"sparkfairy1;15432742" wrote:
As someone who has read the entire family play thread and talked an awful lot about toddlers with people OP I think you'll find that a lot of people wanted more of a TS2 toddler experience. You may be able to get hold of a free copy from EA to try that experience :)
You may have missed a lot of toddler interaction in TS3 by the way because EA for whatever horrible reason made a ton of toddler stuff behind a paid content in the TS3 store. For example-when the tots have the play pen they play peek a boo together, same as if you have the baby monitors where they can cuddle outside of the pen, the pen also teaches them to talk and they learn logic (I think) from it, then you have the walker where they learn to walk plus another skill I forget. The changing table allows you to change or bathe the toddlers. I'm sure I'm forgetting other things too.
TS3 was the start of EA skimping on early years play. They bundled up the baby, no more washing in sinks or baths like in TS2. No more getting bottles from the fridge. Etc, etc etc. It robbed us all of valuable game play and despite my love of the early years game play in TS2 I didn't keep babies long in TS3 and I didn't increase the age period for toddlers like I do with TS2. I have a lot of fondness for other aspects but early years play is not a strength in TS3. TS2 is the best example we have seen so far for that.
You've said it yourself. They've gone all out on skimping in early years in TS4. No toddlers and object babies :/ it's such a shame because these should be part of a sim experience! They should be the centre of a new parent's world and we should be experiencing a really great sim cradle to grave experience by this point in the sims series! I hope you get proper toddlers in TS4 eventually but when they do come it will have been a few years where we couldn't enjoy them and that's just sad. I hope they improve babies too. I'm not a fan of regressing to TS1 type aging in the sims!
Seconded in the aspect that bathing a baby and a toddler should have never been abandoned. Leaving bottles around may have been a pain, but it was a welcome addition as well. On the other hand, S3 offers far more time to spend with the tot in other ways.
I know I play S3 these days, but I have to admit that I still don't like the look or feel of babies and toddlers in S3 compared to S2. I don't even like the look of the children. I often refer that to my husband when he comments on how nice my teens and adults look. "Yeah, but you haven't seen the tots yet. They don't look good and feel very limited, but after that..."
Truth is there is much more time to spend even with the children in S3 compared to S2, as long as I ignore what they look like. Harsh. But true.
He still plays S2, by the way.
Regardless, in all honesty, it's taken me well over a year to fully evaluate S3 and decide where I stand on my 'opinion' of the game. I played S2 for what feels like over 15 years. Has it been? I'm admittedly tired of the limited aspriations the game has to offer. That's really the only thing besides many of the annoying autonomous actions Maxis seems to think is amusing but becomes old quickly, and it wears thin after all these years. It wears thin in each of the games. I really don't feel Maxis has a grasp or understanding of what 'moderation' means. I still play S1 after all this time. It still feels timeless to me, and I've been playing S3 for the last year.
I can honestly say there are a lot of things I feel S2 did better (and worse). Yet at the same time, I prefer S3 due to many of its innovations and diversive aspects, despite its shorcomings. There are many issues for all them, actually. I originally thought 4 was the answer. Unfortunately, for me, S4 is not the answer. The shortcomings have just become compounded to me after all these years.
Perhaps its best EA has chosen to go after a new audience. They can not offer the innovation I seek. I see the flaws too clearly after all this time. Multitasking is not multitasking. It's just not, and unlike you, OP, I do not find the emotional system entertaining at all. I find it clumsy and cumbersome to the point where it feels too goal and task oriented. Guess I'm just getting too old for this plum.
As the old saying goes: 'It's not you, it's me.'
