The next EP-Ambitions

And it's a good one..

Widen your Sim’s horizons with a bunch of killer new career opportunities. With The Sims™ 3 Ambitions, decide whether your Sim will be the brave town hero or cause loads of mischief among their neighbors. Make your Sim save the day as a brave firefighter, change the town as a leading architect, or live on the edge as a tattoo artist. Will your Sim find success as a billionaire high-tech inventor or eke out a living as a bumbling mad scientist? Will they uncover secrets as a private investigator by dusting for prints or roughing up a suspect for information? Their future is entirely in your hands!

    *
      FEATURES
      For the first time ever, you control your Sim’s actions and interactions while they’re on the job.
    *
      Be a hero or mess with the neighbors as a firefighter, private investigator, doctor, ghost hunter, and more!
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      Choose how your Sim’s career progresses—will they work for good or evil, pursue creative endeavors, rise to success as a mogul, or shirk responsibility as a slacker?
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      Your Sim’s on-the-job choices now change their town and affect other Sims as well. Modify the town’s structure as an architect or set neighborhood fashions as a stylist.
    *
      Enjoy all-new skills and activities! Master the arts of inventing, sculpting, and tattooing, and use your skills to earn Simoleons.

The rabbitholes and the gaps in gameplay have been bothering me, so I actually like this concept.

edit: And there's also an interview with Grant Rodiek posted on SimPrograms. http://www.simprograms.com/qa-with-producer-grant-rodiek-on-the-sims-3-ambitions/

Q&A with producer Grant Rodiek on The Sims 3 Ambitions
Posted by Judhudson on 4 March, 2010 at 12:27 PM
3 Comments
This item was filled under [ News - The Sims 3, Sim News ]

The official EA press website (brought to my attention by Sims Galore) released a short Q&A regarding the second expansion pack for The Sims 3.  I hope they’ll answer whether this will open up the existing rabbit holes, but some reason I think they are skipping that question because I don’t believe they will…

    QUESTION: Can you tell us a little bit about The Sims 3 Ambitions.

    The Sims 3 Ambitions allows players to control their Sims while they are at work in a variety of new careers. Instead of sending your Sims off to work all day, The Sims 3 Ambitions lets you pick a career like firefighting, investigator, architect, ghost hunter, stylist or doctor and then guide your Sim to make choices and succeed (or fail) every step of the way.  You can also make your Sim a tattoo artist, sculptor or inventor.

    QUESTION:  Just how popular are careers with the fans? Is this something they have been asking for?

    Career gameplay is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time and it’s something that our players consistently request. We always strive to do something new that hasn’t been seen in The Sims before.  We’re especially excited about the fact that the in-depth careers really offer something for all types of players.  Storytellers will love solving mysteries as an investigator or resolving the problems of the afterlife as a ghost hunter. The “gamers” will enjoy being the hero as a firefighter and saving civilians as the doctor. The team cannot wait to see what the Builders and Sim creators make with architect and stylist careers.

    There’s a lot of depth and variety here for every type of Sims player.

    QUESTION:  Exactly how does the career based gameplay work in Ambitions?

    The Sims 3 Ambitions is about your Sim’s personal venture. Each career presents a unique experience.

    Firefighters need to develop relationships and maintain their equipment while at the firehouse. But as soon as that alarm rings they need to get to the fire, clear rubble piles, carry out children, stop gas leaks, put out the flames, and be the hero. Your town may fall victim to small fires, huge infernos, and even earthquakes.

    Stylists will be hired by neighbors to offer fashion advice and provide partial or complete makeovers.  You can choose to make Sims look really good or just terrible. It’s a lot of power to put in the hands of our more deviant players, but the ability to give the entire town a facelift is fantastic. And profitable!

    Using the tattoo chair in game (or at the local Salon) your Sims can tattoo their neighbors with both fantastic and questionable body art, for a price, of course.

    The Tattoo System is an incredibly powerful new creative tool for our players. Players can apply multiple tattoos in up to five layers, scale them, change the colors, and even modify opacity. Players can also upload and share these tattoos on the exchange, giving our community yet another creative outlet.

    There’s a lot of variety!

annnd.. there's a trailer.

http://au.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/thesims3ambitions/video/6252802/the-sims-3-ambitions-announcement-trailer-1

It sounds interesting. It hasn't quite caught me yet, I want to know moar first, sometimes the smaller features are the ones that make an ep worth it.

What about the fact that it looks like Servos are coming back? Does that appeal to you?

It'd be awesome if they could add some of this stuff to TS2. *sigh*

What stuff would you particularly have liked? Would it have been the sculpture stuff?

Well, actually I think the tattoo thing sounds neat. And there's a post at MTS - http://linna.modthesims.info/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=394059 - that lists different things that are new. Some of them sound neat and I know some of them exist in TS2. Come to think of it, I like the detective and ghost hunter stuff too. I think I'm just jealous since my copy of TS3 is still just sitting there because there's still no way I can play it.

I think some of the new skills sound interesting, but I don't know about the new rpg careers. I thought servos sucked in TS2, I liked the autonomous robots of TS1 - I don't want to have to play the bloody thing.
At the moment I guess I'm getting a little snowed by all the skills in TS3. My sim is trying to garden and winemake after finishing her career, and it just takes so darn long for all those plants to grow.

Viv, it sounds to me like you're going to have to see it in action one way or another til you know whether you like it or not.. For me, I like the idea though because in many ways, the main 'hood feels so bloody empty.

Maria, I know you may have told me this, but what problem are you having when you try to play your copy? Is it not working because you're under spec or something?

It's my video card- it's not on the list. That's the only thing stopping me from playing it. From what I know- everything else is alright.

Y'know some of the supported video cards are not that expensive these days.. Mine was on the supported video cards, and that only cost me about 100 bucks (in Australia) it's probably even less where you are.

My son had planned to get me one- I think the one he was going to get was around $60.00. But then he found out it probably wasn't good enough. I know they're not TOO expensive, but by the time I pay rent, bills and get household stuffs for the month there's not much left. BUT my bday is coming up so I think I might start dropping some very strong hints around the house. 

Whatever the card that Skadi got me to get before the current one, gave me a decent performance on this pc. I've since upgraded to a GTX275 but that previous card was still a good solid card and the Sims ran fine.. Skadi, which one was it??

Pretty sure it was a 1GB ATI 9880. A very solid card.

Seriously Maria, I had a nice performance out of that card and it only cost us about 120 bucks from memory. Stuff like that is expensive in Australia, it's probably even less where you are.

I just wanted the GTX275 because I was having a child moment.. I could have survived on the old card quite nicely.

I hope my old video card will work for you MLC.  I hope to get it sent out next week.  

Edit: How many video card slots do you have?  Am I wrong in thinking that you can combine cards to make the video better?  If I am please ignore the crazy lady.