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Forum Resident
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 7:34 PM
Default How do you play? Has your play style changed over time?
Another thread prompted me to start this topic, since it's one I am extremely interested in.
I would like to know about your play style -- and how it has evolved over time.

Initially, I played with a platinum goal in mind. I'd do my best to make sure each of my Sims reached platinum status. Got bored. Put the game in a drawer for several years.

Then I heard about the Legacy Challenge. I concentrated on one family. I started with a lonely landowner who -- literally -- did not have a pot to pee in. He fished and gardened for food, got a job and bought a toilet and some walls. His child became a farmer. The original Sims grandchild expanded the farm to include orchard trees and, best of all, she hired employees to do all the work! The great grandchild did nothing but paint all day -- well, that and he built a huge warehouse to store all the eggplants, fish, apples & oranges. By the fifth generation, I got bored so that Sim opened a grocery store where he could sell fruits, veggies & fish.

Around the time of starting the Legacy Challenge, I joined MTS. I started reading about how people were making their Sims pay taxes, sending them off to prison, turning them into Kings, Queens, monarchs and peasants. I read where some people have more than 100 households (you know who you are! LOL). I read that some people use dice to determine their Sims fate. I started reading terms like Integrated Hood and Self-sustaining Hood and I became fascinated by the concept. People had rules for who lived or died, rules for who gets pregnant or not, rules for who gets scars or breaks a bone. Rules, rules, rules. I love rules!

However, my fascination and love of rules did not mean I was able to completely change my game play overnight. I'm not sure that I'll ever get to the point where my Sims every moves are dictated by rules or dice. And I might not ever play a medieval game. For now, I'm playing a mini self-sustained neighborhood. It started with just 25 Sims shipwrecked on an island. They live off the land, help each other build shelter, trade firewood and venison for fruits & veggies. ACR is in charge of reproduction and, most of the romance -- though I do intervene now and then with an flirtation. I use formulas and dice to create individual ACR settings for each of my Sims. Currently, there is no school for the children, no taxes, no jail cell, no store to buy anything. Those are things that will come eventually. My next step is to add 30 more Sims and a few farm animals. From there, who knows?

So many things to learn; so few brain cells to process the info needed to learn things!
Shipwreck Island
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 7:37 PM
Yes it has changed, I use to use all kinds of cheating mods but no more I only use an adult Maxis Match default skin set and only CC that came from the Sims 2 store.
Only mods I use are the "Essential Mods" from here: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=532696
The only other mod I use is the S2L Teen Woohoo mod.

As for playing challenges I like these 2 the best.
"Legacy - Pleasantview Epic Challenge" http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=582636 I use this same style in all my Beginning Hoods.
"Main Character - The Tricou Challenge" http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=579026

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Mad Poster
#3 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 7:40 PM
I mostly just play whatever seems most fun to me and what makes sense for the family. Some of them are working towards their platinum goal, others are just barely getting by, others are too busy with the bubble blower to care. Sometimes I make events happen to fit a story and other times I let Sims do what they want. I used to not care about rotations but now I do. I use ACR now. I no longer try to force Sims who hate each other to not hate each other, or to study for a promotion when they seem happy at their current career level. I let Sims act autonomously more now just to see what they do. Sometimes I intervene if they fuck up, sometimes I don't. The Watcher is very fickle.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Scholar
#4 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 7:43 PM
Whenever I try to play with rules, I end up breaking them...

Paladins/SimWardrobes downloads: https://simfileshare.net/folder/87849/
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#5 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 8:15 PM
Quote: Originally posted by SciBirg
Whenever I try to play with rules, I end up breaking them...

That's what rules are for.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Mad Poster
#6 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 9:08 PM Last edited by gazania : 18th Sep 2017 at 12:59 AM.
I still do pretty much whatever I want. I just try not to cook my game or hood while doing so. So I would say the biggest difference is that I try being much more careful about that. Maybe a little too much, but I do think that's not entirely unjustified.

