More Awesome Than You!

I wanna know what people have noticed is fixed/better. I am risking a negative reaction putting this here (or making it at all), but whatever.

Stuff I've seen:

-The game in general runs a lot better for me. I can now drive around town at 3x speed without any jumping or lagging. The game no longer seems to try and load lots as you pass them.
-Outdoor lighting is significantly better. Lights spreading off lot is hit or miss, but lights on your sims and the world around them are much nicer.
-Doors, when placed on a wall bisecting another wall, would create a hole. There'd just be a big hole in that corner. Now, doors stay up when you are facing these corners, so that hole is hidden. It is honestly a big deal for me.
-Custom Content Icons. now I can tell if a hair or object is base game or if I downloaded it from somewhere. Very nice.
-Story Progression seems more agressive. This is a good thing.
-Wishes come a hell of a lot more often.

Add more, damnit.

Still running the base game here (Ambitions still in the post somewhere), but since the new patch, sim pathfinding is vastly improved with less foot tapping and sims whinging about blocked routes, etc.

Lighting is hit and miss as you say. Roads do not light up, but adjacent land does when outdoor lights are placed. Wall lights will NOT cast light beyond lot limits, however and no lights will cast light on walls more than one floor high. Light cast from windows now works correctly, especially at night.

Shadows are less pixellated.

Game appears to run smoother, though takes three times as long to load. Presumably it's doing a better job pre-caching everything.

It seem like objects that are enabled for neighborhood view now actually show without having to load the lot in high detail first.

You can select the lot type you want in edit town mode.  Lot types are no longer forced on you by what you decided to put in them.

That's been around since before World Adventures.

I've noticed a lot less CTDs. They still occur, but they no longer seem to occur on the hour, as they once used to.

The free-will AI for sims with professions seems to be really well-scripted.  You can follow your sim and micromanage him on jobs if you want, but he or she will do the jobs without being prompted if you want to concentrate on other sims.

Also, I can't point out enough how fucking nice Twinbrook looks.  And I love the fog effects.

Routing has greatly improved. My family of 4 can actually sit and eat together instead of one of them finishing their meal while all the rest are still tapping their foot and waiting for him to get out of the way, even though he grabbed his plate ages ago.

Sims seem to autonomously go for skills a lot more, too. My architectural designer gained a level without me having any idea she was doing anything. She had been researching with the drawing bench on her own.

"Eco-Friendly" gives your sim a LOT of moodlet buffs.  Every time he or she does something energy or water-saving -- like car-pooling, shower vs. bath, using the clothesline, etc. -- you get a nice buff.

As far as the laundry system goes, you get two very nice long-lasting buffs for doing laundry:  one when you get dressed (clean clothes), and one when you go to bed (fresh sheets).  If you don't want to be bothered, the maid does laundry too.

Personally, I appreciate this thread.

Since I didn't shell out any money for Ambitions, and therefore harbour no expectations of EA, I concur that EA has done amazingly well for a game that I obtained for $0.00 (excluding bandwidth fees).

I do feel bad for those who paid $40 and $50 for this EP and the base game respectively, though - many of the sparkling compliments in this thread about what EA has done 'right' should have been included in the base game. They did not receive the "bang for their buck" at all.

(That said, I'm so glad we can finally delete CC from ingame. FINALLY.)

Wait, what? How do you delete CC in game? And if that CC is packed, is it safe to assume it deletes the entire package?

...is packed CC even required anymore?

Dammit! Never mind. I'd assumed it was deletable, considering all CC is now labeled with that collections/folder icon, and the trashcan button is no longer grayed out. I booted up my game to test this theory and it was not so.

Hopes: crushed.

Being able to add and remove lots and neighborhood items from ingame is very awesome.
I also like the additional relationship options in CAS. Can finally create a couple that isn't married.

I'm not noticing pathfinding improvements. Without a mod that turns off autonomous PC usage my sims still crowd around PCs in use and bitch about not be able to sit down in the occupied chair.


