening is if one of the EPs is something of an OFB remake except that maybe instead of just having sims run their own businesses it also makes it possible for sims to work at other sims' businesses and make these venues open to the public to enjoy at the same time.  I really don't know if this will happen though.

Last but not least, let me join with the many voices decrying the lack of shelves in the game.  This one is such a no brainer I really, REALLY don't understand how it was left out.  I'd love to do some more collecting in the game (I actually find it enjoyable and in character for some sims such as scientists), but the fact that there is no really good way to display an ample collection of anything in the game keeps me from it.  A room full of tables is the best option we have at this point and while it works it is hardly the way most real treasures and collections are displayed.  At least give us some glass to put over those gems to protect them!

The Running with Scissors Playset.  I loved how random it was, and used to use it to cull my population.

I wish you could do stuff at the beach like you could in BV, such as seashell hunting, swimming in the sea and building sandcastles. I was slightly disappointed that all you could do at the beach was fish. They can't even sunbathe!

Just finished a Sims 3 session and found that I really miss the gentle, nicely animated zzzz's of sleeping Sims in TS2, and the equally gently animated music notes and blue rings emanating from stereo speakers. These hard-edged ZZZ's are horrid, and the weird liquid-glass effect that's supposed to mimic sound waves coming out of stereos is awful.

Of course, when it comes to music, I'm with those who bitch about not being able to turn off the goddamn music in build, buy, neighborhood and CAS modes. My speaker knob is going to get twisted off from me cranking it down every time I have to leave live play mode.

What objects do I miss? Every damn thing Adele ever made, for starters. Windkeeper's Helios windows and doors. My huge collection of oriental rugs, Victorian furnishings and period clothing. Wanna try maintaining a Victorian-themed household with a cell phone in every inventory?

Sims 3 is diverting but Sims 2 is NEVER coming off my hard drive.

Necromancy is bad. Next time, THERE WILL BE NO MERCY.

A lot have been covered here already. From the fishbowls < fishtanks, blandness of romantic socials (actually most socials in general have become really boring and the most boring ones take too long on top of it). I especially miss the cinematic. It helps emphasizing those crucia/speciall moments in a sims life.
Not being able to bathe the larvae babies and toddlers.
Many objects, like the hut tub and many of the wedding items such as the arch and cake.

What annoys me the most though is that they copied so much from TS2 besides the stuff that would actually help with the TS3 gameplay. They kept yelling in their propganda that socials are important in TS3 and that they would focus on that. So why in the name of Jeebus they didn't include the group option from NL? Even when people in the same household go out together they never return home together. If I want them to change location I have to direct them seperately to do so. This is so incredibly annoying!

Also there's no party clock timer thingy.

Yeah. I just got really nostalgic for TS2.

Objects most missed by me would have to be, almost all of the Freetime interact-able objects. I didn't realize how often I put a Robot Making Station or Sewing Machine in my Sims homes. Even the Pottery Wheel; I hated that one most of all the Freetime objects because Sims had to stand up while using it.

And the car that can be worked on? I sooo miss that. Cars in general are missed; I hate the ghostly interaction with them now. I really enjoyed seeing my Sims get in their car and back out of the driveway.

Also, spiral stairs, again. Such space savers.

I also miss tall, narrow dressers.

LOCKABLE DOORS?! I do realize (and have) those locked doors on MTS but, it's only that one door in your buyable objects, not a global function.

I also miss baby's dirty diapers that drop on the floor. Or even the animation of a kid being thrown in the air, and having the dirty diaper to clean up. I hate that swirl animation around baby's when they're being changed.

I also miss the career unlockables of TS2 and aspiration objects.

Just seems like there's nothing to do for my Sims, anymore.

I miss the teleporter stairs from TS1.

I used nothing else.

I'm missing something apparently very simple - segment of wall that doesn't cut down. I have one in TS2 made by Numenor that is just a change on a basegame script. I hate the fact that internal walls cut down and show things I would like to hide (like stairs). I also like to make phisical separations between bedrooms and bathrooms etc.

I'm thoroly disgusted that they left out stuff that was in the base game of both TS1 and TS2: hot tubs, pool tables, a coffee machine that actually gives energy...  TS3 donesn't even have a freaking dartboard for crying out loud.

