It's true: all threads in the forum will eventually collapse into a singularity born out of the urge to compare TS3 to TS2. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the end of the universe.

Well personally, i love the sims 3.. it's much more realistic. Yes i miss CC and a lot of what we had in expansion packs, but that'll be soon to come.. imho the sims 3 was a big step up to what the sims 2 was.

and i agree, you shouldn't compare sims 3 with sims 2 + EP's + CC etc., because we had to wait for that in the sims 2 aswell.

and LOL to mangaroo :D

-_- eehhhhnnnnn
-rubs bridge of nose-

I kind of skipped over most of these threads. But throwing the expansions into the mix for comparison of all three Sim versions ends up comparing TS1+Exps to TS2+Exps to TS3 is like comparing bananas to apples to oranges. I saw a few posts stating "Just wait" and I think thats the best idea. There ARE a lot of things that are missing in S3 and I see a *LOT* more things that have the possibility of being improved, or expanded on, and maybe thats WHY they're not active. For instance, prior to Open For Business, Servo wasn't around from S1 to S2. S1 DID have him (And I love exploiting that bot every minute of the day), and I was upset when S2 didn't have him in the base version. Here we are at S3, base model, and Servo only exists as a statue. Hardly an upgrade, I'd say, but the point is that its fair only to compare base models.

Forget the marketing aspect, but look at the technological aspect and development aspect, again, only at the base models. With Sim1, there was no true customization of our sims, outside of clothing. S2 allow for changing hair styles, colours, and even more options to change our clothing, but again pretty limited to what can be changed. Now in S3, we can change our hair styles and modify 4 levels of colour, adjust the position of the eyes, nose, jaw, and cheek bones. We can make patterns on our clothing (Although to draw a pattern in CAS would be great, instead of just selecting colours for pre-made patterns). IIRC, Sims1 didn't even allow us to leave our property. S2 came up with the idea of going to other properties. Now S3 means we can actually SEE our neighbors, and we can go interact with them by beating them up because their (future) cat came over and knocked over our trash!

Sims2 to Sims3 was a HUGE leap in a technological aspect. No loading times (Aside from the occasional grey object not getting drawn completely yet) while navigating the TOWN. Much more customization. A ***TONNE*** of room for expansion. Lets also not forget that even though people may whine and complain about the base model, there may be a chance that the devers are listening to whats being said and may possibly are working on MAKING those whines and complaints about the game a reality in a future patch, expansion or downloadable.

It doesn't suck, but honestly, I like TS2 more than TS3. I am one of those very visual, detail-oriented people who enjoys creating Sims and decorating as much, if not more, than I enjoy actually "playing the game", so TS3 has been a bit of a disappointment to me. I actually ended up uninstalling it a few days ago. I gave it a month to grow on me, and though I love some of the features (personalities, seamless neighborhoods, moodlets), I just can't get into the game. The Sims in TS3 are (in my opinion) awful looking, and the CAS feature is just terrible. Since there aren't a lot of hairstyles that are useable for young Sims (a spiky mullet? Really?) most of the males end up looking very similar. They all have thick, webbed necks and their heads look very boxy. Also, the expressions on their faces are weird, and the eyes give me the creeps.

Also, there isn't enough decorating stuff yet, and I hate using the same pictures/mirrors/plants in every single house. If I can't decorate the house decently, I'm not going to have fun. LOL That's just me, though. Maybe after a few expansions come out, I'll reinstall TS3 and give it another shot, but for now, I'll stick with TS2.

I don't think explaining what I dislike about the game could be construed as "whining". I'm not complaining about the money I spent on TS3. I'm just stating why I don't prefer it over TS2. I was so excited about TS3 coming out, because I thought it was going to be this amazing game. I guess my hopes were just too high. After playing it for a month, I just feel like there is a lot of room for improvement, as well as expansion, but I don't feel that it was such a huge leap graphically from TS2 to TS3, either. Look at the yard flowers. When you zoom in on them, they look like cardboard cut-outs of flowers stuck in the ground. They are completely flat. I don't know much about graphic design, but it just seems to me that if they could make such gorgeous landscapes with breathtaking sunrises and sunsets and beach scenes galore, they could come up with 3 dimensional flowers. If a Sim picks up an apple, the apple is round, yet the tulip is flat. Doesn't make any sense to me.

The lack of hairstyles is indeed a weakness in TS3. More hairstyles would give lots of value for little development work. Fortunately, some more can be downloaded.

And hairstyles that can MOVE would be nice too. Don't know why they took so many steps backwards with a few bits of TS3.

What I think is that the base game of TS3 and TS2 can't even be compared.

TS2(BASE):

Pros:
- Good lighting
- A lot of CC (over time)
- Better looking Sims

Cons:
- Loading times between lots (30 seconds -5 minutes depending on your PC)
- No cars
- No public lots
- Severe lack of features (Broken Neighbourhoods)

TS3

Pros:
- No loading times
- Cars
- Connected Neighbourhood
- Public lots
- Moodlets
- Good trait system

Cons:
- Bad looking sims (In some peoples opinions)
- Bad lighting
- Glitchy story progression...?

Comparing the base game it sort of speaks for it's self, the loading times were a HUGE turn off in playing the base game of TS2.

