A huge thanks

[ratchie]

As you all know it is the end of an era here on the challenge board and there will be no more Sims 3 challenges.
I would like to say a huge thank you to each and everyone of you that has participated in the forums Sims 3 challenges over the years.
Without you guys we wouldn't have a tourney and we appreciate the time and effort you put in to taking part.
It has been so much fun to work alongside Rica,Nutella,\Blackrosea and Trip and a great big thank you to the main boss man our very own Metropolis Man who made it all happen.

Here's to many more years of dynasties and Sims 4 challenges.

[Lisa46]

Hear, hear! Thanks to all the challenge staff. This has been a great year.

[MarianT]

Many thanks to Metro, Rica, and Blackrosea for coming up with the challenges, and to Nutella, ratchie, and Trip for answering all our questions about them. I don't know how challenges and dynasties will work in Sims 4 -- something tells me our emotional sims will be less biddable -- but it will be fun finding out. 

[Turoskel]

Thank you challenge team past and present, I have had such fun, and frustration, doing these challenges I wish I had found them sooner than I did.

I'm not certain about moving on to Sims 4 as yet, but I still look forward to seeing what ideas it gives you for new challenges and dynasties, I've found them a great way for learning all those little tricks and ways to manage my sims better, I'm sure the same will apply for Sims 4.

[Femke82]

I also want to give a huge thanks to the present (and past) challenge team! I had a lot of fun, some frustration and I learned a lot of tricks to keep my sims even happier then before.

I don't know if I will buy the sims 4 as I don't know if my computer can hadle it, but until I get a new computer I will keep playing the sims 3 and redo some of the earlier challenges when I didn't know about this forum.

Femke82

[LenaLJ]

My Granny always said, "Every era has to end, and new will begin, you could stay sad for a time, but nothing will change it, so instead look forward to the new opportunities that will show in the new era."

And I think that is rather fitting here, I had five wonderfull years with the challenges our great team has come up with, 5 years where this forum has been part of my life, so much that even one boyfriend left me because he thought competing in sims 3 was a bit to geeky. But I loved it and still do, and I cant wait to see what the great minds will come up with when we have Sims 4.

And I am also honoured that I could help out once in a while with spreadsheets for the team, and should I be needed again I will surely do my best to aid
Simply cant wait to see what the future brings.

[Pam]

This is bringing a tear to my eye.  It's hard to believe that we've been doing this for almost five years and that now it's done.  I especially want to thank Metropolis Man for joining Carl and I those years ago and creating the entire challenge experience for us here with Sims 3.  Without Metro, there would have been no annual tournaments and no Dynasties.  Well done Metro, ratchie, Nutella, Blackrosea, Trip, and Ricalynn.  Very well done indeed!

[Ginj]

Amen to that.  Kudos to the challenge team for many enjoyable hours of simming even after the actual challenge has come and gone!

[MissZoef]

Only if I found out about this sooner! It really made me have a lot of fun with the sims 3 again and helped me learn and do things I wouldn't have otherwise. I will be buying the sims 4 on release, but the sims 3 is still a lot of fun too! I wonder what kind of challenges there will be in the sims 4 and I would love to play them too.

I think this forum is just awesome.

[Nandarelle]

I want to join in thanking the Challenge Team.

Even though I only joined a few challenges, it was certainly a lot of fun. That includes reading strategies of challenges I didn't parcipitate in.
So thanks to you all!

[Carl]

Congratulations to the Challenge Team for a very successful run with Sims 3, and a big thank you from me. You all helped provide entertainment for the community and friendly competition that helped people get more out of an open-ended game. Metro, I look forward to The Sims 4 and how it may inspire creative ideas with the new gameplay features you'll have at your disposal. You assembled a great team and I applaud you sir. I am glad you joined me but sorry for the Diablo 2 players I took you from - I tried one of those challenges and it was great, although I died as a hardcore. I did not do well in the few challenges I tried here with Sims 3, but admired the people who managed to come up with great strategies. So, thank you to everyone for participating and we look forward to the future!

