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Link Ninja
#201 Old 23rd Aug 2011 at 6:51 PM Last edited by Charmful : 10th Sep 2011 at 5:54 AM.
I find the more realism put into the game the more interesting it is. Here are some things I have done.

Money wise - Use loans sparingly

It's not fun when you dump unlimited money into your families but if you make a family of five and they are intended to be a middle class or upper family and they can't afford that three-four bedroom house and you don't want them all stuffed in one bedroom then you can justify dropping a motherlode or a few kachngs and say they are loans to get the sims on their feet than just the bare 20,000.

As well when a student goes to college. They always change into ugly default Uni clothes so it's not a bad thing to dump a kaching on them and say it's from the parents (i think there's a money order hack somewhere that does this too but if you don't want to use a hack)

Keep varying degrees of classes. Make a trailer park for low-income sims and don't advance them past a certain job level, keep middle class families at middle class jobs unless you want to advance them to be rich. It's not actually fun when everyone is rich and perfect. I mean it doesn't make sense to have a president living in some cottage nor a prep cook living in a mansion.

Job wise - put caps on the jobs

Maybe only have one or two sims being able to be the top of that career at a time. Maybe it's impractical to have five Chief of staffs at one time so don't let any other medical sims advance until the one above gets promoted or retires.

Politics - make them up and play with them
Like the sims I made up dummy versions of politics like D'craticans and Republicers, the Mauve party, and Terciarians. Usually college students take the Mauve Party or are just Apethery (apathetic), rich sims are more likely to be Republicers. However you can play this up in the Politics Job career and have two sims gunning for mayor or senate of two different political parties and create animosity between them, like if one is out ont he town and sees the other they might throw water int heir face. Then flip a coin to decide who advances to the next job position.

Quirky Naming/ family traditions and themes -

I have a family who names their children after flowers and plants (Poppy, Ash, Elm, Willow)

I have a family who loves the color hot pink

I have a family that likes naming their children after classic rock bands. (Rhiannon, Halen)

I have a family that names their children musical names (Andante, Adagio, Harmony, Melody, Rhapsody, etc)


Art styles -
I have a few Sims that went to college for art and when they had enough skill if you have Seasons they can create a custom painting so I went through DeviantArt and found a few artists I liked and made their works into custom paintings so each of my art sims has a 'style' they paint as.

If I think of more I will post it.

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

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Field Researcher
#202 Old 28th Aug 2011 at 7:47 AM
i am in the process of finding new buildings to download for my custom neighborhood. Which is a hood made up of regular sims that have a mayor who handles town expenses and on the other side of the town is a hollywood where celebrity sims live. I plan on creating a journalism lot where sims write novels on the celebrities and other town scandals.

The hospital is not free insurance is a must. The mayor receives the money that the hospital gets to build it up add onto it or update it. The clinic has the same rules for it.
The police and fire station receive money from the mayor also.

I'm only attaching one downtown which i plan i remolding to look like it is from a different time period. Then I will have that downtown stay that way as it will be a part of the sim history of the town. I will try and put lots that will add culture to the town. I will only have apartments downtown for sims to live in.

I'm also creating a base hood university in a shopping district. I will have one dorm and the rest of the students live in private married or family housing. I will limit the type of community lots in the campus. There will be a boutique, thrift store, bank, post office, clinic w/ therapy services, flea market, three take out places( haven't decided on the food but i'm thinking pizza for one and hamburgers for the other, and one for fruit and veggies to promote good health), they will have a student center which will include tutoring, a games room, coffee shop. There will also be a gym and a spa for those who can afford it and at the gym they offer dance, yoga, tai chi classes. Also, there will be a beauty salon. No pets will be allowed on campus. Students will be able to work in some of these businesses. Students pay tuition to their university president if they can't afford it they take out a loan to the bank or drop out.

I will only start out CAS in university so they can start to develop their lives. Citizen sims pay money to the mayor for taxes. I try to host community events through the mayor by hosting parties for the fourth of july, or having potlucks, etc. I installed a mod that makes everyone have bigger bills so in that aspect i pretend it includes house insurance, car insurance, electricity, water and utilities.

