I thought World Adventures was okay. Love the scenery in the foreign neighborhoods, so pretty! The adventures are okay, it gives something to do and a break from just going to work/school. I sent one of the Goth daughters on a “study abroad semester” trip (not actually part of the game, just what I called it in my head) to China during high school (the Goths need something to do with all the money they have!) but I was disappointed to find out that the other family members were in exactly the same positions and actions when she returned as they were when she left. I had hoped time would pass for them while she was gone so it could actually be like she was gone for this certain amount of time. But anyway.

Ambitions, however, I am really enjoying! While I wait for my critical mods to be updated for the new expansion, I created a new Sim in the new hood, Twinbrook, to play around and try out the new features.

This is Sasha Mooring (some of these pictures were taken before I put my custom skins back in, so she has the EA default skin here). Her traits are dramatic, eco-friendly, friendly, slob, and…I think loves the outdoors was the other trait I gave her. Dramatic and eco-friendly are both new traits included with Ambitions.

Her hairstyle is one of the new ones that comes with Ambitions. It has a headband and flips out a little a the bottom.

Eco-friendly Sims hate riding in cars, though they do like carpooling. I had to buy Sasha a bike because she would get negative moodlets from riding in a car and wasting gas. “Well, haven’t you seen that huge oil spill in the Gulf? We’re already losing tons of the limited resource and destroying the planet!”

I haven’t tried it yet because Sasha is essentially broke at the moment, but I wonder if she would like the eco car? (You can download it by changing your language setting to United Kingdom English if you’re not in the UK.)

Also, everything she cooks is organic because she’s eco-friendly. The townie behind her wasn’t interested in organic hot dogs, she just wanted Sasha to move so she could cook her fish.

“I hope that’s free range fish from a clean environment and caught humanely,” Sasha says.

I sent Sasha over to the fire department to hang out in the hopes of meeting a hot fireman. She hung out for hours, but no one ever showed up, so she just played on their trampoline instead.

Twinbrooks seems to have an unfortunate number of guys who aren’t exactly eye candy. I gave up and just said whoever was the first cute person I saw, I’d hook Sasha up with them.

And that’s how Sasha became a lesbian. Her name is Julienne… um, something. I forgot right now. But apparently she’s got some money because I discovered that she lives in a huge house. Seemingly by herself because I haven’t seen anyone else home with her yet and she told Sasha she was single. (Not anymore, she’s now Sasha’s girlfriend.)

And she likes a girl who can cook organic hot dogs, so score! Those burnt hot dogs on the table were cooked by someone else. Sasha didn’t burn hers.

While Julienne may be rolling in the dough, Sasha isn’t and so all she could afford was this little shack over in the swamp.

“At least it’s environmentally friendly.”

Yeah, but that’s because it’s practically a part of the environment, Sasha.

The swamp is kind of cool though. There is the fog that hangs around and blows through the area.

There’s not much to look at inside. One main room and a bathroom. Sasha is a slob and so she leaves her laundry laying all around the floor whenever she changes. You can see some clothes on the floor over by the end of the bed.

“I just don’t like wasting water by washing clothes.”

Uh-huh. But I see you’re able to waste water by bathing yourself every day.

While I was waiting for Sasha to get ready for work, I started looking around the lot to get a better look at the area. She has a nice view of the dam from her house.

“While water power is environmentally friendly, dams themselves block the natural flow of the water, you know.”

Yes, I know, go back to your organic salad and get ready for work.

I then noticed something off in the distance behind the house. What is that?

A broken bridge?

Train tracks. So a broken train trestle then?

I followed the track along the cliff edge to this old building that looks like it’s about to slide off into the water. The track keeps going around the curve, but it was time for Sasha to head to work so I stopped exploring for now.

One of the things I was happy to see added to the game was tattoos! You can see the back tattoo I gave Sasha here. You can add a tattoo in Create a Sim or else your Sims can visit the tattoo parlour and get them. The tattoos are done in the same building as the salon (in Twinbrook anyway) and it’s underground.

Sasha works at the salon as a stylist. This photo was taken on her day off–but I made her go in and give a makeover anyway to figure out how it works–so she’s not in her work uniform.

Here she is on an actual scheduled work day, in her stylist outfit. Not sure why she needs the glasses.

“They’re just glass lenses. It’s for style, not function, of course.”

