Since there's lots of debate about the features of TS3 and the changes that are drastically different from TS2, I thought I'd try to find out what S2C members really think about them and what percentage of people are happy or unhappy.

Some of the major changes are:

-Seamless neighborhood
-Families you are not currently playing continue to live their lives
-Game will ship with one neighborhood
-Moodlets in combination with need bars
-5 traits that are at least partially passed down to offspring
-Dreams and promises instead of wants and fears
-Many new build/buy options such as placing objects almost anywhere, 360 degree rotation, moving houses from one lot to another
-Difficulty levels (from what I know, these are based on combination of traits within a family/household)
-Graphical changes. This includes the appearance of the sims.

Feel free to mention other important ones I should add.

Which are you happy/unhappy with? Will any of these stop you from purchasing the game?

Most importantly:
Overall, are you HAPPY or UNHAPPY with these changes?

im going to purchase it no matter what. i love the idea of a seamless neighborhood-it seems to me more realistic. as far as the sims, they are OK looking, im just hoping modders can fix some stuff im really happy about the placing objects anywhere, its a pain to use the cheats all of the time. i AM unhappy about just one neighborhood though, i was expecting to be able to create your own neighborhood-thats my favorite thing to do. but i guess ill live with it. the interactions themselves just seem "better" than the sims 2. idk i guess ill have to see when it comes out if im truly happy with it. but so far from what i see, i think im going to like it (except for one neighborhood)

Most Happy, almost Completely Happy except for the look of the Sims themselves, feeling its looks very limited how their facial appearance can be adjusted, and many would look like twins.

Edit: The Seamless continous Neighborhood is a Milestone in gaming technogoly, was never possible with the Sims1 or 2, yet many complain about it.

The new need bars, and Wants and Fears (dreams/Promises) would take a week or so to get used to, its no big deal.

Who would want the same gameplay as the Sims1 & 2? I feel after 9 years, it would get very boring.

Its just the Sims with modern gameplay coming in 2009.

On snootysims it says that they'll be releasing a tool to create our own neighborhoods fairly soon after it's released So hopefully for most that will only be a temporary, slight issue.. and my personal thought is we'll be entertained enough exploring the new world and features that one neighborhood will be fine for a little while.

Last time, EA released Bodyshop 6 months before the release date of The Sims2, and gave CC a head-start in custom content, Unfortunately it doesn't look like The Sims3 is releasing anything like this, this time round.

I sure hope something like that comes around.. But since nothing has been mentioned, I'm not counting on it. There is still likely more than 6 months until the game is released, so anything's possible at this point.

And I added the graphical changes to the list of major changes between TS2 and TS3.

I've vote "completely happy". I like :
the seamless neighborhood with a so great change of scale (and no loading between zones),
the traits and the future fine personalities of the Sims,
the new system with moodlets,
the autonomous living of neighbour with a "pause" function possible in some cases.

Ok the game isn't there for now but I'm pretty confident today.

I'll be really disappointed if the creators of The Sims 3 don't add in features in the base game from all The Sims 2 EPs, like weather, pets, seasons etc, and if they make us pay serparately for those add ons. If that is the case nd The Sims 3 ships without all of the Sims 2 expansions features, I am not buying it. That's my major concern. I voted 'mostly happy' because of this reason.

I'm really happy about the seamless neighbourhood, and the sims' looks, and the build/buy options you mentioned and the new recolouring option. I'm not happy about the one neighbourhood only thing. To me it seems that neighbourhood modding in itself will be difficult and that we won't be able to place roads on it and really make adjustments to it and that's somethign I've been wanting. I'm quite impartial to the rest of the new features as long as the final game will not resemble a shoot them up or RPG quest sort of game. And I don't want to see them collecting coins or crystals around the neighbourhood.

I am somewhat happy. The only thing that's bugging me is (I'm getting tired of mentioning this) that the other sims will take the major decisions by themselves. It'll be awesome if there'll be some option to prevent the sims from taking the big decisions. I'm pretty happy with anything else, with the exception of the sims' skin textures.

