I have wished this for 3 years now. I know this is totally impossible because the game engines are totally different in TS3. But I wonder if there really isn't anyone out there brilliant enough to make at least two lots across from each other or side by side interactable? Is that a word? I doubt it.

I miss my TS2 Sims when playing TS3, and I know it is totally impossible to put TS2 Sims in TS3. Heck I wouldn't even want Story Progression in TS2...but how I wish my Sims could go across the street and interact with Goopy, or my own made Sims on the next lot. I am wondering if there is really No way at all for this to ever happen even on a small scale? Granted EA doesn't allow the change of the game engine, but isn't that exactly what mods do?

Hi there,

hm...really...I don't think I'd want it. I love the game just like it is and a Mod as big as this would almost 100% destabilize the Game and that's something I'd rather not risk for mine. Probably I'm just too retro to think out of the box.

DasRabennest

Actually someone has created a mod that allows you to visit Sims on their home lots. Chris Hatch over at Back Alley Sims created one, it is an adult only site however so I don't ever link to it on here.

I don't use it myself as it requires AL, if you are able and decide to check it out it would be found in Chris's Creations forum. Heads up the site is pretty graphic as it is 18+ and not everyone is comfortable with that even if you are an adult.

As for myself the open world aspect of things doesn't appeal to me all that much. I've got enough neighbors walking by that my Sims can always talk to them if they so desire. I also think I would find it frustrating to go to another playable's house and not be able to control any of their actions. Completely doesn't appeal to the control freak that lives inside me.

Ya, I always have crazy ideas. Like I was thinking it would work better in Uni since Uni blocks out regular mainhood Sims from entering that world. But then again, your Uni Sims can go back to the loading screen to go home or other subhoods for awhile.

Oh! Clashfan, thanks! I will check it out but I might have to look with one hand over one eye as I am quite shy about looking at adult fan sites! Thank you!

It depends on what kind of mod you are talking about. There are the posing mods, which are mostly for aesthetic storytelling purposes. There are the glitch-fixing mods, which are mostly for repairing behaviors or animations or visual glitches in the game. There are the mods that expands gameplay in a way or limits gameplay in such a way but keeps the actual game in tact by inhibiting or producing certain behaviors or re-arranging certain behaviors to form a new interaction. No mod that you would find would change the game engine or override the loading screens. In order to do that, you would have to change the entire game architecture to allow one Sim to immediately go to another household as if it's in an open neighborhood. One can, however, just play The Sims 3.

Yes, but I like my TS2 Sims better just wish EA had given the TS2 Sims fans an a better option. Once you play the openworld you begin in some small, very small way to miss it once you go back to playing TS2. Granted not everyone likes the confinement of the Open world....Not being able to switch Sims fast as in TS2 or micromanage them. But I just would like to see my TS2 Sims roaming around and sometimes even doing things that is out of my control so I can go zap that and put an end to them moving on without me. Insert evil grin.

No, I don't. I don't particularly love the open world of TS3/TSM and the limitations that come with it, and I don't want those on TS2 too. The "closed world" matches my gameplay better and it's one of the reasons I still prefer TS2 over the newer titles, the open world is very nice and sparkly to look at but ultimately it doesn't work with my game at all.

And this is not the WCIF, but Chris Hatch has a mod that allows visiting neighbours' residential lots if you desperately want that. It's complex and somewhat unstable (you must read the documentation before toying with it), and it doesn't really add much in the long term after the novelty wears off, but it exists.

the problem with open worlds is that they require high system specs to function properly and to be kept updated ingame, and some people dont own PCs with such high and strong specs, some people claim that they cant run the sims 3 on computers they used to run all EPs and SPs of sims 2...

I'd love to, but my PC wouldn't handle it for sure. So I'm happy with TS2 the way it is


They can't even launch it or does it work too slow? TS3 worked ok for me at first, but after the full patch my PC started to randomly reset almost each sim day. I'm pretty sure that something started to overheat from the added contents. No EPs, just vanilla game and a full patch. I guess those people might actually find it possible to play TS3, provided that they don't patch the game and don't use any EPs. Which kind of kills the point a little.

