I gave TS3 a trial run, and I just can't. There were too many annoying and unnecessary things that made me run back to TS2.

1.) Random zombies showing up to run EVERY &$*%(#* PLANT!
2.) How hard it is to install cc.
3.) Every random date cancelling.
4.) How long it takes to load.
5.) You can't play multiple neighborhoods or houses without switching them and losing whatever.
6.) How many actions your sims perform that make them a turn off.
7.) How much more needy they are (they get hot in certain clothes, etc.)
8.) How you have to buy individual ingredients.
9.) How there were a limited number of lots.

I did like however:
1.) How you could build anywhere and the lots alter themselves.
2.) The enhanced CAS options.

Welp, if its any consolation, many of these things can be fixed with mods that are readily available

1.) Random zombies showing up to run EVERY &$*%(#* PLANT!

Nope, never heard of it. Then again I don't have that EP.

2.) How hard it is to install cc.

Easier than Sims 2. You just not doing it right.

3.) Every random date cancelling.

Never heard of it.

4.) How long it takes to load.

2 min 41 sec without cc, 5 mins with CC. And only load once instead of every lot.

5.) You can't play multiple neighborhoods or houses without switching them and losing whatever.

Only thing you lose is their wishes. Who cares?

6.) How many actions your sims perform that make them a turn off.

Like what?

7.) How much more needy they are (they get hot in certain clothes, etc.)

Nope, never heard of it.

8.) How you have to buy individual ingredients.

Nope, never heard of it.

9.) How there were a limited number of lots.

So there are unlimited number of lots in TS2?

You got anything else you want to troll about?

How obnoxious and unnecessary your comment was? Or should I address your trolling? How come you've never had any of the issues I have as if you never played more than one minute even though you're being a jerk about how I'm dealing with them?

1.) Random zombies showing up to run EVERY &$*%(#* PLANT!
You can disable zombies with Nraas Retuner.
@EDIT Links here Download Retuner
How Can I Stop Zombies From Spawning

2.) How hard it is to install cc.
-download package
-unzip
-copy
-mods/package folder
-paste

Yep, very hard.

4.) How long it takes to load.
Yes, if you are running the game on a toaster (like my laptop.... )

5.) You can't play multiple neighborhoods or houses without switching them and losing whatever.
You just lose their wishes.

7.) How much more needy they are (they get hot in certain clothes, etc.)
It's not about clothes, It's Seasons... You should read this and learn how works: http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/seasons/summer.php

8.) How you have to buy individual ingredients.
You don't need to buy anything to cook.

I'm going to take a slightly different approach. To the OP -- would you like some assistance in getting TS3 to run better for you or more to your liking, or would you prefer that we stand back as you complain about it? It's fine either way, although this forum board is an unusual place to choose for the latter. Honestly though, it's difficult to tell what we can do to make you happier here.

- 8 out of 9 on your list are completely false

- What is the purpose of your post? Affirmation? Then you would post in the TS2 forum. Asking for help? Then you would post actual questions. What motive do you have to post this?

- Why is your name mortschool1? You are expecting to be flagged and banned so you can create mortschool2? 3? 4?

Why don't you go troll somewhere else. We aren't buying it.

The originator here clearly has no idea what he or she is doing and IMO just wants to rant rather than learn. I am also very curious about how one gave it a "trial run".

OP, you'd get more sympathetic replies if you went after EA instead

Well after checking up mortschool1's profile and posting, yeah I guess we can give him the benefit of the doubt he's not trolling.

Apparently he's an avid TS2 player who played for around 9-10 years. But recent issues with outdated mods and corruptions made his game unplayable so he decided to give TS3 a try. About a month ago, he posted in the TS3 help forum asking for help installing mods.

