I'm thinking about getting myself a Christmas gift this year.. TS3 Pets EP, but I must ask before I buy it and not like it, is it worth buying it? I think it is, but I wanted to ask the game players.

I would say it's worth it, but you should check to make sure your computer can handle it first. A LOT of people have been complaining of graphics issues due to weak systems.

Yea, I'll do that. Thanks for telling me to check first. Never really occurred to me, though I have seen a whole bunch of posts about graphics not working on other Sims forums.

I second that. The graphics requirements are much much higher than I expected. With that, though, I think it's one of the best expansion packs they've had for the sims. The horses have a number of routing difficulties but careful building avoids that. And don't count on the premade sims being likable. But the neighborhood itself is STUNNING. Also, there's puppies. Just saying. PUPPIES.

If you get it, you will fall in love with the crazy cat lady's house. You don't have a say in the matter, you just will. By far the best lot in the hood. I mean, she has cat portraits hanging over the pet food bowls. It's brilliant.

... I think you meant kittens. KITTENS!

I would have to agree on the "best EP yet" thing. But, be aware that Pets (or more accurately the Pets patch) does break object-type CC... if you're a big CC user you'll have to update or fix a lot of stuff

I've heard that CC is a big problem with the game.. I plan on getting the PS3 one, cause I don't have the Sims 3 starter pack :L

I got it for myself on Black Friday. (For putting myself through those horrible crowds at the mall. Yuck.)
It's definitely worth all the CC problems.
You can control your pets and they can gain skills and traits! I have a dog that has a hunting skill and it can find gems for me. I love it personally, one of the best EPs yet. Also, the "vomit machine" Lifetime reward is hilarious.

If you already spent $50 US on the base game, yes, it's worth it.

Oh man, if you have a dog with full hunting skill you will have more money than you know what to do with. It pretty much always outpaces my sim's ability to "level" gem cuts.

I agree with others it's one of the better EP but it is a system hog.

If you like the idea of animals around, it's a good EP. I've only played with cats and the minor pets so far, but it's already in my mind better than the sims 2 pets, and takes from the sims 1 pets and expands on it (although I would have liked to have seen the pest hunting from 1 back again). If you get a dog and train it to hunt, you will have more money than you know what to do with, and cats can bring back some pretty rare minor pets, especially if they have the alpha pet rewards (seriously, one of my cats routinely brings back beetles worth $1k-$1.3k).

Also, at least when the horses are pretending to be sixteen year old drivers trying to parallel park, they look sort of pretty.

As for the hunting skill, my dogs have repeatedly brought home $30-50k gigantic meteorites at, like, skill level seven.

I bought the Limited Edition version of Pets along with Generations this week. EA is doing a buy one get one free deal on Sims' expansions, which was great for me. While only playing Pets a few days, I would definitely recommend it.
Before I played it I assumed that the whole 'pets' feature would overrun the game, but it actually fits in nicely and is more of a subtle touch. Some of the expansion content is neat too, there's a lot of nice clothes added and the new town of Appaloosa Plains is great too, very unique.

Yeah, regardless of any issues with the content, Appaloosa Plains is stunning. It's what I play as my usual 'hood now....usually with the ea premades purged.

I second (third?) the suggestion to check your system against the requirements. It happened to me since because my Sims and LN worked just fine on my current system and I made the assumption Pets would work too (no it didn't). Beyond the trouble I've been having, the Pets are fun.

i think a few of the breeds (of all the animals, though dogs especially) were either winged entirely or just halfassed. the routing issues are hilarious and sad, but mostly sad, some of the autonomous reactions are annoying as crap (like when simbots
arrived and now everybody goes OOO ROBOT whenever theyre around...), and the CC-breakage is NEVER fun...

but past that, i like it a LOT more than i did sims 2's pets. the animals are actually interesting to watch, and pets being playable is both a big load off your human sim(s) and more interesting as a whole. i like that you can train your animals but that you dont HAVE to, if you want to do other things with your sims life...such as... WORK or EAT or pee IN the toilet, for once.
for cats and dogs, i think the hunting skill is the most fun. both watching them hunt, and the results. you could build an entire challenge around that by itself. i especially enjoy how after level 1, you dont have to waste more time training them to hunt unless you really want to. (theyll gain levels by practicing it just like any other skill in sims 3, and i think actually for cats you dont need to teach them level 1 at all...theres a toy they can practice hunting on, which as a cat owner, made me "lol" and nod to behold.) though i do have to admit, im a lot more interested in the horses than i thought i would be. IMHO, EA deserves props for making unicorns fun(ctional). the graphics are lovely if your computer can handle them, and i like that animals can interact
with each other more significantly than in sims 2. pets having family trees is also a major plus.

overall, i think its worth it, and good mods coughtwallan'sstuffcough help iron a few of the bugs out right off the bat.

