I'm just curious; has anyone tried installing and playing all the Expansions without the internet? Can you even do so?

When I recently installed again it made me patch after every install - and the patches, even previous ones, were downlaoded rather than taken off the discs.

I'm just thinking that iff I have to be without internet for a few months in the future (a fairly real possibility) - or if in about 8 years time they shut down the TS3 download servers - would a body be able to play the game fully updated?

If not; are there workarounds? Such as a spare HDD with a copy of a fully updated folder to paste over a fresh install? Problem with this idea is Riverview always need to be 'redownlaoded' and authenticated. Can all the games patches be manually downloaded and put onto a spare DVD?

Hoping someone has tried these things and can offer some info. Much love MTS.

We can't know if the game will somehow be patched in a stupid way requiring internet access in future, and then they'll shut down the servers. I'm sure you could keep a copy of whatever the last patch would be, though. There's lots of people who play without an internet connection, and just use an external drive, DVD, or thumb drive to copy the patches over, though.

You can get the patches here: http://www.simprograms.com/the-sims...sims-3-patches/ In the future, I guess you can always head to a library and download from there. Save them onto a USB drive.

Well the patches are uploaded to EA servers not TS3 site so as long as EA is in business then you should be able to patch.... or download from simprograms

Yeah, just since the whole financial meltdown its brought home that no company is too big to fail, even EA. I'd like to have backups in place to play my Sims 3 if one day, out of the blue, EA declared itself bankrupt and closed down its servers. Thanks for the answers and the patch-site.

I download every patch then burn them to a DVD. When I reinstall I just install that versions patches after I've installed them, move onto the next EP/SP & repeat the patching.

As for playing without the internet, you can if you have the disk version. I have the Base game, and every EP, SP & the launchers blocked in my firewall. I hate that the game phones home and forces you to share data about how you play...

Where would a link to the newest patches be? for manual download.

I don't know if anyone ever answered your original question but you can download and play the expansions without internet (I lack internet at home) the patch on the dvd does it.