I totally, absolutely agree with your mindset Claeric, though I'm more into the the world-building aspects of "lore" than the town-storyline ones.

I think it's illustrative of the triumph of marketing over good game design, particularly writing. The Sims doesn't seem like a game that needs to be reliant on its writing, but so much of TS3 happens in rabbit holes that decent writing is needed to fill the gaps. And it's easy to tell that the TS3's writing is pretty mediocre, with typos, inconsistencies and weird grammar everywhere.

I'm sure that many people thought it a bit odd when they noticed EA dropping real-world references into WA (there are a few in the basegame too, but they're not so blatant). I'm sure it's a marketing ploy to use real names, since they grab more attention than the traditional ambiguous settings, and could maybe even add 'national appeal'.

As a player who cares (too much) I feel it drags too many real-world implications and what-ifs into what is supposed to be a fictional and escapist setting. Here's a few: the place of religion, Americentrism, the stereotyping and debasing of specific nationalities and cultures into quasi-genetic 'traits'. "WTF is Taiwan" and other political questions.

Thankfully, a mod can easily fix the writing, provided that there is somebody that cares about it enough to change it.

... *is strongly reminded of the magic town from TS1.*

*goes elsewhere to cry about it.*

ok, this might sound stupid but what the heck is (a) Lore?

Spoiler alert: Data's older, faultier brother.

Or, as used here, Sims lore = the character biographies and neighborhood factoids that make up the EAxian storylines in The Sims franchise.

lore
1  /lɔr, loʊr/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [lawr, lohr] Show IPA

–noun
1. the body of knowledge, esp. of a traditional, anecdotal, or popular nature, on a particular subject: the lore of herbs.
2. learning, knowledge, or erudition.
3. Archaic.
a. the process or act of teaching; instruction.
b. something that is taught; lesson.

dictionary.com

A simpler way to say ti is "Lore is the story of a world".

The games have lore- their world is consistent between games, they all share the same traits and stories and history and information.

That's what lore is.

Best comment ever!

Or maybe when Mortimer used it (the elixier of life, that is), he failed... more than once.

I just learned that a character from MySims is buried in the graveyard.

I'm wondering how they look. Vincent Skullfinder. If anyone could get a picture of their ghost or resurrect them or something, it would be appreciated. As of yet there are no precise 100% links between MySims and the MySims universe and The Sims, but if this guy looks like the MySim version...

Well actually.. Sims 3 would be after sims 1, since Tragic Clown is dead...

Ea fucked the sims 3 up big time, The people which made Sims and Sims 2, are pretty much all gone from EA now. EA sacked most of them after they rushed the sims 3 out.

No. The Sims 3 is definatley before Sims 1. All the families are younger

Don Lothario, one of my favorite skanky characters from TS2, has been "sent back in time" to Sims 3. Hilarious.

Whoa, I didn't know that. THat's...pretty...confusing. I don't even want to begin to read into that. Maybe in an expansion pack he'll meet himself and they'll shack up :p

Besides, he's involved in Bella getting taken by aliens. So it makes sense that he'd be involved in a mystery.

Well actually.. Sims 3 would be after sims 1, since Tragic Clown is dead...

Consideirng how different they are, it's pretty likely they're not the same clown.

Besides, to say "One character is dead in the sims 3 means the whole game is after the sims 1" is pretty bad logic, because it ignores...well...everyone else.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's meant to be Don Lothario Senior. >_> <_<. I guess skanking around town has its consequences. tsk tsk Don.

timelines in a sims game? meh.

No, becuase his... character info thingy says he remembers a bunch of angry women crowding around him laughing and then waking up in Riverview. Or something like that. Please feel free to correct me if I got that wrong.

But, on the TS2 Website, it says in an "Interview with Bella" that Mortimer invented the Elixir of Life, so perhaps that may have screwed around with the way ages work...

Lol, your taking it way to seriously

It's a game, it doesn't have to follow reality... I mean especially sims, since when has that tried to be realistic, I mean vampires, cowplants and stuff!?

but its part of the fun, trying to figure things out.
shush, you. :P

Since when does something have to be realistic to have lore?

It definitely doesn't have to be realistic. It just has to be believable.

This frustrates me.

I KNOW! The rabbit hole innards, unlike the outsides, are just pictures of stuff. Real stuff. So it's not a big deal or a big "mistake", but..



