Sims 3 Teaser Posted

[Itchyeyes]

EA has created an official page (http://thesims3.ea.com/) teasing the announcement of the next major installment in their cash cow franchise, The Sims. The site promises more information coming on March 19th.

Although EA is notorious for milking The Sims through their expansion sets and spin-offs, they've done a solid job with the major installments so far. The original was ground-breakingly innovative, and the 2nd game was a solid follow up that kept the underlying gameplay while improving on it on almost every level. Here's hoping EA continues that trend with Sims 3.

[LilAbner]

Cha-ching.

[Heretic Machine]

They did a lot of cool things with The Sims 2 (the web integration was nicely handled), but the lack of player made items really killed it, for me anyway. Here is to hoping that the next installment fixes that.

I wonder if Wright will be involved in this at all? His franchises tend to go to shit when they are handed off to someone else.

[SilentScreams]

Ahh, The Sims.
My guilty pleasure.

Along with Pokemon, of course!

[VYPUR]

I wonder when this cash cow will be coming out.

[Itchyeyes]

I wonder if Wright will be involved in this at all? His franchises tend to go to shit when they are handed off to someone else.
Joystiq was speculating on this as well. With Spore launching in Sept he'll definitely need a new project to move to.

I'm also curious to see if Sims 3 will incorporate any of the ideas that are coming out of Spore.

[Loki_09]

Must hide this information from my girlfriend.

[Phanto]

Joystiq was speculating on this as well. With Spore launching in Sept he'll definitely need a new project to move to.

I'm also curious to see if Sims 3 will incorporate any of the ideas that are coming out of Spore.

Most likely Spore will "spurs" and influence the Sims developers into integrating new ideas to the franchise :) .

[Evil Avatar]

Although EA is notorious for milking The Sims through their expansion sets and spin-offs, they've done a solid job with the major installments so far. The original was ground-breakingly innovative, and the 2nd game was a solid follow up that kept the underlying gameplay while improving on it on almost every level. Here's hoping EA continues that trend with Sims 3.

Odd, I would have said that the 2nd game was a complete slideshow that ran like ass on all but the most powerful computers, but I still appreciate the news submission. :(

[ElektroDragon]

To quote my wife: "Oh boy! Oh boy!"

[noxa]

I bought 1 and 2 when they came out. Pretty fun. Never got the addons, though - I could only really play through the game once (for some definition of 'play through') before it just got old. I saw a bunch of user mods that looked cool and wanted to try my hand at making some, but it was too much work. If Sims 3 had user content creation/modding like SecondLife, it'd be much more interesting.

[Heretic Machine]

Odd, I would have said that the 2nd game was a complete slideshow that ran like ass on all but the most powerful computers, but I still appreciate the news submission. :(

...Were you trying to run it on a Pentium II from 1998, Evil? <.< It ran fine on my shitty rig back when it first came out, and these days with even and entry level PC it should be absolutely no problem at all.

[bean19]

My girlfriend called me into the room yesterday to show me a computer game in the Sims 2. The game was "Sims 3". Evidently, she got this on a special PC that was given to her as a gift when she installed the newest expansion.

[bKangy]

I like The Sims, it's the right kind of cash cow. The major iterations are solid and the expansions not essential.

[Inspector Fowler]

At last! A new installment of the Inspector Fowler Prisoner Subjugation and Torture Experimentation Simulation.

I mean, oh goodie! A new Sims! I definitely do not plan on creating more haunted houses by drowning entire families! 4 times per house! Or creating prisons where the prisoners only eat what they can buy selling the garden gnomes they build! Or creating a hot lesbian love nest across the street from "my" house just because I can!

I will do none of these things! :o

Sigh. I will do them all, because it was funny in 1 and 2. Actually, I'm not sure if I made any haunted houses in 2.

I don't see why the Sims has to be a guilty pleasure for people. It is an excellent concept very well executed. Life, however you want it, with zero consequences.

Perfect.

[Wraith]

Joystiq was speculating on this as well. With Spore launching in Sept he'll definitely need a new project to move to.

I'm also curious to see if Sims 3 will incorporate any of the ideas that are coming out of Spore.I'd bet that it will at least borrow some of the social networking features from Spore. It'd be nice to see user-generated content cross-pollinate in the same way it does in Spore. That's one of the things that kept me from playing more Sims - the lack of objects in-game. And I'm not really going to go and search online for more objects and install them, one-by-one, from any number of different sites. Integrate it into the game to make the process easy and reliable.