I also build my lots much, much more and try to learn new techniques and push my difficulty level higher. In the beginning, building so daunting to me. So was Sim PE. While I still don't mess around with the latter much, I will do it sometimes.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#7 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 10:51 PM
My husband bought me the new sims 2 and I wasn't sure on first glance that I liked the new camera, thought it might make me dizzy since I suffer from vertigo easily. But 10 minutes later I was hooked playing that tutorial family. I think i made random families and played them reveling in how easy it all was compared to sims 1 and how much better the sims looked and reacted. They actually had time to socialize and phone conversations lasted longer than 10 seconds. I peaked into the pre-made hoods, saw each of the pre-made set stories, played Strangetown a while. made many custom hoods that I played and tossed. I settled into happy families, having lots of kids and making LTW's. Had fun exploring or trying most things from each new EP.

2007 I got bored, looked around and found challenges. I started playing the Legacy challenge, Asylum challenge, Nickle and Dime and other challenges. Built box houses..learnt to build better houses. Built a messy house +sim+ challenge and corrupted numerous peoples games on the exchange with that house... Learned the hard way about hood corruption, watched my old hoods go up in smoke. Did a hood rebuild.
Wrote another challenge that hardly anyone ever tried because it was massively loooong. Added in a medieval hood at some point.

2010 heard of the Build a City Challenge and started the BACC then read about of Apple Valley and Isle of Thyme. BACC morphed into the integrated hood style about 2011 and have played that way ever since. Started building more, uploaded my first lot. Whenever I got bored of my regular hood I would do the occasional toddler mania or asylum challenge or build. This is still how I play although I build a lot more, so more half half now between play and building.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#8 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 11:03 PM
Over the years, I've half-heartedly tried a challenge or two, but failed at sustaining it. Then I went to make my own hoods and found it vastly more entertaining than what the premade hoods were like-except for Bellefleur, an advanced version of Pleasantview that has developed over the years-and Thalia, my own first original hood.

I've slowed down the play, to concentrate on the pixels and their actual lives..made them harder and more complex. Integrated some money mods so they don't all get rich, and when the breaks come, I deal with it. I've got mods to keep them from failing badly, but they still have to be cared for when fire comes. They don't understand that concept at all. I do protect them as much as possible in game without becoming a control freak.

Not to say that I don't push certain pixels to do certain things, but I try to make them act of their own instincts with a guiding mouse.

All in all, I've relaxed a lot in playing the game. Now I look forward to playing it without feeling pressured to make it all perfect. Perfection doesn't exist in real life or in the game.

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Turquoise Dragon
retired moderator
#9 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 11:17 PM
I fell in love with the original Sims, then along came Sims 2, and I really didn't look back at Sims too much after that. I loved the toddler stage. I loved the fact you could change the color of the crib! I didn't know what woohoo was, and it popped up while one of my sims was in the hot tub with Darren Dreamer, it, and try for baby. So... I tried for baby then tried woohoo, and realized it was the same thing :P

Sims 2 was an exciting adventure. I did tend to play happily ever after. "Still do a lot". I still have fond memories of my original hood, and have it on disc somewhere. I eventually got hooked on recolors, and CEP came out, and mods. I stopped playing vanilla. If I got bored, I went and did a challenge. One of my favorites was the homeless one. I also have done my own versions of bacc. I have tried various style hoods. Medieval I really liked, but eventually got bored. I have a retro hood, a 20s hood, a regular hood, and a castaway hood I play now. I also made recolors for myself, and built lots a lot. I created my own hoods, my own townies etc. Recreated my home town, my house, created townies from people I knew in real life. I eventually started doing recolors etc at Affinity, Then I decided I wanted a baby walker. And became determined to make one. I am really close Discovered modding was my true calling, and largely mod, with some playing thrown in. I have a ton of test hoods. but when I am seriously playing I have hoods that are just for that. I still mainly play happily ever after. I do mix it up tho. Right now I am creating an alien neighborhood, and playing with different turn ons and offs and different aspirations than I normally play with. I had a run with ACR but didn't like it.
Scholar
#10 Old 17th Sep 2017 at 11:45 PM
My play has always been story-based, always in the same hood, but beyond that it has varied.

It was initially based on who I thought had the most interesting part in the story at that time. Then I switched to rotation-based play, getting increasingly strict. Now I randomly select which houses are played on a rotation, and only play some of them (for that matter, occasionally one is played for multiple days in a rotation).

