THE HORROR: The REAL TS3 Scoop As It Unfolds

[phyllis_p]

I only played for a few minutes last night, before my daughter took it over, she played for a while. (will find out how she liked it when she wakes up).
 
I did notice a few differences though. When I played I just wanted to check it out so I just grabbed the Martinez family from the bin and plopped them in a house. I played the female, I think her name was Jennifer, and when I clicked on her it gave options to go to the park, public pool, etc.
 
When my daughter started she created a female in CAS, moved her in, and the only option she got when clicking on the sim was to change clothes.
She came from CAS with 2 books in her inventory and all she wanted to do was read.

I thought this was strange, for hers not to have the same options.

It's trait-dependent.  I have a bookworm, and he automatically has the choice to go to the library or the book store.  I also have an artist, and she has the automatic choice of going to the art museum.

[Lorelei]

Did anyone get a box saying that you have to connect to the internet while on the loading screen? And if so, how did you get past this?

Yes.

When using the installer-spawned game exe, it wants to phone home. Denying it access to the Net makes it have a tanty and stop loading the game. This happens even when you say DNW to the EA Download Manager during install. Selecting either normal or custom install makes no appreciable difference.
When using TSE.exe from the crack folder, it doesn't phone home, but neither will it stay in the Processes list in taskmgr; IOW, it fails to load. Tried this both before and after uninstall/reinstall of installer-spawned exe.

[mistyk]

I only played for a few minutes last night, before my daughter took it over, she played for a while. (will find out how she liked it when she wakes up).
 
I did notice a few differences though. When I played I just wanted to check it out so I just grabbed the Martinez family from the bin and plopped them in a house. I played the female, I think her name was Jennifer, and when I clicked on her it gave options to go to the park, public pool, etc.
 
When my daughter started she created a female in CAS, moved her in, and the only option she got when clicking on the sim was to change clothes.
She came from CAS with 2 books in her inventory and all she wanted to do was read.

I thought this was strange, for hers not to have the same options.

It's trait-dependent.  I have a bookworm, and he automatically has the choice to go to the library or the book store.  I also have an artist, and she has the automatic choice of going to the art museum.

I didn't even think of that. She did have the trait loves the outdoors. I wonder what traits my daughters sim had, to have no options

[phyllis_p]

Saw another example of shoddy/lazy animation last night.  My sim invited her best friend over, and best friend shows up carrying a toddler -- I'm not sure if it was her child or her grandchild, as she is an elder and I don't know when she transitioned.  Anyway, when it came time to go and my sim asked everyone to leave, instead of picking up the toddler and carrying him out, the friend walked outside to leave as usual, and the toddler just *blink* disappeared.

[BattyCoda]

Not sure if anyone here cares, but Microcenter has a special this weekend on the game. Pay $5 USian down and get the game for $19.99 instead of $49.99 when it comes out on the 2nd.

Could this be a response to the leak? I kind of doubt is as ads and offers are usually done way in advance, but who knows?

[brownlustgirl]

I am noticing a problem with an owned car. The family I am playing own a multi-share car and the parents each own a bike. When it's time to go to work, the carpool still comes and the adults will not use their owned transportation, they go to the carpool.  The only time they will use the owned transportation is when the carpool has left or I have to click on the car to go to work.  Then they come home in the carpool, with their car magically appearing in the driveway. 

Why would they make the babysitter called everyday instead of being on a schedule? I forgot to call and the parents went to work anyway. Had to call the father back home to call a babysitter and then go back to work. Hope that this will be fixed before release, or all my munchkins will be in child services care.

Last, my male sim is a neat-freak and being in law enforcement, he has to rummage in neighbor garbages to get intel. He didn't like it, and got a negative moodlet that was suppose to go away in 10 mins. It had been 4 days with the same time, so I guess that's another bug.

[Caz]

Here is another problem I have discovered while playing:

Sims can CLONE themselves.

I've gone into houses with mysterious babies and looked inside their family trees to see that they only have one parent, the Sim living in the house. There was even this household where a guy had four sons with no mothers, and they all looked just like him. Then Claire Ursine's daughter had a baby all by herself despite the fact she's actually in love with a Sim (She was even in love with ANOTHER Sim, which she did all by herself even after I'd gone to the trouble of making her fall in love. What the hell did she have to do that for?) Yep, the baby looked just like the mother when I aged her up.

This is ridiculous. Sims shouldn't be cloning themselves to make babies. I don't want the neighborhood filled with Sims who all look the same.

