False comparison. If you're comparing neat/slob Sims 2 sims, you need to compare them to neat/slob Sims 3 sims.

Sims 3 Neat:
Sim will always clean up messes they have made.
Sim actually has fun while cleaning, and the objects will be cleaner than normal.
Sims will clean even while being in a bad mood.
NPCs with this trait are attracted to the following lot assignments: Laundromat [TS3:A].
Sim cannot use dirty objects.
Sim will clean up without you telling them to.
More effects here under player notes: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Neat

Sims 3 Slob:
Sim makes messes, but that's just fine. Sim won't feel any differently about the surroundings...
Sim can lick a plate clean to satisfy hunger.
Sim will have no problem eating spoiled or burnt food! It's good.
More effects here under player notes: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Slob (includes belching)

You can compare them to the sloppy/neat section here http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Personality and you will find they are pretty similar.

Oh my gosh, that is ridiculous. I'm with Original_Sim on this.

Besides the autonomous interactions already mentioned, there's all the little animations that show you a sim's personality, which were what made TS2 so charming. Tell a shy sim to dance to music; they'll keep their movements small and look nervously around as if they're afraid someone's watching. Tell a super-neat to sim to go clean. They'll slap their hands together with joy and if they walk up or down the stairs to reach the object they're cleaning, they'll walk with head held high as if they can't wait to get to it. A sloppy will shrug and walk slowly up those stairs as if they're dreading it. Tell a mean sim to pull a prank on another sim; they'll cackle gleefully. If it's a mean sim on the receiving end of the prank, they'll fight back and poke the pranker. A lazy neat sim will make the bed but they'll just barely toss the covers back. Any other neat sim will take their time making the bed and smoothing out the covers.

The only problem I had was with the way personality was inherited. I don't remember who discovered this or where I read this (probably here or on the original forums), but there was some sort of programming snafu with how personality points were given to sims born-in game. The game looked at the first trait (neat/sloppy) and assigned a certain number of points on the 1-10 scale. Then it looked at the next trait (outgoing/shy). Then active/lazy, playful/serious, and finally mean/nice. But it only allowed a certain number of points to begin with (more than were allowed in CAS), so if it ran out of points by the time it got to the bottom, you ended up with a super-mean sim. I'd say anywhere from a third to half the sims born in my game were assholes (super outgoing, active and mean), but they were clean assholes, because they were also super-neat. I'd keep some of them; some of them were subjected to hours of encouragement by grandma on the virtues of being a nicer sim. The ones I kept ended up as popularity sims and inevitably moved into Greek houses, so they'd be good candidates for the bro trait.

Traits were an okay idea, but executed horribly because of EA's tendency to dumb down the game and tell you everything via text ('Extreme shower') or moodlets instead of via show (you see sim take shower while standing on their head).

It doesn't negate the fact that there are obvious behavioral differences as a result of personality points. Also, what would you consider the personality point equivalent of the Evil trait? JackieSmith said that the trait system was "amost perfect." I don't see how it can be considered almost perfect when the Evil Trait and Extreme Trait are basically all talk.

It's like calling yourself "hung" and not really having that big of a package. What's the point?

Oh I never was trying to agree with the personality points not having effect, clearly they did. There are useless traits and everyone know that, but there are significantly more traits in TS3 than personalities in TS2. TS3 has an "evil trait" which isn't that great but TS2 has no "evil personality." You can make all of your sims have personality traits that have an effect on behavior that isn't simply text (although evil sims can do things like steal candy from a baby and have an evil laugh and some other things which affect the sim a bit just not as much as some other traits).

But what's the point of having more traits if many of them are useless?

Technophobes still had smartphones, Never Nude was stupid to begin with, Insane was "insane" in a way that didn't resonate with real world or even fictional insanity, Mean-Spirited and Evil should have just been one trait, Extreme was almost bro-like in its stupidity, etc. And looking back, they all just seem like variations of "obnoxious", "stupid" and "douchey" personality types.

Mix them all together with a splash of Chemical X and you get a Bro.

Your problem is with the implementation of traits not the fact that they aren't personality points. If TS3 had left it at personality points, the personalities would react like TS3 traits rather than TS2 personalities. TS3 has a lot of problems and I'm not trying to argue against that, but your original comparison wasn't fair, and that's all that I was trying to say. Not every trait is like the useless "extreme shower!"

Yeah I think you actually both agree on a lot more than you realize.

I'd like to see a combo of both, so that traits are a matter of degree, but the traits need to be done a whole lot better than they were done in TS3.

For some of us, it isn't a trait thing but a habit we can't shed...!

Also, you may say it's a stupid or pointless trait, but I think it's a tiny part that adds a bit more realism to a Sim. I mean, there are humans who can't deal with nudity very well (I am one of those), some who are hydrophobic and similar, and putting that onto a sim just adds a little something.

C-A

There's pros and cons to both, some traits have less functionality than others. Bookworm might be similar to a sim with low playfulness points, and party animal might be similar to a sim with high playfulness points. The key difference is in one game you can have both, in the other you can't. In TS1/TS2 a lot of personalities directly contradict each other, there's very little room for anything other than one extreme, another extreme, and neutral. imo trait-based personalities are more complex in general, but in TS3 certain traits definitely didn't have enough impact on the game for them to be fun.

