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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Sep 2020 at 11:47 PM
Default Advice for first time playing the premades?
Hiya!

So I've been playing sims 2 literally since the day it came out and have never, not once, ever, played a premade family in any of the premade towns.....
And, I've been sort of wanting to lately. But I don't know where or who or how to start.

I know Pleasantview is the most popular, or it seems that way to me anyway. And then there's the issue of playing rotationally which I've also never done in 2. Would you recommend adding subhoods to the premade hoods? Or is that just too many sims then? How do you not get bored?

I'm not sure what sort of responses I'm looking for exactly, just some tips, tricks, recommendations, advice, etc.
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Field Researcher
#2 Old 18th Sep 2020 at 11:56 PM
About a year ago, I started Pleasantview for the first time. You're in good company never having done it.

In regards to "how do you not get bored," the same way you keep yourself engaged with the Sims in other scenarios?

Since it's your first time doing rotational, remember you have options. You can do it daily, weekly, by season. I play everyone a max of 10 days before ensuring everyone else has caught up, which is a season in my game. So if a household is at the next season, I know that I am not going to play them again until everyone else is caught up.

I also recommend moving in all the families connected and playing them (I killed the Oldies, which I won't do if I ever start over), playing the scenarios at the start, and realizing that they may have started at the same point in the story as for everyone else, but what happens next is up to you.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 12:23 AM
Take a look at my old threads Playing Pleasantview for the first time and Playing Strangetown for the first time. As for Veronaville, I've been playing it since the day I first started up the game, with lots of CAS Sims, townies made playable, and attached sub-hoods. I love the town, and the Sims who live there, to bits. :lovestruc

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Instructor
Original Poster
#4 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 1:02 AM
Thank you both for the responses!

Coriel - The reason I worry about getting bored with rotational play is because I feel like it'd take longer for things to happen if I'm playing multiple families. But I guess I won't know until I try. I'd probably do a week, less if that winds up feeling like too much.

And Andrew I've bookmarked both of your threads to read, not much time tonight but I took a peak and they seem like they will be helpful.
Scholar
#5 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 1:15 AM Last edited by sturlington : 19th Sep 2020 at 1:29 AM.
When I first started playing Sims 2, I didn't realize that the premades had scripted events. So I'd recommend you just go through and play a couple of days with each family, let the scripted events play out, and see what you think. You don't have to save if you don't like the results.

For example, Strangetown is my favorite hood. So I'd start in the Curious household, let Vidcund get abducted by aliens (hint: to guarantee this will happen, make him go up to the very tallest telescope), and then see how you like it. Play the other households, let the scripts play out, and see what you think. If you don't like the results, you can start over and make them go your own way.

I do love playing rotationally because then you get to see the effects of what happens in other households as you rotate around. Pick a rotation that works for you. After a lot of experimentation, I picked Mon-Thur and Thur-Sun, but some people like a week, a day, or a season. I think Pleasantview has a manageable number of starting households. I personally would start with the Pleasants or the Brokes. I love the Brokes--I think that's a good household for getting acquainted with the neighborhood without too much interrelational drama right off the bat.

As for how to not get bored, I would advise you to just not play anyone you find boring. I find the Bluewater Village Sims boring and don't play them anymore, but then I don't like to run businesses. In Pleasantview, I have found the Oldies boring, but you can move them in with Mary-Sue. (There was that one playthrough of Pleasantview where Herb Oldie ruined Angela's wedding by coming on to Jennifer Burb there--these people are all related, it was a whole big thing.) You can always get the Sim blender and turn anyone boring into a townie. I personally don't like playing single households, so I have found that making boardinghouses and retirement homes helps keep certain households from getting boring. Also, if you play rotationally, go to community lots, because there may be interaction among nonplayables on those lots that will add to the drama.
Field Researcher
#6 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 1:24 AM
It can take longer. I still have some of the first generation alive (Dina & Nina - Calientes have a long life; of course I also have an extended age mod, so there's that).

But because all the families are so varied, you can still try so many different things.

I would not recommend adding a shopping district, and keep all non-connected Sims in the bin. Add the Burbs and the Oldies for Pleasantview (not sure who you need from other hoods), but don't move in the Ottomas or Picasos, etc. Then it won't be too crazy. Do add a downtown. And maybe a university (maybe custom if you don't want additional playables)
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#7 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 2:21 AM
Quote: Originally posted by CASnarl
Hiya!