To begin with, the story-telling was mostly free-form, then it became a bit more structured. I eventually discovered and integrated challenges. At one point, I had five sub-hood-wide challenges going on simultaneously. Now I effectively have two halves; the main hood is orientated around a mystery and the subhood still orientated around the story that has driven its development over the last 16 years. Also, while lifetime wants were never a big thing in my hood, nowadays it's set up so I'd have to deliberately look for that information in a custom object if I wanted to know it.
Forum Resident
Original Poster
#11 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 12:26 AM
Oh, I love reading everyone's adventures into Simdom! I have to say that, for me, this game would not be nearly as much fun without all the custom content and mods that have come out of the Sims 2 community.

@gdayars, I am generally a happily ever after player, as well, but I do enjoy the challenge of a struggling Sim. Many years ago, I did the whole build a pool and lose the ladder thing, and I've been responsible for my Sims setting a few fires here and there. But these days, I mostly try to keep my Sims alive and well--or at least alive. :-)

Since adding an aging mod, I feel I have much more time to get to know my Sims. The game is no longer a race to death. And with this game, I even started a bit of storytelling in one of the social forum threads. I've found that to be a great way to solidify my Sims stories in my head.

Jo, I've never heard of the nickel & dime challenge. I'll have to take a peek to see what that is all about. I've wanted to try the asylum challenge--and one day I will. Isn't it great how this game can be played so many ways? With so many themes? So many goals?

So many things to learn; so few brain cells to process the info needed to learn things!
Shipwreck Island
Turquoise Dragon
retired moderator
#12 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 12:42 AM
I actually use Monique's individual aging mod. It doesn't work with cats and dogs tho I believe someone updated the mod that she had that did. I use another mod for that. I can turn sims' aging on and off as I please. I have actually extended the toddler age a few times If I am having fun at a certain age (or don't want my adults to grow old and die) I will stop aging. It allows me to create a very customized aging mod of my own choosing
Mad Poster
#13 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 2:35 AM
I think the main difference in my play style over the years is CC. I used to download everything, from whole sims to clothing, build/buy. (buy-mode-clutter!! OH my I had SO many!!)
This has changed. I make all my own sims, all my clothing and all my buid/buy stuff. Whatever build stuff I do download, would be stuff I do not make, such as..2 tiles window made to fit on one tile..etc. Stuff like that.
And well mods & hacks, for sure I still download.
One thing I never liked in my game is drama. My couple for instance..I take so much care of them; have them interact together and all. There is no break ups, no divorce and no cheating. I just cannot.
Their relationship score never get down much.
Miscarriage happen, but not because I so decide. If motives gets low or anything, there is chances it will happen. (mod related) That kind of drama, I allow.
I allow death of course, I am quite aware I have real sickness mod in my folder. Too bad if I do not succeed in keeping one alive. I do not plan it though. The only times I did plan and killed sims, they weren't mine. They were NPC's and they were mean sims, they would start fight with everyone..some of them got eaten by a cow. Some others, died of several different sim's death. They all ended in a cemetery.

As soon as I learned how to run business, I started giving my sims one. Home or community, my 'Hoods started become auto-sufficient.
Not all my sims runs business, but I love having one big sim owning pretty much everything. Madrid Dirdam, that good 'old fellow of mine, owned all the night clubs, all the restaurants, a potion shop, a Bed & Breakfast.
Raoul Haunter, owned the Town's cemetery, and they were/are good friends.
The Svenssons owns the Svensson's Fishery, as they are the greatest family of fishermen this town has, while Rodney Jung started Simanimal's Jung, a pet store.

I do not think I am at the point where I need to have my sims pay taxes, nor me as a player, play any real-life system just yet.
A prison seems like an interesting idea though. But not being able to visit prisoner at that prison, makes it much less interesting. Sure, you can build a community-lot prison and send sims there. But then who will they visit?
Can you use a prison token on a sim that forces him/her to be stuck/live on a comm lot? I don't think so. So the idea of having a prison, sits on a back burner..somewhere in my mind for now, especially if that means the sims I gave a token to, are stuck on their lot/sim bin and nothing ever happens with them. A cow is better then.

