Just as a comparison - I'm playing a save that is around 2 years old, in which I've travelled and moved to nearly every town (some multiple times), along with edits, and my TravelDB.package is only 50Mb.

You'll find that EA DVDs these days are simply download savers, as everything else (updates, registration) has to be done through Origin. You actually don't need the DVD at all, and just the registration key to activate it on Origin, where you can then download the digital copy. The same thing applies to DVDs that require Steam activation. It's a lot less confusing than when there were several different versions of the game, like there was with Sims 3.

Has anyone made some decorative round railing objects to place upon the EA spiral stairs?

Quite the opposite. I was tired of making things hard on myself. Having to install ISOs, manual patching, waiting for a release group to finally release the latest patch or expansion for a game I was enjoying, worrying about propers for dodgy cracks or broken content (Like initially base Sims 3 wasn't final and wouldnt patch correctly or Homeworld Remastered this week with it's non-final version and broken content) then having cut down content due to it not being legit. Then there's the problems of mods and modding. Some games require workarounds for mods (Sims 3 again, for some reason on some PCs it wont recognise mods in the mods folder and requires framework installation, which is a hassle, as then you have some content in documents and some in programs) or certain modding tools for some games. I remember cracked Skyrim having a lot of problems with mods and tools, but can't recall exactly what.

Unless you compare the pirated version with the cracked version, you often wont realise just what you're missing out on, in terms of functionality, user-friendliness and performance. I've lost count of the amount of times I've read posts from people reporting bugs that are only in the cracked titles, pr being unable to get mods or tools to work, essentially giving themselves away as pirates. Thankfully Sims 3 doesn't require a cracked exe to function, so that saves a lot of hassle right off the bat, but does require decrapifying sims3packs to get the content functioning, then you have to worry about doing that with mods that patch store content (FYI, there was no way I was buying all that over-priced Store content). Overall, pirating is the big hassle in comparison, so whenever I can afford it, I prefer to purchase, and the cheapest and easiest place for that is usually Steam.

As for Origin vs Steam. Whenever I bought EA stuff on Steam, I also got an Origin version along with it, but if you purchase the Origin version, you didn't get a Steam version, so I got to try both systems. Origin still requires me to install each and every Sims 3 EP/SP separately, where as Steam its just an all-at-once install, including patches. Origin is also somewhat featureless in comparison, especially for community friendliness.

I forgot to mention, that even cracked games these days still try to phone home, as they don't remove those checks from them unless they mess with the protection.

My point though witch, is that there isn't much point avoiding them these days, as you're just shooting yourself in the foot, as even the pirated games require you to block them in your firewall. If you choose to avoid specific online stores for whatever reason, you are limiting your choices of games available to you, as well as having to suffer dodgy cracks that hinder performance. However, if you only play a few select titles, then it's not going to affect you much. In the last 10 years, I've probably got around 700 games on Steam, either through direct purchase, freebies, humble bundles, or retail games I've activated there out of preference; I also recently threw away my warez DVD collection of approximately 1000 disks. So I have a good amount of experience in both areas.

Steam also allows me to stream a game to a lesser laptop from my main PC and allows me to share all my library with my daughter and partner on the home network, outside of that, my friends can watch me play a game, which is handy if they want to see what it's like without leaving their house, and it allows me to instantly join my friends in multiplayer. So you can see, I've become a bit of a Steam fanboy. I still wont purchase an EA title though unless it's something that can only be played online, like Battlefield (mostly due to the crazy prices and inability to purchase elsewhere). Sims 3 was last offline game purchased, and that was for pure convenience.

My daughter recently reinstalled Sims 3 due to her HDD drying, and after installing 20+ disks, one of them didn't install correctly, resulting in issues with some of the content. So that required reinstalling that particular EP. I had to listen to her sighs the whole way through. If that was Steam, she would simply hit download, and it would all be done in one go. I used to keep my ISO version installed because during updates I'd continue playing the older version while I updated my mods on the new version, but to do that I had to keep a backup of the registry entries for whenever I would reinstall or upgrade my OS, as the game wouldn't run without those reg entries; where as the Steam version just recreates them upon launch.

I think you'd have a hard time not being spied on these days. Our phones do it, our TVs do it, our web browsers do it, web sites do it and our operating systems do it. Looking for cheats though, I'm assuming you mean VAT; not all games on Steam use it, and there are some games that can bypass Steam by launching directly from their normal launchers.

The problem with pirating, in most cases (Sims 3 excluded), is you end up with a barely functioning game with terrible performance and more bugs than the official, plus lack of proper update support. As most the pirated installers say, "If you like it, buy it", so this is mostly what I do. However, I'll still pirate it first to try it. Buying Sims 3 was mostly about saving my sanity, as when it sometimes threw an error during patching, I'd have to reinstall it to fix it. 21 disks later, plus patches that apply during install, it was pulling my hair out, but with the steam version I just hit play. Disks and ISOs are just so slow and annoying, to me it's like using a floppy drive.

