OMG okay relax relax...haha cool stuff i was so into this stuff back in the day , still am. good stuff

Good news about the moods, that always bugged me.

Sounds awesome already.

Yay! Now i can trap my Sims in a house and light it on fire in glorious next-gen graphics!

Now I can't lock my game's family and neighbors in a small room, watching them collapse in exhaustion and weeping as they urinate all over the floor? Way to miss the point of the game guys.
I sure hope my real family and neighbors are up to the task.

That'll be cool, I just hope they can make it better than the mediocre "Sims 2". I was also bummed that The Sims 2 needed 5 MB of my 8mb ps2 card space.

Dumbing down The Sims...? I didn't think it was possible but there you go, I would vastly prefer they just add more time to the day thus providing more time to do fun stuff while still requiring the basic housekeeping activities that take up 3/4 of the day.

Just to be clear, this isn't a PC only release is it? We're surely getting a PS3/360 port, yes? D:

Huh...already getting a worried SimCity Societies flashback here.

Stay good Sims 3!

@Morberis: Most definitely.

The most irritating thing about that series to me has always been how long the "necessities" take. It's like hours out of the day just to shower, eat, etc. They need to slow down the time aspect, make those activities quicker, something.

@Vidril: most likely, but most likely in the same way that ps2 got the sims 2 =)

Um ... looks like Sims 2 ... No graphical improvement?

@Vidril:

Likely the same type of port that has been produced thus far, aka garbage.

Not saying I don't like The Sims, I own every pack (except the stuff packs) made but if you remove the sandboxiness of the game all you have is a bland life story.

God damn it. After having to buy my girlfriend all the expansions to Sims 1 and the again for Sims 2. I'm just ecstatic to get this news.

How does performing necessary, everyday bodily functions make one narcissistic?

Sounds like this one game that was canceled: Simsville

@Morberis:

Yes!

It always annoyed me that a day would consist of my Sim waking up, showering, eating, going to work, coming back and going straight to the shower, and then go to sleep...with half of my meters halfway and the other half in the red!

But, removing that would be dangerous...considering how badly I got addicted to the first Sims!

Why are simulation games getting dumbed down? Sim City Society, I'm looking at you.

@Coquiton:

I don't think they would need to remove it, just make it take up a smaller percentage of the day.

To me it sounds like they're going the way of Sim City Societies like ceilingFANBOY suggested, I wonder if it will be the games death or start of it anyway.

Yay, now I can bring my beloved snuff film simulator into the next gen! Thanks, Maxis, I'll make sure to update my Sims photo album with plenty more misery.

@ceilingFANBOY: now with 100% more fanboy: Easier game to play = more people playing it = more money. I don't like the dumbing down either, but it seems to be the way things are heading.

Ah, the game is being dumbed down so 10 year old girls can enjoy it more? Yes, that's a true story...

There'd better be 5 times as much content in The Sims 3 alone as all the content in the Sims 1 and 2, including expansions, put together then, because the gameplay of The Sims is based on that micromanagement, and if it's downplayed, wading through content will be a hell of a lot quicker.

I seriously hope they add a cheat code in that brings the old bars back. I don't give a crap if they "aren't intending the product to be played that way", I seriously doubt I'm buying it if they remove what makes the game challenging completely.

Ever since dumbed down games started getting popular (MySims, World of Warcraft), games seem to be going at an awkward pace. They're realy tapping into that casual market. I don't know if "Dumbing" a game down is always bad, but I don't know what to say. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.

@Codexx: You're joking, right?

Normally I can get behind a good thrashing of a developer who is dumbing down a game, but it's the SIMS. It already only barely qualified as a "game" in every other dimension, the bits of annoying Micro-management were woefully out of place.

@Tetley: Dumbing down? What, making a good decision to move away from constantly micro-managing a bunch of little bars is dumbing down? Sounds like a lot more fun to me. That was the part I hated most about Sims, having to constantly herd around my family of morons to doing things just to keep them from failing at life. Though I bet it wouldn't be so bad if they gave you a larger span of time between days and a smaller decline on those bars, but either one of the two would be better design ideas than prior. In reality, why not have less to micro-manage, and more to do in general? Toss some of that My Sims or Spore-like features, and make it possible to craft tons of things just from materials that you might purchase or gather or unlock on top of the usual 'Lots of funky stuff'.

@Moonshadow101:

I disagree. Micromanaging can make a game. If you disagree, try playing the Scourge in Warcraft 3 without Micromanaging, the fun and skill involved in the play is completely lost.

What qualifies the Sims as a simulation game and not jsut a random simulation, is the fact that you MUST micromanage little human like non-humans that are too stupid to take care of themselves. The whole point of ALL of Will Wright's games are in the micromanagement of things. You must challenge yourself to constantly keep needs up, keep a schedule, and ultimately improve living conditions of your family and then their neighbors. If you can't manage their little lives, then they will not go to work, not make money, always live in crappy conditions, and eventually just die, probably from hunger or something...

Sure, you can have fun managing the life of some slobby fat frat boy, and you can have fun with other stuff, like the Vampires and such that came in the expansion packs. But really those are distractions from the gameplay. They're fun, but the whole point of The Sims is to manage the family. Dumbing that down just leaves the content to explore, and there's probably not going to be enough to keep people entertained for very long. At least in the first couple of games, you had to work for stuff. You had to work to buy land, build the house, furnish it, get a wife, then raise a child while also keeping up on what you've previously accomplished. The Sims 2 took this concept and made it a fully rendered 3D environment to explore and use. What will the Sims 3 offer? It'll be a departure from what made me play the game for days instead of simply hours. Not a good way to convince customers to buy an expansion.

