I guess there are more but for me, these two are most welcome:

- The feeling of in-game community. When your hero goes outside, you will see other heroes and a multitude of Sims going around, minding their own business or doing this or that, watching something, chatting, etc. Even while their activities are rather limited they give a feeling of a world that's really alive, more so than in regular games.

- The humor. I loved that in TS1 and I missed it in TS2 and especially in TS3. I wish the same people who wrote TSM wrote Generations and re-wrote the entire TS3 series. Which probably ain't gonna happen: their loss but ours as well.

The face skin, realistic and detailed without being creepy, specially the male sims look better, the facial hair is great too, not just "painted" on like in TS3. Body skins are very bland, though, and I miss the skintone slider.

That's simply a gameplay style choice you've made in TS2 and TS3. I play a full neighborhood in TS2, and visiting community lots that are overrun by playable Sims from other lots is a regular part of that. I feel like TS3 with aging and story progression on is designed to force the player to play a single, legacy-style household, but you still have the option of playing with those features turned off, in which case you can easily populate more than one house in a neighborhood and rotate through them...and you'll see members of those other households out and about in the open world.

True. I became extremely bored with having to cycle through various households in TS2, however, and being able to play a real legacy-style game was perhaps the biggest TS3 plus for me. TSM forced me to play the other way and I like it, but I don't think that will change my TS3 ways.

get drunk and kill people in this

The overall look of TSM. I don't have to dl a ton of custom medieval style clothes and furniture, then mods for dirt roads, no cars, etc., etc., etc. Plus I love the return of the quirky humor a lot.

* Medieval has fewer needs. In TS3, showering takes too long, and you never get around it, not on WA, and not with Lifetime Awards. You simply need to spend a lot of time watching your Sims in the shower.
* The facial aging slider in Medieval was long overdue. Please include it in Generations.
* All jobs in Medieval are on-screen, rarely hiding in rabbit holes. TS3 could have had included more visible jobs.
* Alcohol in a credible context. I would have liked to see hangovers, too.
* Injuries, disease and healthcare. Missed in TS3.
* Fatal Flaws are much better made than the negative traits in TS3.

If they do, I hope it's on the makeup level (i.e., accessible with a change appearance interaction rather than edit in CAS). Otherwise, I wouldn't see the point in it. TS3 pushes aging on the face at age transitions YA->Adult->Elder.

One thing I really love about the whole quest-enforced view of the world is how the quests write changes into the world. Anyone who has done the Snordwitch or Effen...whatever annexation quests has seen this. (I'm blanking on other quests that plop down temporary encampments or spookalicious effects.) I don't perceive this as TSM doing it better than other Sims games; it's just an option that isn't really practical in a world controlled by the player (TS3) rather than EA (TSM).

I completely agree. This is probably how it's supposed to be in TS3, but in my game it never is. Instead, everyone other than my currently active household is just standing around staring at nothing. I mean, I know a lot of this is due to my computer not being up to snuff to handle all the stuff required, but it's the exact same computer that I'm playing TSM on and TSM works.

Another thing I've noticed is that TS3 keeps most of the unplayable households standing just inside their front doors not actually doing anything most of the time, while in TSM, no matter when you happen to look, sims are actually going about their lives: sleeping in their beds, cooking at eating food, etc.

Create-a-Sim definitely. Simmies are realistic, sliders are well calibrated, haircuts are way better than all of non-store TS3 haircuts. Me wants those in TS4!

Just the fact that there are a bunch of long hair styles for men, considering my own hair hasn't been shorter than shoulder level in about ten years, and it shows in the characters I design.

Come to think of it, I can only think of one character who has short-ish hair, and even his is slicked back (and well-handled in TSM)

I definitely agree about seeing more sims out and about. In my TS3 game, when I go to the park, no one's there. Even if I stay around the park for a few days, there is still no one there.

Definately would like some features brought over to TS3.

-Breast Feeding. TSM shows they can do it, that can easily be brought over to TS3
-As someone else mentioned; injury, disease, viable death. The medical career track should mimic the physician albeit with modern tools. Injured/sick sims would visit your office and you make money by treating them or making medicines. Perhaps have oppertunities that allow you to make house calls.
-Seemed to me there are more romantic options.
-Love the traits/flaw system could see it working in TS3. Although I think flaws should also give special abilities for example; Licentious should allow you to get to woohoo much faster than going up the romance line the normal way. I find it strange that a licentious sim has to do "first kiss" before moving on to other romantic options. It just seems awkward. The same goes for other flaws; glutton should give you a bonus to food preperation speed, blood thirsty should bring up the "fight sim to death" or "fight sim" quicker than a sim without that trait and so on.

The traits and flaw system was nice, but I might up the traits to three and flaws to two and add more variety to them. That way you can go through a legendary trait quest and, oops, you're no longer a drunkard but you still hate people. That'd be neat.

One small but very useful feature: the ability to put a marker on any sim you know, from the relationship panel :-) would love to see that in TS3.

The fact that any controllable sim can enter any other sim's house without being invited, and use their stuff without being considered "awkward" Yeah, you can fix that with mods in TS3, but I find it very liberating for my sim not to be bound to their own home. Realistic, in either the modern or medieval era? Maybe not, but fun.

I kinda like the TSM cooking system. You have to have the ingredients to make something. There are three different cooking methods (cauldron, oven, and spit), so your preparation methods depend on which of those you've got. Clicking on the Larder object will let you use any preparation method available on that lot.

