I have been as-SIM-ilated

[Savagezion]

Alright so my mom has always been a Sims fan since the first one. Due to that, I have always had a background view of the games. I would play long enough to make people build a house and play for maybe a week or a month in game, then would always put it down and never cared anymore. My mom transitioned easily into 2 from 1 and I can see why as it pretty much got better all around. However, with 3 she didn't transistion until recently when I bought the game for her. I found Sims 3 and Night Life for 20 bucks and figured she would at least get that out of it by simply checking it out. Plus, I was curious to see her impressions.

She, however, didn't check it out for very long - so I did by myself. Same results kind of. I went in and swept the neighborhood of most of the pre-built houses and made my story begin with a family who was beginning a new housing development. I built their house and played for about a month and put the game down. Fast forward a few months to today where I went back in out of curiosity. I built a couple more houses in the neighborhood and moved some custom Sims in. However, this time I was able to speed past all the creation stuff kind of. I am using cheats to simulate a real estate idea where the original family is making bank off people buying houses.

I stopped playing to post this once I realised what just happened. I may actually have sim fever this time. I know Sims 4 is announced but I wouldn't exactly call myself a Sims fan. Sims Medieval interested me but EA dropped that title like a bad habit for very stupid reasons IMO. God forbid you release a game you have to support with updates and expansions to make money and milk it... you know, like The Sims. Anyways, that side rant being put back to the side, I kinda need some advice on being a smart consumer towards The Sims.

I don't need 'everything'. Hell, I probably don't want everything. What the hell are Sim points? Is it micro-transactions that work like facebook money? Can you earn them? I have like 500 and I dont know how I got them. I don't think my mom bought any in the 6-8 hours she played the game. It looks like she just made herself and a house and said "fuck it".

I have noticed that The SIms is WAY more expensive to just go get everything than it was with Sims 2 where buying everything was still affordable. A while back I saw someone post about how getting Sims 3 + expansions and DLC would cost you over $1000 or something. Sims 2 wasn't that bad. It was bad, but shit, that's insane.

SO here is what I like in Sims 3. Aspirations, oppurtunities, the whole "traits and ambitions" stuff. Right now I have a "normal family" and then a house with odd pairings. I assume ambitions is an expansion I should get. I know I want seasons. Then I wouldn't mind anything that adds to the aspirations type stuff and offer some new career paths. I do like the wild crazy stuff like zombies and magic but I like it sprinkled in my game, not running amok.

I have no idea how much any of this helps a Sims 3 fan point me in the right direction. If you need any other information about my playstyle or preferences let me know. I go to Sims forums and those people have abbreviations for everything that I don't understand, plus they talk about places and things in the game that I have not memorized or experienced. I am a casual Sims player at best so figured it probably would be a good idea to ask for help here at the escapist as well.

Do you recommend some expansions or mods? DO you recommend staying away from any of them? And what the hell are sim points and the ways to get them? I know installing too many can make the game slow to a crawl? Is there an optimal number?

 

[Quintley]

If you want new career paths, then you probably want Ambitions (like you said). You might also be interested in the Supernatural expansion for the, er, supernatural stuff. I don't have either of these myself but they seem alright. I have the nightlife, world adventures and university expansions - you already have the nightlife one, I wouldn't particularly recommend the other two.

One thing you should be aware of is that any Sims 3 expansion from Generations onwards adds a 'memory' system, which means that whenever something vaguely interesting happens, you get this annoying popup in the corner saying something like "OMG! Jim was just invited to a party! He/she will never forget the time he/she was invited to a party! CLICK HERE TO SHARE THIS FASCINATING DEVELOPMENT ON FACEBOOK." And this happens every time. I don't think there is an in-game way to get rid of this, but there might be mods that stop it. I think if you get Ambitions, you won't have this problem because Generations came after (if I remember correctly).

Also in the later expansions, EA starts really pushing the microtransactions - as in, the first items in each section of the Buy/Build catalog are just adverts for things you can buy with Sim Points. Same for the first couple of outfits/hairstyles in the Create A Sim menu. I don't know when these were introduced (weren't there in Late Night, were in university) so again you might be able to avoid this if you get earlier expansions like Ambitions.

I don't have any sims 3 mods but sites like Mod the Sims are a good place to start looking if you want more custom content.

