A Sheep's Short Tale

Learning a Power Point Program and Playing Around with The Sims 3

This quality work of art is brought to you by: peasant007

So, yeah, I'm a total sheep. When TS3 was first announced, I thought that it would be this great thing that I would abandon TS2 over; much like I did with TS1. However, the more information that was released showcasing the “features” TS3 had to offer, the less I wanted the game. This was, of course, all before “The Horror” thread started over at MATY; that thread just validated my reasons no to buy the game.

Not only did the game play sound unappealing, but I had just discovered Boolprop.com and all of the legacy stories over there. How I wish I would have found out about that site sooner, but I digress. I started my own legacy story about six months before TS3 was supposed to be released, and I wanted to finish it before I decided to play around with a new Sims game.

Nuh huh. No way, Jose'. Not gonna get it.

So, what did I do almost first thing June 2nd? Baaaaa!

After playing around with TS3 for a couple of days, I figured I would show a few pictures from my game AND learn how to use Impress; all so I can continue writing the Devereaux and Yax familes. Frankly, I found myself missing them and I am anxious to get back to them.

So, here are some of my opinions of The Sims 3.

First things first. I knew going in that the entire neighborhood would age and die without my playing with them. I didn't realize how painful that would be, though. Not that I was attached to any of the Pre-Mades, but it solidified the fact that if I were to do a Sims 3 Legacy story, my family would really only have one kid per generation.

The picture above is of Bella Goth, er, Bachelor and Malcom Landgraab. My game is playing with High Free Will, Story Progression On, and Aging On. As it stands currently in my game, Bella is an elder and is NOT married to Mortimer, who is also an elder. I thought with Story Progression On that they would get married; this is apparently not the case.

As a person who DOES play her spare families this was unappealing from the get go. Heck, even as a regular player, I get bored playing one family constantly, but I LIKE having all of my families meet each other and interbreed. The literally culls randomly, and I would hate to lose a family that I like.

I realize that this MIGHT be appealing to some players, but really, what was wrong with playing families in rotation?

So, speaking of spares, I decided to recreate Lillian for this endeavor. From memory, this is the best I could get. Admittedly, I didn't spend a WHOLE lot of time on modifying her face, but for some reason, whatever I create in CAS looks almost completely different when playing the game. Anyway, she has a fat head, even when I changed the shape size. She looks weird, doesn't she?

Lillian here was assigned the following traits: Evil, Insane, Inappropriate, Family Oriented, and Lucky. Her favorites were: Pop music, the color black, and PB&J sandwiches. She also likes long walks on the beach and would love to spend time with that extra special someone...

Honestly, the Evil trait made me laugh the most; a close second being Insane. Evil Baths, Evil Dances (not that they looked any different from the usual ones), and best of all, Donating to Undermine Charities was funny. Plus she cackled and talked to herself constantly, which is what she's doing in this picture. Much like her TS2 version, she gave some of the best evil faces.

Upon further consideration, I should have replaced Inappropriate with Charismatic, as that would have been more in line with her other self, but her wearing all the wrong clothes at all the wrong times made me giggle. Then again, Insane did the same thing. Oh well.

An interesting note: When you pick their LTW, it gives you five options based off of the traits you chose. Lillian, of course, chose to be “The Emperor of Evil.” Other sims created can have different options.

The graphics are pretty, but honestly they aren't that much better than TS2. Seriously, as I was playing the game, Keith walked in, glanced at my screen and asked if I was playing TS2.

When I read everyone talking about how great the loading time is, I feel sad. Are people really that stupid? When TS2 came out, a bare bones game also loads that fast; it's just years of gathering CC that bogs a game down.

No load time to get to places: so what? Essentially a save game treats the entire neighborhood as a household. What are we giving up so we can get to Central Park faster?