It's painting. That desk is basically just an easel, "researching" on it just paints a picture and raises the painting skill, and the stylist and architect professions both gain from painting skill improvements. Sims have always been drawn to empty easels. So I don't think anything has changed there.

Oh, I guess.

Social sitautions, and this might just be circumstance and reading into things, feel more present, too. It may be a combination of factors (like going around town and meeting people every day to be an architect), but it feels like the neighborhood is more...present.

Also you can click your car and "Visit Lot" which goes to map view and points out every lot you have a friend on, which really helps with going to friend's houses. I've also gotten calls from friends asking to come over or if they can come over, which I have never, ever gotten before installing ambitions.

My simbot keeps getting rustier and rustier as he ages.  Maybe this doesn't count as a "fix" but it makes the fact they have a limited lifespan better.

Ah, I remember what I was going to mention.

Cars. ALmost every family in Twinbrook is equipped with cars. So not only is there more variety driving around town, but parking spots are ACTUALLY USED.

The game now tells you how many tiles you've used when building with walls and floors.

Time Travel is nega-borked, in the sense that instead of being borked as expected, it is pretty nice. They even avoided the question of changing history with a "Keeper of Time" who jumps out of time portals to tackle you before you have the chance. One tag references the civil war and <i>trying to save an important politician</i> which freaks me out as a bit too much real world reference, but eh.

When you move a sim over to newer or different neighborhoods, they still keep their profession: only as long as certain rabbit-holes or job-lots are present. I'm not sure if this was present before but I've just only known about it.

This isn't new I move families to new worlds all the time and they kept their jobs. 

Ahh, guess I kept creating new families that looked similar then.

I heartily agree.

Actually, I paid zero dollars and I still feel a bit ripped off. Compared to OFB - which granted infinite possibilities - Ambitions is a steaming pile of crap. It's just more mini-game tedium, with little replay value. Given WA and now this, it looks like TS3 is definitely shaping up to be a half-arsed RPG. Way to fuck up the greatest game franchise of all time, EA.

On the other hand, I'm getting less lag now. I like how Twinbrook is so scummy. Ooh, and there's a new male hair that I quite like.

OFB didn't really grant infinite possibilities, either. It granted a lot of MOD POTENTIAL, and possibilities could be unlocked through modding it, but out of the box? OFB was utterly shite. Running a business and trying to manage employees without AwesomeMod is an exercise in pure masochism, as their AI is dumb as bricks.

True, that.

Un-modded OFB was a headache. But what I liked about it was how one could make any kind of business. I hate being shoe-horned into a few EA-provided options, and that's all Ambitions offers. I'm not particularly awesome, but I'm guessing that Ambitions has a lot less mod potential than OFB.

Eh, fuck it. I won't be happy until I get a TS2-style ticket machine. And I don't hold out much hope for that, given that it's too open-ended for Humble and co. What on earth will players do if they don't have enough mini-games and collecting busywork to keep 'em occupied?

I was referring to the "foot-tapping stall" that would occur when two sims try to move through the same space.  Pre-Ambitions, they'd stand there for upwards of 10-15 seconds, both tapping their feet.  Then, more likely than not, they'd both try to move around each other in the same direction, end up blocking each other again, and tap, tap, tappity tap.  With Ambitions, they tap for a couple of seconds, then quickly move around each other.

Time travel sucks ass.  My Sim just got a freakin' kid out of it, due to talking to a couple that "looked familiar" and telling them how good of a couple they are.  Next thing I know, she's got a child.  Didn't get to pick its name, gender, whether or not I WANTED a damn kid...

So basically, you did something that the game told you had unintended consequences, that you knew BEFOREHAND had unintended consequences, and got an unintended consequence THAT YOU LIKELY KNEW WAS POSSIBLE, and you take issue with that. Hmmmmmmmmm.

There's unintended consequences, and then UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

That's it? You got a random kid out of simply talking to another couple? I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way...plus I HATE YOU, and your FAT STUPID HEAD!

Technically a patch fix rather than an Ambitions fix, but scrolling through objects in the Launcher is a gazillion times faster.

