Sorry if this type of post has already been made before, but I was thinking the other day when I shared my Sims Castaway Stories game about how my style has changed over time. Nothing super dramatic, I was never an Alpha CC player, but I DID have the mods and a usercongif to remove things like thought/speech bubbles and the plumbbob (which is ironic because I got a plumbbob tattoo before I decided to bring it back in my game). I also downloaded a mod that I can't recall the name of that allowed you to place the borders on the wall paintings (such as wood trim, etc) and was intending to use that in every household I played.

Anyway, after SEVERAL years I brought the thought/speech bubbles and plumbbobs back, and have been thinking about bringing back the censor block for when Sims shower and such, which is the opposite of such a strong opinion I had in years prior. I figured I can't be the only one to have such a change in my gaming style, so I wanted to see with y'all what things about your gaming style have changed over time? Pics are requested and appreciated!

I used to try to get my towns built up and populated before strating to play them and aplways lots track of who was to get played next and always had issues like fights breaking out in apartment buildings and on community lots in a vanilla game setting.I found that I could add Mods and CC in UC on my current computer and play with one one couple moved onto a large lot set up as a homestead with a community service center building site which gets built over time as they move through spring and summer while the couple is getting on with slowly building a basic shanty or cabin for their home before that first winter arrives.I grow my towns up slowly over time as I play it through.

My style (such as it is) is heavily dependent on CC and mods-but it's become less necessary to have CC than before-I find I can go weeks without finding something to download, and it's a good thing..my modern game is very overloaded with CC but my Medieval game isn't, but that's only because it's a very limited range of CC to put into it.
But I have drifted towards more realism and believable landscapes. it's turned my medieval game into a escape from real where nothing bad ever happens, (besides the odd maternal death) and nobody is threatening the entire world with their lust for power.

I started sims 2 in 2004 thinking it would be like the sims 1 but in 3D and quickly realized it was a piece of cake in comparison. Needs so much slower, days off work, sims who can hold an actual conversation. I built boxy houses and had happy suburban families.

I then moved onto challenges around 2007 because I wanted more challenge.
Started a BACC in I think it was 2012 which morphed into Integrated, which is how I play now.

My play style requires a lot of cc, somewhere in-between MM and realistic. I now use mods to make things harder like halved wages, no 20K handout, and set myself some rules so I can't use too many tricks. Before that I would train a toddler in a day with smart milk and thinking caps and my long ages meant a toddler could possibly gain 10 points in a skill. So now only some sims are smart others are not and I restrict how many skills can be learnt at each age and motivation level. Sims going to uni now need to roll wants to study. Same for job promotions unless they are smart. Highly motivated sims are overachievers so they can be good at everything, while average sims go by wants and low sims tend to be more free will. Helped me not have every sim be perfect.

In my brief TS1 months, I just focused on sims managing needs and a job, and maybe kids (I knew you could get babies that grew to kids), but it was quite stressful. I think I learned the basics of need management there.

When TS2 rolled around, I for the most part had fun, playing with families and not too long after getting into CC and mods. Pretty fast my sims had triplets and quadruplets, and 10-12 kids to manage (which was easier than in TS1 but still a challenge), and I played needs and aspiration-based and all that.

Then I moved more over to picture-taking for contests, then stories and various photoshoots, which I've been doing pretty much since 2007-8-ish, with the odd turn into family-based play again, occasionally a hybrid. I've also made quite a bit of CC over the years, so probably half the time I've spent ingame has been testing CC or taking pictures for either remembering what to fix or for uploads...

My game is something between MM and semi-realistic in visual style - I'm not too strict with what I use, but I don't like when something looks completely out of place. Furniture probably leans a bit more toward MM, while sims more toward semi-realistic. I've used CC ever since I knew CC existed, so my game has almost always been at least minimally modded at all times (I will not part with my defaults and base mods for ANYTHING, you hear me?), but usually stuffed to the point of pink-flashy and long loading times.

I don't think my style has changed too much over the years - I switched from C-button pictures to printscreen around 2007, and I've changed favorite defaults a few times. I've probably gotten better at editing and posing and all of that, but overall I don't think there's too big a difference (except skills) once I'd started getting into it all - say from 2008-10 and out. I've more or less had the same taste in CC and general look of my game.

