The Sims 3 Thread

[Lovely95]

I'm sorry you were sick Ticklerkid! Hope everything is better now

It is a common problem users have with exchange items and EA codes. I usually would get sims(major danger zone) and houses from the exchange. The problems always stemmed from weird add-ons from the sims I downloaded. Everything is fine now. I remember downloading Riverview around the time it first came out and I always ignored it. Now I am completely in love with it. I guess it was just better for raising a family than some of the other towns. I once downloaded the greatest town you could ever imagine but then it got deleted. I can't seem to find it either.

I used to play games on a mac and the problems were just constant. I had to backup the game to keep playing it, but eventually it would not work for me (or maybe I just gave up). I stopped playing the game so much and I became busy with work. Now that I've had a lot of time off I have been able to play the game much more. I think next week I'll go get some new stuff for the game.

Those challenges sound really fun! The teen one sounds hard, but the insane asylum sounds like it'd be hilarious. Do all insane sims cook terribly? I've noticed that all of my sims seem to constantly burn waffles until they reach level 4 or something.

[Ticklerkid]

Yes, the teen one was very frustrating and difficult. I used awesomemod to allow my orphaned teen to arrive at the town with no home to live in. She would sleep on park benches or in the library, trying different ways to avoid curfew police. Being penniless, she'd try to steal food from other sims at bbqs at the park and so on. She would raid the veg gardens of other sims in town to get eats. She'd visit homes and raid the fridge which was easier when she got a certain lifetime reward. She'd find goodies around town and sell them and eventually bought a home. It was very challenging. I like playing without cheats, so you learn to use in-game strategies. It does help make you better with the game. I did not have very many EPs when I played her. I'll probably do it again and have a sim with a more evil personality.

As to the Insane Asylum, haha, some of the sims developed good cooking skills but some had no skills at all and usually would eat the instant meals. There's always some sims that have more cleaning initiative too, so spills would be mopped, dirty dishes taken, beds would be fixed, and so on. The pileups at the bathroom had me redesign the original bathroom after a short trial but after the game went on, seems that the pee schedules of most sims worked themselves out. Some of the sims were always always stinky!

here are a set of rules you can use. It really is a lot of fun!
Mod The Sims - Sims 3 "Official" Asylum Challenge
There are various versions of the challenge around the 'net. Including a version for TS2 gamers.

I've no experience with a Mac, but got a crash course in IOS when I was recently gifted with an iPad. Big learning curve for me. I'm glad you have got the major problems ironed out.

If you remember which town/world it was that you wish you had again, PM me. I got a few user built free ones from some forums over the years, that have been interesting to play.

[Lovely95]

That's smart to raid the vegetable gardens. Some towns, like Riverview, have a community garden so she could eat there as well. Thanks for the Asylum link, I'll check it out.

I just recently downloaded a bunch of EPs from a friend, no new ones yet, but it does add some needed aspects to the game. I have noticed, and this was a problem for me since the beginning, that I have to make the town more diverse sometimes. Do your sims have enough children and teens in the towns? Maybe my game's just messed up...

[Ticklerkid]

I haven't noticed a lack of NPC kids and teens in my game. I do have the default setting running where all the sims in the town are aging (TS3 has the town aging, so people go and get married, have kids and stuff... unlike TS2 where only your active family ages). So a TS3 new neighbor might move into a house nearby and in time that sim (might be married or not), may later have a child or more. They really do carry on with their lives. I will sometimes get a reminder to visit an older sim friend, if that sim is getting aged enough to meet the Reaper. If your game doesn't have this dynamic going on, maybe you need to check the settings in your game?

Because of this conversation, I decided to give the homeless teen idea, another go. I have Supernatural and haven't played a witch yet, so I created a teen witch in CAS. I used the traits that were rolled on the in-game dice and lucky for me she had a 'rebellious' trait (which I think probably came from Generations EP). Then I moved her into Riverside. I've only played her two Sim days. I discovered, because of her rebellious trait she got away with being on curfew! I had her at the community garden picking food to eat. (her 'home' is at the Gazebo in midtown, then I did the family funds cheat to set her at zero money)

I gave her an after school part-time job at the grocers which is close to the Gazebo. After work she wanted to do her homework right outside the store. Interesting. There were teens and other sims going in and out of the store; some would stand around as if they wanted to talk to her. I also have Pets EP, and she got to meet a wild horse that met her the first night in Riverside. The same wild horse came down to the store after work! I had her put down her homework and trry to befriend the horse. I don't know much about the witches yet, but she came with a broom that lets her fly around town (in lieu of a taxi) and she has a wand that she can play with, so although she was penniless, Riverview's community garden gave her a nice start for her first days.

I forgot to mention, that if you haven't visited Carl's Sims on the web, give it a shot. They develop and test new worlds there for their forum members. You learn which EPs the worlds are made for and if they can be used if you're missing some of the stuff. I used Carl's sites a lot when I was playing Sims Medieval earlier this year. I didn't expect to buy Medieval but it was on sale so I gave it a whirl.
Carl's The Sims 3 Site: Strategy Guide & Game Help for PC/Mac

[Lovely95]

It says that story progression is enabled, so I don't know what could be wrong. I added more families to the neighborhood, so hopefully that helps out.