As for Steam controlling if we can play the games we buy, or the possibility of taking our stuff away, well isn't that what you do yourself to a degree, by having a timebomb set into Awesomemod? You might say that it's to ensure people update, but there are always arguments for why people apply DRM and all of them suck. Even so, if for some reason Steam went belly up and the games didn't work without it, and the developers didn't patch them to work like they have with the recent vanishing of GFWL, then I'd simply resort to cracking them.

I'd just put it down to gremlins. One of those things that appears to only affect you, but probably no one else, likely due to some random combination of things that you'll probably never reproduce and only track down accidentally one day.

I use Awesome with the Steam version, because fuck installing 21 disks (ISOs) and patches or downloading 21 separate setups with Origin when things go south. I launch via TS3W.exe to avoid the horrible launcher, but both methods work fine. I do change the GameVersion on the AwesomeMod scripts, just to avoid the annoying nag warning about incompatible version, but otherwise Awesome works perfectly fine, as other than the directory layout and the internal versioning, the Steam version is identical, even in windowed mode and doesn't minimize my Window at all.

PS. Steam was definitely a crap platform 10 years ago and I hated it, but in recent years has done more to revive PC gaming than any other publisher, developer or platform combined, including bringing back many revamped old favourites I thought I'd never play again. I haven't used a disk in years, as the convenience is fantastic and the cheap prices has mostly eliminated my need for piracy and the bad cracks, bad stability and performance that come with them. Looking forward to Homeworld Remastered.

I'm thinking that installing Origin is merely a coincidence; even as bad as Origin is, I can't see it doing much to your PC, although It's hard to say, as a fix for "screws" on Windows 8 didn't come up in any Google searches.

I did have that problem with an early version, but thought I had fixed it in the current version of the world. I haven't had the issue at all since. You could try reinstalling the world and clearing your caches, or you could try removing and replanting the lot, just be sure to save the lot to the library first.

Been a while since I made a request, but I'd like a multiplier for Base Pay and Pension Pay so I can make things harder on my Sims in game, and not have to edit  Careers and ActiveCareers XML in AwesomeMod.

Mods updated! Been out of the loop for while. Decided to try Sims 4 and it was so terrible that it drove me to update my mods for Sims 3. I haven't tested these yet, and I'm unlikely to get a chance until next week, so please report any problems.

No-way am I buying Sims 4; I might try it when there is a fully working scene release, but for now I'll avoid it.

Sims 3 is still my favourite, but I'm frequently being hampered by that 3gb 32bit barrier, and that really kills the game for me; it needs something like the enb wrapper for Skyrim that shifts assets away from the main .exe, but I doubt that will ever happen; I'm assuming this is why they went back to the single loaded lot style of Sims 2 to reduce on using memory and thus, not require a 64bit .exe; I'd rather play Sims 2 if I was going to go back to single lots.

Exactly. The trait is different than normal traits and shows with a red outline in the trait list, it is awarded when you complete your Uni degree, or when reaching level 10 of one of the social groups.

Having the "chosen" trait will block Sims from receiving their extra trait from university degrees or mastering of social groups.  I have 'disable trait caps' enabled in AM config.

As far as I can tell at first glance, none of my mods need updating for patch 1.57.

As well as the build/buy issue with houseboats reported above will lock the build/buy buttons on any houseboat not docked at a port, which means the only way to build/buy is through the real-estate menu.. I'm also having problems with Awesome moving Sims into my houseboat, even though it's owned by my Sim.

Couple additions

That would be something like a no idles mod; taking out things like holding the camera, pressing phone buttons and such. I believe there is already a mod about for that too, as there are plenty of people that like to play Sims that way. You might be best off posting in the WCIF thread.

I don't recall seeing my Sim making calls autonomously, only receiving them, is this what you mean? It's not something I'd use myself, although, I'm pretty sure I saw a mod somewhere for the latter, which would stop Sims answering the phone, but you'd still need to mute the calls.

They have indeed vanished. I haven't used them for a long while now, so I didn't feel a desire to update them this time around. However, there doesn't appear to be any changes to those files, so as far as I can tell, the last version should be fine to use.

Better late than never! Updated, but untested.

I haven't felt that urge to patch yet, as I haven't got the EP yet, and so have a lack of desire to play right now. I will get to it, but as usual, it will just happen when it happens.

You can probably find alternatives to most my mods on MTS anyway, and as usual I encourage people to get winmerge and update the xml themselves, as it's quite easy once you've done it once.

The only issue you've noticed. It's likely anything that edits interactions or buffs will also be missing data.

It is definitely the University patch, but there will no doubt be another minor patch between now and the next SP.