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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 4:54 PM
Default How have you changed as a player since you first started playing TS2?
I'm on my holiday break from college and I've been playing nonstop for the first time in a few months. It hit me the other day -- I've been playing The Sims for over half my life. I started when I was 8 or 9, now I'm 20. I had a weird existential/nostalgia moment about that. TS2 is something I'll never get tired of. There's too much fun to be had, and I have so much nostalgia and love attached to it since I've played for so long. My sister used to build really elaborate houses, and I still remember the decor of a lot of them.

Anyway, that rambling aside - how has your playstyle changed? Do you still enjoy the same things? Why or why not?

When I first started playing, my favorite thing to do was motherlode a couple, maxmotives all the time, and then have them produce about 8 million children. I would usually get bored of the household before the eldest grew up and start a new one. I was buying new expansion and stuff packs as I could find them, too, and I would spend a lot of time test driving specific new features - like the time I made a sim in Strangetown and had her summon aliens 20 times.

I play a much more integrated 'hood now, with minimal cheating. I still find it really challenging to have more than one or two children, though, because it's only in the past couple years that I've been letting that happen (and with no cheats)! I'm trying to get out of a micromanaging, make-all-their-lives-perfect play style, because I think it gets boring. I'm trying to convince myself that not every child needs to be an A+ student, and, yes, accidental deaths do happen!
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:02 PM
I used to approach The Sims as a game--kind of like what you were saying above. Every legacy had to follow the rules to a T, every sim had to get to level 10 in their careers, everyone needed to find their spouse the first day they came into the neighborhood, etc etc. It was like since the game framed these things as "the best", then they must be the best for me too. Nowadays I'm individual sim-driven, and I take my time exploring little facets of the game with them. I try to stick to being in character for them. Like, my Pleasure aspiration sim with an 0 in Active has no reason to shoot for a 4.0 GPA. That's OOC.

Ooh, and I used to be like, Pescado levels of micromanagement. Fairly recently I've started letting the game take over where it can. I've started finding mates through ACR and only pursuing sims with some level of chemistry. I also started using dice for a lot of stuff, and it's made all the difference!
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:06 PM
Quote: Originally posted by DameMika
I used to approach The Sims as a game--kind of like what you were saying above. Every legacy had to follow the rules to a T, every sim had to get to level 10 in their careers, everyone needed to find their spouse the first day they came into the neighborhood, etc etc. It was like since the game framed these things as "the best", then they must be the best for me too. Nowadays I'm individual sim-driven, and I take my time exploring little facets of the game with them. I try to stick to being in character for them. Like, my Pleasure aspiration sim with an 0 in Active has no reason to shoot for a 4.0 GPA. That's OOC.

Ooh, and I used to be like, Pescado levels of micromanagement. Fairly recently I've started letting the game take over where it can. I've started finding mates through ACR and only pursuing sims with some level of chemistry. I also started using dice for a lot of stuff, and it's made all the difference!


I like what you said about being in character -- I'm trying to do that more. I've also been trying to explore different interpretations of traits and aspirations for individual sims. For instance, the 'hood I'm playing now has a lot of first generation family sims - but they don't all have to be the same! I have one family sim who serves breakfast every morning, teaches her toddlers all the skills, etc. I have another who's more of a flighty matriarch. She's a bad witch, and she spends a lot of time playing with spells and bothering her ex husband. She loves her children, and she loves having children, but... She's not the most attentive.
Scholar
#4 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:09 PM
i used to be a noob and add grim reaper etc to households and basically do everything corrupting but now i avoid it at all costs and play realistic and uniquely

I May Be Life Dumb But I'm Sim Smart(mostly).
My Tumblr
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by fluorescentadolescent
I like what you said about being in character -- I'm trying to do that more. I've also been trying to explore different interpretations of traits and aspirations for individual sims. For instance, the 'hood I'm playing now has a lot of first generation family sims - but they don't all have to be the same! I have one family sim who serves breakfast every morning, teaches her toddlers all the skills, etc. I have another who's more of a flighty matriarch. She's a bad witch, and she spends a lot of time playing with spells and bothering her ex husband. She loves her children, and she loves having children, but... She's not the most attentive.