Never nude doesn't conflict with anything afaik and didn't do anything outside of outfits... There was a little more potential there. Evil has some autonomous actions to go with it, a few special interactions, and whenever something bad happens around them (like crying) they get the "fiendishly delighted" moodlet. There's more to it than just "take an evil shower", not to mention traits have a huge impact on your sims wants.

Only thing about personality we had in ts3 were traits, voice, favs and lifetime wish. In ts2 you had personality points, aspirations (with wants, FEARS, lifetime wish, lifetime points, aspiration and career rewards), interests, enthusiasm, NORMAL reputation bar. These combined gave the sims in sims 2 very much greater personalities than we had in ts3. My neat sims in ts2 would always clean something, sloppy ones would fart and burp, nice sims would always want to hold a baby while grouchy ones would like to fight with younger sims. They even developed habbits. I think that ts2 personality system brought out combinations of personalities that can be applied on all of us. What the sims 3 did, it brought traits that, very much, served nothing except changing the text of interaction and adding ONE animated action for barely HALF of the available traits.

Are we playing the same TS3 here...

What he wanted to say was that sims in ts2 would do things AUTONOMOUSLY, instead of you pointing them what to do.

Ah, but that's where the other parts of a TS2 sim's personality comes into play. You can have a sim with high playfulness points and make them a knowledge sim. They're going to roll wants to study, learn skills, etc., things that work for bookworms. Or, if you make them read a lot, then their film & lit hobby enthusiasm goes up and they'll roll wants to read novels on their own. A sim with low playfulness points can be a party animal and roll wants to have parties all the time if they have the popularity aspiration. You could have seemingly conflicting aspects, like a shy sim who's also popularity aspiration, or a super-nice sim as a woohoo-obsessed romance sim, or a super-mean sim with the family aspiration.

'Never nude' was a cute idea to capitalize on the post-cancellation popularity of Arrested Development. I thought it was a great idea (honestly, I've never played a sim with that trait so I can't say anything regarding gameplay) because it was an absolutely hilarious thing on the show and I myself am a bit of a Never Nude. But I wonder how many young players or people who aren't exposed to much North American culture really understand that trait's beginnings or why the premade sim who had it was named Gobias Koffi.

To me, the 'bro' trait sounds like a new 'never nude'. It's not universal and is just capitalizing on a certain trend and moment in time.

That sounds like a sim that desperately tries to have a family, though his (or her) personality is not alowing him to. And sims with knowlege aspiration can be funny and playful too. That is realism in sims 2. The sims 3 also has realism... in overly pudding realistic faces and overly shiny furniture.

I like the idea of traits but it does not offer much, I prefer points.

You all need to be careful about what you wish for. I highly doubt that it's the point system itself that you want - imagine being able to decide how much of an evil shower you get to take. There would be no difference in behavior because the underlying trait (or personality component or whatever you want to call it) had no real meaning and lacked a continuum of behaviors and animations.

So IMO to design personality properly, you have to start with various personality characteristics that display a range of qualities depending on whether your sim had a little of that characteristic or a lot. Plus, there were other factors that made up a TS2 sim's personality that would also have to influence all the characteristics.

What I want, and what I think most of you want, are sims with depth and personality. In fact I'd feel a lot better if they advertised TS4 as "The Sims and their Personalities" instead of "The Sims and their Emotions". It would make far more sense for the emotions to come from their personalities as well as their environment, but personality is not all about emotions.

The Sims 3's would have worked but the sims lacked personality regardless.

I think a mix of both would be perfect.

The Sims 2 sims didn't "lack" personality.

Having a huge selection of creatively worded "traits" means jack if the execution is poor. The Sims 3 just gives the player an illusion that they're creating well-rounded characters when they're really just picking different variations of the same personality trait (e.g. mean-spirited and Evil are not different enough from each other).

Sims 3 checks for those traits in a binary way. So insane Sims ALWAYS put on random clothes.
It would be simple to attach a point system to each trait so that a Sim rolls a probability of putting on the wrong clothes for example. So if someone is 30% insane he will put on the correct clothes in 70% of all cases. Wouldn't be too bad would it?

I'd like to see a system that uses both, but I do prefer personality points. If it had to be one or the other I'd want points.

That makes sense. I still want traits that have more depth and effects on the sims personality than we got in 3 but if they did that I'd be ok with that.

I'd be interested in a point system if it used something like the Big Five or Myer-Briggs or even alignments like Chaotic Evil and Lawful Neutral.

Ahh... what better way to start the day then by with a bit of psychology.

We should be able to choose five main and five minor traits. Those main should work like personality points in sims 2 with difference of us choosing them. Minor traits should work like those from ts3.

Then one from Sims 2. I know reading comes hard to fanboys but you can at least try.



They do that in The Sims 3 as well :/

Seriously did you even try The Sims 3 before going on a crusade?