How do you get the most out of your game?

[Petchy]

I'd love to know how players of The Sims 3 play their games - how do you go about neighburhoods with your sims, is it always legacy-style? Do you just pick one trait and go for it? How do you play for long spans of time?

I find it really difficult to get more out of the game than Create-A-Sim and the world building.. I'm a micro-manager and city-planner I guess instead of a player! Sadly, this leaves me hollow in my experiance of the expansions and the games. It's the old saying of so many channels to watch yet there is never anything on TV! I know some people just love their game and play for hours upon end.. how do they do it I wonder..?

[QuandaryOfJigsores]

I try to put a lot of thought into characters I make, and they end up being fun to play because of it. I do spend way too much time in Create-a-Sim though. It's like therapy for me.

[Attercap]

I like to plan out different families and constantly try different trait combinations and professions within. I like to say "I think this will be the story" and see how right or wrong I am. I used to be a consummate micro-manager, but have recently started allowing for a bit of autonomy to let the traits really "shine."

I guess I get the "most" out of my game by constantly trying to change up my play style in order to discover what I might have previously missed. ...That said, I spend a lot of time in CAS and house decoration.

[Howabominable]

I always plan everything that my sims are going to do with their lives. I usually know what my children are going to be when they grow up before they are conceived, though sometimes the game gets better ideas than that I had come up with. I also like to experiment with occult sims. Right now I have a mummy I made from a guy I abducted from China. He's a repairman who's addicted to cigarettes. I also set little goals for myself. I have a huge library, and my goal is to fully-stock each shelf with only one type of book (with the same book cover). So I have an author sim writing books. I try to get every book in the game this way.

[morphius1]

It makes it more playable for me by not just playing one family. I create all the sims in a town, or sometimes recreate the ones already there, and play all families; one family a day.
I just wish we could make the service sims (maids, mailman, etc...) and role sims active. Or have my sims have a job as a bouncer or a mixologist or the mailman/lady or the cop that shows up at burgluries.
And as Howabominable said, I also plan out what or who my sim(s) will be doing.

[zigersimmer]

I do not play every day. I also limit the amount of time I spend playing any given town/household in one sitting. Familiarity breeds contempt sorta thingy.

I stick to one legacy in each saved game I play, and let each legacy take it's own direction for the sake of variety. I also play in each town I have installed rather than playing all my legacies in the same town, again for variety.

I should also add that I use Twallan's Suite to fix so many of the annoyance's that EA left in the game.

[Elledee]

I usually play every day, some days I play for extended periods, (like 12 hours) other days just for an hour or so depending on my schedule. When I start a new town I plan out my sims and their storylines ahead of time. I don't get so bored that way. I will normally play one main family and switch to another one for a bit and then go back to them. If my save file is huge and the game is starting to lag or I get sick of the town and everybody in it I come up with another storyline and start over the next day.

[sheridanhoughton]

I play in a similar way to Elledee. I don't necessarily plan out the story lines for the future, but I figure out a history for the new sims I create. For example, I had an ageing rock star married to a teen groupie who wanted to learn music. Then I think out the rest of the story as I go along. But I leave them to themselves a lot, because the pleasure for me is to see what they do, not make them do everything myself.

I prefer poorer sims rather than rich sims, and my sims usually live in small run down houses. I don't worry about making the toddlers and children get skills, because I figure they should have some fun and not have their noses kept to the grindstone all the time.

[Zokugai]

If you have problems getting over micromanaging your sims, I find instituting a temporary or permanent "rule" of completing all wishes makes my sims feel less like assembly line clones and more like individuals with personalities. And it tosses a bit of unexpected outcomes into things when you "have to" let your sim spontaneously divorce his wife because he suddenly decided he wanted to.

[PuffyAmi]

I don't get to play that often but when I do, I spent 2 or 4 weeks of nonstop playing and then I won't play again for half a year. I usually play with one Legacy and (as some others pointed out as well) I decide beforehand what each sim (unborn kids of next generation) will do.
I also put lot of time into taking pictures of the family, of the house, making scenario etc and then photoshopping them. Basically I build up a story of each generation just so those images are there as my own memories of the sims. :bunny: :luff:

I still wish I could play more but I always end up wasting the gameplay time into downloading CC/mods and organizing them like crazy! I think I have more than half of all the CC ever made for sims 3 even if I use only quarter of that and the rest is all my backup folders ... oh the terrible downloading addiction :|

[medieval_simmer]

In the EAxis worlds I only play the premades and I have a downloaded medieval world. I micromanage a lot: I plan my sims lives from the moment they are conceived, even though I do leave some choices to them when it comes to careers and marriage. And I randomize traits for more variety.