How many of us, while aimlessly walking through the park, have looked down to discover a random lump of titanium lying on the ground?

Yeah, me neither.

On the other hand, I have happened to find money just lying on the ground.

So, for me, it'd be more realistic to find simoleans on the ground, every now and then. And rocks half-buried, or completely buried in the ground. Or at a river bank.

It would also be nice if sims didn't take 15-20 minutes to wash their hands or brush their teeth. I mean... seriously? That sounds like an obsessive-compulsive disorder, EA.

So what about you? What would you find to be more realistic than what is in the game now?

The furniture. I know the game has a certain look to it, but a lot of the furniture is to stylized for my tastes. Even the modern furniture, sometimes, has too many unnecessary curve on them. It gets annoying when you want to make a simple room, and you end up using the same furniture because it all looks like the guy who designed the furniture wanted to have a field day and ape shit just to give the modelers a hard time.

For example - High-End Loft stuff. It's all so... nasty looking. It's too much. Some BauHaus looking furniture is certainly High-End Loft style furniture (look in design magazine, you'll see it) and looks tons better. This isn't just for modern funiture, but EVERY style of furniture. It's annoying.

And when people build homes, things tend to look relatively the same. Things in the game should come in sets. Not a series of items thrown together that are meant to be in a set but look nothing alike.

I like the way the game isn't human realistic. When I'm playing sims, I want to get away from the real world. So I like that my sim can earn thousands of simoleons by finding rubies in the street, and take 15 minutes to get from the front door to the street.

I like things Sim realistic, which means pillow fights at inappropriate moments and unlimited job availability. It's nice to catch a fish as big as you are, and not have to worry about structural support or where to put the soil pipe when designing a house.

I felt the same way about the Ultra Lounge stuff I kinda wanted to buy it, but in every set, there were just too many items that I really disliked. Intensely.

What's up with neon decorations on the fronts of the cabinets, for instance? It looks like something from a Klingon kitchen. Now, if you're a Klingon, that's great. But I'm not. And neither are my sims...

I said in another thread that I don't like modern, but that isn't really true. I like simple modern -- Scandanavian, ala IKEA. Or 60's Danish modern. Or streamlined modern. Bare bones lines and a lack of ornamentation... that's what I want to see.

You're right that EA tends to make things too... too. There's always something I don't like about it. Too much curve in the lines. Curvy legs on a square sofa. Or the sofas and chairs looking like they were made with fabric-covered Legos. Big, square masses, which don't look at all comfortable.

The proportions are all wrong, in other words. And being that one of my other hobbies is dollhouse miniatures, proportion is something that's very important to me.

And yeah, sets of furniture which actually go together. A whole room or house of furniture which actually fits and works, instead of looking like a bunch of random items.

Realism is a tough question to raise. The Sims is a real life simulation. It is supposed to mimic real life, so there is some realism there. But how much of realism is enough, how much more is too much? We can sit there and come up with about a million unrealistic things in 10 minute of play. From the popular concerns of "why every sim is the same height" to my favorite "shouldn't they struggle to find jobs too if economy is bad?" Wait, what economy, the rank 10 Business sim laundered some money and crashed the local economy? Of course, everyone expectation for realism is different. Some realisms are bad to bring in the game, like simsample said "... isn't human realistic" because you don't want to see those in games. Some realisms may be favored or adored by some players and detested by the rest.

Now for something practical, I know taking 15-20 minutes to wash hand is a bit too hard to swallow, or taking 30 minutes to go straight from the car, through the lobby, up elevator, and get home to the apartment. You certainly do not have to approve of this. There are mods that speeds up, slows down certain interactions. Shower, toilet, eating, etc... But the best mod of all I believe is Relativity by Twallan in which you can set the speed of time. I set value to 20 which runs .54 the default game speed and I find it a lot more acceptable.

Finding money on the ground? No mod out there yet for this.

rightly its the small things for me.....

the bad timing and mismatch as sims play musical instruments....the rabbit holes (still thankful for them coz my PC is slower)

and of course the god awful furniture......all break away that sense of immersion....

I like how it isn't like real life like @simsample said.

Realism being good is a matter of personal opinion. You could be the type who would be like 'Oh wow, this is just like real life! That is so cool!' or you could be the type who would be like 'Huh, this is just like real life. How boring. If I wanted realism like this I would have just gone outside'. It really depends on the person.

