The Sims 3 Producer Day: Report & Pictures Pg 2!

[Lycan]

I live too far away from London.
I want to go.. Maybe I Could....
I will have to wait and see.

[razvyrapp]

Yeah...me too. I'm from Romania. I could go to London but I'm very busy and I don't have time.

[Lycan]

A big shame for a lot of us.

[razvyrapp]

You're right

[Hannahdisiac]

They should have it so that various people who are making the game go to locations across the UK so that nobody misses out.

[sims4life]

actullay i wont be bad the people who go there should say what happend or video clip!

[Omni]

Hey everyone,

The event will be taking place at Regus building - 1 Northumberland Avenue, Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5BW.

Please drop me a PM if you want to come and I can provide you the rest of the details.

If you are under 16 you will need to be accompanied by an adult.

Omni

[ilovearsenal]

do we need ID because i am 15 and that is not fair

[Omni]

I'm afraid you will need an adult with you if you are under 16.

[LoK0v0]

i'm in hong kong.
cant come anyway!

[Omni]

Location changed!

Due to unforseen circumstances the location has now changed to:

51 Buckingham Gate
Luxury Suites & Apartments
London
SW1E 6AF

My apologies for any inconvenience

[Sumo]

Will nibbles be provided?

[ladykara100]

Its half term for most schools this week, i would love to go but im working that evening, really gutted !!

[Sumo]

Will a transcript of the Q&A be posted on the forums at a later date?

[razvyrapp]

Any1 who goes there pls tell us what happened and/or videotape pls.

[milky730]

is this it ?
http://www.information-britain.co.uk/showPlace.cfm?Place_ID=19602

[EAUK_Aurora]

That's the place

Looking forward to meeting some of you there tomorrow.

[Simaritan]

What time does it start and finish?

[Brd709]

Originally Posted by EAUK_Aurora

That's the place

Looking forward to meeting some of you there tomorrow.

Google Earth show's me that Buckingham Palace is not far away. Might bump in to you tomorrow.

[mand82]

cant make it now
was supposed to get payed today but its all been messed up and been told i wont get my money till saturday now *sob* and my mum wont lend me any money to get down tomorrow, i hope everyoen who goes has a fab time and hope someone writes up about the day on here and pics,

[-0Serene_Baby0-]

i wanted to go as well but i don't have an adult to go with me

[Mr A]

Well I don't really know where to start other than the beginning... so here it goes.

(I apologise for the quality of some of these pictures in advance. Ben moved around a lot and I was quite a way away from the laptop, but I tried my best.)

We arrived at the hotel at around 10am. After a brief wait and a chat with a couple of EA's PR team, we were whisked up into the hotel to meet Ben Bell, the Executive Producer of the Sims 3.

The meeting itself was much more intimate than I imagined. There were 5 of us, including myself, Nicky (EAUK_Aurora) as well as a few other members from the community. Due to a slight technical hitch, we ended up having to huddle around the laptop, which was good in itself. It meant that we got a look at a more hands on approach to the game rather than it being demonstrated remotely on a larger screen.

Anyway, the first thing Ben demonstrated was the new Seamless Neighbourhood. It was truly one of the most impressive things I've seen. Being able to simply scroll right out from birds eye view above the neighbourhood into your Sim's living room. He also showed us how the neighbourhood worked as other Sims continued living their daily lives all the while controlling a singular family. Ben said that he felt that it was something that had really been missing in previous Sims games and really brought a sense of community and larger world to the game.

After that, he showed us his Sims in more detail. He talked about personalities, which was very insightful. He showed us how different Sims in the family behaved and interacted with other Sims differently to each other, based on their Personalities and Traits. He gave us an example of a Sim who had the traits, "Couch potato". This meant that his wishes normally involved watching television.

I also remember him saying that the Sim was also "Innappropriate". This was really interesting and funny at the same time. His unique social interactions meant that he'd take sponge bath's in public of his own accord, as well as freely insult other Sims. I remember one interaction being "Talk about <name's> face".

He then went onto talk about Sim's Wishes in more detail. He also talked to us about Rewards and showed us some examples. A few of which were;

• Steel Bladder - Which means that your Sim would very rarely have to use the toilet.
• Perma-clean - Hygiene motive never decreases.

He also touched on the more high-end rewards such as;

• Fertility Treatment - Your Sim is able to give birth to more children.
• Tele-pads - Your Sim can teleport from anywhere to anywhere within the neighbourhood.
• Mood-modifiers - Your Sim uses this on another Sim in order to improve or deminish their motives. The Sim he tried it on passed out from exhaustion. Haha.

Ben then went on to talk about Careers. He talked about how your Sim's career would also play a part in what they did outside of work. An example he gave us was the Politics career path. Your Sim would have to host parties for fund raising if they are on a campaign and make friends and encourage voting.

