If this is the case then does the game know how many like beds and stuff is in a house? Because if they are having children and stuff where will the new furniture come from? Do they move house automatically or what?

can you answer my curiosity? xD

I'm 100% sure that it's still one minute = one hour. Ha ha, never thought of vandalizing the boss' property. :D

Can you go to work on days that you're scheduled off? Sometimes, I just want to send my sims off for a few hours.

Kyle, no clue. Didn't pay that much attention. :P

HCL, I don't know about that, but I often found that if I wanted to focus on another sim, I just sent the Sim who had the day off to the park/beach/graveyard, and they managed to look after themselves for a few hours. You can also send them to the Spa for a massage or to the theatre for a couple of hours.

What about the names of the beaches?I'd really like to know what their called since we have 2 beaches in Sunset Valley.

Not a clue about the beaches. I didn't even realise there was more than one until someone else mentioned it after the event was over.

First I just want to say, congrats guys, and thanks for taking the time to answer our questions =) It's been very interesting to read this thread.



Okay, so say I send my sim off to the beach and focus on something else when (s)he's gone. When my sim gets back, is there a way of knowing what his/her day was like? Like, if they flirted with someone they met at the beach and got along well with that sim, would I be told, or do I just have to check their relationships to see if there's anything new?
Not sure I phrased my question right, so any additional information you can give about that could be helpful =)

I would guess you have to check memories, etc.

Not that hard, I'd be checking the Sim every few hours and once s/he gets back anyway.

Unfortuinately, there's no Memories in the game. While watching another girl play, I noticed that there was a 'First Kiss' moodlet at the bottom, which really surprised the girl when I pointed that out. In the end, we were only able to find out who her Sim kissed by checking the Relationship Screen.

That's incredibly stupid not to include Memories in the game. It's essential now that the neighborhood is seamless. So when we switch households, God knows what our sims were up to since moodlets will eventually go away and Relationship Panels only say so much. Thanks developers.

Well, if you read the newspaper and check the town hall I believe that it tells out about recent events. If you're an obsessive player like that you could just keep up on the times (or just gossip a lot).

Personally, I think that most players will wind up creating a few sims to inject into the neighborhood (to replace sims with traits they dislike or think are ugly or whatever) but then only play one family. In essence, the game is pretty much geared incredibly towards making kick-butt legacies--in which you play one family but don't have to play the spares.

On that note, I think that storytelling will become much better with TS3; wimpy storytellers will be forced into situations that they didn't desire due to the AI of the game.

EDIT: The last two paragraphs are saying "this is why memories aren't that important anymore." Also, do you really want the game to have to store the memories of 80+ housholds? Seriously, memories cause enough problems in TS2.

How did you know the sim your girl kissed by the relationship panel did they have a kiss icon by them?

Because her Sim was in love with that Sim, and that Sim only, without any direction from the girl who was playing.

Maybe if EA didn't just seem like they want to do the bare minimum job and then sell the game, the engine would be able to handle it.

I don't know of any problems with memories in TS2, either... Memories are damn useful to know what a Sim did, I usually have large houses and just control 1 sim, leaving the others on free will, so I can usually use memories to check what they've done when I decide to take control of them.

The original memory system in TS2 was terrible flawed and full of bugs. To start with, before the first patch was released, by the time a Sim got to elderhood they had too many memories for the game to process properly and developed a jump bug. Then there was the whole thing of every distant relative, no matter how far across town they lived, knew simply by association every A+ grade that every Sim child and teen going to school while they were alive got. I don't even know if EA ever fixed the problem with the A+ memory because I've used a third-party mod for that one for absolutely years. There were other problems as well but I don't remember all the details right off-hand. So yeah, memories in TS2 had problems from day one.

First off, thanks for the best two previews I've read of Sims 3 so far!




I'm not going to take credit for this, but I actually suggested/asked it a few years back in a Sims 2 community chat, but for Sims 2



Do the categories have any meaning? I.E. you don't have to pick one from each category, right? So why are they there?



This is simply outstanding. I'm so tired of putting furniture into inventory. Normally I would just take the expensive items, or sell it all and kaching to make up the approximate difference.



Excellent... but how does that work if the room is crowded, ie. too many cooks in the kitchen? Won't they overlap?



Is this an actual wagon, or a group of people who pull up in a car? :D


Nice. Does the price of objects have any kind of social influence? I.E is the 105k simoleon car a chick (dude? :P) magnet? And how many cars are there? What are they like?



HAHA! Awesome! Can you move the graves still?



Do you need a special TV? Or do you have to order it on the phone? Can you see a difference on the TV screen?



Is all the gossip made up or is any of it relevant to actual events?



Is this set by parents?



