More Awesome Than You!

How many of you are sticking with The Sims 2? How many have come back to The Sims 2? Post here if you have not moved on to 3.

I'm considering moving back. I miss sims with that don't look like doughy faced puddings, aren't completely predictable, all my custom content and the features I had in all my expansion packs  :( The Sims 2 doesn't have as many glitches either.

So I've tried the sims 3, but I  think given a week or so I'll be returning to The Sims 2.

I plan to return to Awesomeland the moment I get some free time again.

I am definitely sticking with The Sims 2.  I have no desire whatsoever to have Sims 3. After reading all of the threads, there is no way in HELL I would EVER have that bloated piece of shit on my computer.  The gameplay looks horrible, all the Sims look like they need Midol to get rid of the bloating, and it just over all looks like shit.  Until there is a way to not have have those larded up, plastic surgery nightmares from fucking up my game, then, and only then, will I being considering it.  Right now, I'd rather be beating with a lead pipe.

EDIT: Is there any reason whatsoever I should even bother with The Sims 3?  I just need to know if it's remotely worth having since I need to download a separate mod just to fix the majority of the fuckups EAsshole always makes.  FYI, I do have several mods from MATY.  It's the only way I can play my Sims 2 game.

Been playing The Sims since 1999.  Not impressed at all with Sims3.  I have already deleted the game from my computer.

Still on Sims 2. Don't really have a choice anyway unless I buy a fancier computer. By the time I get one, perhaps Sims 3 will be up to par. Ha!

I feel much better knowing I am not alone in this decision. The Sims 3 seems to have no appeal value whatsoever, and yet some people are willing to start all over again with this piece of shit.

Maybe in 2013 when The Sims 4 comes out, EAxis may actually start making sense again. May being the operative word.

Edit: I just realized what Pescado wrote. I look forward to future episodes of Awesomeland.

I'm doing both at the same time. Over 300 GB of free space and a shiny new graphic card for the WIN!

I had to reinstall both games at the same time, so I'm starting at zero with both. I'm having loads of fun redoing Sims 2 houses and community lots, so when I switch back to Sims 3 I'm just... bored. Yeah, it has its moments, but I find myself logging off after an hour or less. With Sims 2, I can play all night.

I went back to The Sims 2 a few days ago. TS3 just doesn't interest me that much. I mean, yeah, I enjoy the CAS tool, but I'm more attatched to my TS2 sims and their little quirks.

Hoorah for more Awesomeland!

And TS3 is still a big "meh" for me so far. It's been a week or two since I loaded it up.

Currently playing both. TS3 is only playable thanks to the AwesomeMod, and the CC for TS2 far exceeds that available for TS3. Not to mention that my Sims look so much better. I'm sure that, with time, I will end up returning to TS2 completely.

Haven't even bothered arrquiring TS3.  The reports here and elsewhere indicate that it's just not that interesting.

Still plodding along in TS2, where for the first time I've actually gotten an entire neighbourhood and sub hoods into their third generation without either getting bored and starting from scratch or being bugged into oblivion by a new EP (yes, JM, I need to make more backups).

And Yeah to more Awesomeland!

(edited to fix my stupidity)

I'm staying with TS2.  The TS3 sims scare me too much.

I have been enjoying TS3 and haven't played TS2. I am still downloading cc because I'm not quite ready to get rid of TS2 yet.

I got rid of TS2 last week. All the EP, all my cc, all my backups. The deal with me and any game is that if I don't play it for a month, it doesn't stay on my hard drive. This is how my smallish 160GB drive keeps at around 40% open.

I've got both and am collecting mods and content for both, but haven't really played either game in a while...I really should do that soon.  XD

still modding TS2 :P believing that something may be useful also to TS3.

The only thing that attracts me to TS3 at all is the constant time/living neighborhood aspect, which EAXIS fucked up completely. Awesomemod is making great strides, but in the end, I'd just love to see some miracle programming that would add those things to TS2. Eventually what little novelty remains in playing/modding/fixing TS3 is going to wear off and Everyone will be back at home at TS2.

Still having too much fun with 2 to want to waste my precious money on 3.  I've played it.  Mildly amusing.  Might upgrade one day.  But not right now.

