Objects I miss

[J. M. Pescado]

Gosh, I also miss that convenient Elixer of Life.  Ambrosia is just not the same thing at all.  Anyone and everyone could easily earn enough asperation pts to buy a jug of the Elixer; you need Maxed Cooking, Fishing, and Gardening to make Ambrosia.  It's probably pretty much impossible on the shorter lifespans to ever actually assemble the ingredients unless you use some hack that allows Deathfish and Lifefruit to be sold at the store.

That is sort of the point.

[Gastfyr]

Gosh, I also miss that convenient Elixer of Life.  Ambrosia is just not the same thing at all.  Anyone and everyone could easily earn enough asperation pts to buy a jug of the Elixer; you need Maxed Cooking, Fishing, and Gardening to make Ambrosia.  It's probably pretty much impossible on the shorter lifespans to ever actually assemble the ingredients unless you use some hack that allows Deathfish and Lifefruit to be sold at the store.

That is sort of the point.

Yeah, I know.  TS2 was too easy.  But it was quite a jarring change for me until I realize we can just change thier lifespans to whatever (very long) lifespan we want, and now I don't worry about it.  Just feeling a little nostalgic for those easy days of TS2.   

[Heli]

you need Maxed Cooking, Fishing, and Gardening to make Ambrosia.

you can steal the Life Fruit in other Sim Garden.

[Faded]

I miss creating my own custom neighborhoods, more than anything else.

Who's to say, there might be a way regular users can, I have yet to see a hack/mod allowing it.

[Gastfyr]

you need Maxed Cooking, Fishing, and Gardening to make Ambrosia.

you can steal the Life Fruit in other Sim Garden.

That is true, but of course that means you must already have another sim in the neighbourhood who has planted and grown Life Fruit.

And yes, I too very very much miss being able to make my own custom hoods.

[Faded]

you need Maxed Cooking, Fishing, and Gardening to make Ambrosia.

you can steal the Life Fruit in other Sim Garden.

That is true, but of course that means you must already have another sim in the neighbourhood who has planted and grown Life Fruit.

And yes, I too very very much miss being able to make my own custom hoods.

Every time I see "Life Fruit", I think of different little things that happened to me in World of Warcraft when I was out picking herbs. In WoW there's a plant called Liferoot. I had friends refer to it sometimes as "Life fruit" or "life-froot" time to time jokingly (long before Sims 3 was conceived of course). Amusingly, it was a plant hard to find sometimes when you were really needing it.

More about the custom neighborhoods, I have heard other people (and EA) pimp the design over its flaws by just saying that it would be "hard" or impossible to allow that because of the streaming, seamless design of the neighborhoods. To me, maybe I'm just grouchy but this sounds a little like lazy design. I'm not a programmer (and will not become one), but I digress.
 It was *possible* for the designers to implement a way for normal users to make seamless custom neighborhoods, they just didn't do it -- perhaps to wait to add something like that in an expansion pack. They are ALREADY working on an expansion pack for Sims 3 now, which sounds relatively fun. (Adventuring in Sims 3? Humm!)

I miss interactions in restaurants, too. It sounds wrong, but I miss taking a bad sim and making them wet themselves in the middle of the dining area.  

Edit!

Not an object, but I miss songs in simlish. It's jarring to me that when I get near a stereo, "I love LA" or "Don't worry 'bout the government" comes blaring out.

Oh my gosh, do I miss this too. Were they unable to get people to make new simlish songs for this game? Also I find myself missing the music from the original Sims game and its expansions. Especially the weird elevator-type music. It had a "fun" quality to it. Kind of a bummer they just threw in a few bad songs from some designer's kid's iPod into TS3, but you can still add your own collection, which makes up for it.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well,to some extent, this is true: The entire neighborhood terrain is actually a giant 3D mesh, and the radar view is made out of a prepainted overlay, and isn't actually rendered. To add a lot involves blasting a hole through the terrain mesh and defining it, so, while not possible, it is not as trivial as it sounds and it seems unlikely that it can be performed dynamically in-play. Whether it was asinine to even adopt such a design or not, that is a different question.

[Faded]

Well,to some extent, this is true: The entire neighborhood terrain is actually a giant 3D mesh, and the radar view is made out of a prepainted overlay, and isn't actually rendered. To add a lot involves blasting a hole through the terrain mesh and defining it, so, while not possible, it is not as trivial as it sounds and it seems unlikely that it can be performed dynamically in-play. Whether it was asinine to even adopt such a design or not, that is a different question.

This is a very good point.
As for myself, I think it was sort of strange to adopt that sort of design. I'm sure there were other ways to get their goal for that, than what they used.

[chaos]

I don't mind not being able to physically change the shape of the towns, but I'd at least like different terrain types (desert, concrete, etc), and the ability to add and remove neighborhood decorations. I really don't think that that's too much to ask.

[fiberglassdolphin]

Does this mean that anyone hoping for custom neighborhoods can abandon all hope? This was going to be the ultimate deciding factor for me in purchasing future expansion packs.

I'm certain that they could have made neighborhoods customizable even with the lack of borders, but they designed the system stupidly and lazily, sacrificing user customization for superficially pleasing curvy roads. Making these neighborhoods customizable would require a lot of effort; it isn't worth the effort because they figure most players won't give a crap, and they are probably right, so go them!

I think I'm getting it through my thick skull that complaining to/about a large company makes about as much of a difference as voting.

[kazebird]

I think I'm getting it through my thick skull that complaining to/about a large company makes about as much of a difference as voting.

Well, if everyone had that attitude, we would have McCain for president.

No matter how small, any action changes the future.

[Faded]

I think I'm getting it through my thick skull that complaining to/about a large company makes about as much of a difference as voting.