I swear Trying for a Baby in the Time Machine has a 100% "fertility" rate. At least, that would explain the 11 elderly kids that showed up over the course of several days...

How is that not funny?  :D I must try this.

As previously stated, the game runs a lot smoother.  When I saw the size of Twinbrook I was expecting lag, I have none.

There's finally an object that raises fun quickly and doesn't cost thousands of simoleans.  The Gnome Music Box.  The "play" option will max out a half-full fun meter in 30 sim minutes.  I'm sure it's not supposed to do that, but I'm enjoying it.

Careers that are interactive and self-employment.  Ghost busting is going to be my new favorite career (used to be criminal).  You can eat,shat, and watch tv on the job with no real reprecussions.

The notification balloons at the top of the screen being re-vamped.  No more notifications taking up the side of the screen = win.  Though I wish there was a "delete all" option for them.  At least in the old method notifications would disappear over time.  Now they just keep stacking.


This is actually a feature of the game.  The guide (for what that's worth) says that sims can come back, to name a few things, with children, body modifications, and as mummies (if you have WA installed).  Getting a kid is a risk you take by using the time machine.

I've never been able to get two people to get in the time machine at the same time, or get a woohoo in time machine option. >> ... I just occasionally get a random kid that will be an exact clone of the sim that went in due to some random event.

I just experienced yet another mood buff due to the washing machine. It started shaking and hopping around a bit (like they sometimes do in RL -cracked me up) and my sim spontaneously ran to it with a 'subdue obnoxious washing machine' message (obnoxious wasn't the exact word, but something to this effect). Then she got a +40 mood buff for being victorious. LOL

So she got a +40 mood boost from being "victorious" over the vibrating washer.  Uh huh.  Yup.  Sure.  You betcha.

Har HAR.

Not sure what's going on, but loading times seems to vary a lot for me. Most things are zingingly fast, and some things are slower than usual.

I am loving the new ability to hide library items (families and lots). No more EA Funke cluttering up my selections.

You can also get a negative moodlet if the washing machine wins.

I knew the new opportunity notifier thingy was nice, but I didnt realize HOW nice- I got a "work out for 3 hours" thing, and it tells you how long you've done it for, in real time. Which is pretty convenient.

this is just making me want to play more and more...but I can't even get it, for some reason the site is not letting the trans. go through at all, even when I use diff. forms of payment...

Your sim can woohoo in the time machine? Can this result in becoming your own grandfather?

Unfortunately no. They Woohoo, and then a child pops out of the machine at some random point later on. Past children are teens/young adults and Future children are elders, from my experience with this thing. They also get a sekkrit outfit relating to their time, which is then unlocked for everyone else to use or something.

Like I said earlier, I think this thing has a 100% fertility rate. I sent my sims in an unholy amount of times, expecting the usual signs of "success", and the next thing I knew an entire army of aging, arthritic spawn kept marching on in non-stop.  ;D

See, I found (and unlocked for use) a caveman hair, but then I started wondering...where the heck you'd even get said hair? Like, do you go back in the past and pop out revealing your sim lived for a time as a caveman, and then he can style his hair that way? Or what?

From what you're saying, if I have a kid in the past, and he comes out as a young adult, he'll have caveman hair?

Which just...makes...no sense at all, but whatever.

I had a Teen girl dressed in sorta a french fashion with a hat with a draping scarf, and then an adult woman dressed as a cavewoman, no special hair though. Both times I tried for baby in the past. Time machine seems like the perfect way to get offspring without having to deal with the "meh" stages, larvae to 12.

Are you saying you're sending two people into the past (or future) to TFB? How is it that the woman just forgot she was pregnant for about nine months a couple sim days, had a baby, and then abandoned it in the past (or future)?

This might make sense if you sent a lone man to go woohoo with a random woman in the past, but from what I'm reading, that's not what's happening.

Nope. It's two people.

*shrugs*

EDIT: And yeah, they get a hairstyle or hat relating to their time period as well.

