And that sad is called The Sims 3 Store.
Plus the reviews from the people playing the pirated version of the game aren’t very promising.
However, I remain optimistic. There might be a fun game in there. I won’t pass judgement on that until I play it myself. But the store? Shame on you, EA. It’s obvious you withheld craploads of content from the game just so you could sell it for outrageous prices at your store. It’s nothing but pure greed. If you want to kill the love people have for this franchise, you’re going about it the right way.
*steps off of soapbox*
I wholeheartedly agree with you. *nods* And I, too, will judge for myself whether or not the game is made of win or phail. *nods again* *claps as you step off your soapbox*
I know EXACTLY how you feel. I’ve had to activly stop myself from reading any more posts about the game, just because my excitment dimms every time I do (lol and I wasn’t ALL that thrilled with the sims 3 to begin with). If someone doesn’t find away around the ‘enforced single household play’ I will be severly dissapointed in the game. Also the sims 2 store items were not available to Australians, who says the sims 3 will be either? Which leaves me hoping some awesome people will do the same with these items as they did for the sims 2. Sorry EA.
EA, you are full of teh suk! Your outrageous prices for base games aren’t enough? Now you have to rape us even moar to get shinies for the games we so love? Two thumbs down.
I agree that this is horrible. Who didn’t see this coming though after the TS2 store? Apparently that must have done well and made them money.
I for one won’t pay for pixels for my sims. XP I’d rather buy IRL clothes, food, and other games than pixel furniture for my pixel dollies.
This is just one of the many reasons I will never buy this game. I think EA/Maxis only sees us a dollar signs and nothing more. All the content from the store should have been added to the game or put into a stuff pack.
I also agree with TheLunarFox I would rather buy real life stuff like food,clothes, and furniture, and more games than spent it on my sims. I mean I love my sims but not enough to spend real money on them other than buying the game, stuff packs, and expansion packs.
I know this might sound wierd but I have been itching to play sims 1, sims 2 came out so fast I never really got to explore some of the newer expansion packs like Makin Magic!
So, let me get this right. Custom content is not able to be made (as far as I last heard), and the only extra content not shipped with the game we have to pay for? And to top it all off, the cheapest content set is equivalent to $5? What kind of bull honkey is that?
And not only that, but a fair amount of the content that actually ships with the game is just stuff from Sims 2 (animations included). I don’t know if the stuff in the store will be similar copy-pasta, but I am not encouraged by the signs. Or the fact that they’re charging nearly $15 for a set of 35 furniture items in the store. Way to go, EA. It’s bad enough we know that you withhold things from previous games that are usually big wants for people from the new main game to be able to get expansion packs out of (pets, weather), but now you’re withholding content from the BASE GAME just to be able to put it in the store? Pfft.
– Audrey, who could rant on and on about this subject (but can’t say she’s surprised, really, and has expected it ever since the Sims 2 store came along)
I’ve played it for a few hours. BTW, I am a long time reader of Jen’s and have played Sims since 2004.
Anyway, the biggest gripe I have with it is the way the sims look in game. Their heads and their eyes…they look sort of doughy and demented. They move oddly, slowly and a tad jerky.
To me, as a storyteller, being able to “get into” my characters is a big part of the game. I cannot get into these Sims.
It is really sad…
I played for about two hours and I just wanted to go back to my beloved Sims 2 town.
I’ll try it again tomorrow, but my initial feeling is not good.
But I will say the graphics of the world (scenery) are pretty cool. But you can’t make your own town (yet?) and that means I am just not that interested.
Last thought. It really is more of a “game” then a “tool” to put your imagination into like Sims 1 and 2.
One more thing: DEFINITELY not worth paying $50 or whatever they want for it. DEFINITELY not.
It’s all very disappointing. I’m getting a real Sim City Societies vibe from The Sims 3. It’s just sounding like a huge step BACKWARDS. From the reports at MATY it sounds like modders *might* be able to make custom objects and clothing at some point, but modding actual gameplay is going to be difficult. I get the feeling that EA tried their best to discourage the players from modding — probably so they can be the only ones making new shinies for the game which can they can sell in their store for big bucks. They want total control over the customization aspect of the game. Which is understandable in one way — it’s easier for their tech support if they don’t have to deal with modded-up-the-wazoo games, and Joe Doh who doesn’t know what hacks are won’t accidentally install them in his game. But taking away customization from The Sims will ruin the franchise. If not for the awesome CC in this community I doubt I would have played the game past the first year.
I’m disheartened to hear that it’s hard to connect to the Sims 3 Sims. A lot of us love TS2 because we love our little Simmies so goshdarned much (even if we have to mod the game to pieces in order to cope with gameplay ;-). And like Audrey, I am sad about all of the stuff copied from TS2. That’s just pure laziness to me. I remember watching a video of two TS3 sims having a conversation, and I recognized a good 50% of the animations. Sigh. You know, we’ve been playing this game for almost 5 years. We’ve seen those animations a zillion times. Give us something new, for pete’s sake!
