Sims 3.

The third stand-alone game in the Sims series will feature a new engine, which EA has been slaving away at for three years, and the biggest new feature will be the ability to seamlessly move around an open neighbourhood.

Previous games in the Sims series were expanded by packs such as The Sims: Hot Date, and The Sims: Vacation, which let gamers take their sims on holiday or into town with a beau, for example, but these communal zones were always separate from sims’ abodes.

In the next game, the sims will be able to walk freely around their neighbourhoods, visit their pals, and venture to new locations such as City Hall and the local park.

There will also be a “deeper” system for governing how sims behave, called the Realistic Personality System, which will let gamers manipulate five character traits when creating their sims. This opens up a number of possibilities, or as EA puts it: “Will you create the nosy, inappropriate, kleptomaniac grandmother who loves to meddle in other people’s business? Or the commitment-phobic, hot-headed punk rocker whose rude nature and childish disposition keeps him from scoring a date?” Apparently, 700 million different combinations await.

Customising both the sims themselves and the items around them will also become an easier and deeper experience, EA says. The upgrades include fine tuning for every part of sims’ faces, and a new set of design tools for customising items for their houses.

The first Sims game was released in 2000, and since then the series has sold some 98 million games worldwide, and has been translated into 22 different languages.

The Sims 3 is being developed by Electronic Arts Redwood Shores and will be shipping worldwide on the PC in 2009. There is no mention of it coming to any console platforms.

Check out the site at http://thesims3.ea.com

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What if you had to live your whole life in one location… and then one day, suddenly, you could step outside and go anywhere in the whole neighborhood?

The Sims 3 gives you the freedom to create unique Sims and immerse them in your own living neighborhood of endless possibility!

New Seamless, Living Neighborhood – Your Sims explore the living neighborhood freely.

New Create A Sim – Create any Sim you can imagine.

New Realistic Personalities – Every Sim is now a truly unique person, with a distinct personality.

New Unlimited Customization – Everyone can customize everything.

Updates on the Sims 3 features

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.
– That Nhood will consist of about 97 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.
– Confirmed community places are: Pool, Park, Bistro, Clothing store, City Hall and Bookstore.
– The Nhood can expand by users and/or by expansionpacks.
– You can zoom out to see the whole Nhood at once or zoom in to a single Sim.

Sims:
– Personality sliders are reduced from 8 to 3, one being a Fun to Stress meter. Bladder, Hygiene, etc. are still there but hidden.
– Sims 3 have Traits. Choose 5 from around 80 types like Dreamer, Evil, Playful, 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.
– Traits could be passed down, and actions a Sim does during her pregnancy will affect the traits of her offspring.
– 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.
– They will look after themselves better.
– 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 or your Traits.
– Sims can aquire Dreams. Like if your Sim sees that a Neigbor has a big tv, your Sim can get a Dream to want one too. You decide then, to turn it into a Promise. Ignoring a Dream is ok, but ignoring a Promise gives you negative repercussions.

Careers/Jobs:
– You can follow your Sim in its car to work. You won’t see your Sim working though; He/She will disapear in the building.
– 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.
– 2 Confirmed careers are Cooking and Science.
– Sims can take part-time jobs.

CAS:
– Body can be shaped as faces were in Sims 2.
– There are sliders for weight and fitness.
– Arm and legs are seperate so you can have a fat body and thin arms.
– 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, food, etc.
– Shoes are seperate and can also choose barefoot.
– Clothes are customizable from CAS; Change the color of a certain piece of clothes or use your own patterns.

Misc:- Sims can cook and fish. Buy groceries or grow the food yourself.
– The game has been made so that will also run smoothly on older PC’s.
– Clothes, furniture and homes can be customized.
– You can use your own patterns/colours and then apply it to anything through a drag-and-drop interface.
– The game will have modding tools built into it.
– There’s no online multiplayer
– You can pick up items (garbage, books,etc) yourself with a Hand cursor.
– Wind will move the trees.
– Paintings that a Sim makes, will be unique to each Sim. It’s based on its personality and mood.

Things that will not change:
– Sims still talk in Simlish
– Sims can still pee their pants, die of hunger, etc.
– Confirmed ages: Baby, Children, Adult, Elder.
– 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.
– Sims still have an inventory system to put things in like groceries.
– There will be expansions (duh).
– There are still same-sex couples and they can still adopt children.
– You can still design, build, and furnish a home.

Sims 2 – Sims 3 comparison.