So I spoke with an employee of EA Sims 3 team today..

[roerzman]

Sims 3 fan, hmm, I've yet to come across one of these rare creatures.
Are they on the endangered species list?

[jessijohan]

Did he give you a timeline on this?  Will this be happening with the ambitions expansion or will we have to wait until the next expansion pack at the end of the year?

[Theraven]

It's an endangered species probably...

I finally got the chance to play - and the sims themselves... let's say none of them has ended on a photoshoot as of yet (which tends to happen with most of my sims 2 sims). There is also something weird with the idle posing. I can't really put my fingers on it, but it just looks wrong. And they all look so grumpy (and/or creepy the rest of the time).

The scenery got a round with the camera, though.

When that's said, there are a few things I like. Gameplay is fun again (which I doubt will last very long when the sims aren't exactly pretty), and despite my saving troubles, I like the new features of CAS (just the features, NOT the sims...). Bits and pieces like that. Solving the adventures at vacation is a bit fun too, but when everything starts to be the same (the tombs are too easy to solve, running around to find stuff takes ages and eats up half the vacation time, and the fact that you have to make the sims friends before they can be asked about something is just too boring and time consuming). The photography skill is a bit fun, but it was annoying to see that a (scenery) picture I hoped would end up really pretty got a thumb in front of it...

I might like some of it, but I'm not a fan. Far from it, in fact. Only reason I play as for the moment, is that it loads fast and gets my brain off my (%$@#/&¤%) school assignment...

I'm already planning my next photoshoot in Sims 2, and will continue to use Sims 2 for photoshoots for... who knows how long.

[EKozski]

Another patch was released on May 28, 2010.

http://www.thesims3.com/game/patches/920859580

Will they ever get it right?!!?

[Theraven]

That remains to see... 

[jamesabrown1]

Speaking of the EADM and its perhaps interference with the game (not to mention Securom), I usually run offline, that is to say not connected wireless or (in the case of the desktop) without an Ethernet cable plugged in. When the welcome screen appears I right click the EADM button in the taskbar and exit it, closing it completely before I hit the arrow to start the game. The game seems to run just fine without it. I don't access the EA store from inside the game (buy mode) so it really doesn't matter. I know it's not reasonable, but I always get this really creepy feeling that EA is watching me play my game when I play with the online connected.
 
The new patch creates a mods folder for your CC (they finally woke up), I see that the framework tool (MTS) has also been changed for the monkey, maybe to handle this, I've not yet tried it, or applied the patch.

[Nonni]

Even the positive comments that have been made in this thread have not enticed me to try ts3 again.

I have everything I want in Sims2.  I'm not usually negative but disappointment and frustration with ts3 really broke my heart.

[Theraven]

I got ambitions a few days ago... and let's say EA hit on some spots, but failed miserably on others...

First, I had my first weird bug. Disappearing/invisible sim, and sims floating through the floor. No idea what caused it (I don't have any CC) and even if the sim disappeared from the panel, the game still thinks she's there.

The new jobs range from hilarious to boring. Some you have to constantly babysit the sims, while others they manage mostly on their own. Some are very easy to get through, while others again take forever to get through (like the last stage of the inventor).

After a lot of trial and error I finally managed to get a female robot (after several tries through the life point best friend thing, which only seemed to spawn males), who I paired up with a male robot (which was really hard to get through the "hard way"). Guess who did not get robot kiddies... 
I don't mind if it's not logical (if not by woohooing, then maybe they could have been able to make their own kids on the workbench? You know - much the same way as plantsims spawn kids in TS2?). To me, it's less logical that robots can adopt "normal" sim kids.

At least ghosts are playable (and I love the fact that they can get ghost babies).

Though, I still miss the alien abductions... 

Still, TS3 is fun (for now) to play. The pudding faces takes some getting used to, but they're still not pretty enough for serious photoshoots...

[minkey]

I love how most of you guys talk like the Sims 2 never had any bugs and glitches in it,in fact the Sims 2 still has many problems,ones that will never get fixed.I could give a flying flip about what the sims themselves look like(even though I have made many very attractive ones in my game,none that resemble "Shrek")The Sims 2 seems too old fashioned and boring compared to the Sims 3,Bon Voyage was a bore compared to World Adventures.I'm not having any of the problems people describe in their games,and I have hacks and custom content.It's silly to not play a game based solely on what the characters look like,and I think it's even sillier to bash EA and then continue to use their product,if you don't like them or don't agree with their buisness practices then don't play the Sims 2 or 3.

