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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Jun 2015 at 3:54 AM
Default Is it possible to enjoy Sims 3 with only Base game ?
I was only got the base game and the free Town Life pack, and I only played it for a very short time .. hours if that I was so turned off at how the Sims looked and oh the pixel blur was another turn off and never took the time to find a mod, but I really would have enjoyed seeing the expansion pack with the boats, because that is something I wish was in Sims 2, and I uninstalled it awhile back to regain some hard drive. Is it even possible to enjoy this game without going nuts with mods and custom content ? Just basically pick up and play. I just can not see myself remodding and customizing another Sims game after Sims 2, so I do not see Sims 4 in my future.
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 3rd Jun 2015 at 4:10 AM
I played only the base game for a long while when it came out, i have almost all of the expansions now and i played without mods until last year. Imo it all depends on your play style. I had quite a bit of fun with base game only. Your experience may be different of course.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 3rd Jun 2015 at 6:47 PM
Thank you @Aspersim for the tips on the tips on Island Paradise I am still not sure I want to spend anymore money on a game I am not sure I will even be playing much, the expansion does sound like one I would consider for sure.

Thank you to @hippiebones for your reply as well, it gives me some confidence that maybe it is possible for me to play with just a vanilla game and enjoy it.

I have to say i am a little confused with that I made a post with a question and basically just looking for others input who have played and enjoyed with no mods and expansions and I get people hitting the disagree. What is it in my post that you disagree with ? I posted my own experience and was looking for ideas that could change my experience with the game so that I would actually maybe play it. Maybe the way it is worded came across the wrong way.
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 3rd Jun 2015 at 7:46 PM
I think people are probably disagreeing with you because The Sims is known for needing to buy all the parts or most of them to be an actual fun/complete game. Base game is exactly what it is: a foundation for more building blocks to come. But of course the base game is still a game. You can have fun with it alone or else people wouldn't buy the base games when it comes out right away new with no expansion packs in sight. Usually EA releases new expansion packs for the game to keep it fresh and interesting, so if you like the game but just want to be able to do something more with it, you could get expansion packs for it. But The Sims will always be The Sims. But considering you've played other Sims games you should know how the game play is. What makes Sims 3 shine is the customization. If you can picture it, you can most likely build it with this game and never have the trouble of objects or clothes not going with each other.
Top Secret Researcher
#6 Old 3rd Jun 2015 at 8:02 PM
Trying to figure out why people hit a disagree button, therein lies madness. ;-)

I think some modding is necessary since TS3 is a badly coded mess and in my opinion, the NRAAS mods are necessary to keep playing. They have a decensor mod that gets rid of the blur and a few mods that keep a save from exploding. Like any sims game and I count sims2, mods lie at the heart of it. If you don't like the look of the sims, you'll need to get new skins, etc. If you don't like how EA story progression, NRAAS or Awesomemod are there to help.

There is a sticky thread that helps with what people think are important mods.

Whether you will have fun with the game completely depends on you, I don't think anyone can tell you whether you will have fun with the basegame or not. I do think expansions add to it but I would think a fully patched basegame should be fun too.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 3rd Jun 2015 at 10:40 PM
@310175 Normally I do not pay attention to the agrees or disagrees, but in this case I thought it was interesting that it appeared people disagreed with what my experience was with the game, but non the less, thank you for your tips those were the types of things I was looking for.. just enough mods to keep it from exploding, after all we are talking about EA here.
Alchemist
#8 Old 4th Jun 2015 at 12:12 AM
Yes, it is possible. RavenTDA explained it very well by comparing TS3 to a foundation and the expansions and stuff packs to building blocks.

You don't need to go crazy with mods. If the folks on this forum recommend mods, it is because it's much better to attempt to fix what annoys you, rather than complaining about it (not that complaining is bad all the time, of course). Why complain that the censor grid annoys you when you can get Decensor? Or why complain that the game is turning into Florida a beach town full of elders when you can get Story Progression?

As far as I'm concerned, mods are good because they fix annoyances and even introduce new gameplay. Sometimes - like the Nraas mods - they literally keep your game from dying. CC is awesome because it offers variety. One thing I'm still not happy about is the lack of variation in actual useful furniture, if going only by basegame objects. CAS CC is useful because your sims will eventually end up looking the same because of being forced to use the same clothes/makeup/hair all the time for lack of alternatives.