I am about to start a brand new game, I am pretty excited about it. One thing I will add is gay couples. Yeah I know. It just never happened in my game. I am way too quick to pair sims together, not letting the game decide about their orientation. There are ways to set this random (batbox is one) for the whole 'Hood, but I will simply decide who will be attracted by who, myself.
I feel like playing them now, and will make sure not everyone falls in love with the opposite sex. That is a new one for me. They will adopt though, as this is what I will enjoy.

Je mange des girafes et je parle aussi français !...surtout :0)

Find all my old MTS Uploads, on my SFS, And all new uploads Here . :)
Lab Assistant
#14 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 4:42 AM
This is a great idea for a thread, SIMelissa. I started playing with The Sims as a very young child. My grandma brought it with her one day when she came to visit. We booted it up on my father's desktop computer and played for hours. I remember being genuinely frightened by the clown?? I can't remember much else besides the Goths and the beehive hairdo woman with the golden statue of David with the boxers on.

I was probably in first grade, maybe even second, when Sims 2 came out, and my oldest brother bought the base game for me for Christmas. I was ecstatic, and I played just about every day after school and homework. I used to bring my parents' laptop over to my friend's house so we could play beside each other, her on her desktop and me on the side with the laptop.

I played for several years without ever foraying into custom content. Once I did discover it, I downloaded a boatload of garbage cc -- skinny jeans and emo haircuts and band tee shirts for my sims because that's what I wanted to look at all the time, back then.

I must've started and abandoned like four legacy challenges, maybe more. I used maxmotives a lot, but was frightened to use boolprop because I had seen its overuse (or misuse, rather) fry a friend's game. In the early days, I used to create a new family every time I logged in and play them ad nauseum. As I grew older, I began to be able to focus my energies over a couple of generations, but I didn't develop rotational play until a couple of years ago.

I put the game down intermittently; sometimes a few weeks, sometimes a few months at a time. After a time in high school, I booted up the game afresh and decided I would play Pleasantview, and watch what happened. I'm still doing that now, but with a very different approach to the game.

I think I'm inherently a micromanager, and that's why playing a household takes me so long. I love to pause and get my bearings hundreds of times in a three day rotation. I always play on speed 2, only slowing for the occasional party, date, or sweet moment. I used to only play on speed one and would panic as sims' needs would decay. It felt so fast! Now, I get exasperated at the glacial pace of speed one.

I now play very specifically according to the built in mechanics of the game as far as desires, goals, social interaction, and attraction are concerned. I direct my sims to fulfil their wants and satisfy their needs, but I don't interject with my own desire to create problems or force a narrative. Some sims surprise me with who they become, how they choose to lead their lives. Others don't, but there's something complex and interesting there, always. I wait, watch, and listen. I'm rarely bored in playing this way.

I used to love playing big families, and I loved my sims to have lots of babies. Now, I think I average out at like two kids per household. That's not that I don't still like or want big families, it's just that I let ACR and the risky woohoo chance take the reigns. I never force sims to try for a baby, and sims with a high interest in health are given birth control unless they roll the want to have a baby.

Overall, I think I've become a lot more intuitive and involved in my play style. I let my sims tell me their stories, as opposed to me forcing my preconceptions onto them and dominating their narratives. I have a bunch of couples that really surprise me, because I stopped mapping out folks' lives ahead of time.

For instance, prim and proper (but very controlling) Angela Pleasant just became Angela Martin when she married local manchild Jacob Martin one tipsy night out on the town. Now she's reorganizing his apartment, picking out his clothes for him, and ironing out all the wrinkles he's made of his life. Her sister Lilith topped off a year long affair with Don Lothario by showing off an engagement ring from him at a party, and even Don is cohabitating with Florence Delarosa, mother of his three children. All while Florence is trying to shove Don out because she sees a stable father to her kids in scholarly Gabe O'Mackey.

Do you see how odd and convoluted that is? And it all took place over my last two rotations in Pleasantview! I can't predict a thing in my game, and I love it. I'm enamored all the time by the intricacy of Sims 2, and find myself becoming freer and freer with my playstyle as I continue.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 10:08 AM
The most significant change in my game was a shift in focusing on the community as a whole, as well as on smaller communities within the bigger one, rather than on the families. These days the game revolves more about sims contributing to their community than on their individual goals (although those still play a part). The community skilling mod has been very helpful and mostly responsible for this.