The use of a US map in the school pisses me off sooooo much ;-;

And I'm noticing something: Look at the architecture in the game. Don't a lot of the houses have a weird psuedo-modern style to them? I can think of 7 or 8 default houses off the top of my head with a 60s-era style of house, with big modern windows, a lot of thin rock walls(I dont know what those are called), etc. The house by the beach, the Roomies house I think, Mrs Crumplebottom's house, quite a few others.

That makes me think Sims 3 was distinctly built to be more old fashioned. A lot of the hair styles seem old fashioned, too, don't they?

I think a few houses are actually of the eclectic (1800s-ish) or neo-classical style, but that's like one or two and my memory is a bit fuzzy.
I'm no fashion historian either, but the hairstyles look like a mix between old and new with mostly new styles in there. Of course, retro is "in", so it's not surprising many old things are brought back again for this generation.

But I'm pretty sure many of these old fashioned things are intentional choices for several reasons.
1. This is supposedly an "all-American" suburban dream town. Most of those fantasies come out of 50s and 60s as it was being expanded a lot. So it's not surprising that they choose those sorts of styles and things to represent the "perfect small town".

2. Sims 3 is taking the approach of trying to simulate a "community" I think. So it's naturally the idealized version suburbs of the 50s and 60s in the US that is used. It was a selling point that didn't quite work out in real life but the same fantasy still exists today.

3. Well...suburbs haven't really changed significantly in style. Actually, architectural styles haven't changed a lot in some ways. Maybe it's just me, but suburbia looks virtually the same as it did since the 50s and 60s. The houses just got bigger.

Yeah.

I think I'll take some pics around town of the houses I'm thinking of, because when I think about it, I really do think they're trying to emulate that 60s suburban style. Some of the default furniture, too, seems pretty stylized. And then Sims 1 and Sims 2 are more modern in style. Sims 2 seems to have just a lot of "houses". You don't look at many and think of a particular ERA, it's just a house(excluding Veronaville which is all Tudors for storyline purposes), and I always did think Sims 1 houses seemed in-between. I might just be imagining it though.

Because Sims 1 had no "real" neighborhood - ok, it had the Terrain, but as it got reused for every file, I'll say its generic - it meant they have some freedom and fun with how Pleasentview could be set up. In Sims 3, however, I think they went BACK to Sims 1 for ideas and decided that the way it was set up seemed quite generic and useful, so they worked from there. Its almost as if the stuff in Sims 2 never happened:
Sims 1 -> Sims 2
and Sims 3 -> Sims 1
But S3 -/> S1 -/>2
[ Key:
-> : "Leads into"
-/> : "Not linked to"]

For storyline ideas, it has been thrown about that its an alternate time line - if Sunset Valley was where the Old Goths moved to instead of Pleasentivew - which would make up for any inconsistencies. People noting about "Odd Tech" being in the time it claims to be are wrong because in Sims 1 they had Robots, Personal Scuba-Diving Tubs, Dancefloors...

To me, Riverview seems more "Up to date" than Sunset Valley, so I think it would be nicer if RV was actually in the same time as Sims 2. I mean Hey, Its in the country!
I'm toying with the ideas about SV and how it fits into my "Map" but I like the feeling that its still there and still as it always was. In my eyes, Bella and Mortimer moved to Pleasentview as young adults and set up the town from being a small humble village to the suburbs it is in Sims 2, because of Mortimer's big inventing helped rebuild and improve their home. Now, as Elders, the Goth Snr family moved to PV [or maybe Bluewater.. mmm...] to be close to their children and grandchildren (As shown in Unleashed's 'Old Town') in their last few years.
Sound ok? ^_^

Looking around town, I noticed something: The area "between" the stadium and the waterfall has houses with signs at either end of the area- the older looking "modern" sign. The other area of houses has a normal suburban-style sign.

That said, a LOT of the houses share the retro-modern design: The crazy roofs, roofs that reach the ground, large front windows, etc.

























I didn't realize there were so many. All with those roofs, open garages, siding, thin rock whatever walls. It's obviously a decided, purposeful thing. And that is pretty awesome, as it does make the game feel more retro.

Plus Hogan's Deep Fried Diner is still thriving I am starting to think maybe the game is supposed to be reminiscent of the late 50s/early 60s.