Actually, your Sims3 accounts do have value.

For example, all of your store purchases are accessed through your account. While you probably have already downloaded any store items, this still serves as a convenient "cloud" archive for your store items.

A hacker can download any items you have purchased from the store. Also, they have access to your sim points. If you have a large number of simpoints, or if you buy a large packet of simpoints, those can be stolen by someone who has access to your account.

To log into the Sims 3 forums, you need a valid password.

To get technical support, you need a valid password.

The typical MO for a hacker is to change your password, once they get access to your account. They will also change your e-mail address.

Some sites will send you an email whenever you or someone else tries to change a password or email address. The Sims is NOT one of those sites.

EA does not have to do that, they choose to do that. Cheap laptops are not for gaming of any kind beyond solitaire.

I would argue that EA do have to do that- they have stockholders and so are obliged to make money. The fact that they cater for lower end computers at all shows that they deem it necessary for their business, and modders have found game code which shows some consideration for those with lower end machines. Presumably EA knows the demographic of hardware used by players, from surveys, forum/ tech support and data collection.

OK... but is there a black market for simpoints or Store items where you can turn them into real world currency? Seems highly unlikely to me, since if you want to obtain store items illegitimately there are other, much easier means Which is not typically the case with MMOs and other online games. And there is really no other use for Simpoints.

When I mentioned "value", what I had in mind was converting the account into hard cash.

4. placing too many lots with the in-game world editor tool (it breaks a key component used in world creation, that can only be fixed in CAW, which means a saved game is broken beyond repair) -- an increasingly worsening problem with every expansion since LN)

As I always place new plots with the world editor in-game, I am very interested in the opinions of experienced world creators and world fixers regarding this.


It is still their choice. They could choose to ramp things up if they wanted.

I place new lots in just about every world I play - and I play a lot of them. Most of the time I have no problems placing lots, but there have been times when it seemed to mess up routing. For example in one world that I played, I placed a lot and put a club on it. After that the sims would do this strange looking move where they would angle across the street before getting in their cars. I also have another save where every lot in the world was placed by me, and there are a bunch of them. I do get hesitations and a bit of lagging in that save but it's difficult to say whether this is due to placing lots with the world editor or whether it's just because it's a very large, very populated world with a crap-ton more lots than you find in most worlds.

Another time, in yet another world, my sims started traveling underneath the top layer of the world. There was a section of the road where they would go underground and then pop back up a short distance away. I was actually able to move the camera down as if it were a basement and view the sims running underneath the lots (couldn't do that unless there were sims down there). That was about the strangest thing I ever saw in a sims game. *

Most of the time though, I can't say I have problems with it. But it's probably a good idea to add them a few at a time and make multiple saves if it's a game that's important to you, because you never know.

* Pics or it didn't happen, right? :D

Here is a shot of a car just coming back to the surface after traveling underneath the road. The houses you see in the background were placed on lots that I added with the World Editor.






Here is a shot of a deer that ran by. As you can see, (s)he is sinking down underneath the lot. You can see its legs at the top of the second shot, along with the sim that was running home but was underneath the world. He was angling all over behind the lots I placed before finally making his way back to his house.

Last edited by tangie0906 : 22nd Jul 2012 at 05:50 PM.

I have not seen anything like that in my games (yet). But that sort of thing could be happening to my townies without my knowledge. Maybe I've just been lucky so far.

I'd never seen anything like that before, either! It was quite bizarre. But like I said, most of the time I don't experience any noticible problems by placing lots. Even when I do have issues like a bit of lagging I can't definitively blame this on lots that I placed, and not some other source. Goodness knows there's a lot that can go wrong in this game.

Anyway, if I couldn't place my own lots I'd probably just quit playing this game. I literally don't think I could play without placing lots of my own.

i have seen shots like those in my 3rd party worlds.....

I for one am glad they finally gave us the lot placements....Sunset Valley was aweful in the beginning.....

Not always true. I have a laptop with a 17" screen, an I7 processor and 6gb of ram. (As a 32 bit application, the Sims can only access 4 gb of that memory). It's faster than the desktop which predated it by about a year. However, it's not as fast as my latest desktop.

However, one does not find a laptop like that at WalMart. The trouble with laptos is their power comes at a premium. My laptop cost about $1,300, whereas my faster desktop was about $800 (without a monitor). A powerful laptop comes at a price.

The limitations of older machines is why I do not hold out a lot of hope for the Sims 4, if and when, EA releases it. I suspect they have gone about as far as they can go with a 32 bit systems. Sims 4 really needs to be 64 bit to go much farther. Even with the Sims 3, we are seeing computers straining.

Perhaps they could optimize their code more to squeeze more out of it. But there is only so much they can do.