I love the fact that all I have to do is turn testingcheatsenabled on, drag a Sim's hunger bar all the way down and they fall over dead immediately. Been doing that a lot lately.

[Sigmund]

I've gone into houses with mysterious babies and looked inside their family trees to see that they only have one parent, the Sim living in the house. There was even this household where a guy had four sons with no mothers, and they all looked just like him. Then Claire Ursine's daughter had a baby all by herself despite the fact she's actually in love with a Sim (She was even in love with ANOTHER Sim, which she did all by herself even after I'd gone to the trouble of making her fall in love.

Claire Ursine is strange. I read in another thread here that she starts out pregnant with a baby, but I think the father must be one of the Frio brothers, since he is her ex at the start of the game. (This came as a pretty big surprise on my end since my main sim got engaged to him, but that's another story.) However, when I returned to Claire's house, I too realized that she'd had ANOTHER baby at some point, with no father listed in the tree, in addition to the one fathered by this Frio character.

[Dizzymental]

Well I'm just wondering, maybe all these bugs, like the speed problem, the graphic glitches, etc. are caused by the crack you're all using. I don't mean the stuff you buy on the street. The crack that comes with the torrent download is probably suspect and that's why you're all experiencing these bugs in the game.

That's a little bit far fetched. A crack changing animations would be a wondrous being.

You're wrong. The crack is twice the size of the original TS3 file. Take a look. With the Sims 2, the original crack was bad and affected gameplay. I remember it clearly. Same thing, perhaps.

[charlsye]

My sim just had triplets.  Both she and the father had the fertility perk.  I don't know if you'll be able to get triplets without it but that's how I did it.

Also, I noticed that if you go to the hospital, it randomizes one trait and you choose the other.  If you choose to stay home, it'll randomize both.

[blackcat]

I could choose both traits after going to hospital, thanks to sim's happy pregnancy.

[vcpink]

I think from all the troubles the game has with the whole, evolving town and whatnot we can deduce that EA couldn't figure out how to fix it so they made it hard to play more that one household at a time.
It's not because EA are a dick, which they are, but because EA are failures at programming AI.

[noblesse_oblige]

What is up with the "accuse of cheating" option?  Last night, I was playing with a sim on a community lot, and I zoomed away for a minute and, when I came back, she had a "betrayed!" moodlet about how much it sucked to be cheated on.  Since her husband was at work, and didn't have any romantic interests besides her, I thought it was kind of weird.  That's when I noticed her pre-marriage romantic interest, who she still had a heart with (despite having asked him about 8,000 times to just be friends) sitting a few feet away on the park bench reading a newspaper.  I thought, maybe it was him flirting with someone else...?

So, I took my sim home and, when she was conversing with her husband, I noticed the "accuse of cheating" option pop up.  I was confused because he doesn't even like his co-workers, but I had her accuse him of cheating just for the lulz.  Fighting and divorce ensued.  Just to make sure, though, I had her visit the pre-marriage romantic interest, and what popped up in the conversation tree but "accuse of cheating!"  WTF.  When one sim "cheats" on you, you can accuse all of your love objects of being cheaters?  How will I ever know who the culprit is?!

And how stupid is it to have a married sim be pissed that your discarded love interest from eons ago is flirting with someone else (if that was the case)?  Or how weird is it that your sim's spouse can cheat on you...at work?  Did they both cheat on her, I guess?  God, I miss memories.

[J. M. Pescado]

Eh, does it matter? Shiftclick, pick your own.

[misscatfish]

It may be impossible to say at this point, but could it be that these neighborhood story problems are all somehow scripted and might be absent in user-created 'hoods (when/if the neighborhood creation tool is released as promised)?

If such a tool allowed one to create empty 'hoods and set parameters for story progression, demographics, etc., then one might have more control over how/if the neighborhood evolved.

Too much to hope for?

[nekonoai]

how weird is it that your sim's spouse can cheat on you...at work?

Because nobody EVER has an affair with their secretary.

Yeah, I'd like an empty hood, myself. Though, I really suck at decoration. So, maybe i'd rather have a fan made hood.

[J. M. Pescado]

What is up with the "accuse of cheating" option?  Last night, I was playing with a sim on a community lot, and I zoomed away for a minute and, when I came back, she had a "betrayed!" moodlet about how much it sucked to be cheated on.  Since her husband was at work, and didn't have any romantic interests besides her, I thought it was kind of weird.  That's when I noticed her pre-marriage romantic interest, who she still had a heart with (despite having asked him about 8,000 times to just be friends) sitting a few feet away on the park bench reading a newspaper.  I thought, maybe it was him flirting with someone else...?