-Seamless neighborhood - I like it

-Families you are not currently playing continue to live their lives - I love the idea of townies continuing their lives. I'm not as sure about families. I'm intrigued. I'm not even sure if we'll have the same townie/playable separation. This is probably the aspect of the game that I'm most eager to learn more about.

-Game will ship with one neighborhood - Not sure. If I find the sims and their backstories interesting then it'll be okay. But I think I'd like to have one neighborhood with the supernatural stuff and one without (as how I keep Strangetown and Pleasantview now), so I hope a new hood comes with any creature-heavy expansion pack. I really hope we'll be able to set different "rules" with different neighborhoods - that would be fantastic

-Moodlets in combination with need bars - Won't know until I play it.

-5 traits that are at least partially passed down to offspring - I like this. I like the traits more than the passing on of traits, I admit.

-Dreams and promises instead of wants and fears - Another one I have to play to see if I like.

-Many new build/buy options such as placing objects almost anywhere, 360 degree rotation, moving houses from one lot to another - Like the moving house. Not a builder, so most of the rest doesn't really matter to me.

-Difficulty levels (from what I know, these are based on combination of traits within a family/household) - Don't know enough details to say for sure. Good if you are playing a family that (for story reasons) just can't ever seem to get ahead.

-Graphical changes. This includes the appearance of the sims. - I like the look of everything except the Sims. Their builds are fine, but I don't like the faces I'm seeing.

I'm disappointed at the seeming lack of more age groups (or physical growth within age groups) and very disappointed that we don't know if we'll get varying heights. The varying heights was a big selling point for me. And I wish we'd heard whether the firstborn syndrome is still there.

Overall, though, there's enough that intrigues me that I will be getting the game. Just probably waiting until the first patch comes out to fix the most glaring bugs.

I'm really looking forward to Sims 3. I love so many of their new ideas, and the new playstyle. I'm not 100% convinced I won't ever play Sims 2 again, but who knows.
I'm a bit disappointed that there will still not be variable heights, but to be honest I never really believed they'd change that. I think the game looks awesome, I'm excited about the moodlet system, I love the idea of traits, I love the smooth neighborhood, and I'm probably the only one who likes the look of the new sims themselves. I think they look like goofy CGI people like you'd see in animated movies, which oddly, I find appealing. Just say NO to Uncanny Valley!

I Like the Seamless Neighborhood and personality traits.Also the build and buy options.
However, I'm really dissapointed so far in the graphics and other families that u aren't playing currently grow at the same time. I like to control my sims, so this is really negative for me. I hope that they impress me more before it comes out, i was really hoping for gradual growing but i don't think that will happen. I spend so much money on sims 2 and i'm perfectly fine with sims2 so i may or may not even get sims 3.

Mostly, i'm completely happy with the changes, except the heights of the sims.

I'm SO, and i can not express this enough, SO SICK! of my females looking taller than my guys. Even if they only give us three heights, it'll be enough for me... tall, not so tall, and not tall at all! Please Maxis? I beg of you! Heights?!? *hopes a maxis head will read and pity her pitifulness* Ha...

I'd be happy with just three variable height levels, too. I just want a little variation. And for height to be inheritable, of course.

Nope, you're not the only one

Seamless neighborhood: I like.

Families you are not currently playing continue to live their lives: I really like the idea of Sims being able to go on with their lives even when they aren't on the current lot. Overall, though, there really isn't enough information about how this autonomy will be implemented to say whether it will ultimately be a good thing or a bad thing. I'm somewhat optimistic about it though. Given the amount of thought that seems to have been given to ratcheting up the level of control that players will have over other aspects of the game, I assume that we are going to have some ability to control and be made aware of things happening off-screen.

Game will ship with one neighborhood: As long as we can customize the neighborhood, this is fine by me. By the sounds of it, it's going to be a huge hood.

Moodlets in combination with need bars: I think the moodlets sound much more interesting than the TS1/TS2 needs bar model.

