On Friday, July 18th 2008, Tug and I visited EA Redwood Shores (for the second time in 6 weeks), this time to have a first preview of The Sims 3! The game was not shown at E3 this week and was only represented by the official video released to coincide with the event. The information that will be published here and by our fellow fans that attended the event will be your very first detailed look at the game and is exclusive to our communities, even before the big gaming magazines and websites get near it!

Unlike one of my usual in-depth previews, things will be a little different this time around. Here you will find bullet pointers and notes that I took during the event which have been somewhat hurried together in preparation of our live chat, held the day after the event and hosted by myself and Tug from Redwood Shores.

Unfortunately there were many aspects of the game that developers were unable to talk about for varying reasons. Some features are simply not developed yet, others were buggy and anything at all to do with custom content was taboo this time around. Obviously very much more solid detail will be released nearer the 2009 release and later this year when custom content is finalised and work starts on building out the tools.

In the meantime though, take a look at all the juicy details of the things that we do know and join us in the live chat if you are in time, or in our new Sims 3 discussion forums to discuss all things good (and bad) about The Sims 3.

I can tell you also that the game is far from Alpha, so if you have any desperate issues with features or really want to see something specific in the game, be sure to discuss it. EA will be sniffing around the community to see what people are saying and are still taking on board feedback that can influence final game tuning.

If the notes don't make a huge amount of sense to you, I'll try and clear things up in my summary at the end :-)

Disclaimer stuff: As usual, this preview has been written based on an early build of the game, so some of the content I talk about might be different in the final version.

Introduction

All info points are numbered so that you can refer to them when commenting in the chat or forums.

1) Ben Bell, Senior Producer of Sims 3 opened the demos by giving us a brief outline of the major changes between Sims 2 and 3. TS3 offers a richer, deeper experience with more emotional characters (Sims) with real depth to their personalities. The new world (or environment) is interactive and comes to life in front of your very eyes.

2) Thanks to new attributes, each Sim will be virtually unique in its behaviour, attitude, looks and even sounds! EA called this the 'snowflake effect'.

3) Wishes replace wants - more dynamic to actual life experiences.

4) The town is fully customizable and allows you to remove and change Lots and Sims.

5) Young adult is the new default age and is changed to represent life between 18 and 30 years.

 6) Adult now considered more 'middle age' and includes wrinkles.

7) The Town Centre plays a large part in gameplay and building socials.

8) The town is made of 'functional, plopable public buildings' as well as your own made homes and services.

9) Some old service NPC's remain and are joined by some new ones.

New Gameplay

10) No loner individual Lots, player have realtime access to the 'Open World'

11) No Loading when changing Lots or families, as the simulator is running for all Sims, all the time.

12) Everything in the game happens for a reason. If someone moves is across the street it's part of the dynamic population management and not some random action.

13) The base game with ship with several types of ownable cars.

14) Magical valet parking (car fades in and out) on all Lots and streets.

15) Job aspects that you can do at home called 'opportunities'.

16) Day/Night transitions over the town.. light changes and shadows move across the ground as the sun goes up/down.

17) Teenagers sneak out at dusk and can be seen around town acting suspiciously.

18) Quick click icons on Sims face in UI to go quickly send them to work or home.

19) "Map Tags" float over areas of the hood - a quick way to find your way around.

20) Sims also have Map Tags so you can find them easily

21) Can buy an empty bookcase and buy books in the game. There are lots of books!

22) Can still get jobs from newspapers and online or browse the city and apply to workplaces near the home.

23) Sims can move nearer to their place of work, or even find work near home to reduce travelling time.

24) Currently an 8 Sims per family limit.

25) Next to the mood bar is a small bonus bar

26) Socials are now more important.. not just good and bad

27) New timeline dragbar which is specific to a few interactions. This lets you control how long a Sim spends on certain tasks like sleeping, fishing etc…

28) High level logic allows a Sim to tutor other Sims - Cooking unlocks recipes (Moodlets like divine food) - Fishing unlocks bigger fish (Caught fish can be put in an aquarium at home, and even given a name)

29) Careers have more gameplay - No longer just sent to work - Can now decide how hard to work - You can choose a less stressful day but will gain less skill - You could sacrifice hard work for doing more socializing at the workplace

30) Specific homework tasks for kids, like read a certain book or catch a certain fish.

31) Moodlets replace memories.

32) Moodlets are icons in the UI and are based on activities and events that are happening that day (moving home, being comfortable, getting married, having a kids etc.)

33) Moodlets give an insight into why a Sim is acting the way it is.

34) Brush teeth is back - Gives a "minty breath" moodlet.

35) Cell phone notification system to noify you of opportunities and can be used for contacts etc. All Sims have one.

36) Funds and worth as 2 separate values now (worth includes property and object values)

37) Difficulty levels per family (suggest how hard a family is to play based on personalities etc)