TS3 L&P

[Lorelei]

Whereas a complete set of Maxis appliances and furniture is now going to be possible, Maxis fails at understanding what Sim players want if they are making it difficult to mesh and do default replacements. Before I even loaded up Sims 2, I hunted down skin / eye / makeup default replacements, because I find the Maxis aesthetic hideous.

Also, not everyone subscribes to the Atwa aesthetic of making an entire room one colour / one pattern and floodfilling everything.

If it is even going to be difficult to import your own texture, so you don't get green and orange tiger stripe and yellow and pink polka dot options and the usual Maxis fug, that's an even bigger fail.

FAIL on the laziness regarding the car animations, where they no longer bother to back it out of the driveway for you, but make it *poof* in and out of existence instead.

FAIL on community lots that are big empty rectangles.

FAIL on only one, unchangeable, base 'hood. We like having different "worlds" to play.

Also, only piloting one primary family (if that is the case) is fail. We play multiple families because the storylines can vary, and because you can get bored of one family and want to mess with another set of characters instead.

I spend more time "shopping" for CC than I do playing, so they are really being idiotic. I blame their buttbuddy status with TSR. They are trying to circumvent the paysite/freesite argument altogether, I suspect, by making it impossible to offer anything innovative and useful and attractive, so all content in sharable mode is going to be as ugly as your usual TSR crap.

Good: bikes, walking to lots, shoes, fatness, and the personality points sound promising. Not enough to tempt me to play a game with characters that are, by all reports, puffy, ill-proportioned, and  eye-searingly fugly.

How does a company with so many opinionated and knowledgeable players, most of whom are willing to offer advice and assistance with things for free, and who have not embraced the new format wholeheartedly by any means, continue to FAIL so hard?

[MrMugg]

I wouldn't be surprised to see meshes and everything else we are looking for in the form of expansions.  Assuming the game lasts that long.

[DrNerd]

The "one neighborhood" thing and the look of the Sims are my biggest turnoffs at this point, although it's all pretty irrelevant since my current laptop won't run the game in the first place.

I LIKE knowing that I can create a custom neighborhood, with no Sims in it at all, and make my own story that's unique to me.  I don't want the EAxis-created DRAMAZ.  Pretty much the first thing I did when I got TS2 way back when was create my own 'hood.  The longest I've played any of the premade 'hoods is my Legacy in Riverblossom Hills, and I haven't played any of the premade families there.  The only premades I've played for longer than it takes to get a handle on a new EP are Gilbert and Malcolm.

I was willing to give CAS the benefit of the doubt, seeing as how, based on the EAxis premades in TS2, it's clear that the EAxis people cannot make unique-looking Sims who are not horribly deformed in some way, and it should be assumed that this would carry over to TS3.  After reading Parsimonious Kate's review of CAS, though, it does not give me hope that the Sims won't be doughy.

Plus, the fact that they seem to be shutting out CC, particularly free CC, does not give me The Happy either.  If I thought the EAxis stuff would be as good as, or better than, the stuff the free creators could produce, I wouldn't be as unhappy about it, but their idea of "tasteful" and "quality" is very different than mine.

[Tigerlilley]

How does a company with so many opinionated and knowledgeable players, most of whom are willing to offer advice and assistance with things for free, and who have not embraced the new format wholeheartedly by any means, continue to FAIL so hard?

I KNOW.  If I made a game, I'd be all over the community for their opinions.  I just don't understand - remember when MaxoidSam was like OMG NVIDIA CRASH? IN MY SIMS 2?  WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL US?  That really made me realise how freaking cut off from the community EA are.

it's clear that the EAxis people cannot make unique-looking Sims who are not horribly deformed in some way, and it should be assumed that this would carry over to TS3. 

This is also baffling.  Surely, surely, there are many people in that company and SOMEONE at some point said "hey, that sim fell all the way outta the ugly tree huh".

[Inge]

With any luck we'll be able to make a tool to import usermade patterns at least, but I have reason to believe they won't be just normal pngs, it will be something a bit more complicated.

[nekonoai]

I still want to play it. It will still be better than MYSIMS.

[MrMugg]

I still want to play it. It will still be better than MYSIMS.

Whether it's solid shit or runny shit, in the end it's still shit and it stinks.

[ShortyBoo]

There are good points to the game, like the traits system, separate shoes, being able to make real fat sims and the fact that the water and plants/trees/shrubs look way better. But the sims themselves look bad, mainly because of the eyes, skintones, makeup, etc and I really can't see myself playing all that long without real custom content. I've gotten so used to using default replacement skintones and eyes, I don't see how I could stand playing without them. And as far as clothing goes, in TS2, I like very few EAxis outfits, and I'm sure that won't change with TS3, so I'll probably end up with everyone wearing the same couple outfits in different colors.

