So I know that a lot of people play with all the expansion and stuff packs they own installed, but am I the only one who owns more than I have installed?

I think that the game gets quite slow if I have everything installed. It works, and I can handle it, but I want a fast game rather than a lot of feautures just laying around. I only have what I want/need installed such as Generations, Seasons, University, Supernatural and Showtime. All these offer some kind of variety to the game and that is why I like them. I sometimes install ITF if I feel like doing something else but other than that it is just taking up space.

Am I the only one? The only one who values gameplay quality rather than quantity? Just asking

No, you're not the only one. I own all the EP's but uninstalled Pets because of terrible game lag. ITF wasn't all that interesting (I downloaded that for $10 I think?), so I don't use that one. Right now I am playing with a Genie in my active household, but once that generation is gone, I will probably uninstall Showtime. Give me less lag and smoother game play over all the "stuff" any day.

I have all the EPs, and they're all on my laptop, but then again I have a pretty great laptop. (i5, nvidia, etc.)
Plus, I really love all the EPs. Maybe it's just me?

I thought I was the only one experiencing lag by Pets (not even playing in Appaloosa Plains)! I had to uninstall it because it lagged sooo much.

No, I have EPs that I tried and removed shortly after installation.

Showtime- It does nothing for me.

University- There are things about it I like, but I don't like it enough to deal with the mascot and other nonsense that goes along with it.

Island Paradise- Some people have luck with this one, I don't. I install it and my game turns into a buggy mess.

Then there are EPs I have installed because there is enough in them that I do like.

Supernatural- I'm not really a supernatural fan, but I like the building stuff. With mods I allow vampires and fairies and the occasional witch in my game. My vampires do not look like vampires, nor do the fairies. The zombies are ridiculous as are the werewolves.

World Adventures- My sims have never been on vacation as I don't like the grindy-ness of that EP, but I tolerate it for other things.

Pets is much like WA. My sims have never owned a pet, but there are things that I like / are needed for custom worlds.

I love Seasons, with mods it's better.

Generations is... okay. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. If I uninstall it for some reason, I always miss something from it.

I never bought or have any intention of buying Into the Future. There is nothing about it to make me remotely interested.

my laptop I have them all plus all my store content, and a ton of custom content but my desktop is base game only cause it's so slow other wise

As in Sims 2, I only bought EP's that made sense to my game style. Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, and ITF didn't so I did not get them.

Pets - Don't get me wrong, I love pets IRL but there's no appeal to me in this game.
Showtime didn't really call to me and I refuse to buy it because of Simport. My wallet voted when that EP came out and on principle I won't get it because EA did a half baked job (if it was even cooked) of "online" play. It was a travesty and I will not get it.
Supernatural - I never enjoyed supernaturals in the game. In Sims 2, you always had one from each EP IIRC and I could ignore that. Buying an EP dedicated to them? NO.
Into The Future - nothing in EP interested me - other than the glass ceilings/floors.

I know, I missed out on a lot of things from all the EP's like the rocking chair and rocking the baby to sleep - the patch did not give me that ability at all, nor did the rocking chair that you could purchase from the store. I have a rocking chair that my sims can't even sit in. I also missed out on The Smustle - HUGE disappointment but I refuse to get an EP for 2 things I want. I'm sure there were a lot of other little things I missed out by not getting these EP's but they didn't fit in my gameplay so I saved me a bunch of cash. However, the ones I do have are all installed and I play consistently.

I have all EPs except IP and ITF. But I only install 4: WA+Amb+LN+ST. Mostly because I acquired them when I still have my gaming machine (sold due to... budgetary problems), but now I'm playing them on a 'borrowed' (read: company) laptop, and using those four already made the poor lappie groaning under duress.

I'm much too lazy to uninstall/install EP's since sometimes, the mood strikes me to do something and it turns out I don't have the EP installed.

Anyway, maybe the game selector would solve the problem?

