The Sims 3 Well it might just be imaginary, but there is some mention of it on the grapevine and most guesses point to a minimum 18 month wait before it escapes anyway. But I open this thread to ask how people feel about the idea of TS3. Questions to consider include: What aspects of TS2 need changing or improving to make the upgrade to TS3 work for you? What new features do you consider essential for TS3 to be a significant advance over previous genres? Do the other Maxis/EA simming games, in your opinion, enhance or dilute the essence and quality of The Sims franchise (we're talking Sim City, Spore, etc.). My feelings are this. Spore looks set to be the flop of Millennium. It appears, to me, to be trying to be all things to all people and that is strategy that is usually doomed to fail. I started feeling that Spore was off its rails as soon as read that evolutionary advances were to be purchased with points earned (by eating and stuff). Gimme a break. This is a cheap knock off of a time-waster game found on the average cell phone. Onwards and upwards ... each phase is just a pale imitation of similar and far better games dedicated to the single phase. (Populous, Civilization, Age of Empires, and ... whatever's currently hot in galactic conquest games these days). Spore seeks to join several franchises into one game. This seems to me to be a bad idea. Better by far to create awesome top-notch games that sate a player's desire for detail. But what might be even better is to create a family of games that tie to each other. And I don't mean like TS2 uses SC4 terrains (and that SC4 imports TS1 sims ... to no significant purpose IMHO ... move Bella Goth into your city and yeah, you get little news flashes that she's studying at the library and plans to stop flipping burgers for a living -- even though she works at an insurance office -- or that she thinks the hood could do with a fire station. Pfah. You get that info anyway.) I think that TS3 should include the facility to utilise terrains made with a a number of different EA products. SC4 and SCS at least. Moreover TS3 should include the ability to import TS2 sims and lots. There must be a robust hack removal element to the importation and the import of sims would be regarded (by me) as a failure if the imported sims arrived with loss of family relationships, skills and memories. They should import as new immigrants to the neighborhood, knowing and loving each other as appropriate ... and knowing such other TS2 imports as they knew when they were were in TS2 together. If the Maxoid geeks can't do that they should hold off until they can. TS3 needs a whole new animation scheme. One that, perhaps, borrows from the supposedly brilliant intelligent automation scheme of Spore. We will no longer be prepared to sit around watching a sim stand still in room A waiting for sim in room B to stand up before the waiting sim decides to plod, slowly from A to B to tell a joke. All such stupidness should be eliminated. Sims should sit in a chair from the most convenient starting position ... not be forced to go through a silly ballet of moves to get to "start to sit down position". Mostly (I'm sure I speak for all) we want to see TS3 borrow from Spore's creature design features. Clothing meshes should be customizable with a simple in-game tool. Parts should be draggable -- in/out/up/down -- and the result saved as a new design for in-game usage. Also attention needs to be paid to adding a token element of gravity to clothing. Some items (long skirts for example, should swing ... and should not balloon up like a crinoline when the girl sits down ... I can't even let my male sims wear kilts ... there be nothing to see but my imagination is easily shocked ) OK. Over to you lot. Let's have your ideas. Preferably not the old war-horses of "going to work with my simmy" and "ridable ponies" and "drivable cars". What aspects of the game-play do you find aggravating or frustrating. What technical improvements need to added before a 3rd incarnation of the franchise would work as a serious upgrade for you. Forget features, like pets and vacuum cleaners, those are details and hackers and modders can supply all the forgotten bits and bobs anyway.
Besides the building tools for housing, what I've enjoyed most about the sims in Sims2 is the hint of personality that they have. I would like to see more variation in the personalities and how they can relate to each other. Sometimes they surprise me now, but not often. Too predictable. And Maxis/EA can get a little too caught up in the "humor" , as in Santa needing to use the bathroom, and some other things like that. It gets old. The potential for learning from things that happen to them, for making some kind of use of their memories, seems hardly touched. It would be fascinating. For goodness sake, the internet explorer software makes more use of stored information than the sims do. I'll probably think of other stuff later.
:rotfl: Such an excellent point, Lynet. And the point about funny once or twice stuff getting old real fast is something that Maxis needs to sit up and pay attention to.
I think I will have to talk my hubby into a dedicated computer for sims 3... My load times to play ts2 are so slow now it's becoming frustrating to play. I think more thought is needed in creating user-friendly tools to individualize your sims is needed. IE a mix and match system would help the simPE illiterate among us. you could have multiple different lengths and styles of skirt and pants available, different styles of shoes and boots, different kinds of tops and layers, and accessories. add color and patterns and there you go... it could work somewhat like choosing hair color, style, and other genetics work now. The same could work for the interior/exterior design crafting. and yes, I agree that more emotional options are needed... how about the very occasional falling in love with your total opposite sim. and sims that don't always do what you want them to do...
They say life's gonna teach you a lesson (or two)..So I learned...and I just know I won't go anywhere near Sims 3 until I'm absolutely sure, that all my life savers like Inge, Quaxi or J.M etc.(just to name a few) are there to unscrew EAxi's mess ups. -le
I realise there is a hack for this (or at least, I think there is) but I would like the sims to stop screaming at me when they have to pee or go to sleep. I'm not blind, I can see what their needs are. And if I don't notice that their needs have depleted so far down that they're going to wet themselves or pass out, well that's part of the game. It's my fault, I should suffer the consequences. All that screaming and waving hands interrupts my game play. I'd like to see Sims of different heights, although I don't know if that's possible. Women shouldn't be as tall as men, it looks weird and unrealistic. Even if they just had two standard heights I'd be happy. Hmmm...can't think of anything else right now. Oh wait, yes I can...if they decide to add a university element to the 3rd version of the game...please oh PLEASE don't make time there so freaking long. Or at least let the sims get a job and keep the money they earn. Cass.
