Is TS3 still secretly patched?

alanmichael1

This may be a crazy question, but since I returned to TS3 some weeks ago, I'm surprised how well and bug-free the game is running (even Isla Paradiso) and I'm wondering if they are still patching the packs or the store content. This came to my mind because I got multiple small notifications in Origin in the last months saying "There is a content patch for you, do you want it Y/N".

What I observed for example in IP is that I don't have deserted boats any more. They seem to be included into the 0:59 cleaning mechanism. It also seems that the game deletes self-made career outfits when the Sim is aging up - which is a good thing, because these outfits used to glitch after birthdays, causing the terrible travel bug where you ended up in Oasis Landing without a Sim.

Are these fixes new, were they introduced in the 1.69 patch or am I paranoid ?

igazor

I'm glad you are experiencing improvements in your gameplay no matter how they came about but sorry, I think you might be suffering from some sort of placebo effect. There hasn't been a patch that affected gameplay or the game program files in any meaningful way since Patch 1.66 in Jan 2014. Patch 1.67 (same month) was trivial and 1.69 only manages the Origin tie-in and the way in which the game starts up, nothing else.

If anything were happening to the game files or patches besides that, our mod developers (and players) would be very sensitive to it all as things would have to constantly be adjusted to compensate for the changes. This just hasn't happened.

The "content patch" is the store patch, last updated in 2013 or something like that. It always was constantly offered to many players who already had it, that's just a small glitch in the detection mechanism. I'm surprised that 1.69 even concerns itself with that, I thought it was all rolled into one update now and the small store item fixes it provides were done automatically.

Is it possible that your computer is performing better overall than it might have been in the past?

alanmichael1

Thanks for the clarification! Then probably the improvement in IP comes from my reworking of the town (I checked several other Simmer's suggestions) and the fact that I turned off Pets and Seasons . However, the world is perfectly playable this way.

inmyeye

Shhhhhh. Don't even talk about it.

igazor

inmyeye wrote: »

Shhhhhh. Don't even talk about it.

Yes, the other answer I considered giving was "If we told you, then it wouldn't be a secret anymore." But that didn't seem like it would be as helpful as the real answer.

king_of_simcity7

It would be nice if the game was 'secretly' patched but if it is anything like that horror that was the 1.69 patch then it should be no secret. Just I agine the outrage?

TreyNutz

Sometimes the sims patch the game themselves.

igazor

It's the gnomes doing it! No wonder my worlds where I have 17 of them in the backyard most of the time just seem to run better!

TadOlson

Mine was secretly patched by awesomemod to fix the school overcrowding issue just before Christmas last year and another patch managed to sneak in from MTS to fix toddler issues.

Simsophonique

haha this conversation makes me laugh, mine isn't patch since patch 1.67 no way patch 1.69.

alanmichael1

For people like me who play without mods patch 1.69 was a good thing. The possibility to turn off certain EPs (e.g. ITF in a supernatural setting in Dragon Valley) makes storytelling much easier and the game smoother. Interestingly the EPs I disable the most are the beloved Pets and Seasons. Even if my PC exceeds the requirements by far, snow is still a stuttering affair and looks terrible in mountain worlds where it causes holes in the ground (in this and many other aspects Monte Vista is the most disappointing world).

SimplyJen

1.69 actually only affects core mods if I remember correctly. The added feature to check packs on/off through the launcher is handy but also annoying when it starts checking them off without your say. I never figured out the exact reason this happens. For those on patch 1.67 (and possibly below), Sim Game Selector 3.0 does the same thing without forgetting which packs you have checked. It's an external tool, not a mod. I use it for certain challenges.

My experience with patch 1.69 wasn't the worst but in the end I purchased any missing physical copies to replace my digital collection so I could go back to patch 1.67. I don't regret it and as you can see by my signature, I'm quite proud of my collection.