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

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!  

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. 

Unless you read Pratchett.

I concur on the HP skins too.  I had them but was immediately turned off by what appeared to be a smudge of white paint on some sims' foreheads.  I can only assume that was the "shine".  It's kind of funny how some people apparently think that replacement = better.  Baa.

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. 

10-15 years ago in Wisconsin there was some talk about lowering the eligibility grade for high school sports to a D because apparently there were a lot of athletes having trouble remaining eligible to play.  So um, your son is getting bad grades and your response is "OMG WHAT IF HE CAN'T PLAY FOOTBALL?!" 

On a related note, a town near where I attended high school built a third high school around the same time.  It was a huge school with all the best of everything.  They changed the zoning so that there were some kids from both existing high schools who would now be going to Appleton North as the new school was called.  The parents of some of the kids from Appleton East (which has long had a very successful football program) were upset that their children would have to go to North and would thus no longer have a winning football team to cheer/play for.

My favorite though is the bumper stickers you see around.  "We honor ALL students at <insert school name here>". 

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.

Thanks!  He was actually done without the additional sliders, though.

I think I rather resent the Clay Aiken comparison. >.<

Having said that, he does kinda look like him. D: 

I've found that, with an established relationship, you get to start farther along the course but I otherwise agree.  A married couple should have all the options all the time unless something negative has happened between them.

You have to watch the little status box in the upper left of the screen, where it says things like "Sim A thinks Sim B is okay".  Keep tossing romantic interactions at them and you'll see the other sim's thoughts progress from flirty to very alluring to extremely irresistible.  As you work your way up the chain, you'll see that you have more and more possible interactions.  It's not like TS2 where you get them to be best friends and then a single romantic interaction results in twu wuv.

I don't think anyone has figured out if there is any concept of attraction or chemistry a la TS2, but I definitely think I've seen some sims be much more resistant to romantic advances than others.

I find it a little odd myself that you can get them to woohoo if you make them relax on the bed, but they won't even kiss through socials unless you work them all the way through the chain.  

Also, "move in" is a friendly interaction, not a romantic one.

ETA: Also, I think it was Zazazu who ran into a glitch with getting sims to progress to romantic interests.  I think she solved it by cheating their relationship up to best friends and then trying a romantic interaction.  She talks about in the original The Horror thread I think back around 20-30 page area.      

I had a sudden uncontrollable urge to make a skinny, red-haired, freckly, jug-eared, clumsy geek.   

It's like smustling, when sims would just break into dance wherever they happened to be standing when the thought entered their head.  My gen 1 spouse from the leaked version used to start reading outside the criminal headquarters all the time.  It's 3am: GO HOME!

I'm definitely put off by this. 

On the other hand, I agree with Inge.  If sharing info with people from TSR means that we have a better tool sooner, then hooray.   Also, using TSR's tool to make content that's free for everyone > TSR using other people's free tools to make pay content, IMO.

I had trouble with chess tables.  In my main house, I could place one chair but it refused to let me place a second one.  In another house it eventually let me place the 2nd chair but I had a hard time.  

Lol, I had the same reaction when I watched that.  With the OFFICIAL version you can... ad nauseam.

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

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

I agree.  They're trying too hard to appeal to the *finger quotes* hardcore gamer.  The charm of the Sims series has always been the open-endedness and the ability to make the game be whatever you want.    It's that whole toy vs. game thing again. 

BTW, it took WoW for-freakin-EVAR to implement achievements.  Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge is great though.  I wish I could have persuaded some of my WoW guildies to jump ship with me.

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

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

I'm thinking the whole materializing in cars thing is because of the fact that you can now place parking spaces anywhere on the lot. 

There is an as yet unannounced new Blizzard MMO in the works.  A couple of the more prominent WoW devs have left WoW to work on it.  I read somewhere that Blizzard bought the license for a Pokemon MMO. I certainly hope that's not true. 

Toddlers are definitely much easier to deal with now.  If I have a toddler in the yellow, all I have to do is cancel out the queue of one sim and they will go see to the kid after a few seconds.  There is of course still the issue with every sim in the house who is a teen or older trying to change the same kid's diaper at the same time if they're not otherwise occupied.

I concur about the beds.  My understanding of how it was intended to work is that, the more you directed a sim to use the same bed, the more they would start to see it as their bed until they eventually would always sleep in the same bed.  I never had it work.  The more common situation would be grown sims autonomously sleeping in their kids' beds regardless of how many times I'd wake them up and force them back to their own bed.     

Seriously.  It seems backwards to me.  The gender of a baby gets artificially influenced without any input from the player at all but you have to jump through hoops to get it to be random?