I love that! I used to have the biggest problem with not caring at all about my sims. I would read about people being very saddened when their favorite sim died, and I thought that was the weirdest thing. Now I find myself getting all emotional when they grow up or leave home. :P
Forum Resident
#6 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:30 PM Last edited by kanzen : 10th Jan 2018 at 12:01 AM.
we had the same playstyle before ) making sure everything and everyone is perfect. O often get bored and quit after but somehow I keep coming back --knowing that somehow I can have fun in a new way! In sims you play with life, and life can't juuuuuust be about pairing up, multiplying, and being the top of your career!

My biggest turning point was sims 2 stories with poseboxes, eye-level angles, and fully customized sims. It gave me the idea that yeah your pixel dolls can do these things too! The possibilities suddenly got infinitely wider and it was exciting!!! Then for a short time I got noticed on TSR for my intricately staged story shots. People would notice little details in the background and enjoyed how it felt so immersive. All the positive feedback encouraged me to decorate more but that was just the beginning.

I was still a noob builder at that point and seldom showed exterior shots hahaha~ I admired plasticbox and Liv like a bright-eyed youngun and I believe I always will. My building, decorating, routing and lot playability was more developed when I participated in justJones Build a Business Contest and a few years after, Phaenoh's Urban Conversion Contest. A building alone can tell a story too, this I've come to learn and understand.

Of course I still controlled my sims like a micromanaging maniac and found no true enjoyment in live mode. I lived a build mode hermit life for so long. And Im JUST learning how to let go and let the sims live their lives by learning from everyone here ^^

simblrs / sim tumblrs were also a big influence in showing me how fun the game was when you let sims try all kinds of things~

anyways tldr: the undying sims2 community helped me a lot as a player and Im thankful that we're all still here
Link Ninja
#7 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 6:33 PM
I've gotten more experimental, more attached, more knowledgeable on how to keep my game running or keep my sims interesting. I used to have off and on phases of playing because like most others have mentioned, I became bored but I feel like the solid last five years I haven't had an 'off' phase and I'm constantly playing it. I think a lot of it has to do with the prospect of sharing information and receiving information from the community. My 'on' phase corresponds to when I started getting chatty in here in the forums so I blame MTS for my prolonged 'on' phase.

I still severely manhandle my sims in regular play, I pause the game a whole lot more because I fancy myself a 'simographer' and I like taking pictures (again, on the point of sharing), and I spend A LOT more time decorating sim homes that I used to when I first started. Oh and I'm less about all the sims getting married and having 2.5 offspring. Don't get me wrong I LOVE the genetics of sims 2 but have let up on having every sim reproduce because I could use the population break in my hood and plus, if I'm going for semi-realism that isn't feasible anyway.

Like Kanzen said, there's a wealth of shared inspiration and knowledge out there in the community whether it be on forums, social media platforms, download sites, etc that perpetuate our evolution of play style.

Uh oh! My social bar is low - that's why I posted today.

Scholar
#8 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 7:20 PM
Many of the same things that others have said: I used to micromanage, and now I go more with the flow and the wants of the individual Sims.

When I first started playing, I was addicted to toddlers. Every couple had to have at least two children, and even if they weren't Family aspiration I often had them try for another child when the younger one outgrew the toddler stage. Strangetown ran out of space very quickly! These days, Sims generally only have babies if they want to, although I like that Inteen has added a risk of accidental pregnancy.

I used to avoid Romance and Pleasure Sims, and pretty much assigned the other aspirations in rotation, so some Sims had aspirations that totally didn't suit them: Daphne Beaker had zero Nice points but got Family aspiration, and her poor children were horribly neglected. These days I assign aspiration based on personality.

I used to make every teen do their homework every night, and once I got University they all made the Dean's list every semester, then studied to make their way to the top of their career as fast as possible. No more. Now most teens only do homework if they want to (unless a parent is a teacher, or the teen has a certain social status that makes their parents stricter); about 75% of students drop out of college at some point; and getting to the top of a career track is very rare and only those Sims who really want it actually achieve it.
Top Secret Researcher
#9 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 10:29 PM
I used to have no idea about corruption and did things I now know to not do. I also didn't used to know about mods or cc...and now I have over 7 GB.

