How many Sims are you playing?
AllenABQ:
Quote from: sagana on 2005 October 18, 23:03:04
I can't imagine only doing 6 sim hours - she wouldn't have found a perfect match, he wouldn't have gotten a job and a bunch of promotions, the baby wouldn't be born (I almost never stop the game for anything in between the lullabye and the birth), the toddler wouldn't have learned to talk - I just can't leave them *now* ;)
I'm with you there.
I actually play each household four sim days at a time, which allows for plenty of birthdays, dates, promotions, etc., in any one round of playing my families. So there's plenty of change going on in my neighborhood all the time. It also gives me time to set up larger events or continue interesting lines of play when I switch to another household where there is cross-over involvement.
Dark Trepie:
I don't know about anyone else, but all of my neighborhoods always ME in them. A CAS made sim self, alter ego, reicarnation, whatever you want to call it. Because really, I see no point to this game if you're not going to have yourself somewhere in there mixing it up with the other sims.
And in case you were wondering, that's him in my avatar.
I'll usually find myself a nice townie or an availiable pre-made sim that doesn't have any attachments to any other sims, have them settle down and establish a family of about two or three kids before I start playing the other families in an effort to mix the family bloodlines with the second generation. Ever since Uni came out I've grown a strong attachment to Stella Terrano, and usually have my sim fall in love with her and get them married. I don't know, I guess I have a thing for exotic women. And being a space alien is about as exotic as you can get.
I play Pleasentview mostly. But I've been playing Strangetown more and more lately. Sometime in the near future I'll force myself to play Veronaville. I would start my own custom neighborhood. But I like the pre-made neighborhoods, and I guess I'm just too lazy and/or uncreative enough to start a neighborhood from scratch.
I also let a little infidelity happen in controled situations. Because it happens in real life more than we'd like to admit. But I make sure the guilty party gets caught and that they pay the price. It usually happens in the form of groveling and appologizing profusely. Or if I deem it fit, a total break up.
Speaking of which, I've never seen a break up be a good memory untill NL came out. Reading "Boy, am I glad I dropped that loser." in the memory caption gave me a good laugh. :)
KellyQ:
Hehehe, I had wondered if that avatar was suppose to be you, Trepie. I actually have never made a "ME" to play in any of my neighborhoods but hmmm..maybe I will. I had been very much looking forward to NL but ironically since I bought it I have had very little time to play; a half hour here, 45 minutes there, which as anyone knows, seems to not be any time at all.
I used to play Pleasantview most often but I have been feeling overwhelmed by how many families I have there so I haven't been playing it as much. I've been playing Strangetown and my own custom 'hood more often. I'm not very good at thinking out "storylines" so I am finding that I get bored quickly. I need to start coming up with some plots and shake things up. I tend to get stuck in a rut of having my sims skilling, going to work/school, meeting a significant other, having babies, ad nauseum. Reading other people's posts on MATY has given me some inspiration to start trying some new ideas.
Lynda:
I've been enjoying this thread immensely. I love discussions on how people actually play the game. They seem few and far between.
First I guess I should say I usually get bored with games VERY quickly. I played Sims 2 daily from its release date in September 2004 until December 2004. I spent most of my play time on my Legacy family (which never even got past three generations) and updating my website with a Big Brother-ish Sim "game" called The Nut House. I became so fed up with The Nut House, updating my site and answering questions that I abandoned it and the entire Sims 2 game before it ever finished.
I didn't play again until University was released. I have no idea how long I played University, but it couldn't have been more than a month or so. It was at that time I created myself for the first time in TS2. I also created my husband and we had some ugly ass children. That was a little weird and I doubt I'll ever repeat the experience.
I've always WANTED to be the type of player who filled a neighborhood with multiple playable families and rich storylines. I've never really had the attention span for it. Like sagana, when I played, I played one family for hours at a time. It was difficult to play multiple families in one neighborhood and have them interact with one another in any way because no one's age would ever be in synch. I usually became bored with the family after three generations (I've NEVER gotten past three generations) and moved on to another one.
I started playing University again from a fresh reinstall a few weeks before Nightlife came out to prep myself for it. I created my very first custom neighborhood and filled it with decorations and houses and created a few families to move in. I still focused on just one family though and found myself slipping back to my old ways.
Prior to this, I didn't have a whole lot of custom content aside from clothes and had no use for hacks. In the newest awakening of my Sims 2 obsession, however I started installing custom content like MAD. I also started installing objects and hacks which I previously stayed away from. (I prefer hacks which enhance the game, not cheat around it. I have debug mode for cheating.) This enhanced my gameplay quite a bit. The custom content I love the most are things that make a Sim house look more like a real one. Toilet paper, closets with clothing racks and shelves, clutter in the bathroom, etc. I learned a little about SimPE and got the clean file installer to organize my downloads. I read a post by someone here and it inspired me to create another custom neighborhood whose residents either always had their greatest want fulfilled, or their greatest fear. I'd never played to the Sims' wants and fears before, only to my own.
I started with four CAS sims: Samantha Sands (family), Cynthia Mallard (knowledge), Sabrina Tate (romance) and Debra Walsh (fortune). I moved all of them into the same house and started playing them with the simple goal to only do what they wanted to do. (If they need a skill point for a promotion, they're not getting it unless they want to gain a skill point).
