The Sims 3: Traits Guide

The Sims 3 traits enable your Sims to have personalities that are unique and diverse, which can be interesting as well as entertaining. Sims in the game can have a maximum of 5 traits, which are further divided into 4 categories: mental, physical, social and lifestyle. There are 7 stages in a Sims life: baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adults and elder.

When your Sim is in a good mood while pregnant, you can select 1 trait for the baby when it is born, else it is selected randomly. As babies, toddlers, children and teens grow; they will be given traits based on their happiness (if they are happy enough you will be able to choose the trait for them, else the traits are most likely to be randomly assigned). However, when you are creating a young adult, adult or senior Sim in the create Sim mode, you have the opportunity to give them the traits you prefer before starting the game.

There is a wide range of traits that you can choose for your Sims: to be brave, cowards, heavy sleepers or slobs. Each of the traits will impact your Sims in regards to their lives, socialization, happiness, choices, skills and careers. There are metal traits like artistic, genius, green thumb and neurotic, or physical traits like heavy sleepers or slobs. Traits determine/affect how quickly your Sims skills develop, what they enjoy and how they relate to other Sims, greatly impacting their social interactions. There are also social traits like charismatic, dislikes children, good sense of humour and no sense of humour.

It would be good to note that a Sim cannot have opposing traits (e.g. great sense of humour and no sense of humour). Hence, choosing one trait could render its opposite obsolete. There are also traits that deal with lifestyle such as angler, frugal, kleptomaniac and vegetarian.

Each trait opens up different social interactions for your Sim and will affect the speed and success of learning a skill. For example, a Sim who is a workaholic will be very upset if they miss work, while a loner can last longer than Sims without any socialization. A flirtish Sim would be able to use different romantic interactions far sooner into a relationship than other Sims, and their flirting will usually be well-received. And an artistic Sim can paint and play the guitar much better than others.

Finally, the traits that a Sim’s has will help determine their lifetime wish. A Sim may want to grow the perfect garden if he/she has a green thumb, or raise a big family if family-orientated. In addition to selecting traits for you Sims, you are also able to select your Sim’s favourite food, colour and music. Voices of your Sims can also be adjusting via pitch to further enhance your Sim, making it a unique and interesting character.

Here is a list with descriptions of some personality traits:

• Absent-Minded: Often get lost in their own thoughts and forget what they are doing or where they are going.
• Ambitious: like that name suggests.
• Angler: Enjoy fishing and will be more successful at getting more... Read more>>
  

The Sims 3 Ambitions Review

‘Ambitions’, released June 2010, is the second expansion pack for The Sims 3. And for the first time since The Sims 3 came out a year ago, it finally adds some worthwhile content to the game. I found the base game incredibly boring, with very little for the sims to do and nowhere for them to go aside from a few parks, libraries, gyms and other such uninteresting locations – there were few hobby items, and most of the community lots were ‘rabbit holes’, ie fake buildings that your sim disappears into and you are simply left sitting there blankly watching a progress bar showing the progress of whatever it is that your sims are meant to be doing in there.

The first expansion pack, ‘World Adventures’, was a disappointment – basically all it delivered was the ability to send your sims on holiday, and while that added a small amount of interest, it soon became repetitive and the pack just didn’t add enough to the gameplay or the content to be very worthwhile. As I mentioned in my review of it here, it was worth getting just for at least SOMEthing more for your sims to do, but a far cry from what gamers wanted.

But now, with Ambitions, the developers have finally got back on track and given players some substantial content, both in gameplay and in new objects. I was not expecting much from this pack, as everything else released for The Sims 3 so far had been very disappointing, but was really pleasantly surprised when I installed this pack last weekend and for the first time since I bought The Sims 3, I’ve actually been playing the game and enjoying it! Prior to that, I mainly just created custom content (to upload on the Mod The Sims website) in order to try to alleviate my own boredom and that of other players by creating quirky content to try to make the game a bit more fun, but I didn’t play much. But, finally, now there are things for your sims to actually DO, and most of the time you can now watch them do them as well, rather than disappearing into rabbit holes.

This pack adds some good new content:

• PROFESSIONS

Your sim can now follow a ‘profession’ as opposed to just to having a job. There are some good ones to choose from – my self-sim is just starting out as an Inventor, and has to go to a new community site, the Junkyard, to rummage through piles of scrap to find useful raw materials. So far, she’s made a rather Steampunk-looking decorative object called a ‘Rotational... Read more>>

A beginners guide to The Sims 3 (PC)

New to the world of the Sims or stepping in for a second or third round of it? In either case, The Sims 3 presents much of the same action available in the first two games while simultaneously adding and stripping away a fair amount. This little guide will help you get started on a new family, if you so desire one, and ensure they flourish.