Despite advance reports in the beginning that TS3 was the Second Coming, I never succumbed-mostly because I like having a computer that works, a game that plays and not having sufficient cash or patience to deal with all the borkeness of the newest game.

Seems like I was justified in staying away. I'm happily playing TS2 without any doubts or fears for my sanity.
Reading the posts at the Sims 3 forums is enough to keep me playing TS2.

Hooray for Awesomeland!

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

If sims 2 didn't take 20 minutes to load, vs 20 seconds of sims 3, I would play it more often. But sometimes I just want a quick game. Besides, I like a lot of the new features. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot from sims 2 that I miss, but not enough to wait out the loading time right now. Maybe I'll feel differently sometime.

A few weeks ago, I arred all the TS2 SPs/EPs (because I lost most of my discs) and have been having oodles more fun spreading Don's seed everywhere thanks to my spankin' new Megahood, than I ever did while drudging through the clusterfuck of stress and forgotten promises that is The Sims 3. I tried and tried for weeks, but it got to the point where I didn't feel like I was playing a game anymore. It felt like a job. A job that didn't even pay.

Truth be told, TS3 somehow managed to ruin the whole series for me a bit, but I still enjoy TS2 over 3. Haven't touched it in over a week.

Though, I got a really snazzy new computer just to play TS3, and now going back to TS2, the quality is much better and the loading times are much shorter, which improves the enjoyment, somewhat ironically. Though there are some things I liked in TS3, there just wasn't enough to keep me in it...

Count me amongst the Sims 2 crowd. I prefer Sims 2 over Sims 3 without a doubt.  It is good to know I am not alone  ;D

My current rig runs Minesweeper very, very well and can count all the change in my pocket really, really fast. I could play TS1 on it, but that's like pity sex at this point.

I have both loaded with my hard drive space becoming a bit scarce.  I still have not finished doing all the possible things with TS2 so I will be going back and forth between the two games.  I like different things about them.  TS2 has zombies, for example.  TS3 sort of avoids the long blue load screens in between lots, which I hate in TS2 (I want to go to the spa, but is it worth waiting for it to load?).  Still, zombies, aliens, better animations for some things, and non-pudding sims and multi-house play will probably keep me going back to TS2.

I haven't really played TS3 for some time. I've loaded it up and done some stuff but haven't really played it. It just isn't as fun as Sims 2, although maybe future EP's will fix that.

I think EPs have a lot to do with it. Not to say that the game doesn't generally suck, but we're so used to our fancy schmancy businesses and downtowns and vampires. So many more objects, too, keep it interesting and fresh. Wasn't the base game boring as hell after a couple months? Admit it. So I'm not uninstalling TS3 just yet.. We'll see if rumors of a new EP this year are true, and then I'll see if it spices the game up a bit.

I'll probably switch over completely to TS3 in a couple years. Meh.

I play both.  Big difference is that I can play TS2 for hours at a time.  I get bored after only 30 minutes of TS3.

For me, it has nothing to do with lack of expansion packs or objects.  I simply can't stand how the Sims look.  I actually have an interest in my TS2 Sims.

I'm still working on my TS2 Legacy, so I can't imagine putting the little free time I've got into Sims 3.  What's more, a lot of people have been selling off their collections of PC Sims 2 games cheaply on eBay, and now that I have a Mac that runs Bootcamp and can get Windoze free from work, I'm thinking about going over to the Dark Side just so I can play with witches and all the goodies you PC players have had for years (to say nothing of Sim PE, etc. )

I'm not done playing with this toy yet.

Sticking with Sims 2 for all the above mentioned reasons.

Sims 2.
My computer can't run Sims 3, and even when I get my new computer, I don't really want Sims 3 that much.

Plus, all my favourite families are on Sims 2, and I would have to remake them, and I'm working on a legacy at the moment.

The only thing I plan to use TS3 for is to try out a legacy; my hood in TS2 is still alive and well and being played.  There are also things I still want to mod for TS2, if I can figure out how.

At any rate, I will not be playing TS3 for another couple months anyway, since I installed it on an external disk which is still in Arizona (I have since moved).

I have both but have stopped playing both.  S3 put me off.  I'm playing RPGs - with real stories - ATM.