Samantha met Jordan, a knowledge townie and they fell in love. I actually wanted Samantha to get together with a different townie, but they just didn't click. When Samantha and Jordan got married, Sabrina and Cynthia moved out into another house and I started a rotation.
Sabrina spent all of her time going on dates and has woo-hoo'd with the majority of the adult men in the neighborhood, plus a few elder men she wasn't too crazy about, but woo-hoo'd with anyway to satisfy the craving. Cynthia discovered she had a strong attraction to Sabrina's ex-boyfriend Tyler, a fortune townie and they started dating. This didn't sit well with Sabrina and she became furious with both Tyler and Cynthia. Cynthia knew her dear old friend would get over it eventually and she and Tyler were married at a private ceremony. (This whole ordeal made me fall in LOVE with the new furious state - I don't get why people say the state lasts too long. Sabrina has had PLENTY of people furious with her and most of her boyfriends forgive her after a couple apologies and a few Sim days' time. Sabrina was mad at Cynthia and Tyler for a few days, but they're best friends now)
Back at the Sands house, Samantha quickly popped out two baby girls with one pregnancy after another. Cassandra and Tayla. Debra Walsh the fortune sim fell in love with Sabrina. Sabrina is more into guys, but she gave in to Debra's desires because woo-hoo is woo-hoo any way you slice it! Debra was clogging up the Sands house and I didn't want her heart to be broken by Sabrina, so I moved her to the family bin (which I've decided is actually Sim City - a mega metropolis about a two hour drive noth) where she still remains.
Cynthia and Tyler had one child, Matthew. Neither of them ever wanted to have a baby again, so one child is all they'll ever get.
I don't know how many family Sims I can play in this neighborhood because Samantha's desires for babies never subsided. I allowed her to become pregnant one more time because she wanted it and because I really wanted a boy for that family. I decided that despite Samantha's wishes, this would probably be her last pregnancy. Imagine my surprise when she produced TWINS! Alex and Tiffany became the newest addition to the Sands family. Of course, Samantha immediately wanted another baby. It was at this time I set a rule that after four births, the Sim has to roll the baby want for three consecutive mornings in order to be given another child.
I won't go on with their story as this post is far too long already and for that I apologize.
My point (if indeed I ever had one) is that I think with this neighborhood I can finally start playing the way I've always WANTED to play. And who knows, maybe I'll be able to get past a third generation! Nightlife makes it very easy to rotate houses since you just have to click on the lot to load it. I usually play only one Sim day per house and then rotate to the next one (this neighborhood has three playable houses at this point). I stop at 4am since Sims are usually asleep at that time and it's close enough to the following morning so I don't have to spend too many precious seconds fast forwarding after loading the lot to start playing. Sometimes I play two Sim days per rotation, but I generally don't like people to age too much or too much to happen between rotations. I notice that's when I start getting bored with the whole idea. When I've finished my Simming session (I play for about an hour and a half every morning before work and usually about two hours a day on weekends) I go back to the neighborhood and document the real life date and the day of the week the houses are at so I'll know where to start next. Rotation also helps in that I have one house in this neighborhood (a new CAS family) that I don't really care for. Taking them in small doses isn't really so bad and bides some time until they either get their own storyline or I get so bored of them I abolish them to Sim City.
I keep all the houses in synch with one another not only by age, but also by day of the week. I'm not sure how that's going to work when I start sending kids off to college though since I'm planning on playing through one college year for one Sim day. They'll probably have to be out of synch for college. I'm not sure about moving them back into the neighborhood either. One idea was to have them move back into their old house until Sunday after 6pm and then let them move out on their own if they'd like. I'll see how much that delays them starting a family. Any known cheats to change the day of the week on the clock?
Any Sim not going to college will spend four glorious "years" in Sim City to keep them exactly synched up to everyone else.
And finally, to, um, actually answer the question posed, I'm currently playing 14 sims across three houses.
Swiftgold:
Yay, older thread. Oh well, I shall answer anyway. ^^
I have one neighborhood which, despite rounds of me accidentally deleting skins and Sims, still hasn't corrupted and exploded in a big ball of firey goodness yet. *grin* I started with the main characters of a video game, fourteen of them, as toddlers, and created parents for them. Some two parents, some with one, and about... oh, ten or eleven houses total.
Well, the parents married and had kids... me allowing my favorite Family Sim to have his ten kids and twenty grandkids didn't help... and now there's hundreds of them. Those original toddlers are finally approaching their elderhood (one of their parents is still alive and kicking as a permaplat elder, too) and I use them as the measuring bar. So far I think there MAY be a single Sim in the fourth generation, most are second and third now.
I do tend to play some houses more than others thanks to the plots but I generally try to keep them even in terms of aging, so I can't play one of my favorite houses until the older sibling reaches elderhood because the second sibling is about to and she's supposed to be younger!
Without being able to look at the game, right now I have around twenty houses, each with 2-8 Sims in them. I've culled the herd a bit, killing off clones and hack-twins and now I'm limiting the population to mostly only kids conceived through Risky WooHoo, unless it's a couple I really want to see a kid from. *grin*
Oh, yeah. This is the only neighborhood I've had since I got the game when it first came out. I'm tempted to start a legacy challenge or something in a new one, though, to see if I can play one family that long.
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