Morty,

First of all, you cannot play TS3 with the attitude you are "replacing TS2." It just does not work that way, the 2 games are vastly different. TS2 is a dollhouse while TS3 is an open world simulator. This means of course there will be trade offs, you'll lose some things and gain some other things. I do believe a lot of TS3 players here are also fans of TS2, some playing both right now. As far as I know, TS3 fans here are also quite honest about the game. They know all the problems and issues with TS3 such as error 12, lags, and easily corrupted savefiles etc... This is why your rant is not really "accurate" b/c as I've said 8/9 things you've said were completely false. They seem more like your personal disappointment b/c TS3 is not a suitable "TS2 replacement" you were hoping for. But more accurately... "you can never replace nostalgia."

This is why I don't think anyone here can actually help you b/c you've already decided you don't like TS3. The only way you can come to enjoy TS3 is if you stop making it a "TS2 replacement" and attempt to evaluate it solely base on the game itself. And even so, perhaps you simply do not like open world simulators, in which case many people at TS4 would be more than happy to receive you.

But like I've said, many things you've complained about are not just incorrect, but they were actually in TS2 - limited lots (of course there are limited lots, it is in every sims), the temperature thing (TS2 also has temperature when they introduced Seasons), etc... etc...

Anyhow, good luck with all that.

OP, this reads like something I would post on a TS4 forum to be annoying. Not something someone else should post on a TS3 forum to incite discussion.

Here's the thing. TS2 is absolutely the better game. TS2 is really well balanced and really well thought out, and it holds up very well after 13 years. There's no doubt that it's the best Sims game on paper.
But TS3 is everything they wanted TS2 to be, plus a ton more. It's a bit broken by default, but you should look through that because it's not a feature. It's not supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be an open, dynamic, live open world with an enormous amount of lots and an even enormousererer amount of freedom to do whatever the hell you want.

On a side note, OP, I'd like to see you try TS4. You'll, uh, "love" it.

@mortschool1 Looks like your request for help with Sims 2 died a death, but if you'd like help to get that game going again, I would start another thread in the TS2 help section.

If you want to know what mods to use to get your Sims 3 game as you like it, you can always ask for something specific in the Sims 3 WCIF forum.

At first I thought this was a necroed thread from 2009, but as it isn't here's my two cents.

When I played TS3 first after it came out I quit after a short while again because I thought it was horrible. I've never played TS2 but came straight from playing The Sims 1 which I had played continuously since I had bought it in 2001. The one thing that I had always wished for in TS1, namely that I could go and visit my Sims' neighbours, was granted in TS3 but the rest I could not get into.
It was only after World Adventures was released that I found my way back. It wasn't the EP as such (my Sims back then have never traveled) but that in the meantime there were enough mods that modified the game such that I could finally enjoy it (switching households on-the-go was the most important for me). Since then I have completely abandoned Sims 1 and have been playing Sims 3, almost religiously at times.
I still doubt that I could ever play this game vanilla for more than a few minutes, however. And over the years I seem to have developed a play style that is heavily indebted to TS1 again - with no story mode and aging off and I don't switch households as often anymore and rather switch between saves in different worlds.

Having said that, for most issues OP claims to have there is either a solution or it is based on a lack of knowledge how things work. And many of them do not even require a mod and can be solved in-game:
There are, for example, various ways to prevent zombies from eating your plants.
You can buy cooking ingredients in bulk from the grocery store.
The clothing items themselves have no effect on body temperature (although that would be interesting)
Can't say anything about the dates cancelling, however, if this means the random invitation calls from neighbours because I have them disabled with a mod. The dates that I initiate always work, unless I decide to invite a Sim that is either at work or probably in bed.

I have heard, although I cannot confirm it, that Sims 4 is more like Sims 2 in many respects. Maybe OP should try that instead. Origin offers a free 48 (?) trial version, so you don't have to buy it first to be disappointed later.

It reads like one, for sure.
And I didn't like TS3 either at first. I'd been playing TS2 a lot around the time it came out, and a friend of a friend had it on launch day. I saw some of it, and had very mixed feelings. It looked new and shiny, but it also scared me off. I'm not even sure why, to be honest. But I stopped being interested in it that day. I didn't pay it any attention until World Adventures came out, a surprisingly short time after, and I didn't even get it until after Ambitions had come out.
I gave it another chance, and never stopped playing.