I also used to make everyone's lives perfect...I got bored easily. I'm finally starting to get over that I think. I have mods to make their lives harder and rules to play by that make it more fun for me. I didn't used to know about rotation play either but that's what I do now, so everyone ages with each other.

My Simblr
He/They
Alchemist
#10 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 11:29 PM
In the beginning, my game had almost no downloads, and motherlode and kaching were used liberally. I stopped playing for a long time, but eventually bought the game again and somehow landed here on this board, which was my first major exposure to downloads. Throughout all this time, I tried to keep the Sims happy and successful (except for the time a guy moved into Veronaville with plans to destroy all the major families). Their wants were my goals, no matter how unrealistic. Want ten kids? Okay, we'll start working on getting ten kids.

Eventually, I stopped using money cheats all together and made the Sims scrape by. I started hanging out on the boards and was influenced by the play style of others here, namely Peni, and started watching my Sims and interpreting their personality through their actions instead of micromanaging them. I ceded a lot of control to the Sims. Sometimes, I'm pretty much watching a television show. A Sim will do something really great and surprising, or really stupid, and I'll let it play out and watch the drama unfold. I went back to cheats for the rare CAS adults that I create, because they feel unfinished otherwise. I don't enjoy playing adult who has no skills and no money, and since this is a game where you can set your own goals, I realized it was okay to skip the tedious part and work on my actual goal, which is integrating the Sim into their society.

My downloads folder continued to grow, and now a lot of my game play involves giving each Sim the perfect wardrobe and furnishings to complement their personality and place in life. I started a tumblr and it's been very neglected when it comes to its original purpose, which was supposed to be pictures, but that's still in the plans, so that'll be the next way my play style evolves.
Forum Resident
#11 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 11:36 PM
When I first played The Sims 2 I was ten years old and mostly interested in making new families, playing with them for a simday or so and then make a new one. And now I've been playing one clan with its branching families for ten years (as in it was ten years since I started it, I haven't been playing consistently during them all). The most obvious thing for me that has changed over the course of these years is my way of playing the different sims. I used to play them in more or less the same way, not taking into account their personalities, aspirations etc, and as a result they were more or less the same, too. Then I started looking at their wishes and fears, I started taking their personality points as suggestions as for how to play them (for instance, when trying to build relationships an outgoing sim might walk up to a stranger and small-talk and joke, while a shy sim might only talk socialize with new people if they take the initiative, or suggest bonding through some activity instead, etc.), let them have varying hobbies, leave them alone more to see what they want to do and let them build habits and quirks, and so on. In short, let them show me what they want and who they are and adjust the actions I have them take and routes for their lives accordingly, instead of forcing them into what I had planned (college, marriage, kids). This has made for a more varying and satisfying experience and showed me that the sims can indeed have strong and rich personalities.

I am Error.
Lab Assistant
#12 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 6:23 AM
I started as a mess: I still remember my very first family, trying to find a spouse and having 2.5 children (would've had a dog if pets was a thing), and ended up unable to figure out homework and had the kids taken away by the social worker hahaha. It got easier from there, of course, but my playstyle started in response to that: so lots of maxmotives and setaspirationlevel(5) and motherlode because I couldn't keep them out of aspiration failure. My houses were inefficient messes and so on. That later developed into more serious rule-following and micro-management, though I continued to tend towards families and generational play. I had a hard time not making every single sim a knowledge sim, though. Then I discovered dice-rolling, and things got more varied and fun, and then I got a decent computer that could run this game like a pro a number of years ago now and things changed into a heavily modded game to make things as difficult financially as I can with strict adherence to not cheating beyond what's reasonable (building cheats and with boolprop on sometimes for when I need to, and so on). Currently, I've become really fond of keeping sims "in-character" and artificially limiting what I can do with them. For example, my uni students have to spend the whole time fulfilling their wants, forcing me to work on wants I normally avoid like throwing parties (which has become a lot more fun to me now), and allowing a better variety of uni-educated verses dropouts verses never-wents to my hoods than before. One big difference though is with ACR and inTeen, how I've changed from someone who preferred playing knowledge sims and had families only with spouses to someone who revels in the misadventures of romance sims hiding affairs who have kids with eight different people on average because it's just so much fun to sneak around. I also used to play a variety of sexuality and used adoption all the time, but nowadays I want my neighbourhood to be more diverse sexuality-wise like it used to, but I also want all my sims to have genetic children, so I have hoods full of straight marriages of sims who are either straight or bi.