Sophie David's mods also contritute - and it is such fun to see which Sims turn up to teach; often it will be the now old bin Sims. Sanjay Ramaswami turns up for creativity and charisma, Matthew Picaso teaches charisma and so on (They will probably have to start dying soon, their elixir of life won't last forever).

It also makes sense then, that all sims will support owned businesses in the community, so sims will shop from owned businesses. Community lots that are free and public (eg. the public swimming pool and the public art park) are not as fancy as the owned ones, and the heart of the town is the Unemployment Centre, where sims go to teach or be taught, to cook or have a free meal (and even a fun family day).
Mad Poster
#16 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 12:34 PM
Definitely changed over time. In the early days I'd build a big fancy house, make a family and get them to buy the house directly with motherlode. Then I'd play perfect life, maxing all skills, achieving LTW, top of career. I'd maybe get to having children, then I'd be bored. Sometimes I'd be bored before even starting the family, enjoying the creating a setup more than actually playing said setup. At one point I did manage one Sim that I really enjoyed, because instead of making a family I made a single Sim, got her a bunch of dogs and had her just live her life. That was fun, played her for quite some time. Then one day I created a sort of self sim of me and my boyfriend at the time, and that became the start of actually experiencing the game to it's full potential. Back then I didn't know about first born syndrome, and for some reason the first born of said Sims was a horribly frankenstein-y Sim. In the process of figuring out why I kept getting deformed children (facial features that are not humanly possible) I got more invested in the offspring, and found myself wanting to keep playing the second generation, and third generation, and fourth generation. In the process I started playing more interactively with the other Sims in the hood, so that the other unused playables also became part of the story. I had also found CC, so my lots were a lot more interesting and felt more realistic to me because there was clutter and the kind of furniture that has no point from a Sims perspective but that I feel need to be around for a house to feel like a home. I had also gotten the last few EPs so that I could run businesses, live in apartments and have hobbies.

But most importantly, I started playing real people. Not a perfect life where the main focus is money, skills and big house, where you meet your ultimate perfect partner as a child or teen. I started adding in some drama, had the husband cheat and be kicked out of her life, had her start dating the older brother of her daughters boyfriend, had one of the grandkids break up with her teen sweetheart before going off to college because she wanted to see what else was on the market. Had one be a wild child partying all day and all night at university. In the past I'd really only played Knowledge and Family Sims. Now I started doing popularity and fortune, and actually focusing on different things based on which aspiration I chose. I started giving my Sims more attributes than what Sims does, thinking of them as having fuller personalities, with quirks and traits that were only in my mind.

I also became a regular here at MTS, reading how other peoples did, getting inspiration and learning new ways to see things. As some of you may remember I played strictly free will off for years, and was rather adamant that free will off was the only way for me and that free will on was horrid. Back then anything out of character for my Sims would upset me, so letting them made decisions on their own was out of question. But over time with the influence of reading the fun exciting curve-balls free will on tossed other players, I decided to give it a go, and now I play mixed. I sometimes turn free will off, if I want my Sims to focus on something and not wander off when I'm trying to get them to do specific things, but most of the time it's on. It's really quite cool how the game through free will can create situations that are so perfect for the Sim you have in mind, even though there's no way for the game to know you see the Sim that way. And learning to appreciate the curve-balls and out of character moves has certainly made my game feel more real. People aren't always predictable, we act in strange and unforeseen ways. Why shouldn't my Sims have the capability to do the same?

In the earlier days, I only ever played one family. First exclusively, with no contact with the rest of the hood. Then I started opening up to having my Sims interact with all the unplayed playables. But it wasn't until generation four (though named generation 3 now, because I no longer count the self sim generation as relevant) that I learned to let go and start enjoying multiple families. I only had the one Sim in both generation 1 and 2, and I solved that by moving in generation 1 with generation 2 when she graduated college and got a big house in the main hood. But she gave birth to twins girls, and had a son. And I loved all three, I wanted to play all three. They were three totally different persons, so I didn't feel they'd realistically choose to live together, so no choice but to split them up and play three households. Over time I've added other households, new stories to explore, and now my rotation includes 16 households. At first I didn't play rotations, but to me memories are important and it started bugging me that memories were out of tune between households, with someone getting married and spring and another giving birth in the summer, but the birth memory appearing before the marriage memory. So now I play seasonal rotations. Seasonal because I am still a player that likes to get very invested in a single household, I can't just jump in and play one day, takes me a while to find the rhythm and the get back in to the story. So in that sense I kept my roots as a player, but aside from that almost nothing about my play style is the same as it was back in the early days. And thank god for that! I have so much more fun these days.