The downside is that you may catch yourself downloading a lot of CC at the beginning, until you figure out what you need/want and what you actually use (personally, I download anything I like and put it in a separate folder, because CC creators/sites are known to disappear out of the blue, taking their creations with them). You can also download bad CC, though that hasn't been a case for a long, long time as quality checks are much better now than in 2009. Keeping up with mod updates is optional now, since there are no more patches coming out.

In the end it's up to you. No one is policing your game and forcing you to download anything. But you are on a forum founded around modding, so mod-related talks are inevitable
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#10 Old 4th Jun 2015 at 4:53 AM Last edited by jimlisa912 : 4th Jun 2015 at 6:13 PM.
@nitromon
Nah whinny was not my intention at all. Neither is transition. I came to Sim 2 late in the game and never played only base game alone so I guess that is my problem. The only graphics I had an issue with were basically the faces looking all rather pudgy similiar. Moving forward is not my issue, I refuse to keep spending more and more on expansions each time a new sims game comes out, it is not in my budget so for me this is most likely only going to be sims 3 base game play, and I wanted opinions of how others felt their experience was with just that. So be it if my own experiences are not valid.
Top Secret Researcher
#11 Old 4th Jun 2015 at 4:58 AM
With my play style, base game works pretty darn well.
Mad Poster
#12 Old 4th Jun 2015 at 5:52 AM
Quote: Originally posted by jimlisa912
Nah whinny was not my intention at all. Neither is transition. I came to Sim 2 late in the game and never played only base game alone so I guess that is my problem. The only graphics I had an issue with were basically the faces looking all rather pudgy similiar. Moving forward is not my issue, I refuse to keep spending more and more on expansions each time a new sims game comes out, it is not in my budget so for me this is most likely only going to be sims 3 base game play, and I wanted opinions of how others felt their experience was with just that. So be it if my own experiences are not valid.


But the Sims 2 sims look horrid without custom content. And also very similar.
Icy Spicy
#13 Old 4th Jun 2015 at 8:52 AM
I was in medical school all throughout the lifetime of TS2.So I got to play only sporadically and not in the intense way I would have liked.When TS3 came out I was still in medical school but I realized that I had the oppurtunity to play a vanilla base game without taxing my poor laptop.
And boy,did I play .I fell in love the instant I opened the newly installed game.The atmosphere provided by the open world was fantastic.I played it at every oppurtunity (thoroughly snubbing bf,friends,social gatherings along the way ).Those really were the best time I spent with any game.It was not until the latter part of 2010 , that I loaded my game with eps,cc and mods.

So to answer OP's question,it is absolutely possible to enjoy a vanilla TS3 base game
Lab Assistant
#14 Old 4th Jun 2015 at 5:01 PM
Am I the only one who didn't have much of an issue transitioning from TS2 to TS3? I still love the former to bits - and I do plan on going back eventually once I'm done trying out all EPs (I originally just wanted to give BG + Late Night a spin, but I got hooked, lol) - but TS3 can hold its own just fine. Sure, there're still some lacking elements in comparison to TS2, but it also has plenty new ones to offer.

With that said, I do think it's necessary to get some basic mods and CC, at least. The same goes for TS2, really - I mean, I hate the TS3 puddings too, but remember the endless loops of Goopy, Mary-Sue and Face 1 clones and similar horrors that spawned like hell-fire in TS2 until the default face templates replacements came out? (Or maybe you don't, I'm an old-timer who pre-ordered TS2 before its release.) Yeah, that got old fast, too.

But that is, of course, to my own taste. Echoing previous comments above - it just depends on the way you play, and what you find a deal-breaker/deal-maker while playing. Personally, I think I could get by on the base game just fine - all I need is Nraas' StoryProgression (to avoid the Florida situation mentioned above, lol, plus less pudding townies) and default skin/eye replacements. Maybe ErrorTrap and Overwatch (which are automatic "cleaners" for your game), since I'm the type to play long save-games, and MasterController (because I like to be nitpicky about details sometimes, but you can go pretty far on testingcheatsenabled alone).

