Objects I miss

[Gus Smedstad]

• A cheap shower tub.  Instead we get we get 2 showers, 4 tubs, and one really expensive showertub.  How many tubs have you encountered in real life that didn't have some dinky showerhead and cheap curtain?  EAxis's priorities are screwed as usual, since showers are more functional than tubs in the game.  Yes, tubs can eliminate the Stressed moodlet and can give +10 mood from the Ducky, but usually the time required isn't worth it.
• Recessed lights.  Or a basic ceiling dome light.  None of the ceiling lights are appropriate for most rooms, instead they all hang down fairly significantly.  Purely aesthetic, of course, but annoying.
• The piano.  Seriously, who plays guitar in an orchestra?
• The changing table.  I don't like how trivial diaper changing is now.  It's so fast and trouble free you might as well change the larva's diaper every time you pick it up.  It also means we have even less reason to buy tubs, since they're no longer required for scrubbing larvae.

 - Gus

[cwieberdink]

I miss actual BABIES!  I had pics of all my sims giving their babies their first bath.  It was really cute.  I know that Pescado is going to stomp me for saying this, but I liked it.

And it's not an object, but I miss sit down/family meals.  Everything else they do SO SLOW, but eating they snarf in moments before their family can even make it to the table to sit down and eat.

[sewinglady]

don't know what I'm doing wrong, but most of my sims are spending a lot of time in the kitchen so the eating meals together thing isn't that hard (and don't we all spend lots of time in our kitchens).

a hearty hear-hear for the lack of cheap shower/tub combo.

I want a toaster, er a toaster oven - but well something else for them to cook those fricken' waffles in besides the oven.

And I, too, really miss the piano. But, I also remember that the code for the piano was something that was broken every time a new EP was released... maybe they gave up?

[Gus Smedstad]

I suppose we should be grateful that the guitar isn't the flypaper that the older musical instruments were.  I stopped buying most of them in TS2 because guests would beeline for them and then play until they got too tired, hungry, or had to pee, and leave.

 - Gus

[MasterDinadan]

I miss actual BABIES!  I had pics of all my sims giving their babies their first bath.  It was really cute.  I know that Pescado is going to stomp me for saying this, but I liked it.

And it's not an object, but I miss sit down/family meals.  Everything else they do SO SLOW, but eating they snarf in moments before their family can even make it to the table to sit down and eat.

I have to say I agree.  Part of the problem is that the Sims no longer actually SERVE the meal by setting out a plate for everyone in the house.  They have to serve themselves.  The fact that the sims actually EAT instead of blabbing to each other is an improvement, since (without pescado's mod) group meals took FOREVER in Sims 2.

However, they could have done something cool with this -- perhaps have an OPTION for family meals, where everyone will wait for the family to sit before they start eating.  To make it appealing, they could give you a moodlet, particularly for family-oriented sims.  This actually makes sense.

[Slymenstra]

I miss a lot of objects too, but the things I miss the most are a lot of the social interactions.  By the end of Sims 2 expansions there were a lot of interactions.  If I don't cheat, my Sim's children all barely even know each other.

Objects I miss, the hot tub, diving board, shelves and all my decorations!

[Georgette]

  No diving board, piano or baby bathing? That's kinda dissapointing  I don't have my game yet (comes in a few days from Amazon). I wonder what else will be missing...

[rosess]

The objects themselves aren't as big a deal for me as other things I miss.  I wish the influence system had been enhanced rather than dropped.  The only way to get other sims to interact with each other seems to be to invite one of them to join a conversation, which doesn't seem to function very well.  Arranging group activities doesn't do much - I switched households to follow a daughter's family, and even though Mom had just picked up a romantic interest, getting them in the same room never spurred any type of interaction whatsoever.

Playing one family through generations works for me, but what good are townspeople if you can't manipulate them and bend the entire town to your will?  Shouldn't the point of a seamless neighborhood be to affect what happens in the neighborhood?  If the game is going to be more goal-oriented, my goal is to start a neighborhood WOAR... with actual WOAR, plus WINNING.  