Creations can be found on my on tumblr.
Mad Poster
#17 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 1:44 PM
I don't think my style of play has changed all that much since I started. Obviously I've become better at it, but I think I found a playstyle that suited me early on and I've stuck with it. The Aging Off cheat caught my attention when I was reading the manual before I started to play. When I played the tutorial and saw that a very young-looking Tutorial Joe would become an elder in 28 days time, I decided I'd definitely use it. I have done ever since, only occasionally turning aging on to let a Sim age up. I play protectively, and I've done that so successfully that I haven't once seen the Grim Reaper; no Sim has ever died on my watch. (Sometimes I fear that the Grim Reaper will not be mocked, and I'll pay for that one day. Perhaps, when he does appear, it'll be me that he takes. )

I admit to micromanaging, but I don't routinely cancel Sims actions, unless they seem stupid or life threatening. Sometimes I replace an autonomous action with a better version of the same thing: "No, don't just make a hamburger for yourself -- make one for everybody!" My Sims' autonomous actions are often more sensible than the ones I plan for them. "Yes, you were right to go to the toilet there. You'd have had an 'accident' if you'd gone over and flirted with him like I said!"

I think I always play for the story, but our approach to storytelling is collaborative: I have a general idea where I want the story to go, but my Sims add the details and the plot twists. My Sims are free spirits and think the same about rules as maxon -- they only exist to be broken! (I think Buzz Grunt likes rules.) So I don't have rigid rules -- just conventions of how I usually play. I also play very loose rotations; with aging off I don't have to worry about families getting out of synch. I try to fulfil my Sims reasonable wants as I like to be surrounded by happy Sims, but I don't slavishly follow them. Knowledge Sims don't get "saved from death" because that would mean putting their lives in danger, and "No! You're not going to have 10 babies!"

Because of my slow playstyle I generally miss out on seeing how genes develop over generations, but I've always found in Real Life that time passes too quickly, even in childhood. I've always wanted to slow time down. So I play on Speed 1, except when the game automatically goes onto Speed 3 because everyone is asleep / at work / at school. I pause a lot to check that everyone is safe.

My Sims aren't all saints. I have some naughty downloads from BAS and our sister site, but for the most part my Sims manage to misbehave without upsetting each other too much.

I don't do the sort of nothing-in, nothing-out integrated neighbourhood, but I believe in a looser sense my neighbourhoods, especially Veronaville, are integrated. There have always been plenty of interactions between households. There are extensive networks of friendship, and Sims help each other. There are no taxes (apart from Maxis bills), but Veronaville has old-fashioned paternalistic charity, run by the Capps. There is a strong sense of civic pride, and Veronavillians are working to rid the town of its old image of semi-criminal feuding. There's a definite utopian edge. Perfection? No, but in the words of a 1980s British Rail slogan, "We're getting there." I like the idea of working together with my Sims to build a better future.

I came to the game only 5 years ago in my early 60s and I'm now in my mid-60s, so I suppose you just wouldn't expect the sort of change that (for example) bbostic8 has undergone in moving from young child to young adult over a period of 12-13 years. I'm enjoying the way I'm playing and I don't envisage changing it much in the near future. Possibly I'm playing too many Sims and 'hoods now, and it's hard to get as close to individuals as it was when I was only playing a few families in Veronaville. But I won't abandon any of them because, to misquote another advertising slogan, "They're worth it!"

