Speaking of Riverview, I recently re-installed the game after deciding it might be worth looking at again. (I bought it the first week it came out, and it got deleted off my machine with a few months.)

I can't find Riverview... at all.

It isn't in any Sims 3 installation directory, nor can I find it available for download through the Sims 3 site. Sunset Valley is the only town available at game start-up to play in.

Might this be related to patch problems? The game immediately patched to the latest version after fresh install. I haven't installed any mods yet other than a few packages for custom hair. I haven't even saved a game.

 

Gah... well unless and until they fix this, any of the fine detail work I did for TS2 for male body hair on the skin tones would be completely useless applied to TS3.

I finally realized that the face controls in CAS lack any way to manipulate the forehead and brow aside from changing the position of the eye brows.

This is one thing definitely lacking in making more masculine-looking male sims.  A more prominent brow immediate translates as masculine feature... if you go ALL OUT it'll make a guy look neanderthal-like.

But lacking any way to give brows even gentle enforcement, the foreheads on male sims are more or less fixed and helps contribute to them having that look of "same-ness."

Given this, I seriously doubt you could use TS3 CAS to make good copies of some well-known male celebrities. Like Hugh Jackman, for instance.

Doll eyes and fish lips!

Do they EVER LEARN?

The horror, the horror... 

I disagree that he doesn't get its a "God game."

I believe he was just trying to think of something else that might break the MORPG "grind"-like aspect of skilling in TS3.  In that respect, he has a point:

MORPG = set your character to make 150 longswords in the workshop. Execute. Wait.
Sims = set your character to learn cooking skill by reading a book. Execute. Wait.

The difference however is that with a MORPG you go fix yourself a snack, maybe start a load of laundry, or take some time to play with the dog while you wait. In the Sims, you can simply switch to a different active sim and keep playing. So I disagree with him on the point of needing to "fix" skilling with some kind of mini-game. I don't think it would hurt to add mini-games that increase skills purely for the sake of variety, but I wouldn't make them required.

What I have noticed in the bit I've played is that the Sims seem to lack soul. I've seen very few animations so far that I really like or that have brought a smile to my face. And there is something odd about the way they walk I can't put my finger on.

I also came across another review where someone directly accused of EAxis of making TS3 more MORPG-like. I have to admit I'm getting that feeling myself.  I drifted away from TS2 to play "Lord of the Rings Online" for the past two years because I was getting bored and it was refreshingly different from TS2. LOTRO has now gotten boring, and so I thought maybe TS3 was perfectly timed to take over as my new major video game interest.  However my experience so far has been that it's not different enough from TS2 -- and in some ways very inferior to it -- to hold my interest for very long AND parts of it do remind me of playing LOTRO.

 

I think this player review is a good read. I get the impression he's very well acquainted with TS1 and TS2. I also get the impression he really likes pudding, but the rest of the review makes up for that.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thesims3/player_review.html?id=662835&tag=player-reviews%3Bcontinue&page=11

I finally got TS3 and have logged a few hours playing it with a couple I created, along with playing with some of the tools.

My initial impressions...

LIKES:
Rendering of the game. It helps running an Intel Quad Core, 4 GB, and a nvidia 9800 GTX+. Everything is smooth with settings maxed out. I wonder how badly it'll degrade when/if we can start loading a lot of real CC.
The color wheel. (Thank god I can do my own quick recolors instead of hunting for them for hours online.)
The town is pretty cool although I haven't interacted much yet with the townies.
CAS shoes and accessories for every clothing type.


MIDDLE OF THE ROAD:
Hair. Four layers of color is great, but I seriously hope we'll get real CC for this category. I'm already bored with the style choices.
Eyes. They're OK but too doll-like just like TS2 default eyes were.
CAS facial controls. Good, but they feel a lot more limited than TS2 controls.

DISLIKES:
Pudding face. (At least EA marketing was smart enough to outright LIE about that with the box art. Out of all the faces, I only see two definitive puddings. If they'd used only faces truly rendered in the game, probably would have scared most buyers off.)
The facial hair styles for men are shit -- AGAIN. The full beard is the best this time around and some of the stubble is OK, but whatever artist designed the styles obviously has no fracking clue about male facial hair grooming. (The hispanic chinstrap beard looks like someone drew it on with magic marker. The chinstrap + stubble is just laughably hideous.)
The tilt control near ground level is whacked. It also doesn't work with the wheel button on my standard mouse as described in the instructions.