Anyway. I’m ranting again and don’t want to act like the sky is falling, but…I think the sky is falling. :-( I think we will have to think of TS3 as a completely brand new game which has nothing to do with the game we love. Maybe we can call it Simpostors. I’m still thinking I might be able to enjoy the game on its own terms (especially if I have such low expectations). But will I fall in love with it? Time will tell.
Jen – There’s definitely stuff in the game that feels like it’s a step backward when you compare it to Sims 2. There IS some good stuff in there, too. I’m trying to write up a full ‘report’ to post to SimScribes.. sometime-ish. Maybe today after work, if I can swing it.
But I agree. It feels like they’re trying to take customization away from the players, which is sad because that ability to customize so much of the game is what really made the game so popular to begin with! We’ve gone from a game where the playerbase has been encouraged to create and share and we were given new free objects every once in a while.. to a game where we’re being limited to swapping color pallets in-game and being overcharged for content that should’ve been included in the base game to begin with. It’s really sad to see.
Ooh, I would love to read your report, Audrey!
Jen, you hit the nail on the head. I played Sim City Societies. For about a day. That was 6 hours too long.
The game looks and feels very, very similar. Not Sims-ish.
You all will see what I mean soon enough. It is just ugh.
This whole thing is really very saddening. I know that when I first saw the advertisements for the Sims 2, I was blown away and could barely contain my excitement. By the time it was released in stores, I was just about bald from pulling my hair out in anticipation. But ever since the beginning of the Sims 3 hype, I have felt utterly let down. The sims look ugly, for lack of a better word. (Although, Sims 2 sims look ugly to me too now, if I don’t have CC on them.) But the Sims 3 sims just look…wierd. I too have noticed a ton of the same objects and animations. And I am most unhappy about the whole one-unmodifiable-neighborhood thing. That’s just the stupidest idea ever. Unless they are going to come out with an expansion pack to fix that, it’s just ridiculous and really might cost them some of their fan base.
I used to think that EA/Maxis listened to the community when deciding on what expansion or what features to include in the next game. I remember when the community was begging for life stages and more 3D sims, they responded with our now beloved Sims 2. I figured they’d do the same with this game. But this time they haven’t done that all. If they’d just look at some of the blogs out there right now, they would see that things like custom towns with functioning colleges, banks, jails, hospitals, etc are really popular. Mods that make the game more realistic and closer to real life are super popular and have been for some time. Not to mention having the option to make themed neighborhoods and story telling neighborhoods and Sims-to-Sims neighborhoods and whatever else your heart desires. But they haven’t listened to any of that, and we’re left with a huge disappointment that I have yet to hear a good review of.
But I guess we’ll see in a week or so. Here’s hoping we’re all wrong!
I agree about the store – it’s disgusting. Unfortunately, the franchise has been headed in this direction for a while now. Pure greed!
To be honest, it’s not the “game” at all I love about the Sims 2, but the ability to make it my own, and use it to create my own world and stories. I’ve never played a Maxis neighborhood, and I’m not about to start now. A big part of making my game my own is the modding community and CC creators who make that possible.
I’ve already decided to wait one or two EPs before I jump ship on Sims 2. I need to be sure it can be customized to my liking, including some custom skins for those FUGLY Sims! (Somebody said “dougy” and yes, they are! I was trying to put my finger on what was wrong with them! They look like claymation, lol!)
But then, there are so many things I’m hopeful for (the personality system, the scenery and open neighborhood) that I’m really trying to have faith that the modding community will be genius enough to crack it open and get what we want out of it. I believe that they will.
But if not, I’ve got a fun thing going with Sims 2 right now, and it’ll take a lot to win me over.
Alrighty, back with a further report.
The Sims are still ugly. But, already there is a censor hack out. I tried it and it works. So modders are already modding! Yeah! Also, someone posted a cleaned hood, with no sims in it. I also tried that, it does work. He then put some sims up for DL, I put those in the clean hood and they worked just fine, bios intact and all.
The world itself, the graphics are SOOOO pretty. The flowers move, the lighting is gorgeous. So once there is some CC to take the fug off the Sims, there may be some hope for us Storyteller types.
But still the game is not worth my cash until there is a way to make my own hoods. Until then, no go.
I know it’s disappointing that we might not have a fantastic new game to play with, but remember we don’t lose the Sims 2 or anything that goes along with it. If Sims 3 turns out great, then fantastic! If not, nothing lost.
The sims are doughy, but it’s worse than that. Sometimes, they move and their eyes look so odd. Like if a real person successfully preformed that comical sim gesture where their eyes pop open. So every so often, the sims freak me out with just a look in their eyes.
I really don’t think a new skin could make them less creepy looking.
And I was also very disappointed to see that more than half of the animations are not new, but re-used. How lazy can you get? Perhaps they were just thinking, “Well, we can’t top that, so we’ll just re-use it.”
It is a clever game though from time to time, and the customization aspect is really fun. (Probably too fun in fact, because I think I spend more time coloring clothes than I do playing).