I know that this all sounds very negative so far. I know that people will say “that's just because you're used to TS2.” They would be correct, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, I actually LIKED this game. God knows I spent an insane amount of time playing around with it, staying up until the wee hours. It IS addictive...but as a different type of game. I don't look at this as the dawning of a new Sim era.

It's kind of like the Sims, but it's not. Actually, it's an awful lot like the Sims for Playstation; you focus on one family and their goals and dreams. That's what this was all about.

Of course, Sims 2 is also like that, but as J.M. Pescado put it, Sims 3 is a game to beat then put to the side, Sims 2 is a toy. I agree whole heartedly with his assessment. I can see myself becoming bored with this game so much faster. I can't really build my terrible terrible Pleasantview and rule over all of them with an iron fist if I can only play with one family with any real success.

Speaking of success, I totally cheated the entire time. Whenever a new game comes out (that's not a MMORPG) I play around with it in Debug Mode so I can see how it runs without having to actually worry about dying at all the wrong times. Then I replay (in the case of RPG games like Oblivion) the entire thing without cheating. My husband tells me that I am unusual in that respect and I am fine with that.

Anyway, I got Lillian married off to this guy, Milton something or other. It's hard to tell who are townies and who is a playable, so I don't know how that will work out when Pinstar rewrites the Legacy rules for Sims 3. I guess one has to stick specifically to NPC characters. Anyway, Milton was apparently a playable. One thing I learned, when getting married, the Sim selected for the entire process is the last name the spouse will take; NOT the one who initiates the action. That was rather irritating.

Another irritating thing is the romantic actions. Every time you have to go through this enitre process of flirting and hugging before they get to kissing; even when it's a husband and wife of many years.

You also cannot customize maternity clothes. And on the subject of maternity, giving Lillian a whole week off, no choice, when she was having a baby was obnoxious. Her LTW was to become “The Emperor of Evil” and having to wait a week before getting a promotion got real old, especially since time move SO REDICULOUSLY SLOW! There is no difference between Speed 2 and Speed 3. Turning down the graphics did not help.

Babies are babies. Much like Sims 2, you cannot tell what or who the kid will look like until they hit toddler age. All the babies have the darker skin tone and eyes and the only difference is what color the blanket is to show what the gender is.

However, a positive point is you can determine what sex the baby will be by what the mother eats during the pregnancy; watermelons for girls and apples for boys. This is great news for people who might take the Matriarch or Patriarch handicap. No more having multiple babies of the wrong gender as you wait patiently for the new heir to be born. But then again, where is the fun in that?

Babies have viewable needs, so they are much higher maintenance than their TS2 versions. They are also babies for three days instead of the one.

Needs decay very quick, at least that's how it looked to me. As soon as Lillian got done snuggling Tabitha here, one sim hour later Tabitha had the “lonely” moodlet and wanted to be picked up again. Gone are the days where you can just leave the kid in the crib and wait for them to age to toddler.

Because Lillian was cheated into a high mood for the entire pregnancy, I was able to pick out Tabitha's traits. Even with Debug Mode off, the traits wouldn't stick. I would have to go back into Debug Mode, Shift Click on the sim, and reselect the wanted trait; sometimes four or five times.

With a born sim, you don't get to pick what their favorites are, and you also don't get to customize their voice. This leads to your created sim having a unique voice, and all born sims having the same voice that was assigned to them. Beauty marks are also not genetic, nor can you give them when you are changing their appearance.

There is some semblance of genetics I suppose. Milton had some very dominant genes, so they would override Lillian's pale skin and blue eyes. Tabitha is a dead ringer for Milton, she inherited nothing from Lillian. Look at those eyebrows crawling on Tabitha's forehead. They look like caterpillars!

Another nice thing though is when you want to change a toddler's appearance, they can go to the dresser and mirror themselves instead of having their parent pick them up and carry them to accomplish this.

Toddlers are useless after they were potty trained and were taught to walk and talk. They only learn three skill points total on the xylophone and logic blocks; there is no bunny head to learn charisma from. The worst part of this is that toddlers remain at that age for seven days. Seeing as time crawls, this was painful as they do nothing of use.