Well, if everyone had that attitude, we would have McCain for president.

No matter how small, any action changes the future.

This. <3

Also, I have faith in the Sims modding community, there's some pretty crafty modders, so who's to say someone won't come up with some crazy way to make a Sunset Valley/Riverview town to be desert or concrete in the near future?

[kuronue]

Well,to some extent, this is true: The entire neighborhood terrain is actually a giant 3D mesh, and the radar view is made out of a prepainted overlay, and isn't actually rendered. To add a lot involves blasting a hole through the terrain mesh and defining it, so, while not possible, it is not as trivial as it sounds and it seems unlikely that it can be performed dynamically in-play. Whether it was asinine to even adopt such a design or not, that is a different question.

It occurs to me - how are lot boundaries decided? Using that method, wouldn't it make sense to define lots as subsets of the terrain via coordinates, in which case, redefining the coordinates results in resized lots, creating space to define a new lot in the unused space? 'course, this being EA they probably have some ridiculous method instead, but....

[Sam the Limey]

I remember, years ago, that I had a hacked item for TS1 that was essentially a bowl of pills. Visitors to the house would gravitate toward it and it would spawn some kind of weird behaviour (or kill them) after each time they took one. Hours of neighbour-terrorising fun.

[blackgryffin]

I miss so much the SimsCutie Espresso ... Gosh, these Sims 3 take SO MUCH time eating and everything related to  !!! 

[That Eighties Guy]

I miss so much the SimsCutie Espresso ... Gosh, these Sims 3 take SO MUCH time eating and everything related to  !!! 

My sims eats up before his wife can even SIT DOWN.
Only thing that takes long is making the dinner (Which IMO takes forever)

[chaos]

There are mods for that, in the Pudding Factory, as well as at MTS. One is for faster cooking with slower eating, and one is for faster cooking and eating, both. Personally, I use the latter. My sims need to go to work - no time for food! *chaos cracks her whip

[chann]

I'm certain that they could have made neighborhoods customizable even with the lack of borders, but they designed the system stupidly and lazily, sacrificing user customization for superficially pleasing curvy roads. Making these neighborhoods customizable would require a lot of effort; it isn't worth the effort because they figure most players won't give a crap, and they are probably right, so go them!

I can't see why the default towns would not be editable if we had that custom hood tool. Unless they've put some special encryption on the default .world files, which would obviously be retarded, because they're already impossible for users to even edit at the moment.

[kuronue]

Only thing that takes long is making the dinner (Which IMO takes forever)

I timed it - a sim was cooking pancakes when the 1-hour-till-school timer went off. She flipped the damn pancakes for ONE AND A HALF HOURS, causing her to not get a chance to eat AND be late for the damn bus.

[aspinL]

Only thing that takes long is making the dinner (Which IMO takes forever)

I timed it - a sim was cooking pancakes when the 1-hour-till-school timer went off. She flipped the damn pancakes for ONE AND A HALF HOURS, causing her to not get a chance to eat AND be late for the damn bus.

Honestly, forget having a "family" dinner. I try to just get them all to sit at the table and talk, but someone always has to get up. And they still don't talk... .
And what I miss the most is the "Open for Business" expansion pack. I loved having a business and having to develop a strategy to maintane your employees. I even made an enormous Ikea once. Every room was one buy mode item, like ceiling lights, then floor lamps, etc.  (this topic needs some sullen music)

[That Eighties Guy]

Oh, yeah. Open For Business was so tedious and so boring, but it was damn well one of the best expansions.

[Bouncing Pink Ball]

I miss vampires...
And weather.

As far as objects go, the social ones, like pool tables and cards, are obvious. I also used the hobby and Freetime items a ton; many of my sims were into pottery and kicking balls around. Not having instruments for the kids also bothers me, as that was one skill I liked giving them a head start on.

Once I create the families, build and decorate them a house and get rolling with the game I get bored very quickly. I need as many objects and interactions as I can find just to keep me interested after a few days of those tedious bathe-school-work-skill-sleep simlives. The base game - especially with all these rabbitholes - is kind of dull after a while, for me anyway.

[aspinL]

Yes I'm constantly wishing I had a ton of snow in front of my sim's house and a frozen lake too. And especially vampires.
 I made a zombie in sims 2 once. Well twice, once I used a perfume hack. And another I was playing university and that annoying cheerleader kept stopping by my dorm every day chanting. I keep my sound on so- I can now, in real life, cheer the same cheer, (words and all) for anybody who's listening. Anyways I put her a an empty room, started a fire, and she died. It was a blissful moment, but then I decided to make a zombie so I resurrected her halfway and poof she was this urplish colored, leg dragging, grunting sim cheerleader.

And not to state the obvious but I really miss all my cc. Mostly that I had pages and pages of hair, and tons of makeup, and clothes. I even had almost all the different "mermaid outfits" (I went through a mermaid addiction).

[Georgette]

Zombies and Vampires are much more fun when you install the "deadly neck bite" and "zombie apocalypse" hacks. I really enjoyed watching my neighborhood getting picked off and resulting to defense using the AK47 from SimWardrobe. The sims 3 needs paranormal creatures. Bad Mr Humble, bad!

[aspinL]

Oh wow, I never really looked at a lot of the sims 2 hacks, but I wish I would've. That's awesome, reminds of Resident Evil . And they really do need paranormal creatures, like pet faeries or something. In sims 1 there was a sea serpent that came out of the winding river every once in a while.
I can't believe I forgot, but sims 1 Makin' Magic expansion was by far my favorite game out of all three. Especially the bazaar where you could give magic shows and would have to barter for spell ingredients and such. The sims 2 Magic expansion was okay. You couldn't go the magic side of town or any of that  . I loved though that your top witch sparkled, and had sparkly skin.