Sim points are just microtransaction currency. I think you get some by default if you register your game online? You can use them to get DLC from the Sims Store which is the microtransaction store (you should see adverts for it in the Sims 3 game launcher). There is some content you can get for free from the store, like a new town (the download didn't work for me but other people have used it fine). I'm pretty sure you only get Sim Points by paying for them, aside from a starting bonus perhaps - you can't earn them by playing the game.

tl;dr - Ambitions is probably a good expansion for you, don't worry about the rest for now, ignore Sim Points, EA want your soul, happy to answer any other questions.

 

[Savagezion]

Oh yeah, I also REALLY like the focus on the whole "My Sim's Story" (it was sort of present in 2) but feel like it is just horribly implemented. I think I already have the "memory" thing you mention and I HATE those pop-ups. OMG! your sim just read a book, let's treasure this moment forever! I can understand a child being born, or a birthday where they grow to the next stage, maxing a proffession/joining a new profession. Actual landmarks. But its like every time they meet another sim it is a moment to be treasured. Not just the sims that are actually tenants of the neighborhood either. They meet a randomized filler sim and the game is like OMG! you should remember this forever. Your sim just ate their first pop tart.

At the very least, they should make it so that you could customize what it prompts. Unless it does, I havent looked because I have managed to get it to hide these prompts sometimes and don't want to disturb it when I do. I also have the sim points stuff right at the top of the shop choices already too. I had a feeling sim points were just micro-transaction currency. That is retarded. They already make some serious cash off Sims through stuff packs and whatnot, to add microtransactions is pretty disgraceful. Way to have zero class EA, you bottom feeding sleaze merchant.

It is a shame they did this to the series. I can see why my mom dropped it. Sims 3 brings only a couple 'neglegible' new ideas to the franchise for Sims fans and costs WAY more than Sims 2 did. I admit that these new 'negligible' things offered me something, but I'll be damned if I am gonna spend $1000 on the sims when they can't even fix memory allocation and rendering while I run a Radeon 7970. This game actually runs pretty terrible on my rig considering. (It isn't slow but its got texture pops out the ass so bad it makes Alpha Protocol look polished.

Haha, just told my mom about Sims 4 announcement tonight actually and she gave me a hopeful "I hope they don't screw it up" sort of "Yay" SHe completely passed on 3 which I see why and it seems I bought it for me. However, the ambitions and stuff let me be able to enjoy it to a degree, but then I see what all she has with 2 and go "Awwww, dammit EA." It seriously has me looking backwards at 2 again.

Anyways, I am still hoping for more replies. I am curious how the holidays play out in seasons. Ambitions is a no brainer for me.


Supernatural is one I am curious about but my questions may not be able to be answered by this forum. I will give it a shot though. For Supernatural, I only want like maybe 1 or 2 of each creature in my neighborhood. I don't want 6 faeries running around. Or 12 werewolves. Is there any way to control this? I wish I could disble specific things. Preferably, I would like to have a vampire in my neighborhood. Then, later down the road, maybe I get a werewolf, etc. Supernatural seems like they have it all just running around all crazy and it disinterests me if so.

SInce we don't really talk about the Sims on this site much, anyone who feels like posting something about The Sims 3, please tell me you favorite things about your favorite expansions. Even if it is simply 1 measely piece of furniture that puts it over the top for you. I don't know much about the game so anything someone has to say is something to consider from my perspective.

 

[Quintley]

This might help
http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sims_3:_Seasons

I think you're right regarding supernatural and having 20 werewolves or whatever. It's kind of all or nothing. You get aliens with Seasons, apparently.
Sims 3 has some good points, particularly how they expanded on jobs and skills, but I prefer 2 overall. There were some crap DLC practices in Sims 2, but at least you weren't getting microtransactions shoved in your face.

 

[Savagezion]

Oh nice, that's weird. But aliens will do nicely.

I whole heartedly agree with you about Sims 2. It's been a while since I have seen it played. I may ewnd up going back and seeing what exactly I would be giving up. Man, it has a ton of choices available and community mods to top it off. Right now with the base game and an expansion I have only like 20-30 choices of carpet. But I can buy more for only 3 easy payments of $19.95.

 

[spartandude]

Here's a question, Ive currently got Sims 3 and Pets with out installing origin, do other expansions require origin and if so which ones?

 

[Savagezion]

Late Night I would imagine would require it since I have Late Night and I have Origin. I would have avoided Origin if I could. Sims 3 is the only game I have on Origin. I recently got Plants vs. Zombies because they gave it away for free on Origin when I hopped on to play Sims. But I don't count it because I'll be lucky to see 20 hours of playtime on it. I plan to beat it and then uninstall it.