Yeah I am like Sample as well, I mean I play Sims to get away from the real world. Okay sometimes I still say that's so unrealistic (Like the teen curfew and the cops arresting them if they are fishing right in front of the goddamn house, or sitting just before the path leading to your house and still getting arrested while your adult Sim can go around stealing cars and blowing everything up, and for the latter only getting a fine despite some Sims do get caught in the blast).

It's the same with how I do want my teens to Woohoo or have relationships with adults/YA (Especially those who just grew up into an YA and already their girlfriend) and have children. Why? Because it's a game, I get it's a serious thing in the real world but it's just a game, if they are so worried teens will do that then why are there thieves getting away with cars and blowing the entire town up with the Denote/Inventing skill.

Maybe I go for logic, because if as the above teens can't be out fishing at 3am or standing on the path next to their house then adults shouldn't able to get away with blowing things up which teaches alot worse then teen pregnancy.

That probably sounds kinda hypocritical doesn't it? Going on how one thing isn't realistic while saying it's just a game. Well there some things I don't get how it can be allowed while others are, it's more of the logic of people and realism and the way people think teens having sex is worse then blowing things and Sims up (Or fishing at 3am like I said).

Some things I would like more realism in, others, not so much.

1. I'd like vampires to be less namby, pamby. I know they are afraid to up the rating, but if your sim goes to thr graveyard at 3 pm, chances are they'd become a vamp snack.

2. I'd like coffee houses like they had in sims 2. It was fun to go into a coffee house and order coffee.

3. I'd like the ability to make more than just a few recipes.

4. I'd like the the ability to buy expensive matresses so I could actually use the cute furniture with the low comfort rating.

5. I'd like fashion sets to change occasionally based on current fashion.

6. I'd like a feature that constrained the sims faces to someting within human norm. Auto-generating a face that looks nice is nearly impossible.

Ooh, ooh, that. I've wanted that since TS2 days. And not just for beds, either, though that'd be the most singularly useful category. A sliding scale of pricing so you can get the aesthetic you want without having to compromise on budget (such as it is) or quality would be so nice.

oh, something else... Prices. On everything, and the way money is handled in general. Somethings don't cost enough, and cost too much. There isn't a way to build a million simoleon home because a lot of the furniture is too cheap. There most I was able to build was no more than 300,000, and the house was loaded! Even the most expensive looking stuff is only 100 - 200 more expensive.

I don't expect (and don't want) complete realism, but sometimes the things that are unrealistic in Sims aren't the sort of things that make it fantasy-ish or escapist; they're just kind of dumb.

1. Timing. What I dislike about this most is that I don't know how long something is going to take my Sim. It's hard to get two Sims to interact if you're keeping them constantly busy. And nothing can fill those 5 spare minutes, unless the Sim is sitting and has a book in inventory.

2. Expected behavior. Nobody ever tells you or your Sims what the rules are. Sometimes they're based on real life (which often makes things boring), but other times, crime's just okay. I've found out a lot of the rules by breaking them. Visiting someone when you're offensively stinky is totally cool; using their shower is not. I realized that my firefighter could blow up the fire engine, so I saved and did it, then reverted. The game warned me that if I did it again, I'd be fired. Blowing up the fire truck once wasn't enough to get me fired? So when I had a married Sim in a hot tub with someone other than her husband and saw that I could invite him to cuddle, I figured, Let's see what happens! Her husband gets a "betrayed" moodlet, her son (who witnessed it) got a "witnessed betrayal" moodlet, and I got a bunch more interactions, like the son sympathizing with the father. Weeks later, he can still bring it up. I had a cop pick up my kid for being out after curfew when he tried to go fishing before 6am and failed. Don't want to be soft on crime. But if the cop asks, "What do you do for a living?" and you answer, "I'm a criminal," there's no consequence. I guess they don't know about lying.
I guess it's fun for the game to let you get away with crime sometimes, but I'd also like my Sims to allow different cultural rules about relationships. Who says you can only have one BFF? I didn't know until I tried to get a second one. Why can't I give my Sim a second boyfriend when she asks?
I feel like the game pushes cultural values on players by favoring nuclear families, enforcing monogamy, encouraging social/financial climbing, promoting conspicuous consumption, requiring a certain dress code, etc. There are plenty of other things to do with the game, and there are mods to change a lot of behavior, but ... my fantasy utopia isn't a capitalist, Western-culture utopia, and the Sims is.
Wow, a little much with the soapbox. Moving on...