As a stylist, you get notifications when you have a makeover waiting for you. Sasha had one that morning with this lady, who needed a new every day outfit and two new formal outfits. A box tells you what the client wants. You can discuss fashion with people and either compliment or insult their fashion sense. I was also amused to see that with her clients, Sasha has the option to decline the makeover and call them llamas. I thought Sims liked llamas?

Remember how one of Sasha’s traits is dramatic. She does this a lot.

“Life is so unfair. Think of all the natural resources we’re destroying!”

You’re helping by getting people to buy new clothes, you know. They don’t necessarily need new outfits.

“I only outfit my clients in clothes made from organic cotton, thank you very much!”

Okay, fine, just get on with it.

They discuss the makeover for a while, striking poses the whole time.

And…she hates it.

“Maybe you should try cutting your hair? It’s kind of a rat’s nest.”

Some of the clients cry when they hate the makeover. Sasha still gets paid even though the client isn’t happy. Maybe she doesn’t like organic cotton.

“Then she can go somewhere else!”

Yeah, but you really need the money. There is a lot of downtime as a stylist, at this point anyway. Sasha didn’t have another actual client booked after that first one, so we waited around a while to see if anyone would come into the salon. People do, throughout the day, but sometimes it takes a long time between visitors. So I looked around to see if I could find anyone else in need of a makeover.

Like her. Her name is Penny Pincher. Sasha greeted her, but then she couldn’t do anything after. When I hovered over Penny, it said “Penny Pincher is at work right now and can’t be bothered.”

Apparently, the street walker thing isn’t just a look she’s going for.

Finally, a guy came into the salon and Sasha greeted him and got him up on the stylist platform.

“Now, hear me out on this: Red heels. You’ll look fabulous.”

I don’t think he’s really into that idea.

He does however like the makeover Sasha gives him.

“Good, now go comb your hair or something.”

There’s a couch downstairs in the tattoo area, so Sasha sometimes takes naps there between customers. There’s also a house across the street that has a garden, so Sasha goes and steals their fruits to eat for lunch because she has to be on call for the salon from 9am to 7pm. Gah.

“I haven’t seen Julienne in days!”

I know, because you’re working all the freaking time!

But I do manage to get Sasha up to the next level in the stylist career. There is a progress bar on the job tab that shows you how close you are to the next promotion. As a stylist, you can raise your progress by giving makeovers to your scheduled clients and random people that come in, and by discussing fashion with people. Also, you build a portfolio that you can show to clients. You take a picture of your makeovers for your portfolio. Right now Sasha is using her cell phone camera, which I hate, but she can’t afford an actual camera yet. Someone on the Sims 3 forum said they found a used camera in the consignment shop, so I’ve been having Sasha check there to see if one comes up. It hasn’t yet but she did get a level 1 book on Photography from there, so she can read that during her downtime at the salon.

“I like consignment shops. Reusing old things is good.”

Great. I like them too, even though the Twinbrook consignment shop is lacking in anything other than books or gems.

Also, you need the drafting table to draw designs for the portfolio, which is what Sasha had to spend what little money she has on.

And the last night of my playtime, a visitor decides to stop by poor Sasha’s house. I see you hiding there in the grass and fog, you know.

“I knew I should have gone for camoflague instead of these stripes!”

So I wake Sasha for her to call the police and this cop who makes me think of Gil Grissom with his beard kicks the burglar’s butt and rescues her grill. And that’s where we’ll leave her for now.

Her parents had the picture-perfect romance. The quick, head-spinning kind of love that causes you to jump right into things before you’ve even caught your breath.

The proposal came within six months. It was the talk of the town–Mortimer Goth was actually getting married? Everyone had pegged him as being the type to grow old alone in that big, creepy mansion on the hill.

There were rumors, of course, about what ends he may have secretly gone to in order to trap pretty little January Hirsch as his bride. Spells, curses, deals with the unknown beings–those Goths did have a cemetery right next door to their home, after all. But the truth was, her parents were just young and in love. Mortimer Goth may have been quiet and reclusive, but he was also highly intelligent and he knew that he might not have another chance. There may not be another girl that would say yes to the lonely boy on the hill.

His parents were surprised, but happy. This at least meant one less thing they’d have to worry about. Mortimer would have companionship after they were gone and perhaps there would even be the sound of little grandchildren running through the echoing house.