The biggest thing that hasn't changed between TS2 and TS3?

Pescado and MATY delivering us from EAxis evil.

Yes, it doesn't provide the kind of fine-grained control that I'm after.  It also wastes 7000 aspiration points and takes up a lot of space.  I use Pescado's lot synchronizer and would prefer something with similar functionality so that I can coordinate all my households having the same seasons schedule for each.  Which means if a family leaves a lot where it was the third day of fall, I can move them into another lot and change the season to the third day of fall.


I'll give that one a try!

Probably already covered somewhere but I've been hunting around with no luck.

Is there a cheat or hack yet to advance the season on a lot?  I'm tired of moving my families into a new house and they are magically transported to the "last day of summer".   

thanks! I'll give it a try.

The slots are there, just empty.  How do you force a re-roll?

OK, so I've installed Seasons and retained only hacks that are verified "clean" so far of for which updates were provided.  Now in the first two lots I've gone into of my hood, some of my sims are missing want slots.  For instance, one male sim has two blank wants, a female has three blank wants.

Anyone else had this happen?  I'm wondering if I'll get those slots back??

LOL!!
 

I knew you could do this with wolves, but at the time the skunk was running around I didn't want to chance it with my sim getting sprayed.  If shooing doesn't trigger spraying, then that's fine.

I have it but never used it.

Is it an object you have to place in a lot, or does it have some kind of macro effect just by virtue of being in your downloads folder?

What is this? First I've heard of it.

It has just occurred to me that I really haven't seen any sign of Mrs. Crumplebottom on my community lots since installing OFB.

Is there a hack out there I might have that, unbeknown to me, bans her from showing up on lots?

I like having the old bag around. She helps to keep things interesting.

After poking around my neighborhood file post-Pets install, I noticed the EP created a few new NPCs which I took to be animal control officers.  Well the other day I had the stinky skunk running around on a home business lot so I had my sim try to dial up "Services" on the phone.  The only option related to animals was pet adoption and obedience trainer.  So is there no way to have a professional come in and trap the skunk?  Am I having a flashback to Sim 1 - Pets when someone would come over at your request and remove the raccoon?

In other words an androgynous male, like the ones from the picture.

Just dress 'em up, have them tuck it below, and you have yourself an instant cross-dresser or drag queen.  BLEAH! 

There is a tutorial by Motoki with added comments by others here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,1281.0.html

It shows how to use SimPE to make adult clothing available for elders to use.

I personally prefer this to standard elder clothing which (aside from a few creators with imagination) seems to act like a symbiotic entity sucking the life out the elders who are wearing them.

Yes, I've noticed that a lot of custom content makers do skintones that are so reflective that the skin looks like it's covered in vegetable oil.  Or was lacquered with verathane or something like that.  It looks so freakishly unnatural, and I often wonder what these creators are trying to achieve.  Human skin does NOT reflect light that way.

Anyhow I've tried in my own meager way to offer something different yet very representative of the real world. 

Perhaps. LOL

I see guys who look like that every day -- usually blue-collar types but some professionals.  And most of them would probably punch anyone for suggesting that they look gay.

I also don't understand the fascination with 'pretty' that a lot of gay men have or that women like in men, and I'm gay myself.  If I'm with a guy, I expect him to look, walk, talk LIKE A GUY.  Of course to each his/her own.

With regard to 'pretty' or feminine male sims, not in my game!  I guess we all play what we like best.

There's a guy, Capricorne on InSim that makes male sims who look very masculine.  Here's some links:

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=25252
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=18655
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=18719
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=18619
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=18443
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=22031

Not sure if this is possible, but maybe this is a call for two new hacks?

No Friendship Required for Pet Mating

and

Spay/Neuter that can add a token to a single pet making any attempts to copulate fail.

I had the same experience, selzi.  I think I updated mine after OFB, but it was working fine in Pets.  Crammyboy's nudist hack has not caused problems either.

Even so, I updated to the Pets approved censor blur anyway.  Anything to protect againt the big, fiery ball...