I play all three games on occasion. I mostly build houses and make new sims though, I rarely actually play for extended periods of time (my short attention span, let me show you it!). I'm looking forward to more decorative objects and furniture choices in TS3.

Playing both on my monster computer, but I don't find myself as engrossed in TS3.  I am having the hardest time making my own pudding and it makes me sad.  I was ok with TS2 me not looking all that much like me (because I SUCK at making sims), but seeing the puddings and how close they are to RL makes me want one too! 

TS3 has been removed and shelved. Open neighbourhood and traits sounded interesting in theory, but not in practice. EPs couldn't even make this game intresting enough for me to want to reinstall it.

I played TS3 for 20 minutes before my brain died. Already uninstalled it, and TS2 has been restored to it's full glory.

I don't have TS3.  Internetz are expensive here.  Also, I have big plans for my Sims2 game.  There are so many aspects of gameplay that I haven't dipped into yet, such as fulfilling the 5 top-level businesses want and running a boarding school with Inge's mods.  The screen shots of TS3 look very nice, in terms of lighting and shadows and so forth, and I think if I tried it out I'd get spoilt and TS2 would look crappy by comparison.  And then I wouldn't want to play either game, since one would be crappy to look at and the other would be crappy to play.

My processor can't handle TS3. It's a pity, I really looked forward to playing around with CAS.

After TS3 was officially released, after playing it for a couple of weeks, I actually went back to TS1 for a bit, because I never did play those last two EPs properly. By the time I had room for them (my old TS1 drive was all of 4GB) I also had TS2.

Socialising was a pain in TS1, compared to TS3, where it's just dull. TS1 doesn't seem playable at all without hacks, but I was playing TS3 just fine without hacks, pre-awesomemod. (Comparing two single-sim households.)

Never did get around to dropping my TS1 'self-sim' back in, but I'm sure it'd suck. The TS3 version is the most-like-me version of all three, being actually recognisable by people who know me in meatspace. Apparently I am made of pudding. (This also means I am too creeped out to play TS3 me. It's too real, and yet, not real. It's disturbing.)

What's strange is, I never even considered going back to TS2. I dropped back in a bit near the end of last month, started working on the House of Fail, but I still have to add windows and decorate. It's just not pulling me in.

TS2 just never really entranced me. Sure, I bought all of the EPs and SPs, but where are they now? They lounge upon a shelf, their brightly colored boxes and obnoxious faces grinning down at me—waiting for me to go mad.
(Maybe I'll reinstall and snatch some more music files.)
I just can't take the loading screens! If TS2 was seamless, and if it worked like Supreme Commander, I'd reinstall it in a heartbeat.

Currently, I'm just messing around with TS1 (All EPs) and experimenting with TS3.
Problem is, if I screw up with TS3, just the tiniest little something that doesn't feel right to me, my OCD kicks in. As a result, I have to create yet another Sunset Valley. I must have ten of them by now.
The downfall—I knew it would come.

TS2 is still my first love. I've played TS3 a few times, but I've been largely underwhelmed by the whole experience. A few things are more advanced, but many more seem to be a step backward.

I don't like many of the animations. For instance, in TS2 when the carpool arrived for a sim, it would walk out, open the door and get in. In TS3, the sim stops on the sidewalk and materializes in the car. And that's only one of many complaints. Basically, there are too many "cut corners" in this game.

I may still play TS3 on occasion, but the inability to easily customize gameplay puts me off.  Besides, I can't seem to make a decent looking "pudding" to save my life . . .

I have played Sims 3 I play it for 20 min save and quit it seems to bore me fast. The babies look like they come from Sims 1, cant do much with the toddlers like bath them give them smart milk to help speed up the teaching their skills. There seems a lot of things that I miss from the Sims 2 I go back to it all the time. I am sticking to my sims 2

When I first arrr'd TS3, I played it nonstop for approximately 2 weeks.

I haven't touched it since, and it's been about 4 weeks now.

TS3 isn't nearly shiny enough for storyteller me.