You know, TS2 may be pretty annoying without a whole bunch of mods, too. That's a particular charm of the series as they always were (and are).

And - there's nothing wrong with having fun with both of them

TS3 has the ugliest but most entertaining sims.

@Kaiko Espurr please put your pictures under spoiler tags, only 4 pictures are allowed to be outside of one.

I guess I read the original post with a bit more compassion, as someone who understands people just get frustrated and like to vent. *shrug* That said, I do sympathize with 3, 5, 8 and slightly 9. Let me explain.

3. I had to laugh at this one, because this happens to me a lot too. I invite someone on a date/group outing and less than 10 minutes in, they run off to do "whatever" - and I'm left like... while they go "gee, that was interesting", like it's MY fault they cancelled the date from their side. It can be frustrating, and with me being newer to playing Sims 3 all the time, I can sympathize. It, however, has not annoyed me to the point of seeking a solution yet, but in time it may.

5. I know most of you are like "So what, it's just promised wishes", but I get it. I had a similar issue come up last night, and until I fulfill some big wishes that my active household has, I don't want to just chuck all that progress toward them in the trash for changing homes. It just seems like a huge waste, and can be frustrating when you want to play someone new.

8. I think what mortschool1 meant is that you have to pay attention to making sure you have individual ingredients. It's definitely new to someone who would be used to 2, and perhaps they just felt a little overwhelmed. True, you do buy eggs in bulk from the grocer, but you buy each item individually in bulk (shopping via recipes or creating a saved shopping list helps very much with this).

9. I find placing new lots in the worlds to be trying, so I don't do it often. Worlds in 2 seemed to have many more places for slapping tons of lots, and coming to 3 it does seem a bit more restricted with lot placement "lining up" with the roads.

All in all, I just think the original post was one of frustration, wanting to vent and it's hard for the more seasoned, passionate Sims 3 players to see it from a newcomers eyes, when everyone is so well-versed with mods, workarounds, etc. I just installed my first Sims 3 mod the other day, and I had to look up how to do it. Haha! I've had the game for a few years now, and have always played vanilla, but when you do branch out, it's nice to know you can have a community to help. I have no clue what a "Nraas Returner" is or who "Nraas" is at all, although I hear the name mentioned with mods often. That probably sounds sacrilegious to most of you though. It is said by many that solutions are available, but no links were given - no posts to help. They probably just wanted an ear and some help, and turned to their Sims community instead of Google... and got the pitchforks.

Boys, get the stake. We've got another one to burn.

LOL, exactly!!! I don't mind though, we don't all play at the same time. Burn away!!!
I'm so new to mods for 3, it's not even funny. I was just browsing the downloads here on 3, and I'm grabbing a few.

I think it's still interesting to read about avid TS3 players' initial reactions to this game from this particular community even so many years later. I came into it a bit later than some, it was near the end of 2011, and like a few others here had never played TS2 but had fond memories of TS1 from many years prior. I was bowled over by the age states, the potential for genetics to actually work, the open world, and the sense that the other sims around mine were actually living their own lives, going through their days with a purpose and with needs and goals of their own to tend to, rather than randomly popping up and walking by my sim's house just to give the illusion of the world around my sim being busy -- it really was busy. Yet they (almost) always had time to stop what they were doing and have a chat with my sim as he encountered them. It became pretty clear from the outset, though, that asking a sim out for a date without really knowing anything about them or there being any potential for attraction at all was just not going to go well.

I put my first sim in a career that I thought looked challenging, sat back, and waited for it to be impossible for them to progress without massive efforts on my part, time management, and intense skilling up almost right away like in TS1. Well, that was too easy and the intense skilling could come later, so figured that the challenges of game must lie elsewhere as indeed they did.