I miss the Money Tree, Smartmilk, the Energizer.  TS3 could really use an Energizer.

I also miss so much stuff that came with expansions.  The soccer net, the japanese tea service (I really, really loved this item), the mah jong table, karioke machine, DJ booth, ballet barre, sauna, massage table, the sewing machine (which would be totally useless now that clothes are free, but it was pretty cool in TS2), the tent, the log-rolling thing, the pool slide.

I also miss the cooking contest table where you could actually see who you were competing agaist and what they were entering.  Random cooking contest oprotunity isn't the same at all, espcally since it is only available when it pops up, not whenever you want to enter.  Oh yeah, and the contest food in TS2 was edible after the judging was complete; in TS3 you never see it again.

And oh God how I miss the spiral stairs.

Oh yeah!  I forgot.   :P  lol  In TS2 I had a moneytree (or 2 or 4) in almost every house.  In TS3, you have to be a pretty high lvl gardener to actually grow the stupid thing, so I very rarely have them.

Gosh, I also miss that convenient Elixer of Life.  Ambrosia is just not the same thing at all.  Anyone and everyone could easily earn enough asperation pts to buy a jug of the Elixer; you need Maxed Cooking, Fishing, and Gardening to make Ambrosia.  It's probably pretty much impossible on the shorter lifespans to ever actually assemble the ingredients unless you use some hack that allows Deathfish and Lifefruit to be sold at the store.

I miss aspiration failure. It was the BEST part of not being a total control freak. :( I want meltdowns & freaking out for sims other than the insane ones.

Not an object, but I miss songs in simlish. It's jarring to me that when I get near a stereo, "I love LA" or "Don't worry 'bout the government" comes blaring out.

That is sort of the point.

Yeah, I know.  TS2 was too easy.  But it was quite a jarring change for me until I realize we can just change thier lifespans to whatever (very long) lifespan we want, and now I don't worry about it.  Just feeling a little nostalgic for those easy days of TS2.   ;D

you can steal the Life Fruit in other Sim Garden.

I miss creating my own custom neighborhoods, more than anything else.

Who's to say, there might be a way regular users can, I have yet to see a hack/mod allowing it.

That is true, but of course that means you must already have another sim in the neighbourhood who has planted and grown Life Fruit.

And yes, I too very very much miss being able to make my own custom hoods.

Every time I see "Life Fruit", I think of different little things that happened to me in World of Warcraft when I was out picking herbs. In WoW there's a plant called Liferoot. I had friends refer to it sometimes as "Life fruit" or "life-froot" time to time jokingly (long before Sims 3 was conceived of course). Amusingly, it was a plant hard to find sometimes when you were really needing it.

More about the custom neighborhoods, I have heard other people (and EA) pimp the design over its flaws by just saying that it would be "hard" or impossible to allow that because of the streaming, seamless design of the neighborhoods. To me, maybe I'm just grouchy but this sounds a little like lazy design. I'm not a programmer (and will not become one), but I digress.
 It was *possible* for the designers to implement a way for normal users to make seamless custom neighborhoods, they just didn't do it -- perhaps to wait to add something like that in an expansion pack. They are ALREADY working on an expansion pack for Sims 3 now, which sounds relatively fun. (Adventuring in Sims 3? Humm!)

I miss interactions in restaurants, too. It sounds wrong, but I miss taking a bad sim and making them wet themselves in the middle of the dining area.  ;D

Edit!

Oh my gosh, do I miss this too. Were they unable to get people to make new simlish songs for this game? Also I find myself missing the music from the original Sims game and its expansions. Especially the weird elevator-type music. It had a "fun" quality to it. Kind of a bummer they just threw in a few bad songs from some designer's kid's iPod into TS3, but you can still add your own collection, which makes up for it.

Well,to some extent, this is true: The entire neighborhood terrain is actually a giant 3D mesh, and the radar view is made out of a prepainted overlay, and isn't actually rendered. To add a lot involves blasting a hole through the terrain mesh and defining it, so, while not possible, it is not as trivial as it sounds and it seems unlikely that it can be performed dynamically in-play. Whether it was asinine to even adopt such a design or not, that is a different question.

