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Is Pre-2012 CD the only way to play Sims w/o internet?

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  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    I’m planning on tracking down ALL the S3 EP and SP discs so that I can do a total disc install rather than going through partial disc/online install. That way I know that I have ALL my discs ready to install. The hard ones to track down I may have to ask Simmers to keep an eye out for me across the border and send enough money + shipping $ to acquire them.

    Sometimes Amazon.ca’s prices are OUTRAGEOUS. @SPARKY1922

    I think someone did say at one point on this thread that they didn’t want EA to be able to dictate when and how they were able to play their game. I just don’t want to be tied to having to have a constant internet connection to be able to play this game.
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    @SuzyCue72

    I might sound a little paranoid but it's like they never stop interfering with the 3 game almost like they don't want players to be able to play this series without experiencing issues for some ridiculous reason.
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    edited November 2019
    You’re not paranoid and you're not the only one who has thought that. It seems that for the cost of the game now we’re only buying the rights to play the game for the amount of time they let us play it and those rights can be terminated at any time. Gone are the days when we had sole exclusive ownership of our individual copies of the game where we could install it when we chose and play it offline at any time we chose.

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    EA: Join me and together we can usher in a new era of peace and tranquility in the Sims community. No more bickering; just happiness 4 ever and ever....

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    Sims 3 fans. NO NEVER!!!!!
    Post edited by Nikkei_Simmer on
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    @Nikkei_Simmer

    laughed my head off at the pics and this statement "EA: Join me and together we can usher in a new era of peace and tranquility in the Sims community. No more bickering; just happiness 4 ever and ever...Sims 3 fans. NO NEVER!!!!!" so true :)<3

    I just took a quick look here in the UK at sims 3 discs on Amazon UK and you are correct the prices here are also high however they are all new discs but obviously the pre 2012 disc is going to be pre owned. I already owned several 3 discs I had purchased when I started playing 3 wayback so had to buy the others and I am using a mix of new and pre-owned and so far everything's fine. I downloaded my store content just using the pre 2012 disc on a seperate laptop because I do not allow my win 7 hard drive online where I play 3 to access the internet ever and to make sure of that I had yet another internal hard drive fitted in my desktop that I can download files/folders/mods/cc on win 10 for my game and transfer them to my 7 drive when i play my game and not ever need to use the internet as I will never risk something else or any other so called updated program to meddle with my disc game and ruin it-)

    I also confess to being paranoid enough to own 2 pre 2012 discs in case one gets damaged or corrupted and a duplicate of ITF as well as discs can sometimes get corrupted by lots of use in the disc tray so i cannot think of much more to secure my future 3 playing days at this point haha

    I am providing a link to UK Ebay as I have just taken a look and there are still pre owned discs to be had at reasonable prices and if the seller has a good reputation and post internationally it might be cheaper to buy in the UK and pay the postage to your own country?

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.Xsims+3+discs.TRS0&_nkw=sims+3+discs&_sacat=0

    I wish you luck finding what you need at reasonable prices :)
  • ehl451ehl451 Posts: 38 Member
    Since this thread is about discs, and they are starting to disappear from amazon and ebay, I wanted to post the following link as a bump.

    https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/683314/pegi-esrb

    I can vouch for the this. I ordered a US version of, dare I admit, the KPST stuff pack and was shipped a UK version. After finding the link, I took the plunge and the disc installed without any issues.

    As an aside, Barnicle Bay codes are available on ebay for about $8. Register codes on store site and download from purchase history.

    Happy hunting.
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    @ehl451

    You just reminded me I need to point out to @Nikkei_Simmer that after supplying the UK ebay address we tend to use Pal versions of the disc game which i am not sure will work in your region so you would need to check :)
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    :D. Yup. NORTH America has been NTSC.for quite some time. :). Yeah si pretty much I’m looking at either Canadian or American retailers.
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    I can verify that they work together just fine. When I first bought my discs from Amazon I didn't even think to check region and didn't notice they were different. I have about half and half I think and they work just fine together.
  • MikezumiMikezumi Posts: 49,697 Member
    I could be wrong but I believe that TS3 is region free. My discs are from both Australia and USA.
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    @Mikezumi I didn't even think about Australia being different! Mine are UK and US, I think.
  • MikezumiMikezumi Posts: 49,697 Member
    @ZeeGee I am pretty sure that in the past I have bought games in either Australia or US that couldn't be played in both (I spent two-three months of each year in Australia while I was living in the States) but I remember checking when I first started playing TS3 that it wasn't one of them.
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    @Mikezumi Thank goodness for that
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    The region used to be important but then they got rid of that idea fairly early in the series.
  • SuzyCue72SuzyCue72 Posts: 526 Member
    SPARKY1922 wrote: »
    @SuzyCue72

    I might sound a little paranoid
    but it's like they never stop interfering with the 3 game almost like they don't want players to be able to play this series without experiencing issues for some ridiculous reason.

