Okay so me and my 2 sisters all played the Sims 1, all played Sims 2, and now we are all anticipating the release of the Sims 3! As I'm trying to understand it more, I understand that there's only one neighborhood. Okay, kind of annoying since we never mingled our players before and each had our own neighborhoods, but we can deal with that!
But now I'm hearing some conflicting things. I hear that you can really only play with the family whose house you are in, and everyone else goes on living around you. Well sometimes I will play for a couple hours at a time or my sister will, and obviously the game will be rapidly progressing. I've heard while you have one family selected, another family of yours is completely out of your control, ex. having kids, making/loosing Simoleons, etc. So basically if my sister plays for 3 hours before I get back on, either straight through or half an hour here and there, I could come back on to play and my families could be completely changed?!

That does not sound like fun at all and it even makes me doubt whether or not I should bother getting it if that's the case. It's not the lack of control really, it's just that I don't like my sims aging when I'm not even playing, it could be someone else in my house playing, so it will just make us all want to fight each other to get on the Sims even more lol

Can anyone tell me any more info on this, or if this is even correct? Thanks so much!

I've heard you can save multiple versions of the same town. So, maybe you and each of your sisters could each have your own saved game?

You can have as many copies of the neighborhood(s) as you want. No problem with multiple family member play. Just make sure everybody sticks to their savegames.

Whew, thanks guys for clearing this up so fast! I just reread that and realized that I make my sisters and I sound like a bunch of dorks, lol

Well, actually you will only have 4 save slots so you can only have 4 neighborhoods, but so long as there is only 3 of you, that shouldn't be a problem. Still, though, you can only play one house at a time in your neighborhood.

Ha ha, no Steph, you don't sound like dorks! My kids had to share their Sims 1 game back before Sims 2 came out.

there is unlimted save slots you just have too use save as when saving the game will make more slots

Oh really? Well that's nice to hear!

yay woohoo. yay woohoo

This is a not trueity. First, all the user directories are seperate: Your saves don't impact saves on other user accounts. Second, there is no actual imitation on how many saves you can have. An arbitrary number of independent games may be saved.

As far as I know, there's only one neighbourhood in the leaked version. I heard there was a 2nd neighbourhood (possibly - if i remember right - you might have to download this, I'm sure i read that somewhere.)

But kohakuchan is right, you can turn the aging off

apparently there are neighbourhoods on MATY too.

Please forgive my ignorance but what is MATY? I know it's a website but I don't know the address, full name or what it's for. If you aren't allowed to discuss it on the forum perhaps you could PM me?

Just google 'maty' and you'll find it.

I would highly recommend lurking / reading a good while before posting there, as well as reading FAQs. It is a very different environment from most Sims forums.

I still have never really posted something on there, except for a question about a compatibility problem I was having... so yes lurk and download things....

Prana your pm's don't seem to be working.

Gwynne, sometimes it's extremely hard to find the right spot or even get into the forums. It's been very quirky lately.

As far as worrying about them milling around, doing whatever, can't you just adjust free will? I know it's been asked before, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer--can you turn free will off per household, or does it affect the entire neighborhood?

Edit: But here's something I don't get about that either. If you turn free will off or put it on very low, and it goes for the entire neighborhood, or even if you just do it for your other households...Will the other Sims just stand there vacantly, waiting for instructions? Won't they die--or at least pee on themselves and pass out?

As for everything I've read, no, free will cannot be turned off on a household basis. Remember, in TS3 the neighborhood is open to the point of being one huge lot instead of many small lots like TS2, so a single setting affects the whole thing.


According to what I've read, that is exactly what will happen.

Ah, thank you. Well, then my second question suddenly becomes relevant.

Edit: Well that's....pretty stupid. ._.

Ok here is the deal as far as I can see it.

There are couple fo things here. Free will, will sims to see to their personal needs. The greater this is the more leeway they have when it comes to fullfilling them

There is ALSO story progression which means that the none controlled Sims can evolve and get pregnant pair off etc with one another...

Am so confused here.
I just read in another thread that there are two 'hoods.
Sunset Valley and Riverview.

nickyXjayne, there are, but Riverview u have to download off of the sims 3 site

ah does this cost anything?
Bet it does =/.
Can you delete all characters ?
I was gutted to find out you cannot creat a hood from scratch .

On MATY they feel that there is currently no safe way to remove characters from a neighbourhood safely as yet, as their details remain for some reason....

My brother and I are gonna share a 'hood...and I'm worried about my sims aging when he plays! I'll just have to turn off story progression when he plays I guess.

Yeh... I will have the same problem with my sister.