Only thing I really have in common with early-game me is my generational play. I love raising kids in this game and playing them from birth to death and then moving onto their kids and doing the same.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 12:36 PM
I played without mods for the longest time. Then one day I visited the exchange and downloaded a house. I had already downloaded the extra Maxis houses they had. I like this one, too, so I thought I would give it a try. When I put it in the game, I discovered by accident, that it had Carrigon's mailbox hack attached to it. I was a goner after that. I loved that hack. Then I discovered simslice and, shortly thereafter, MTS.

As for game style, I play a lot more attention to my simmies individual stories now. And I have certain hoods devoted to different stories and cultures. I also keep rigorous track of my sims, who lives where, how many kids,stories, etc. And I track careers much more carefully than I used to. I no longer have six mayors in the same town, for instance.







>

"Fear not little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom". Luke 12:32 Chris Hatch's family friendly files archived on SFS: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=603534 . Bulbizarre's website: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C...CoveredPortals/
Field Researcher
#14 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 8:18 PM
In Sims1 I used the money cheats all the time. In Sims2 I did for the first few months, while I was exploring how to play the new game, and then I stopped. Nowadays they only get extra money if they need it to buy that first house that suits the backstory of that family - and only just enough to buy it, if they need furniture they'll need to go fishing or spend some time working a DJ booth, or get a job.

I also used to use maxmotives a lot. Now I only use it for the first day or so for each household after starting a new hood, for sitting them down and skilling them up to at least a few points in whatever skills that Sim ought to have. After all, it's not their fault that they weren't born in game and got to that skill level before they even started school. Born in game Sims don't get any extra help at all. Nor do their parents, even if I feel sorry for them trying to juggle sleep, baby minding and everything else at times.

I actually found a backup from 2004 last weekend, with several Sims2Packs of (unplayed) houses and BodyShop Sims from my first custom hood. I'm sorely tempted to unpack them and put them into a new hood, just to see how they compare with what I do with houses and Sims in the game now.
Scholar
#15 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 8:22 PM
Quote: Originally posted by smorbie1
I no longer have six mayors in the same town, for instance.


you could build 5 additional subhoods for the other mayors

I May Be Life Dumb But I'm Sim Smart(mostly).
My Tumblr
Mad Poster
#16 Old 10th Jan 2018 at 9:46 PM
Oh, I have lots of subhoods and each one can have a mayor

"Fear not little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom". Luke 12:32 Chris Hatch's family friendly files archived on SFS: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=603534 . Bulbizarre's website: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C...CoveredPortals/
Scholar
#17 Old 11th Jan 2018 at 12:31 AM
I can honesty say...no. Not really.

I just make sure I don't make any mistakes with corruption.

"Oh look, my grandchild is now an elder. They grow up so fast. Gee, I wonder when I'll finally graduate college." Sims 2
Instructor
#18 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 7:05 AM
My story is kind of opposite of what many people here have said - at least in terms of micromanaging my Sims. I used to let them do their own thing but as I began giving the Sims personality in my mind, I stopped letting Sims do what they want because what they want to do often doesn't fit the personality I have in mind for them. Hah!

Other ways I have changed... when I first started playing I made my Sims have as many children as possible. Their faces were usually the default face 1 and default face 2. Both family aspiration and Pisces. Little differentiation between Sims.
I played the game on a family-basis so there was no real "community" in their neighborhoods and community lots had all the necessary items so I could go, shop, and go back home. Now I make an effort to really vary my Sims and the birth rate has gone down dramatically. The main thing I'm still guilty of is finding them a spouse immediately and having them settle down. Even if they're romance Sims - they'll partake in an open relationship. Mainly because I think of the game now on a neighborhood level and I like to keep family names and family trees going. Maybe once I finally get to generation 3, I'll allow an old maid/bachelor personality type to come along; we'll see. But yeah, I think the idea of intertwining storylines and such has become a much bigger focus in my game.

