We don't know everything about it yet, but how do you think this open world with all sims living in simultaneously and going about their business will affect your playing style? Personally in Sims 2 I try to play all my families equally to keep them in the same page more or less, though boring families tend to get frozen in time more. For what we know, this won't be necessary in Sims 3, and I think I'll concentrate more on just a few sims or families and let the rest do what they will on the background. I think I might create some sims and families with no intention of ever directly playing them just to have some interesting "townies."

I guess it will be like in the Sims 2. A main family with eventually another one or two to find mates for childs and little-childs and after some other families but not very played unlike the first one. Always one big family with a long story it's my favourite way to play.

It's for what I like the new playing of the Sims 3, with the other families aging I won't have no more little-childs friends with their grand-parents (or more old) friends. :p

I will probably play one family for quite some time...then will choose my favourite child of each generation to continue with. I might pop in to the other relatives sometimes though. One of the most exciting things for me is how Sims go about their lives without players controlling them. It will be fascinating to see how families change, and what the generations look like as time goes on.

If there is a way to turn it off I'll probably just turn it off, but if not then I guess I'll make a "self sim" and kind of see where it goes. Maybe add in a few extra sims to replace some ugly townies.

I always play many familes at a time.....mostly giving each family about an hour or so....but I wonder if its possible to play multiple families in sims 3.....I never tend to play the Eaxis made sims at all.....I'll replace them all with my own sim familes.....but I'd never like them to go on with their life without my interference!!

Yes, it will be like playing families in TS2, you can change houses and go back to houses all you like.
The difference will be, when you change to another house, your old household will still be living. But you can go back to them whenever you want.

I'll probably bring in just a couple or even three favourite families from TS2 that I created including the Haywoods (whom I adore, as they are based on one of my plays' characters :D), the Weasleys (because I love that family!) and the Hafts (carried over from TS1 when I named a Simmie Sue Haft and started warming up to that family even more in TS2.) Also, perhaps a Lara Velvet (carried from TS1-thank god I was able to create a not so fugly face like she had in TS1!)

I'll wait until the people at MATY create mods that will give us some power of the Townies and NPCs. When that's done I'll kill everyone and start over adding one person/family at a time.

What will happen if the people at MATY don't move up to TS3 or if that level of customization isn't possible? I'm not saying they won't, just that there's always that possibility. When TS2 came around many of my favorite modders from TS1 days moved on.

As for killing off everyone, I'm wondering if the Sims will have character files like they do now because if that's the case, this pre-populated neighborhood could end up being disaster. I know, I usually sound pretty pessimistic, but my thoughts are based on my past experiences with TS2 and the effect too many character files has on neighborhoods there.

One would hope EA would learn from past mistakes, but so far I've yet to see that happen in the current game and expansions (as in most secondary patches re-break things fixed in the first patch, etc.).

Knowing how EA puts together pre-made neighborhoods, I find the concept of one neighborhood with all the pre-created Sims and their back stories and problems extremely off-putting.

My TS2 play style usually involves one neighborhood with a few families (I get over-whelmed with too many families, so usually stick with three to six) in it and one neighborhood with one main family, play styles taken on from the Prosperity and Legacy challenges respectively.

One of the few things that sounds good to me about TS3 is that perhaps Townies will no longer be homeless, instead possibly living in some of the actual houses. Come to think of it, I really should do that in the 'hoods in which I play--just move all the Townies in to real houses to make the neighborhood look more populated, then just continue to play the families I wish to play. Hmm, the more I think of it, the more I like that idea. It would actually create more challenge in my game too, come to think of it, as there would be no more Townies getting moved in to my families bringing in as much as 19,000 simoleans each. Hmm. (Oops! I didn't mean to digress so much.)