I haven't tried the time machine yet. Not sure I really want to at this point, heh.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this one, but didn't EA move the "ask if single" interaction from the Romantic menu to the Friendly menu? I'm pretty sure I've seen it there.

yea, that and "Get to know" which was great for figuring out another Sims fave color etc...

Get to Know was always in the Friendly menu - when it appeared, that is. Sometimes, and this wasn't fixed, it's still true, it just doesn't show up. If there's some semi-logical reason for that, I haven't figured it out. Same with Goodbye. Why doesn't that show up all the time? For awhile I thought it might be trait-dependant but it doesn't appear to be the case.

Something else I noticed - this is not something broken or dumb that they fixed, but you can now take an unpaid leave on your job. Which I thought was pretty cool.

Speaking of "not-necessarily-fixed-but-cool" I am loving pretty much every hairstyle.

The female one with the hairband, in particular. Hell, I love that hair for GUYS, it makes for a nice evil guy with angry eyebrows hair, I think.

(http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/2750/screenshot1246060793.jpg)

And did anyone notice Twinbrook has a new distant terrain? There's a city in the distance. It's pretty cute.

I actually just deleted all my custom hair styles. I've stopped using them, might as well speed up load times.

Claeric, I noticed the city on the horizon, too. It looks pretty cool at night with the aura of city lights glowing over the hills. I, too, love most of the hair, especially the short cuts for men. STYLISH STRAIGHT MEN!

I'm not sure if anybody noticed this, and I'm unsure whether it is just happening in Twinbrook or all towns but THE CLIMATE CHANGES THROUGHOUT THE DAY! The pattern seems to vary every day. For example, the morning was clear and sunny, then the rest of the day was cloudy and dull, the sunset was beautiful and clear, then the night sky switched to foggy and cloudy. The next day the night sky was clear and starry. Before Ambitions, the sky was always the same at night and day, with the exception of locations abroad.
Speaking of abroad, the game loads the locations about 4 times faster for me.

Hate to say it; EAxis has actually impressed me this time.

'Get to Know' goes away after the sims reach a certain relationship point. Friends, perhaps? I don't recall specifically when, but it goes away after they have socialised to a certain point, for fairly logical reasons. Presumably after a certain point a sim would know another, and therefore would no longer be able to get to know that sim. You can fool the game into allowing 'get to know' again by dragging down the relationship bar.

The sky always changed in the base-only game too - sunny/cloudy/stormy etc throughout the day. One thing that is different here though is the ground fog. I thought this was because my lot was near one of those fog emitters, but from time to time, it appears that the entire town of Twinbrook seems to get foggy from time to time.

I REALLY like this expansion! Because of tragic consequences following WA installation, I've been playing a game-provided couple rather than my own Sims, so maybe the were just created with a really good combination of traits, but they seem 'smarter' than in previous games. They actually clean, skill, etc. without any mods tweaking them. Even the laundry thing is one fairly well. The graphics are cool. I think I'll probably tackle a new career this evening.

Heh, just try planting a detonator in the laundromat. Chained explosions and screaming, panicking sims FTW!

Weather did change in Sunset valley, but Sunset Valley has a very...sunny climate. So there will be light clouds and that's pretty much it.

Twinbrook has an awesome weather system, because half the time it's 10am and I dont realize it because it's still dark out from the clouds. The water ranges from grey to green to blue to orange depending on the weather and time of day, and the foggy days are really impressive. It feels a lot more alive.

Now that I've played for longer, I would agree. A lot of it is down to the lighting being far more dynamic than before, and you do notice subtle changes in white balance even in the space of an hour (a long hour admittedly, as I'm using Twallan's Relativity mod). Less impressive, however is the way the fog cuts through walls and into houses - good for derelict properties, bad for homes that actually has residents.

On the subject of lighting though, there's room for improvement. One of the new lamp-posts has a borked diffuser texture rendering it black (it should be white - see the ones outside the school), and most lights still do not radiate up multiple floors (though some do?).

Also, although blowing up the laundromat was fun for shits and giggles, the game does NOT respawn anything that has been completely destroyed, so now I have a machine-less laundromat as a result.

