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Instructor
#251 Old 29th Aug 2012 at 10:36 AM
I found a good way to make university a little more interesting. If you're doing Greek Houses you could have random outings and 'Bar Crawl' outings. In my Legacy Hood I created a University town strictly devoted to Bar Crawls, Entertainment Venues etc all on one small strip, and I have them hop from one to the other, and do all sorts of things. It's a lot of fun, and I don't like outings usually, but add in a theme for the outing and go by that theme makes for really interesting times.

Also for Greek Houses instead of influencing the newbies, you could find ways to haze/humiliate them by making shy sims streak or shy sims have parties or make the pledges do everyone's homework and/or Woohoo so many Sims/Kiss/makeout or something that a real college/Greek House might do.
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Instructor
#252 Old 4th Sep 2012 at 6:59 AM
Neighborhood covenants. It's not as much as real life. However, rushing to put a bowling alley, swimming pools, cars and pets into every neighborhood makes each nieghborhood the same as the two before it. So, i put restrictions and themes on the hoods - to make each one play differently. The current #1 hood is a Florida key with single story architecture, and I love the irony of no swimming pools at all. Also, I built a tech restriction here. Generation 0 - radio and books. Generaton 1 small TVs available. Generation 2. granted large tvs and computrs. Generation 3 all tech restrictions lifted.
Some neighborhoods are run by robots. Some ban vampires entirely. Some are business based while others have no businessses.
Lab Assistant
#253 Old 16th Sep 2012 at 2:03 AM
The quickest way to make the game interesting? Play TS3 for a day.

I got it as a gift and can't believe how boring that game is. So much potential but such a waste of pixels.
Scholar
#254 Old 20th Sep 2012 at 2:16 PM
I have an overarching storyline for my neighbourhood, which dates back to Sims 1. In fact, one of my Sims is a (very heavily-aged) version of one of the founding Sims.

By having the storyline, days when the Sims themselves don't come up with anything have me looking back at my neighbourhood narrative, looking at my Sims' states and then throwing in some event that would make things more interesting (whether that's something small like "The Sims in one part of the neighbourhood decide to put on a new TV show" or major like "Oh no! The plague has entered town!"

I also have things like a teen cultural boarding school for certain Sims, a monastery, rival magical groups (two of which are apt to produce havoc at any moment), a spaceport with residential staff and (sometimes) a "reality TV" house. Parts of the neighbourhood operate under special rules. Between all these different things, there's usually something going on in the neighbourhood.
Lab Assistant
#255 Old 20th Sep 2012 at 6:04 PM
I downloaded the ACR hack, best thing I ever did! Furthermore, I rediscovered the game when I started to play the default families and continued their stories.
Mad Poster
#256 Old 4th Oct 2012 at 4:21 AM
I have ACR, and also LOVE it! It's fun to see what they will do ALL BY THEMSELVES {OMG you left the toddler to eat dog food so you could make a baby with you sister-in-law!?}. Now if the settings also included "you're happily married, don't sleep with that cad!"

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Instructor
#257 Old 4th Oct 2012 at 4:23 AM
It does! You can use the Sim settings to change their cheating to 'totally faithful.'
Mad Poster
#258 Old 9th Oct 2012 at 12:21 PM
I've been playing a particular neighborhood for a while, and I've created my own private journal for it-nothing new there-but I downloaded a set of all the icons for the game that was posted at MATY-and extracted them to note what happened in the various households on any given day.

It certainly perks up the interest when you edit a journal and put in special icons to mark a birth, a death, cheating or a promotion. It makes it less boring to read the developments as they happened.

"Oh, my god, I forgot that happened! No wonder they're so depressed!"
Mad Poster
#259 Old 11th Oct 2012 at 2:55 AM
Rowena - um, don't remember ever seeing "totally faithful"; is that the "ignore committed relationships"?

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Mad Poster
#260 Old 11th Oct 2012 at 3:01 AM
Sim Settings/Cheating/Set To Totally Faithful
Mad Poster
#261 Old 19th Oct 2012 at 2:52 PM
Hope you're still out there. I don't see this path; the closest I can find is overrides/autonomy/spouse only. Could I have an outdated version?

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Test Subject
#262 Old 20th Oct 2012 at 4:19 AM
thanks so much(:
Mad Poster
#263 Old 20th Oct 2012 at 4:47 AM
Quote: Originally posted by grammapat
Hope you're still out there. I don't see this path; the closest I can find is overrides/autonomy/spouse only. Could I have an outdated version?


Well, if you're using the original ACR, that could explain it. I use ACR2.