So, of course, Debug Mode went back on and I aged Tabitha up.

And I had to keep picking her new trait three or four times before it stuck.

For the record, it was not the Debug Mode that was causing the trait to not stick. I tried regular aging with the cheat mode off, and it STILL didn't work. I had to RESORT to using the cheat mode. I know that if a sim doesn't have a good age period the game will assign it a trait, but that wasn't the case. The game let me pick and it wouldn't stick.

There is the ultimate positive part of the game. I absolutely LOVE the color wheel and design option on most things. I can live without new meshes for now; I love how I can make a signature outfit for a sim and totally coordinate their surroundings. Because Tabitha had the “good” trait (I made her like the female version of Zane) I decided that all of her stuff would be pink, cream, and brown to Lillian's black and dark purple.

Then it eventually spread out over the house.

The house is now looking suspiciously like something a Squeaky Clean character wouldn't mind living in. Poor Lillian.

One of Tabitha's traits is also Artistic, which means she likes excels at painting and the guitar. Seeing as there is no piano, and kids can't use the guitar until they are a teenager, Tabitha spent most of her free time in front of the easel.

A note on taking pictures: the mouse is too sensitive, so it is hard to get a precise angle. Plus, you have to put the walls up and be on the floor that the target on is before you go into Camera Man Mode. It takes some getting used to, and I still haven't perfected it. It's a learning curve, I realize, as I know using Camera Man Mode in TS2 took some time getting used to.

Getting your sim to do anything takes FOREVER. It took Tabitha almost two hours to age up and blow out her candles; it wasn't a nice, quick age transition. Once again, as time takes forever, this was painful. There also is no party timer, so I had no idea when her birthday party was going to end, or how well the party was going.

By the way, you cannot customize the birthday cake, so you are stuck with a uglier version of the Sims 2 cake. In fact, I noticed that most animations and items come directly from TS2. One of the saving graces of this game is the fact that you can customize everything, so I don't know why you can't customize a cake. Or stairs and fences for that matter.

Lillian eventually met her LTW and became The Emperor of Evil. That's why she's glowing red here. What's funny is the fact that the guy I created (Michael) for Tabitha to marry also had the good trait; so whenever Lillian walked by either of them, they would both “Boo” her.

So, these sims don't have memories anymore, they just have moodlets. Okay, that's fine. However, when you meet their LTW, it becomes locked and you don't get an option to give them a new one. They also don't stay satisfied forever like the Perma Plat status in TS2. Instead they have a Fulfilled moodlet that lasts for 7 days, and then it's back to babysitting them.

I realize that Perma Plat came with University, but I was under the impression that meeting their LTW in TS3 would be similar to that. Before you meet their LTW, you have the option to buy, with Aspiration Points, a chance to change their LTW. That option goes away once their LTW is fulfilled. I really wish that option stayed there forever. I could deal with having to spend 30,000 Aspiration Points to give them another chance to be Fulfilled for another week.

Oh, but I'm sure that option will be in an upcoming expansion pack.

Honestly, I put this picture here because it made me laugh. Tabitha and Michael just got married and are on the bed to Try For a Baby. Lillian followed them into the bedroom and stood by the bed with the thoughts of having grandchildren running through her head.

Remember, Lillian is Family Oriented; both here and in TS2.

Notice the nice coordinating bedspread and curtains? Much love for the color wheel option.

I also should have given Michael some socks for his outfit; I didn't see them when he was standing up in CAS, so I thought they wouldn't be noticeable.

So Tabitha had a a daughter (assured by the fact that she ate a bunch of watermelon) named Morgan. Morgan was not born with the blond hair, but she DID get either Michael or Lillian's blue eyes.

Anyway, that was when I learned that a bunch of the kids books helped with skill building. Which ones I don't know, because skill points don't show up until the kid hits child age and uses that skill; then they start at level three. This was a cute and new animation though; Tabitha reading with Morgan.