It didn't take long for the glitches and cracks in the story telling platform to emerge, especially as I was playing the more limited Mac version of the game at the time. But something compelled me to stay with it, to read about other players' solutions, to learn about these AwesomeMod and NRaas things that everyone kept blabbering about even if I had no intention of adding mods to the game right away. Didn't really take long to add my first few tuning mods though. From reading about others' positive experiences, mostly on the EA forums at the time, clearly there was something here that made working through the glitches and annoyances, none of which for me were really game-breaking, worth the time and effort.

By the time I actually needed help with something in-game that I couldn't find a solution for all over the place already, over a real time year had gone by and my original game was already progressed by a few generations. The folks at NRaas from where I was already using several mods were so kind and helpful, and they so readily laughed at my silly jokes, that I stuck around and became part of the community. I was also an AwesomeMod user at the time, but thankfully had the common sense not to bother asking for any assistance over there. It was inspiring at NRaas to watch Twallan methodically work his way through player support and mod development/refinement with a genuine concern for quality, customer care, and players' experiences on a scale that I've rarely seen elsewhere. Even watching Pescado work with his customer base in his own way at MATY, when he was in one of his better moods, was kind of fun.

Maybe it just takes more patience and pliability on the part of the player to get the most out of this iteration of the game more so than the others. At no point in my evolution through it nor that of many others I see here and at NRaas did it ever occur to us to show up on a fan-based forum board and blow raspberries all over the game's annoyances or alienate the players who were busy with a hobby that they clearly enjoyed. What would be the point of that? At one point back then well after I learned how to play and get past everyday things that could be barriers to having fun as a player such as the technical issues, I did have a conversation with myself about what I wanted to get out this game as a storytelling platform, and if most of those things were going to be reachable or if I needed to move on to something else. I chose to believe that the game was capable of giving me the experiences I wanted, although with a lot of work on my part, and of course stayed with it with no regrets.

The game is admittedly not for everyone. But for those who do like it or are still making up their minds about it, and require assistance in getting it to go where they want it to, such assistance is readily available. Though one does have to be a bit more clear about what one is asking for or posts like these can be taken in all kinds of different ways. And I don't mean to be unkind, but saying "I don't know what an NRaas is" on a thread where one of its managers and the other players are right here to answer any questions about the mod suite should they be asked just doesn't come across as being a genuinely interested inquiry. But, in any event, this might be worth a read: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Getting...sing+NRAAS+Mods

Nah, it's a good thing. Means you get to still discover new things to get excited about. I remember when I was playing TS3 five years ago and thought I had it all sorted out. It's so fun and pretty, I thought, how could this be made any better?
And that's when my Sims looked like this...
Whereas a couple of years later they looked like this:
And nowadays they look more like this.

@igazor
I loved reading your post, and thank you for making it! I want you to know that I didn't say. "I don't know what an NRaas is". I said, "I don't know what an NRaas Returner is." VERY big distinction in being a snotty twit and just being a person new to mods who doesn't know what something is. It's not that I don't know how to Google it, I just haven't had a reason to heavily mod the game - YET. I also had no idea that one of it's managers was here on the board, and shows how completely out-of-touch with the community and mods I really am! Eep! My apologies if any of my post rubbed anyone wrong. I do feel that the choice of the words "hate-filled" was poor from the OP, when it was clearly just frustration with the game; and the pitchforks will definitely come out when you poo-poo a game someone is passionate about. Most definitely going to happen. I do love 3, and have been on a bender the past 3 or 4 days, but just recently coming off playing vanilla that long I could probably sympathize the best with mortschool1, when you all probably have heavily modded games and may not have seen those behaviors in quite some time! Thank you for the link, as well, I will check it out, and I certainly hope OP does too.

@GrijzePilion
Haha, yup! I am adding the expansions and stuff packs in slowly, so there is always something new and exciting for me to mess around with in game! I just recently started playing with professions, and I enjoy the more "active" jobs quite a bit! Your screenshots are amazing, and really show how the game can change depending on what you add to it/what you make of it. I'm excited to see where mine will be in time. Thanks for the post!