Tips for a Sims 3 newbie in a Sims 4 world!

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ZeeGee
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Reasons for game crashing PART 2

Post by ZeeGee »

A very valuable link of steps to go through if you start expreriencing game crashing:

http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Gam ... ache_Files

Try these three steps and if nothing helps, post on the techie board over on the Sims Forum. I'm on the second step, removing all the CC. So far no more crashes. But I haven't been playing long. This could be a good thing. I'd forgotten how fast the game loads without all that CC! But my sims and my houses sure look different.
Screenshot-49.jpg
Zarabeth with no CC. She's in her PJs so shouldn't have any makeup on but that's not the worst ... Zooey is so black you can't see her features! She looks like a shadow :)
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Quick tip! Simpoints galore

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For anyone playing TS3 or thinking you may someday play TS3, you can rack up on Simpoints with the free ads right now. They have tons of them. :) Just go to the Sims 3 Store, create an account if you don't have one, and start watching. You don't have to actually watch, you can surf and do other stuff while they're playing :D
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Money is only a tool...

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but it sure is a good one!

There are various ways to get money in TS3. Some players like to use no cheats and build money slowly by working and getting things, real life style. I don't like real life style. I wanna build and decorate and buy cool stuff so give me them cheats!! Here are the ways that I know of to build your bank account. Forget the SFP mindset, these cheats are perfectly legitimate and not illegal at all, just another way of playing. EA built them into the game.

To access cheats in TS3, hit Ctrl+Shift+C. This opens up a bar that you can type the cheats into. For the smallest amount, as Perturbee mentioned earlier, type in 'kaching'. This will add an instant $1000 to your bank account. Or you can type in 'motherlode' and add 50k. OR, you can type 'familyfunds smith 10000000' and make your sims rich! Change the smith to whatever the last name of your sim family is and change the amount to whatever you want.

Today I found a new way to add money due to a friend asking a question (and inspiring this post). If you have two single sims in your town, go to edit town mode and move them in and out using the 'merge household' tool. Each time you do this it adds the basic household income (around 16k) to the bank account. My friend likes this because she said it 'felt better than using the motherlode.'

So there's all the info on money, which is NOT the root of all evil. Have fun with your new bank account :D
Screenshot-76.jpg
This is what happens when you remove a Sim's custom skin from your game, lol :shock: She's all better now.
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Quick tip! Finding items

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They can be where you least expect it and there are so MANY places to look. I just added some beautiful swimsuits to my game (Yes, I'm still adding CC. My new rule is if I find something so amazing I have to have it, then I have to delete something! Can't stand no laggy game). ANYway, I looked all over for these swimsuits and looked in different age categories - nowhere to be found. When I finally went back to check the description to see if there were any other complaints about not being able to find these swimsuits, I saw that they were UNDERWEAR. I shoulda looked closer the first time. In retrospect maybe the title of this post should be 'READ THE DESCRIPTION DUMMY' :lol:
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In my defense, don't these look like gorgeous swimsuits?!
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Use your tools!

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I've built one house and am now working on my second remodel. You'd think I would have noticed there's a tool that drops whole rooms into your house plan! It's called blueprint! Actually I think I did notice it when I first started playing and never could get it to work right (my problem, not the tool) so promptly forgot about it.

Stop and look around at the menus when you're building. If you see something and you don't know what it is, check it out. I immediately sussed out the CASt because that's why I wanted to start playing TS3. The hammer and the bulldozer are pretty obvious. It took me awhile longer to figure out the eyedropper. The eyedropper will take an object or pattern that you've created and create a copy of it. Say you take ages and design the perfect outdoor light or wallpaper or the doors that you want in your house. Those are creations you're going to need a lot. Instead of having to recreate them every time, click on the eyedropper, click on the object and start clicking wherever you need another one! It creates a duplicate. Same with patterns. If you click on the eyedropper then click on the pattern on a wall or a floor, you can then put it on any other wall or floor. Hold down shift when you place it and it will cover every wall instead of just one panel. Same with flooring. Cool tricks.