ACR isn't "outdated", really, it's just that ACR2 refined and added a few features.
Top Secret Researcher
#264 Old 20th Oct 2012 at 4:48 AM
Quote: Originally posted by grammapat
Hope you're still out there. I don't see this path; the closest I can find is overrides/autonomy/spouse only. Could I have an outdated version?


That's the path I have as well. I am using 1.10.10 (for technical reasons having to do with the aging mod I am also using). The other version is still in beta, but a lot of folks use it. I suspect that path is from Version 2 of ACR.
Mad Poster
#265 Old 25th Nov 2012 at 9:53 PM
Instead of giving your sims money through motherlode, use the checkbook available at simwardrobe (here: http://www.paladins-place.org/checkbook/checkbook.htm ) to send money between sims. With limited resources, the game can be fun. Also, this is one method of draining the money out of your rich sims, especially if they have children who don't live with them (anymore) and want to buy a house and furnish it, throw a wedding party, etc...
#266 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 10:07 PM
Quote: Originally posted by HystericalParoxysm
We've all had that problem at one time or another: Sims 2 just seems boring.


Not true.
=P
Top Secret Researcher
#267 Old 11th Dec 2012 at 10:49 PM
I find doing challenges to break things up is very revitalizing.

For example, I just opened a hippie commune in my BACC, and find I look forward to playing that household in every round. I think part of it is that I play that one mostly hands off (I am a terrible micro-manager, generally speaking), and never know what they'll get up to next.
Test Subject
#268 Old 31st Dec 2012 at 7:39 PM
Celebrity sims.

Download a custom sim, or create a famous person, and try to play the game simulating the person's life. For example, if you have Elvis Presley, get him to the music career, or entertainment career, earn fame and then make him enter the military career. Then return to the music career, or entertainment career, and in the end make him buy the Graceland mansion (here you may bluff a bit to get the necessary funds). Then enjoy the family life, marry Priscilla (or any approppriate sim girlie) and create the Elvis' kids.

This is even better if there is some custom career readily made for a specific sim. One is the Politics career (available here at MTS) where you end up being the President of the United States. Create Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama and make them all enter the same career. Any other politicians are welcome additions, but make sure you have only one President at time, and the first one you have get to the top is Bill Clinton. Play with him at the White House (bluff again the funds) until he dies, and then leave the urn at the memorial hall. This is where the fun starts: once the next President George W. Bush moves into the White House there are the previous presidents haunting the place, which is kinda cool. Then, when Bush dies, keep his urn there and move in Barack Obama. You can of course start this from George Washington if you wish, but that would be a long game. Remember too to take an 'official' picture, or a painting by an artist, of all the Presidents when they still are in office and place it near to the place where their urn is.
Forum Resident
#269 Old 9th Jan 2013 at 10:47 AM
This game never stops making me laugh. Random accidents, people slapping each other, mrs Crumplebottom plummeting in the elevator (Omg, did happen, so funny), etc.


The funniest moment though would have to be when i died from getting crushed by my bed. Lmao. I had an apartment with a pull out bed. My sim pulled the bed down and got crushed.
Lab Assistant
#270 Old 12th Jan 2013 at 12:09 PM
My Sims family has been so busy lately: Mom: gardening: take a lot of time to tend, Dad: going to work, helping with gardening, fishing, Son: going to school, fishing, gardening. They've run a shop of vegetables, fruit and fish and had to work hard to get the products plus 6 cats (4 was born yesterday :o). It's like they've never enjoyed their life. I don't want to use cheats or mods of course. Can someone suggest?
Mad Poster
#271 Old 12th Jan 2013 at 1:26 PM
Community lot visits - get right away from work. They can put together an outing, go to the park or museum or rec center or whatever, meet other sims, relax, and when they get hungry eat fish, hot dogs, or hamburgers. When they get tired, send them home, put them down (in good beds so they recharge faster) and get up to work at odd hours 'cause the work is always there. You'll have to watch the clock so the kid's not too exhausted to go to school, but that's just resource management.

Also, play another family as well as this one. Play them differently, but ensure that they make contact with your first family and include them in their lives. Sims can do a lot of living on the lots of other sims - attend parties, help out around the house, watch TV, soak in hot tubs, play games or sports, share in important life events like births and weddings. When you get stale on one family you switch back to the other. If you find they're both getting into ruts, throw in a third family and institute a rule intended to prevent ruts. Like, This sim lives by impulse and can't lock wants. This is an ISBI house. This is my dysfunctional family.

