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"Imagine if your whole life took place in one apartment, or one house, with one small back yard. Now imagine how your life would change if all of a sudden you could explore the neighbourhood outside your back door - if, all of a sudden, one day, someone came and opened that door."
¬Executive Producer, Ben Bell¬


First appearing as simple mediocre-looking, semi-autonomous, gibberish-speaking virtual people with five average personality slides who couldn't use the toilet without setting themselves on fire. And not to mention looking after them is similar to a bunch of incontinent children.
Now, EA is taking a huge step toward with The Sims 3. Introducing the once-impossible and most desirable feature of being able to break the world-barrier that is your living space (Referred to as "Hamster cage") and going out there in the seamless neighborhood, jogging or spying on other sims (The latter option is not confirmed however XD).



*Edit:Facts about the game (Note: Not consistent, may be changed on the last day):
Neighborhood:
* Seamless Nhood: Your Sim can visit neighbors, parks and shops without a loading screen.
* All the neighboring Sims will live their life and age simultaniously as your Sim (They'll get married, get jobs,etc).
* The game will ship with 1 Neighborhood.
* Several weeks after the launch, there will be a tool available to create your own Nhoods.
* That Nhood will consist of about 90 different lots.
* When the game is out, you can download towns, made by other people.
* All buildings in the Nhood can be interacted with, so no prop buildings.
* There are 2 kinds of buildings; Buildings that you can build yourself and look into, and buildings where your sim disapears into and re-appears after some time.
* These buildings are ploppable; it means that you can just select them from a menu and put it in the Nhood all made and ready.
* Confirmed community places are: Pool, Gym, Park, Bistro, Art gallery, Library, Clothing store, City Hall and Bookstore.
* You can zoom out to see the whole Nhood at once or zoom in to a single Sim.
* You can move a house to a bigger lot.
* The Neighborhood stories and inhabitants will be a prequel to the Sims 1 Neighborhood

Sims:
* There are 6 needs in total: Hunger, Social, Bladder, Hygiene, Energy and Fun.
* Sims have Traits. Choose 5 from around 60 types like Dreamer, Evil, lucky, etc. These Traits will affect how a Sim behaves towards others and affects their moods, like the mood of an Outdoorsperson will raise when he/she is outside. An evil Sim may slap another Sim.
* Toddler: 2 traits, Child: 3 traits, Teens: 4 traits, Young adult and older: 5 traits.
* They will look after themselves better.
* Fulfilling wishes of a Sim (like the wish to get a big screen tv, getting married,etc), gives you Lifetime Happiness points to buy Lifetime Rewards for your Sims. An example is Steel bladder (never pee again) and Haggler (All your shopping is cheaper).
* There are about 30 different Rewards.
* Moodlets instead of a moodbar. If something happens like a marriage, the Sim gets a moodlet. These moodlets will affect your Sims' mood and give abilities like learning faster. An example: Getting fired will get you a long lasting, big impact moodlet, while going to a small party will get them a short, non-dramatic moodlet.
* Traits could be passed down, and actions a Sim does during her pregnancy will affect the traits of her offspring.
* Hair will not grow but you can 'paint' certain parts of the hair.
* Sims have certain skills like cooking or fishing.
* You can fulfil needs by simply clicking on an icon.
* Instead of fixed interaction (like Talk or Joke), the options are filtered on your current Mood and Traits.
* Certain traits have unique interactions.
* There is no gradual aging, but there are age groups as in Sims 2.
* There will be 7 age groups: Baby, Toddler, Child, Teenager, Young adult, Adult, Elder.
* Athletic skills can help Sims stay fitter and even live longer.
* You can not drive a car in first person; You can only order a sim to go somewhere in its car and then follow it around town.
* Paintings that a Sim makes, will be unique to each Sim. It's based on its personality and mood.
* You may control how much time a Sim spends on certain tasks like sleeping, fishing etc.