So I've been playing sims 2 literally since the day it came out and have never, not once, ever, played a premade family in any of the premade towns.....
And, I've been sort of wanting to lately. But I don't know where or who or how to start.

I know Pleasantview is the most popular, or it seems that way to me anyway. And then there's the issue of playing rotationally which I've also never done in 2. Would you recommend adding subhoods to the premade hoods? Or is that just too many sims then? How do you not get bored?

I'm not sure what sort of responses I'm looking for exactly, just some tips, tricks, recommendations, advice, etc.


I recently did the same, after 16 years I made an Ubber hood. I have Pleasantview as the main hood with Stragtown, Bluewater Village(which I had played before), Belladonna Cove and Desruata(sp?) valley attached as sub hoods. I left in the Pleasantview townies but the rest I used empty templates on as the game comes with far too many ugly twonies for my liking. I am wondering if I should add Veronaville.

I have played rotational a long time, wouldn't play any other way.

I also play integrated. Integrated play means making hoods run as self sufficiently as possible, where playable sims fill the roles and run the services. For example instead of sending kids off to a rabbit hole school, I play a school, to get groceries a sim needs to go buy them from another playable run store. The famous maid Katlyn will be made a playable maid sicne she is intrgal to the story from the start. It's taking me a while to get this going with the pre-mades (still have not played every house yet) since it's not set up this way I am slowly working towards it. I find this type of play keeps me interested in the families far more than just random playing. Not to say I will play each and every family, but if I don't, those I will cheat up and along.

I also placed all bin families. My largest integrated custom hood had 60 families so all these don't worry me and as I said just because they are there does not mean I have to play each one. I plan to put all the elders into a retirement home. Lilith is living with Herb and Coral but boy those two bore me.

"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 19th Sep 2020 at 2:54 AM
I've been playing sims rotationally since I started and even did so in TS3 with Mods.I usually just play one day in each household and can play up to a few days at a time if there's a pregnancy or other big events though I'd have to just skip that family as I catch the other households up.I do have a subhood selection UI Mod that changed it so I could add any terrain as a shopping district without having to add the default Bluewater Villiage first and end up adding a bunch of sims when what I really need is more space for adding housing.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 10:39 AM
I've got an uberhood and also a genderswapped uberhood where I play a week for each household and two years in university and yeah, it's a lot of Sims. It took me eight years to finish the first rotation - although saying that, I did take a very long break for several years because the game was taking hours to load and was quite crashy, which was extremely demotivating. I also find that most of the delay is because I take screencaps and document my gameplay on Tumblr - if you're just planning on playing, it probably won't take anywhere near as long as that. But what you could do is start out with one main hood and then if you want to play with more, just add your favourite hoods as subhoods, it's your game and you don't have to add everyone if you don't want to.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#10 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 11:27 AM
I may yet put the boring ones into an asylum challenge.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Forum Resident
#11 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 1:35 PM
Because I had an older sibling that policed all the premade 'hoods as a kid (with the exception for the time when she had a laptop, so me and my younger siblings played on the family PC, thus giving us access to the 'hoods that one install), I never played the premade 'hoods in years until recently. For the past decade I've known the game, I was forced to play custom 'hoods.

The premade 'hood I'm focusing on at the moment is Pleasantview (as it's N001), and I'm playing it vastly different from my usual playstyle. I'm playing it in week long rotations with aging on; my usual playstyle, for the curious, is aging off and playing whatever family I feel like playing.

Since I hadn't played rotationally before, I looked up the prima guide play order for the 'hoods, but you can start from wherever you please. I have them written down as Lothario, Goth, Caliente, Broke, Dreamer, Pleasant, Burb, and Oldie (for Pleasantview), and Curious, Specter, Beaker, Smith, Grunt, Singles, and Loner (for Strangetown), I haven't started with Veronaville yet. I then play for a week and loosely go by wants, and just look after their needs and watch the chaos unfold.

You may not want to do that, though, but it's an idea.

As for my current Pleasantview...

Everyone has played Pleasantview, so my objective with that 'hood is to try and deviate from the norm... sort of. This didn't come into play properly until a couple of weeks ago. I added Strangetown, had the Oldies adopt a child and a toddler (if you've seen my posts in the 'what's happening in your game' thread, you might know about the odd storyline). For example, Don Lothario is painted as the town casinova by Maxis, however in my game, he's nothing but a 'butt monkey;' his lovers hate him, he catches them in the arms of others frequently, and just has his wife Cassandra now. Lucy Burb passed away young (teen) with her father in a fire, Daniel and Nina married, Beau is unstable, and among other things. The point of what I'm trying to say is that the game might say one thing, but don't be afraid to take it in a direction you would like to take.