 

[Tayh]

I didn't realize Origin was still the big Boogyman around here. Figures, though.
Anyway, no; Origin is not required. Or, at least I'm able to play Sims 3 + expansions without having Origin installed, despite being downloaded with Origin.

As for mods,most things in the game can be fixed or enhanced by looking through http://nraas.wikispaces.com/.
The Relativity plugin, in particular, allows you to modify how fast time passes. No longer does a quick elevator trip have to take 45 minutes, no does brushing your teeth take out 30 minutes of your schedule.
There's also a plugin to fix the Memory issue, as described in a previous post in this topic, in that you can reset or completely disable the feature, allowing for better performance. Think it's the Overwatch plugin.

Additionally, you could visit ModTheSims ( http://modthesims.info/browse.php?gs=2 ) for a large selection of free content, mods and other goodies.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

You can get free SimPoints by visiting http://www.thesims3.com/ and registering your Sims 3 products. They don't all give out points, but I'd suggest registering there anyway because the site has a handful of free items you can add to your game. Out of the ten or so expansions I've gotten for the game so far, I've netted around 2000 or so points.

I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet, but the more expacs you add to the game, the poorer the performance will be. Add anything more than two or three expansions and you can expect load times and overall performance to slow down to a crawl unless you've got a blazing fast system. So keep that in mind.

That said, I'd suggest the following expansions: Ambitions, Seasons, and World Adventures. Each of those add an appreciable amount of content and atmosphere to the game, so they're worthy of purchase in my book. The rest of the expacs? Mostly fluff content, but it's worth experimenting with them if you have a fast PC and some expendable cash.

As for the stupid memory pop-ups, those can be disappeared -- there's an option somewhere in the system menu to disable your connection to the Sims server. I'd highly suggest you do turn this off, because that constant connection can lead to annoying lag spikes while you're playing.

 

[Savagezion]

Thanks for that info Tayh. I will be sure to toy with it over the next week. It looks like a major fix. I did have to have to install origin for mine. I may have had download keys or something, I don't remember and can't be bothered to find the case right now. I know I had to download something despite having discs and spent a lot of time entering keys.

I may try uninstalling Origin and seeing if it still runs down the road. That's interesting to know. The mods you posted about get me all warm and fuzzy inside as well.

But I must do this. I apologize.

Spoiler: EA/Origin Rant

Origin was/is a boogeyman for me because I don't like installing 3rd party software I don't use. There seriously is no other games on Origin I care about. It's mostly Shooters, The Sims, and Need for Speed. EA doesn't allow modding worth a damn of their titles in favor of DLC usually so games like Dragon Age I tend to just buy on console as they don't really benefit from PC and more likely offer a poor port. I will admit they have increased their selection of titles to non-EA games, but I would rather feed Valve money over EA through digital distribution. It's basically bloatware for me that only exists to spite Steam. Origin really offers me nothing sadly as many of my friends happen to not have interest in EA games either. Not so much a service as an inconvenient separation of my game library (on Steam) with its own library of games I don't care much for anyways for me. When I bad mouth EA, I seriously do it because I think they make shit games. Then they make them shittier with microtransactions, nickel and dime DLCs, and anything else they can conjure up to sell parts of a game individually after a $60 pricetag, like project 10 dollar. I would rather just buy the games I want through Valve with Steam where I actually have people that I talk with and game with. For me, having to install Origin for 1 game is like having to buy a console for 1 game. I would need at least 5-10 games to make it feel worth it and they have yet to offer me 2 or even a reason to prefer Origin over Steam. I have friends on Steam, so I always look there first. PLus Steam doesn't Vault EA (or Valve) titles in my face with its layout constantly.

I wouldnt be surprised if there were many who do have a use for Origin. Battlefield, Dead Space, Need for Speed, FIFA, etc. are big franchises. Especially, if someone was solely a PC gamer. I tend to mix it with console gaming though and Origin offers me nothing. Between Steam and PSN, Origin isn't catering to my gaming habits. I actually prefer GOG to Steam for purchasing. But I do think the Steam Workshop and stuff is pretty cool as well.

SO yeah, Origin needs to do something other than sell games to be considered 'not bloatware' from me.

 

[Savagezion]

I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet, but the more expacs you add to the game, the poorer the performance will be. Add anything more than two or three expansions and you can expect load times and overall performance to slow down to a crawl unless you've got a blazing fast system. So keep that in mind.