This is a very good point. :)
As for myself, I think it was sort of strange to adopt that sort of design. I'm sure there were other ways to get their goal for that, than what they used.

I don't mind not being able to physically change the shape of the towns, but I'd at least like different terrain types (desert, concrete, etc), and the ability to add and remove neighborhood decorations. I really don't think that that's too much to ask.

Does this mean that anyone hoping for custom neighborhoods can abandon all hope? This was going to be the ultimate deciding factor for me in purchasing future expansion packs.

I'm certain that they could have made neighborhoods customizable even with the lack of borders, but they designed the system stupidly and lazily, sacrificing user customization for superficially pleasing curvy roads. Making these neighborhoods customizable would require a lot of effort; it isn't worth the effort because they figure most players won't give a crap, and they are probably right, so go them!

I think I'm getting it through my thick skull that complaining to/about a large company makes about as much of a difference as voting.

Well, if everyone had that attitude, we would have McCain for president.

No matter how small, any action changes the future.

This. <3

Also, I have faith in the Sims modding community, there's some pretty crafty modders, so who's to say someone won't come up with some crazy way to make a Sunset Valley/Riverview town to be desert or concrete in the near future?

It occurs to me - how are lot boundaries decided? Using that method, wouldn't it make sense to define lots as subsets of the terrain via coordinates, in which case, redefining the coordinates results in resized lots, creating space to define a new lot in the unused space? 'course, this being EA they probably have some ridiculous method instead, but....

I remember, years ago, that I had a hacked item for TS1 that was essentially a bowl of pills. Visitors to the house would gravitate toward it and it would spawn some kind of weird behaviour (or kill them) after each time they took one. Hours of neighbour-terrorising fun.

I miss so much the SimsCutie Espresso ... Gosh, these Sims 3 take SO MUCH time eating and everything related to  !!!  :o

My sims eats up before his wife can even SIT DOWN.
Only thing that takes long is making the dinner (Which IMO takes forever)

There are mods for that, in the Pudding Factory, as well as at MTS. One is for faster cooking with slower eating, and one is for faster cooking and eating, both. Personally, I use the latter. My sims need to go to work - no time for food! *chaos cracks her whip

I can't see why the default towns would not be editable if we had that custom hood tool. Unless they've put some special encryption on the default .world files, which would obviously be retarded, because they're already impossible for users to even edit at the moment.

I timed it - a sim was cooking pancakes when the 1-hour-till-school timer went off. She flipped the damn pancakes for ONE AND A HALF HOURS, causing her to not get a chance to eat AND be late for the damn bus.

Honestly, forget having a "family" dinner. I try to just get them all to sit at the table and talk, but someone always has to get up. And they still don't talk... :'(.
And what I miss the most is the "Open for Business" expansion pack. I loved having a business and having to develop a strategy to maintane your employees. I even made an enormous Ikea once. Every room was one buy mode item, like ceiling lights, then floor lamps, etc.  :-\ (this topic needs some sullen music)

Oh, yeah. Open For Business was so tedious and so boring, but it was damn well one of the best expansions.

I miss vampires...
And weather.

As far as objects go, the social ones, like pool tables and cards, are obvious. I also used the hobby and Freetime items a ton; many of my sims were into pottery and kicking balls around. Not having instruments for the kids also bothers me, as that was one skill I liked giving them a head start on.

Once I create the families, build and decorate them a house and get rolling with the game I get bored very quickly. I need as many objects and interactions as I can find just to keep me interested after a few days of those tedious bathe-school-work-skill-sleep simlives. The base game - especially with all these rabbitholes - is kind of dull after a while, for me anyway.

Yes I'm constantly wishing I had a ton of snow in front of my sim's house and a frozen lake too. And especially vampires.
 I made a zombie in sims 2 once. Well twice, once I used a perfume hack. And another I was playing university and that annoying cheerleader kept stopping by my dorm every day chanting. I keep my sound on so- I can now, in real life, cheer the same cheer, (words and all) for anybody who's listening. Anyways I put her a an empty room, started a fire, and she died. It was a blissful moment, but then I decided to make a zombie so I resurrected her halfway and poof she was this urplish colored, leg dragging, grunting sim cheerleader.