So it comes with another town? How does it compare to the others? And do horses and the other animals pop up at the Adventures destinations?

Since Bridgeport is a city and it has an atmosphere of its own, I won't compare the two but when it comes to other hoods, the Appaloosa Plains goes way above them. It is very beautiful and well done, which I wouldn't have expected from EA.

There are animals in WA destinations. I saw some birds, while visiting China in "Edit Town" mode. I'm not sure about horses, dogs or cats, though, since my simmies haven't traveled yet after I installed Pets.

For the first and second questions, yes, Appaloosa Plains. Rural-themed. Plateau, meadow area, river, and some parks etc up in the mountains, plus a dinosaur digsite (complete with giant stuffed t-rex, "DinoWorld" style). Premade sims are meh. Couple country singers, guy who's supposed to look like Clint Eastwood, crazy cat lady (who is hilarious) in an old torn up Victorian house, and sort of the younger version of the Spenster sisters plus parrots. Landscape itself is stunning, couple of really nice houses too. Easily my favorite hood so far. Prettier than hidden springs, less laggy than Bridgeport, less boring than Riverview.

For your last question, pets cannot be taken on vacations (and don't show up) in a vanilla game, but Twallan's Traveler mod enables it. Additionally the vanilla game gives you more rabbithole lots, so with Traveler you can place an Equestrian Center and buy a horse on vacation. I *BELIEVE* the minor pets like birds will spawn in WA without any mods.

edit: OH. AND. SERIAL KILLER ICE CREAM TRUCK. <33333

What are these CC problems? And if I get this how would I fix them, because I usually use S3PE to lump everything together? I have the hospital furniture, a robot pod bed, some Silent Hill graves and coffins, that weapons mod, and after that I'm not too sure. So what would happen and what would I do about it? I believe it won't cause CC clothing problems, right?

I do think Pets is worth getting. I put at least one pet in every family, they are especially great if you're not so much into the whole child-rearing aspect of Sims.

Also, unicorns. Holy crap, I absolutely love the horses and unicorns in Pets. They're gorgeous and they're a ton of fun to play. The cats and dogs are amazing, too. I made an artist with a Pomeranian and the Pom kept them afloat with all of the extremely rare collectibles it found out in the town. And the cats find the pimp little creatures in town that I find adorable and amusing. Plus it's so fun to watch the battle go down when they try to catch something.

I do suggest you do manual back-up saves on a separate hard drive if you are so able (and don't already). I put my back-up on my K: drive because my files randomly got wiped a week or so ago. This game has a ton of glitches, most of which are generally harmless and hilarious. I'm a fan.

Definitely NOT worth getting. I want my money back. The cats are as annoying as all get out, the dogs worse, and this is coming from a real animal lover. They should have called it The Sims 3: Horses, and if you're not a horse person you're gonna hate it.

I am keeping it for the clothing only but I am looking for a way to disable stray animals in my game so I can actually have my sims DO something with their lives.

My advice: Don't get it.

Twallan's register mod has animal control features.

You can use Granthes's Rigfix app on your combined .package file. It will fix all the rigs in the file. http://sims3.the-prof.net/forums/in...pic,1298.0.html

Except beds and tubs, which need to be updated by their creator (or you can follow the instructions here: http://sims3.the-prof.net/forums/in...pic,1472.0.html )



I'm not a horse person, and I don't hate it :O

I'm a cat person, so I'll comment on that. The cats are MUCH more cat-like than the TS2 ones were. They can sit on your lap, they can hide under furniture, they can HUNT (I just cleaned a dead rat out of my RL bathtub that the kitties thoughtfully put there for me, so you can see why I think this is a big deal ).

Because the pets are now controllable sims, though... it is harder to adopt em and forget about em than it was in TS2. But you CAN do that... if you set their autonomy to high, you never HAVE to control em. Yes, they have a social need... but if you have more than one pet they can take care of that themselves (just like real pets), and then all your sims HAVE to do is feed em (and you can even bypass that, since cats can eat what they catch and dogs can satisfy hunter by drinking from ponds ).

I agree with this, I find the Sims 3 pets easier and more realistic than the Sims 2 pets. I have 2 dogs and 1 cat in my game and I can pretty much ignore them if I really wanted because the amuses themseleves, it makes for a lot of funny moments seeing what they get up to on their own.