Sorry to pull a, "It's Rewind Time" but I genuinely wanna go back on the topic of how the AI has been done in the franchise, and has anyone done a deep dive into the AI of the Sims 3? Genuinely bursting with curiosity here.

This thread is way too long and I don't have the time, but this I can say something about.

1. I have never played, but I have seen it. House building game? Really? I would never have tough. It reminds me of Minecraft, and I can still not understand why anyone would build a house out of squares with holes and bad textures.

2. I played a legacy style game and after 7 generations the game was completely busted. I was so distraught when that happened. As a rule I don't like outdated stuff, so I will probably hate it now. That is where I learned to build houses though. The Cast tool was an adventure for me. Building in cfe with TS3 wasn't so different.

3. Only simulation? It's by far the best building game in my opinion. The good thing with TS3 is that everything can be replaced quite easily. If you use crappy EA textures in a shot the result will be crappy. It's also very easy to replace light from EA's dated worlds with lighting mods. I also have to mention some of the store sets was really nice.

4. HAHA, here you show what you really like. It's a good building game and I like some blur, but it's a bit much. TS3 with a bit more blur would be the best. I miss Cast and cfe though, a lot. This is the game where EA has most control. I liked the freedom to f***up like we had in 3. The building with rooms we have in TS4 is very nice, but I don't have as many options unless I make my own things. The fact that they dropped the launcher from TS3 is also a good thing. It was a headache to work with. It was suppose to keep track of the content in lots, but didn't work as intended. It didn't even work with their own content. When I built my world Stranda I had lots of problems with the chicken coop having to be installed multiple times, and finally it dropped out forever after a moment of temporary memory loss.


Picture from CAW, My own WIP:

To some extent, yes. Part of the inspiration for the Sims was Will Wright reading about how people interact with architecture. As for the "low" quality of building, please remember technology has progressed a bit in the 20 years since the game was released (which makes me feel really old now). So yes, the original game is rather low resolution and rough now but it wasn't at the time.

Yes, Will Wright's idea was a 'dollhouse game'. And Sims 1 was very like a dollhouse game in the beginning, there were no community lots in the basegame- but later the CC allowed for very elaborate building. I find that out of all of the Sims iterations, Sims 1 is the one that draws me in most- I get completely engrossed in it and the primitive graphics matter not at all.

But that's original idea. It's a house building game with simulation it in. Doesn't just revolve around and building isn't the only thing in that game. Doubt it was marketed as the main omly premise (create, build, live - not just build). I'd say TS4 does that job but even that to a certain extent.

I realize TS1 is very old now, and for that reason I would never pick that game up. I started with TS2 and I would never reinstall that game either. I tried reinstalling Pharaoh for a bit of testing, but it crashed on the horrible camera movement. I hate old games.

You realise Sims 3 is 11 years old now, right?...

It was actually Maxis that didn't like the initial concept when Will Wright presented it to them, when they were still an independent entity. They apparently thought it sounded ridiculous and said no one would buy such a game, and refused to develop it. Believe it or not, it was actually only after Maxis was bought out by EA that he was able to push the idea again. They loved it, whatever their reasons may have been at the time, and the rest is history. It's hard to fathom with how EA has run the series into the ground nowadays, but if WR hadn't attempted a second time with them, there might have never been an initial Sims game.

Your point still stands of course, just wanted to add clarification.

It sounds like you are offended. I was just giving my opinion. You are free to ignore me you like. You know this thread would be much shorter if people didn't care.

I make content for games, films and architects in school. This is my last year. It is perfectly normal for me to be more interested in new things, otherwise this fast moving industry wouldn't be suited for me.



Is it?!! O shit! I didn't know! Just kidding. I can make content for it, but playing I have to push myself to do when I playtest. Then I am a content maker, so perhaps that is natural. I don't play TS4 that much these days either. I play a bit when new content comes out.

When I play it's civ6 usually. There has been a hype for Among Us the last weeks. That is a 7 year old game on 2D in boring hallways. It was fun a short while, but it's too simple to play anymore than half'n hour. It's multiplayer game with 2 imposters and 8 crewmembers.

Uo to three imposters and ten players to clarify. And while on the subject - I got this idea to incorperate its map and concept to sims 3 format and try it out. It can be a fun asylum type challenge with autonomous murdering mod throw in to make it fun

I mean, TS1 hardly is mention and by popular opinion TS2 is held Spectacular game out of all. So it's more of a second game than first. Aside that, people who give a REASON why they find TS2 enjoyable do so with strong and valid arguments. I beg to differ that it is only the NOSTALGIC factor playing.

Maxis too tried to push the hardware limitations of its time with Sims City 3000, which was supposed to have full 3D graphics and it was EA who scrapped that idea and returned the game to the same isometric engine Sim City 2000 had. And I have to admit it was probably for good. City simulation is hard enough on hardware as it is and the 3D graphics would only add to it and the hardware requirements for such a game would probably be too much, if it would even be possible at all.


Actually, I know for fact many Sims 1 players played Sims 2 with aging off, not being able to grasp the fact that their Sims can now change over time and even die of old age. Some were even mad at Maxis for not giving the option to turn aging off to the game options and instead forced people to use cheat. I suspect that's why Sims 3 finally added aging off as a game option.