To control the TS2 loading time, I personally do the followings to start TS2 in less than 1 min.:

1. restrict the amount of CC. Use the ones you know you'll use.  May sync the downloads folder along with the neighbourhood root folder set.
2. trim away the useless jpeg files in lot files with simpe.  Just a few clicks.  Or, use Mootilda's LotAdjuster to do so.  These are the weird and clumsy graphics seen in exchange pages for lots.
This will decrease the neighbourhood folder size tremendously by a general range of 30-70% but closer to the higher end.  This can save the HD space and time to load.  Yet, they're re-generated as lots are saved. So, for meintenance, only the updated lots may need further follow-up.
3. Use 1 or 2 neighbourhood at a time.  Simply move around the root neighbourhood folder to different pre-individually named folder likes, "neigh1", "neigh2", "neigh3", a "neigh-temp" (for the temporary swap place) etc.  No further renaming when switching neighbourhood root folder.
4. for multi core, may use only 1 core for TS2.
5. With at least a core high like 3Ghz.
6. more RAMs. RAMs are cheaper nowadays.

TS3 has a long way to go before it "matures", really. Someday it will surpass TS2, but that day is probably not today.

I'm still on TS2.  My rig can't handle anything beyond Seasons, so TS3 is most definitely out of the question.  That said, TS3 didn't sound like anything I wanted even before the system requirements came out, and Pescado's comment that TS3 is a game whereas TS2 is a toy just reinforced that.  I have 3 more generations on my Legacy, and even when I do get a new computer, I don't see myself switching.

I am staying with TS2.
I don´t know if I would have liked TS3 or not, but after Freetime I decided that I am not going to hand more money over to EA ... never. I bought IKEA, AL and M&G in a secondhand store ... and I don´t want to download the arrr´d version, because of principles :)

I still have TS2 on this rig, but have been playing TS3 exclusively.  With AwesomeMod, the game is very playable.  Granted, this is the base game, so the novelty does fade a bit, but I agree- TS3 will be the better game eventually.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simple as that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, I haven't been bothering you for features.  I've been reading people's requests and your responses; didn't see any reason to repeat things.  Once you've made it clear that you do not intend to make a feature optional, what's the point in bothering you?  Primarily, I don't seem to care about the neighborhood economy as much as you do, and I find your efforts to make it consistent make the game less fun for me: no move-out money, limited numbers of sims allowed to have a particular job, etc.  As I've said before, it's easy for me to sympathize with your desire to give people features, while giving yourself a mod that makes the game fun for you.  Plus, it sounds like you're not getting a chance to play the game as much as you'd like.

I suppose that the deal-breaker for me was the time-bomb.  I completely understand why you added one (I've seen all of those bug reports for things that were already fixed), but I have a strong objection to using anything which will not work if I decide to run the game in 10 years, much less a couple of weeks.  And, yes, I understand that I can just remove the time-bomb, but the real question is: how much has to change for this game to be fun for me?

I think that what I really want is TS2 with some new features.  I hate not being able to change my neighborhood: no new lots, no ability to move lots around, no ability to create smaller lots, no ability to control building placement when expanding lots, no obvious ability to place fish, rock, seed, and insect spawners, or beautiful vistas.  I find the TS3 build mode fundamentally broken, especially for modern homes.  I don't like my chosen families changing while I'm gone; I want to come back and find them basically unchanged, so that I can pick up where I left off.  I find playing multiple sims in a family difficult with the new time-model, but playing single sims isn't much fun.  I also hate the new relationship model; they seem to have removed all of the fun from relationships and turned it into this bizarre (and time-consuming) mini-game.  Who feels the need to flirt with their spouse for a couple of hours before being allowed to hug and kiss them goodbye before going to work?

Yes, I agree.  As I said, I'm trying to decide whether to mod TS3 or just go back to TS2.  Discussions that I've had with friends sound like I should go back, but I haven't quite made that decision yet.  I plan to mod AwesomeMod a little bit first, then make a decision.

I kind of like Sims 3, but I miss a lot of things about 2, and 2 doesn't heat up the laptop to unacceptable levels.

Well, the thing is, making the neighborhood economy consistent is integral to the systems I am building on. Installing a switch to try to turn that OFF again would destabilize the entire system, not to mention be against my religion. Many of the specific issues you don't like are controlled within tunings. You're skilled, if you REALLY think your game benefits from having 30 Presidents and the stupidity of it all isn't enough to make your head explode...