And so her parents had the picture-perfect wedding on the beach, the same beach they’d found each other only a year before, to go along with the picture-perfect romance.

And it wasn’t very long at all before she arrived–June Cordelia Goth.

—————————————————————–

I’ve had this written for a while, but am just now getting around to publishing it. But at least you’ve now met the “her” that these two parts have referred to–June Goth, who has been the focus of most of my Sims 3 playing.

I’m not to the point that I’m playing an entire neighborhood yet, but I have been playing a couple of households and figuring out how to get the game to work for me, while also adjusting my playstyle a little. I accept the fact that TS3 isn’t TS2 and I’m learning to work with it. It really has been growing on me and I find myself actually wanting to play it now when I haven’t even touched it in months. (My last update before these recent ones was in November, which is also the last time I had launched TS3 before now.)

This post will probably be a bit random because it’s mostly just sorting out my thoughts and trying to figure out solutions to current needs I have. So I apologize in advance!

There are some mods that are essential for my playstyle. Twallan’s mods are at the top of the list. I recommend grabbing Story Progression, Careers Mod, Super Computer, and the Woohooer. Also I recommend Absimiliard’s Realistic Aging Mod. This changes the number of days that each age group gets. Right now, I’ve been playing with the AbsimiliardsRealisticAgingMod (AbsRAM) version on the long setting. This is the comparison between the EA default and the AbsRAM age mod:

Original EA Long setting:
Infant: 6 days; Toddler: 15 days; Child: 15 days; Teen: 30 days; Young Adult: 45 days; Adult: 45 days; Elder: 34 days; Total: 190 days

AbsRAM Long setting:
Infant: 3 days; Toddler: 12 days; Child: 21 days; Teen: 18 days; Young Adult: 66 days; Adult: 75 days; Elder: 15 days; Total: 210 days

The AbsRAM long letting divides time up so that each day is equivalent to 1/3 of the year.  So every 3 days is one year, if you want to play with defined ages and years in your game. I know that when you look at the list it seems like 21 days as a child is an eternally long time, but if you plan to play more than one household and allow your other households to keep aging without you, then you don’t have to play those entire 21 days for each child in each house because time continues on in the background for everyone. I already currently play TS2 on a two year basis and skip around households, imagining that everyone ages in the background without me. This method would be similar, except that they actually would age without me and I don’t have to manually advance their age bars. I decided on the long setting from this mod because I felt that the number of days provided in each age group would allow me to skip around among households without missing too much in my other houses.

Based on the AbsRAM aging mod on the long setting the ages work out to this:
Infant: newborn to 1 year (3 days)
Toddler: 2 years to 4 years (12 days)
Child: 5 years to 11 years (21 days)
Teen: 12 years to 17 years (18 days)
Young Adult: 18 years to 39 years (66 days)
Adult: 40 years to 64 years (75 days)
Elder: 65+ years (Remember that the 15 days assigned to this group is the minimum number of days your elder can live. They could live longer!)

For my own playing, I try to make sure that my playable Young Adults look different at 18 than they do at 35 through the use of hairstyles and clothing choices. I also try to make 5 year old children look different from 11 year old children. A stretchskeleton cheat would be nice though!

Twallan’s Story Progression mod has a lot of pop ups throughout the day, but I don’t mind them. I like having notices about what other Sims throughout the hood are doing. It will tell me what’s happening in other households that I control so if I get a pop up about something I don’t like, such as January Goth getting a job in the sports career even though one of her traits is couch potato, I know to jump back to that household and fix it. The Careers Mod is awesome because it opens up a lot of new career choices–one of the Goth daughters has a before school job as a paper deliverer!–and if you don’t want your Sim to get a job and want to keep the story progression from giving them one while you’re playing another house, you can have your Sim register as “unemployed” with City Hall. This tells the game that they have a job–Unemployed–but they have no pay and no hours, so you don’t have to worry about a car pool. This is what I did for January, after I had her quit her job in the sports career that the game had given her while I was playing the Sekemotos. Now the game thinks she has a job so it won’t try to give her one that doesn’t even make sense for her. She’s a full-time author anyway, so I didn’t want her working outside of the home.