As for the family bin sims, I'm just saving them in case inbreeding begins to occur, or if there's nobody for someone to marry if they want to. You can do whatever you want with them, though. The ones in the bin like the Singles, Burbs, etc. get placed in their respective 'hoods.

If you're looking for inspiration on what to do, I'd recommend any threads that discuss what people do with premades. Such as the ones Andrew linked, the 'what's happening in your game' thread has some stuff about premades, and I have found topics like 'what have you done with the <neighbourhood name> sims.' There is a lot of information out there.

I doubt I was helpful, I was more or less rambling, but maybe there was something useful hiding in there. Hopefully...

When a game is predictable, it's boring.
That goes for any medium that isn't life.
That's why The Sims 2 is my favourite sims game.
It has elements of unpredictability and everything feels more involved.
The Sims 4 is another story altogether...
Field Researcher
#12 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 1:55 PM
If you play pleasantview, I'd look up the right order as some of the scripted events are dependent on relationship, and you might change that if you do another one first.

For the other ones, it doesn't matter.

If you want to get into rotations, I usually play one day in each family to set up, and then play loose "everyone should be in the same week". So if a household is stressful or annoying, I might only do one or two days at a time, if something interesting happens, I might go the whole week.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 2:09 PM
Read the bios, look at the memories, let the scripted events play out - but also, just because the company made these sims doesn't mean you have to restrict how you play them to what the company seems to have had in mind. Keep your mind open and observe how they play for you. If Loki and Circe don't seem inclined to abuse Nervous, you don't have to make them. If Dina seems desperate rather than golddigging, roll with that. You can rewrite bios and household descriptions, you can take into account features that came with later EPs or you can manipulate them, you are still in control and no one has to be pleased with how things work out except you.

Rotational play can take a long time, if you have a lot of sims, but this can be an advantage, as events in one household send out ripple effects through all the others in the hood. Don leaves Cassandra at the altar, Dina catches him flirting with her sister, Mortimer marries Dina instead, Lilith and and Angela fight by the buffet, Darren is frightened into aspiration failure by a ghost - and then you follow up on those things, with Nina suddenly alone in that too-expensive house, Lilith's runaway event is triggered early, Darren is to wrung out to do anything and Dirk is forced to desperate measures and joins Dustin in the criminal career, Dina keeps kicking over Don's trash can faster than Kaylynn can pick it up and Roach Flu is abroad in the land, and on and on and on. What I find, playing one day rotations in a large hood means that by the time I get back around to a family I'm really eager to play them again and find ways to play them intensely for their one day, with community lot visits and owned businesses and parties and dates and inviting people over so I can see them mid-rotation; then at the end of the day I'm satisfied and ready to go on to the next family I haven't seen in awhile. At the end of a rotation if there's any families I feel I really need more time with, I return to their households and play an extra day with aging off, so they don't sprint ahead of the rest of the neighborhood. Vacations happen between rotations, too, and there's different ways to integrate university play depending on circumstances and comfort levels and present composition of student bodies.

But playing in a small hood, like one of the premades without the bin families - whoa, that goes lickety-split! I can play an entire five-household hood in an afternoon, even with the usual community lot visits, and hoo boy can a lot happen in those afternoons!

The important thing in playing rotations is to find your comfort level. I'm dedicated to playing one day at a time to retain immediacy, and in a large neighborhood I make no attempt to synch seasons or days of the week because it's a hassle and because you get a real sense of time passing, of each day you're playing as a composite of a longer period and of sims continuing on with their lives when you're not playing even though they're frozen right where you left them and major events won['t happen behind your back. If I try to play one family longer than that I get burnt out on them and feel that the other families I care about are stagnating. But other people feel too restricted at one day and are more comfortable with seasonal, or week based, or two day rotations. It will also make a difference if you have an aging mod - making different life stages last longer or shorter periods will not only affect the pacing of your play, but your sense of urgency about Getting Things Done.

