I have, since Sims 1, been forking over money for content and expansions. So with the way things sounded interestingly different without being TOO different, I went ahead and preordered Sims 3. Being stuck out in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I did have to wait for it to be shipped after release date, and as I waited, I eyed the complaints on forums with a bit of growing trepidation.
While the game is nowhere (for me) as bad as some are claiming after a day or so of playing it- I can't say that I'm exactly thrilled with EA's handling of this new base game and their community. From all that I've picked up, I seem to be lucky- the game is actually running, and I haven't encountered any of the bugs that people have listed on and on- other than story progression, which at least EA has acknowledged and is working on. (Though how such an obvious bug, which even apparently those scurvy software pirates were snickering about weeks ago got through in the first place... I have no idea.)
My machine is a bit of a monster, and therefore I have the power that the graphics need. To me, they look quite lovely. I wasn't expecting photorealism, had read articles about why they also weren't going for photorealism, and therefore the upgraded cartoony look suits me quite fine. I like the control over lifespan length- for my tastes the normal Sims 3 span is far too fast, so I cranked that along to epic along with my graphics settings, and my test family has been doing quite well.
But for a creating control freak like myself, who loves thousands of choices for clothing, furniture, and build options.. well, this is where I start to show some displeasure. For starters, you can apparently not add or remove lots from where they were placed by the designers of the neighborhood. There are approximately 90 lots, and 90 lots you are stuck with, despite the lengths of tempting road leading out from town which make you want to toss in a country cabin or the like. Now at the moment this is only mildly irritating, but I can see that if you play the neighborhood for any length of time, with many families, this could get a little crowded.
The actual build mode is not at all bad- albeit annoyingly sparkly for me until I got a fix for that at Mod the Sims. The system EA developed for changing colors and using imported patterns really shines here for the most part. There's just as many wallpaper designs as in the launch of previous games, in terms of molding and panelling combinations, and since you can alter everything to suit your color scheme and use a decent number of provided patterns, it really extends them. However, despite the modding community having figured out LONG AGO how to make stairways that are recolorable, and how people like many more choices in fencing... EA did not go that route. So chances are you will get housing where the stairways and outdoor fences clash terribly. The lack of half walls also makes me a little sulky- I love those for dividing up kitchen spaces. But overally, I would grant EA four stars or so for the building process.
Buy mode. This is where to me, gaping holes develop. And being a cynic, I see only one clear reason as to why, which I'll likely expound upon later. Granted, it has been ages since I ran Sims 2 without expansions and stuff packs, but I would swear there are far less furniture options granted in this base vanilla game than ever before previously. The number of choices aren't horrible for some things, like toilets, but for others, like couches and loveseats, I was left scratching my head. Perhaps due to their deciding to make all musical instruments have seperate skills and not doing just a "music" skill... there is only one instrument. The acoustic guitar, which also only is used by sims to play pretty soft college rock music as near as I can tell- while at the same time they use animations at times like they're rocking out to death metal. There is still no diving board, or even a pool table, and a lot of other things just seem missing. Sorry EA, but this particular customer can only give about two and a half or three stars.
The new Create-A-Sim I enjoy for the most part. Tweaking sims around with all the sliders, I've managed to make sims that I find attractive enough (or unattractive enough). I like how larger sims are possible and look a little more real. However, I do find myself wishing for a breast size slider for women- because for larger built ones, the small 'approved' breast size can at times seem a bit silly to my eye.
And then once I have a body built and face shaped, I look at the hair, and feel like pulling mine out. As with build mode, the selection of styles seems terrible. Especially male haircuts and facial hair- which is no huge surprise, because apparently male hairstyles are always a bit of a problem to get right, and people seem usually less interested in them than in female locks. Again, maybe I'm just spoiled rotten from years of content download, but it almost looks like EA wasn't even trying. And the hair doesn't even have animations and movement in game that's anywhere near the quality that the free modding community came up with for 2. So I'm torn between three and maybe a grudging four stars for CAS so far.
Clothing.. I cannot wait for the community to come up with ways to mesh new styles of clothing. Even with the pattern and color changing, I find my sims' closets to be mostly dull, and my memory makes me want to again declare that the release version of Sims 2 had more in it. Three stars from this fan, EA. I think you could've done better.
And here's where I perhaps seem to put on a tinfoil hat. From what I see, EA, for all its decrees of pride in the modding community seems to really be wanting people to do everything through their exchange- and store. I wasn't surprised that the modders have already made fixes and content... I was surprised that, in order to install and use it in Sims 3, I apparently had to also get a .cfg file they wrote or snuck out of somewhere, and put it in my root directory, and then make the actual folders that custom content will use. I had expected it to be as easy and obvious as Sims 2's already in-place downloads folder. EA declared that making new patterns for Sims 3 was 'too difficult' so they weren't going to release any tools. Delphy at Mod the Sims however has already come up with a packaging program to make them, and while yes, you have to be a diehard modder to want to mess with color channels and vectors layers to the needed degree... didn't EA say they were proud of the hardcore modders and wanted them aboard? It makes me worry what other creation tools they're going to decide we can't handle... for example, the promised neighborhood creator set. If that doesn't come out or is too watered down to be useful, I will at that point be terribly disappointed. Being the control freak I am, making custom neighborhoods is my bag... I'll go insane if I have to wait for dribbled ones out of EAland, or just use the two out now.
Honestly, I can see one big reason for all this beyond possible just dumb and sloppy. EA is truly trying to whore out their store, and nickel and dime basic end users to death with the content there. They have already a decent supply of downloadable content in their store- and none of it is what I would call 'innovative' or 'fresh'. There are remodels of things from Sims 2 and its expansions, and a few new hairstyles and items, and really, they probably all should have been included in the base game. Seriously.. the tiki furniture from Sims 2 is there to a degree. Not even the full set, but it is on the store and not in the game- and they're charging way too much for it.
For those unfamiliar with the costs at the Sims stores for 2 and 3, I'll share this tale: When the Sims 2 store came out, I decided to use it, because they had great "Spooky" stuff, as well as then I could pick and choose items from stuff packs I hadn't gotten around to buying. I dropped $40US into the store, and found out that for that, I could not even get half the number of items that I'd get if I just went out and bought two $20US stuff packs.
They have not lowered their prices at all since then. Of course EA is the owner of the game, and can run it how they seem fit. But I don't have to like it.
So I don't. I feel this vague wish that I could really and truly feel like a loyal fan, and even support those designers who do work on the game through EA... but if all the corporation as a whole is going to do is try and get my money without something I can feel is a fair return in product... I'm going to just remained camped out at various modding sites I loved for Sims 2.