Another awesome thing about the Careers mod is that it makes some of the businesses into trade schools for your teens. One of the Goth daughters wants to be a forensic investigator, so she currently attends the Science Academy. The other daughter wants to be a journalist, so she attends the Arts School where she studies writing. You don’t have to do anything extra to set up your businesses as these special schools, just install the mod and your teens will have the option to enroll in the school at some of the lots. There is also an option for homeschooling, which your students register for at City Hall and then download their homework from the computer each day.

I was feeling sad about the loss of Autonomous Casual Romance that I depend on so much in TS2, but then I found TwoFtMama’s mods. You can use either Teen Autonomous Woohoo/Try For Baby or Adults Only Autonomous Woohoo/Try for Baby. The difference being that the teen version affects both teens AND adults, and the adults only version affects just adults. So with this we can still let our Sims decide if they want babies.

One thing I still have to work out is how to work around not having chemistry in the game right now. I know the base game TS2 didn’t have chemistry either, but we’ve had it since the second expansion pack so it’s hard to remember playing without it. I’m still trying to figure out a good solution for pairing up Sims without a chemistry system in the game to guide me.

More babbling thoughts coming later.

Her parents met one quiet afternoon, almost accidentally. Well, maybe “met” isn’t the right word. Sunset Valley is a small town and they’d known of each other for a long time, but had never even spoken until that day she passed by him, saying a quick “Excuse me” as she went on. Just a flash of blonde hair and sweet perfume that captured his interest for a moment, but not enough to distract him from the book he was about to read.

It wasn’t until years later, after high school, that they had a chance encounter again, this time at the beach. Mortimer Goth never went to the beach, except on that day when the park was much too crowded for quiet reading, and there she was, blonde hair cut shorter but still the same sweet perfume.

When asked much, much later, Mortimer could never explain what drove him to talk to January Hirsch that day when all the other days of his life he’d made a mission of avoiding human contact. But when she turned to him that day, he did speak.

For hours and hours. Even as the sun sank over the water and the book he’d brought along with him still sat tucked in his back pocket, unread, he spoke to a girl named January in a way that he’d never spoken to anyone before.

Her mom said later that her dad was different then, in those early days of their relationship. He’d always been quiet and withdrawn, but at the beach she would see a different Mortimer that he never showed anyone else.

The truth is that all of this–her own existence and all the mistakes she’s made–could have very easily never happened. That old house on the hill is a lonely place, perfect for molding lonely boys who avoid society altogether.

He could have gone on like he had been–playing his guitar to an empty room, filling the attic with paintings no one else would ever see, and eating a quiet, speechless dinner with parents who didn’t know what to do for their reclusive son.

Except that he had gone to the beach that day.

And after that day, everything changed.

————————————————

A little intro of sorts to a story that’s been writing itself in my head while I play TS3. It’s still a gameplay driven story, so I don’t know exactly how things will turn out, but I’ve played far enough ahead that Morty and January are middle-aged and the focus of the story is actually their oldest daughter, who you will meet soon. We’ll also meet some other residents of Sunset Valley, including the Sekemotos. The Sim I had created back when I installed TS3, Hailey, married Leighton Sekemoto, raised his son and had two daughters with him. So their youngest daughter has a part in the story too and we’ll see some posts about that household.

I’ve been making notes and figuring out how to incorporate my playstyle into the way TS3 works. I don’t mind if my Sims do some things on their own and if they do something I don’t like (such as get a job that makes no sense for them–which January did while I was playing the Sekemoto house) I try to either fix it or else work with the randomness. I’ve switched to Twallan’s Story Progression mod and I’m really enjoying it. Sometimes the number of pop ups I get about other residents is a bit annoying, but then I also like seeing them and being able to keep an eye on events throughout the rest of the hood. (That’s how I knew about January getting a job in the sports career even though she’s a couch potato. I had her quit and then register as unemployed with City Hall, thanks to Twallan’s career mod. That will keep her from getting another job behind my back.) Twallan’s mods are also helping me to work in paying taxes and other fees and I think I’ve figured out a way to incorporate a pseudo-college, but I’ll explain more about that when I actually test out the idea.

I’m still not ready to leave TS2 entirely, but TS3 is starting to grow on me. I’ll make a post going more in-depth into how I’m making TS3 work for me soon.

P.S. – I just noticed that I never really give you a good look at January’s face in these pictures. That wasn’t intentional! I’m not trying to keep her face hidden for suspense or anything. You’ll get a better look at her coming up.