Another was cooking where your Sim's employer would want your Sim to create new recipes. That would involve searching the neighbourhood and community lots for new ingredients as well as experimenting with dishes at home.

Ben then introduced the Building capabilities of the Sims 3. He said it was something he was really excited about and that players have a lot to look forward to. One new tool that I think made everyone gasp a bit was the "Wall Drag" tool.

He described it by talking about the situation I'm sure most of us get in on the Sims 2 where we've had to rebuild an entire room because we've run out of the space for the things we need. Or we've made the room to large and want to cut it down. On the Sims 2, it would involve deleting walls, re-building, then having to reapply wallpaper and floor tiles, lights, windows, etc.

With this tool, you can simply click and hold the wall and drag it to the desired size. All objects on the walls such as lights will move with the wall, as well as fill the spaces made with matching floor tiles.

The Buy mode was really impressive. He said that the interface for it wasn't 100% finished and many images were placeholders so I can't really comment on the look of it. The layout of it looked great though. I feel that the general user interface of the Sims 3 is a huge improvement on Sims 2.

In buy mode, each object is fully customisable using the customising tool.

You're able to edit patterns, colours, textures of any editable object in the game. He said that pretty much any surface was able to edited in this way. Also, once you're happy with the way a single object looks, you can simply drag and drop the row of swatches you've picked, and that object will automatically update with those colours. I think that we'll all find that really useful, especially when it comes to making our Sims homes unique from each other.

He also explained that you can also share your custom styles and objects with other gamers using the new Sims 3 Exchange which I'll touch on later.

Ben then went back to the neighbourhood. Ben didn't give too much away regarding the storyline of Pleasant Valley. He said that the neighbourhood itself is set before the neighbourhood we see in the Sims 1, as if it's a prequel to the story we already know. He said the Goths are in the town, as their younger selves obviously aswell as other familiar names and faces. Lots of new characters too.

Ben then took us in Create-A-Sim. The layout and tools were quite familiar. The features have changed slightly in terms of where they are and how you interact with them. The skin tone panel is now a slider rather than set tones like in the Sims which I thought was a great addition. One us spotted a green skin tone in with the "extras" panel on that part of the CAS. When asked, Ben didn't give too much away about whether or not we'll expect to see aliens, but said that we can expect "creatures" of that kind.

The catalogue of clothes etc, he said was incomplete as the game hasn't finalled yet and won't do for a few months yet. However, he did explain that each item of clothing was also fully customisable just like the objects in your Sim's homes. That should be good for those of us who tend to only like around 8 or 10 items of clothing or outfits and get more than one Sim wearing the same thing.

The traits panel looked good. You simply select 5 traits from a list. There is also a randomiser for the players that just want to get on with the Simming, or want something out of the ordinary compared to what they'd normally choose.

Ben then talked about Houses. A question was put forward by one of us if Sims are still able to buy pre-furnished houses, which was true. Sims are able to choose from a furnished and un-furnished version of each house depending on their budget.

This was pretty much the end of the session. Towards the end a few questions were put forward. Someone asked about the difficulty level feature and whether it's globally or locally influential over our Sim's lives. Ben said that difficulty can differ from family to family so that players can have more easy going families and some not so.

Another question was to do with pregnancy and how it worked as it hasn't really been elaborated on in similar sessions such as today's. Ben said that they actually haven't decided on the duration of a Sim's pregnancy yet. Either that or he was lying so that we have something to look forward to discovering ourselves later on.

I then followed up with the question, "When the Sims actually give birth, do they still give birth in the same way (ie, scream and then a baby falls out of the air), or is there some sort of hospital involved." He said that hospitals are involved in the birth of babies, which was quite exciting news.

He also mentioned that you're able to adjust the life span of a Sim. This means that all stages of life either become shorter or longer depending on your choice.

He then gave us a quick tour of the new Sims 3 exchange which he said he's also very excited about. The site looks fantastic and has loads of interactive features for online Simmers to sink their teeth into. He also showed us a brand new feature which was the online video editor.

Ben talked about the popularity of movie making was within the Sims community and how many great Sim videos there are out there. So he said it was important to them to try and give movie makers more features and also encourage more people to get into making videos with clips from their games.

It looked really good and I'll be making sure to have a go when it's up and running.

After we finished and gave our thanks to Ben, we were whisked away again to Be The One for more fun and games. I got to share a cab with Ben, so we got to have a more informal chat which was nice. Overall it was a fantastic day and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved, it was a truly insightful experience.

Hopefully this "report" has been some sort of consolation for those of you who couldn't make it. Hopefully more of you can attend the next Sims 3 event.

[Becky]

It looks a lot better than I thought it did previously.

I may have to buy this..

[Brd709]

The game is amazing when you see it in action. I've got some pictures so i'll get them up soon.

[razvyrapp]

Yeah, the game it's really amazing. i hope i can go to the next meeting:P Thanks Mr. A