The premade hoods are good places to experiment with playstyles, mods, and so on, because that's what they were designed as - places for players to experiment with the features of the game. They have strong storylines in place that you can build experiments around, and they're easily reset to start over. So go wild. Try out one day rotations in Strangetown, seasonal ones in Riverblossom, weeks in Pleasantview. Open Veronaville with empty templates so it's only three families big; open Belladonna Cove without them and add all the bin sims, so you feel like you're playing an entire city. Play one neighborhood in a consistent household order and another based on who you haven't played yet this rotation that you feel like playing. Make different game setups with different mods and try different playstyles in each. Keep what you enjoy. Discard what you don't. Turn anyone who bores you into a townie. Just have fun.

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.)
Scholar
#14 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 2:10 PM
As for the bin Sims, I am kind of sick of them! I only have through Nightlife, so the bin families are the Ottomai, Ramaswamis, Travellers, and Cyd Roseland. I have killed poor Cyd so many ways--he has never had a full life in any of my games, poor guy. I have played the Ottomai so many times, I just can't do it again, and the kids are so ugly--usually I don't care about that kind of thing but they are just hideous. The Ramaswamis are painfully boring. I do usually play the Travellers, but only because I like Tina when she's grown up; I don't really care for her parents, but I usually make them hippies or something interesting to give an alternative family. My problem is that the Ottomai and Ramaswamis have jobs already, so people usually bring them home for work and then I feel like I have to do something with them. This time, I killed off the older Ottomai, I put David in college because I don't mind him, and the younger kids went into the adoption pool. I turned the Ramaswamis into vampires and won't play them.

If I need more Sims to shake up the genetic pool, I like the premades in the universities much better than the bin families. I usually pair one university with one neighborhood. La Fiesta Tech of course goes with Strangetown and Sim State seems to match up well with Pleasantview. I have found a lot of interesting premade uni students at both of them. I have never gotten very far playing Veronaville because I hate the houses there, and I long ago deleted Riverblossom Hills. I have downloaded Riverside, which looks like a very interesting neighborhood with a lot of families living in it, and if I ever get around to playing that, I will pair it with Academie La Tour.

Of course, you can always marry townies if you need to prevent inbreeding. I don't find the townies as interesting as the uni students, for some reason.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 5:59 PM
I used to play the premande towns when I first started as a way to learn about the game until I got used to it and ended up playing the empty terrain maps instead and I can add any empty terrain for my first shopping district if my main central one is getting full and there's no room to add more lots for homes.I've got my BACC in the Strangetown blank terrain and the town is Dodge and it's taking place currently in the 1840's with winter arriving very soon for my two families already living in Dodge as homesteaders.It's been a very dry year so far for 1841 and winter looks like it might be dry this year.
Mad Poster
#16 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 6:32 PM
I've played all of them..in so many different ways! I stay interested in a Sim, family, and hood by creating my OWN story - although I have to make notes to remember what the stories are (in bios, lot descriptions, and hood bios). Nowadays (with lots of mods) I get bored with small families, so have lots of Sims living in each house. This is usually created by college graduates moving back home, or teens growing up but not moving out, and even distant relatives moving together (this created lots of drama in Veronaville!) PLUS I read Sims bio, and look at their personality, interests, and skills. Then I use "bool prop" to adjust all those things to make more sense - to me. Like, I renamed Nervous Subject (obviously not a real name) to Grim Spector, had Circe & Loki have babies from different sources then die - leaving "Nervous" with the babies. as he had proven, in other plays, to be a good father. I made him nice, a bit playful, shy, active (unlike his original almost NO personality). Having been SOLD to the Beakers as a child, he had learned nothing except not to trust people. I did NOT make him a Family sim (I didn't want him to want a wife); I changed his interests to NOTHING except animals, paranormal, travel, toys, and school. To me, these things made sense, and enhanced what I thought he should act like. So create your own stories..it will keep you involved.

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#17 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 8:03 PM
I like your version of Nervous, @grammapat ! :lovestruc
Meet Me In My Next Life
#18 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 8:50 PM
I still play Pleasantview with all it's players, but I also added new Sims to the hood and I moved Sims like the Broke, Dreamers, The Twin Caliente, Don Lothario out of there lots into better new lots that I build. Also I did not follow Maxis storyline I add my own new stories like. For example Don is no loner a romance Sims he is now a family Sims married with twins a girl and boy, I created a new Sims for him name Rosa. The Caliente sister are both married and with there own life but both remain close in family ties.