But I did save a few pictures from the game. Mostly things that have amused me, but also a peek into the lives of the Sims I’m playing with.

Ha, this kid’s name made me laugh. Seems Sims 3 wants to keep reminding me of my Sims 2 hood!

I just really liked the repairwoman’s name.

So the Sim I created Hailey ended up falling in love with and marrying Leighton Sekemoto.

“Now don’t freak out but…I’m pregnant. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Leighton already had a son, Sam, from his first marriage, so Hailey became an instant mom.

Mohawked kid is thinking, “Oooh. Boobs.”

Yes, I can see why you would be excited to tell everyone about that.

Once the Sekemotos had grown up a bit (Hailey had a daughter named Abigail, who is, um, kind of ugly) I decided to take a break from them and play Mortimer Goth for a while. I love him because he gives me such great shots like this! Also I just now realized that this shot is kind of foreshadowing. The teen with the long hair standing nearby is January Hirsch, more about her in a bit.

He totally poses for me, though he tries to pretend he doesn’t like the camera.

Standing outside Goth Manor. We moved all the graves to the cemetery and planted a garden in their spot instead.

I didn’t want Mortimer to be stuck marrying Bella and reliving the life everyone knows, so he fell in love with January Hirsch.

They were married on the beach.

Don’t feel bad for Bella, she found someone else. They’re currently engaged.

This made me LOL! I can understand Bubba as a nickname, but giving the kid that for his legal name is just cruel.

Yes, labor is so much fun!!! January is having a blast, can’t you tell?

Also, January fulfilled her lifetime wish when she married Mortimer. She wanted to live in the lap of luxury. Can we say ‘gold digger’?

But she had a girl and both she and Mortimer wanted a boy to carry on the Goth name. So poor little June Goth is already a disappointment. And she has to sleep in the creepy attic. Because apparently that’s where the crib was?

The amazing view of the city from the top of Goth Manor. I may get frustrated by the limitations in this game, but the scenery is beautiful!

I think maybe my game is mad at me for not following the rules and having Mortimer marry someone other than Bella.

If this was Sims 2, I would just grab Inge’s teleporter and move her in. I really, really miss all the mods that let me fix little glitches during gameplay. So tonight I’ll have to try again manually, having them talk and build their relationship way up and see if I can ever get the move in option to come up.

Anyway, while I was playing my Sim Hailey, who married Leighton Sekemoto, helped raise his son Sam, and had a daughter named Abigail (who is evil), I kept zooming over to peek in at the Goths and see what they were up to. I found myself feeling a bit intrigued and developing a soft spot for Mortimer. I mean, here’s my chance to rewrite Goth history. Mortimer no longer has to marry Bella, watch Cassandra stupidly fall in love with Don Lothario, have Alexander who doesn’t seem to have a plotline of his own, experience Bella’s disappearance from his life, or get involved with Dina. The weird thing is, I don’t have a soft spot for Bella, just Mortimer. I don’t really know why, but he piques my interest.

And he’s great for pictures.

I have something percolating in my head focusing on the Goths, so I may start writing about it here. I don’t know when or if I actually will do it, but I’m enjoying playing Mortimer’s life in a different way and seeing how it goes.

Okay, now, as promised, the hacks I’m using so far that I consider essential:

• AwesomeMod with IndieStone Mod. Absolutely necessary to prevent craziness during gameplay. I don’t like families moving out of the neighborhood and disappearing, so this stops that. They can still get married and have kids and move into homes on their own, but I don’t allow them to move away. Also, I like that it gives me pop ups to let me know who in the neighborhood is getting married or having babies or moving in together.
• Autonomous woohoo with pregnancy. Just to give me back a little feature of ACR that I like, the ability to let my current household decide whether or not to try for a baby.
• Faster Novel Writing
• More Fun Activities. Apparently, there aren’t a lot of activities that by default give your Sims fun. This fixes that.
• Higher bills. Just to keep my Sims from getting rich too quickly. I use the 2.6% version, but am considering switching to the 5% one.
• Faster Gardening

I think that’s all I have so far, but I may have missed something. If so, I’ll update again in another post.

This post contains what you’d probably consider spoilers, if you don’t want to know too much about The Sims 3 before playing. Just warning you.