And not to state the obvious but I really miss all my cc. Mostly that I had pages and pages of hair, and tons of makeup, and clothes. I even had almost all the different "mermaid outfits" (I went through a mermaid addiction).

Zombies and Vampires are much more fun when you install the "deadly neck bite" and "zombie apocalypse" hacks. I really enjoyed watching my neighborhood getting picked off and resulting to defense using the AK47 from SimWardrobe. The sims 3 needs paranormal creatures. Bad Mr Humble, bad!

Oh wow, I never really looked at a lot of the sims 2 hacks, but I wish I would've. That's awesome, reminds of Resident Evil :D. And they really do need paranormal creatures, like pet faeries or something. In sims 1 there was a sea serpent that came out of the winding river every once in a while.
I can't believe I forgot, but sims 1 Makin' Magic expansion was by far my favorite game out of all three. Especially the bazaar where you could give magic shows and would have to barter for spell ingredients and such. The sims 2 Magic expansion was okay. You couldn't go the magic side of town or any of that  :-\. I loved though that your top witch sparkled, and had sparkly skin.

The magic in the sims 2 was a huge let down. I adored Sims 1 Makin' Magic, it was my favourite expansion pack. I loved the little things like being able to make golden thread and having properly magic gnomes that came alive at night...none of these "changes pose occasionally" crap.

In the end what I miss most is the mountain of custom content I had downloaded. Being able to repaint is truly awesome and well overdue IMHO, but nothing compares to the flood of actually different styles and endless decorative objects made by users so that every house can be different. Being greedy and trying to gouge with the store instead of being smart and having the CC makers keep people addicted for them so they can sell massive piles of expansion packs shows just how short sighted and stupid EA is.

Beyond that I really miss stores and worthwhile community lots. I liked taking sims to go dancing or to buy new clothes, not to mention making new commercial lots...I loved doing that ever since Hot Date. Seamless neighborhoods are great, but what's the point if the town is boring as a result?

Yes, aww golden thread. REAL magic items, yah know?
I remember the toad stools the best because almost every spell needed them and I never had enough, ha. I do hope they make a Sims 3 version, even though it probably won't compare, I still want just a little bit.

I doubt very much there will be a sims 3 version of makin magic, nor will there be one of Superstar. I can't see World Adventures being particularly interesting either. *sigh* How I do miss the sims 1.

No, your going to jinx it! At least World Adventures will be something different. Even if it will be something different to try and figure out why its not working, ha ha.

I had the zombie and vampire action hacks as well. A sims without zombie hoards and dangerous vampires isn't the same. Cheery household ghosts aren't my kind of supernatural buddies.

Now that folks have brought it up, I'd forgotten all about Makin' Magic. That was by far one of my favourite expansion packs, TS1 or 2. In fact, I felt let down repeatedly by the expansions available for TS2. They simply didn't live up to the possibilities I expected. For instance, with the popularity of downloadable, statue-like and semi-animated horses, I half expected ridable horses in Pets, which would have fit perfectly with the rural feel of the game (not to mention make pre-car towns easier to create). Again, with Bon Voyage, I hoped for a return of the snowboards and carnival games from Vacation, but no. I expect I'll be waiting forever for EA-made sim skateboards, boats, motorbikes and toddler trikes. Yes, I know such things were available from the cc community but smooth animations for interactive items hasn't exactly been a community strong point. It's so much easier for the game developers to add this type of item.

While I'm on about items I'd like - which, I know, is sort the opposite from the thread topic - a built-in, no hacks or mods required way to create and populate different types of neighbourhoods  would be great. I mean, something along the lines of an expansion that added, let's say, a true medieval setting, a futuristic  city or a fairy tale landscape where NPCs generated in appropriate clothes and with appropriate names and careers. They give us the building items, a bit of furnishing and the odd outfit but no good way to use these extras. There's nothing more annoying, to me anyway, then having added some EA (or cc) knight's outfit and then having NPCs show up around an ordinary town wearing the damn thing as a winter coat! Keeping themed content requires outside editing to remove 'available to all' flags unless everyday is Halloween in simland. I'd like a way to flag items and outfits as "for neighbourhood X only". Something like that I'd consider worth paying for as an extra, whereas the Sims Store concept, which is no more than an in-house pay site, is a rip off.

