I can see my families in Dodge having to put up with tons of dust and dirt around town and a consturction zone for a while as the town starts getting ready for winter.It looks like fun times for the Jankowsky and Honns families with dust and dirt all around their homes as they get ready for the winter at home with the building they also have to do on their homesteads.

I've said it before but the Apartment Life theme music is so pretty.

I went hiking yesterday and kayaking today... Now I'm wishing I could design elaborate trails and rivers in game and actually see my Sims make use of the great outdoors. I hate how sending Sims hiking or jogging just makes them disappear for a bit. My solution was to create a park called Luna Canyon Nature Preserve. I made it look like it's the start of some trails, and I imagine they continue all the way to the top of the canyon for the most serious hikers (my town Luna Canyon is located at the bottom of the Canyon). I also added in a swimmable lake. Hiking trails and backcountry camping would enhance Three Lakes so much too.

I wish I could "love" this ten more times. I grew up in National Parks (literally- my parents both worked for the park service) and so hiking trails have been a part of my life since always. I've tried to think of ways of making hiking a bit more justified and realistic in-game but at this point still haven't found anything to appropriately capture the feel of a proper hike (let's be real, if you're done in an hour, that's not a hike, that's MAYBE a brisk walk)- I want 10, 20, 50 mile trails that take several days to finish! Best I've ever done was to set up huge lots that were mostly just landscaped wilderness, with a single small campsite somewhere in them, and then pretending that the road wasn't actually there. (I should revive that approach and make a few lots like that for upload, come to think of it)

Tinnitus Earworm

@Zarathustra I envy your childhood so much! When I was a kid my dad took us camping a lot, but I grew up on the east coast so the closest national park to me is Shenandoah National Park- and it's still 5 hours away. Totally worth it though. Hiking is one of my favorite activities. I would love to do rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. Since my sister moved to the west coast a couple years ago I've visited several times and went to a lot of the parks in Arizona, Utah, and California. I also met my boyfriend from my school's rock climbing team. I go to school in the city and my semesters are so jam packed that I barely get to enjoy nature. I spend so much time planning and day dreaming about the roadtrips I take over breaks. When I'm hiking, climbing, and camping I'm always in my happy place, and that's why I really wish I could have all of those features for my Sims. My custom hood is inspired by Zion National Park. It's the best way I could think of to connect my Sims to one of my favorite sanctuaries - but the game itself is a sanctuary for me already.

The Build/Buy catalogue is like Sims' version of internet shopping and 3D printing.

I wonder how others' sims afford houses that cost like 150k without cheats. The average income for sims is like 2k a week, without bonuses it would take like 75 weeks. Wish I could make chance cards more frequent and grind bonuses.

For me those houses are usually reserved for the families that have been around for 3 generations and have had plenty of time to have saved up money. Legacy families I believe is what they're called.

There are also chance cards from work what can give up to 50K simoleons Big Bonus and if my sim or family is lucky they can shorten the time until they can buy expensive house.

If you haven't modded out the $20K handout, you can have sims move in and move out, leaving their original $20K behind as they pick up the new one. Multiple adults earning money in a family allows savings to accumulate fast. Making money in a vanilla game is not difficult.

Agreed. I never use money cheats and my established Sims all have a reasonable house. The most expensive ones, of course, are the result of generations. My new founder Sim in another neighbourhood has moved house three times, each time the house was a little bigger and better.

I modded the game to be more difficult to make money. I halved all the pay for everything that pays and made the skills take longer to fill, but I did decide to keep the 20k handout. I felt like the default game wasn't hard enough money-wise, but some seed money, in my opinion, is necessary to ensure I can set the game up to make money.

I thought it was too easy to make money in the vanilla game, so I have modded out the $20K handout, but I do usually have to give new Sims straight out of college a handout to get them started, around $10K (plus whatever scholarship money they keep). I want it to be harder for them to earn money to buy things. They usually need to have a roommate or a partner with a job to make ends meet. The ones who do move up either do it by getting a bonus from the chance cards or by marrying a rich townie. Sometimes kids do inherit by moving into their parents' house, but if their parents retire before they get out of college and move to Strangetown (where my retired folks live), they have to start from scratch. So it becomes interesting to me which families have to scrimp and save to buy the necessities and which ones get a lucky break and then can buy whatever they want. That feels a little closer to real life to me. The most expensive houses in my neighborhood right now are in the $40K range, and only the richest families can afford those, plus the appropriate furnishings, of course. I don't think any family has a net worth of over $100K.

It would take generations for my sims to get into $100K+ houses as I use a bunch of mods to reduce salaries; eliminate handouts, life insurance, and chance cards; and raise bills and tuition. I like a challenging game.

The pain when you know exactly what hair you want but have to endlessly scroll for it anyway.
Ts2 desperately needs a search function. Honestly the biggest flaw of the game. :/

Or a re-order catalogue option. I try to use base game hair and outfits more these days because I remember never really using them earlier, and it would be so much easier if I didn't have to go all the way to the end of the hair catalogue when choosing, especially since the base game is what has the most hairstyles.

Any time I tell people how much I love The Sims 2, I always have to add the asterisk that the game is held together by rubber bands. So easy to corrupt, by the most seemingly benign actions. It would be pretty much perfect in my eyes otherwise.

What if you had a series of several very rustic, landscaped lots with tents and water on each one, all lined up on the empty areas of the hood. Hide phones somewhere hidden, maybe an invisible recolor? Maybe throw in something for mementos obejcts, on each one. Like lets say there are five lots, and if sims take a 5 day vacation, first Lot has camping, where they will spend the first night, maybe it has an axe throwing thing. The rest of the time they hunt bugs, bird watch, fish, yoga or something outsoorsy. Next morning they move to lot 2 and spend the day there - maybe lot two has the wooden stump and a swimable lake camping to spend the night - the next day they move onto lot 3 camp site and maybe there's a log roll there for them to get a memento, and a small pond for fishing for dinner (if they only go on vacay for 3 days this is where it ends, if not it goes to 4 and 5)

It's a rough draft of an idea that can simulate a multi day trail hike, the sims would forgo the spa and flapjack experience but each lot they would camp and grill - with some rock chair/log chair and outhouse cc I think it'd be an interesting endeavor! Tagging @Zarathustra because the idea came from his multi golf lots and how I have been playing them this week with sims going to each one to 'play' a game and plus he'd maybe be inspired to build something.

Seems my game hates snow and insists it has to CTD. Guess I'll be playing ... Neverwinter nights. ba-dum tss

Trying to come up with a name for my uberhood is frustrating. There's no good way of making a punny Welsh-ish name (yep, all my games are Welsh inspired. What can I say, I love where I live lol) because all of the translations either sound plain bad, or they're borrowed English words...and they just sound plain bad.

You could name your neighborhood Welshish. I think it sounds nice.

Not Welsh enough I want it to literally be in the language.

No, I was going to do a general ‘sim’ related name and then translate it into Welsh...the best I can come up with is related to ‘green’ or ‘crystal’ (gwyrdd, grisial) so I can make it plumbob themed...I’m thinking on it.

If I'm gonna play an actual neighborhood, it needs to be a good neighborhood, which means I need way more lots than I have right now, and I don't have inspiration for many of them!

my random thought yesterday about sim groups spurred me to re-make a meme in sims 2 for it.