    No, sadly I don't think you're paranoid, I think you're right. :(:'( They want us all to give up TS3 and start playing TS4 instead, giving TS4 away for free was just another part of that tactic.

    SPARKY1922 wrote: »
    @ehl451

    You just reminded me I need to point out to @Nikkei_Simmer that after supplying the UK ebay address we tend to use Pal versions of the disc game which i am not sure will work in your region so you would need to check :)

    As far as I know there is no such thing as a PAL or NTSC version of the TS3 for PC/Mac computers, using monitor as display. TS3 for consoles connected to TVs might very well be different, but I don't know anything about those so I'll have to leave it to somebody else to confirm or dismiss that assumption.

    Karritz wrote: »
    The region used to be important but then they got rid of that idea fairly early in the series.

    Yep, that's right, only the base game and the first expansion pack, World Adventures, are region coded, after that the only codes are 01 (or 1?) for disc installs, and 17 (or 7?) for the Origin digital download version. Read more about it at Crinrict's blog, and Nichaedemus post in the thread that ehl451 linked to above.
  • LadyGreenEyesLadyGreenEyes Posts: 928 Member
    I actually did end up collecting all of the discs, because I do NOT play through Origin or any other gaming portal, and also because I want hard copies, just in case. We should not need an internet connection to play a single-player game. I seldom even log in to play, honestly. Use a mod for the Showtime unlock, and just don't care about the online stuff most of the time. I don't even have Origin installed on the computer.
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    @LadyGreenEyes, I have only Late Night, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise and Into the Future in disc form in terms of EPs so I’ve gotta lot of searching for EP discs to do and two copies of the pre-2012 base game disc. But I’m seriously thinking about going that route and getting off Origin. My fault is that I only started playing any version of Sims in Jan 2017 so didn’t even think about the game until I got seriously addicted to the game.
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • LadyGreenEyesLadyGreenEyes Posts: 928 Member
    Yeah, that can be a lot to collect , to avoid the Origin issues. Ebay is a great place to look for those, and you can often find them pretty cheap. I even got all of The Sims 2 stuff that way, so no need to have Origin for that, either, and I think there is a lot to do even in that one, still. Lots of folks sells the discs, though, who prefer to go digital and eliminate stuff in their homes, so they can be found! I intentionally looked for the discs, myself, and only the store/online only stuff isn't on those, but I have the downloaded sim3pack files saved outside of the game, too - just copied all from the "downloads" folder into another file, and you can even put those on a disc, and just install them that way. I've done that when switching computers, rather than downloading it all again. You can select up to fifteen at a time, and, with the launcher already open, right-click and "open" them, and they should install. No internet needed then, and you have the security of knowing even if the store someday vanished, you'd still have those files.
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    I bought new disks and when I installed them it doesn't seem to make any difference if I use the registered codes from the digital downloads I originally bought from Origin or the codes that came with the disks. The first time I used the disks to install I had Origin on the laptop and was downloading from Origin. Then I decided to try out the disks and found it a lot quicker to install from disk than to download them. I never registered the new codes I bought with the disks. I just use the disks now to install with. Use either code. I think the last time I installed I used the codes that came with the disks. I already had the base game and a few of the early expansion and stuff packs on Disk. I think I started buying digital downloads about the time Pets was released. Just because it was easier back then and didn't really matter if it was disk or digital. Then when Sims 4 was released and so many Sims 3 disks were on sale in the games shops around where I live I decided to get them all on disk. I felt I might need them in future as I didn't really trust EA to leave the game as it was at the time it ended. I feel very lucky I did that. I do only have the one base game disk though so suspect the time will come when the disks will become corrupt and I'll probably move on from the game then and not play any more.
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    Hi @LadyGreenEyes

    What frustrates me a little is the S2 ultimate version of the game plays fine on my non internet W7 hard drive and also on my always connected to the internet windows 10 OS hard drive without any issues whatsoever so i have not had to resort to using my safely tucked away S2 discs up to now although I have never updated S2 in origin and I don't launch the game through Origin either so might make the difference. S3 on the other hand for me will simply not play using the digital version of the game at all without continued bad sim graphics that I have not been able to resolve despite some very good techy help from players on these forums.