Yeah I've been meaning to ask someone about the whole kleptomaniac thing..... are the objects permanently gone? Or are they magically replaced? How much would it suck to leave the lot and come back only to discover later that lots of the objects you put and designed etc. have been stolen by klepto sims?



Sort of like Open For Business? But does the business that store actually has have any bearing on the income you make?



I'm absolutely CERTAIN I've read they were gone! I'm actually extatic they're back! Or is it an optional thing?



Yeah, that kinda screws things up... but if you turn off story mode, does that also turn off aging and death? Or just births, marriages etc. ? Can sims divorce and move out autonimously?

Nope, no meaning at all. I think it's just to make everything a bit tidier.



No, it's sort of like Sim 2, except that they can use the corner counters as well.



In the car, although they're more commonly called the Welcome Wagon. :P



No clue about the first part, and there's at least 5 different types of car. Some are good, others are bad. The good thing is that you can use the CAST on them, so you can create whatever car you like.



Yep.




No special TV is needed. You don't need to order it. No clue if there's a difference.




No clue, I only gossiped once, and didn't get a chance to check it out. It's probably a mixture of both, though.



Nope, it's set by the game. Teens have to be home by 10pm, if I remeber correctly.



There's an option when you're controlling the Klepto to return the stuff if you click on their mailbox. Otherwise, it's gone.



You can get earnings from the places you invest in.



They're back, and it's not optional, although the decay is slower than Sims 2.



Aging is separate to Story Progression. Death's a bit of both. Not sure about divorce.

So if you stay away long enough, eventually all your houses and community lots will be void of objects? That doesn't sound very nice...



Story progression is family and job oriented, then? Economy? And if aging is on and story progression off, they still die off and get replaced etc.? It all seems quite confusing to me...

Do they still make money when you don't play their lots? And if so, won't they all be millionaires when you go back to them?

I highly doubt that. Kleptomaniac Sims most likely don't spend all their time stealing, they are also probably more likely to steal cheaper items (there could even be a limit on how expensive items they steal can be?), also thhere isn't going to be that many Sims in a neighbourhood with the trait...there are 60+ traits in the game, the chances of townies having it are slim.

I'd say the team thought of this, and made sure it wouldn't happen




Story progression is choices your Sims make. Like getting a job, getting married, having a kid etc.

I'd say the game works out what Sims do when you aren't playing them by their traits, wishes, and what's already been decided for them. So if a Sim has a job, they will probably still have that job when you come back to play them...maybe a promotion or two too. If aging is on, but progression is off, then Sims behave as they would in The Sims 2, except they cycle through their life cycle when you aren't there. They will still go to work, socialise etc. (basically behave like Townies in The Sims 2) but they won't make any major decisions and will be banned from doing some things autonomously. So say you left John Smith and his wife Mary to go and play another family...this is what would happen:

Story Progession = Default (the highest)/Aging On -

John and Mary have their first child, named Luke...when he is a child Mary decides to get a part time job at the supermarket. Surprisingly, when Luke is a teenager, his parents have another child, named Lucy.

Story Progression = Low level/Aging On -

John and Mary don't have a child, but John continues to climb the career ladder...and Mary get a job at the supermarket. As Elders, Mary and John are basically at the same point as when you left them, just higher in the career ladder and with some more friends.
(This is a guess as to what decisions are made when Story Progression is on Low...I imagine just promotions, romances etc...but not babies, new jobs etc...is there still a low level in the game? There was in an old video...SnootySims is putting info on the game options up in the next day or two. So stay tuned there: www.snootysims.com)

Story Progession = None/Aging Off -

John and Mary stay safe and comfortable as adults, John has the same low end job and Mary never gets the child she dreams of having. This is most like The Sims 1.

Why would they become millionaires? I'd say they spend money too, upgrading furniture/objects, moving to bigger houses etc.

They don't have memories any more?o_o nuuu...

Well, with NPCs in the low hundreds, and what? 12%'ish chance of someone having a klepto trait(60/5=12%*200 [guestimating average of 2 people per household, not counting pure NPCs]), there will be potentially dozens of kleptomaniacs about town.

I really do hope they only steal silly stuff like newspapers...



You'd think, but I've learnt not to count on it... lol



It sounds excellent to be able to control each of these aspects individually and with multiple settings, as well! I REALLY hope they're still there!



But with aging and story progression both turned off, you get to decide EVERYTHING, right? Personally I think I'll be running at 1000 day lifespans. Hopefully the game will tell you what time you last played a specific household, and if any important events are happening, like births, deaths, growing up etc.



Yeah, just wondering, I bet they balanced that out too. I would have considered it a bug if they didn't. I would prefer their finances to be frozen in place though.

I think I'll be playing the game very slowly, and with no autonomous progression for at least my select, favourite sim households. Or is household, like aging, bound to the entire neighbourhood?

Thanks for the informative reply, by the way