My sims also miss building shrines to themselves.  I used to purchase a community lot, bring all the family portraits there, and either pass it down to the next generation or create a family of Servo caretakers.  Everyone would "gift" their paintings, and every so often I'd switch to the caretaker household for setup.  Now, the paintings can still be passed on, but it's a pain to move them from house to house.  Maybe the designated heir has to move into the founder-ghost's place once a generation for an inventory transfer... hmm, that might work.

I also haven't figured out how to establish an underground with SEKRIT LEET training facilities like I had in Part Deux with a core group of sims enticed into back rooms for poker and counterfeiting, though admittedly that functionality was due to Inge's key set, not the game itself.  Setting up a household for the purpose might serve for training, but the membership aspect is still missing.

[Zazazu]

A cheap shower tub.  Instead we get we get 2 showers, 4 tubs, and one really expensive showertub.  How many tubs have you encountered in real life that didn't have some dinky showerhead and cheap curtain?  EAxis's priorities are screwed as usual, since showers are more functional than tubs in the game.  Yes, tubs can eliminate the Stressed moodlet and can give +10 mood from the Ducky, but usually the time required isn't worth it.

Tubs do not get you clean. You are bathing in your own filth.

Recessed lights.  Or a basic ceiling dome light.  None of the ceiling lights are appropriate for most rooms, instead they all hang down fairly significantly.  Purely aesthetic, of course, but annoying.

Yes please. The light I most used in TS2 was a custom item, a recessed microlight. Second most used was also custom and was a wall light that hovered at about mid-calf height.

The piano.  Seriously, who plays guitar in an orchestra?

Didn't base game TS2 give us piano, guitar, and bass? Or was the guitar and bass included in Uni? I can kind of understand why they gave us a guitar if they were only going to give us one instrument (portable, true busking). The music quality is fantastic. But yeah, I'd love to see the piano back, plus a violin, drum set, and sing-a-long boom box. Most buskers here in Chicago are singers, drummers, or on violin.

The changing table.  I don't like how trivial diaper changing is now.  It's so fast and trouble free you might as well change the larva's diaper every time you pick it up.  It also means we have even less reason to buy tubs, since they're no longer required for scrubbing larvae.

I do not get this no-bathing thing. Imagine not bathing a real toddler for seven days. It's not pleasant. Heck, two days isn't pleasant.

My personal wish-list (for items):

• Cooperative games. Sims are always wanting to play a game with each other, but catch doesn't count. Unless all parties are teen+, that restricts you to chess only. How many people do you know who play chess? Why can't we have board games, or even Don't Wake the Llama back? Or cards...cards aren't restricted to the gambling type of setup they used in TS2. No Skip-bo, no Uno? No Old Maid or Go Fish? These were staples when I was a kid.
• Better beds. 90% of the beds are Energy 5 or under. Uh, why?
• Shelves. Collectibles = shelves. Why have we no shelves?
• Half-walls. They are such a big part of how I design and delineate space that their absence is almost painful.
• Recolorable fencing/stairs/roofs. This is nothing but an intentional oversight on EA's part.

[Xuriel]

What about cheap coffee pots? We get two expensive espresso machines but no bargain store versions? Unless they are one of those things that will eventually pop up in the $ims $tore...

[Marq]

I completely agree!  What were EAxis thinking when they choose the items they put in the game?  It's not like it would've been hard to include the cheaper shower tub, lights, etc, etc.  They recycled so many other things from TS2 why not more of the useful stuff for middle class sims?