Careers/Jobs:
* You can follow your Sim in its car to work. You won't see your Sim working though; He/She will disappear in the building.
* Every career has its own building in the Nhood.
* Advancing in career is changed as it depends on skills, personality, relationship with colleagues/boss and even certain goals that has to be fulfilled. For example taking work home.
* Confirmed careers are Athletic, Journalism, Medical, Music, Military, Business, Law Enforcement, Criminal, Politics, Entertainment, Cooking, Education and Science.
* Sims can take part-time jobs.
* Besided the newspaper, you can also apply for a job at the specific careerbuilding.
* You can decide how hard they work; Like choose a less stressful day but gain less skill.

CAS:
* Body can be shaped as faces were in Sims 2.
* There are sliders for weight and fitness.
* Sims you created fat, can become thin by exersizing, thin created people get fat by eating a lot.
* You can choose specific Asian and African models.
* You can choose a Sims' favorite color, music type and food.
* Shoes are seperate and can also choose barefoot.
* Shirts and jackets are seperate and can hang over the pants
* Clothes are customizable from CAS; Change the color of a certain piece of clothes or use your own patterns.
* You cannot change the height of a sim.
* You can choose from 3 different voices for each gender. Can also change the pitch height.

Buy/Build mode:
* You can use your own patterns/colours and then apply it to anything through a drag-and-drop interface.
* Each item has between one and four customizable regions that can be modified
* The game will have modding tools built into it.
* You can move objects 360 degrees.
* You can build 5 stories high.
* You can buy an empty bookcase and then buy and place books in it.
* Table and chairs link and can move as 1 object (same with beds and end tables).
* You can make a certain stair wider (up to 4 tiles wide) with a slider.
* You can position stuff on counters as long as the objects aren't overlapping.
* Gridsize is 4 times smaller. Can also choose no grid at all.
* You can move whole walls and everything on it (wallpaper/paintings/etc) will move with it.

Technical:
* PC requirements are 2.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM and a 128 Mb Videocard
* You require at least 6,5 Gb of harddisk space
* There's no online multiplayer
* The game requires a 1-time online activation
* You can choose 3 dificulty levels on each household.
* You can save your game in different slots
* The game will be released on 20 February, 2009.
* A Mac version will be made AFTER the game is released on PC.
* There will be no weather in the game.
* Wind will move the trees.
* You can pick up items (garbage, books,etc) yourself with a Hand cursor.
* Shadows move across the ground as the sun goes up/down.

Things that will not change:
* Sims still talk in Simlish
* Sims can still pee their pants, die of hunger, etc.
* There are still thought bubbles that tell which needs must be fulfilled like Hunger. These bubbles show in the control panel though and not hover over the Sims' head.
* Mrs. Crumplebottom will be in the game
* Sims still have an inventory system to put things in like groceries.
* There will be expansions.
* You can still choose a zodiac sign for your sims.
* There are still same-sex couples and they can still adopt children.
* You can still design, build, and furnish a home.
* Sims still spin around to change clothes.
* Sims can still get jobs from newspapers.
* The amount of Sims per lot is still 8.
* Most current Sims 2 cheats will be in Sims 3 as well.

*Edit: Facts from "Creator's Camp":
CAS
- There are no curly hairs, but are some very long hairs.
- There is no underwear section anymore.
- Male Sims can wear makeup.
- There's a "Create-a-Twin" tool for every age.
- Changing hair/clothing/face is easy. You can just click on them and the CAS takes you directly to the right menu for editing whatever you selected.
- There is an eyelash length slider bar.
- Socks and Shoes are also fully customizable. They are chosen seperately per outfit, as well.

Build Mode
- There is a button that lets you choose to buy houses furnished or unfurnished.
- Sledge hammer tool has been enhanced, you can now drag an area to delete multiple objects.
- When placing objects against a diagonal wall the object will snap into place perfectly.
- There’s a roof height slider.
- The biggest lot size is 64x64 (same as a 5x5).
- There is an option for Auto-Roofs. So, while you build, the roof automatically appears.
- There’s a button that paints / carpets the entire room (instead of holding Shift).
- You can set light colors and brightness levels (both indoor and out).
- There is now a square terrain paint brush. Imagine using it to paint a sidewalk.
- You can change the floor / walls of a pool.
- The Maximum width of a set of stairs is 8 tiles.
- There are single tile doors, double tile doors, single tile doors that center on double tiles, and even three tile doors.
- There are ceilings under ANY floortile placed. At this time, you cannot recolor the ceiling.
- The Maximum number of floors is 5.
- There are no 1/2 walls yet.
- You cannot move objects up and down on walls.
- Sims 2's one tile equals Sims 3 four tiles. 45 and 90 degree rotation come with the game. Holding the ALT key is free rotation.
- You cannot import patterns into the game yet.
- You can move the mailbox anywhere you'd like on your lot. Whatever door is closest to the mailbox is considered the front door.
- Fences rise with terrains.

