oh you don't have any backups for 8 years of gaming? this is...sad :(
but you can start over :( i really-really don't want you to leave ts3 for ts4 sake...there is a lot of blogs with ts4 and you're such a gem being around ts3 community
i hadn't touched my game in almost a year so any backups i do have would be from a few years back - friends have said they would send over the sims they have but even those are outdated. it's more a case of redoing skins, lots and then on top of that cc shopping when so many sims 3 links are dead now. :(
i feel your pain honestly. i'm just giving the sims 4 a little test run for now because i avoided it for long enough.. don't worry too much!
<3