You got a few disagrees, but I have to say that it does miss TS2's details, memories, relationship models, subhoods, and also more importantly, a cohesive business and restaurant system.

Again, doesn't stop me from still enjoying the game though!

The retail system is the one thing I miss from TS2 more than anything else. I really wish they would have expanded on it in TS3. Instead we got bits and pieces of it everywhere and none of them are particularly well implemented.

I wonder if there could be some way to expand each of the systems in TS3 and make them a little more unified by way of a mod. Of course, this would require having a fair amount of store content but I imagine many would like something like that. Sort of like what Chemistry is going to be for the attraction system over at NRaas.

I'd argue resort management from Island Paradise is as well implemented as anything from Open for Business.



Ani already did that. She took the Savvy seller and Business as Usual Bistro sets from the Store and expanded them to work more or less like in Open for Business, except for the GUI.

Yes but it also added as much new features which balances it out I feel. I do miss Hobbies and memories.

Resort management was a good one, I agree. Especially considering how it came along at the end of TS3's life cycle like ITF. I do wish it could have been incorporated into an overall "travel" theme though similar to BV. As it stands, you get the most out of a resort when you own one, since it doesn't really make sense to have your own sims stay at one since it's already located in the home world.


Yeah, I actually use both. Ani did do a fantastic job with what EA cobbled together. I still think that having a specific business pack could have been great vs EA trying to sell everything piecemeal, but it is what it is.

I really don't mean to be rude for possibly resurrecting this thread that hasn't been touched in 9 months, but I really wanted to give my input. I genuinely apologize if commenting on old threads is going against something, I don't remember seeing anything ruling it out.

I don't think that the Sims 3 is the downfall of the Sims franchise, as in, I don't think it's a bad The Sims game and or installment. I think it's great and personally, at the time of writing this, it's my favorite. However, I do think it's where the franchise started to go downhill, to put it lightly. I haven't gotten the chance to play the Sims 2, but from what I've seen the Sims 2 has very important, very special "Little Details" that truly make the game that the Sims 3 is lacking and then, of course, we had the introduction of The Store. The missing of these important "Little Details" and gameplay, complete with The Store and some highly questionable brand pack, I think you could sort of predict the way the Sims 4 would go.

But really? That's just my thoughts on this. I could be dead wrong, you know.

Can we put this false narrative of The Sims 3 not having little details to rest? It's demostrably untrue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snjGbA2qTc4

Other details off the top of my head:
- Bookcases in The Sims 3 change their appearance depending on the number books stored in them. There are three states: empty, normal and full.
- Toy chests also have geostates for EACH toy removed. If a Sim removes a car, for example, a car will be removed from the chest.
- Sims get anxious when flusing cheap toilets because it seems like they're about to break, but most of the time they don't.
- Coward sims may pass out after a confrontation or run in fear at the sight of an enemy.
- Sims in the political career can steal campaign funds. Sims in certain jobs can work extra hours whenever they want.
- TS3 is the only game in which Sims can get flu and allergy shots. When you're playing as a doctor, you can run a vaccination clinic at community lots.
- Daredevil Sims can play with fire (from a fireplace) and eat the dirt to impress people.
- Children of firefighters may be born with the pyromaniac trait. They can set things on fire without destroying them, turn any fruit into flame fruit and survive up to three hours while in fire.
- Your sims can receive a fancy watch as wedding anniversary gift.

Just because the small details are different from the ones in TS2, it doesn't mean there aren't any details.


And now you're rewriting history. The Store started with The Sims 2 before Apartment Life was released. It sold not only exclusive sets and gameplay items, but also items from EPs and SPs:


At the very least The Sims 3 Store had the decency to develop its own content. It didn't rip it straight from other packs...

Huh, well what do you know! I turned out to be wrong.

Hm. I wonder why everyone talks about the Store in the context of the Sims 3, then. I've never heard of it starting with the Sims 2.

Probably because it started towards the end of its life cycle (between the 7th and last EP), whereas it was there from the very beginning of The Sims 3's life cycle. They also released WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more content for The Sims 3, including worlds, more gameplay items and venues. I see The Sims 2 Store as them testing the waters for what they had already planned for The Sims 3 (which was in development for quite a few years now).

The mid 2000s was the dawn of microtransactions (who could forget 2006 Oblivion's horse armor DLC for 2,50 USD), an EA being EA wanted to monetize their cash cow The Sims as well.

