My username on the Sims 3 site is "AspectWindow" (it's an old, old nick from when I signed up on the Sims 2 site way back when. Thought I'd keep it consistent).

My first Sim in the Sims 3 is aspiring to be a guitar god, though right now he's just a roadie living in a very ugly little house. Oh, and the first guy he's been trying to date has turned out to be a charming, but inappropriate, mooch. Ha!

I like the game, but I'm a little disappointed that it keeps you focused so much on one household. In the Sims 2 I have a neighborhood that spreads out across 5 different "areas," and has probably 45 or 50 households scattered around, many of whom are related (by marriage or ancestry) to others in the neighborhood. Some are the children or even grandchildren of the Sims I started with years ago. It doesn't look like that kind of scope is possible in Sims 3.

PS- should we place bets on how many comments this thread gets before the inevitable "I can't imagine playing a game to micromanage someone's life my own life is too full how do you find the time I'd rather live in the real world blah blah blah" comment? :)

I agree, BoPo, about the changing household thing. But I DO like that the other sims in the neighbourhood can age as your sims do... it used to frustrate me when my sims would fall in love as teenagers, then grow up and be crushing VERY INAPPROPRIATELY ON A TEENAGER. I disapproved of this terrible behaviour of theirs.

Tutt. Tutt.

oh - and when it's as much fun cleaning up my own dishes as making a Sim do theirs... I might get around to doing housework.

(p.s. I've grown some 'outstanding' food in the garden, and he's maxed out his gardening skills, but I'm working on improving the quality of the plants now, and trying to get him to grow all the different types of plants.)

I'm WolfDaddy, of course, and I'm a single aspiring rock star (just joined the rock career! Wooo!) waiting for the day when I can build and design the mansion of my dreams. My favorite part of the game so far is the "create a style" feature that lets me match my bedspread to the really loud rock star t-shirt print that I designed myself. I'm a really good cook and a great kisser. This has allowed me to accumulate about 8 boyfriends. Yes, the Sims are as rampantly pansexual and polygamous as ever.

I think the game is better as far as you spend less time tending to bladder and cleaning issues (for the first time ever I've not hired a maid ... mainly because the first time I did it they obviously all had the absent-minded and/or klepto traits because I'd come home to a messy house that was missing things) and it seems easier to attain goals and challenges. I very much enjoy cooking and tinkering with things more as there's definitely more interesting rewards to working on those skills (new recipes and bettering old ones to give more positive mood boost, upgrading things to be self-cleaning or unbreakable). When I hit the top of the rock career path and have time and Simoleans to spend, I'm going to try my hand at gardening. The game also looks really great. I also love the fact that the pre-made sim who has the never-nude trait is named Gobias Koffi. Heh heh heh.

I also feel as BP, the game is a little spare in creating true family dynasties. I also don't like the feeling that instead of releasing a zillion expansions as in the past, you'll be forced to buy new features via micro-transactions at the Sims store. Or worse, you'll spend the money to get these things only to have them all released on an expansion disc anyways. For example, the only musical instrument a Sim can play at the moment is the guitar (in past games you could play at least three instruments, iirc). This really doesn't make sense if you decide to take the symphonic path rather than the rock path in the musical career. I'm sure future instruments will be released via the aforementioned micro-transactions. It also took me forever to get the free city that you have to download via the launcher program. The launcher wants to use IE, and it never worked. I finally just manually went to the Sims store in Firefox and it downloaded (via the odious EA download manager argh) just fine. Weird.

However, the Sims exchange already has quite a diverse amount of free content, especially some really creative lots. I really haven't played the Sims series all that much, but this game shows promise so we'll see how it goes. At least til Fight Night Round 4 and The Bigs 2 come out.

The maids are also hideously expensive! I had my guy hire a maid early on, and then realized his take home pay wasn't enough to keep up with the maid bill. Oops. Had to sell some furniture to make ends meet for a couple of days.

I didn't have any trouble with the free city or the downloader thing, and I've even downloaded several lots but haven't had a chance to open them up and look at them yet.

But I DO like that the other sims in the neighbourhood can age as your sims do... it used to frustrate me when my sims would fall in love as teenagers, then grow up and be crushing VERY INAPPROPRIATELY ON A TEENAGER.

Heh! Yeah, that is always a problem. One of the later expansion packs (FreeTime?) at least let you pick two or three area Sims to age at the same time as your Sim, so you can keep a relationship going even after an age transition.

"I can't imagine playing a game to micromanage someone's life my own life"

This reminds me of last winter when an in-law heard me play guitar, and he said, "Man, you should get RockBand!"
I was like "Um, why?"

I'm still at the Sims 2 stage, and I still have a long way to go exploring its possibilities. I like that my artist can paint pictures that I can choose from my own collection and then sell them to my other characters.

Anyway, back to the real conversation...

I'm still at the Sims 2 stage, and I still have a long way to go exploring its possibilities.

Yeah, I don't see me giving up TS2 anytime soon, either. The games are different enough that I want to keep both of them around.