THE HORROR: The REAL TS3 Scoop As It Unfolds

[Roflganger]

In short, all refrigerators owned by family share some kind of interdimensional portal to a single meta-fridge.

I think this is intentional, and I prefer it.  It appears that fridges aren't actually containers themselves, they're just "access points" to some global household fridge container.  Which is far preferable to me; no more lost produce because you forgot to keep a fridge.

[daisywenham]

Laugh with me as they throw the word OFFICIAL out a dozen times!

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

[Budgie]

In short, all refrigerators owned by family share some kind of interdimensional portal to a single meta-fridge.

I think this is intentional, and I prefer it.  It appears that fridges aren't actually containers themselves, they're just "access points" to some global household fridge container.  Which is far preferable to me; no more lost produce because you forgot to keep a fridge.

Yeah, it seems intentional to me as well. I found out that if you get a higher level fridge, that will be the One Fridge, but I don't think the food is duplicated, since I can't seem to move food from one to the other.

[Quill]

Missing traits is a known bug.  It tends to happen most often when the window with traits on your sim is open when selecting them.  However my last kids a set of twins for some reason when aging up to young adults only had the option to add a 4th trait and not a 5th.  Overall the trait selection is screwy.  Always check your traits after selecting them and if some are missing use debug mode to click on your sim to open the trait selection again.

Yeah, I thought I'd seen someone mention the bug somewhere in the thread, but I didn't know there was a solution.  I'll give it a try.  

ETA:  I tried enabling debug mode (TestingCheatsEnabled true) but I can't seem to change anything by clicking on my sim, either on her body, her info, or the mailbox.  What am I missing?  I've never used TestingCheats before in any of the games; I've used most of the other cheats but I never bothered with that one. 

I'm afraid that most of my simming before involved a lot of Awesomeware to get things working, and that often enabled me to bypass the annoyances. 

It's very difficult to see which leafy green plants need to be fertilized without clicking on them, and I've got a gardening sim.  If it turns out that different types of plants do better with different fertilizer, it could be based on plant type instead of all types.  

When fertilizer is needed the dirt around the plant base is light brown.   With trees the bark turns a medium reddish brown around the base...learned pitifully as a result of flu and boredom.  Also the best fertilized issue is painfully obvious.   The little window (chart is much to generous a name for it) tells you which will produce nice, very nice, great, excellent, perfect or outstanding plants; clicking on the plant automatically changes the chart to the fertilizer level that matches the plant.  

I know there's a way to see the difference in earth color, but it's a pain in the ass.  I do not want to have to stare at the lettuce and compare it to others to figure out what in my huge garden needs to be fertilized.  It's making me go blind get a runny  nose.  Really, it's doing something nasty to my sinuses.  I stop paying attention to the garden for a bit, and the sinus problem goes away.  Virtual allergies?

I'm fairly certain after gardening with several families that the "nice, very nice, great, excellent, perfect or outstanding" that appears in the list is a reference to the quality of the fruit in the gardener's inventory, not the future quality of the plant.  I've seen "normal" quality food in the list when fertilizing that I've then gone and removed from the sim's inventory and put in the fridge, and after that, normal doesn't show up on the list.  At least, if you're talking about the list that appears when you click on a plant and choose fertilize?  I'll test out your suggestion though.  

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Damn it, is anyone else having a problem placing the chess table and chairs?  No matter where I put the fucking chairs, and no matter what way I face the chess board, it still tells me that I need to place chairs before I can use it.  Jesus, this was never so difficult in the old game.  I don't know if I'm riding the fail train or finding another bug.

[LFox]

Found a link someone posted for scans of the game manual.  Nothing terribly interesting though.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/simprograms/sets/72157613371455282/?page=13

[GnatGoSplat]

Damn it, is anyone else having a problem placing the chess table and chairs?  No matter where I put the fucking chairs, and no matter what way I face the chess board, it still tells me that I need to place chairs before I can use it.  Jesus, this was never so difficult in the old game.  I don't know if I'm riding the fail train or finding another bug.

I had that problem.  You can't put the chairs near a door for some reason, even if it fits and would have worked in the old game.

[Celestra]

To people saying about how parts of the game seems like WoW etc with the buffs . I guess this could be due to the fact that Rod Humble's last job before this was on Everquest . No doubt he got the ideas there and thought they would fit in well in The Sims . Maybe that's also why the game now seems more of a levelling grind than an open-ended toy .

[daisywenham]

Damn it, is anyone else having a problem placing the chess table and chairs?  No matter where I put the fucking chairs, and no matter what way I face the chess board, it still tells me that I need to place chairs before I can use it.  Jesus, this was never so difficult in the old game.  I don't know if I'm riding the fail train or finding another bug.

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.  

[Sagana]

Interestingly enough, the game had no issue at all letting me drop a family on an empty lot, motherlode them and then move them to a better house. We didn't bother to buy beds, so there certainly weren't enough on the lot for all the sims. A 2nd family dropped on the same lot (which is now listed as a 'house' even though there's nothing on it) responded similarly. So I guess Asylum wouldn't be an issue if you start with a family of created sims rather than move-ins. (Reloaded version, btw).

