The biggest problem I find that ts3 is too expensive here. In just about every store I've been to, the base game alone was selling for £30... which is a lot for a game thats not entirely new now. I just don't have the money to buy that and expensive expansion packs too.

It doesn't help with the appeal factor that I'm not keen on how the sims look, they seem kinda plastic to me. Even with all the sliders, the majority (but not all) of sims 3 sims I've seen look incredibly similar. I also like to lots of playable sims at once, which is something I'd miss from both ts2 and ts1. It's a shame because so many other things (furniture, scenery) look so pretty!

Now, if only the game were substantially cheaper, I might just be able to live with the other things...

I've gottent this question a LOT. This is why:

1. Stability. The Sims 3 has way too many chances of bugging, glitching and crashing. I don't want to play let alone pay for a game who is unstable and unfinished.Why am I forced to play with EA's story progression which doesn't even really stop when you turn it off, and then again I'm forced to use mods to clean up all the bugs that lazy EA can't take care off. Nty. I gave up after Late Night.

I had the bad luck of experiencing almost every bug known. I got mini freezes in vacations hoods, I got the fake taxis, missing sims, progressive lag, etc. I reinstalled the game 3 times, I used mods like Twallan's MasterController and AwesomeMod. Still some bugs appeared. One thing though, my game never crashed. Yay for me. When working with CAW, routing was a PITA. Hell even in Bridgeport you would find 10 sims stuck at a night club. Go on Youtube and find the hilarious videos with 20 sims stuck in a building. Come on. This is the one big point that turned me away. The others are not as influential as this one.
2. Content. Some EPs are plain crappy and not well done, Late Night for example. What the hell with the apartments being big shells with a crappy neighbor system and celebrities being the most boring thing ever. Etc. Since the EPs try to be a "compilation", they left so much content out it's like you are playing a half ass'ed version of TS2/TS1. Sorry EA, you either do the whole thing or you don't do it at all.
3. Sim's look. I really don't know if the Sims team was drunk, but the sims in TS3 are the most ugliest disgusting things I've ever seen.
4. Gameplay: this one comes down to preference. I like the fact that we have a seamless neighborhood and it evolves with you, but one thing is to have that option, and another thing is to be stuck with it. You can't have multiple controllable families, why? Because if you switch, then your other family will go on and maybe when you come back the couple divorced and there's a single mother with a baby and a complete stranger in the house.

It ultimately comes down to preference though, TS3 and TS2 are completely different. I liked the addition of challenges, and I like the fact that things are hard to get sometimes.
5. Sims3CrazyFansOMGOSHI<3Sims3
Yes, the Sims 3 is plagued by these guys who defend TS3 at all cost, but not with real facts, but with weak arguments and bash you for not liking the game and throw any kind of non sense. They drive me nuts, specially because most of them don't even know the game from the beginning, nor did they play TS1, They just recently joined the franchise and now they think they know everything about it and that TS3 is the best thing in the world when it is, technically speaking, the crappiest game of the franchise.
6. Expensive in every way. EPs and SPs are way too expensive and some of them don't even add that much anyways. Shows how much money-hungry EA is, leading to them not caring about the game at all.
7. The fact that I don't have to do complicated procedures and cheats to get high rising buildings! LOL come on EA what the hell, in TS2 all it took was a cheat in the console and bam, you are done and you can build a playable high rise no prob.

I kept trying and giving the game a chance all the way up until Late Night. Then I just said you know what, the hell with this game and the hell with the fanboys, I got tired of it. Fortunately I never sold any of my Sims 2 discs. So I happily reinstalled it and started playing it and have never looked back. Now I can only wait for TS3 to end and prices to drop to the ground, and hope that The Sims 4 is actually a Sims game instead of a soulless Sims compilation of bugs.

Inb4randomSims3fanragesonme?