Heh, yes, but it's not meant to do anything to YOU. In fact, the mechanism for it is trivially easy for someone of your ability, intentionally so. It's purely an anti-tard device. As for how much has to change for the game to be fun...well, a lot, obviously, We have a long way to go.

Back, forward, these are dichotomies for those with insufficient hard drive space. Drive space is cheap. TS3 will someday catch up to what TS2 has, but that day is not today.

Ditto.

Plus, I haven't seen anything that justifies the price tag, the sims look just horrid, and I understand that the gameplay is very restrictive. I don't need that. If EA had kept making EPs for TS2, I would have happily kept giving them money, but as it is, I'll wait and see what 4 looks like. Maybe they'll try VR or something.  ::)

My computer can't run Sims 3, but I was very intrigued by it and read all the threads.  Then something happened.  Someone mentioned picking up the paper to get a job, and a little bit of me died inside.

I got tired of sims heading off to work in Sims 1.  I got even more tired of it with Sims 2.  OFB revitalized the game for me.  It gave me something really different to try.  I don't think I could go back to the regular jobs, even with the little challenges and things EA added.

I fear that the Sims 3 doesn't offer enough that's fresh and different for me.  The jump from Sims 1 to 2 was huge.  Sims could change their hairstyles!  Remember how amazing that was?  A dress made for a whilte sim could also be worn by a black sim!  The camera could zoom in and out.  Children grew up. 

Sims 3 just doesn't seem to have that wow factor.  The seemless neighborhood is the only big "wow" I can think of, and that may not be enough for me. 

What I think might have worked for me is very dramatic story progression.  From the very beginning I've had the impulse to sit back and watch the game, like it's a soap opera.  If the sims would autonomously fall in love, get married in a big ceremony, cheat, divorce, reunite, and on and on...I think I could fall in love with that.  But there would have to be an off switch, for people who prefer sandbox play.  And in my fantasy game, the off switch would work!!!

This is me, except I'm only on a second generation.

Ha! I didn't even think about this. Yes, TS2 does not give my thighs third-degree burns. This is a good thing.  :D

I'm still on Sims 2.

It happened that I had to get a new computer just as S3 came out, so I could play it if I liked. But there's still masses of stuff in TS2 that I haven't really explored, and I have no desire to abandon all the tweaks, mods and interesting CC that improve my game. It will be a long time before Sims 3 matches that.

I followed all the threads for a while when S3 came out, but it didn't appeal beyond a certain level of curiosity.  And besides, they all look like puddings.

I initially got TS2 in order to build stuff -- I made countless lots and several full neighbourhoods in it, but after finishing Elsewhere (http://modthesims.info/d/319898) this March, I was kind of done with it. I did some meshing (which was new to me) and recolours after that, but I never built anything again and basically shelved the game itself -- also because my "actual game", a neighbourhood I had built from scratch in a sort of "settler" game, had been wiped out in a harddrive failure the year before and I had never seriously started playing after that again.

So when TS3 came out I didn't really switch so much, rather restart under different conditions -- I'm not sure whether I'll stick with it, or eventually start with TS2 again, or what. On one hand, I never want to look at shitty TS2-style lot impostors again (even looking at my own TS2 hoods makes me cringe now), on the other hand I want the TS2 sims back -- I never really paid attention to that, but playing TS3 made me aware of how good their animations actually were, and how much an animation can suck when done badly. The difference between old and new animations in TS3 (it recycles some TS2 ones) is glaring and obvious in my eyes. Same with the artwork (icons and stuff), I was never a big fan of the TS2 art but TS3 made me appreciate it  :P .. at least it's consistent.


The look of the sims themselves doesn't really bother me either way -- I have no townies anyway, neither frog-faced TS2 ones nor identical puddingface TS3 ones, and the sims I make myself look decent to me in both games without too much effort. My standards are not terribly high when it comes to that -- they don't scare me, and I can tell them apart, that's good enough. Clothes/hair, same thing -- for TS3, there's CAST to make things look decent, for TS2 there's 345627 fanseelamb downloads; both are good, easy solutions. Genetics seem to have been ditched more or less, but I played the whole breeding game in TS2 already so I'm not too heartbroken.