If I play TS4 I'll usually do family-based (with the odd photoshoot) or short challenges. I rarely play very long (that game doesn't hold my attention long enough to get attached to the sims).

As I got more and more into picture taking and story-telling I spend a lot of my game scoping out moments for pics, which adds delays which is why after 15 years I'm only on generation 5. I'm a slow, slow player and have only gotten slower the more sims that get played, the more story ideas I have. I used to not pay attention to their wants/fears at all when I played mostly just doing what I wanted them to do but in recent years I switched to try and pay attention to those and use them as a springboard for story threads or more deep character interpretations. There's still aspects I haven't played but want to, there's still aspects I have no interest in and don't plan to. I used to not try to save if a sim died on accident but have learned that's the spice of the game, and adds story so let it happen if it does. Most of my sims die of old age but there's definitely some fire-deaths haunting my hood!

Edit: I'm not sure how to take a picture of my changes in 'style' but here's a pictures from 2017 of my Main and subhoods and ones form 2021 and Kashmire Point and Pandora have had a lot of growth, while the others were slower but had a lot of structural changes, lots removed, added, re-arranged, etc. I guess that is one thing about my style that changes - there's old community buildings that lose my interest and I no longer want them, and replace them or remove them, or remodel them entirely. Especially with ones I've built myself.

I've got two pitures of towns from both my old style of playing and my newer and improved style.The first is Wildcat Canyon which I overbuilt before playing.My second is Riverview City where my TOT challenge is to be played.

I played a vanilla game for years without any cc or mods. I had a list of cheats, but only used kaching and, once in a while, aging off,
I learned to play around problems and still feel that I don't need all the mods that fix things (although I have picked up some over time, thinking that I could save so much time if I don't have to do the whole routine to solve a problem).
The lots I built - you don't want to know. (But they worked, because they were big enough with vast spaces around everything so that sims had enough room to move around ).
I had great fun playing the game and only discovered mods after my game finally did the vanishintospace-thing.
I liked to see the hood grow, the families and lots increasing - and the eternally damned hood had 244 families living in it when it finally vanished.
And, because sims were stupid when the came out of CAS, I, when Uni arrived, started to make YA's and send them to Uni, and stuck 6 students in 6-room dorms (6 of them and a dorm from the lot bin) so that they can have some skills before moving into the main hood.

These days
My lots look a bit better, especially the roofs
I have a lot of cc - and still tend to build without any, because I still know the stuff in the vanilla catalog so well
I have discovered some mods adding gameplay that I enjoy a lot
And I like to see a hood grow and the families and lots increasing and Magnolia Park has 341 families in it now
And there are 6 students in 6 6-room-dorms (which is a dorm from the lot bin)

I had a phase were maxis looking everything was awful in my eyes and I wanted hyper realistic greasy skins and eyes and hairs for my Sims as well as realistic looking furniture, build items and photoskinned clothes etc. Nowadays I'm much closer to maxis match but still keep realistic-ish skins and eyes and prefer the shiny hair textures over maxis matchy ones and most clothes I have are maxis match. There's one or two exceptions with more realistic texture among my clothes but I'd say 99% of it is purely maxis match.

I used to have my sims' entire lives mapped out as early as toddlerhood: their aspiration, career, who they were going to marry, and adjusting their turn ons accordingly. It resulted in a lot of stereotypes, like the "nerd" who is a knowledge sim or the romance sim who is turned on by fit people. I would turn aging off for my favourite sims and play them for months in real time.

Now I play much more randomly by rolling a die to determine their aspiration, and using a random number generator to choose their turn ons/offs. My sims develop so much more of a complex personality this way. I allow my sims to decide who they want to be with, which is made easier with mods like ACR, and their lives get thrown tons of unexpected curveballs. If they age up to adults and they don't have a steady, the hunt to find them a husband/wife is exciting and mysterious! And, just like in real life, it gets a bit desperate when they start to reach middle age lol. I never use the aging cheat anymore and rarely use the elixir of life. When my favourite sim passes away, it's sad but they've likely had a wild life at this point and it's time for them to move on. I take a few pictures of my favourite sims during their momentous events so I can reminisce about them long after they're dead, much like one does for real people.