I could afford to buy Sims 3 if I wanted (or, rather, with Christmas coming, could get the whole kaboodle as presents from various relatives), but from what I've heard, there are just too many issues:

-It's more of a quest-based game, with less free, open-styled play.
-I prefer to control ALL my sims; I don't want an open neighborhood. I want to be able to play every household without worrying about the Sims aging and/or moving away. I want to play all my sims in the household at once, and all the households in my neighbhorhood. I wouldn't make them if I didn't want to play them.
-No genetics? No thanks! Half the fun with playing down generations is to see when a long-dormant red hair gene might resurface. I don't want sims born with green hair just because Dad dyed his hair once.
-Lack of customization: there seems to be less CC overall. I like a heavily customized game - everything from custom careers to objects. Sims 3 doesn't seem to provide as much of that.
-The background visuals look gorgeous, but the Sims don't.
-Installing mods and CC seems to be much more of a pain than it is in Sims 2.

Basically, from what I've heard, TS3 just doesn't suit my playstyle at all; it's made for legacy play and that's about it. If I wanted a quest-based game, I'd go play an RPG; if I wanted the game to play itself...well, what would be the point of buying the game in the first place? If they ever make a TS4, I hope they revamp things (hey, it's happened before: I loved Civ II, was meh about Civ III, and loved CivIV, or at least the modded versions of it.) From what I've heard, the only thing in TS3 that appeals to me is the idea of having a trait system, and maybe the patterns to make matching furniture. But everything I've heard seems to indicate that Sims 3 just wouldn't be a game I'd want to play for very long, so even the initial $50 investment wouldn't be worth it.

@Mootilda: Awesomemod expires? What does that mean? I've never played Sims 3, but I'm curious enough to ask (yet not curious enough to venture onto MATY to ask...)

It crashes... all... THE TIME!!!

Bit ugly, bit too expensive. I'm afraid there won't be awesome mods like ACR and I won't be able to find equivalent CC that I love as much as my TS2 stuff. I've just really gotten the hang of making CC for TS2, I don't want to start again for a new game. And I especially don't want to have to fix all my CC when a new EP or patch destroys it.

Most importantly though - my computer cannot run it. And I can afford a new computer even less than I can afford the game.

Because I dont like it, simple as that. Four expansions are out and none has even helped a little bit to make the game more fun for me. I got this new computer pretty much just for TS3 when it couldn't handle on my old one. But thats ok, TS2 looks more gorgeous than before and I can play other games (addicted to skyrim right now).

I'm a reverse convert. I started with TS3, bought all EP's and one SP, played for a while and decided to give TS2 a try about a month or two ago. I haven't play TS3 since then.

Here's why:
1. The difference in performance between TS3 and TS2 is astronomical. I had to play TS3 with all the graphics set to low, just to have it run at a semi-bearable rate. I can play TS2 with the settings maxed, a shit ton of CC, and a bunch of other programs running at the same time with little or no lag.
2. The babies are not just pupa with arms. The have entire bodies...and you can give them hair and/or clothes. Say no to bug babies.
3.It's more fun. The Sims 3 seems really dry compared to Sims 2. I had all the EP's but pets installed and I got bored. It's just not as humorous as TS2. I only have the base game and 2 ep's as well as an sp but I'm not bored.
4. TS2 sims don't bitch as much when there are routing issues.

In short, TS2 runs a million times smoother on my laptop, the cute factor is unbearable, and it's funny.

From what I've read on the Sims 3 discussion section here and elsewhere online, Sims 3 is rather buggy. I have enough problems with Sims 2, I don't want to mess with Sims 3.

I've seen the Sims 3 base game and Expansion packs at the used game store that I get my Sims 2 Expansion packs at for less than new, but I have no desire to deal with a game that is as buggy as Sims 3.

When Pescado first released Awesomemod, it would be updated frequently, often every few days. However, many people wouldn't update before asking about bugs and features in an older version. This made Pescado so annoyed that he added an expiry date to each version of AM, usually allowing you to play for a couple of weeks before you were forced to upgrade to the latest version.

I personally didn't mind this, because I'm a programmer and could go into the disassembled source code and remove the expiry date. However, not everyone has that ability.

That's how I also learned about all of the hidden features that Pescado was adding to AM, without any documentation or ability to turn them off. Since he and I have a different game-playing style, this meant that I had to modify each new version of AM to remove the features that I didn't want.

I completely understand Pescado not wanting to deal with bug reports for bugs which had already been fixed, but it was still annoying to find that your game wouldn't run because AM had expired.

Now, a caveat: I have never played the Sims 3.

Why?