Just did my first ghost hunting mission. The spirits are cute, and the music, while repetitive, is charming. I like how the lights all turn red and the people are freaking out. It's fun.

I see.. I never noticed the weather changing in Sunset Valley before, the sky looked exactly the same every day and night to me. Since playing in Twinbrook though the effects seem to have become more obvious, which is awesome. All I need now is rain and snow :]

Yep, it's definitely more noticeable in Twinbrook. Haven't tried Riverview and Sunset Valley post-Ambitions yet.

I don't know if this is a new thing, but back at the laundromat (or what was left of it after my 'experiment', a random sim came in to do their laundry, switched on the stereo and whilst sitting down and reading a book, started tapping their foot to the music.

Yes, I believe it goes away once they are friends. I apologize for not making this clearer, but I meant when my sims meet someone brand new, 'get to know' does not always seem to appear on the menu. I usually just choose 'chat' and sometimes it will show up in a moment or two, sometimes not. Of course it's always possible that it's there and I just didn't SEE it, but this has happened more than once so I don't think that's it. Conversely, 'Goodbye' seems to mostly show up when conversing when friends, but I also see it with just-met sims, too. It's probably just glitched.

I had this too since BG. I think that I read somewhere in XML files that sims can have a finite number of subjects to talk about. So when you meet someone new and you just watched a movie/read a book/got a promotion all available slots will be taken. Thus there will be no place for "Get to Know". Don't know if that is indeed so, but at least "Get to Know' option always disappeared for me when "Talk" menu was over encumbered.

If your sim has the attractive reward and has met over 25 sims then everyone he meets will instantly be a friend. If this is the case you won't get the "get to know" interaction when you first meet someone.

I have an Inventor Sim who I managed to get high enough to build a Time Machine. So I sent her to the past because she had a moodlet for it, now my plan was to keep this simple little sim single and carefree. What happens? I see she apparently saves some kid from a stampede, and all of a sudden the little thing is eating in my kitchen and sleeping on her bed. Now she has a son. Goodness knows how this immaculate conception arose, I want to know who the father is, more so what I do with him!

That's the thing I enjoy most about Ambitions so far, all the little Easter Eggs, like the tunnels while you mine, detonating an entire community lot etc

Blackcat, this hadn't occured to me and sounds like a logical explanation for it. Mystery solved! @ LVRugger, this info didn't apply to my sim but this was good info to know too; thanks to you both.

ETA: Forgot to mention that EA has apparently replaced the 'maxmotives' command. Now you need to click on the mailbox and type 'make all happy'. I got this off of the official EA board; one of the drone-gurus posted it.

Um maxmotives was originally from Sims 2, it did not work in Sims 3 when it came out, Pes added that to his AwesomeMod to make it easier, with AwesomeMod you can use maxmotives :)

I dont know for sure if this is from ambitions, but I've never seen it before...

(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5083/screenshot152x.jpg)

I have never seen a sim sit like that. It looks a lot nicer than every single sim's hands-on-thighs pose.

And going back to the "not a fix, but badass" theme...

(http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/7771/screenshot104f.jpg)
(http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2396/screenshot105x.jpg)
(http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/561/screenshot106n.jpg)

Foundations + pond tool = broken pool which has spilled into the yard? That's some clever (and fitting for the town) building, EA.

More fun with the Time Machine produced this unique outfit for my sim:

(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c155/Rubyelf/Screenshot-14.jpg)

Don Lothario in Riverview sat like that frequently when I played him.

I have also seen my sims cross their legs like that while sitting prior to AMB.

@Rubyelf, yeah, I forgot about that! Thanks for the reminder.

The glass cieling of moneymaking seems to have been fixed. I noticed the progress bar keeps going up after you reach level 10 of a profession. After a quick test, I learned that each time it goes up, your income per job goes up. My ghost hunter is now making 6k each night from his two jobs each day. Real Estate gives a reason to spend this money, too.

I don't know, like most exp packs from EA it appears to be witholding a lot they could have included. I guess they're keeping things back for the next exp. Dirty rotten scoundrels.