This is when I also came to appreciate, once again, the humor of the game designers. Three of the children books had a very distinct Dr. Seuss sound to them:

* “Frank I'm Not” Which would be, I'm assuming, followed with a “Sam I Am”* “Oh the Destinations You'll Briefly Visit” which would be “Oh the Places You'll Go”* And my favorite, “Blueish Eggs with a Side of Pastrami” which is of course, “Green Eggs and Ham”

I may be sometimes resentful of how EA games handles their business actions, but their game designers have never failed to make me laugh. And a sad thought just occurred to me; with how illiterate some of the BBS people are, I highly doubt that they would even get the Dr. Seuss Easter Eggs. /sigh

When someone is helping a child with their homework, they will actually sit on the floor with the child. That animation of the “Help Child with Homework” interaction is new. The actual animations of the kid doing homework is the same as TS2. However, if the kid isn't getting help, they will actually do their homework at a nearby table. In fact, they will autonomously do their homework if they aren't directed to do something else, and their homework sits in their inventory; the kids don't place it on the ground or some other random area where you have to look for it. That was a very nice feature.

A nice thing is with elders, while they will automatically age into white hair, you can go to the mirror and change their hair color back to their original color. Lillian doesn't look like an elder sitting here. BUT, Elders have such frumpy looking clothes, so I couldn't give Lillian an outfit that looked exactly like her Adult one.

Lillian lived to be 96 days old. Milton died at 90. Lillian had the Heartbroken moodlet, and everyone else had the Mourning moodlet for two days. They would stop what they were doing and start crying over Milton, and then Lillian when she passed on. Fortunately for me (not really them) I had purchased the Moodlet Manager item with Aspiration Points, so I was able to zap away their bad moodlets.

I turned the house next door into a community lot (nicely enough, with only a click of a button) and made the Merryweather Mausoleum. The ghosts will occasionally come out of their graves and wander around town, sometimes taking a cab to get to their destination.

Apparently birthday cakes can set on fire.

When this game was announced, we were told that the Sims were smarter than their predecessors. That is a big, fat, huge, bald, BLATANT lie! They will run from all over to panic over a fire. They also have MAJOR pathing issues. All of those people piled up in the doorway; they had been like that since they were told to gather around and watch Tabitha and Michael age up. Morgan has the Brave trait, so she was the only one not doing the “FIRE!” panic dance. But, she's patiently waiting for the people to move out of her way so she can extinguish the flames.

No sims died and eventually I got Morgan to call the Fire Department who came to put the fire out. Then, with a click of a button, I was able to replace all of the burned items; that was a pretty nice feature.

Once again, I love the color wheel. See the pretty pink walls and floors? /glee

So, the game is rated a “Meh.” It's okay for what it is. It is entertaining and addictive like the other two, but I felt myself missing some of TS2 features; and I'm not even really referring to stuff that came from expansion packs. Memories, better pathing intelligence, and prettier sims.

Compare this stock picture of my SimSelf to the first picture. It's not really that much of a difference, and I think this one looks better. I LIKE the cartoony look TS2 has over the Pixar Entertainment look TS3 has. In fact, if the color wheel would have been introduced to TS2, it would stand as the far superior game to this day.

I will continue to play TS3 when I'm bored, but I will prefer TS2 for quite some time yet. TS3 was not the giant leap from TS2, like TS2 was to TS1. In fact, I remember when TS2 came out and most people had no problems abandoning TS1 for it (despite what all the big, huge, FLUFFY BBS sheep seem to think. They are only 14, what do they know?). Now I'm reading about how people played TS3 and uninstalled it. That DID not happen with TS2. Oh well.

So, that's it. It was okay, but more importantly, I've tooled around with this Power Point program to feel comfortable enough to do a Devereaux update.

Thanks for reading, and I hope the template isn't too bothersome.

The End