If you go to the official forum and read most of the bug reports, the complaints and the other issues that players have, it gives you a damned good reason to not ever even go near it. I certainly won't.

That's just a fraction of the players who play this game complaining. For every 1 that is on the board, I figure that there are 10 perhaps who have the same problem but aren't on the forum complaining. They've probably given up by now.

I have seen too many glitches, bugs and crash reports from that source alone to warn me off. Not even PETS could charm me. Nothing will ever get me near it.

The specs for the game are far more than I'm wiling to get into, and I will never update my computer for one game.

I also refuse to ever have a game that requires that I uninstall and reinstall it multiple times just to update it. That is so unnecessary and uncalled for.

The fact that EA has made the game totally unfriendly to CC and other items that EA does not produce does not increase my appreciation either.

The fact that EA seems to be outright ignoring or dismissing these complaints is another reason, along with the fact that they're just pumping out stuff from the store to just make one think they're going broke. They've stripped the charm of the game out of it, and made into a milch cow that is dying on the hoof. Anything passes for quality in their eyes, and nobody has any right to complain about it.

Besides, it doesn't appeal to me with the gameplay or the necessity of having major mods being installed to improve it's stability. It looks artificially made to be 'fun' while not being fun at all to play.

No, I don't care what others might think of my not playing it-because I don't care about that game enough to ever consider buying it.

I haven't even said anything about the price of it-not worth it. I have finally gotten my Sims 2 to where I can sit back and enjoy the experience of it, without having to fret if it's going to crash, because it won't-period. It runs like a dream, and from everything I've seen and read, Sims 3 can't hold a candle to Sims 2's stability.

I doubt that there are that many Sims 3 players who can say the same, with all the EP's installed.

Hey guys, I looked into this thread simply because I missed sims2 so much. Here is why.

I have all the EP's and all the SP's in sims3. I have a really fast pc and I play all my settings on high,
I have about 4ish gig of cc and still... for every two days of game play I spend three days fixing whatever latest bork happened.
I don't care about any of my families. I hate the fact that I can't control my entire hood anymore. I hate townies. I miss miss miss the realism of sims2.
(babies and kids in general, freak the $%^ out if me in sims3)
But what I hate most about sims3, ever since the base, game is the half assed animation. Omg! what is up with the magically appearing cars, phones, books, actually everything?
I hear sims4 is going to be an online interactive abomination, hey I may be wrong...

I'm off to reinstall all my sims2 and sims 1 while I'm at it just for some fun for a change.

Yea there was a rumor about The Sims 4 being online. Well, it wouldn't really fit the name "The Sims" anymore. Yes, it's true, a game needs new things in order to advance, but there are SO MANY NEW THINGS that can be added to The Sims, that there is no need to resort to methods such going online. Yes it would be cool, I'm not saying it would suck or anything. But a full "The Sims" online would not be the sims anymore. And if it is monthly payment, it would have to be an extraordinary out of this planet game for me to even try it.

IF EA is even considering it, then they are high, drunk, or have lost their minds to greediness completely. As if there wasn't anything else to add to the sims. I have yet to see themed parks in The Sims, with roller coaster and well, a fully functional park. I have yet to see being able to fully work at a hospital, or a cop, a biologist, military, at an airport, etc. Aaaaanyways, I could go on and on about the things that could be added, but it wouldn't fit.

I don't like it. It's boring. The Sims look weird. It needs way too much space. I don't know. I shouldn't have to explain myself to you!

And the funny thing is, my avatar is the Sims 3 Logo. FAIL. *runs to change it*

I heard the next EP for TS3 is gonna be a new "life stage". This can turn out 3 ways; if it's like generations, epic fail with super high price; it could be like university; afterlife.

I vote for afterlife, I've always wanted to know since The Sims 1 where the hell do the ghosts go when they go into their urns so quickly, do they have a freaking mansion or something in there >.>, IJS.

I so agree with that - I was bored within a week of release. I've tried a couple of times since to get into it. My advice to you is don't hold your breath. Mind you, if TS3 is bad for being distinctly un-fun, The Sims Medieval is much, much worse. I uninstalled that within a week - one of the very, very few games I've done that with. In the very first play session, I caught myself thinking "why am I doing this?" Unusual for me since I don't even think in words over much.