When I first started playing the Sims, I was a kid playing the Sims 3, so my main play style was making my sim-self and then using all sorts of cheats to give myself a super big house and fertility treatment so I could have tons of multiples lmao. Then as I got a little older I drifted more into being a legacy/challenge player! I had so many saves of the perfect genetics challenge lol! All my sims had cc I downloaded from the exchange, so I was plagued by those boots (you know the ones!!) and that weird horse cc that seemed to be everywhere.
Nowadays I mostly stick to the Sims 2 because it offers a lot of chaos and deeper gameplay than a lot of other sims games imo, and mostly, I play maxis-match and wants based, letting my sims create their own lives. Sometimes I make my own neighborhoods, but mostly, I enjoy just opening up a premade neighborhood and seeing how the story plays out!

When the Sims 1 first came out, my brother brought his (pirated *shock*) copy of it to a family holiday. This taught me to play Sims "wreak havoc" style (because surely there can be no greater joy in life than to have your own mean, playful and plug-ugly sim break up your sister's perfect sims' marriage and take over their mansion, keeping the original couple as slaves in the dungeon?) and when Sims 2 came out and I was introduced to it by a friend, we would stick to the "wreak havoc" for a long time. Seeing Juno Birch play reminds me a lot of me and my friend playing together and makes me really nostalgic! Then we discovered legacies and that's what we played for a good long while, but I always had at least one side project with a "perfect" sim whose life was planned out meticulously, like SandyBrutish described. I am very sensitive to stress (been burnt out really badly more than once) and shortly after I had got Appartment Life and finally had the whole collection I found all the EP options were just too much and were stressing me, so I stopped playing for a while. This made me decide to play base game only when I took up playing again and I did that for a long time - it became a very important part of my play style, I had to come up with my own ideas for making things happen that happen of their own when you have access to all EP:s and can use mods like ACR. I sometimes still miss this way of playing! I changed to playing more wants based and no legacies or other long running challenges, because I thought that would help me just relax and enjoy the game instead of feeling stressed, but that approach didn't last long. I thought the sims' personalities sort of got lost, so today I try to play more "holistically" - get an idea of who a sim is and what would drive them and play them accordingly. I also recently learned how to play with all EP:s without getting stressed, which has been fun . When it comes to the look of my game, I've stopped using photo skinned stuff, I mix MM with semi realistic and my ideal sim looks like a doll rather than a human. Thanks, PlyPlay665, for starting the thread and getting me all nostalgic for my early days as a simmer !

I played without cc and mods for 10 years and then i discovered cc and mods. Literally when i joined here was when i discovered cc and mods ????
At first i wanted it all. It was cool.

Now i have basic stuff and basic mods fixing broken stuff. Only ACR is around making it more interesting now. I also hardly use CC having very limited CC which usually already fit with vanilla. This in terms of a few windows and doors and then a playground with wooden frames but else no cc. Debating an Aircon for my strangetown makeover but i don't wanna make it too heavy on cc for a public upload.
I do have a bit of neighborhood cc but even then is it very limited.
I just like casual gameplay.

Years ago when I was a kid playing The Sims 1 and Bustin' Out, it was all about the money. How much and how fast I could gain the money to buy the most expensive things.

Enter some near 30 years later and today I find myself focusing more on creating beautiful houses, landscapes and Sims that aren't rich types. I play more for the creative aspect and less for the challenge now. I take more photos and document my gameplay more often now too.

Even recent changes for me, I used to use peppermint-ginger hair but I recently switched over to Poppet V2.

With TS1 it was all about Bob Newbie brushing his teeth and going to all the holiday destinations and the superstar stuff (using rosebud or katching for sure).

