The Sims 3

Creole_Ned · 2011-09-01T16:44:12.000Z

Nice. Congrats, roBurky!

Cougar · 2011-09-01T17:02:22.000Z

That’s awesome roBurky!

~C~

Athryn · 2011-09-01T17:11:52.000Z

Strato:

What I do in The Sims 3 is to slow the aging of my sims. I think normal speed they become old after a few weeks, whereas I set my gamespeed to the marathon style (I think it is marathon) so that the Sims still get a chance to stuff around, take leave, build up some money and do what they want. The end result is that while they are still youngish, they have plenty more time to reach the top of their career (and the top dollars).

Creole Ned:

Yeah, a recent patch allowed you to extend each part of a Sim’s life further than before so my Sim will remain a young adult awhile longer and hopefully manage a few more pieces of furniture before he hits the retirement home.

Of course, it could be that I’m playing all wrong but for a guy with a mostly unfurnished little dump he seems pretty happy.

There’s actually a nice little mod called Relativity that slows game time down (but makes animations run the same) so you can get more stuff done during the day.

There’s actually a number of core mods at that site that I enjoy using, particularly the Story Progression one, which makes the relationships of the game work better.

And grats on your gig, RoBurky!

Creole_Ned · 2011-09-01T17:58:16.000Z

Hmm, Relativity is tempting, Athryn (as Einstein might say). I’ve never used any Sims mods before but this one may be worth checking out. Thanks for the link!

Calelari · 2011-09-01T19:56:19.000Z

Grats, roBurky!

Do we get a cut? :D

Athryn · 2011-09-22T14:14:31.000Z

So EA released a demo for the Sims Pets today, and it allows you to pre-create pets for the expansion pack. It kinda sounds like the creature creator for Spore, as you can save the pets and post them on the exchange.

Nesrie · 2011-10-14T19:49:33.000Z

The marketing department sure is good over there. I Love that video, omg… Must. Have. Unicorn.

Athryn · 2011-11-02T19:23:10.000Z

Well, I was going to post some in depth thoughts, but since my computer is broken, I can’t play, so you will have to be satisfied with my general impressions.

Sims Pets is pretty great, and they added quite a lot. There’s the playable animals (dog, cat, horse,) and other pets as well, ranging from turtles and gerbils to parrots and hawks.

Dogs and cats (and probably horses) can be trained to pick up certain traits, which is pretty cool. They also have skills they can learn as well, like hunting and racing. Cats can hunt and catch the other small animals, the cat I was playing caught a parakeet.

There are a handful of new lifetime wishes and at least one new career path. There’s also a bunch of new venues and a whole new town map.

If you haven’t played the sims in a while, this might be enough to spice it up.

MrGrumpy · 2011-11-02T23:58:22.000Z

I think they did a great job with the pets. The animations and interactions with dogs and cats is terrific. I really grew enamored with horses and enjoy building up my horse ranch quite a bit. And even though the horse racing is a ‘rabbit’ hole you still have some interaction with it. I’d rate it as one of the better Sims expansions (for any flavor of Sims, not just III.)

jpinard · 2011-11-03T09:57:38.000Z

Awesome. Thanks for the write-up. Is there any reason to not buy it thorugh Amazon download service vs. a boxed copy?

Creole_Ned · 2011-11-25T13:49:29.000Z

It looks like the hundred or so expansions for The Sims 3 are on sale through Origin for half-price. I could budget for one of them. Which would be the best in terms of expanding the gameplay without necessarily drastically altering it?

Sepiche · 2011-11-25T14:00:54.000Z

Creole Ned:

It looks like the hundred or so expansions for The Sims 3 are on sale through Origin for half-price. I could budget for one of them. Which would be the best in terms of expanding the gameplay without necessarily drastically altering it?

I haven’t played with Pets or Generations, but of the others I’d say strangely Night Life adds the most interesting stuff to the game. I wasn’t expecting to like Night Life, but it has some pretty cool features.