I might one day finish my Zanes Hollow project, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Until then, you can see what I'm up to on my Simblr!
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#19 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 3:52 PM
Hmmmm - I've been playing the same integrated style of story-telling for a long time now. I think my noob experimentation phase was with TS1 (which I loved but is so long ago I can't remember a lot now). I got into making stuff for the game with that too and, if I were to talk about more recent habits, I'd say I make stuff for the game more now than I play it and that's been true for 5+ years.

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
Lab Assistant
#20 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 7:20 PM
Well, when I was very young I always created myself as an adult and a red-headed roommate, every time. I didn't do much, I gave them a job and that's all. I only knew about motherlode so I didn't cheat much. CC was also an unknown mystery to me.
When I got older I wanted to try other features, so I started making families with children with aging on. I found out about maxmotives and that "improved" my gameplay
Then I got tired of it and now I'm back at creating myself and not having children at all, also free will and aging off, because I also want them to behave like I want it and they should never become older or die, but apart from that I also experiment more.
But, since that got a little boring too I have some other households that I don't play as often, with children and many generations or supernatural creatures. Oh, and I actually cheat more when it comes to needs but I barely use motherlode. And I have almost 13GB of CC, mainly downloaded in the past year
Inventor
#21 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 7:46 PM
My firsthand experience with Sims 2 (shortly after its release) after moving up from the original Sims feels different than how I developed playing the game over two years ago. Back then, I simply worked with the skills I learned from the first Sims to help build my homes and raise my Sims in 2, not stepping out of my comfort zone. It's like I was still playing the original Sims that had evolved 3D.

Then, after getting the UC I still kept at my comfort zone while learning brand new things the base game didn't have. I wish I can go back in time to do it all over again. All I have now from my growing experience are the memories of being a newb.

Check out my profile for homes and community lots ready for download: My Homes and Stuff
Instructor
#22 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 9:04 PM
I started playing The Sims 2 last year for the first time. My first experience was really ugly and I had no idea that autonomy in The Sims 2 was fiercer than The Sims 3. I didn't use any hacks or cheats that time so when one of my adult sims was cooking on a stove, that moron decided to juggle bottles from the fridge because his fun was getting yellow till the fire happened then gone, he was dead. My another adult sim mourned him when Grim Reaper took his life then passed out on the floor.

Today, my game is somewhat modded with lots of hacks from various websites, a lot more than The Sims 3. But still though Sims will do anything insane whenever I don't keep tabs on them.

LGBTQ+. Fans of RAMMSTEIN, GOJIRA and Architects. Check out my favorite YouTube channels: Second Thought, Adam Something, Climate Town, and Not Just Bikes
Mad Poster
#23 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 9:06 PM
Well, it kinda did changed me. It motivates and inspires me to start off modding.
Theorist
#24 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 9:36 PM
I used to do all kinds of min-maxy stuff to "win" the game. I've been known to put fences around beds (cheaper, no need for bedrooms), put a toilet in the middle of the room so skilling sims only had to get up off of the couch to use the bathroom, no one had a sink since it's much quicker to throw away dishes. And by the time the first CAS generation had kids everyone was maxed in everything. The parents would grow eggplants so their kids could max out their skills with juice. I'd send them on "dates" at home just to earn woohoo/dream date aspiration points for smart milk or life elixir. Their kids went to college with inventories full of their career rewards (education bookcase etc.), snapdragons and stocked juicers for the fraternity houses so anyone graduating with my playables would be maxed out too for the least amount of effort. It's pretty funny now looking back - skills were serious business.

Today I'm happy enough to make cc and let my sim putter around interacting with it and just enjoy watching them.
Field Researcher
#25 Old 13th Jan 2018 at 10:13 PM Last edited by Annorah : 13th Jan 2018 at 10:53 PM.
I used to play with free will turned off twelve years ago... Silly me knew nothing about having fun. It is the most significant change as a gamer, honestly.

That, and accepting that occasional soap operas and rebels are far more entertaining than regular happy families and gifted students.

Oh, yeah, and there is more to CAS than the first face template. As you may have assumed, not only was I a silly child, but a superficial one as well
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