Oh, gosh I'd forgotten all about carnival games! I used to love saving up for the cute stuffed guinea pig thingies and coconut monkeys. Bring back carnival games, Eaxis!

At the time when I played sims 1 I didn't have a fast enough computer to handle all the expansions, so I only played pets and magic.

I find that it's weird that in sims 1 there was a lot more creativity and actual "expansion" with the expansion until sims 2 and now. I can't really believe they gave sims in sims 1 snowboards and then all we got in Bon Voyage was hotels and tourist attractions. And now that you say it, that sounds like a brilliant idea. Boats, skateboards, trikes, all that jazz. We got bikes in this one, whoo, but I was kinda hoping since there was an ocean, you could swim in it, or maybe they'd introduce boats, or jet skis... nah, it just looks pretty, ha. And what about added town community interactive features. Such as a simple ice cream stand. There was tiki food stands in Bon Voyage. How about a hot dog stand, or maybe live concerts for the rock star sims in the park? There's so much EA could've really wowed us with, and they didn't. :-\
Makin' Magic had that awesomely cute magic act. Where the magician would ask for an assistant out of the little group of sim onlookers and he put her in a box and such.

I expect - hope - that swimming, sandcastles and (please) watersports are planned for some expansion or other; I sense a Beach Party Pack somewhere in the future.

The ability to have sims perform concerts, or even get together in a semi-realistic way to play on a community lot stage, was sorely missing in TS2 and I hope it is planned for TS3. The old Superstar expansion gave fashion shows, recording studios and other goodies - and yes, the magic shows from Makin' Magic were fun - so there's not much excuse for holding back now. The creative spark behind the original seems to be missing and TS3 is shaping up to be increasingly mini-game centred with everything too linear for my tastes.

zomg carnival games! I had forgotten about those too! Then when MM came out I retrofitted my boardwalks with rollercoasters. I miss Maxis. :(

Just reading this topic from the start and yes - I miss the stages, weather, cheap furniture, more build mode stuff and options for customizing them...

And I really wish that some talented modder would create the individual aging mod for Sims 3, it would be so handy!

One thing I'm also looking forward to is that modders and creators would modify some clothes, furniture and hair from Sims 2 to 3. I've seen a couple of hairs, but that's about it.

Doesn't this already exist as "TS2Aging" in AwesomeMod?

We've had a number of conversions already. You just need to pick out which ones you actually WANT. Otherwise I imagine modders will convert the stuff they CARE about, which given the clothing-mill nature of many makers, is probably none of them, given that even free creators tend to create as a throwaway process and not because it's something they intend to use in-game, thus accounting for the relatively craptastic quality of most things.

No, it doesn't. Sorina's talking about Monique's old mod for TS2, where you could turn aging on or off for each individual sim.

The separate on/off aging would be a big help for me. Sometimes you have toddlers and adults in a family, and I always want the toddler to grow up but then you get closer to the adult aging up too.
I didn't have it in sims 2, but I'd love it for sims 3.

In TS3 you don't have to wait until the birthday to age up your sims.  You can age them up any time using the birthday cake (or by using the cheat on the shift-click menu).  Your toddlers can grow up without the adult aging a single day.

I know this isn't the same as separate aging, but it does deal with the situation you mentioned.

Yes I do know about the birthday cake. But after having multiple kids I like playing along with their aging time schedule and teaching them to walk and talk before they have to grow up.

OK, I'm confused.

You said you wanted individual aging so you could grow toddlers up early.  Then 20 minutes later you said that "after having multiple kids" you now play along with their aging schedule to get all the training in.

You must have a very fast computer to have had "multiple kids" in that 20 minutes.

Ha, you have point. But I don't want toddlers to grow up early I meant I wanted them to go along being toddlers for their 6 days (on normal life span), then children, then teens like normal aging, whilst the rest of the family that are adults and young adults wouldn't age a day, that way I can play them for longer, and because I hate to see them get old.

I'd also like to toggle aging for individual sims. I put a sim in Riverview that is luring townies to her house for parties and then locking them into basements to die, but I can't make her into an inter-generational horror if she ages with everyone else. (Unless I decide she should have kids to carry on her legacy, but I don't like the kids much.)