5 traits that are at least partially passed down to offspring: This would seem to be a huge improvement over the current personality system. Now not all mean Sims will be the same. Some will just be grouchy, but others will be downright evil.

Dreams and promises instead of wants and fears: Another huge improvement. What I like about this system is that it doesn't punish the player for opting out (no more losing out on aspiration bonuses because your Sim no longer ever has a want to get engaged when he or she is actually ready to do so).

Many new build/buy options such as placing objects almost anywhere, 360 degree rotation, moving houses from one lot to another: Being able to move houses to larger lots is a definite plus. I've had tons of houses that eventually outgrew their lots and my only option was to start from scratch on a bigger lot.

Difficulty levels (from what I know, these are based on combination of traits within a family/household): Meh. This isn't likely to be a feature I'd ever make use of myself. If I want my family to be a certain way, I'm going to make them that way even if the game tries to tell me that they will be a pain in the butt to play.

Graphical changes. This includes the appearance of the sims.: The most important aspect for me will probably be the final appearance of the Sims. Some of the more recent screenshots are more promising than the earlier ones.

Over all, I'm very happy with the direction the game seems to be moving in. Of course, the proof will be in the implementation. The coolest ideas in the world will be completely worthless if they're implemented in a way that is teh sux.

I like the idea of using the SLIDERS for manipulating the genetic features. To actually get the skin tone I want with out having to trial and error download.

I'm really excited about the Seamless neighborhood. I know people like to make all the decisions for all their Sim families, but after I a while I had a neighborhood just full of unfinished families where grandparents looked the same age as their grandchildren! UGH. So I don't mind life going on outside the family I'm playing.
I also saw something about redesigning furniture and stuff in game, and the ability to change shoes with an outfit! They had this feature for the Sims 2 on PS2 and I wondered why it wasn't in Sims 2 for the PC.

Now I just have to convince my boyfriend that I need to buy another computer so I can play Sims 3. I run all the game, every expansion pack off my laptop, and I have excellent graphics, no glitches and not a lot of lagging, but I couldn't fathom loading Sims 3 on here too!

I'm SO freaking excited!!!! I want it soooooo bad..

Maxis hasn't even revealed most of the game and even if they do it's boring to look at the pictures. Only when we start playing will we fully know if we like it or not :b I can't wait for it to come. Those teasers are a bitch lol

-Seamless neighborhood- I like this one.
-Families you are not currently playing continue to live their lives- This worries me a little. As others have said, I wouldn't want sims making major decisions without me controlling them.
-Game will ship with one neighborhood-I liked creating neighborhoods, it was really fun.
-Moodlets in combination with need bars- I don't know about this one. I hope it doesn't make the game easier, because that would bore me.
-5 traits that are at least partially passed down to offspring- I acctually like that idea. I love that instead of personality points we get traits. It will make it more realistic IMO.
-Dreams and promises instead of wants and fears-I'd just have to play it to see if I like it.
-Many new build/buy options such as placing objects almost anywhere, 360 degree rotation, moving houses from one lot to another- That would be amazing. No more cheats for building
-Difficulty levels (from what I know, these are based on combination of traits within a family/household)- Idk.
-Graphical changes. This includes the appearance of the sims.- Acctually, I don't really like the appearance of the sims. I like that you have more weight and height options, but I don't like their overall look. It looks more un-realistic to me.

Maybe I'm shallow, but I will not buy TS3 if the Sims turn out to be that ugly.

Totally agreeing with you their Simply :3dcool:

Looks like many people don't like the appearance of the Sims, and I'm not the only one, but I don't agree they are ugly, everyone looks too good looking, everyone's face looks round, and they all look too young, even the elder in the preview video looks too young.

But then people complained in The Sims2 that the elderly looked too old. Guess you can't win both ways.

I actually like the way the sims look now, or at least whta I see in the CAS screens. And the elder looks just about the right age to me, way better looking than TS2 elders.