I'm glad the homeless teen is working out. It all sounds really fun. Riverview's a good town to play that in. I was wondering if she could get a job to help out and I like that she could make friends with the horse (that's so cute). It's also cool that you play a witch (and very beneficial for a homeless teen). With Supernatural, do the town inhabitants run the risk of turning into a zombie like they do a vampire from Late Night, or is it more complicated than that? I wouldn't mind playing a witch or zombie once in awhile, but I wouldn't want to see the whole town be vulnerable (although that does sound kind of fun ).

Thanks for the Carl's site link. That Union Cove town looks gorgeous! You can tell the towns that had a lot of time spent on them versus the ones just thrown together, although it is probably much harder than it looks. Do you have world editor? Now that I am on PC I can download it but I have yet to. It looks like something you really have to get the hang of and the patience for.

[Ticklerkid]

No, I haven't download the world editor. I don't think I have patience to create and test a world. I have lurked on some forums where there are people with excellent world building skills and I've read about the growing pains as the world takes form. From that superficial experience, I know that it's not my thing.

I would definitely not download a world from the exchange unless there is active discussion and testing of the world on the a world building forum. The official one is here. Forums - Community - The Sims 3

One of the worlds I downloaded from the official TS3 world forum was a settlement on the moon. It had some of the event text, actions edited to fit the world, like bug infestations in the living units... there were some other unexpected events that occurred while exploring. (World Adventures is required in order to have some of those animations) I think it was called Moon Base Charlie. Very imaginative.

Well, my teen sim was having a very hard time keeping up with school, homework and her part time job. Her energy was often in the red after the first few days of work after school. Incidentally, she drew the random trait of social butterfly, ugh, so her social needs keep taking more time than I've got for her other needs and her homework. Sleeping on park benches doesn't fill her sleep needs quickly enough to give enough sim hours to meet all her needs. I don't use any cheats for routine sim life, so for now, she's quit her job, has more time for homework and her high maintenance social needs. She spent one night at the firehouse because she had so desperately many needs in the red--as well as irritating mood swings (like a real teen, good grief), but I didn't want to make the firehouse a habit. Now she can slumber with her HS friends, so it's getting easier to keep her moods up, do homework, and find time to practice her magic skills. The magic is quite fun. But alas, I still have to deal with establishing an income. It's been interesting.

Good luck with your game.

[Lovely95]

I like Simcity, so world editor just naturally intrigued me. When I see other people use it I think twice about it, though.

That world sounds interesting. I downloaded Sunlit Tides from TS3 website. The town is okay, but I love the vegetation that came with it.

Yeah, a job for a homeless teen is good, but she can probably get by without one. I just can't imagine how hard it could be to get established when she gets older.

Good luck with your game too! I'll try to do some challenges later and post about it.

[Ticklerkid]

With the current sale going on at Origin, I got University Life which is on sale despite the fact that it is the newest expansion. I love it! I loved Uni in TS2 but this one has some differences to explore.

Simmers who haven't updated their game in a while should turn on the launcher, and disable custom content. (Back up your world saves too while you're at it)... then update the game. EVEN if you have not bought new expansions in forever and don't plan to now, the latest update adds a lot of new abilities and an amazing SMART PHONE for all. The cell phone is now replaced with the smart phone. More about the updating patch is here:
The Sims 3

Lots of base game updates as you can see on the list at the link.

I haven't had a lot of time to play with my homeless teen witch but she's now at the middle of her HS life, she has a teen boyfriend and she has collected and sold enough gizmos to buy a small trailer sized home. She also earned 40,000 life reward points so on a whim I gave her the Philosopher's Stone (my original plan was to get her the Collection Helper but I like the choice I made) , which she used to bond an adult ghost to her home. He is playable and now they are good friends. Although she does not have a car, she asked him for driving lessons, and he stood on the curb and she flew around on her broom during the lessons, raising her driving skill up one point. I plan to play the playable ghost very minimally; he has a rabbithole job and will help around the house while I focus on the teen. He has artisitic ability and the first painting he made was worth over 940 simoleons. That skill will sure boost their income so they can get a better house soon.

University Mascot came to visit her the first night of install, and she's made friends with him and has discovered she can rapidly rise through the Jock social group as well as the Rebel one. I will have fun putting her through college when she's ready. Uni's already made a lot of fun changes in life for her.

So if you've got TS3, be sure to install the new update for all the amazing changes to the base game. Happy Simming!

[Neemy]

Despite being one of the first to actually PLAY this game (in beta; I was at EA as a "machinima artist" at the Sims 3 custom content creator's camp, pre-launch) I have not been able to get into this game. I uninstalled it last year after I realized I hadn't played in over a year, and that was only to do some machinima. I was VERY active in the TS2 community, and still play that game to this day.

And now we've got TS4 coming... Time flies! But I'll still be playing the "archaic" TS2, because I love it.

[Ticklerkid]

This year, after I did taxes, I just had no time for games. I'm still collecting the EPs for TS3 and will probably eventually have them all because each EP builds so much into the game, but just haven't found time to play and develop a theme and story. (I added Monte Vista earlier this year, but never developed a story but really want to explore it.)

However, since the start of October, I've been playing Sims Medieval again (I've got Pirates and Nobles as well). The quest and strategy format just really fits my mood lately since the greater themes are in place so mainly it's a strategy game for me. Currently playing a kingdom with high culture and knowledge using randomized game heros (I'm calling the kingdom "Hollyweird") has been very entertaining lately.