That is so true. My sims usually stop, stamp their feet and yell at me even when I've clicked for them to use the toilet. It's rather annoying... I find myself constantly muttering, "Just use the darn toilet, you silly thing!" What I hate the most of all is when you've told a sim to cook something because they are starving and the sim interupts the cooking to yell at me and tell me that they are hungry. (sarcastic) Naah, I just told you to do the cooking because I thought it would be fun to look at... :sigh: Honestly. The height thing is something that I've also thought about. I don't like the way that my sim women usually look a tiny bit taller than my men because of the ridiculously high heels I've got them wearing. It's annoying to look at. I noticed that in the poll most people want the animation to be better... Well, personally I think that the animations are good. Of course they could be better, but I like my sim's unnecessary movements because that's what makes them so simmy.
One of the things I would regard as essential would be an entirely new and much more sensibly logical set of interaction priorities. For example order an adult to put a toddler to bed should not fail if the toddler is playing with a toy. Especially if the parent is not actually in the same room as the toddler. It should be more sensible for there to be a hierarchy of breakable actions and, even better, a personality trait of will or willfulness, so that the breakability of actions varies from sim to sim. Most important, sims must not be passive pawns. When ordered to to something (that is not absolutely impossible such as enter a room which has no door) they should at least appear to try. Examples of trying might include tugging at a recalcitrant toddler, trying to interrupt a conversation, trying to shoulder another sim out of the way.
@Cassiepeia: you might want to try Pescado's "less whiny" hack. It doesn't completely get rid of the whining but at least keep the sims from whining about stupid stuff. I believe, the difference in height is possible...but it comes with a price Since the skeleton-stretch-cheat is kind a useless (it changes all sims and you have the same height for all again) you would need to alter the default meshes (e.g for all females) and all the clothes for that group...even every customized skintones you're using on them. I just assume that this workload is the reason why (to my knowledge) nobody ever attempted this task. -le
You would also need to remake all animations as kissing would look sort of odd if the participating lips were on different levels ... I'm gonna quit now before I get smutty ...
I agree that it would be nice to be done with some of the whining (a little whining seems realistic) and that two sims engaged in different activities didn't have to wait until both were finished to interact. There should be a 'seniority' power of some kind to make younger sims take notice. (Now that I'm one of the older crowd...) I would love to see more unexpected and spontaneous interaction. For instance, when other sims come by the lot and pointedly stand around waiting to be noticed, I'd like my sims to notice them! I'd like a girl longing for her first kiss to just up and kiss someone, already! I wish the fun magnets on certain objects that I like to have around (the party game, the swing set) were set a little lower; party guests and relatives always end up disappearing to go swing a while... wait, maybe that came out wrong...
I'd like to see more realistic genetics. I'd also like to see different animations for different sims based more on their personality type and the situation they are in. Now everyone makes out the exact same, they all have the same moves etc. Also fix things like I have a house, maxis made, that they walk through the bathroom and the second bedroom to go to the living room every time unless someone is standing in the way. If they can't go through the bathroom they will take the short cut and go from the main bedroom into the living room. With the short route they go through one door to the living room. But the way they always want to go is through two rooms and three doors! It would be great if they could "see" their environment better. For example I have sims looking through walls to admire the weather change or looking like they are looking through a window even when they are outside.
There must be one more option: I will buy The Sims 3 if and only if it is developed by Maxis. There were rumors floating around saying that: Full article at http://pc.ign.com/articles/682/682828p1.html Therefore... I will buy The Sims 3 if and only if it is developed by Maxis. -John
Then I'll add my suggestion to that too - I will buy The Sims 3 if, and only if, it is developed by Maxis AND is SecuROM-free.
I'd like to have more building features, like curved walls. I definitely want a better roofing tool. I'd like the option to just select a pattern from your computer and add a separate (kick) molding to it, stuff like that. That way, you need less walls and you can create more combinations. I know this is possible. I use 3D and CAD programs where you can load in textures. They just need to add it to TS3. Other than building features, I'd like more options to create a Sim. I want to be able to customize a mesh in-game. Like in Spore, where you can play with the shapes of a creature. Not only should you be able to make a Sim thinner or "bigger", you should also be able to stretch or shorten hair. I would be nice if we could choose the height of our Simmies too. Hmm, more age stages. I am currently missing a few stages. Between adult and elder for example. Also, it would be nice if we could see adults change into seniors slowly. And one of the things that bother me are the hairstyles that turn from a pretty, vital color into a gray one, no fading in between. I hate that. Latest 'feature' I'd like to have in TS3 is the way you can create your own furniture completely, like they did in MySims on Wii, but better. in MySims, you can take a few blocks and textures and make an object out of that. They could do the same for TS3. All different kinds of small parts that can be used to create an unique object. Stuff like that. Customizing Sims completely. And their homes and furniture too, of course. That's what I expect them (Maxis) to add to TS3. I will not be happy with any less. But I will buy it no matter what. If only for my collection of Sim games.