I will look into the matter. It is a known fact that EAxis has some really STUPID ideas in their jealousy and romance system, and I will have to invest effort into re-making Romance Mod Mode.

[cyperangel]

Last, my male sim is a neat-freak and being in law enforcement, he has to rummage in neighbor garbages to get intel. He didn't like it, and got a negative moodlet that was suppose to go away in 10 mins. It had been 4 days with the same time, so I guess that's another bug.

That happened to my sim as well. Took me most of a sim day to discover that my sim had collected "evidence" from the trashcans, in the form of trash, and had stuffed it in his inventory. Thus he was always near the trash so the counter on the moodlet got reset every minute.

The sollution is simple. Clean out te trash in the inventory and wait 10 minutes. Voila!

[Netich]

Is there any thread for discussing TS3 modding? I dont know if anyone is working in a nocensor patch. But if the old way (with a package) doesnt work, maybe it could be done messing with the dx calls.

There is this supersecret "Armoire of Invincibility" subforum (that freak language you use is hard to understand for noobs and foreign people, and i am both), but of course i cant read it.

[VacantBlue]

The Associated Press has a comment from EA:

"EA said the pirated version "is a buggy, pre-final" version of the game.

"It's not the full game. Half of the world — an entire second city — is missing," said spokeswoman Holly Rockwood in a statement.

Electronic Arts has announced it is publishing "The Sims 3" without restrictive anti-piracy software known as DRM, a form of copy protection that requires online authentication."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i2Ts-zyPtq_1NOZV49oeN7ZvY4RgD98BBEMG0

I thought that the second city was going to be a download and not included in the game? 

Edited to add: EA and their stupid misleading statements.

(Link was posted on the BBS)

[nekonoai]

Last, my male sim is a neat-freak and being in law enforcement, he has to rummage in neighbor garbages to get intel. He didn't like it, and got a negative moodlet that was suppose to go away in 10 mins. It had been 4 days with the same time, so I guess that's another bug.

That happened to my sim as well. Took me most of a sim day to discover that my sim had collected "evidence" from the trashcans, in the form of trash, and had stuffed it in his inventory. Thus he was always near the trash so the counter on the moodlet got reset every minute.

The sollution is simple. Clean out te trash in the inventory and wait 10 minutes. Voila!

It'd be nice if they didn't shove all the newspapers into their inventory. Read it and f'n put it on the coffeetable like a normal person~!

[Trickster]

The Associated Press has a comment from EA:

"EA said the pirated version "is a buggy, pre-final" version of the game.

No way to know for certain until it really does come out, but I think they're fiendish liars.

[brownlustgirl]

Last, my male sim is a neat-freak and being in law enforcement, he has to rummage in neighbor garbages to get intel. He didn't like it, and got a negative moodlet that was suppose to go away in 10 mins. It had been 4 days with the same time, so I guess that's another bug.

That happened to my sim as well. Took me most of a sim day to discover that my sim had collected "evidence" from the trashcans, in the form of trash, and had stuffed it in his inventory. Thus he was always near the trash so the counter on the moodlet got reset every minute.

The sollution is simple. Clean out te trash in the inventory and wait 10 minutes. Voila!

Okay, will check that out when I play again. Kinda sick of it.

[Zazazu]

Why would they make the babysitter called everyday instead of being on a schedule? I forgot to call and the parents went to work anyway. Had to call the father back home to call a babysitter and then go back to work. Hope that this will be fixed before release, or all my munchkins will be in child services care.

You only need the babysitter if babies/toddlers are in the house, and with enforced female maternity leave, will probably only have two days in which a babysitter is needed. Getting a maid and babysitter is not recommended, as the babysitter on his/her own is pretty good, but maids are the new nannies. Some are good. Some will spend all their time brushing their teeth, eating your food, and chit-chatting with the babysitter so that s/he can't care for the kids. Firing a particular maid does not work, as they will come back after a couple of days.

As for it being a buggy non-final version, here's hoping. However, I'm also not discounting it as a CYA measure. We'll see on real release day.

[noblesse_oblige]

Because nobody EVER has an affair with their secretary.

The funny thing is, he's an athlete and all of his co-workers, including his boss, are men.   

I will look into the matter. ... I will have to invest effort into re-making Romance Mod Mode.

A romance mod, if possible, for TS3 would be awesome.  So far as I can tell, a lot of the romantic and jealousy actions are either borked or just plain fail.