How to load Edit in Game for The Sims 3 Create a World Tool

The problem

When the Origin launcher was shut down years ago, The Sims 3 Create a World Tool was left in a half working state. We can still create worlds and export them to play in our games. The problem is we can not build lots and package those with the world without the Edit in Game feature which relied on Origin to work properly.

The solution

These steps will help you build and complete a full world.

1. Download the Create a World Tool Beta from The Sims 3 website.
   • Either download version 1.67 or 1.69 depending on your game version.
   • Check which version you use in the bottom left of your game launcher:
     
2. Create your world as you would usually. There's various tutorials online with tips and tricks here.
3. When you're ready to start building lots, the usual Edit in Game button will attempt to load the game but more often than not will fail in doing so.
   
4. We now need to create a special batch script to load our world in game to build lots. This script is from zaide_chris and you can see their original post here.
   * There is one very small change from zaide's original script. Thanks to Alphaia - Sims, we have changed TS3W.exe to TS3.exe in the following script. Without this change I wasn't able to get Edit in Game to work.
   • Open up a text editor and paste this code into the file:
     

     @echo off
     color 0A
     title ZaideChris's EIG Starter
     for /f "tokens=3* delims=	 " %%A IN ('reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Sims\The Sims 3" /v "Install Dir"') do set 	Sims3Path=%%B
     if "%Sims3Path%"=="" for /f "tokens=3* delims=	 " %%A IN ('reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sims\The Sims 3" /v "Install Dir"') do set Sims3Path=%%B
     cls
     echo Detected The Sims 3 install at %Sims3Path%
     if not [%1]==[] (
     	echo Opening %1 in EIG
     	"%Sims3Path%\Game\Bin\TS3.exe" -nosound -worldFile:%1 -editInGameMode:true -disableDumpCopy -speed:0 -noObjMgrsFile:
     ) else (
     	echo Drop the world you want to open on this file or pass it as the first parameter.
     )
     echo Press any key to exit
     pause>nul

   • Save this file as EIG.bat. It's important to make sure the extension is .bat and not .txt for this to work.
   • You can save this file where you like, I use the Desktop for ease of use.
5. Now drag your .world file and drop it on top of our new EIG.bat script.
   
6. This will then pop open a Command Prompt window and if all goes well The Sims 3 will launch and load up your Create a World in the Edit in Game mode.
   • In this mode you can edit the town and build, or place lots from your library.
   • Once you save the game and reload the world in Create a World you should now see your lots.

Troubleshooting

This is a very old program that hasn't been updated in over a decade at this point so you may still face some issues. The following may help you launch Edit in Game if the above is still not working.

• Close the Create a World Tool completely before trying to drag your .world to the EIG.bat
• Completely exit EA App and The Sims 3 before your drag your .world to the EIG.bat
• Create a World projects are usually saved in Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 Create A World Tool > UserToolData > Worlds. I have found that either doing a Save As... and saving a new copy of my world to the Desktop or copy + pasting the .world, .settings and folder for the world project to the Desktop and then dragging our .world from there, can have more successful results.