Honestly, I don't think I would be all that crazy about the game if it were open world like TS3 is. First off, it would take away the control I have over my Sims. The way the Sims you aren't playing in AL behave is bad enough. It is impossible to keep a Sim with the aspiration of Romance happy if you have him or her fooling around with the tenants/landperson. They will be in hot water before you can do anything about it.
Of course, I wouldn't mind being able to send my Sims to visit their friends for the sake of visiting. However open world is a bit over the top.

Just a thought: Remove the Story Progression features where your Sims don't have babies, get married without you etc. (Since this doesn't even work in TS3 anyway they don't even get married anymore but go steady all thier lives etc.) and then would you consider an open world where they all stay the same age until you choose for some to age up, and they live out their lives just the way you last played them but you can see your Sims and them roaming around and doing things as in TS3 then would any of you consider it to be 'fun'?

ETA: sorry, insert commas where needed

I'm not happy with the open world in TS3 and wish it worked like TS2. I have a Ghost Hunter Sim and it takes him a Sim hour to get to houses on the edge of the map to do his job. (Don't get me started on the stupidity of trying to bike everywhere in China.)

They do that on community lots and at parties. Many a fight and caught cheating event has occurred while I'm playing a totally different household from the one affected!

It would be nice if you could click to visit inhabited lots, but if they can't make it work any better than the AL visit apartments, I can live without. What I wouldn't mind, though, in fact what I would love, would be an algorithm that adjusted the liklihood of a sim doing a walk-by based on how near the lot is to his own home and possibly how many friends he has in the neighborhood. So Clovis Point, who lives downtown, is less likely to walk by Mary Munny's house in Drama Acres than he is to walk past Leslie Gay's downtown; but the fact that he's friends with Mary's next-door neighbors might boost that chance by 5%; the fact that he's friends with her son two blocks away might be worth 2%; and now that he has in-laws on the next block that might be worth another 1% even though he doesn't get along with his in-laws. Because he might be visiting any one of those people and drop in on Mary on the way; or might have come down to Drama Acres with his wife, chickened out of seeing her folks, and gone for a walk instead.

There is a hack at MATY for this "localwalkby" you can find it in the hack directory. Works great, in addition to it keeping it to only locals walking by it also increases the odds of it being a friend or family member walking by. Even better one you might need to see in order to improve or keep your relationship high.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s.../topic,7.0.html

No. It's not the story progression, it's that the open world sucks. I hate having to go fifty three ways across Sunday and back to find one stray sim lost in town (and then finding him standing around doing nothing, just staring blankly at other sims also standing around doing nothing - the autonomy isn't even fun, just distracting), I hate how the professions completely suck one sim's time in a way that makes the rest of the household unplayable, and don't even get me started on how ~fun!~ it is staring at rabbitholes for hours while a stream of pop-ups tell me about all the crazy hijinks my sim is up to inside the building.

None of that is fun, all of that is frustrating and time-consuming, and watching Sims roam around and interact with other sims is nothing I don't already have - that's what community lots are for. And at least in closed-world lots I know my sims won't be taking off on their own to go stand around and stare blankly at a wall all the way over the other side of town.

And then get error messages from Twallan's ErrorTrap that the Sim got stuck trying to stare blankly at a wall on the other side of town.

Argh. I wish I could play Sims 2 again.

TS2 sims do roam around, but they do it a lot more on community lots because they are not programmed to visit home lots. If you have a neighbourhood populated mostly with your own playables, then whenever you go to a community lot you can see some of them there, and you can even make them selectable with a cheat.

When I heard about the "open world" in Sims 3, my first thought was that it would be difficult to play more than one sim at a time and impossible to play more than one family. I was right.

Why would I want to destroy TS2 by making it more like TS3?

Yes, I would like my sims to be able to visit other sims. I have never played Sims 3, so I don´t know exactly how it works there, but I would say that´s one of the few things about S3 that attracts me. But I can totally live with how it works in sims 2, instead of visiting other sims you can invite their household over for dinner or something, and if you like to you can even temporarily make the visiting sims selectable while they are visiting. I think I´ll go and look for the mod Clashfan mentioned however.