Initially TS2 for me was all about having a super cool teenager and having fun and trying to understand the game better than TS1. Then I switched to focusing on adults when I found out that ciminal masterminds were a thing and I was like this is the only acceptable career path in this household. So everyone became one. Eventually I discovered CAS cc, testingcheatsenabled and the tombstone of LD. TLDR when I was 11 I committed crimes against my computer

TS3 and I did a bit of everything with it but then TS2 cc was suddenly even more amazing and I was like omg gotta get get!! TS2 is such a vibe. This time I chose to maxis match because my past choices were tacky (see charater growth). I also had a bit more of a focus of Build/Buy content that also spiralled out of control (so much wall paper). UC came out I did everything, build, play, cause chaos etc. After that I had less time so I'd play sporadically and have moments where I'd only play or just build. Its still like that now but I do it only a few times a year because student life/ desk job said no to being at a desk for longer. Also my game really doesnt like my (newer) computer- windowed mode is ew, its unstable, and I havent yet had time to investigate why.

I'll be back to carry on from where I left off one day all my cc is safe

I feel like this pretty much sums it up...

I've been heading more into playing my games as challenges where I build my own towns from the ground up and start with almost nothing for a town and let it slwoly grow up into a city over time.My Pleasantview Epic Challenge is about playing the history of that town from it's humble origings as a colonial settlement started early in the 17th century and watching it grow and the story grow as time passes by and as the town moves towards the modern times.

My play style has gotten gradually more community focused. The Sims 1 basically had 1 way to play, so I was in line with everyone else, need management, accumulating wealth, going to studio town and magic town, etc.

When I started The Sims 2 I was very focused on legacy play, but over time I've realized there is so much untapped fun to be had by building a community of businesses and complex relationships, allowing all my sims to sorta have their own niche. Then when 3 came out and fucked all that up I was devastated. That (on top of just being an objectively better life simulator) is why I'm still with 2.

These days I have been getting into bringing in more Sims 1 nostalgia. proably about a third of my Buy Build CC is recreations of Sims 1 stuff. About half if we look at the content that is not actually from that game but matches the aesthetics of things that are. I try to keep it pretty tightly Maxis Match, but I will ocasionally fudge it if I see some Sims 1 object in the Sims 4 style or something. One of my subhoods is a spiritual successor to Magic Town called Conjurer's Lake. And I have a seperate project remaking the entire Sims 1 world.

I also have gotten way into building and modifying neighborhood maps to feel lived in and less like an empty mess of random ugly lot imposter houses scattered about. I use deco lot conversions from the Sims 4 to fill out space, and use the medium lot imposters from lazyduchess for lived lots (high setting in less lot heavy maps like the vacation locales and Unis) In short I have approached the game more like living models of towns than just a game world.

I started playing The Sims 2 back when it first came out, when I was about 9. Naturally, I mostly just messed about with it, and it wasn't until I was in uni that I finally had the attention span to play "properly" i.e. actually making an effort to keep sims' moods up rather than just using maxmotives.

At that time I still had a lot of mods, including NSFW stuff, and a lot of CC. I had some really dark edgy storylines going on, involving murder, abuse and the like. Whereas now I play with very few mods and CC, and have much more idyllic neighbourhoods. I also keep strict rotations now - my original Strangetown ended up all out of sync because I just played whichever household I felt like, and with the number of households, it got very overwhelming.

When The Sims 2 first came out I was primarily a builder and CASer. That is because of bad memories of trying to play The Sims 1's sim gameplay, which was very unforgiving. It wasn't until Seasons came out in 2007 that I really started playing family play and realizing that sim gameplay was no longer stressful.

That's the biggest change in me playing The Sims I can think of.

Unlike it seems most people here, I don't think my playstyle has changed all that much over the nine years plus I've been playing The Sims 2. Of course I've become better at playing, I use a lot more CC and mods, and there are a lot more Sims in my game, because I keep making Sims in CAS, and not one Sim has ever died in my game! I've also added a couple of EPs which broadens the scope of my game a bit -- they can run businesses and go to University now.

But, all in all, I found a playstyle that suited me early in my Simming life, and, since it does suit me, I've stuck with it. I play slowly and carefully, trying to keep my Sims out of danger, but giving them lots of fun things to do. I try to fulfil all their reasonable wants, but not slavishly following them all. Wants that could put them in mortal danger are generally ignored. Interpersonal relationships, including but not limited to "romantic relationships" are a principle focus of my game. And of course Aging is almost permanently off, so Sims that I love don't grow old and die. (It's bad enough that Real Life friends and relations grow old and die, without my Sims dying too.)

