This question was answered by the Sims 3 executive producer Ben Bell.

Q] 1UP Community: I've read that we will only be able to play one family. Does that mean that we can only play one family ever or one at a time? Will we have to choose between playing offspring or parents? Will the unchosen be turned into NPCs?

A] BB: When you play The Sims 3, you play as one household. However, you can choose to change the household that you are playing. What's different about The Sims 3 is that when you are playing one household, the other households in your town will develop intelligently: other Sims will age, get married, have children, go to work, et cetera. This means that the world is changing around you and no game will ever feel the same. If one of the Sims in your household moves out, you can choose to follow them and control a different household, or you can continue to play the same household.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3167273&p=1

Yes, but can you only ever control one family? In that, when a young sim moves out of home and you decide to follow them...can you go back to the original household? This article is being discussed a fair bit, but the answer given by Ben Bell is a little ambiguous.

I know he says "you can choose to change the household that you are playing." but he then goes on to talk about following a sim from your original house so it just seems a little wishy-washy to me.

I think so far this is the only thing I've read that I'm not real sure I'll like. The fact that your other Sims will get married and have kids when you're playing another household. I generally like to have control over the pairing of couples and the children end of things. Especially if you have a certain 2 sims you want to get together.

I rather hope that there's a "hold" option for some households. For example, yeah I'd like the parts of the family I have let go and don't play anymore to go off and have families of their own, and live and age and die. On the otherhand, I don't want this Sim I just made going off and marrying Benjamin Long while I wasn't looking just because I was playing another family.

A simple "hold" button for individual households could be very handy if it's implemented.

Maybe, when you play say household A, household B might carry on with their normal lives, the residents get married and die, etc.

But, when you play household B, it is at the same point when you last saved? So nothing changes? I dunno but this is like the only way I can think of this working at the moment

Eww. That sounds horrible. I -like- micromanaging my pixel peoples' lives. I -like- being able to choose who gets together with who and exactly how their lives go. I would -hate- deciding to play one family, then thinking I should play another for a bit, and go back to the first family only to find they've had kids who have grown up and gotten married, and the parents are old and grey. I want to play my game, not have it play itself.

AND I WANT MOTIVE BARS DAMMIT!

this thing realy is bugging me lately, it's like playing with the HOLE hood at the same time!

if that is the case i'm not buying it, this game is for relaxasion not stressing and pulling your hair out because you later found your favourit sims is having a wedding with somebody you don't like, that is just nuts! O_o

It sounds like from what we've read so far that this will be the case



I think the game is going to appeal more to simmers like me who prefer as much realism as possible in the game. I like the idea. I recall when TS2 came out a lot of people didn't like the idea of their sims dying from old age, since they could play their TS1 sims forever.

I don't like the sound of that at all. :/

I feel your pain, HP. I want my motive bars too. And while I believe in the wait and see approach when it comes to these things, if this is the case with TS3, chances of me buying it will be quite slim.

It seems to be going towards a "SimCity Societies" direction.

I have a feeling that they will lose a lot of hardcore fans (like us). or they already did.

I hope they will let us choose wich houses can develop (NPC's houses) and wich ones will stay the same without playing (our houses). If we can't I'll be very upset and I guess I'll always play the same house without letting any of my sims go away.

No, not SimCity Societies. They can't be so stupid to make the same mistake twice.

Yeah, I think the game sounds really interesting and unique but it feels more like Simsville, the game that was supposed to be a fusion of Sim City and The Sims but was cancelled, than The Sims franchise. I still don't understand how a sim's neighbor can age along with them without you playing them. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a video game? It'd seem like it's playing itself and we're just watching it. Well, we still got a long way to go until TS3 comes out, so I'll make up my mind when the final product comes out. So far, I'm not liking the sound of TS3 though the traits system sounds fun.

I brought this point up in another post and I was told that I was wrong. I thought that you could only control one family in the sims 3. Honestly, I think I'll probably only have one family if my other households will play on their own and age. I also like to keep control of my sims and I don't want them to go off and get married to some ugly townie that i don't like.

The traits system and the the "Unique Snowflake" concept is one of the good things in TS3, as we speak. But, it's the "game playing itself" concept that's pretty much bugging me right now.

And the fact that they didn't add anything reminiscent of Pleasantview or the other TS2 neighborhoods into it. Although they might.

Ouch, the whole way I play conflicts with this new philosophy. I like to play each house by myself.

I don't like the sound of a lot of the SIMS 3 proposed stuff- especially this. I like keeping tabs on all my families, thankyou very much, and I don't want them all living out their lives without me. It sorta negates the purpose of the game, in my view. And have you seen the ingame sims in 3? They're fugly compared to what you can do with 2!

I think, unless the other features are amazing, I'm probably going to stick with S2, since 3 sounds like they've stuck all the S2 EPs together and downgraded them a bit to make more money out of us. Shame really. :rant:

Okay, rant over.

Oh god. This may be the thing that ruins the whole thing! Thats so stupid. I want to play each sim in each family at my own pace and age them myself, why would anyone want this?..

Is what sounded more pointless to me. The whole game goal is to play the sims. I don´t want an automated game that plays by itself, like some sort of Simcity with sims. The fun part is exactly be able to control your sims and have variety so if you get bored with one family you can play another, they will wait for you. I play in rotations in all houses in my hood exactly because is fun.

I think it sounds neat!! :D

Everybody's jumping to conclusions way too early. You'll just have to wait to find out exactly how the game works. If you don't think you'll like it, just wait till other simmers get it and test it out. It might sound more appealing to you then.

I agree Livingstonekat. And I just wait what it will be.

But I'm also concerned a little about how the town changes without you or how we control our households, but I'm not going to let that alone deter me from the game. Everything else we've heard seems worth it, so far.

Really, I'm mixed about this concept. It seems cool to watch the entire town age along with your sims, but I would hate to return to my favorite household and find that someone went and married Goopy Gilscarbo behind my back--eww. Double eww, actually.
I think this makes everything more realistic, though. I mean, in TS2 Seasons, you can play a family for a while and have it be winter, then switch to another family and still have it summer there. Also, I don't like having my Sim dying before my parents because I played them more. Maybe, like livingstonekat said, we'll just have to wait and see.

That makes two of us

The only things I'm liking are the smaller grid, and diagonal in the base game.
As I don't buy the expansion packs because of my crappy computer...