Thank you everyone for your posts. It seems we are an incredibly loyal bunch when it comes to our existing sims and no wonder given how attached we are to them. I do like the idea of a scanner to take them forward into future games:) Also people have given a lot of thought to mods but if the smooth running of your game depends on them it is easy to understand why. Nothing more depressing than losing gameplay or having a story progress without your say so. Personally when I cut a household loose that's it but obviously others play differently. Unless the sims later turn up in Katy Perry gear at which point off to CAS they go !!
The theme of wanting to fully explore all the content is also strong. Again understandable, packs were released with such rapidity it would have taken an exceptional simmer to fully explore each one fully at the time plus the masses of store content. Enough really to keep most of us happy now for hours and hours and hours :D :D :D
Repurchasing all the games on Steam shows true love of the game. I was very fortunate in being warned in time and my disks are safe (glances at bookshelf to check) but I do know of others who have hunted through second hand shops and on line to get used copies in order to play again.
@IreneSwift CAW and CASt are such givens we often forget to mention them as part of any major overhaul or new version :) This was part of the problem with the development of TS4 so all of us will have to remember to be extremely vocal about them when and if a TS5 is announced.
@JoAnne65 there is nothing "negative nancy" about wanting to move on. Under different circumstances quite a few of us would have moved on with the release of TS4. To me it seems part of a natural progression especially given the rapidity with which I abandoned TS2 once my TS3 disk arrived. Looking at the posts here a lot of people talk of new or improved which I think shows we appreciate what we have now but realise there is always room for improvement. New doesn't always translate to better but, IMHO, the transition from TS1 to 2 to 3 did. I know I wouldn't be looking at other games now if there wasn't the underlying fear of what will happen if I lose access to TS3 and the fact in August I will have been playing it for 9 years :)
I'm off now to enjoy the garden before it gets too warm. Please keep the posts coming :)