That said, I'd suggest the following expansions: Ambitions, Seasons, and World Adventures. Each of those add an appreciable amount of content and atmosphere to the game, so they're worthy of purchase in my book. The rest of the expacs? Mostly fluff content, but it's worth experimenting with them if you have a fast PC and some expendable cash.

I was actually looking for exactly that info. I had read for a while about installing expansions would slow down performance and was curious if that was ever addressed. Man, the fact it isn't is just mind blowingly terrible management. Why would you allow that to happen in a franchise designed to do exactly that? Hopefully, that Overwatch mod Tayh posted fixed it for many people.

 

[Savagezion]

You can get free SimPoints by visiting http://www.thesims3.com/ and registering your Sims 3 products. They don't all give out points, but I'd suggest registering there anyway because the site has a handful of free items you can add to your game. Out of the ten or so expansions I've gotten for the game so far, I've netted around 2000 or so points.

As for the stupid memory pop-ups, those can be disappeared -- there's an option somewhere in the system menu to disable your connection to the Sims server. I'd highly suggest you do turn this off, because that constant connection can lead to annoying lag spikes while you're playing.

Man, I got so excited about your other info, I didn't finish the post. I'll assume I got my 500 points from registering. Seems like a nice round number that doesn't let you buy anything good to tempt you to register and thwart the dreaded piracy. 2,000 isn't bad. I think I have seen about 3-5,000 worth of stuff I want with points.

The above cat also applies to your post even though I didn't know you made it when I linked him. It also applies to Quintley's initial help. I need the cat to be playing with yarn and say he loves this thread. I spent a large part of the late night/ early morning looking for this info on sims forums and getting nowhere because "all expansions are equally good". I get that perspective but it doesn't help people like me. I will be sure to check out the options again when I load it up the next time.


(I kinda feel bad for making a thread about how I got hooked on The Sims and then bashing EA so much. But on the other hand I totally don't. It feels weird.)

 

[Quintley]

(I kinda feel bad for making a thread about how I got hooked on The Sims and then bashing EA so much. But on the other hand I totally don't. It feels weird.)

The Kevin Bacon law of the internet means that it takes at most 7 posts on a game forum before the topic devolves into EA bashing.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Do you recommend some expansions or mods? DO you recommend staying away from any of them? And what the hell are sim points and the ways to get them? I know installing too many can make the game slow to a crawl? Is there an optimal number?

There are some mods that are considered borderline essential by hardcore Sim fans, but I cannot off-hand remember what they are. A lot of them operated like borderline bug fixes, removing some...strangeness...from the base game. They can indeed cause a performance hit, though.

Wherever you decide to get your Sims, make sure you get all the expansions from the same place you got your base game. I.E., either buy retail, or choose Origin, or choose Steam. Last I checked, the Origin and Steam versions of Sims do not play well together, so expansions bought on one will not work with a base game bought on the other.

Keep in mind also that Sims 4 is coming out in Fall of this year, so if you have interest in "getting on board" with the Sims, you might want to hold off on purchasing a lot of x-pacs. While Sims 4 is likely to launch with a truncated feature set compared to its expansion rich cousin, it's also coming with the usual slew of graphical and base game play improvements.

 

[IndomitableSam]

Awesomemod is a must. Do a quick google and follow the instructions - it's a bit of work to set up, but allows you to do so much more with the game.

Otherwise, if you want nice clothes, look up free ways of getting Rose Sims and Peggy stuff - there are probably sites that aren't the main sites to get the stuff for free.

Also if you want your computer to run better, look at getting smaller worlds from the exchange. There are lots of blank ones that are pretty simple - but not all have all the spawners. I sometimes use worlds called Aurora or Despair... can't remember who it's by, but they're on the exchange by the same person. Very simple small blank worlds.

Also look into rabbit hole rugs if you're building your own world - that way you don't have to put all the buildings down - you can build your own and then just put down a rug (with empty space around it - important) and people will disappear into that like the rabbit hole buildings.

Also, anything by... Rflong7(?) is gold. Get it. It's Rflong, but I don't know about the number. Ah, here: http://myworlds-rflong7.blogspot.ca/

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Sorry, but assimilation, IMAO, is attributed much more to the cultish Animal Crossing: New Leaf than anything.

As to the Sims, that's one game I never played for no particular reason. Maybe I should get on it.