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Mad Poster
#18 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 1:46 PM
It's the same but different. I loved babies, toddlers and children so it use to be I'd often play families and have them adopt a lot or force them to have 3 hour pregnancies (because I was too lazy to wait) and eventually get tired of that family and make a new one. My Sims never had jobs and rarely skills (thus for years I didn't buy ovens so my Sims couldn't burn themselves) and I'd maxmotives fairly often. It got boring, and then I got more into story writing on the old Sims 2 exchange. I would make families and write stories and usually give up after a few photos in, although sometimes I'd release a few chapters before getting bored. I only ever finished a story once.

It wasn't until years and years later, after the exchange started having problems that I started playing rotations. Which is how I currently play. I'd usually play custom built neighbourhoods. The first one started as my simself, my boyfriend at the time, and a few of our friends and such. I would play through a season, but that got harder once the first born in game generation became adults and moved into their own houses, because I liked to keep each household in the same season. This was before I knew many mods, so I would use the aspiration reward but it just got annoying. Also their aging all became inconsistent because I couldn't work out when to send teenagers off to university. So it got really messy.

I stopped playing Sims for a bit. Got a new computer. Just downloaded the base game and played vanilla for years, just making little neighbourhoods, playing loose rotations until I was comfortable and liked a family, and then playing one day rotations. Eventually I started incorporating CC, and rebought EPs (or found, this was while I was in Uni and left all my Sims games at home, so a lot of them got lost or thrown out by my step-dad). I started making theme neighbourhoods because I became obsessed with the 40s-60s era.

Then eventually I got the UC, I played a 1950s style neighbourhood for a few months, but when I was bored I played Pleasantview, which lead me to downloading an Uberhood, which is what I've been playing for a few years now on strict one day rotations. I love it, it's the most fun I've gotten out of the game I think. But I do also have a neighbourhood just for building (which is funny, because I use to hate building and strictly downloaded lots or stole them from other hoods) and a neighbourhood that I use for testing out mods, playing my simself when I'm bored or letting friends/family members play.

I still really like playing with babies, toddlers and children though. I love seeing how genetics plays a role over time. So a lot of my Sims still have lots of children... But... At least now I don't use motherless and my Sims actually have to have jobs. And ovens.

In terms of mods, my game is a whole lot more autonomous than it use to be, thanks to ACR, Inteen, Risky woohoo etc. I don't have strict storylines for my sims. I don't even pick their romances most of the time. They choose their own destiny and sometimes I help them along the way. There have been times when I've set two sims up and they've not liked each other, and all I can say to them is "okay fine. It's your life. Choose someone else!". Sometimes they make strange decisions, like Alexander Goth decided to go after the Strangetown Bella Goth (whom I gave a make over to and changed her name to 'Isabella Gough') other times they make decisions and I sit there thinking "of course! It makes so much sense for you two to be together!". I also no longer have my sims just have constant babies... Unless they want to! I don't use the try for baby button. Sometimes I contemplate it because "c'min you two have been married for ages and you're half way through the adult life stage, when are you going to?!". But I just wait. In my game. Because I like genetics, all my Sims must have at least one biological child, but some Sims like to be babyless, so if risky woohoo sets in, there's a new edition to the orphanage, instead of forcing all Sims to be parents.

~Your friendly neighborhood ginge
Mad Poster
#19 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 3:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Bigsimsfan12
Sometimes they make strange decisions, like Alexander Goth decided to go after the Strangetown Bella Goth
They say some men are just looking for a mother figure!

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Inventor
#20 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 5:53 PM
On my old XP tower with a brand new neighborhood, my ultimate goal for a couple of my Sims already is to achieve as many lifetime objectives as possible. In other words, milestones like first woohoo, marriage, max enthusiasm in a hobby, etc. Usually if they are already adult, I will give them milestones of walking, talking, and housebroken via the batbox.

I also concentrate on a Sim's lifetime want, sorting through the list with the batbox until I find that suits them best. If I want to place them at a certain job, I'll search for the LTW to reach the topmost promotion of that career. Yes, I do have the few extra lifetime wants for careers like paranormal and natural scientist, as well. I had one case with my popularity Sim however, when I stuck with the ultimate achievement of helping him make 20 best friends instead of him becoming an ecological guru. With the amount of college dormies in existence, that wasn't too hard.