There is a school system in play that goes from preschool to high school. Each grade has some form of skill level that sims must meet and their parents pay tuition for because education is not free. I even have a daycare for my sim toddlers. I don't play those everyday of the sim lives because i wouldn't have time for much else but I do make them all go every once in awhile. When they don't go however they go to the maxis school. I let them make thier own friends enemies and partners.

I try and create unique business ideas to put in the town. I am having the mayor run all of the businesses I don't want owned in the first place but need owned just to get the custom objects or restaurants how i want ran. I also, try to only do things they want and I try not to cheat money wise because then i screw up my banking system. Randomizing aspirations is always fun. I try to keep romance, pleasure, and popularity to YA and teen and adult and elder get fortune family or knowledge.
Mid-life crisis are always fun when playing adults.
Babyshowers are a must!
Teen pregnancies will result in teens having to go to a teen help center where they will learn everything there is to know about parent hood and still finish school in the process and get all they help they need and then when they are almost ready to give birth they decide whether they want to keep the child or not and they learn how to prepare for college. This is an expensive prgram but does have payment plans for the poor sims.
If the babies aren't kept they go to the town orphanage where they hopefully get adopted.


This was just a little bit of how i play my game hope this helps someone! pm me any questions you might have.
Lab Assistant
#203 Old 2nd Sep 2011 at 12:32 AM
i just got into the whole "medieval" period theme. i restarted pleasantview with dirt roads. took down the water-tower and in the process of removing street signs. no extra cities. no universities. no televisions or radios. lots of funky old outfits... but anyWHO. I'm going from lot to lot redecorating and redressing the simmies. So far, it's fun. For the first time ever, I felt bad for Darren Dreamer and had him call the Grim Reaper. $10,000 simoleans and the lovely Mrs. came back to life (her grave replaced with a pond). Cassandra came over after a few days--uninvited--and made out with an incredibly eager Darren. The pregnant Mrs. got mad and broke up with him. Darren moved out. I think it's a funny twist considering he was the one that brought her back to life. As for the characters, Darren's doing the painting thing somewhere else, the Mrs. moved on and married Gordon Wolosenki (or something like that), Dirk is working toward his silver badge in sewing, and baby Mariana (named after grandma) is about to celebrate her first birthday.

So yeah. When I get bored the entire neighborhood gets a facelift. The residents get to relive their lives differently. Whether it be gardening and fishing like crazy to make sure there's enough food on the table, or being overtaken by aliens. That was my last hood, by the way. The brightly-colored, red-eyed Delnotians moved in with their mixed ancient Greek/Mexican way of living. They married with simmies and reproduced until there were no original simmies left... not even a trace of their DNA in the newer generations.

Before THAT everyone wanted to be a super hero or villian. Pleasantview was divided down the middle. The goodies on one side, the baddies on the other. There was lots of fighting until some idiot made a virus with that career lab-thing and the "mysterious illness" spread like fire. EVERYONE eventually got sick and died or got taken away by the social worker. It was something I was not expecting, but it was pretty cool. Somewhere along the line one of my sims got pregnant and then announced that she was having TWO kids, but somehow popped out FIVE. That was crazy. Pretty cool because all the babies took different attributes from the parents, but never had I lost a mom because children were so demanding.

Before THAT I got stuck with making each family utterly perfect. I wanted to puke, so I rushed through the generations with cheats and the romance wish from the wishing well. Ten generations in and my game crashed. Bummer.

I like candy.
Lab Assistant
#204 Old 5th Sep 2011 at 12:35 AM
For me, challenges have been the best thing ever. It really helped me not cheating and become better to play the game - and there are also challenges which is not about making everything 'perfect', but about ruining their lives. I am adding hacks and mods to my gameplay constantly to enhance the challenges and make it harder to play - And I find it great!
There is always The Mega List of mini Challenges if you want to add a little fun to the game (:
Link Ninja
#205 Old 6th Sep 2011 at 5:54 PM Last edited by Charmful : 12th Jan 2014 at 5:18 PM. Reason: hobbies included
So thought of more stuff regarding college:

I separated the three colleges into different major divisions. Like the Academie LeTour is a private liberal art college and most students will major in drama, Literature, History, as well as I only lets my teens who have a skill 7+ in Creative, Charisma, or Logic attend despite how many other scholarships they get.