There were community lots in TS2 basegame. And the cars in TS3, we really could have done without them. TS2 basegame taxis looked and behaved way better.

About the cars, I actually DO see a purpose of it, and it comes down to speed. I once did a drag race between the truck, a mid-level car, and top end. I think the speeds were 3, 5 and 10. Brought all three of my sims to a location FAR AWAY from home, paused, told all three to go home, each (fortunately) took their own vehicle, and went home. Well, the sports car was about 30 sim-minutes faster than the slowest car. If you can convince the Sims to USE the vehicles, it WILL save you time.

Edit: Although I do kid of agree that its rather lame how the Sim pushes the key-fob and the car automatically appears with THEM IN IT.

I just think there are too many different types for people with each their own likes and dislikes and opinions. Some will love, some will hate, some will fall somewhere in between.

(in the Sims2)

This is one I just don't get. A good number of the face templates in the Sims2 were just hideous. Give me TS3's version of ugly sims over TS2's anyday. At least they look human. Also if one stripped all the CC from those pretty TS2 sims, you would find that often they were all just modified versions of face template one. They had no variety beyond what CC gave them.

As for the large necks, I noticed that making the sims' bodies skinnier and with less muscle makes the neck smaller as well.

ts3 sims look cheesy and cartoonish. end of story. I'm not buying the game until there is massive cc for it.

They look no more cheesy and cartoonish than TS2 sims do. In fact they look much less so in my opinion. That is fine if you want to wait for CC to make them look better (though there are already some really pretty default replacement eyes and skin for TS3), but when comparing base game to base game with no CC the sims are cartoonish in both. That's the just the style of the series and it takes third person mods to change it.

Still, I think it will be harder to get the sims look good with cc in sims 3 than it was in sims 2. The faces are harder to tweak and some sliders that were in sims 2 are missing from sims 3, and as someone said (HP?) the skin textures theirselves are made in such a way that they are harder to customise and make look good.
Those baloon heads are just too grotesque and when making them smaller/narrower the sims all end up with a tyre around their necks. The ingame lighting doesn't help either, especially the outdoor lighting which make the sims look plastic and freaky

Eh.. I agree with the original idea of this post.

Sure, TS3 has some really cool features (i.e, traits, moodlets, fully-interactive neighborhood, Create-A-Style), but "ultra" speed is the same as regular speed... It's soooo annoying! I gotta sit there waiting 10 minutes just for my Sims to wake the hell up.

Maybe that's some sort of retarded glitch in my game, but I'm overly happy with TS2 xD

(And UGH. I totally forgot what TS2 BaseGame was like until my files became corrupt and I had to reinstall and re-download everything @_@ Still. It's better than TS3 cause at least it goes fast! D: )

I totally agree

I think the two games are very different, just as I expected. Lucky me,I never uninstalled Sims 2. I still think its more substantially fun to build and decorate in Sims 2. But for gameplay I choose Sims 3 anytime!
Im happily lost in Sunset Valley

And that's what so many people don't get , they are two different games so comparing them is an exercise in futility. I liked TS2 but by the end it got a little old for me. The 6 months prior to TS3 being released, I don't think I took one vacation, opened one business, or seriously worked on hobby, so the expansions to TS2 weren't even a big deal to me anymore with the exception of weather. 4 years is a long time to play a game even with all the cc. For me anyway.

Look at it my way. The Sims 2 had... let's say 100 doors (hypothetical doors, meaning possibilities or opportunities). As of now, about 95 of those doors have been opened. The Sims 3 has 1000 doors, but only a few of them have been opened. But the developers for the Sims 3 are so proactive that i think the doors will be opened a lot faster that the Sims 2. Already Delphy has released CASParts and Peter has released S3PE. Doors are being opened and The Sims 3 will get a lot better.

What annoyes me is that I see us having to BUY the custom content... and not being happy we bought the game they want us to download the rest of the furniture (i.e the rest of the Game) in dribs and drabs...this game should explode TS2 open and then some not be a pay as you play and if you want new furniture to pay EA games for it!

Us having to buy C.C.?

Is MTS going pay? because if not then we dont, store stuff is optional and since day 1 in TS2 there were paysites.

You choice is now if you want to spend money in EA Store, spend money on "fan" paysites or download fan creations ... the exchange is free, MTS is free, many fan sites hosting TS3 content are free.

Just because right now we cannot create unique meshes does not mean we will never able to, after all things taken their time in TS2.

The Sims 3 has a lot of nice features, such as:

• the ability to easily recolor things
• a virtually endless number of features in create the sim
• a fully interactive neighborhood

Having said that, the game is simply boring. Yeah, I love creating people and houses as much as the next sim fan, but what good is it if you can't actually enjoy it? I also think they should have kept the personality points system and then added the trait system.

Unless they come up with some way to take my sims 2 sims and put them Sims 3, so they don't look atrocious, or at least give us better CAS options, I'll pass. I hate HATE how the sims look in Sims 3. Even the custom created sims on this site and pretty much any other sims 3 sites don't look good at all. I mean no offense by that, it's really the fault of EA making this game extremely limited in that area. And that's a HUGE issue for me. Until they come up with a way to make your sims less cartoony and goofy looking, I want nothing to do with Sims 3.

then bye