[jesirose]

Thank you guys, this forum renewed my interest in the game and taught me so much about what it could really do. It inspired me to be more creative. I can't wait to see what's in the future.

[KRae]

I just started with the challenges this year. It was always fun and sometimes just plain hilarious. Thanks for making the game fresh again.

[Trip]

It has been a great time playing the dynasty challenges, and helping with them too (really touched that I'm mentioned in the thank you message). I can't wait to see what this team can come up with for TS4, and I still plan to answer questions for dynasties over here for as long as we keep the threads open for.

[Tiamet]

I'd like to add my thanks as well, Metro and the team have given us hours of enjoyment with these challenges and dynasties.  I've got Sim 4 on pre-order, just to keep playing challenges.   

[Chare]

I'd like to add my thanks as well, Metro and the team have given us hours of enjoyment with these challenges and dynasties.  I've got Sim 4 on pre-order, just to keep playing challenges.   

Pretty much the only reason why I'm considering buying Sims 4 is because these challenges are so amazing and I wish to continue to do them. Thank you for all the hard work that you do Challenge Team!!! 

[Ferretmania]

Thank you to Metro and the challenge team for all the fun challenges and Dynasties.
I didn't get to play them much , but I've really enjoyed reading about them and reading all the different strategies and Dynasty stories people came up with.
I'm convinced the new Sims 4 challenges will be just as awesome

[Metropolis Man]

Thank you for the nice words, everyone. It's been an amazing journey over the last five years and I am so happy that the Tournament challenges and the Dynasties turned out to be really popular with players. It's a bittersweet moment for sure — I am happy to take a short breather from Sims 3, but this has been a huge part of my life and it's hard to let it go and say goodbye. It's always so fun to post a brand new ruleset and wait for responses from you guys — "oh this one sounds like so much fun!" or "wow, this is going to be tough!"

Carl and Pam, I want to give a special shout out to both of you for allowing me to basically be on my own, put together the team that I wanted, and runs things how I see fit. It says a lot about how much you have trusted me and you have no idea how much that means to me. Thank you so much.

It's been so long since I have written Guide articles so it will be nice to get back to that when Sims 4 comes out and shift gears from competition for awhile. But, rest assured — a new Dynasty and a brand new Sims 4 Tournament will be in the works. Nutella, ratchie, Blackrosea, Trip, LenaLJ, and everyone else that has chipped in to help answer the tons of questions that come every day — you guys are the absolute best. How the heck could I do this without you? Answer — I couldn't.

[McHazy]

I would like to add my thanks to the challenge team and also the players who took part. I never did any challenges, but I was thoroughly entertained and impressed by all your efforts and creativity. I also learned quite a few things just from reading about what everyone got up to and also from all your fabulous stories!

[PSDuckie]

Thank you to everyone.  Without these challenges, I would never have found this site.  I still plan on doing all of the Sims 3 Dynasties, possibly on YouTube, and I look forward to what you dream up for Sims 4!

[Deklitch]

Thanks for the challenges and for showing me there was so much more to the sims 3 than I realised. Though I never came close to winning anything, I had fun and enjoyed participating.

[MomOfMany]

I want to also thank everyone for these challenges especially Metro! This challenges are one of the main reasons I play sims. I am excited to embark on a new journey with all of you in the sims 4. Sadly for me it will be later than I'd like since I'm a Mac user. But I will be joining as soon as it's released for Mac. Until then I may just enjoy some of our old challenges here.

[PSDuckie]

I want to also thank everyone for these challenges especially Metro! This challenges are one of the main reasons I play sims. I am excited to embark on a new journey with all of you in the sims 4. Sadly for me it will be later than I'd like since I'm a Mac user. But I will be joining as soon as it's released for Mac. Until then I may just enjoy some of our old challenges here.