The Broke family Brandi is remarried with a new child Dustin is no longer working as a criminal.
Cassandra and Darren Dreamer are living together and expected to be married, Old man Goth I reunited with the "Real Bella " ( not the one in Strangetown ) they have a new child.
So I added my own twist and turns to PleasantView creating new Sims like for the Caliente sister I created two twin brothers ( both are lawyers )

So to make a long story short I only have two neighborhood in my game PleasantView and my Custom hood Shanghai that I played. I removed Strangetown and VeronaVilla years ago.

"Nothing in life is a Surprise it just happen to come your way at the time".
Mad Poster
#19 Old 19th Sep 2020 at 11:11 PM
Default good sir...
Quote: Originally posted by simsample
I like your version of Nervous, @grammapat ! :lovestruc

I hardly think your appreciation of my renaming is worthy of (gasp) "lovestruck". I find myself all atwitter. Excuse me while I lie down.

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Inventor
#20 Old 20th Sep 2020 at 3:02 PM
Quote: Originally posted by grammapat
Like, I renamed Nervous Subject (obviously not a real name) to Grim Spector, had Circe & Loki have babies from different sources then die - leaving "Nervous" with the babies. as he had proven, in other plays, to be a good father. I made him nice, a bit playful, shy, active (unlike his original almost NO personality). Having been SOLD to the Beakers as a child, he had learned nothing except not to trust people. I did NOT make him a Family sim (I didn't want him to want a wife); I changed his interests to NOTHING except animals, paranormal, travel, toys, and school. To me, these things made sense, and enhanced what I thought he should act like.


I've renamed Nervous nearly the same thing! Except I spelled it Grimm . I've also been considering giving him back a few of his lost personality points once he's free of the Beakers. Midge has done an asexual plug-in for ACR, so I'm thinking I might snag that and use it on him. I haven't decided yet if he'll be inheriting Olive's place or if it's going to be converted into a community lot. Ophelia is already slated to move in with the Smiths after she marries Johnny.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#21 Old 20th Sep 2020 at 3:42 PM
Quote: Originally posted by grammapat
I hardly think your appreciation of my renaming is worthy of (gasp) "lovestruck". I find myself all atwitter. Excuse me while I lie down.
:lovestruc:lovestruc:lovestruc
Mad Poster
#22 Old 21st Sep 2020 at 11:05 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simsample
:lovestruc:lovestruc:lovestruc

AAAKKKKK poor Pattycake swoons o'er the mustache

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Field Researcher
#23 Old 21st Sep 2020 at 4:42 PM
I usually begin any new Sims installation with a strategic enabling/disabling of stealth hoods as I load hoods in a specific order to make sure that all the premades end up in one hood, but that nobody gets duplicated (except for Bella Goth, obviously). It’s pretty easy to do, if fiddly - I just have to enter Riverblossom Hills first so that I can move the Kat and Kim households out of the lot bin and into the hood. Only one hood gets Downtown attached, and only one gets Bluewater Village.

Of course, having gone to all that effort, I then rarely play anything apart from Pleasantview (and Sim State Uni, because I agree that the three Unis pair up pretty well with the first three hoods). I think I restart Pleasantview every 2-3 years, though I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done it since 2004. But I always play it slightly differently. Sometimes I follow the premade story, other times I take great delight in testing how far I can reverse it.

I had one game where the Pleasant twins swapped boyfriends halfway through their first semester at college - and then Lilith and Dustin moved out of the dorm to save everyone’s sanity and cut down on the fights. I had another where rotational play went by the wayside and Nina Caliente ended up three weeks ahead of everyone else, and with a string of babies by different fathers (courtesy of Risky Woohoo, since ACR didn’t exist at that point.) My favourite is probably the attempt where I got Don and Cassandra to the altar and everything was going swimmingly until the ghosts popped up and started haunting just as they stepped away from the wedding arch. One drifted through Don, and in the resulting chaos they missed the honeymoon limo.

But there are many many different ways to play. Just follow your nose and do whatever comes to mind. The beauty of it is that they’re always there to reboot and try again.
Mad Poster
#24 Old 22nd Sep 2020 at 7:17 PM
I'd looking at adding a few bin households to my BACC and playing them at least as playable townies and will create some sims at random to serve as townie neighbors for apartments only these townies are all playable households.This is to happne as my town of Dodge started to grow into a real town and gets external districts added in.
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