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=499140

I love Supernatural because it offers so much, the expansion packs in The Sims 3 usually don't imo but Supernatural has tons of new stuff and interactions that I love, like the jellybeans! And the Bonehilda! And Magic 8-ball! Too much good stuff for me to mention it all. I keep Generations installed because Generations gives kids the opportunity to be kids, not much interactions for them in the basegame.

And it bugs me a bit that almost every CC artist uses exactly every EP and SP, hey, what about us that can't afford that kind of computer or at least wants a fast gameplay?

I'm really easy to please and consider a lot of the EPs essential so all the ones I own, I've got installed.

Oh my golly, I am glad I'm not the only one either! As much as I liked Appaloose Plains, I had to uninstall Pets because of the poor way EA executed the "minor" animals roaming around. In one game, I counted 25 squirrels and chipmunks on my active lot - why is that necessary? Not being able to control the pet population drove me nuts, and I didn't feel like installing a bunch of mods to correct that when I could just not use it. I've never looked back, lol.

i have installed alll EPs and SPs, my game is pretty fast, loading screen is about 5 min, sometimes lag which almost everyone have,

Yeah I uninstalled Pets because of lag, I'd like to re-install it now but I'm not going to because it will bog down my game. And actually now that I think of it I still haven't even bothered to buy ITF, shows you how much interest I ended up having with that

I have all EP's installed, but I don't own all the SPs. I mod a lot of the stuff out of the game that I don't like, particularly from Pets, but I keep them installed because I like the build items and things like that.

Because I own all EP's/SP's and now own the whole store, I want to get as much use out of everything or else I feel like I've wasted money if I'm not going to use what I bought in some way. Luckily I don't have many issues with having everything installed on my gaming laptop nor desktop and have found out most the lag and error code 12 is caused by Mods/CC but still haven't pinpointed yet which one(s). I've read NRass ET can cause problems with store content so not sure if that Mod is part of my problem. I don't know how to read those reports really but it keeps mentioning something about the baker's station along with a bunch of other things that I don't even understand.

Trying to figure out which Mods/CC to keep and which to let go can be quite an indecisive process.

I am annoyed by the Llama mascot, the supernatural totem pole and portal to the future. Can not stand it when I'm playing and the camera forces me to look at the event taking place.

Allow me to add to your indecision!

No uni mascot intro
No camera zoom to time portal
Free registration required FYI.

The second mod doesn't stop the portal from spawning whenever you start a new game, however. It just prevents the camera from panning over to the damn thing, but it's better than nothing IMO.

Another option which can save you from swapping EPs in and out depending on how you want to play is to use the Any Game Starter available on this very site. That way, you can choose what EPs you want for what game, keeping "light" versions for some game play, and the whole kitchen sink when you want everything in. It achieves the same effect without all the swapping stuff around.

Is that really true? I mean, loading screens must take longer time since the game has to load every objects and such. And that it only loads 1 lot at a time is individual since you set that in the options. I was playing in Moonlight Falls once and decided that I wanted to reduce lag so I uninstalled ITF and Showtime (and I mean, how much does any of those EP's get noticed in Moonlight Falls?) and the lag reduced and the game got faster, so I don't think your theory is 100% true.

Defintily not; I install and uninstall them depending on what I'm doing with my sims at the moment. I always keep generations, late night, seasons, ambitions and pets installed along with town life. I usually have supernatural but sometimes I get annoyed if I'm not playing with occult sims. I tend to not have into the future and island paradise in my game a lot because of the unnecessary lag.

"Absolutely untrue" is too strong a phrase, my friend

The more EP being installed will result in less performant game... how much less performant? Now that depends on which EP being installed...

Sometimes the performance hit will be negligible (WA), sometimes it will be significant (Seasons). But every additional EP will certainly have a performance hit, not just due to additional contents, but also due to additional code to implement additional gameplay.

I wish someone had tested how big a performance hit each EP caused over Basegame...

I don't own all ep's. I am missing three. But I also play without Pets expansion pack because of lag. Then I use NRAAS mods and worlds that have fixed routing from Ellacharmed to play relatively lag free TS3. I have to combine packages again soon though. After many new downloads CASt is becoming quite slow again.