The first step is to make said family. When just starting out you should tinker with a pair of young adults, as they're capable of doing just about anything and can get full-time jobs to make plenty of money.Go into the sims creation screen when opening the town and design them as you please; once you get to traits, though, I'd advise picking favorable ones for your first run. Anything that compliments a career path is probably best until you get the hang of how your sims interact. Make sure you don't leave the creation screen until you've created all your sims, as you'll either have to start over or do some fancy wrangling to get your desired family, both of which are annoying.

Time to move in. You'll either want to buy a house or make your own, and while it is tempting to just pick something pre-made I recommend just making a house. It's good practice and you'll save money in the long run. You need the following things to make sure a house runs smoothly:

• front door (it's surprisingly easy to forget this)
• A couch in front of a TV
• A bookshelf
• One bed for each person in the house, with an accompanying alarm clock; depending on your budget these may or may not be in the same room
• A kitchen with a fridge, trash bin, sink, oven, extra counter space and a fire alarm
• A bathroom with a shower, a mirror and a toilet
• A phone
• Wallpaper and carpeting to keep them from getting depressed about their surroundings
• Windows for light; try to get a cheap lamp or two if you have a bit of extra cash

Your sims need to eat, sleep and clean themselves, so the above should keep them occupied. The mirror can help you build their charisma for raises at work while the TV is good for working out. The bookshelf is handy for several different skills, though make sure your sims don't waste time learning skills that won't benefit them at work, or at least not at first. Keep in mind that walls are extremely expensive, so working the living room and kitchen into one area is advantageous. The only room that absolutely must be contained is the bathroom. Overall you want to end this process with a couple hundred bucks left over... Read more>>

How to play as a ghost in The Sims 3

One of the main reasons I bought The Sims 3 was because I discovered I could play as a ghost. That single fact made the whole thing worth buying. What I didn't know, however, is that it can be a rather annoying process to achieve - especially if your sim works in the morning.

To get a ghost in your household you either need to kill somebody off or bring in a grave. Killing an active sim is probably the easiest method of doing this, as you'll have a handy grave on your site and they'll start haunting your house almost immediately. Killing a sim depends on your own malicious preferences: you can drown them in a pool with no way out, electrocute them while tinkering with a stove or TV, starve them... there are quite a few possibilities, you just need to pick one. Your ghost will act differently depending on the route you've chosen, mind you.

If you don't want to go to all that trouble then you'll need to go to the local cemetery at night and befriend a ghost. Be sure not to pick a fraidy cat sim, as they'll likely pass out over and over (and possibly die of fright) from seeing ghosts. Take a sim into the cemetery each night after 10 pm, pick one of the roaming spirits and then keeping using friendly actions towards them until they become good friends with your sim. Once they are friends you can pick up their grave and take it home with you.

This can prove problematic to sims with a daytime schedule, so expect a few tricky nights before your sim's sleeping patterns adjust accordingly. Keep in mind, too, that the same ghosts don't always appear every night, so chances are good you'll have to go back several nights in a row to find the same ghost more than once. Try and befriend a few different ghosts and go with the first one you get to good friend... Read more>>

The Sims 3 Secret - Mysterious Mr. Gnome

If on one of your sim travels and you happen to find a Mysterious Mr. Gnome, DO NOT SELL HIM!!!!! Apart from being a very valuable item, he has some entertaining qualities. When you go to sleep at night he will move... not when you're watching of course but if you kick him and stand him up again he will change positions.

The Sims 3 Secret - Easter Egg: EA Games

When your Sims take a video game break, you can zoom in on the TV and identify various EA games on the tiny screen.

The Sims 3 Cheat: Using the "testingcheatsenabled" Command

The testingcheatsenabled cheat allows you to do several useful things when used properly. First, hold COMMAND+SHIFT+C and enter this code: testingcheatsenabled true

Now, hold SHIFT and click your letterbox. This will provide you with these options:

• Make All Happy
• Force Visitor
• Set Career
• Set level

You may also hold SHIFT and click on Sims to get these options:

• Add Sim to House
• Modify Sim Traits
• Force Aging

In Ground View mode, hold SHIFT and click a spot and your Sim will teleport to it.

You can also click and drag your Sims' need bars to full. SHIFT-click the mailbox and select Make Needs Static to keep the max level until you leave the game. (Note: if you SHIFT-click the mailbox and it says Make Needs Dynamic, select that. SHIFT-Click the mailbox again and it will say Make Needs Static) This must be repeated each time you re-enter the game. But you only have to do it once, as it will work for all of the Sims in the household.

Hold SHIFT and click a Sim's workspace to do the following:

• Force Event
• Force Events
• Force Opportunity

The Sims 3 Secret - Easter Egg: Painting Spore and More

When your Sim finally reaches the top level in painting, they begin to paint masterpieces. Look at the paintings for some nice surprises. One is an image of a Spore creature.

The Sims 3 Secret - Free bookcase skills

Buy a bookcase, then have your sim start to study. Interrupt the action so that the book it placed on the ground, then simply sell the bookcase. The book can then do everything the bookcase could have done for free.