Athryn · 2011-11-25T14:26:16.000Z

Creole Ned:

It looks like the hundred or so expansions for The Sims 3 are on sale through Origin for half-price. I could budget for one of them. Which would be the best in terms of expanding the gameplay without necessarily drastically altering it?

Well, they’re all going to alter your gameplay somewhat, and to different degrees.

Here’s how I rank the various expansions:

Late Night (new town, vampires, celebrity, some new careers and a ton of new venues via all the bars and lounges.)

Ambitions (new careers and venues for those careers, including many “at home” careers.)

World Adventures (adds vacation worlds and tomb exploration)

Equal to WA would be Pets, which add pets (duh) plus some pet venues, a new town and a new career track

And in last place I’d put generations, which added…some stuff, most of which is pretty forgettable.

roBurky · 2011-11-25T20:15:36.000Z

Creole Ned:

It looks like the hundred or so expansions for The Sims 3 are on sale through Origin for half-price. I could budget for one of them. Which would be the best in terms of expanding the gameplay without necessarily drastically altering it?

Night Life drastically alters stuff. It’s additions and changes are unavoidable. Some of it might be pretty interesting, but it’s not typically stuff you’d want to feature in the life of every sim you make. Your town will be infested with vampires and celebrities, and every Sim you make will want to join them.

World Adventures is completely separate to the rest of the game. It’s also very buggy for me. I don’t like it at all.

Ambitions adds a load of new stuff to do. The professions it adds require a lot more active attention from you, such that I don’t think you can look after a household of more than one Sim if any of them use Ambitions stuff. It has been quite entertaining, though.

I’d actually say Generations is my favourite so far. The changes are all subtle increases in depth, rather than explicit activities like the others. Teenagers in particular have a lot more going on in their lives.

I haven’t played Pets.

Athryn · 2011-11-25T20:36:42.000Z

I dunno, the imaginary friends are kinda annoying, and the teen angst and mid life crisis events are kinda meh.

Creole_Ned · 2011-11-25T23:47:26.000Z

Thanks for the input, everyone.

I am now more confused about what to get! :)

Night Life doesn’t sound appealing to me and World Adventures might be okay after I’d played the base game more. Ambitions could be a good choice.

I like the idea of the Pets expansion, although with my luck I’d get a cat and it would catch on fire or something. Or I’d get a dog with rabies and it would bite me.

I am intrigued by the divergent opinions on Generations. I shall resume mulling.

mulls

Athryn · 2011-11-26T08:25:02.000Z

The thing about the pets is when you choose to adopt, you get several choices to pick from, and the other cool feature is that pets actually learn and acquire new traits. So you can actually choose a destructive pet but teach it to not be destructive, and it will change traits.

I think it’s a much better system than the random “hope your sim is in a good mood when they age up.”

If the idea of the night life doesn’t appeal, I would definitely go with Ambitions. Being able to have self employed careers based on skills (like gardener, author, painter, etc) plus the firefighter career is pretty fun.

I currently have a family of 7 that I’m playing where 2 of the sims are in self employed careers, and I have no problems controlling everyone and keeping them happy.

Skorin · 2011-11-26T08:26:49.000Z

In Ambitions you can run around putting explosives on other peoples’ vehicles and furniture. I think your choice is clear.

alaseef_as · 2011-11-26T13:34:52.000Z

New graphics

red_guy · 2012-02-01T07:37:41.000Z

roBurky:

I thought it worth mentioning that thanks to you guys and this forum, for the next few months I’m going to be working on another Sims story. But instead of glorified forum posts, this time it’s taking the form of a professionally produced series of videos funded by Channel 4.

It’ll be properly announced in a week or two, at which point I should have some links to share. It is exciting and scary, and I wanted to thank all of you who shared the Alice and Kev link around and enabled me to get paid for doing this kind of thing.

I just saw on RPS that this project has finally produced its first episode. And I found a nice reflection on the project (and roBurky’s input) at http://kittenfluff.com/2012/02/01/super-to-see-the-supermes/ .