I like playing both... TS2 for actual live gameplay and TS3 for building... After playing TS2 for years, TS3 gameplay is simply painful... If it was like in TS2 where families interact with each other and eat dinner together and don't stand around for half a sim hour to do something as simple as get into bed, then I'd probably play it a lot more...

I wonder about the opposite question. Why DO people play the Sims 3? I can understand why people who've never touched the Sims 2 before enjoy TS3. But it utterly baffles me when I hear someone say, "I used to play the TS2 so much, but after TS3, I don't feel like looking at it." I really try to look at TS3 from their point of view, because I do WANT to love the game. I really do! But I can't.

Initially when TS3 came out and I played it for hours I was loving the ability to follow sims through the roads in the open neighborhood. The more detailed skills in fishing, cooking, painting etc and the jobs. I really liked that the jobs didn't go stagnant after level 10 and the other things like digging for evidence/writing articles which must be done to get promotions. I even loved WA.

Suddenly though, my interest started dropping so much and the game felt utterly empty. The biggest things were:

1) The lack of emotions and facial expressions on the sims. They never acknowledged their loved/hated ones or their surroundings. I don't want to READ emotions, "so and so is being funny/flirty/rude/alluring". I want to SEE them.

2) The wants/moodlets felt utterly unconnected to the sim. It really is difficult to explain properly. But when a TS2 child ever had a want to play with his parents or siblings, it felt to me that he really wants to. I remember, the last time (many months ago) I was playing Pauline Goddard's daughter and a wish to "get attention from mom" popped up. The lifeless way she behaved, it felt like she doesn't give a damn about Pauline and neither knows the other exists. The wish felt soo unconnected. I closed down the game saying to myself "who cares!"

3) All the toddlers I've seen look the same. (try to give everyone the same hairstyle, color and clothes and see this for yourself). Has anyone seen a TS3 child smile? It used to freak me out when a child was selectable and I used to click on things and its morose head would rotate around.

4)Catching Deathfish, Robotfish etc and growing the Omni plant was interesting for me. But after doing it a gazillion times. Its game over for me. So the pluses also don't matter to me much now.

5) As I was saying, I loved the open neighborhood earlier and loved following my sim. But where did I follow my sim? To a park/ club where everyone will be just standing lifelessly like robots for hours? No thanks. I'll tolerate the TS2 loading screen which barely lasts a couple of minutes as I'll get to a vivacious community lot full of life and energetic sims!

6) The TS3 sims look like clay dolls up close and actually look like TS1 sims from a distance. Maybe its due to my computer, but this is a fact for me. I love the look of the TS2 sims much more. Even the ones with huge disproportionate lips amuse me.

I can go on and on, but the basic thing is I find the TS3 sims dull, robotic, uncaring and showing as much emotion as my keyboard and mouse. I HATE EA's running commentary with a passion.."So and so thinks so and so is friendly".."your sim is too tired to do that right now." While typing this, if I were to read a memo that my keyboard is finding me extremely alluring, would I believe that!

7) Maybe some people like TS3 only because its cool to like the latest thing and they don't want to be stuck in the past liking an old game? I don't know. Maybe things like reading about emotions as opposed to seeing them don't matter to them like it does to me. Customizing everything to be matching doesn't matter to me if the surroundings I customize seem so empty and devoid of life.

8) I think a great many people who prefer TS3, used to consider playing multiple families a chore in TS2. A chore which EA does for them in TS3. But I never considered that and loved to be in full control of the whole town. I loved to play TS2 families in rotation to keep them in sync. As for the unchanging townies through the generations, I used to rename them and give them a makeover and pretended they are different people too.

9) I should also mention bugs/game crashes/ freezing sims which I seldom experienced in TS2. I had to keep typing 'resetallwants" and 'resetsim" over and over again which made me further unattached to the game.

^ I agree with you completely. Well said, I wish EA could read that post.

@Firelira78

+10000 very well said. At first, I thought "Well, you know, it just came out, there are no EPs, so let's wait for 'em." And I waited, and waited, and waited. Wasn't worth it at the end. I am not of those that love to control every single family in the neighborhood, and it is true that it is more realistic in TS3. But hell, if it so bothers you that your child sim is already an adult and your childhood friends are still kids, go over there and age them up. IJS.