The Sims 3 Secret - Disgusting Faces

There is a glitch in character creation mode where you can make absolutely disgusting faces. The trick is that if you go to the face designing area and you select a face part such as the eyes and max out all the sliders one way or the other, then go to a different face part and select one of the PREDESIGNED parts, and then come back to the eyes, the sliders will have reset in the middle, but the eyes will still look the same. This works for all of the face adjusting tabs. Exploiting this, you can make eyes the size of dinner plates, cheekbones 4 feet long, and a HUMUNGOUS nose, to name a few.

The Sims 3 Secret - Saving Pizza

Have a sim call for pizza. When the pizza delivery guy comes DON'T accept the pizza! The pizza delivery guy will eventually leave the pizza on the front porch, and the pizza will never get stale. You can stack as many pizzas as you want, so if your sims get hungry, just tell them to get a pizza from the front porch.

The Sims 3 Secret - Age Sims Prematurely

Entry Location:
buy a birthday cake

Buy a birthday cake even before you Sims birthday and have them blow out the candles and they will age when they blow them out

The Sims 3 Cheat List

During gameplay, press COMMAND+SHIFT+C to bring up the cheats console. Enter the codes below for the desired effect.

• constrainFloorElevation [true/false] - Force terrain adjustments regardless of objects, Sims, and other structures

• enableLlamas - Enables llamas, obviously

• jokePlease - Summon a joke

• hideHeadlineEffects [on/off] - Hide all meters and effects

• quit - Quit the game

• help - Lists all available commands

• slowMotionViz [x] - Slow motion, where [x] is 0-8 (0 is normal)

• resetSim [x] - Resets the named Sim with neutral motives, no moodlets, and teleports Sim back home where [x] is first and last name

• fps [on/off] - Toggles frames per second in upper right of HUD

• fadeObjects [on/off] - Toggles object fade when camera zooms

• testingcheatsenabled - Turns on Testing Cheats (See Below)

• disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt [on/off] - Hold Alt to avoid object snap when toggled

• kaching - While on the lot, this gives you $1,000

• motherlode - While on the lot, this gives you $50,000

• moveobjects on/off - Move anything (including Sims) in your Buy/Build mode

• familyFunds [x][y] - Give money to a family, where [x] is the family's last name and [y] is the amount

• fullscreen [on/off] - Toggles windowed mode

• unlockOutfits [on/off] - Unlocks outfits in CAS (Create a Sim) mode. Note: Must be enabled before entering CAS

• babyboom - Adds a baby and a toddler to every household.

• ResetLifetimeHappiness - Resets the lifetime happiness of all the sims in an active household.

• forcetwins - click on a pregnant Sim to control it, then enter this code in the console to have twins

The Sims 3 Patches

This patch will update your US version Sims 3 installation from version 1.0.631 to the latest version, 1.6.6, and contains a laundry list of updates, fixes and changes.

The Sims 3 US Retail Patches
1.0.631 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947367/The-Sims-3-US-Retail-Patch-1.0.631-to-1.6.6/
1.2.7 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947369/The-Sims-3-US-Retail-Patch-1.2.7-to-1.6.6/
1.3.24 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947371/The-Sims-3-US-Retail-Patch-1.3.24-to-1.6.6/
1.4.6 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947375/The-Sims-3-US-Retail-Patch-1.4.6-to-1.6.6/

The Sims 3 Worldwide Retail Patches
1.0.631 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947377/The-Sims-3-Worldwide-Retail-Patch-1.0.631-to-1.6.6/
1.2.7 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947381/The-Sims-3-Worldwide-Retail-Patch-1.2.7-to-1.6.6/
1.3.24 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947383/The-Sims-3-Worldwide-Retail-Patch-1.3.24-to-1.6.6/
1.4.6 to 1.6.6:
http://www.filefront.com/14947385/The-Sims-3-Worldwide-Retail-Patch-1.4.6-to-1.6.6/

'The Sims 3' continues PC chart dominance

Atari's Champions Online has missed out on the PC top spot thanks to The Sims 3's continued dominance.

World Of Warcraft: Wrath Of The Lich King remains rooted to third, above last week's number two Wolfenstein, which drops to fourth.

At the bottom of the chart, Grand Theft Auto IV drops two places to tenth, below Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which steps up to ninth.

The top ten in full:

1. (1) The Sims 3 (Electronic Arts)
2. (-) Champions Online (Atari)
3. (3) World Of Warcraft: Wrath Of The Lich King (Activision)
4. (2) Wolfenstein (Activision)
5. (4) Football Manager 2009 (SEGA)
6. (5) Empire: Total War (Sega)
7. (7) Warhammer 40,000 Dawn Of War II (THQ)
8. (6) Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks)
9. (10) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)
10. (8) Grand Theft Auto IV (Take Two)

Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, © 2008 ELSPA Ltd.


Digital Spy