I had to put the cheapest chess set actually outside to place the chairs. I found that annoying as I regularly put the outdoor one inside in sims2. When I edited a community lot and added 2 more so there were actually enough available for a chess tourney to have several sims play before time runs out, one chair in each of the new sets failed to work properly. Dumb game.

[Marhis]

I've noticed the same: apparently, I didn't find the correct chair, or chair position, for the chess table. Whatever I do, the chess options are always greyed out.

[Zazazu]

Laugh with me as they throw the word OFFICIAL out a dozen times!

The person they have doing the voice-over sounds like a douche. And yes, I laughed. I'll laugh more when I'm playing the 'hood in my unofficial game. (Assuming, of course, that the official ships/downloads with SecuROM, because if not I can't justify not paying for it).

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I had that problem.  You can't put the chairs near a door for some reason, even if it fits and would have worked in the old game.

Or even windows?  Mine wasn't near a door, just a huge window. 

It would be nice if I could place just one damn chair near the chess table, but it won't even let me do that.

[morriganrant]

Yeah, I thought I'd seen someone mention the bug somewhere in the thread, but I didn't know there was a solution.  I'll give it a try.  

ETA:  I tried enabling debug mode (TestingCheatsEnabled true) but I can't seem to change anything by clicking on my sim, either on her body, her info, or the mailbox.  What am I missing?  I've never used TestingCheats before in any of the games; I've used most of the other cheats but I never bothered with that one.  

I'm afraid that most of my simming before involved a lot of Awesomeware to get things working, and that often enabled me to bypass the annoyances.  

Testingcheatsenabled true. Then hold down the Shift key and click on the sim.


Found a bug. Minor but it sure as fuck annoys me. Razor version. Patched. Clean hood. The lot by the coast on the cliff. I am landscaping at the moment. I have tried each terrain paint on the lot and they work fine. I erase all of them and then focus on actual landscaping. While making my carport I applied asphalt and then the used gravel a bit. I change the sliders to make the gravel softer. BAM. My gravel is now dark sand. Dark sand still works. All of the other terrains still work. No amount of fiddling with the shapes, sizes or softness change it back. Gravel terrain paint has now mutated into dark sand and can not be fixed. I'm restarting the game to see if it helps any and to see how many times I can recreate it.

Edit: Restarting the game has fixed it. Can't seem to trigger it again.

[timelycorruption]

Laugh with me as they throw the word OFFICIAL out a dozen times!

The person they have doing the voice-over sounds like a douche. And yes, I laughed. I'll laugh more when I'm playing the 'hood in my unofficial game. (Assuming, of course, that the official ships/downloads with SecuROM, because if not I can't justify not paying for it).

He has one of those voices with a smile in it that drives people to murder.

[Quill]

Yeah, I thought I'd seen someone mention the bug somewhere in the thread, but I didn't know there was a solution.  I'll give it a try.  

ETA:  I tried enabling debug mode (TestingCheatsEnabled true) but I can't seem to change anything by clicking on my sim, either on her body, her info, or the mailbox.  What am I missing?  I've never used TestingCheats before in any of the games; I've used most of the other cheats but I never bothered with that one.  

I'm afraid that most of my simming before involved a lot of Awesomeware to get things working, and that often enabled me to bypass the annoyances.  

Testingcheatsenabled true. Then hold down the Shift key and click on the sim.

The Shift key!  Ahah!  That worked.  I tried the control key, but not the shift key.  Hmmmm... What else can I do with this?  What can I explode? 

[fiberglassdolphin]

This game is a bummer. I started out excited for it, and I became more and more turned off as I learned more about it. It's like everything else in life, I guess. First, I learn that the neighborhood is fixed and unalterable (an inexcusable step back to The Sims original), and then I discover that all of the returning premade families promised by The Sims wiki are hoaxes (I know it's stupid to trust a wiki with no sources whatsoever, but it all seemed so plausible. Yeah, I get attached to premade Sims. Why is the minor character Kaylynn Langerak returning but not the Pleasants?), and to top it all off, there are no Spode-damn pianos! I also wanted my first family to make oreo babies!

The thing that'll drive the nail into the coffin for me is the lack of potential for custom content. Will CC creators be able to put mods, textures, and meshes into neat little package files?

I agree that someone (probably not Blizzard) needs to knock EA off of their throne in the people simulator department. After a decade of nothing but crappy linear imitations that do not even remotely match The Sims in greatness, it's about time. I definitely want a rating over teen so we can drink something other than club soda at bars. I can imagine the perfect game: it would have midgets, military career characters coming home with missing limbs, dangerously thin and immobile 1,000+ lb. obese characters, the option for gay teens to come out to their parents, their parents' option to yell at them and kick them out of the house if they have the "Born-Again" trait, and if the dad gets to the top of the evangelical career, he gets the option to snort coke off a hooker's ass.

[Solowren]

he gets the option to snort coke off a hooker's ass.