    If any player wishes to use all their digital store content with their disc game including already purchased EA store worlds just load your pre 2102 base game disc onto a PC that hasn't got another version of the game and redownload all your content and worlds. I own the whole store and it plays fine on my disc game but it will not work for me if I try using digital downloads of store content with my disc version of the game.

    @Nikkei_Simmer

    I hear what you are saying about costs when I first started with 3 I bought discs to begin with when expansions came out and then later into the game I started buying digital instead so I had around half discs and half digital when I realised i had better get moving and purchase the rest of the series on disc if I wanted to continue playing my game and at that time for me here in the UK I bought 2 pre 2012 base game discs and 2 ITF discs (one for spares) for very reasonable prices new and used discs but when I first noticed this thread I went looking at Ebay and Amazon and could not believe the disc prices and how they had shot up and from looking at the US sites they appear to have even less choice which I actually thought was quite strange at the time as in all the years I have been using ebay the discs were always around even for the S2 series of the game constantly so I am not entirely sure what is going on with stock. In some way I am actually grateful i got my issues with the game when I did as if not I might not have been able to hop over to discs as easily as I did although I got a lot of help from Karritz and other players who had already made the leap so I will always be grateful for their knowledge and assistance when I transferred over to discs although as @Karritz has already pointed out in her post she never experienced issues when using digital store downloads with her disc game and yet my game would simply not allow me to do that lol and in that respect i am quite envious-) I am not a gamer in the strict sense of the word but I justify the spending with this game because I don't spend much money on other games but I hope you manage to find some further discs at the right price :)



  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    @SPARKY1922 I think it is possible the reason I had no problem with my store downloads is I only ever had the one base game disk. So it is possible the store content is linked to the base game disk that is registered to the owner of the store content - but that is only my guess.
  • SummerRoxySummerRoxy Posts: 93 Member
    edited December 2019
    @Nikkei_Simmer You're a Japanese, right? Can you try Amazon Japan? I got my disc collection there second hand. I got them fairly cheaply and the previous owners didn't seem to care about the online site so I was lucky and got the limited edition freebies when I entered the codes, and I'm talking recent, like the last 2 years. The installation setup is in Japanese but I've set my game to English so I can play in English just fine.

    Here is the link and I've filtered it so it only shows the disk and not digital codes. Edit: I'm on mobile and looks like the filter resets, digital code ver are still showing...be careful!

    Right now, WA is only 800 yen (got it for 400 yen before), GEN is 700! Sometimes the prices fluctuate so you have to check back once in a while.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited December 2019
    And to think all these years @Nikkei_Simmer has been typing with that outrageous accent and blathering on about hockey, maple syrup, something about moose (I might be making that part up) just so we would think he is Canadian. One just doesn't know whom to believe anymore. >:):p
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    NRaas has moved!
    Our new site is at http://nraas.net
  • Nikkei_SimmerNikkei_Simmer Posts: 9,404 Member
    edited December 2019
    Born in Canada 🇨🇦, currently live in Canada; never been to Japan. The only thing Japanese about me is that I have ethnic Japanese parents so I’m ethnically Japanese but 100% Canadian.

    The only time pretending to be actually fresh off the boat from Japan is to get those confounded telemarketers off the telephone line. You should see how fast they hang up when you repeat “nani desu ka” a couple dozen times to every question a telemarketer asks. Great for gits and shiggles. :mrgreen: if I’m really in a foul mood I throw in some Kochi-ben learned courtesy of my dad who was from there. That really confuses the hell outta them.

    So most of the game CDs that I’m gonna have to get will have to be found on Amazon Canada or Ebay.
    GYZ6Ak9.png
    Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
  • SummerRoxySummerRoxy Posts: 93 Member
    @Nikkei_Simmer Sorry, I did not know about that, and just judged by your name. o:)
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