I like that this is how they fixed the annoying rushing around the house to pee, eat, sleep, clean, shower, etc. and still never be able to keep those meters up without cheats.

Sure, they could have made the meters deplete more slowly, or given more time to the day.

But what's a franchise without taking risks? Who knows, this may make it more intriguing. I like the idea it's not just taking care of your Sim in your house anymore, it's caring for it in a living breathing world.

@Tetley: This is one of those instances where people who don't like the casual gaming fad are justified.

Wow, did not realize there were Sims snobs. "Dumbing down" the Sims as some sort of degrading remark is silly. Streamlining some of the tedious stuff to expand on other features sounds like basic game design.

@skewt:

What they are dumbing down is the fundamentals of game design. Imagine if Phoenix Wright had clues glowing so you didn't have to waste time examining the whole room, thus "streamlining the process" of gathering evidence.

I can't really imagine a Sims game without "pee-meters", since it was such a big part of the game itself. The other part was the relationship and lifestyle management, which I suppose they would have to expand upon greatly to replace the micro-management aspects. It'll be interesting to see how they'll do that.

You know, thinking about it... the only thing I really couldn't stand about the sims was the damned meters always telling me to piss now and eat now and do whatever the hell.

A more abstract less annoying way of it would be nice.

@Anthropomancer: Hey! You guys have an edit button now!?

@Ampillion, now with the hair stylings of TVs Frank: Guess it's just personal preference. I liked the micro stuff, to me that was the challenge. "How can I get all the duller needs met and still have time to develop friendships, raise the family, etc". Sort of like real life? I think if you remove some of that challenge, it becomes less of a game and more of a fishbowl with nice graphics. I certainly didn't intend on coming off as a "Sims snob", so apologies if that was the case.

FINALLY! I liked the first Sims but seriously some actions were ridiculous. No matter how hard I tried to keep y sim happy he would always become depressed due to some small issue. Then because of that he would lose his job due to not attending, then fail to look for another job because hes unhappy, then finally any time I tried to make him hapy, he would only freaking complain! So by thefourth or fifth hour or so I would go mad and just try to see how sad I can make him and maybe get him to kill himself or find away for him to die. Usually I would never train him how o cook and force him to then sset the house and fire and watch him burn!!!!!! YOu may call me sadist but seriously he deserved it (THats what you get for angering your virtual god!). Anyway hope to see this go good places!

But is it fun now?

I always wanted a society people/societal simulator that allowed you to create specific viruses and unleash them onto the population.

contagious? yes. zombifying? absolutely.

@Weasel3689: I hope they add suicide and murder actions, ya know, just to satisfy our terrible, bad, thoughts and laugh with glee. "The Sims: Manhunt". Having to take a shower, eat and dig shallow graves in a single day.

lol on the part where it saya click to enlarge it looks like it says dick to enlarge

@kingdong6:

*says

I don't like the build society type games, I'd rather destroy them. I wonder what that says about me? mmmmmm, GTA....

I do like the changes that they are making, but I'm still not sure it would be that much more interesting than the old Sims games.

@Tetley: In all honesty, I don't think there was much real 'challenge' to the game. I mean, at first, sure. It was a jumble, it could be pretty hard to manage three or four people with the crappy low-grade stuff you have to start with, people possibly working different shifts at crappy jobs just to get better goods. But as you get that 'juggling' down, the game itself gets easier, as work hours get shorter, money is much more plentiful, and your furniture restores a lot more of your bar.

I'm not saying that it's dragging the game down to something terrible, some certainly enjoy the gameplay, and it's not broken or anything, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. I usually lost interest in the game once it got to the point where I was making lots of money and able to afford all the good stuff.. because there wasn't anything to do at that point, management was practically gone.(I'm basing much of this on the first one, the only one I really played a lot.) And yes, if they get rid of the micromanagement, they'll definitely have to replace it with something to keep it actually interesting, as the micromanagement is kinda what kept you going and playing. There has to be something to replace it, or at least, a different way that 'management' is brought into the game play.

Good. Why would I want to have a depressed character when I can just do that in real life? Can't wait to live vicariously through my Sims!!! /sarcasm

...BUT I WANT TO MAKE THEM PISS THEMSELVES AND ZOOM IN ON THE TEARS!

Fuck yes! No more weird time where only the family you control ages and when your of your lot time stands still. At least that's how I interpret the text.

I'm glad the mood meter has changed. When I played the console version of the Sims it was annoying the way the system worked. Just getting my sim ready (showering, eating) took so much time. So I often let them go without a shower or eat and would alterante the days the could do it.

Once I had a third child but was forced to go to work as one of the objectives. Due to this the child was ignored and taken away by the CPS. How can you force me to go to work? My "wife" was supposed to be a stay at home mom!

@PiyoPiyo: Same thing I thought when I saw this.

@Erwin:
No no, they still NEED to pee and sleep. It'll just be harder to tell WHEN they'll break down and urinate all over the floor.

Am I the only one that thinks that the sims is just a thinly disguised murder-torture-sadism simulator?

Back to getting my guy to look at the telescope in broad daylight.

In Sims 2, I used to get that man-eating plant and have the "friends" I didn't like eaten by it so I could extend my Sim's lifespan from their "juice" (damn that sounds wrong).

Also, I used to invite all the people the Sim knew to a party only to lock them in a swimming pool with no exits.

That was fun. I'm looking at you Sims 3. :P

So THAT'S why we have to wait until September for SPORE!

Amazing. I remember just having my Sims sleeping, eating, pissing, working, eating, pissing, sleeping, then repeating the process over and over again. Finally I won't know when my Sims have to piss and eat!

I'll end up buying this for my wife, since she loved the first 2 Sims games. I might play it a little, but I always take it down the sadistic "kill 'em all" route.

Ahh...good times.