3. It's a little thing, and I know I can fix it with mods, but what's with the recipes? The limited number of ingredients is nice, but why don't sandwiches require bread? Who has ever made PB&J out of a raw fruit? Does no one at EA know what French toast is?

4. Conversation choices, mostly that you can't get information by asking, except their career. Sometimes my Sim wants to cook someone's favorite food. If I wanted to do that IRL, I'd ask my friend what their favorite food is. Not Sims. Maybe they mentioned it at some point. You watched all their conversation bubbles and wrote down their preferences, right? You can't ask your host if food will be available anytime soon. You can't ask your guest what you can do for them that would get them to sit through a whole game of chess. That said, I like the variety of topics for general conversation and that most are only for Sims with certain traits or jobs. (Letting insane Sims speak madness is hilarious.)

5. Another minor thing: CAS doesn't know what twins are. They're the same age, not the same person.

Everything all posters above me has said Also...

- being able to swim in the ocean. I mean.. why oh why do we have beach front lots when our sims can't do this? Real pet peeve for me.
- real twins/triplets not what we have now. One of the reasons I don't encourage multiple births in my game cause they're not real twins/trips

That's about all I can think of to add for now

Or be able to upgrade the comfort like you can upgrade the plumbing.

Getting told that your sim is acting inappropriately for getting themselves food out of neighbours' fridges when you're visiting because your sim is starving and the neighbour hasn't fed them.

I was wondering why Sims Can't schedule a performance at a venue - like a party. Play a few songs in certain time frame, and random Sims show up/spawn to watch and you get paid. Sort of like play for tips, only better.

as far as swimming, isn't there a way to take the swimming in pool animation and use it to swin in the ocean? You would have to remove the actual getting into the pool animation. I don't know if it's even possible, I'm just wondering.

I think TS2 allowed ocean swimming from one of its EP. But I was long gone from the game to find out how well it worked.

We can just hope one of TS3 EP will give us this. Stay tuned!

Thank god this game isnt realistic. I wouldn't know how to handle sims with pms!

Err... Vampires are not real in the first place. :P

Sometimes I wish the game were more realistic in some ways.

But on the other hand, I'm glad it's not 100% realistic. I know that not everyone loves WA, but I do love how sims can go on what are honestly fantastic adventures. Or that a stranger can become a best friend in less than a day.

And who hasn't ever had a day when you wished you could use "motherlode" in real life? Sure, there's inflation concerns, but you know what I mean.

What do you mean, not real twins? Of course they're real twins - they're born to the same parents at the same time. That's what twins are.

I also find some of the expectations annoying. Some games I do want the neighbourhood to have a Western, capitalist culture, but others I don't. For example, it would be much better if there was an option for one sim to say they are quite happy to have a polyamorous relationship and don't get jealous/bad reputation.

I definitely like some of the interactions the game offers, but... feelings aren't ALWAYS mutual, are they? If my mind serves right about the other Sims series games (I'm a little rusty on remembering things from 1 and 2, sorry) they don't need to have totally even feelings, e.g. someone with an unrequited crush. Wouldn't it be nice to have, say, someone who hates this other sim's guts but the other sim doesn't share the hate?

Also, I know (as I think a lot of us probably do) that the ESRB that would make this impossible, but... if there was no rating barrier, I'd think it interesting and realistic to see teenagers doing things like trying to sneak into bars (though to be fair, I'm not sure if teens are restricted from visiting bars) or parents giving talks about the birds and bees. I definitely wish they'd allow teenagers to live by themselves as well, too, being one myself (and I'm definitely aware of the mods that would get around this, I mean as a starting point without needing mods).

At the same time, there's unrealistic aspects that I'm glad are unrealistic. I don't like the prolonged hand washing either, but I can deal with taking more than a few minutes to wash my hands if it means I won't be spending that same amount of time to change my clothes. =P

You tell Anne Rice that ....

Lestat lives! It's a fact!

Personally, I think realism is overrated. If we are going down the realism road, how's about taxes, lawyer costs for divorces, child support payments, filling the car with petrol (or gas, depending on your country of origin), men (and probably some elder female sims) having to shave every morning, indigestion moodlet from all those bloody waffles .. I could go on ..