The tech college is in the desert so I have all sims wanting to major in the sciences or have majors that lead to the technical jobs go there.

Also, since I had nightlife, I mad tons of bars so my college sims could go on 'pub crawls' which I noticed happened a lot in my college experience. It'd do well to add pubs and bars to the college towns, for a fun night out for a college sim with thier friends if you have uni and nl.

Also instead of making your sim choose a random major in college you can base it off the lifetime want, if their life-time want is a certain occupation you can choose a major that caters to it. Or if not that check their interests

I attribute certain jobs to those interests and choose a major that would progress toward having a job in that interest or hobby; see list below the list of interests and what majors could be taken and what jobs those majors help with.

Animals - Biology (Natural Science, Oceanography) , Literature (Adventurer), Mathematics (Natural science): Nature, Science, Film & Literature

Crime - Biology (Law Enforcement), History (Law), Literature (criminal), Mathematics (Criminal), Political Science,(Law), Psychology (Law Enforcement, Law): Fitness, Film & Literature

Culture - Art (Culinary, Artist, Journalism), Biology (Education), Drama (Dance, Entertainment), Economics (Music, Artist), History (Art), Literature (Art, Entertainment, music, Adventurer), Philosophy (Culinary, journalism), Psychology (Education): Arts & Crafts, Film & Literature, Music & Dance, Cuisine

Entertainment - Drama (Show Business, Entertainment, Dance, Journalism), Economics (Music, Show Business), Literature (Show Business, Entertainment, Music), Mathematics (Gamer), Physics (Gamer), Philosophy (Journalism): Film & Literature, Music & Dance, Games, Film & Literature

Environment - Art (Journalism), Biology (Natural Science, Oceanography), Mathematics (Natural Science), Philosophy (Paranormal) Physics (Paranormal), Psychology (Paranormal): Nature, Science,

Fashion - Drama (Entertainment, Show Business): Music & Dance

Food - Art ( Culinary, Slacker), Literature (Slacker), Philosophy (Culinary, slacker): Cuisine

Health - Biology (Medical, Education), Drama (Athletic), Mathematics (Medical, Science), Physics (Medical, Science): Fitness, Sports, Science

Money - Drama (Politics, Show Business, Entertainment), Economics (Show Business, Business, Politics), History (Politics, Law). Literature (Criminal, Show Business, Entertainment), Mathematics (Criminal), Philosophy (Business), Political Science (Law, Politics, show Business), Psychology (Law, Business): Any interest really

Paranormal - Philosophy (Paranormal), Physics (Paranormal), Psychology (paranormal): Tinkering, Science

Politics - Drama (Politics), Economics (Politics), History (Politics, Law), Political Science (Politics, Law), Psychology (Law): Hobbies irrelevant.

School - Art (Journalism), Biology (education), Drama (Military), Economics (Military), History (Military), Philosophy (Journalism), Political Science (Military), Psychology (education): Science, Tinkering, Film & Literature

Sci-Fi - Mathematics (Gamer) Mathematics (Science), Philosophy (Paranormal), Physics (Paranormal, Gamer, Science), Psychology (paranormal): Science, Games

Sports - Drama (Athlete), Mathematics (Gamer), Physics (Gamer): Sports, Fitness

Toys - Mathematics (Gamer), Physics (Gamer): Games

Travel - Literature (Adventure, Military), Economics (Military), History (Military), Literature (military), Political science (Military): Film & Literature, Cuisine

Weather - Biology (Natural Science), Mathematics (Science, Natural Science), Physics (Science): Science, Nature

Work - Basically choose any major without the Slacker career in mind: Any Hobby.