A rabbithole object that's just an archway or a door is a genius idea and would make redesigning the towns, which is so limited now, a lot easier.

ambrosia?

Ambrosia is a major pain in the butt. Full cooking skill, full fishing skill, and full gardening skill (or you can steal life fruit from a neighbor). By that time, along with trying to achieve a high job or other skills, you'd already be an elder, or you'd have to turn aging off, which defeats the purpose.

Eh, my sim has mastered gardening, but she's only at level 3 in cooking, 5 in fishing.  I just had her start eating a life fruit every morning, and I've noticed that once the life fruit is at excellent or better, she gets a random amount of days back, instead of just one day for each fruit. Heck of a lot better than going through that ambrosia rigamarole.

So that could be an option for you to explore.  I just had a thought, how about turning aging off, keeping track of the days on your sim children and sending them to the cake and/or using the grow up cheat?

I did the life fruit a day thing once. But it was stoled life fruit from my old house that still had it growing in the garden, ha. It did it's job, but there was only two bushes of it so I had to wait a while for new to grow back. Funny thing is, in that same house, once I got tired of waiting for new to grow back, I ended up turning aging off. Then like you said; waiting a couple days and either using the birthday cake or just triggering age transition for my young 'uns.
I'd do the life fruit a day thing again, but I've lost interest in gardening since then. Currently I was using the editsim and just changing the age back, but now Create-A-Sim won't load after I enter the cheat. The load screen comes up but, after that it just spins around. I'd report it, but the manual says it's still experimental and unsupported. I was going to uninstall AM and then reinstall it ot see if that would fix it.

Is the sim pregnant?  Editsim won't work if the sim is pregnant, and neither will any other cheats or mods that send the sim back to CAS (such as the tweak option in ISM).

I miss the Nannies.  What the hell is this babysitter crap?  I need sitters during the day, which is when the little truants should be in SCHOOL.  I want a reliable sitter that shows up at a certain time and leaves at a certain time.  The same one, every day, who is not going to steal all my houseplants.  And I should not have to call them.  I want my nannies back.  NAO!

Yes, she is. That explains it thanks, glad I mentioned it or else I'd be trying to load cas over and over  :-\.

I honestly thought this was common knowledge.  It's been mentioned so many times here now I don't know how you could have missed it.

Speaking of AM and nannies, is there a way to get the sims 3 babysitter to act on a schedule, like it was in sims 2. As snowbawl said, it's really annoying to have the babysitter only stay for a while after you call her. When I had twins, then triplets directly after, I had five cribs with little babies in them. I had to constantly call the babysitter back again after she left. And in sims 2 you could even have two nannies at once, by having your scheduled nanny there and your "just for now" nanny.

Flashback to my baby farm. Not all the babies were in the crib at the time, and actually this was after the twins had grown into toddlers (one located at the direct bottom).
(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/sprinkled_rawr/Screenshot-3.jpg)

It was a babysitter's nightmare.

Yesss, Monique's hack was just the one I meant, should've attached the thread link from MTS2. I would SO love that for TS3! I wouldn't want to cheat on the aging process, and I actually like my families getting new babies and going through that teach-to-talk-teach-to-walk-process all over again. Just playing a family where the father's dream is to raise 5 children from baby to teen. Three of them are teens now, but there are still two toddlers to go and the parents are getting old. Let's see what happens.

I really really miss the mansard roofs and spiral staircases from mansion and gardens. Also I hate that there is no longer a way to lock roofs and to adjust the height of just one without making the rest of the roofs look weird.  :-[

AwesomeMod adds a "roofslopeangle" code that can adjust all roofs with a number instead of a slider, or roofslopeangle X new that lets you adjust the next roof built without changing the others.

I want:

Changing Tables
Shelves
Recessed Lighting
Categories I pick
Stages
Half Walls
Aquarium
underwear and pajamas, I don't wear the same damn thing>>>
I want to see in the "Rabbit Holes" we used to be able to design that crap.  Now i can't even see it

and most important

WEATHER I need seasons, have to have, want it sooooo bad, no absolutely NEED IT!

Eh, waste of space if it isn't necessary. But I wouldn't mind seeing it back for reasons totally unrelated to changing, because a return of the changing table is a return of the BABBY ROASTER.