I don't believe The Sims 3 as a game should be blamed for what EA did as a company. It's not like the seed weren't already there. The Sims 1 released 7 EPs in 3.5 years, something unheard of at that time; The Sims 2 introduced Stuff Packs and the first microtransactions, and The Sims 3 took it to the next level. At least those games were fun... unlike the one released six years ago...

lol, Sims 4 has taken that crown, especially with this 'Star Wars' pack. Katy Perry who?

Today as almost always there are more people on this site on the 3 section than 4. 3 is alive and well. I think many people including me think it the high point. And those who prefer 2 think it is. Very few seem to think 4 is the best even though it does have some good features.

TS3's massive scale unintentionally works to its disadvantage, since you're more than likely to be off-lot, or zoomed far away, in contrast to TS2's intensely singular focus on a lot, which means that you're always looking at a sim during gameplay.

Regardless, I find that TS3 is chock-full of rich depth in its details (and TS4 does have some surprising detail in some of their object interactions), but overall, I think that TS2 has smoother transitional animations (helps a lot as I find TS3 sims are a bit stiff) and more detail in mundane day-to-day sim interactions.

It goes back to what I've mentioned in the past. TS2 and TS3 both have many small details, the focus is the only difference. TS2 is focused on the sims themselves, so there are many more details related to families or just interactions between other sims in general, like the multitude of greetings, kisses, etc. TS3's focus is on the open world, so most of its details are focused on that. If someone is a family or rotational player, and don't really interact with the towns as a whole, then you probably won't notice many of them because it requires making your sim go around town to see what's happening.

It's apples to oranges really, it's all what you find more enjoyment in seeing in your game.

From all the complaining I see about TS4, it seems like that is the downfall of the series and TS3 is heralded as the glory days.

Maybe I'm not understanding because that statement makes no sense to me. Whether on or off the home lot in TS2 or TS3 you can freely control the camera and the distance to however you want to play. Some prefer playing from a distance because it's easier to see most of everything and click something quicker than being all close and personal then zooming out. It's likely there are some who prefer playing at close range and then there's some who use both camera distances frequently as they play.

This is more like "Who plays with walls half-down? Or no walls at all? Or walls up? It is completely controllable by the player so I have no idea how something optional is considered a disadvantage. That's like saying, "I hate collecting in TS3." Really, it's there for those who do enjoy it and is not mandatory. I love the huge vast open seamless world and it does not affect my gameplay in any negative way, but it does have an extremely positive effect for me because of the realism it brings to a much needed genre of life simulation than being stuck on one lot and all you see is one lot. The reason why this trailer is so appealing to me and still gets me hyped for TS3 despite I already have it, lol. I imagine this got a lot of people even more excited for TS3 for everything TS/TS2 didn't have including no more loading screens for when traveling to different lots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6gXiw5URNM

Also, usually, I'm more of a close range camera style and is why I notice so much more about my Sims from their facial expressions, to body language, etc.

I'll give an example of something that happened in my game recently that is along the lines of what I was mentioning. So I was playing in Sunset Valley, and on a whim I started having the camera follow one of my sim's close friends to see what they were up to. Wasn't expecting to find much, but he ended up going to the very end of town so I kept watching wondering what he was doing. He ended up going to one of the lakes off the beaten path and started fishing all on his own. I'd never seen that happen for sims I wasn't directing myself.

The difference that I was mentioning about earlier involves situations like that. TS2 players, who are mostly rotational or family players, probably wouldn't care about something like that happening since focus on anything off the home lot isn't possible anyway. And if it was, a particular sim might be doing something that they weren't in control of, and most that like that playstyle don't like anything happening without their intervention. And like I've said, neither way is more right than the other. It's just what you want out of your game more.

What other Sims is doing is not something out of control. TS5 (what TS4 should have it open world got imported) should have made an option whether the progression (skills, marriages, current location etc) happen globallly or per household save in one existing world.

I have had and still do get from time to time non active household members leave the house and go out on their own, or if I directed them somewhere and leave them, sometimes I will find them completely some where else like someone's house or another lot. Those kind of details and more do exist, but whether players notice it or not depends on how much they pay attention.

We were discussing the other day the hidden memory system in the game, and I just found the class that handles the transference of data when an event happens to our Sims memories.