I don't know how you handled Sims 3 for Mac and all its crashing, but you can run the Windows version of Sims 4 (well, actually you can run the Windows version of anything) on a Mac using the Boot Camp utility built into the Mac.  I'm actually using a Mac to type this, and I run the Windows version of Sims 3 because it's more stable.

[MomOfMany]

I wasn't sure how that would work. I haven't used bootcamp before. I know I have it but I don't know how it is or even how it works. Maybe I will look more into that.

[Metropolis Man]

I am on an iMac and have Windows 7 installed on the Bootcamp partition. Hopefully I will have no problems, but there is no way I will be waiting for the OS X release because who knows how long that will be. I need to get to writing Sims 4 Guide articles for Carl asap.

[MomOfMany]

I am really anxious to play the Sims 4 and I thought about trying bootcamp but I don't know anything about it. What do I need for it?

[Metropolis Man]

I am really anxious to play the Sims 4 and I thought about trying bootcamp but I don't know anything about it. What do I need for it?

If you already have the separate bootcamp partition, then it's just a question of installing Windows on it. When I ordered my iMac from the local Apple Store I just told them that I wanted them to put Windows on the brand new machine before they called me and said it was ready. I did not want to deal with that. If you have an Apple store in town or a licensed Apple repair shop, then if it were me I would take a copy of Windows to them and just tell them to do it. It would take them all of an hour probably and not cost that much.

[MomOfMany]

Sadly my closest Apple Store is in Chicago! Which is an hour and a half drive. Might have to wait till we need to go out there for something else. I don't know that I trust this question to Apple but how much space would need to be partition for Sims?

[PSDuckie]

It depends on how many EPs/SPs you are using and what else you put on there.  I partitioned 800 GB of my 1 TB drive for Boot Camp, but that is because I'm a big gamer and hardly ever use the OS X side.  I have all of the EPs/SPs save KPST (which we all know is a piece of garbage) and the program folders take up approximately 25.2 GB.  This is before CC, store content, savefiles, etc.

EDIT: This is for TS3, of course.  I don't know how much TS4 will take up.

[MomOfMany]

Thanks PSDuckie! My drive is 1 TB too. But I am not all that tech savvy in that I don't know how many GB that is. LOL! I just know its alot but I also know that the sims takes quite a bit if space. But I would imagine close to the same amount of storage for Sims 4 though.

[PSDuckie]

1 TB is either 1,000 GB or 1,024 GB, depending on what numbering system is used to measure it.  I know it's confusing, but that's the way it is.

[Trip]

1TB is 1,024 Gigabytes, but hard drives always have less storage than advertised due to the differences between how manufacturers and how computers measure storage. Sad but true. Most of the 1TB drives I've come across have ~930GB of storage.

More info on it in this article.

Discussion about hard drives/running TS3 and TS4 on the same computer are more suited to the Technical Help board, though, so if you want to continue the conversation, open up a thread there.

[EtnaFan666]

I am a little wary of Sims 4 - I just finally started doing a Life States Dynasty attempt #X on Sims 3 and now we're in a new game? Well, okay. It's a shame I never took the chance with the Sims 3 tournament, especially the last one as there were a couple I could have done like the sculptor's challenge, but hey, live and learn.

I am not ready for Sims 4 yet but once the game is launched and you start writing articles on how it works, might look into it - if my computer can handle it though. It can barely handle Sims 3 without lag. Of course, I would like to contribute ideas for any Dynasties if you want, Metro. Once I understand how the Sims 4 works I might have ideas, just PM me if you want my help. I am a font of ideas! ^_^

I wish you all luck and best wishes in the future!'

EDIT: This is several months in(so I apologize for necroposting  ) and things change; my computer refuses to update The Sims 3 so I had to uninstall it to free up room for my MMOs and with the help of a few gift card I was able to buy The Sims 4 and I love it immensely. With the changes and the first Sims 4 expansion coming in a few months and Metro's new Dynasty, I am not really interested in going back to Sims 3 and its bugs, glitches and doughy-face Sims. Cheers!