Agreed with what others have said on age slider (would like to see that even more pronounced, possibly more of em), hairs (especially curly/wavy!), breastfeeding.

+1.

For me, the most important changes are about gameplay.

No more emphasis on a multitude of "basic" needs, but on a big, complex, synthetic one, "concentration", reflecting the "mood" of the character. When I play TS3 I feel like sims are walking excel sheets. In TSM they feel like "characters".

Medieval sims have more "personality" than TS3 ones. One big synthetic "need" means that two sims can have very different ways to satisfy it. Profession and personality traits do just that : encourage you to play very differently your sims. In TS3, traits are secondary - the game play is about needs, traits are just a way to make satisfaction easier or more difficult. In the end, each and every sim in TS3 plays roughly the same. In TSM, I really feel my sims are "unique".

Responsabilities are also an improvement over "desires" : punish if you don't, reward if you do. Another way to encourage you to have different experience with each Hero.
And, of course, professions. No more "go to work, wait for return", but also, each profession has different ways to satisfy "concentration", again encouraging you to play in very different ways your heroes. Profession makes them unique all day long. The Physician and the Knight are far more different in the way they live than a doctor and a cop in TS3...

So, for me, the big success of TSM is to have made sims "characters" with a personality, rather than an assorted bunch of needs you can make stories with.

Subjectively : I liked TS3, but it bored me very fast. I already spent more time playing TSM than I did on TS3 :p

The mini games. As small and simple as they may be in TSM, I really like having tasks with immediate visual confirmation that I'm doing it wrong, or right. I liked them in TS2 and miss them in TS3.



Also, this. ^^^

I'd like to echo some of these sentiments.

My monarch had a reception for the knight who had won this tournament and it actually felt like a medieval banquet or some kind of party. The sims were not standing around wondering what to do like they did at any bar/nightclub in Bridgeport or any house party. They were dancing, drinking, eating, even sword fighting, whatever.

Wholeheartedly agreed. The faces are amazing, they remind me of paintings you might see in the middle ages.

The skin could be better, though, but I don't mind it.

I never played TS3 but this is definitely something I like about TSM - above TS2 even. I especially love it in the tavern - the bard will autonomously get up and play some music, people are dancing - the bar guy dispenses drinks, people drink, fight, flirt, etc. The routing fails drive me a bit nuts - but it makes for such a nice atmosphere.

-I love the community. I guess part of why I don't get it in Sims 3 is because my computer can't handle it, but if my computer can run TERA at no less than 20 FPS then I know it's not my computer but crappy optimization on EA's part. So yeah, Sims Medieval is way better at having a real community, because I can play it on any computer I own and still get that community.

-I love the clothes. I spend hours coordinating my Sims' outfits in Sims 3, but the clothing in this game is so well done that I don't even mind the lack of customization. Everything looks so polished, even with the NPCs (which is actually almost impossible in Sims 3 since there's too much variety to smartly do it in a random way). It seems like EA spent much more time on clothes for TSM than compared to Sims 3 store items.

-I love how responsibilities are tied to professions. If I ever get bored of doing one hero's responsibilities then I just pick a different hero for the next day. The open-endedness of Sims 3 is nice but I'm really not a sandbox type person, I like having classes.

-The humor. I never played Sims 1 or 2, but I can definitely say this game is much more whimsical and fun than Sims 3 with its current expansions.

- Definately the humor! I wish The Sims 3 gets more humor incorporated into it with future expansions.

- The fact that TSM isn't afraid to describe alcohol as.. well.. alcohol! TSM actually mentions the word "drunk" while TS3 just calls it's beer and wine "nectar" and calls getting drunk "sugar buzzed" because they were afraid of raising the age rating. I mean seriously? (yes I know there is a mod for that too!)

- The way the Sims themselves look. I could spend just more than 5-10 minutes creating a Sim in TSM and I will love how I made them, but if I want that effect in TS3, I would literally spoend about an hour creating one Sim! I also love how the males look so much manly too!

- The Sim markers. Would also love to place markers on Sims in TS3 too!

Why has no one mentioned save time? Saving in Sims Medieval takes 5 seconds. In Sims 3, it takes a couple of minutes.

I know that's because the Sims 3 Neighbourhood is much, much more customisable, and because you have Story Progression; but it's a pleasant change to be able to save and get straight back on with your game, rather than having to start saving and go get a cup of tea.

I want the health care system. I love it.

MAGIC!!!! Please bring this, I love spells and potions and stuff.

Sim-inflicted death: I like that Sims can die from poison, a sword fight, etc.

Gowns. I get the whole "modern" thing, but we need gowns in TS3. Badly.

If TS3 incorporated this, I would actually buy their games, instead of stalk them until I can get them on sale.

I agree with everything everybody said. I love the fact that everything is just so pretty and fancy. It's so beautiful that I don't even mind the lack of customization!

-I adore the random name generator. I always wanted that in the sims 3 and used babynamegenie.com
-The layout. It's epic, just plain epic. The color scheme is really nice too. It looks much better than in the sims 3.
-Babies and their cradles are like objects. Why doesn't anybody like this? It's so much more convenient that way!
-challenging to a duel is really fun too.
-I hope I don't sound like a psychopath, but...the pit of judgement is a nice addition to the game. Some sims, I just don't want them in the game, but I HATE killing sims. It scares the heck out of me, this is so much easier and less traumatizing. I wouldn't do that to a real person though.

And of course, the fact that it has...a plot! I love me some plots!