I am a very casual and finicky player when it comes to these various paths for my custom-made Sims. I also focus a lot on diversity when it comes to choosing jobs, which means most if not all my Sims will have different jobs. This style of play has not changed since I got the UC two years ago.
Lab Assistant
#21 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 6:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by AndrewGloria

I came to the game only 5 years ago in my early 60s and I'm now in my mid-60s, so I suppose you just wouldn't expect the sort of change that (for example) bbostic8 has undergone in moving from young child to young adult over a period of 12-13 years. I'm enjoying the way I'm playing and I don't envisage changing it much in the near future. Possibly I'm playing too many Sims and 'hoods now, and it's hard to get as close to individuals as it was when I was only playing a few families in Veronaville. But I won't abandon any of them because, to misquote another advertising slogan, "They're worth it!"


It's very fascinating to read about your experience, AndrewGloria. As you may or may not know, I had been lurking on this website for about a decade before I ever posted anything, and have come to associate folks like you and PeniG with the greater simming community. You've always had a unique and very touchingly sentimental playstyle from what I've seen and heard, and it's valuable to be able to see why and how. I'd love to see more of Veronaville and Andrew and Gloria, and hear what they're up to these days. :lovestruc
Mad Poster
#22 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 10:53 PM Last edited by gazania : 19th Sep 2017 at 2:07 AM.
Awww ... my answer was too short. Think I'll add a little more.

Somewhat related to building ... in the old days (2006 or so), I'd plop lots anywhere. There was little rhyme or reason.

Now, I make much more of an effort to plan a hood layout. My custom Uni, for instance, actually is in what I consider the closest thing to a college town that I can get in the game, save for using the community college mod (with which I had a pretty bad experience, unfortunately). There are stores, bars. clubs and other places to go . There is a fire department, a few restaurants and a small bank branch with an ATM. My collegiates can sun themselves on one of two beaches on the weekend. Dorms are concentrated in one area, and small houses not too far away from them. I made every effort to place campus buildings like a puzzle, leaving as little space between them as possible and lot-shrinking in many cases. I found hood deco that can work with a college campus town ... baseball fields, a hospital, a farm building on the outskirts of town (though I hope to make an agricultural building on the outskirts, perhaps ... right now, it's hood deco.)

As people are coming out with new mods and themes and I occasionally get an idea (and by the way, am en route to downloading a certain tiny police station here (as much as I like building, sometimes I don't mind a break.... and college students can get rowdy!), my campus town is expanding. I take pictures of it from time to time just in case i have to recreate it. I just made a dance studio for my dance students ... a few days late for the last challenge (and probably way too CC-d), but it works fine for the campus. I've been trying to pump a certain mod for info about the next theme (and perhaps a source of inspiration for another campus building), but this mod ain't talkin'! Those mods seem to know allll the tricks.

The campus itself ... just an overview:

My main hood also has a downtown area (I don't play Downtowns), a shopping district with a section for wealthier customers and one for the not-so-wealthy and a town center. Quite a difference from my "plop in anywhere!" stance back then!

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Mad Poster
#23 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 11:02 PM
@gazania - I think you forgot a picture there...

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Mad Poster
#24 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 11:20 PM Last edited by gazania : 19th Sep 2017 at 11:00 PM.
Sorry .... I had to take one. I've added a few things since then! This is just the campus area, not the stores and hangouts outside it.



And there is plenty of room to grow! I look for and try to think of new ideas all the time. I'll see if I can't find a older picture of a hood somewhere on a backup for comparison. (EDIT ... Nope, and that's a bummer, because I remember being pretty proud of my first custom Uni hood back then, even though I was really scarce on ideas for it. But it was fun looking at the old pictures, many containing idea for stories I never finished, and won't.)



Now that I think of it, there was recently a build-your-own computer download I saw ... computer science/tehcnology building, maybe? Time for another floor plan for inspiration, perhaps? Right near the science building (the single building across from the three main campus buildings)? Hmmm ....

Even as I write this, joandsarah's tiny police station will be on there, so this hood is still expanding. Most of the lots are ones I made ... I did not make the parking lots or the yellow building, however, and the baseball and soccer fields are hood deco. As I keep writing, what I lack in skill, I make up for in volume!

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Mad Poster
#25 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 11:33 PM
From SimWardrobe. You know where to get it.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
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