The way it works it's quite intricate. After an event occurs, the actor and target of said event are transfered to the Event Tracker, and the Event Tracker does a TON of stuff with that information, which includes transferring it to the Life Event Manager. The code for the Life Event Manager is insanely complex: 2559 lines of code. The Life Event Manager analyzes the information received from the Event Tracker and determines whether to add it to our Sim's description (that's the name of the class that stores all the information of our Sim).

The memory system from Generations is embedded in this class, but it's only a TINY part of the whole Life Event Manager class. I was actually surprised to see that our Sims remember things like the books they read, and everytime their relationship status towards someone changes and the date and time for each of these events.

Another interesting thing I found in the iMiniRelationship class is that the game makes a distinction between AreRomantic and WasRomantic.
WasRomantic is used for the following classes: ReminiseAbout, GetReputation, CalculateAllRomanticStatistics and ExecuteCleanSlate.

There's definitely way more to explore. It's like a rabbit hole. The complexity of Sims 3's code never ceases to amaze me.

Interesting, so there are interactions for Sims who were once in love but now separated?

I find it funny/charming that before TS4, The Sims 3 was actually shamed for its greedy Store and the bugs/broken stuff. The Sims 2 was then the crown jewel. Now The Sims 3 is the most praised of the series

This is perfectly logical if you think about it that players like me, who loved Sims 2, didn't really liked Sims 3 (even more disliked it at the beginning because of the random EA story progression and the look of the default sims); and all the time we were waiting for a better new Sims game. But when Sims 4 had launched, we had to face the truth that there was no hope anymore for better than Sims 3, so one had to adapt themselves to appreciate Sims 3 more. At least that was the case for me. Until the launch of Sims 4, I didn't play much with Sims 3 - my appreciation and more frequent gameplay started when Sims 4 appeared on stage.

Huh, that's really interesting! I came into the franchise pretty late. Sometime around late 2013, I think, so learning the history of the franchise and the simming community's feelings on it and it's progression is really cool to me.

For instance, it was very recently brought to my attention that apparently the reaction to The Sims 3: Into The Future was so much worse than The Sims 4: Star Wars Journey To Batuu, and although that's something that I cannot even begin to fathom I find it very, very funny. In fact, apparently people absolutely hated Showtime, and even World Adventures, which is crazy to me. People hating World Adventures, that is. I can understand where the hate for Showtime comes from, but it doesn't ruffle my feathers that much.

People seemed to hate the RPG elements of World Adventures a lot. Granted there was more of that than in any previous EP of Sims2 (maybe). Although I never understood it. You didn't need to do them. What I love about Sims3 is the freedom of choice. Almost anything that's on offer is a choice. I can collect, or not, do the adventures, or not. Do the opportunities, or not. Take a long walk to the other end of the map, or transport instantly.
I don't feel Sims2 gave me that. I always felt there were obstacles to overcome in what I wanted to do.
And lucky me, the things Sims2 does better, I have no interest in. Running a business feels repetitive and stressful. A lot of things feel that way in Sims2 for me. Even the lemonade stand feels like I'd rather have my children run around the world. Sometimes, when I read about other people's Sims2 games, I wonder if I'm doing it "wrong" somehow. There is something I'm missing.
And the loading screens and the non-progression of the world were annoying even before I knew that an Open World was a possibility. Catching up other families to my main family were a chore, so I rarely did it. Which leads to me abandoning games a lot. I like Sims2 but I absolutely love Sims3. The trailer for the Basegame expressed exactly what I was hoping for. In many ways, Sims3 is exactly what a sims game should be for me.
So, the idea that it's the downfall of the Sims franchise makes me laugh. If anything, Sims4 definitely deserves that label.

When WA came out, it was a shocking phenomenon because it completely contradicted the whole philosophy of Sims games. Sims games is/was infinite-mode, without any "end of game" or "end of story". WA turned this into an adventure game with finite missions / quests /quest-chains. That was shocking, yeah, especially when the first players discovered that dungeons can be cleared only once, and after cleared out, no more loot-able dungeons remained for the next active sim who visited the same WA region. That raised the issue that WA sub-hoods were replayable / re-enjoyable at all, or they could be thrown away after the first play-through like used tissue. - Today many of us see it differently and I can value the qualities of WA (actually I like it), but that was quite a stir.