CAST does play a huge role for me when it comes to build/buy mode, though -- even the simplest starter shack now takes forever to build, because I spend hours picking out wallpaper. I probably should like it, but it's a timesink within a timesink .. argh.

Build mode itself hasn't really changed; new suckage and new features pretty much even out in my eyes. The fact that neighbourhoods aren't editable right now is of course a disappointment, but I'm pretty sure they *will* be editable so I'm not really conting that. Same with the non-stackable, non-recolourable stairs -- they've been made recolourable for TS2, so why not for TS3 as well --, and the usual random pile of windows/doors where nothing fits together .. it's just a matter of time for add-ons to become available. Right out of the box, TS3 plant meshes are way better than any TS2 custom content that I've ever seen, so it can only get better. I wouldn't even be terribly unhappy should it turn out that we can't change the neighbourhood terrain, since I happen to like the Sunset Valley map anyway (except for the big-ass lots -- but now that there's trees the size of real trees and not bonsais, 20x30 isn't all that large anymore since a few trees will already take up a lot of the space). Only that the lots aren't next to each other (but have useless little gaps in between) is bugging me -- not very much right now, but it may become a PITA in the future.

Apparently, split-levels are broken in TS3 in a way that becomes manifest on some tpyes of modern building -- right now I don't worry about that, since I start out with a traditional fisher/farmer community so the style is appropriately oldfashioned. By the time I get to build anything contemporary, this may be fixed or I just stick with the traditional style anyway. Still, it's a pity they didn't even change it, only broke it needlessly.

One nice little change is that we can now build anything up to 1 tile from the edge with no further ado; it just works. And the seamlessly rendered TS3 environment has made me finally understand, I think, why they made that last tile off-limits in the first place -- what would happen with the outer side of the wall, which is the same as the inner side of the same wall on the next lot? There would have to be endless graphical fighting if a wall would occupy the same space twice. If I'm right, I believe I simply never realised this since in TS2 you never see the actuall wall on more than one lot, only the impostor -- but in TS3 the limitation is obvious and makes sense.

That placement of buildings on lots can't be controlled in TS3 is certainly idiotic. I don't usually move lots, though .. so it's not really an issue for me.


The unified time, unified light, unified rendering in and of the neighbourhood in TS3 are a huge plus -- this will never be possible in TS2 with any amount of modding. Makes a big difference for me, seeing as making neighbourhoods is why I play in the first place. For the same reason, the "seamlessly disconnected" way the sims are acting within that neighbourhood (or "being acted", rather, and terribly), unless you try to babysit every single one of them simultaneously, is a major show-stopper. Right now it's still feasible (albeit a bit nuts) for me to attempt to babysit (I only have 15-20 sims), and I can tweak a lot of things since that's become really simple, but I'm not sure how it will work out when the town becomes too large to manage manually. This is where it may turn out I'm going to revert to TS2 .. I'm not looking forward to do nothing but queue up things all the time.



Overall progress in TS3 goes much, much faster -- I played my one "actual" TS2 neighbourhood for more than a year (RL), and some of my founder sims were still alive when I lost it. I'm at the same point in TS3 now, after only a few weeks.

I miss keyholder doors, or other access management facilities. I miss LotFullOfSims. I want to have multi-household lots again, without having to work around things all the time -- right now I can only put close friends or family members on the same lot (so that it's not going to be weird when they use each others' stuff, I mean). The fact that sims now at least recognise their own beds is making it a bit easier, though.



I'm not sure if it's a mac issue, but it looks like they completely ditched the idea of realistic light now. But since their workaround actually works -- lights simply stay on 24/7, but it's very unobtrusive so you don't really notice --, fine with me. It doesn't look too weird, it's just odd.

TS3 introduces some stupid and useless gameplay aspects (gems? the hell? they look like they're dropped in from some sort of Nintendo game for six-year-olds .. and i DNW your silly opportunities), but so did TS2 and every single EP. I'm already used to ignore what I don't like.


TS3 actually works on my mac. I have no crashes, no lagging, no issues whatsoever (except assorted graphics things they didn't bother to make work for OSX, and two CAS crashes so far). This is vastly different from my TS2/Aspyr experience. It may make a difference that I also got a new mainboard and a system upgrade in the meantime, but other than that it's the same machine.