I really wish there was:

• A better selection of meshes for clothes/hair and a better selection for make-up.  I know that EAsxis has never been good at making make-up but all they had to do this time was mock-up where the crap goes.
• Stages.  Most of what I used TS2 for was building.  Not having stages is killing me.
• Cheap looking pillars.  Yea, sounds kinda weird but the cheapest pillar looks too nice, IMO.  What if I want to make a run-down house?
• Optional Cell phones!  One thing that drives me crazy is when my sims out on the town and they keep getting harassed by callers.
• Some kind of influence system.  I used to have friend slaves to do all of my sims chores for them.  Now their forced to do everything themselves unless the cleaner is living with them.  (I do think it's kinda cool that you can ask sims that live with you to "take out the trash" or clean around the house.)
• Some place to do a public woohoo!
• Sims with wants of interacting with other sims.  While I get wants to invite so-and-so over or kiss so-and-so I miss the wants you could get in TS2.  I had a sim once wish to fall in love with someone when she first met him without checking him out first or anything.  I miss the want to woohoo (I still haven't seen it).

[Gus Smedstad]

Video games count for "play game."  I use that fairly often because it satisfies the Wish immediately, you can fit at least 4 Sims into one game, and Sims will play from any nearby location, even if the chair doesn't quite face the TV.  However, if they're going to put "play a game" Wishes in, more activities should qualify.

You're right that all the various collectibles demand a display system.  Beyond tucking them on top of dressers, anyway.

I'm OK with much of the stuff they left out, since much of it showed up in expansions.  It's the basic stuff that bothers me.

And you're very right about stairs, fences, and roofs - if everything else can be re-textured, why not those?  The stairs in particular scream for it, since the existing color / texture selection isn't very good.

You might be able to get ratty-looking columns by fiddling with textures and colors.  The game lost the "interior unfinished wall" texture I often used for garages, but I was able to make a good substitute by grabbing one of the paneling textures and replacing the fancy wallpaper with flat gray and the pillar color with a wood texture.

 - Gus

[Maximillian]

I direly miss a low-end coffeepot. None of my sims are nearly pretentious to drink a 'Lite Foam Banana Latte' or what have you every morning.

Stages would be nice, as previously mentioned--I have seen some well done bathrooms/bedrooms using those.

I miss photo booths as well. Even a clothing booth would be nice--the utter lack of public woohoo is disappointing.

[Waveblade]

The piano.  Seriously, who plays guitar in an orchestra?

Didn't base game TS2 give us piano, guitar, and bass? Or was the guitar and bass included in Uni? I can kind of understand why they gave us a guitar if they were only going to give us one instrument (portable, true busking). The music quality is fantastic. But yeah, I'd love to see the piano back, plus a violin, drum set, and sing-a-long boom box. Most buskers here in Chicago are singers, drummers, or on violin.

The Piano was base game. The drums, guitar and bass were from University and I think there was a violin in Freetime?

[Captain Swooptie]

I know it sounds silly, but I miss the cheap doors. You know, the ones that were just flat and plain? I used those things all the time.
I also miss the cheap counters. Actually, I just miss a lot of the plain stuff. All those things would mesh nicely with Create-A-Style. I hope that when the bright minds get a hold on object creation that we'll see some straight conversions of some TS2 objects; at least the ones that don't have their own unique animations and such.

[Lonesome Dove]

I miss seasons the most. Rainstorms and snowstorms were such a great break from the always sunny, summertime Sims world. I hope they're just planning to do what they did with Sims 2 and introduce seasons in an EP down the road. Sooner rather than later, please. I also miss the greenhouse walls, doors and roofs. They had great build uses other than just greenhouses. You could do some really creative stuff with them.

I second (or third, or fourth) the demand for a cheap coffemaker. What kind of household doesn't have a $10 coffemaker? Who drinks lattes at 6:30 a.m., let alone banana chocolate frappes or whatever the hell they are?

Half walls, stages and standalone staircases are other wants. And of course, hot tubs.

I see they incorporated the usable diagonal slots on corner counters and multiple slots on surfaces. Once more EA copies the community's brightest ideas and never acknowledges the source.

[LFox]

The things i miss most are seasons and the hot tubs.  I always loved seeing it raining or snowing added some nice realism to the game that was sorely needed.  As for the hot tubs they were a great way to socialize.  Cram 4 people into one and let them bake for a couple hours.