Yeah I don't get the appeal of minecraft either. It looks like childish building blocks with an 8-bit aesthetic. If I'm too old to play with Lego bricks then I'm certainly to old to play with 8-bit building blocks. I'm also living in 2020 so 8-bit aesthetic is a turn off.


I must be really lucky as I've never had any problems installing store content via launcher unless it was decrap. And that only happens if you don't have the right fixes installed. Non-decrap files always work fine for me, as do installing cc houses, lots, sims, and pretty much every type of content. The launcher has worked fine for me, though with the discovery of the S3PK Multi-Extracter, I only really use the launcher now for counters and worlds since those two can break if installed via pkg.

Going back to the topic at hand, I think the problem with TS3 is that people often push their experiences with it in an objectionable light. It is a flawed game, not a bad game. There are much, much worse examples of terrible software and games that are just unquestionably bad. Yet, I still frequently see it in posts like this for example:

"TS1 - Great for the time.
TS2 - Best of the bunch, no question. Best quality content and interactions.
TS3 - Wouldn't know. Hated the BG and even with more packs it's just not my kind of game. Don't get why people like it so much and it lags.
TS4 - Lacking in some areas, but closer to TS2 than TS3. Sims are more expressive than TS3 as well."

That passive aggressive type of response makes it seem as if TS3 has rampant issues with things besides technical problems, as if there's nothing redeeming about the game at all. I can get behind it not being a person's particularly favorite iteration, or even liking it at all. But it's like some can't understand that plenty of people can like something despite those flaws, not because of them. Actual good points and features aside, I rarely see the above list with anything added like "...but I can see why others enjoy it". It's just strange to see TS3 just so swiftly swept under the rug oftentimes, despite being a natural progression of the series. It's basically the Oblivion of The Sims franchise.

I do not frequent any forums/discussions of the game other than this one. Sims 3 is my go to game. It has played well on every computer I have owned with no lag. To me it does not matter what others like most just as what I like most should not matter to anyone else. 3 is usually the most active section of this forum when I have checked.

IMO play what you/we want to play and that is it. Simple.

I totally agree and IMO this debate/discussion should have died years ago. Nobody is forced to play any version. We can play the one we like best and that should be all that matters. Play what you want to play.

Only times I have had issues in 3 I have been able to trace the problem and fix. And I maintain my game with Overwatch and Error Trap from Nraas, cache cleanup, and so on. And if any CC is a problem I nuke it. My game has played on 2 laptops and one desktop very well.

Sorry I'm a bit late to this thread, been battling mental illness. But I wanted to touch on this:



I'm kind of on the fence about this...I mean, are you sure? The omission of deeper relationships and more complex genetics--the pet genetics outsold but that's not here right now--I can truly understand. Just imagining any 2009 based CPU trying to compute all that in a world with tens, maybe hundreds of sims, genuinely makes me shudder. It reminds me of when the official Sims Twitter posted a picture of the Sims 3 in game with an ungodly amount of sims crowded in a single area. Sure, it was probably a render, but it still gives me nightmarish images of a CPU bursting into flames.

But...animations? And to a very lesser extent, more, or better interactions? Would that really be so hard considering the devs were reusing animations from the Sims 2 left and right? You're saying they couldn't have done that some more, especially in the case of the sims teleporting into their cars? Or they couldn't have added an animation for getting on a broom or a bicycle? I'm pretty sure more simple animations on a global level would not do any harm, since we already have animations being used on a global level; sims do not sit stagnant in their houses all day, every day, after all. They do things and therefore perform animations.

Eh...I don't think I'll be convinced on this thing. I'm pretty sure the issue with the water taxis was routing, not anything to do with animations.

I love the Sims 3, I really do, but I won't say it's the best until I've played the Sims 2. After all, the only major, really important things the Sims 3 brought to the table were Open World, Create-A-Style, and Story Progression, which everyone knows is not the best and needs mods to fix. There are smaller things that it brought to the table, but I'm too tired to reach into the inside of my brain to pull them out.

But overall what I really mean is a phrase I remember seeing somewhere on the forms, the Sims 3 and the Sims 2 are a quality vs quantity issue. I would use the Sims 3 Pets, and Cats & Dogs as an example, but my tryst with Cats & Dogs was so long ago that I can't properly compare which animals feel the most like animals when given their full autonomy. But so far, I hear in the community that the Sims 4 is the best installment in the series in regards to autonomous behavior for the pets, and that the removal of pet playability was ultimately a good decision.

That's yet to be seen in my eyes, though.

Cats & Dogs were probably the worst EP for Sims 4. Not only they cut off the horses (and I've bet you they'll bring them back in some farmer EP or GP, mark my words on that), but they also cut off small pets that were there in animal EPs since Sims 1 Unleashed, only to bring them back in SP for EP and removed the biggest selling point of Sims 3 Pets, controllable pets. Do you still remember "be a pet, have a pet" from Sims 3 Pets trailers? And the skunk. Don't let me start about skunk. I loved skunks in Sims 1 and 2 and was really disappointed they removed them in 3. So, I was excited when I've heard they brought it back in 4, until I've found out it's just a bush that will spray you or your pet. Really Maxis? How much cheaper could you get? There were some good things in Cats & Dogs, like the Vet Clinic or possibility to create puppies and kitties in CAS, but the bad things far outweigh the good things and it's sad, because pets EPs were always amongst my most favourite, but not this time.