If there's something you always do automatically because it's good strategy or seems like the "right" way to play, like open a community business or do homework every night or have one designated cook in the house, avoid that behavior in one of your families. Always play nuclear families? Play a household of swinging singles. Always start with one sim, get married, have kids, etc? Start with eight. Even if you don't play that household very often, having it to play when you get stale will provide you with a vacation and will loosen up your playstyle and teach you things - about the game and about what you enjoy - that will help you when you return to your primary family. And your primary family will be doing things independently on community lots and visits to the the other families that will help you feel that they're taking more time to enjoy their lives.

Experiment. Experimentation never fails to freshen things up.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Lab Assistant
#272 Old 13th Jan 2013 at 8:18 PM
Quote: Originally posted by AM_Ilmeinen
Celebrity sims.

Download a custom sim, or create a famous person, and try to play the game simulating the person's life. For example, if you have Elvis Presley, get him to the music career, or entertainment career, earn fame and then make him enter the military career. Then return to the music career, or entertainment career, and in the end make him buy the Graceland mansion (here you may bluff a bit to get the necessary funds). Then enjoy the family life, marry Priscilla (or any approppriate sim girlie) and create the Elvis' kids.

This is even better if there is some custom career readily made for a specific sim. One is the Politics career (available here at MTS) where you end up being the President of the United States. Create Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama and make them all enter the same career. Any other politicians are welcome additions, but make sure you have only one President at time, and the first one you have get to the top is Bill Clinton. Play with him at the White House (bluff again the funds) until he dies, and then leave the urn at the memorial hall. This is where the fun starts: once the next President George W. Bush moves into the White House there are the previous presidents haunting the place, which is kinda cool. Then, when Bush dies, keep his urn there and move in Barack Obama. You can of course start this from George Washington if you wish, but that would be a long game. Remember too to take an 'official' picture, or a painting by an artist, of all the Presidents when they still are in office and place it near to the place where their urn is.

You just gave me.
The best idea.

What if you did go crazy and put all the presidents through the White House? Create their families, keep the neighborhood populated by having the heirs of former presidents living on around the 'hood. Try to keep it historically accurate, put 'em through Uni if their real counterparts did so, give them siblings and spouses if they had them...
Hey, Franklin Pierce once ran down an old woman on his horse while in the White House!
Alchemist
#273 Old 15th Jan 2013 at 11:38 AM
My best trick:

If the game is starting to get boring and you have a sim that is married to someone i try to cheat on the wife/husband with so many persons i can before the wife/husband finds out. Quite funny!
Lab Assistant
#274 Old 15th Jan 2013 at 8:06 PM
Playing sims "against type" can be fun, even if you do not have secondary aspirations for them. For example, I just started playing Florence Delarosa in Bluewater--she's a Knowledge sim. But now that I've let her do some achieving that will be relevant to her ongoing life (maxed out Creativity and Cooking, almost have her home business to rank 10), she's going to branch out and become a woman who likes to date around, taking her multiple boyfriends on fun dates Downtown and elsewhere. Basically, she's financially and emotionally independent (not a romantic), she will have a number of steady boyfriends she enjoys for different reasons, and thanks to ACR she'll probably get accidentally pregnant at some point and then be a happy single mom. Since her business mostly runs itself she'll have plenty of time and money to pursue her own interests (still a Knowledge sim, after all) and enjoy the kid(s) she will have.

In Riverblossom, Liam and Chloe are a great match as Fortune sims, but they are going to live on Liam's farm and not have jobs. Jobs are obvious for Fortune sims, but they will make money in other ways--him through growing food and maybe running a farm stand, her through financial consulting and probably writing books. It would be easy for them to get jobs, but then they would be like 90% of my other sims.

It can be easy and obvious to always play sims "to type" (a Romance sim who plays around, a Fortune sim with a job, a Knowledge sim always studying), but it shakes up my play to play them differently than I might normally.

The hippie commune idea above sounds fun, and I have plans to incorporate it into my neighborhood after the commune founder graduates from university. He's majoring in philosophy, is wearing John Lennon glasses, and wants to be a cult leader I'm really looking forward to setting that commune up. I will probably move him into an empty lot somewhere--maybe Riverblossom--and then build the commune buildings over time. (That's another kind of challenge and difference in game play which can be a lot of fun, building a lot out over time.)
Mad Poster
#275 Old 31st Jan 2013 at 10:20 PM Last edited by M.M.A.A. : 31st Jan 2013 at 11:01 PM.
Watching Desperate Housewives is helpful, kinda gives me an incentive to change my playstyle a bit. :P

ETA: In general, just watch TV, you'll get ideas (and some motivation).
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