Buy mode
- There are only 4 tv-channels: Sports, Kids, Action, and Romance.
- There is no diving board for the swimming pools yet.
- When my sim opened her fridge, you could see the cold air coming out.
- The fire alarm is lower, and I was able to hang a wall lamp above it.
- On the easel, there are three sizes of paintings.
- If you tinker on some objects, you can get upgrades like, fireproof, self cleaning and unbreakable.
- You can buy a Rubber Ducky for your bathtub.
- On a computer, you can: find coupons, browse the web, play chess, play computer games, tinker, and get a job. Computer Whiz sims can also hack and overclock.

Careers
- Jobs pay hourly, not daily.
- While on the job, you have options as to what kind of performance you want to give: Business as Usual, Work Hard, Take it Easy, Meet Coworkers, Hang Out with Coworkers, Suck Up to Boss, or Practice a Skill.
- You can become business partners with community businesses. Once you own the company you can rename it, fire the staff and make use of its facilities for free, so free food or books or movies.
- There are Part-Time and Full-Time jobs. The Part-Time jobs will not interfere with High School hours.
- When a sim is at the top of its career, the others sims are aware and react to it. When your sims is a rock'n'roll-star Sims will ask for an autograph; a high-ranked soldier is greeted in the street.
- If you interact with your boss, you can ask to increase your salary or to get promoted.
- Part time jobs for teens, adults and elders: Bookstore clerk, grocery store clerk, Spa receptionist, Spa specialist, Burial specialist.

Sims
- You can set lifespans to range from 25–1,000 days or turn aging off completely.
- Free Will is on a slider bar. You can choose None, Low, or High.
- Sims don't need ladders to get in or out of the pool but can still drown if you cancel the action from their queue.
- When you are socializing, there is a small pop up that tells you what the other sim is thinking about your 'socializing'. You are irresistable, moving too fast, hilarious, boring, etc.
- Sims can not get hit by cars.
- Every article of clothing is always available to you in the game, and are always recolorable. So no need to 'buy' clothing.
- Depending on traits, sims will sing in the shower.
- Every single item you interact with gives your sim a good or bad mood boost depending on their traits/personality.
- In the mornings, when she got in the tub and got out, she was still wearing her PJ's. I had to manually change her into what I wanted.
- You can change a sim's outfit by clicking on them, anywhere at anytime.
- Sims automatically have a cell phone. You can change the ringtone on your cell phone.
- Bad Mood sims are less likely to listen to your commands.
- You can have a private wedding or give a wedding party alone or in a community lot (in this case you should rent the lot and pay a fee).
- No more wedding arch: Just click on the wife or on the husband and choose "get married". They'll talk a bit, then exchange the rings and kiss.
- You can donate money to different foundations based on your personality trait. This will give you good moodlets.
- Sims can take classes to learn skills much faster than reading or doing.
- You can finally visit your neighbors, just click on the door and choose "Ring bell". You can enter their houses too.
- Traits can be changed later in the game with one of the buyable lifetime rewards.
- If you have many people in your family, then you'll start with more than 20.000 simoleons.
- Sims cannot be invited to a townies party, but they can be invited to a community party with the right opportunity cards.
- Sims will still do what's in their action queue, even if you are looking at another sim all the way across town.