I romanced some sims last night and I found "ask if single" under the romantic menu, and I deleted all my mods except for awesomemod when I patched my game, so it's not a mod conflict.

Aren't there two versions? One is friendly, and one initiates a romantic social session? Like if you were to flirt, the other sim would think you were being "Flirty". Using the friendly Ask If Single would break that, but the Romantic one would keep it going.

Friendly is "so do you have a boyfriend or what?" and romantic is "Hey. You got a boyfriend? ;D How YOU doin'? ;D".

Or at least that's how it used to be...I think.

Presumably you're single.

Glass ceiling of moneymaking?  I never had a problem with my sims getting raises after reaching level 10 of their careers.  Send them to work, the progress bar goes up and they get a raise.

The raises didn't seem nearly as noticable as these, though, probably because the bar goes up so fast.

According to gameplaydata, the increase is .05 for each active career...and 15% increase in hourly pay for a normal career, but there's at most a 25% chance of getting a raise on any given full performance bar day.

So it does seem like it would happen faster. In just a couple days as a max ghost hunter I went from ~1500 to 2500, but a looooong time playing as a max Law Enforcement only went up a couple hundred.

Then you have to think about the work days- normal careers seem to give you only 3 or 4 a week at level 10, but active careers still have you doing 5.

If your comparing the active careers to the older rabbit hole ones, you also have to consider the pay rate differences.  The rabbit hole careers pay by the hour, and the new playable professions pay by the week.  It would stand to reason that an increase in a rabbit hole career would be less, but when multiplied by the hours worked, actually becomes a fairly high weekly amount.  As an example, your doctor gets a $50 an hour raise, by 20 hrs of work equals a weekly raise of $1000.  I once had a sim at the top of the medical career earning over $1600 an hour.

If anything the new professions are probably increasing faster because of the borked way EAxis has tied skill building to the work experience bar and hence promotions and pay rises.  Having the work experience bar going up about the same rate as skill building is ridiculous. Multiple promotions and pay rises without ever going to work, just crazy.  If the sim has already maxed the relevant skills before joining a specific profession, that might slow things down a bit.

They only pay stipends per week, the raises I am referring to are for per-job payments, not the stipend. Stipend stays the same and per-job earnings go up.

So continuing my ghost hunter example, I'm making 3k per job, two jobs per day, 5 days per week, one stipend per week- a grand total of 33,000 simoleons per week, assuming I do all the jobs (which I usually don't). Each job I do successfully adds a bit to the progress bar and when it fills up I get yet another raise, and by the time my sim is an elder I will likely be making something around 50k a week.

Most careers don't even go over 2k per day (without raises), which would be something like 8k-10k per week. A few weeks of work probably wouldnt even bump that up to 2.5k.

After everything Claeric has been spewing out, this is what triggers the "presumably you're single" thoughts?
I came to that conclusion after the first 50 posts.

Now that I have the debug options back with awesomemod...

You can use the debug "Sculpturify" command to make ANY object clay, rock, wood, or ice. Ice car? You bet. Ice bath tub? Yep. Ice bed with ice blankets? Somehow.

(http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2162/screenshot241r.jpg)

Awesome for making an ice palace for a truly evil sim.

http://fuzzylogicdishwasher.blogspot.com/2010/06/fun-with-ice-sculptures.html

You can do it to sims, too. Their exact pose at the time you do it is forever saved in unmelting ice.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dXDaAA8f17k/TBZxnOS31aI/AAAAAAAABrs/iQmVJAkutwQ/s1600/Screenshot-242.jpg)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dXDaAA8f17k/TBZxpPhFLkI/AAAAAAAABr0/yrsYmFYyaYw/s1600/Screenshot-243.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dXDaAA8f17k/TBZxwQMH01I/AAAAAAAABsE/PLH__KvrmCo/s1600/Screenshot-247.jpg)

What happens to the sim when you do this? Does it kill them? It seems like a VBT.

No, they just keep doing whatever they're doing. That first picture was just repeatedly making a statue as a sim walked from left to right.