Speaking as somebody who had my own doubts about heavily customizing another game after having been into TS2 for years, I think that rather than setting yourself up for that, just go along with the flow and fix that which you find the most annoying. Explore the game for its own unique aspects - and there're a ton of them - instead of endlessly comparing them to all the EP features you're used to from TS2. Even with the base game alone, there're endless possibilities and varieties of gameplay you can pursue that you couldn't in TS2, especially if you take the new open world/active story-progression into consideration. (Even more so if you have Nraas' SP installed.) I'm pretty much taking the same approach to TS3 as I did to TS2 when I had just discovered that mods existed - rather than do a ton of research and opt out altogether from information/tinkering overload, just see what features/fixes you wished you had the most while playing, and go from there.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#16 Old 5th Jun 2015 at 3:55 AM
I am a Sims 2 player, but I do have most of the Sims3 EP's and have played all the ones I own. I think the Late Night one is the only one I don't have. I don't care for Sims 3 very much, but not having many EP's on and barely any cc made it worse. Soon as I added in more than a couple of EP's and a handful of cc my computer simply would make it run like a slug and things would just sit grey, no textures. Then it started freezing every 10 seconds and became unplayable. If a person prefers Sims 2 or Sims 3 cc free is a matter of personal opinion, I don't care for Sims 2 cc free, but still prefer them to cc free Sims 3 sims. I used a couple of main mods and used player made templates which improved the freezing problem a lot. I really think you do need some mods, just like you need anti corruption mods for Sims 2.

Anyway as a Sims 2 player I liked Island paradise the most, so I will second that. Boats and diving was something we never got in the sims 2 so that was fun. The thing I find with Sims 3 is there are more fun activities, but once I have them done I can't be bothered to do them again. I simply don't get invested in the Sims and don't like how they look. Of course having little cc makes that aspect worse but things looked worse and worse as I put on a few hairs and a bit of lipstick, so I took them out.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Scholar
#18 Old 5th Jun 2015 at 6:08 AM
It is. To be honest, the best moments with gameplay for me was when I had only base game.Of course, I miss some features from sims 2 at that moment, but new gameplay was very interesting. Since I had no big troubles with sims 3 base game (lagging, crashing and etc.) the first months of playing this game was really good :D
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#19 Old 5th Jun 2015 at 6:44 AM
@nitromon maybe that's why my game lagged so badly, I had that and Ambitions on most of the time.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#21 Old 5th Jun 2015 at 9:08 AM
I have a dual core and 12 RAM, although I might have had 8 RAM when I had TS3 installed, I took it off to make room for Dragon Age Inquisition. Yes that does normally take quad core, but there is a download that allows it to run on a dual. That and turning Origin overlay in game off. Turning that off might make a difference to TS3 performance for people as well. The Sims 2, runs smoothly even with gobs of cc. Luckily for me I prefer Sims 2 otherwise I'd be up the creek.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Alchemist
#24 Old 7th Jun 2015 at 7:18 AM
@Aspersim: Riverview is free But I understand why they would charge money for store worlds - why wouldn't they? EA gave players a taste of what their worlds look like with Riverview (let's ignore the fact that store world quality is terribly uneven); since the worlds are built around a specific theme- desert (Lucky Palms), resort (Hidden Springs, Sunlit Tides), novelty (Moonlight Hollow, Barnacle Bay) etc. - players can choose what they want to get and pay only for that. It's their work and their product, so they're completely justified to ask for money or offer it for free if they want to.

Them being overpriced in terms of what they offer compared to EPs and SPs is another matter entirely. I do like that they included various designs for festival lots with Seasons, so I don't have to design one every time I start a new game in an older world

Also...there are street lights in the game? :o I never noticed them.
Mad Poster
#25 Old 7th Jun 2015 at 7:45 AM
I've got almost everything for TS3 though I'm stil missing Ambitions and Showtime until they get ordered and shipped here for me to install them.I run with a crazy load of Mods and CC uncluding 88 NRaas Mod files and I have very rare cases of lag if my town is overdue for a full town reset by Master Controller.
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