Pregnancy, baby,toddler,child
- Pregnant Sims get few days of paid rest from work and fathers will get few days after the baby is born.
- You can have the baby at home or at the hospital. The father can take the mother to the hospital, but she can go there alone too. They go there walking, by car or bicyle. No ambulance.
- Sims that were happy during pregnancy have babies with better traits.
- You can announce pregnancy to others, feel tummy and talk to tummy.
- Infants are wrapped in blankets instead of only wearing diapers.
- You cannot change the infant's blanket, but it is pink for girls and blue for boys.
- You can see the infants moodlets and motives bars.
- There is School Detention for children who fall asleep in class or cheat on schoolwork.
- Children can wander the neighborhood alone, but toddlers must be carried.
- You now have a babysitter.
- I had a Sim holding the infant, and talking on the phone, and then after the conversation, sat on the couch with the baby.
- Pregnancy is still three days, regardless of life span.
- Preggos can visit the hospital for 'Medical Advice'.
- The Maid played with my baby while she was at my house cleaning.
- School time: 9am-2pm for teens and 9am-3pm for children.
- The changing table is gone. You have to click on the toddler to change diaper or clothes.
- If you have the highchair, you can feed toddlers with the same food you prepare for the other family members, but you have to use the food processor before.
- Toddler interactions: Change diaper, change outfit, feed on floor, pick up, snuggle, teach to talk, potty train, tickle, teach to walk, toss in air.

The Neighborhood
- You can follow your sim in the taxi or car by right clicking their thumbnail.
- Cars disappear when you reach your destination, and they reappear when you leave.
- Pop-Ups in the right corner let you know when a shop is having a sale or a big event is happening somewhere in town.
- You must go to the grocery store to buy food.
- You can choose to move to a new lot, and you can either sell your furniture or take it with you.
- There's a community spa where you can get a facial, manicure, pedicure, or massage.
- You can modify both community and residential lots. Some community lots, like parks and swimming pools, can be totally customized. For work places, you can only add few things outside.
- Households can be merged, evicted and splitted.

Food/Gardening
- Some of the harvestables include the apple tree, lime tree, grape vine, watermelon vine, bell pepper plant, wild garlic, lettuce plant, onion plant and tomato plant.
- You can sell your own grown vegetables at the local supermarket.
- Food can go bad in the fridge, and must be cleaned out.
- There are 35 to 40 different food recipies.
- The Picnic Basket is very basic. Your sims can carry it around, sit on it, and eat.
- If you hover your mouse over a plate of food, it will tell you how good of quality it is and what it is.
- Fruit quality can be perfect, nice, poor, foul, putrid or horrifying.
- You can make tons of beverages. For example, you can make White Chocolate Soy Frathuccino with Banana Swirl.
- Shop for groceries: a window will show up with all the ingredients you can buy. You can also buy ingredients per recipe.

Deaths
- Tombstones now show the cause of death.
- The ghosts are still colored according to death.
- There is no such thing as a 'funeral' option, you can stage a funeral, but that is it.
- At the graveyard you can find the Tragic Clown's tombstone.
- Ghosts are playable, can marry living Sims, and even make ghost babies.
- When someone dies, all his belongings are added to family inventory, so you won't lose them.

Misc
- Some Sims 3 developers are premade sims.
- There are now Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night Skies. The Sun and Moon move as well.
- The night sky comes with shooting stars, but I did not notice day time clouds.
- You can take pictures with your Cell Phone to hang on your wall or sit on your tables.
- You can hire Magicians for parties.
- There is a Party Planner that allows you to set the time for your party, the location, and the dress code.
- There are now 4 speeds of gameplay.
- Houses have difficulty levels based on the age and number and amount of sims living there.
- You cannot lock doors.
- Every townie has a home, NPC's do not.
- The maid put the left out food in the fridge for safe keeping.
- No Gardners!



And for more, Eurogamer gives us some significant details from their preview:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=94996
*Edit: SnootySims, being as helpful as ever, provided a list of the interviews:
http://www.snootysims.com/thesims3index.php?id=previews
*Edit: Sims 3 Production Tour
http://woohoosims.missingstudios.com/video001.php
*Edit: The Ads are invading Sims 3:
http://www.marketingvox.com/dynamic-in- ... -3-041347/
http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/10 ... or-sims-3/
*Edit: Must-see Developer Game Tour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgzUq4d78ko
*Edit: Something for the President Election:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgaC879K ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lXgxLxj ... re=related

*Edit: System Requirements:
FOR WINDOWS XP
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 512 MB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* At least 4 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for creations.