Because The Sims 2 achieve in my opinion excellent life simulation, I treat my Sims almost as "real". I like to see them enjoying "their" game as much as I do. I feel happy in the company of happy Sims.

I've never played CC-free; I've had some CC clothing from day 1, and downloaded a lot of it In my first few months I downloaded a lot of it. I still download CC, especially clothes and hair, but not as much as I did in my earlier days. I tend to just download things that I like, regardless of whether other people consider them Maxis Match or "Realistic". I could still do with downloading a bit more female hair, as I like all my Sims to look different.

I'm pickier about CC. When I was younger I used to have a lot of CC of all kinds, now I don't. I also give my Sims more normal lives now, instead of just using money cheats to make their lives endless vacations.

Because of TS3 and TS4, I care a lot more about playing the other households and not just my active one.

I basically tried everything (I'm describing rich houses because it's when I would have complete freedom but I didn't only build villas) :

Firstly, the cheapest default homes with necessities only because I haven't heard of motherlode. I would put those star carpets in kids' rooms and the ugly grapes in parents' rooms. There were a lot of patterns, random colors and 70s furniture. I would make tiny 6 tile pools because I couldn't afford bigger. Just an awful and random era but I was 8 ffs lol.

Secondly, after I discovered motherlode there were larger than life houses on the biggest lot. I thought I have taste because I put pianos, sculptures and the most expensive furniture from every category and used dark wood. Honestly, that's what adults do irl so at least I did that as a kid. Of course the houses were empty, bland and had no composition, basically oversized middle class/lower class homes. They were always for huge families.

Then I made the same just with modern maxis furniture and lighter colors. There was progression. I would put pools in front of the house without trees and fence so my buttnaked sims were on FULL DISPLAY. My mom pointed that it's unrealistic and weird so I changed it.

Then I started making smaller one story homes that were for singles or couples but big enough for a family. They were pretty for the 2000s because I got help from my older cousin. Every single house from the very start had that bush fence around the entire lot no matter how large. That is common in my country so I did what felt rght.

Then smaller homes went ultra ultra modern. I discovered CC and everything was from Stylist Sims. They're super cringe to me but I think they would be pretty for an average person who likes modern homes. They were all white, minimalist with flat roofs and shopping display windows. I hate this aesthetic today.

Then I had the cringy Louis XIV phase with Vita Sims stuff. I only did this to the Landgraabs and other families that are most likely to do this.

Fast forward to highschool, I went full grunge, so did my music taste. I would make old buildings and half grungy or borderline crackhouse apartments. They were for unfortunate families. It was interesting for me because it was the complete opposite of my style before. It was also what made me play poor sims more. I still do this occasionally and is one of my favorite styles of gameplay and building.

Now I'm in my Pinterest vintage/modern/european/mid century era. So far it's my favorite and the most satisfying because of the flexibility. I'm more focused on community lots than ever and usually build small retro lots. I've posted something on Pictures but I have a lot more than that. Not to brag , but people usually get very impressed when they see my builds and call me talented. I would've posted some stuff for download but MTS is giving me a hard time because of the amount of CC I use.

My taste in CC hasn't change much since I started: I'm a diehard Maxis Match simmer, and probably always will be. Alpha just isn't my aesthetic for Sims, especially considering they don't blend in as well with Maxis-style genetics, and Maxis Match just has that chunky, Sim look that I appreciate more than being able to see every strand of hair on a sims' head. Same goes for furniture. A lot of my CC is actually conversions from TS3 and a few things from TS4.

My play style has evolved quite a bit over time. I went from playing purely wish-fulfillment where I controlled every aspect of their lives, changed their clothes every five minutes, and made all my sims climb the career ladder, get straight A's, and got with whoever I wanted them to, sexuality and attraction be darned. Eventually I got bored, figured out wants-based gameplay, and once I discovered Cindy's system for making spreadsheets and rotational play, I switched over to that and have never looked back.