One last cool trick, if you're working on something tricky like stairs or roofs, there's always the 'BACK' option. I've really messed up by taking stairs out and not being able to get them back in, etc. Hit the 'back' icon and it will put back what you've just messed up. Yeah, I use that one a lot.
Bolitar home.jpg
This is the house I've started remodeling, 65 Maywood Lane in Sunset Valley!
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Pictures speak louder than words

Post by ZeeGee »

Rather than just tell you, I thought I'd SHOW you what some of the building tools in TS3 can do. Be prepared to salivate if you're been limited to the options in SFP! Or run to your computer and buy S3, just a quick download from Origin :D Well, not quick, it actually takes about an hour...
55 Waterlily Drive.jpg
This is a cheap little prefab lot at 55 Waterlily Lane that I use to move all my financially challenged beginner simmies into the game. They move out quickly when they get a little money. Look at that, someone left in such a hurry they left the bed unmade! I'm going to walk you through a quick makeover. I really believe that sometimes EA artists make really ugly houses on purpose to give us the pleasure of going in and fixing all the horrificness! If any of them ever read this, my sincere thanks. Cause it is SO MUCH FUN to renovate horrificness.
waterlily lot.jpg
First to go, the orange windows. (Really? Orange windows?) Click the CASt tool, click the orange window, choose plain white in all the color boxes, and voila! Bye bye orange. Pick up the hammer and bash all the orange windows (very therapeutic). Then pick up the eyedropper, which copies the nice new white windows, and put copies whereever you like.

I made a lot more progress than this today but don't have time to put the pictures together and edit them and explain them so more tomorrow!
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Next step!

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Doors. I found a basic little door that allows you to change the color of the door and the color of the hardware so I use it a lot.
doors.jpg
Countertops. They are so much fun, you can make them any pattern or material you want. Some examples:
fun with countertops.jpg
.
Before/after:
house.jpg
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Sims inspire themselves in TS3!

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Taking a break from decorating today cause RL calls.

Another thing to love about TS3, you don't have to keep Sims inspired by directing them to eat and go to the toilet and socialize, etc. There is a 'free will' setting. You can set it on high and they will take care of all their own needs, which are about the same as SFP. Eat, bathe, bathroom, socialize, sleep...am I missing one? I'm not allowed to open my game today to check because when I open it to do one little thing the next thing I know HOURS have passed and RL suffers. Oh, have fun...that's the other need (quick peek at SFP).

You can turn free will 'down' or 'off' and Sims will only do something if needed to save their life. I've never playing with these options. After having to babysit Sims needs in SFP, I love free will! And it's funny too. A Sim who needs to be at work in an hour might play on the computer instead of taking a shower and then go to work stinky. :D
moon rise.jpg
I was waiting for a sim to do a quick chore in the theater and had the game sped up to get through it fast (oh yeah, you can do that too!) and suddenly saw this beautiful moon rise. It was almost gone before I snapped a shot. The picture doesn't do it justice. It really looked like a big glowing full moon. Making Sims, decorating houses, playing with Sims is all fun. But take some time to just look around the town and you will see some beautiful sights.
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What the heck is an OMSP and why in the world would I want one?!

Post by ZeeGee »

I downloaded a furniture set and it had an item in it labeled 'OMSP' but no directions about what it was or how to use it, so off to Google I went. OMSP is an abbreviation of 'one more slot please' and not only do I love what it does, I love that whoever originally named it was so polite!

In TS3 as in SFP, on certain items there are only a number of slots where you can place items. Countertops, coffee tablets, end tables and shelving are notorious for this. And sometimes it is very difficult to get an item where you want it because of this. OMSP is a tool that allows you to place things where you want to place them. It is a little square that you can adjust to the height that you want and put the item you want on it. Use the 'alt' key if you want it to slide around instead of snapping to a certain grid point. Once you have it placed where you want it and you go out of build mode, the little square disappears and there's your item right where you want it on the shelf!
OMSP.jpg
Pic one is a shelf that only had 2 slots. I really wanted to add a couple of wine glasses so bring on the OMSP. That's the red & white checkerboard square. I put it to the right height, stick my wine glasses on it, come out of build mode and tada! Wine glasses are right where I want them. Same with the bottom 2 pics and putting a little plant on this bedside table. (WHY only one slot on a bedside table???!)

There you go. Another term in your simming vocabulary :)
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Terminology mistake!

Post by ZeeGee »

You know how the older you get, the more you realize you don't know? That's how I feel about this game. The more I play it the more I learn, and the more I realize how much I don't know!

There are two places for saved sims in your game. One is when you go into create-a-sim. There is a box on the bottom left with premade sims from EA and also sims that you have made and saved in create-a-sim. These sims go into the 'savedsims' file in your Sims 3 folder and show up along with the premade sims. I THOUGHT THIS WAS THE SIM BIN. I WAS WRONG! The sim bin is when you create a sim and save them to your 'library'. They show up in edit town mode and you can place them in your town. This library is actually the sim bin. After some google searches I have learned that some people use these terms interchangeably, however, the experts at NRAAS call the library the sim bin so I'm going with them. They're pretty smart. :) Now just to figure out what to call what I WAS calling the sim bin! The sim repository? EA's uggs?

Screenshot-30.jpg
The funny thing about Sims having autonomy is sometimes they go without sleep too long and drop whereever they're at! Paris almost made it to her bedroom but not quite :)
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