No, I don't. The open world gameplay is, in fact, one of the things I didn't like about The Sims 3. I really do prefer the almost forced rotation system in The Sims 2 and I really don't mind not being able to go to other lots (or maybe all my sims are just homebodies ). I also find it a bit pointless to ponder things like these: things from TS3 that could be good in TS2: I like The Sims 2 because it's The Sims 2. If I wanted a function from The Sims 3... well... I'd play The Sims 3. Sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it too, so I'm glad there isn't anything I'd really want from one game to the other.




Not really super-relevant to this thread I suppose: but yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes - a million times yes, this would be awesome if executed correctly. Especially in my Megahood, where I sort of imagine how far away the different neighborhoods are from each other, say Strangetown and Bluewater Village... there I am, minding my own business playing Sir Landgraab and Pascal Curious trots on by outside on the street! In my mind all I can think is "dude, did you seriously WALK all the way over here?"

I don't want an open world so much as I just wish the graphics outside of your lot were better. I love that I can see the neighborhood as I pan the camera around my lot but I hate that everything is blurry even with my awesome computer system(smug) and the graphics turned on high. I just wish that everything outside the lot looked like it does inside the lot.

Well, as someone pointed out upthread, the localwalkbys hack would definitely help you with that. It won't stop sims in the same 'hood from walking by even if they're at opposite ends of the map, but it will prevent your Downtown-living sims from walking by your Shopping District-living sims.

Back on-topic, no, I really don't wish for the open world. It's the sort of thing that sounded neat in theory, but hearing about its implementation in Sims 3 and realizing that it makes the rest of the family much more difficult to play, I'm perfectly happy with Sims being confined to their homes. I actually prefer not following Sims to work: it lets you play with other Sims, particularly when playing a large family with wildly varying schedules.

No, I wouldn't actually. Because everything comes at a price and we would have to pay the same price for a TS2 open world, as we've had to pay in TS3 open world. The sims would be dull lifeless drones. Text messages would replace animations and little picture boxes would replace emotions. The community lots would be empty, everyone you're trying to interact with will be "going to another place".

It would be very difficult to play large families, and monitor the activities of different sims in different locations.

We have something of an "open world" with AL. Many of my single sims or newly made CAS couples without kids live in apartments, which have at least 6 different families living in them. There're lots of drama causing interactions between the various families which make the game entertaining.

My large familes who live in houses always greet and interact with the walkbys, so the houses are always full of guests. I also make it a point to take my sims to community lots regularly. The much hated loading screen only lasts for 30 seconds in my average computer which causes constant CTD issues in TS3.

So between a loading screen which lasts a few seconds, vs an open empty neighborhood devoid of life and non-interactable sims who're forced by the game to be "going somewhere", I'll choose the loading screen any day. Though, I do wish the game could be saved at unowned community lots too.

Also, an open neighborhood will place severe restrictions on lot placements and decorations like in TS3. I recall the frustrations of the countless "you can't place a lot here" messages in TS3.

I've been playing Simsample's TS3 world Jericho since Christmas (my TS3 weakness: tomb exploring), and honestly the only time my Sims visit another residential lot is when the game calls them to a party. At which everyone stands around with routing issues or has to go to the bathroom or complains about being hungry. I...don't see the appeal of visiting other residences. I don't see myself using them the way I fantasize about in TS2, where I know every Sim in every populated house in the neighborhood, because I *don't* know (i.e., don't play) the other households in TS3 due to what I perceive as huge flaws in game design (Story Progression, the loss of promised wants + possible loss of inventory). Someone will drop by and say all this can be fixed with the right mods. I need to like TS3 beyond Jericho before modding it any further than Twallan's overwatch and error trap.

Really, even in TS3, you're only playing one location at a time. When I send SimA to dance at a club, I set him up on teh dance floor and zoom right back to the house to manage 4 other Sims' activities. I'm sure someday soon we'll be on superpowered computers with monitor banks and the player can watch all members of the household in 5 different locations. And as soon as that's released, we'll have moved on to full immersion holographic gaming and be right back to one location at a time.