$1300, while not a true gaming laptop, is also not a cheap laptop. Most people buying laptops today spend under $500, then they whine about how they can't play games on it. I spent $1800 building a new gaming rig last November. A commercial laptop with comparable specs would set you back close to $5000.

Actually, a laptop for any money couldn't be built to match that type of desktop. It's impossible to dissipate that much heat from the form factor. Besides, a dirty little secret the video giants don't like to mention, but the mobile version of their GPUs, even if using the same designations as their desktop cards (ex. 580M vs 580) are NOT the same chips. The mobile version are made to operate at lower power consumption, at lower clock speeds. Example ATI 7700 M series 675 GHz engine clock, 64 GB/s memory bandwidth, 1000 MHz memory clock, 691 GFLOPS single precision computing. ATI 7750 (current bottom of the 7700 series) 900 GHz clock, 92 GB/s memory bandwidth, 1125 MHz memory clock, 819 GFLOPS single precision computing. And guess which one is cheaper? BTW, Intel does the same with their mobile chips too, so I'm not just singling out the GPU makers out there.

There have been a few specialty manufacturers out there who have built "gaming" laptops for lots of money. They will even use desktop components to match performance, and have all sorts of proprietary cooling schemes to keep from burning your thighs. Unfortunately, laptop is a misnomer. Portable computer with hinged screen is better, as they weigh a ton, and need to be plugged in, unless you don't mind a <1 hour battery life.

That is not to say a well equipped, and expensive for what you get, laptop can't run TS3 really well. Discrete graphics systems are a must, and a quad core CPU with 8 or more GB RAM will perform real well (yes, I know TS3 only uses 4 GB, but you need room for everything else running in the background). But dollar for dollar, you can't get a gaming laptop that will ever approach a gaming desktop, which might not be crucial for TS3, but is if you play more demanding games.

Last edited by eskie227 : 26th Jul 2012 at 12:19 AM. Reason: sp.

I absolutely agree, and have posted the same in other threads. TS4 will have to move to a 64 bit engine to offer the kind of features and performance we want to see with the next iteration. It will also force the community to step up to more contemporary hardware, which isn't a bad idea for most. I will say that I got more out of my last machine, a Duocore, almost 5 years, than I did out of any other box I ever had. Usually I was on a 3 year (OK, sometimes 2) replacement cycle. My current i7 is doing real well with TS3, and other goodies, as life is not ONLY TS3. I still have room to grow with it (yes, I want an SSD now, and will upgrade my video card with the next product cycle) and expect to be using it for quite some time to come. But 64 bit is the way EA will have to take many of their pc franchises if they want to be leaders in performance (fine, not leaders, which isn't EA's strategy, but at least competitive).

I think as the game gets more complex the exchange lots have trouble because how things were done when Sims3 first came out is different than now and channels that were empty when the game started are now being used. It can look rather awkward when something that might have genuis when discovered has a real use that was not what you were using it for. I have to delete the lot when that starts, which might be better for all involved.

I don't think anyone is disputing this. At least, I posted that laptop performance comes at a premium in cost. (Generally, a laptop will cost 150% of a comparable desktop.).

But then again, some of us use our computers for other things. For example, when I go on the road (as a landsman) the computer is my everything machine. I can take it to the courthouse for researching land titles, get on the Internet to look up other data, stream movies and play games in my off hours while in the motel room.

I can see why a student might want to take one to class to take notes, or even record a lecture.

It can be used to store MP3 files, or play DVD's. It has a portability one does not have with a desktop, and in many ways is easier to use than an I-pad.

But for a price. (But for professional or business uses, price is less of an issue).

High plains, you're absolutely right. Laptops are versatile, portable, and, so long as you accept paying a premium, a great way to perform multiple tasks with one machine. I certainly wouldn't give mine up. I just find that in many of the threads I've read here, folks are frustrated that their brand new, but entry level laptops can't run TS3 well (or at all). Then there's the issue that typically a laptop offers few, if any, paths to upgrade to increase performance. Folks need to spend a little time figuring out what their requirements will be, and accept that a certain level of performance cannot be attained at bargain basement prices.

I also blame EA for the problem players run into, as the minimum requirements they post on the box are simply insufficient for the way some users play with the game (more than 1 EP, some cc and mods). I can understand the frustration of someone who looks over the minimum specs EA provides, buys an inexpensive machine that meets (or exceeds) those specs, and finds out that the specs were misleading.

well ... I just remodelled the Goths house (Goths moved by me to a suitable hovel) in SV and removed the on-site graves... and so basically I'm screwed?

I don 't believe it for a second, game is running fine. The reason the game is running fine is more likely due to the fact that I finally uninstalled Pets and WA .... And I am sure the reference to critters actually means bloody pets ...