They're combined in one category now: There was no point in having them seperately anyway, sims never used their underwear as underwear and so the category was only really used  for woohoo, anyway!

No you didn't. In the old days, the rabbitholes were offscreen and you COULDN'T SEE THEM. Now you can SEE them.

I miss being able to change the height of wallhangings. One of the beds has a headboard that covers up the bottom of almost all paintings. Definitely miss weather. IRL, I'm really anal about always being dressed appropiately for the current weather conditions, so my sims do the same. Since it's always sunny in Sunset Valley, I get no use out of the sweaters and jackets. The thing I miss most, though, is owning and running a business. I never realized how heavily my playstyle depends on that one EP. All of my sims were involved in some form of entreprenuership in some way or another. Most families had one sim with a regular career and one sim who sold something out of the home. At least all of these things were added in EPs so there's a good chance they'll be back.

Also, I agree with SimmyNik, I definitely miss designing restaraunts and such for sims to visit. The rabbit holes and existing gathering spots just don't compare to the all-in-one comm lots we used to have.
By the way, I was also opposed to bringing back the changing table until Pes mentioned the babby roaster. That is a great big WANT! My "Cletus & Gang" sims really miss this convenient method for disposing of unwanted belly-fruit.

I honestly didn't read through all of that which came before my reply, but I must say that many of the things mentioned seem, to me, at least, to be mods that the Awesome Sims Community (here-to-for known as "ASC") came up with and not standard "vanilla" Sims and/or expansion pack objects/interactions and, while yes, they were great, they were never in the game except for those with said kick-@$$ modifications installed (to draw a parallel see: the aptly named "AwesomeMod"; i.e, awesome stuff that isn't in the standard version of the game, yet makes the game so much better). Thus, I believe that one could rest assured that, given time, the excellent modding community which surrounds this game will, by and by, not only solve the issues herein discussed, but likely also improve on things that we have yet to realize as problems.

P.S, I miss the "apartment" features of "Apartment Life" or "Get a Life" or whatever the frag it was called.

That was my $0.02

That's why they took away the changing table, you know. We'd make babby-roasters out of them.

I didn't realize that no changing table = no roasting babbies! Babby BBQ? DO WANT! Idiotic butthurt EAxis.

Why wouldn't the crib work for that? I mean, you put a baby in either one and leave it there.

I miss the DJ booth. And dance contests. And owned community lots with BRU. I want my sleazy clubs back!

I also miss all the urban stuff that came with AL. At long last I made the perfect ghetto town, but now I'm back to gentrified suburbia. It will probably be another 3 years before an urban themed EP is released for TS3.

I miss the wide variety of death to be found in TS2.

And I miss attraction and dates. Actually, I'm missing TS2 romance generally. Even the base game had a better variety of romance socials - a whole bunch of kisses, hugs and flirts to choose from - TS3 romance seems so sparse in comparison. And having to build up to the higher level socials EVERY TIME makes the whole thing a chore. And the animations are so ... chaste.

It's like they took out all the oblique smut and replaced it with more wholesome pursuits like bug and gem collecting.

I miss a few things, such as the different life-states, but no object sticks out in my mind nearly as much as that junker car you could restore.  Maybe it's hidden somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it.  What's the point of making redneck, genius, handy sims if I'm not going to have at least one trashed car on the lot for him/her to tinker with?

Sims 3 needs moar engine grease on my sims' hands.

I miss the collection folders it takes ages to find matching sets I used to make up my own sets and catagories .
I also miss shelving and half walls   
An Aquarium should have been put in instead of bowls
I also agree that familey relationships have to be forced or they do not happen

Anyone remember the matchmaker? That crazy lady that you could call and buy love potions from. Love potions that made flowers sprout up behind you when you used it. And the matchmaker so you don't have to drag your sim all the way to the middle of town and scower for a mate. Even though you had to pay, it was a little more efficient than now.

The matchmaker doesn't exist because there are no real standard compatibility guidelines, only those generated by third-parties. Thus, there is no point in a matchmaker because all sims are equally matched, or mismatched.

I miss the hookah the most.

Spiral stairs and half walls...
They should have thought about that!!! ???