[caffeinated.joy]

To each their own, minkey, and everyone's experiences are different. They're allowed to state their opinions of the game, as long they don't carry it into a flame fest. What you love about something another person might hate. Some people prefer the game play in Sims 2 over Sims 3. You happen to enjoy Sims 3 more and that's your prerogative.

Personally, throughout my years of playing Sims 2, I have experienced only one glitch caused by something actually broken in the game and not some cc I downloaded. Just one and it was easily fixed by a patch. Any time I had to start over and reinstall (and I believe this current installation of my game is my third) was due to a mistake on my part. On the other hand, I haven't played Sims 3 for a few months because I have had nothing but problems, with or without custom content. The patches meant to fix the numerous glitches I had didn't fix anything and ended up breaking more. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game over twice as much in the year it has been released than I ever did in the six years or so I've been playing Sims 2. It's a shame, because I do enjoy the Sims 3, I just have an issue with the problems it has. 

I would happily play both if I could just get both to work.

[Theraven]

I've had one major bug in S3, but it went away by itself, and also one problem it's possible I just haven't found the solution to yet. The patches seems to bug the games more than they fix it, so I've not even dared patching my S3 games.

Not even my S2 games. I've not had many bugs there, either - and the ones I've had, I've found fixes for elsewhere, or they are so small I can live with them without even noticing they're there. And I don't dare messing around with the patches now, just in case they decide to mess up everything... I don't feel like installing the whole package again...

[minkey]

Yes,to each our own indeed,but I will agree that there is a problem with the patches,not the game itself.The only major problem I have ever encountered in my game is the trouble with installing store content and Riverview,I can live without most of the store stuff,but I am missing Riverview.I only installed the silly patch so I could install HELS and Ambitions,EA does seem to be twiddling their thumbs about the whole issue.

[Aquarius]

While I've always disliked the Sims 3, I used to be one of those people that thought expansion packs would fix it like it did for the sims 2(well to be honest, I loved the sims 2 even without the expansion packs and custom content) But now that we've had TWO expansion packs that have made the game worse, I've decided to just give up on Sims 3. It was bad enough that World Adventures stopped me from using my favorite core mod and the martial arts function totally doesnt work, but now I've heard Ambitions effs up the Create-a-world function. Does EA just not care anymore ?

[Theraven]

... maybe people are getting too hung up in needing mods.

I've long ago learned that the mods takes much of the fun out of the playing, while pretending not to do so. I rarely actually play sims 2 anymore, because the mods makes things a bit more boring... but I don't want to take them out, because I know I'll miss them the instant I'm ingame.

I've so far played S3 mod-free to test it out, and (with motives maxed out through the mailbox, since the fun of seeing sims run to the toilet, or set fire on themselves trying to cook went out a few years ago) most things are not nearly as annoying as they were with a mod-free Sims2. True, things take too long, and there are annoying things happening, but even so - I do enjoy the fun of actually playing again. I've not done any serious playing yet, and I've not yet tested out all the features, so I can't say if it will be the same then.

If things don't work for others, most things works more orr less perfectly for me (without patches). EA are a pain in the you-know-where sometimes, and there are things that could have been a lot better in both games (including the patches), but for the moment I'm actually enjoying playing a game just for the fun of it.

I admit I was negative to S3 when it first came out, but after playing it, and realizing it's more different from S2 than I thought, I was positively surprised in many ways. Adventures is much more fun than Bon Voyage ever was, while Ambitions swept the floor from under OFB. Even the Basegame has more added to it than the S2 basegame. I never played much with either BV or OFB because of the too slow loading times (almost stopped using community lots a long time ago), but now there is much less loading overall, community lots don't even need loading. Even skilling is far more interesting, since you actually see the sims getting better at it (like painting).

There are things I still miss, and S2 is still my main game for storytelling and contests, but like I said, I enjoy the playing of S3(no matter how the puddings looks like...)

[Aquarius]

Meh to each his own. I still play the sims 3 (cuz my computer with the sims 2 on it is broke right now) I went years playing the sims 2 without expansion packs or mods and thouroughly enjoyed it. and I bet I could turn off all my mods and still have fun playing the game. So if I can't enjoy the sims 3 base game without any mods, I think we got a problem, Houtson. Especially when the EA tries to fix those problems by creating more problems

 S2 is still my main game for storytelling

Oh we definetly know that lol