I remind myself constantly that The Sims 3 is not The Sims 2 and not to expect them to be the same. I know they’re different and I’m okay with that. Also, I remind myself that this is just the base game. The Sims 2 base game didn’t have all the features that I now use constantly. Remember The Sims 2 base game? No college, no downtowns, no vacation spots, no owned businesses, no weather, no apartments, no pets, no vampires, no werewolves, no witches, no zombies, no plant Sims, no servos. Can you imagine playing The Sims 2 now without all of the features and items from expansion packs that you’ve grown used to? *shudders* So I’m hopeful that additional enhancements to the gameplay will be added in later expansion packs.

(That said, the one thing I’m really happy about with development on The Sims 2 now over is that I don’t have to hunt down all of my mods to get the latest versions for a new expansion pack anymore. That makes me happy.)

Anyway, I do have certain things so far about The Sims 3 that I like and certain things that I don’t.

What I like:

• The changing neighborhood. I still think it’s awesome to find out that some other Sims in the hood have gotten married, moved, or had a baby. I like seeing who is hooking up with who. That’s one of my favorite things about ACR for Sims 2, that the uncontrolled Sims could initiate romantic interactions on their own and form couples without my input. I manually move townies that have fallen in love into homes around Pine Hollow/Arcadia and let them get married and have a couple of kids, but I like that I don’t have to control that in Sims 3. The other Sims will do it all on their own.
• I like the buttons for “View my Sim” and “Go home.” I like that I can just click on the View My Sim button and I’ll zoom back to that particular one even if I was previously viewing something on the other side of town. And I like that I can make my Sim go home with just one click without having to figure out where in town they are at the moment.
• Toddlers seem to sleep longer. Thank you!
• The traits add new dimensions to the Sims. I mostly like them.
• I really like the camera tilt buttons so I can get my camera into an angle I like for playing easier.
• While I was playing one night I suddenly heard this weird sound going on among all the other household sounds. I turned up my volume and said, “Is someone SINGING?” I looked around and finally figured out that one of my Sims was singing in the shower, LOL. Just a tiny feature that doesn’t make a difference in gameplay, but I liked it.
• I like how you can tell your Sim how to behave at work or school via the drop down choices, to either help them get ahead or let them slack off.
• The in-game camera is actually good and so we don’t need a screen capturing program to take decent pictures. Which means I don’t have to remember to check that FRAPS is turned on before playing. (By the way, I was never able to get Snag-It or Irfanview or anything else that other people suggested to work with my new computer and Windows Vista. Even after updating drivers and changing settings, screen captures in Sims 2 always come out black with anything other than FRAPS.)
• I really don’t mind the opportunities that pop up every now and then. They give my Sim something to do to vary the usual routine that I might fall into and could be incorporated into storytelling. For example, one of Sims had the opportunity to investigate a gnome smuggling ring the other day. Change “gnome smuggling” to whatever you want it to be and it could be used as the basis of a story thread showing the Sim going around town following people and talking to informants, which can then be developed however you want it to go even after the opportunity has been fulfilled. I see them as like in-game Random Occurence Scenarios!
• I like that you can set different lifespans depending on how fast or slow you want time to move.

Things I don’t really like:

• The option for changing active households is hidden and not obvious. I had to pull out the manual and figure out how to do it. I would have liked to be able to change households the way that I do in Sims 2, by just clicking on the house from the neighborhood view. Also from what I can tell, if I last played house X but I want to play house Y the next time I start up the game, I have to first load house X and then change active households to play house Y. There isn’t a way to switch households from the start (unless I’m missing something).
• Everything takes WAY too long to do! I send my Sim off to shower and a Sim hour later he’s just finally getting out? I can already tell I’m going to be downloading every mod I find that cuts various action times down. My Sims aren’t even able to use the bathroom, then cook and eat breakfast before the carpool arrives.
• As you all told me seeds aren’t buyable, can only be found. I’m not interested at all in hunting around town for seeds among having to go to work, wait for my Sims to take their hour long showers, skill for hours, tend to kids, and make sure other Sims in the household don’t do something incredibly stupid around town. I’ll just plant the fruits and veggies I can buy at the store instead and pretend seeds don’t exist.
• Other Sims in the household can do something stupid while you’re not watching. I love the integrated hood and the way Sims can control their own lives even more, but I feel a bit overwhelmed trying to keep an eye on everyone in my household. One person will be at home doing something, another at the park doing something else, and a third arguing with random people in town and making enemies.
• The hydrophobic trait is pretty annoying. Hailey has to complain for several minutes before she takes a shower. Then cry after she gets out of the shower. Every time! I’ll never voluntarily give that trait to another Sim. (Hailey’s personality was randomized.)
• You know how in Sims 2 you could set camera angles by holding Control and numbers 4 through um, whatever it is? 7 or 8? Anyway, then you just have to hit the number for the angle you want and the camera will snap back there. I use that all the time in Sims 2 because sometimes my camera angle is way off after zooming in to take pictures. You can do this in Sims 3 too, except the camera positions start at number 5. My problem with the Sims 3 camera settings is that you apparently can’t set individual camera angles for each household. I set camera angle 5 to a spot focused on Hailey’s house. When I went to play someone else’s house, I discovered that if I hit 5 in that household, my camera snapped back to Hailey’s house. So that means you can only set 4 (or is it 5?) camera angles for the entire hood instead of on a house to house basis like you can in Sims 2. This does not make me happy. I prefer to set up camera angles that I like for each lot and not having to keep changing them depending on what household I’m playing.
• Also, I hate that the 4 is now a speed setting instead of a camera setting. I keep accidentally hitting 4, trying to snap my camera back into place and instead I make the house go into ultra-fast speed, causing me to miss things.
• Edge scrolling in cameraman mode works too well, at least on my computer anyway. I go into cameraman mode to zoom in so I can take pictures and the camera swings wildly around while I’m trying to get a good angle whenever I move the mouse. It’s much easier to control in Sims 2!
• Most of the community lots are rabbit holes. I’m hopeful that an expansion packs gives us back real community lots and ownable businesses like in Open for Business. They already did it for Sims 2, seems obvious that it should be a feature for Sims 3 also.

Overall, I like the game, but I am in NO WAY ready to stop playing Sims 2. It’s going to be a while and require a lot of enhancements and mods before that happens. Speaking of mods, my next post will list the mods I’m using so far, which will be helpful to me in remembering where they all came from.

I think the biggest complaint about the Sims 3 is that it’s not the giant step up from Sims 2 that we had hoped for. When I first saw advertisements for Sims 2, I got REALLY excited about it because it was such a great improvement over Sims 1. I knew that as soon as Sims 2 was out, I’d stop playing Sims 1 entirely. And I did. When I installed Sims 2, I uninstalled Sims 1 and gave my games away and never regretted it. But from the very beginning, Sims 3 didn’t give me that same level of excitement. The biggest improvement is the changing neighborhood, but that seems to be it (at least in my opinion). I’m not giving away my Sims 2 games, not uninstalling them, and for now, I’ll probably still spend more time playing Sims 2 than Sims 3.

I looked at a lot of Sims 3 blogs before I started to play the game, trying to decide whether to play Sunset Valley or Riverview. I finally decided on Sunset Valley because I liked the scenery better.

Hailey has changed a bit since I started playing. She’s now married and is a mother. She married Leighton Sekemoto actually, who is one of the Maxis made Sims and lived around the corner from her little house. I usually don’t like playing with Maxis made families, but in this case I just decided not to worry about it and let her marry the first guy she liked.

I’m not sure that I want to blog about Hailey though. I’m thinking that I may play through a generation or two, let the town change around them, develop some histories, and then maybe pick a few Sims to follow. I still don’t really feel an attachment to these Sims like I do with the residents of Pine Hollow, but maybe it’s just that I’m still learning and getting a feel for the game and don’t really know these Sims yet. That’s why I think I may want to wait and feel a bit more settled in. There are plenty of things I’m still figuring out. Such as, is there any place to buy seeds in Sunset Valley or do I need to go look around somewhere and try to find them? Hailey has the green thumb trait and she had a few seeds in her inventory when she started, but I haven’t figured out where to get more.

I decided to use this title because I thought it might make a good “story” hood title if I decided to go that route since I don’t want to do an actual legacy challenge and I didn’t want to just call it “Sunset Valley Sims” or something like that. Sunset Valley doesn’t feel like it really belongs to me, you know? Not like Pine Hollow does.

So stay tuned and we’ll see what develops.