Okay, I lol'd.

[Blaise]

To people saying about how parts of the game seems like WoW etc with the buffs . I guess this could be due to the fact that Rod Humble's last job before this was on Everquest . No doubt he got the ideas there and thought they would fit in well in The Sims . Maybe that's also why the game now seems more of a levelling grind than an open-ended toy .

From this interview:

Fargo: No more stat bars? It's all done through the "wants" system now, similar to the Sims 2 system of wants and fears?

Humble: Yeah but it's kind of deeper now. You can have as many [wants] as you want, they compress down there. [The new system] is similar to buffs in role-playing games. You can tell exactly what your sim is thinking. So, if your sim is crying, then there'll be a little thing that says, "I'm crying because I was in the rain, and I'm cold." And you can say, "Oh, now I get it." Or "I'm crying because my best friend isn't my friend anymore." These things add up, and it's this nice little look into their metaphysical life.

From this interview:

With Will Wright having stepped back from The Sims to concentrate on Spore, it's clear that Rod Humble's MMO past has encouraged him to move The Sims away from its simulation background towards a gameplay experience which will appeal more to existing gamers - while The Sims 3's increased sophistication and depth will excite current fans who would not otherwise characterise themselves as gamers.

So yeah, Rod Humble's MMO background has royally f'ed my Sims toy.

Edit: Fixing Links

[cynconzola]

Maybe some of the fans should give it a go - do a write-up and contact Blizzard [or another company that has decent customer service] and code a sim-type game that is good.  I don't mind shelling out money for something that I like and that isn't designed to screw me over.


Actually, I did write a letter to the dev's of Aion asking them to consider making a sims type of game.  After which, I posted said letter on the bbs. I figured since EA wasn't "getting" what we wanted, if I wrote to the other company who was making the characters look and move the way I'd like to see our sims look and move, maybe my letter would inspire someone...but of course it fell flat.

cyn

[TashaYarrr]

Well, hell. I had no idea Rod Humble's background was MMO before I wrote my WoW-Sims diatribe a few pages back. (Weird, I played EQ and I don't remember that guy's name. Presumably wasn't one of the major players, at least not for EQ1.)

So yeah: Sims as RPG = fail.

Then again, if a lot of these people who buy the game have never actually played an RPG, they'll probably think that collecting rocks is the coolest thing since sliced bread. Whether they'll stay long enough to buy the next xpac remains to be seen.

[MaryH]

Actually, I did write a letter to the dev's of Aion asking them to consider making a sims type of game.  After which, I posted said letter on the bbs. I figured since EA wasn't "getting" what we wanted, if I wrote to the other company who was making the characters look and move the way I'd like to see our sims look and move, maybe my letter would inspire someone...but of course it fell flat.

No reputable gaming company is going to even attempt to infringe the trademark of EA's Sims series. That would be not only actionable (unlike the coding stuff we've been hammering on about) but it would mean major lawsuits.

That kind of stuff can land a company in two types of court-trademark and bankruptcy. It's not even close-you don't fuck with someone's trademark or registered game. That's definitely a real big no-no in business.

[Marhis]

Oh crap. Now I know why this game is giving me a slight feeling of a MUD-like gameplay. And since now I was telling myself: "Don't be silly, you're only obsessed by MUDs, you're seeing them everywhere, this is a single-player game..." and so on.
In the end, I'm not insane that much, after all.

[cynconzola]

Actually, I did write a letter to the dev's of Aion asking them to consider making a sims type of game.  After which, I posted said letter on the bbs. I figured since EA wasn't "getting" what we wanted, if I wrote to the other company who was making the characters look and move the way I'd like to see our sims look and move, maybe my letter would inspire someone...but of course it fell flat.

No reputable gaming company is going to even attempt to infringe the trademark of EA's Sims series. That would be not only actionable (unlike the coding stuff we've been hammering on about) but it would mean major lawsuits.

That kind of stuff can land a company in two types of court-trademark and bankruptcy. It's not even close-you don't fuck with someone's trademark or registered game. That's definitely a real big no-no in business.

Nobody said anything about infringment. EA does not hold the trademark for the human race simulation genre.  Besides legal minds disagree everyday on any given issue, that's why they get the big bucks, and that's why companies pay big retainer fees, to convince a judge that their interpation of the lw is the correct on.

cyn

[Whylorinda]

Has anyone looked into adoption at all? Specifically, I was wondering if you could put your own sims at the front of the adoption pool by having them taken by the social worker, like in TS2. Thanks.

I have only seen it once but I don't think it works like that anymore. Last night I was playing a family that had twin toddlers, and they were taken by the social worker. I wanted them back as they were spawn of the fireman and I wanted to test the pyromaniac trait. I switched houses and had a neighbor try to adopt, she got a new toddler girl.  I was looking through the hood and saw one of them through the neighbors window, I found the other one at another neighbors house. I cheated to get them back, all their relationships are the same, but I seemed to have borked them because they can't be aged up with the cake, only with testingcheats.

Oh, that's too bad. Thanks for the info, though.