Just started playing my Sims 3 today, as you know you have to be on line to start playing, as you've to go via your Origin account. Anyway Origin have today changed their "start up". At first it seemed you now have to buy all your expansion packs etc from Origin, although you might already own your expansions packs etc. After several minutes I realised what to do, select all of your expansion packs etc which are already installed on your pc, then select the "play button", then your game will start with no problems. But you can easily end up re-installing all of your previous expansion packs etc from Origin, this to me, is Origin trying to "Rip-Off" people.

One final thing, since today, all of my previously saved games haven't been working correctly, which could be due to Origin changing things, so I've un-installed my Sims 3 and all of my expansion packs etc, and re-installed them all again.

While I already deleted your duplicate thread with the same contents I am still trying to figure out what it is that you are actually trying to say. Is this about the recent November patch? A warning? A rant? A request for or an offer of help?

Just trying to help other Simmers on this site - that's all. Sorry for duplicate thread.

I think OP is discussing in the 1st paragraph one of two things:

1. EA cleaned up their Origin interface by only showing base games. They hide expansions behind the base game.
2. EA patched the Launcher and the Game to let users choose the EPs to run. (Even though we have a much better designed tool for that, AGS3.)

I think OP's problems in the 2nd paragraph are due to playing the game through the patched launcher without an EP that his save game has been played in before. For example, if you made a save game with Ambitions and Island Paradise and you chose not to run Island Paradise, your save game wouldn't work. Classic EAxian incompetence... why is that even an option?!

Why didn't they make the option for ep choice after starting a new game and then only at that point? That way you don't come across the problem that your save won't work, because you selected the wrong ep's. The way it works now, it just asks for players to make the wrong choice. Because it implies that you can select ep's for existing saves without any negative consequence. Which is just bad design.

But I think this patch is mainly about making you use Origin. The workaround to avoid Origin is just another typical sims game example of how you make the game work conveniently. All those bloody hoops you have to jump through, because EA never seems to take the player's experience into consideration.

prreeaacchhhh