[Ezura]

I miss cribs that actually makes Babies/Toddlers sleep when you put them in, instead of Sims leaving them there for 8+ hours when they are awake and could do things like play.
Why EAxis thought that baby/toddlers only could fall asleep at near fainting when other Sims falls asleep anytime puzzles me.

I really miss group-activity objects like Hot Tubs, Dart Boards, Bubble-Blower, Poker Table, "Bingo Box" (don't remember it's name), bowling alley e.t.c where Sims would talk to each other while doing stuff.
There are so few group activities in Sims 3, I had a party at the beach for one of my Sims for a job opportunity and realized there wasn't much to do at it, you just talk, talk, talk, talk...
Guest: I had a blast!
Me: I'm bored!
I miss the volleyball net from Sims 1, it would have been a blast at the beach party, but the only thing you could do there was talk or make drinks.

I like for my Sims to do some group activities together even if it means they won't skill up - like the Doll House.
Block Table gives some mechanical skills for children, but I still use it afterward because it looks like they have fun playing and socialize with other kids playing too.
But adults just do boring things like dance badly together, watch TV, play video games and watch people play guitar.
Staying friends with other people is just click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click+click... the game constantly lets me know I'm not friends with people anymore.
I've stopped caring about getting friends, visiting other Sims are equally boring (they don't have any fun objects to use), so the only friends my Sims have are through work where they get friends automatically.

I want Sims to be able to have fun without me having to decide everything, that's why group activity objects were so great for gaining friends in Sims 1+2.
I guess rabbit holes will fix that in expansionpacks, where they add a nightclub and you can choose "Play poker" and you pretend your Sim is playing...

They also destroyed weddings.
Even in base game Sims 2 there were arch, the wedding cake, the champagne bottle...
I usually hate Sims parties with a passion, but weddings always felt special in Sims 2, so I would throw a party anyway.
Here they just exchange rings and - voila - don't blink because you might miss that you had the most important day of your life.
There's no difference between private and public weddings, if guests would bring me wedding gifts, then I might consider having public weddings again!

[infamy]

Two-story columns.

Edit: and scary ghosts!

[ZeKat]

The piano, violin would be nice too. Something that children can use.

Shelves! Half-walls. And the stage.

A big aquarium dammit! I refuse to keep 13 fishbowls in my house. I want one big one with room for 10-15 types of fish. Then you'd look more like a fish enthusiast and less like some crazy fish hoarder.

I also want the activity table to have an option to draw. Seriously, the paper is there! Gief painting skill.

[Gimfalisette]

All of the above, plus windows with shutters. There are some architectural looks that just cannot be achieved without shutters. Actually, I mostly hate the selection of windows in the base game, not just for the selection itself, but because they changed the size of some windows from TS2 to TS3: The mission-type rectangular windows most significantly. Whereas they used to be placeable on a wall segment and pretty much fill it side-to-side, they no longer do that. So a wall of windows is only truly achievable if one wants a more modern or high-tech look, not on a house which sports a more traditional (e.g. Victorian or Craftsman) style. They also changed the traditional-style arch (with the multiple glass panes) from two tiles wide to three, a design choice which still leaves me scratching my head.

I love that I can coordinate textures with CAST, however, the underlying architectural styles themselves still need to work together, and I don't find that the base game does that very well. As per usual with EAxis.

[stim]

All of the above, plus windows with shutters.

There are shutters, just not stuck onto the windows themselves.  They're in there somewhere with the decorations in buy mode.  I forget which subcategory and I is too lazy to look.

[Drakron]

Shutters are on the same location as curtains, one of the decoration tabs.

Its a bit easy to miss but they are there.

[Botswana]

The Piano
Hot Tub
Diving Board
Wedding Cake (Why did they take that out?)
Two story windows, doors and columns
Stages! (Why did they take that out?)
Diagonal pools
Wedding Arch
Big Aquariums

[Gimfalisette]

That's what I get for assuming that they should be where they used to be, and/or for not investigating every speck of available decor prior to thinking about building! Thanks, folks. It does make sense for shutters to be a decorative item, but I am also amused by the fact that they must have got that idea after some object modders put out shutter items for TS2.