[Inspector Fowler]

I'd bet that it will at least borrow some of the social networking features from Spore. It'd be nice to see user-generated content cross-pollinate in the same way it does in Spore. That's one of the things that kept me from playing more Sims - the lack of objects in-game. And I'm not really going to go and search online for more objects and install them, one-by-one, from any number of different sites. Integrate it into the game to make the process easy and reliable.

Plus, if I recall, some objects actually acted like a virus and would corrupt the game, even when downloaded from the official site. I don't remember if it was even intentional or not, but something in the way it was designed would mess up the game somethin' fierce, I believe.

Ah, here is a link (http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10232). Intentional hack, with unintentional results. They would hack for a certain purpose, like "nobody ages". But if they put a house up for download, the downloader of that house would accidentally inherit the "nobody ages" hack, even though he didn't (and couldn't) know it when he downloaded it. Weird stuff.

[tombofsoldier]

As embarrassing as it is too admit I sort of enjoy the Sims. Wonder what it is that will show up in #3.

Edit- for anyone looking for player made objects for the sims 2: http://www.modthesims2.com/

Get the Q-Installer program and have fun.

[LionEyez]

I wonder what the third one has in store. I recently went back to playing the Sims 2 with expansions and I'm loving it, although after playing it for more than a couple of hours the boredom tends to creep in. My Sims really need to pee a LOT...

[MachDelta]

Must hide this information from my girlfriend.

QFT. :eek:

[bean19]

I wonder what the third one has in store. I recently went back to playing the Sims 2 with expansions and I'm loving it, although after playing it for more than a couple of hours the boredom tends to creep in. My Sims really need to pee a LOT...

This is exactly how I feel about the game. The idea of a virtual dollhouse is a lot of fun, but the goals that they give you aren't all that interesting, and the rewards for reaching them aren't worth the effort. Plus, I feel I am constantly repeating the same activities to simply "stay green".

The most recent expansion allows you to purchase benefits for each of your Sims that make their mood meters not fall as quickly, and, except for kids, you can always use that reward item to instantly refill your mood. . .

So really all there is to do in the game is to explore it. If you aren't interested in playing house for your own stories and the in-game goals that are so difficult and time-consuming to achieve are not interesting to you, then the game is a great deal of fun and incredibly addictive for about a two days.

Now it is just a novelty that I look at whenever a new expansion comes out. I even bought the "business" expansion (I know it has a cuter name that I'm forgetting) because it added quite a bit of gameplay instead of just a scenario (adding dating, gardening, and vacations to the game really didn't intrigue me much. . . University was a cool idea though and I played it for a short time).

I'll definitely check out The Sims 3 if they change stuff up enough. I hope that they'll add another dimension in gameplay with this expansion. The Sims 2 was a solid reiteration of the first game. Plenty of new features to legitimize it, but I have trouble thinking of new features for the third game that would necessitate a new purchase.

[Lint of Death]

I don't own any of the expansions, but I reinstalled The Sims 2 over spring break and played it a lot. What bothered me most, and made me stop playing, was how time freezes when you move to another house. That's nice in some ways, but it gets really odd if you make a family with multiple kids, have the oldest move out and focus on that one. He/she'll grow old and die before his/her parents while the sibling(s) remain children.

I'm pretty sure, at least.

edit: Consider me heavily intrigued about this new one, though. I enjoyed the previous two iterations a lot and, if this incorporates a lot of the features (or better!) that were in all the expansions I don't have, then it should be an amazing game. Not as good as Spore, probably, but that's not saying much where hypothetical qualities are concerned.

[cp#]

I never played the second game but really did love the first one. I never had any expansion packs either, just a bunch of downloaded items

[bean19]

Anyone found Games for Windows magazine scans of the exclusive 12 page article? I don't buy magazines. Tree murder.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

I'm definitely interested in seeing what they do with this. I had a lot of fun with the first game, and played around for a while with the second as well. I should have spent more time on the second....probably load it up again one of these days.

Still, they will have to do quite a bit to get me to buy the third. Hopefully they include more of the content from the expansions, although unfortunately they have little incentive to do so. EA would rather leave a lot out of the main game and milk it dry with pack after pack. :(

[tombofsoldier]

Anyone found Games for Windows magazine scans of the exclusive 12 page article? I don't buy magazines. Tree murder.

Too neither support nor condone the idea, they usually take a day or 2 too get up. But yeah why do magazines always get the first scoop, for that matter why aren't they dead yet? An internet connection costs the same per year as maybe 2 or 3 magazine subscriptions and you have access to a million times the content.