The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles!

irl picture incoming:

Just went outside to take my trash out, looked at the sky, and my mind immediately went: oh, I'm missing my skyline I've been playing too much

I have been wanting to try the original sims game TS1 too, as I came to the sims from simcity. I wanted sims to populate my cities with and everyone was recommending TS2. It has no functional capabilities with simcity but i am still troubleshooting and playing, haha.
I have been playing for a year, and despite TS2’s flaws and glitchiness and the jumps we have to jump through to get it to work on modern computers, i find i really enjoy ts2. I prefer it over Ts4 for sure. You guys here have been wonderful so far! I am enjoying reading about your simming styles!

You could import sims from Sims 1 to SC4:
https://simcity.fandom.com/wiki/My_Sim_mode

Still lots of people playing and modding Sims 1:
https://modthesims.info/f/662/

I wonder what Sims think when they wake up one morning and find their house on the opposite side of the neighbourhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPnfuczOWb8

My sim, formerly living in Downtown:

That is a real 'down' town.

Or it will be in a minute anyway.

Gregory and Lorelei Montgomery obviously have very different plans for the future. Lorelei is DONE.

Which one is the blond haired child?

I missed the second pacifier and really thought that she was in for 20 children of her own!

Marsden. When he aged up to a toddler, his features are the spitting image of a Whitney and nothing like Lorelei or the other kids. I wondered if she would go to the extreme of dyeing his hair as a cover-up so I've been going back and forth.

Ironically, Marsden has a better relationship with Gregory than Lorelei because she's been overwhelmed with the twins and her new job as a high school principal.

I hinted at this last night but I have a newly-discovered love-hate relationship with Sim State University. We were so close to greatness, Maxis, we really were. Interesting lots on the surface like the Sim State Towers and the Student Union, or the 452-498 University Way row of shops, but it falls apart once you spend 5 seconds exploring each lot. I know back in the day we didn't have RPC Launcher to have optimised lot imposters but that doesn't excuse having pathways spread out over multiple lots that are clearly meant to form one single path that don't connect. Bloody hell, Maxis, just count the tiles, it's not hard! If I can have a rather seamless 9x9 square divided over 4 lots that are meant to work as a single park, so can you connect a 5 tile wide pathway. And why is everything so bloody massive and almost completely e m p t y? Is this some sort of liminal space? Why are there like 4 desks total in a library? Did no one at Maxis ever spend just one afternoon studying at their university? Why are the shops at 452-498 University Way internally connected if they're meant to be separate establishments and why is the third one (from the left) almost entirely empty downstairs? And why is the floor everywhere the most god awful carpets imaginable?

Edited to add: Why is there no roof at the Student Union tower?

Remember that in 2005 your average sims player had a computer with 256MB RAM. The lots were made as large as possible to look externally impressive, but were minimally filled because only a few sims would have been there at any one time with the current game engine. Higher lot complexity requires more computer resources.

That is... actually a fair point lol. One day I shall redesign the entire campus, but for now I'll take the small wins - one desk at a time.

I remember how I used to be this ambitious about building a city in the sims 2 with large lots, a lot of sims, nightlife and every single activity the game offered on steroids, basically what Downtown should've been. It took me crashing, lagging and disappointment to realize that Sims 2 is simply built to be a small town/village/ suburban game if you want everything to be functional and not experience errors. I still use Criquettes decor for government stuff, while other lots are small enough for 5 sims (how many usually visit at peak hours) and to seem purposefully small, like those hipster cafe's and vintage shops in real life.

When I was in elementary school/early middle school I loved to place my sim houses on edges or right next to water. Maybe it's the thrill of being in an usual place rather than in a regular "boring" location, while nowadays I love cozy "functional" locations.

Edit: I meant to say unusual

Agreed! I remember the kind of houses I used to build when I was younger; the crazier the better. I remember building a house that was a complete maze, where sims had to go through obstacles and even swim in a long pool just to use the bathroom. Whereas now, I'm always thinking: "Is this going to be functional and practical for my sims?"

On other news, yesterday I was recreating a house that had a split level in the inside, which looked fairly easy until I tried it out. First, I noticed that I needed to remove the foundation and use foundation-level walls instead, which worked fine until I realized the room looked too dark and the windows weren't allowing any light in... because the room was technically the short-walled one and I couldn't use any windows in there, so then I tried to add normal-sized walls to the floor and the 4-step wall on top, but the walls wouldn't snap right on one side I tried looking at the video from all angles and try to figure out how the original builder had done it, but I just couldn't figure it out.

I took a break at that point and watched some tutorials, but none of them did what I needed the house to do... so I went back and tried again.I looked closely at the original build and noticed there was a short wall on top of a long wall on one side, and the other way around on the other side, so the wiggly walls were right in the middle. I tried doing it that way... and it finally worked! This was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had while building

I tried to build my own house in the Sims 1. Failed miserably because we live on a slope with a garage under half of the house and the back half flat on the ground.

True, but I still think you can get a very good sense of different locations using clever props and themes. Subhoods are very helpful here, rather than trying to cram all the areas into one giant hood.

I remember when I saw this pre-release image for Sims 2, and I was so excited because building a house like that just wan't possible in Sims 1!

I'm not sure why this was in response to my post about suggestions for absurd rich people things to add to a lot. All of these could be in a singular mansion in an otherwise empty hood.

I do, however, disagree that Sims 2 has to be a small village game to be functional. It depends on the player, their gameplay style, their computer specs, etc.

I've been playing my current hood for 10 years. I have slowly developed the subhoods as the generations went on and population expanded, and I make choices in my game accordingly to prioritize my preference in gameplay. I play a Maxis match game and don't have a lot of CC deco just for the aesthetics of looking pretty. My largest residential lots are 5X4 and I only have maybe 5 of those. I have dozens of sims living in 1X1 lots. My high rise apartment lots generally have only 4 apartments to minimize lag. Many of my high rise community lots downtown are actually 1-2 stories of usable space and then 5 empty floors.

And with all that *knock wood*, I rarely crash or get pink soup unless I've had my game open for 24+ hours, only get lag if I have more than 30 sims on a lot (rare but usually due to weddings), and most of the errors I get are related to that stupid Maxis school bus glitch where there's no parent home to celebrate their good grades with. My hood won't last forever but nothing will. I currently have 707 playable sims after many generations. Eventually I'll hit a point where I'll have too many character files for the game to work, but after a decade of gameplay, I'd definitely consider my experience a success.

What you said reminded of my past playing, including making a fake tennis court, then I remembered of my fake football stadium I downloaded from MTS.

Ohh, so it's possible after all? My game is crammed with CC. Last time it was maxis was when I had my early 2000s PC. To be honest, even if it was physically possible it would be too overwhelming for me, too many families to care for. I like to play 3-5 families and make side sims for them so they don't become related. I love aesthetics too much to delete my CC. To each their own.

Oakbook had a few hundred families. Ambitious... and quickly overwhelming. Declining health didn't help, lol.