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 768 MB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* At least 4 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for creations.

Official website: http://thesims3.ea.com/

And some screenshots to end the post:

The Trees and shrubs sway in the breeze.

This sounds pretty good actually. I always found the fact you couldn't walk around the town annoying in previous Sims games so this sounds awesome!

wow such a big stepup from the old sims i cant wait till it comes out

Much more realistic and natural |D

Yay for including all the TS2 Expansions in the new one! I was so annoyed when TS2 came out and there wasn't anything like Unleashed, Makin' Magic, Superstar in it. I'm still annoyed that Superstar seems to have been cut out completely, that was cool :[

The only gripes I have are that
- The neighborhood travel could get annoying after a while since you have to walk all over the place to get somewhere
- It taking ages to make a Sim you like. It takes something like 30 minutes - 1 hour for me to make a good family in TS2 depending on size, and the new options will kinda make it harder
- TS3 Sims. They've got mainly round face shapes and mottled skin types which I no likey because the TS2 ones were slightly longer and more realistic and cooler D:

But... yay for angular placed objects!

Incidentally, what does it RRP for? TS1 was available for $35 back in the day, TS2 a rather large $70. I hope it isn't something like $100.

Hmm, it looks interesting, but I doubt my PC would run the game without freezing.

- Ya know, sims have cars (even bicycles too!) to help ease the transporting process. Though if you like...walking to work doesn't seem like a bad idea either! Lol

- EA stated that the new Sims 3 CAS will be a lot simpler and easier to use, for fans of the series and the newcomers, so I hope it won't take an eternity or so.

- The price for the Sims 3 is $49.99. While the Collector Edition is $69.99 and comes with:
* The Sims 3 Game for PC
* The Sims Plumbob USB Drive with matching Green Carabiner
* Exclusive In-Game Italian-Style Sports Car
* Tips and hints guide
* The Sims 3 Plumbob Stickers
Look here: http://thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/ce_preorder.jsp

84 NEW THINGS? *Jaw drops*

I never thought it was going to be THIS GOOD! This is a whole new era of Sims. When I first saw a video advertisment, all I thought happened was that you could explore your neighbourhood more. Yay. A nice change from being hermits...but thats all. Sims 2 was good enough for me, if thats all it did- but now I konw that there's absolutely LOADS o new things! And the graphics are beautiful Still, I agree that it would take absolutely ages to make a Sim ....and how much is this freakin' treasure trove gonna cost? and how much sapce is it gonna take up on your computer

Can't believe that it's coming out next month on the 20th! It's amazing!

At least I know where my Christmas money is going this year I'm such a dork 83

Hohoho, though don't get your hope too high since fans of the Sims all over the world have been quite discontent with the recently news of its delay, better yet, date-evaluation (Either releasing in April or June 1st), for that reason the release-date is still uncertain. It seems that the "Creator Camp" may have pointed out that The Sims 3 actually needs some more revising and improving (Like here: http://www.parsimonious.org/rev/index.shtml)

I was not surprise as Sims 2 was delayed nearly a year or so. For news concerning 'bout the new and roof-hitting Sims 3 plus its other games, visit these wonderfully informative fansites:
_ http://www.snootysims.com/
_ http://woohoosims.missingstudios.com/
_ http://www.infinitesims.com/
_ http://www.simsforums.net/

Delayed? Ugh. June 1st would be a sucky deadline. The folks over at PMBD are gonna have fun with that.

I did notice that CAS this time around seems to be a bit limited in eye, hair and skin colors. I love Enayla's work particularly but getting just a basic set sounds a bit eck.

Dang!Awesome graphics!Finally you can walk around to neighborhood!Can you get pets in The Sims 3?

Sorry but no, I'm 90% sure that Pets are not included (I bet they have it planned in an Expansion Pack for Sims 3)

Most likely so since you have to buy the Expansion pack in The Sims 2.But then again they could have the pets with it since they added alot from The Sims 1 to The Sims 2