[Zazazu]

Roofing textures are still for shit. They can't ever get the scale right.

[MidnightVoyager]

Someone should force them to work as roofers sometime. Or to photograph houses.

...

Or to beat them until they make something that looks right.

[Jelenedra]

Maybe we'll still be able to pull of default replacements for skintones, but it would probably involve tricking the video card, rather than overriding the game.

[nekonoai]

moar realistic skins and eyes are usually the first things I go after CC-wise... so... I'm holding out hope.

still. ZOMGFATSIMS.

[ShortyBoo]

Maybe we'll still be able to pull of default replacements for skintones, but it would probably involve tricking the video card, rather than overriding the game.

How so? I mean, wouldn't it just involve finding the skintones in the game files and replacing them? What's the video card have to do with it? I've never heard of that.

[J. M. Pescado]

How so? I mean, wouldn't it just involve finding the skintones in the game files and replacing them? What's the video card have to do with it? I've never heard of that.

In games that do not include the capability to load override files, a technique used to replace textures involves simply overwriting them inside texture memory.

[Jelenedra]

There was a thread about doing video card fudging to make default replacement skin textures not too long ago. It was deemed too technical for the Lala so I stopped paying attention.


***Or, in other words, Pescado knows how, but didn't want to explain it to a silly Lala type person whom would ask too many questions.

[Inge]

***Or, in other words, Pescado knows how, but didn't want to explain it to a silly Lala type person whom would ask too many questions.

Or he doesn't, and didn't want to try and explain it to someone who might ask too many questions

[jolrei]

They can inbreed themselves!

Already working on that. xD  I'd do a story, but I think people would be up in arms or some bullshit. XD Maybe I should do it anyways, to piss people off.

I think this fear is overstated.  I worried about a storyline in which Snowbawl eradicated a bunch of townies, including several children.  I was practically begged encouraged to post it with all haste.  Go and do thou likewise.

[J. M. Pescado]

Or he doesn't, and didn't want to try and explain it to someone who might ask too many questions

I'm familiar with the general principles of how it is done. I have not attempted to put it to practical implementation, but I've seen it done before. It's just not relevant to my interests.

[cwykes]

Just a thought in relation to the designers not understanding what the community wants...  The videos I've seen of them show an office full of young people.  I guess that gives them some insight into what teens like in a game, but none whatsoever into what appeals to people twice their age - never mind people twice their age living in Europe, Australia, Japan or wherever. 

[Tingeling]

A new video is up at a french fan site via Snootysims:
Sims 3

It's the usual crap, but there are some new features that they bring up. For example how you can edit the neighbourhood. One thing annoys me though. When the sims get in and out of the car they just show up on the sidewalk, like how the cars vanish. How come they haven't got any animations for such things?? LOL, they claim that the neighbourhood buildings (the ones you can't follow your sims into) are "individual discrete buldings". What the hell is discrete about them?! Aside from the fact that they are little more than a shoebox with a splash of paint on them. And lets not forget the adorable, hacking walk the sims have. [/sarcasm] I'm getting less and less interested in this game the more I see it.

[Faizah]

Individual discrete buildings? The 'individual discrete' bit is just saying the same thing twice.

[Zazazu]

Ok, the techno music and dancing numbers was win. Trying to translate French in my head while someone is speaking English in the background is not.

I kind of wonder where the cars go. Are they put in the sims' asses like their fishing poles?

[Lorelei]

One of these videos might explain the car thing. In one, it looks like the vehicles poof into and out of existence, and Sims get in and out by vanishing and reappearing, too.

[Sigmund]

Definitely. I just don't like this message of, "Out with the old, in with the new!" We are bombarded with this message constantly that we need to be forever trading up. I hate hearing all the fanboys/girls raving about how they've already deleted the Sims 2 off their hard drives because who needs it anymore, right? We can haz new toyz, throw outs the old onez!!eleventyone!!! Advertising like that just kind of irks me.

I know a lot of people with this kind of attitude, myself included. Considering the current state of the economy, though, it's an outlook that I'm slowly getting over. It's kind of interesting to compare my friends' attitudes towards purchasing in comparison to, say, my parents, who come from the mindset of "keep it 'til it's no longer functional".

[J. M. Pescado]

I know a lot of people with this kind of attitude, myself included. Considering the current state of the economy, though, it's an outlook that I'm slowly getting over. It's kind of interesting to compare my friends' attitudes towards purchasing in comparison to, say, my parents, who come from the mindset of "keep it 'til it's no longer functional".

I subscribe to the mindset of "reuse, abuse, misuse". Something is reused until it stops working. Then it is abused until it is clear that no amount of kicking is going to make it work. Then it is misused for things it was never intended to be used for at all.