I have a lot of experience arguing with people who love The Sims 3 to death, and go to the extent of saying "The Sims 2 sucks by a lot". The Sims 3 fans (I mean the real hardcore fan, not those passive ones that enjoy it but recognize its many flaws) are, I would say, 50% players new to the franchise, so they don't know anything about The Sims 1 or 2. Therefore, they quickly jump to the conclusion that those two suck for being older and of course, the loading screens. Someone who started to play The Sims with no loading screens and looks back to TS2 would say "Hell no" just like that. They used to say this over and over "Give the game a chance, it will be 4 times better than TS2". Yeah right, I'm still giving it the chance and we are already at the 5th EP. Those fans will also ignore completely any type of bugs/glitches, and will lie or simply say that we are exaggerating, or the oh so funny old statement "Get a new PC, yours sucks". And of course, they will argue against the argument of Sims being ugly.

Personally, I can see how people would like The Sims 3. I mean, it's not a bad game itself. But compared to The Sims 2, comparing the QUALITY of the product, The Sims 2 comes in 1st by miles. It's cool that you like the game, it's cool that you love it, however, don't just try to cover its flaws and say it's the best thing ever just because you love it.

The Sims is drifting course, and I honestly think that for now, the heart of the real The Sims franchise will stay at most at TS2.

I wonder about this too. My very close cousin/also best friend prefers TS3. But we don't talk about sims enough for me to know WHY. But, everyone has their owns preference. I guess many like TS3 because of the open neighborhood, and maybe going back to one house feels too claustrophobic?

But actually, the open neighborhood is one of the thing that I hate. I once switched households to find my sim is in a middle of a long long road with no buildings for the next 4-5 sim running hours on both ways at like 2 AM. She had no car too... There was also a time where I chose a household of that cat lady in Pets expansion. Their kitten was at a community lot while everyone else was at home, and I felt so bad that it had to run ALL the way home, with his energy completely red in the middle. It took him hours too and once he got back, he completely knocked out on the front lawn.

Anyways, the only thing I like from TS3 are the new meshes. Luckily, people are able to convert that to TS2, making the game more awesome than it already is.

I say...well, in my opinion, I think Sims 3 is kinda boring. I used to like it and the 2 expansions I got for it, but...it got boring. I just have to say that. And I also think it's stupid, like, the tiolet gets clogged ALL THE TIME. No joke. In Sims 2 it hardly ever happens. But I like Sims 3 for some reasons too, like I like that the rest of the town will age up so the game doesn't look like it's abandoned with people who were friends in the past are still that age and the other person aged up and died...if you know what I mean. But Sims 2, really...I think it's the best Sims game they made and let's just hope Sims 4 will be awesome.

Oh I so agree with you! I once had a computer that had this game on there and it crashed a LOT. (And then I installed the game on my Mac and it never crashed and the graphics worked.) Yeah, and about the Sims stuck in night clubs thing...I know! I once had a Sim that had to pee badly and almost wet his pants because he and a bunch of others were just stuck in that place and it took FOREVER to get out of there. Boy, stupid EA. Too lazy to fix bugs...ugh. Man, I'm so glad I quit that game! THANK YOU for putting that out! Aw dang I hate Sims 3...you know?

I don't play the Sims 3 for reasons already mentioned by others (bugs, glitches, lifelessness).

One of my biggest problems with it is the open neighborhood. It sounds like a neat feature but it's really not. Sims take every chance they get to leave the house and even with aging and story progression off, you are guaranteed to miss something. It's hard to connect with your sims because they're always out and about, doing things that usually don't make sense.

I don't even see the point in having an open neighborhood. There's not much to do in it. Most community lots are rabbitholes and the ones that aren't rabbitholes are basically different versions of the same place (park, beach, park, beach...nightclub...park, beach, etc). Even places that are supposed to be fun, like nightclubs and bars, are boring. Items that could have made them more fun were not included for whatever reason.

I'd much rather go through a loading screen for 1 minute to actually dine out and go bowling than stare at a building as I get messages saying that my sim ate a burger. Fun fun fun...

The hair isn't animated.

And if there's one thing I hate, it's hair that don't move.