I'm not exactly sure since I don't recall anymore when and how I became aware it was even possible to mod TS2, but my impression is that TS3 modding is a lot more fast-paced, and much easier too. Needless to say, that would be the biggest plus. The XML tuning system is a simple and efficient solution that works very well for me -- I don't have to keep track of oodles of different mods from different sites written by people who may just disappear without notice, but just change stuff myself instead with very little effort.


Mootilda, from my own egoistic point of view it would be a pity if you'd decide to entirely ignore TS3, but I understand your reasoning. I also cannot imagine to spend time on both games in parallel .. there are only so many hours in the day.

Lot Full Of Sims is an optional component of AwesomeMod. Lockable Door Control is being investigated.

I know -- I already had 9 or 10 sims on a lot by way of moving in/merging, not sure if it was awesomemod that made this work of if if works by default -- but they still have only 8 icons, don't they? For some reason it irritates me no end when a sim has no icon .. I imagine that with a couple of multi-household lots, it would be rather a pain to keep track of who actually lives where when half of them are only accessible by shift-enter or shift or whatever it was .. particularly when they run off to "visit Stoney Falls" all the time. The TS2 LotFullOfSims handled this more gracefully (or rather, TS2 handled this more gracefully since the ability for 20 sims per lot was apparently already there).

Maybe it can be made so that alt-clicking also works on sims from the same household? (Right now, in my game, it does not -- may be because I'm unpatched and outdated) That would already make it a bit easier, not having to shift-cycle through 20 sims all the time.

Good to hear about the doors!

Alt-clicking? THere's no alt-clicking. You can rightclick to autoselect any sim in the household.

I'm on a mac, maybe that makes a difference? It might be alt-rightclick, not sure atm, but definitely alt is involved for "Select Sim" (from different households) for me. I'm aware that "There's no .." may also mean "you are running outdated code" -- I know, I know  :P I'll patch next weekend, I promise. I'll try rightclicking too, although I believe I already did (may not work due to said outdated code) -- wouldn't help in case they're at Stoney Falls, but it's better than shift-cycling ALL the time.

This is why I have both installed and play whichever I feel like when I want to play something. I really, really don't understand why people are uninstalling TS2 when they aren't totally bored with it and aren't hurting for hard drive space. Computers aren't first- or second-gen gaming consoles; you CAN have more than one game installed at a time, even more than one game in the same series!

Even when TS3 is modded enough to be an actual sandbox, I'll have 2 still installed and played--they're different enough games to me (I see TS3 as a lateral step from TS2, not one up or down) to warrant having both until the time I'm utterly bored with one.

Elsewhere is awesome. Baa. It's one of my two main neighbourhoods.

The only TS3 thing I find appealing that TS2 lacks is the absence of rubbish lot impostors. However, that's not so annoying that I'll install what appears to be a broken console version of TS1 that's been given a fresh lick of paint. I'm far too much of a control freak, and I don't want my years of obsessively editing CC and settings to go to waste! Plus, I only just installed SC4 (to make my own terrains), which reminded me that I generally like to be 5 years behind with games and 3 years behind with hardware. I made exceptions for TS2 and TF2, so I'll only make future exceptions for anything called Tx2, and TS3 doesn't fit that rule. That's called logic! 8)

I just got all the latest sims2 ex-packs and sp's, so I am sticking with them.  I still have to get M&G.

Sims 3 sounds like a mess to me.  I don't want it, no way.   :)

I really enjoy pbox's post so that I can know more about TS3.

Just one thing I have to state out my view point.  In TS2, even if the overlapping of walls at the lot edge can cause graphical competition, but there're still at least 2 ways I can think of get rid of that.  EAxis should know enough to solve it by itself easily.  Thus, that can't be a strong cause.
Indeed, unidentified crashes are the real culprit.

Anyhow, I've no say about one's play style in TS series.

For TS1, I used to play sims mostly, and painfully obsessive enough to queue up every posssible command box in order to feel the sims won't mess up relatively easy.  The same extended to TS2 in the beginning before my immersion in lot-building and then modding.

Still, should I play them again, I may become a control-freak again, that I bet. :P


PS:
??? nil just killed another topic...