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

Test Subject
#206 Old 13th Sep 2011 at 9:24 PM
I still like the sims2 far more than the sims3, though I can get burned out on it. My goal from years ago was to have a huge Legacy family where I played all the members for ten generations. Never quite made it, would get to about Gen 7 and something would happen; my computer dies, etc and I lose everything. Now I am on about Gen 8 of a family I've played for well over a year, so you can imagine how attached I am to them. But it does get quite boring, once you get the hang of it, to just give them everything they want - most of the families are rich, etc. So now I go by a certain amount of free will. Sims only have babies if they want them. If they fall in love with the ugliest, stupidest townie and want to marry them, that's what they get. And if my sim is damn lazy, I'm not going to put the extra effort into forcing them to clean the house, get a promotion, do their homework, take care of their kid...they have their own pixel personalities and I try to go more with that. If that means the social worker shows up or they catch the kitchen on fire and die, so be it.

And if they are totally twisted, I go with that too. I had one family where the daughter, Beatrice, brought home Clay, a waiter from the vamp club downtown, and married him. But lo and behold, as soon as Clay set eyes on Juliet, Beatrice's mother, it was hearts and 3 lightning bolts all over the place. I let them have at it, they cheated like crazy, and eventually Beatrice caught them and kicked him out. But as soon as her husband died, Juliet moved Clay right back in and married him. By the time Juliet died, Beatrice and Clay had fallen back in love and they remarried. Their son was seriously messed up by this point, and much like father and son, he grew up to have an affair with another one of his father's mistresses.
Test Subject
#207 Old 19th Sep 2011 at 11:59 AM
I'm giving makeovers to every sim in every city and rebuilding their houses as well.
Lab Assistant
#208 Old 19th Sep 2011 at 11:40 PM
I started an orphanage. Make sims with random parents. I just take whatever ugly thing Maxis throws at me and name it mom, dad, or even a bunch of letters like fgyerbyhnj. Then I make a teen with what I think I want her to look like. Then I do this until I want to. I sometimes take Maxis made sims ( I did Angela and Lilith Pleasant when I remade them) I make an orphanage, with a nice, caring woman or man with at least more than 5+ niceness points. I use the tombstone of L and D and add the teens i made to the family. It doesn't just need to be teens, though. But I prefer teens.

Hope I helped!

"Mars just kinda came to me. Cos i'm out of this world" ~Bruno Mars. I am obsessed. LEGIT!
MY FULL NAME SHALL BE DEVON PINKAMINA VALERIE MARS
Currently Listening to: It Will Rain by Bruno Mars Mood: Sexy :P
Brony, Hooligan, and Little Monster <3
Lab Assistant
#209 Old 21st Sep 2011 at 2:05 PM
The game is always interesting. The TS3 generation has only just started. Once TS3 has become more popular, that's when I plan to move on.


Besides, I want the full complete experiance of TS2 by getting all Stuff Packs before I move on to 3. Actually, I already have 3 installed on my computer, but it's pretty complicated, so I'd rather stick to TS2 which has more custom content
Scholar
#210 Old 21st Sep 2011 at 9:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by labellavienna
I recently created a gay family to see how that would work out...it's kind of interesting...although strange. I watch them try to adopt and deal with their "gayness" since they are both in the closet and have not come out to their families due to fear of rejection. They also both have "side" hags who are female and these girlfriends come over whenever the parents visit to pretend to be their girlfriends...it's very very funny to watch hahaha.

I also did a themed neighborhood, 19th century...I had soooooo much fun it was totally enjoyable and i learned so much history!

Right now i am working on a Transgender family where the wife is a trans person and she is hiding it from her husband..LOL. They never woohoo or anything so he doesnt know that his wife has a secret weapon. Only frustrating thing is that i can't find a way to attach a peen on her when she showers or add a bulge to her panties...which can be very frustrating. So instead i make her wear a strap-on under her shorts LOL


Don't know if anyone touched on this, but garden of shadows has all sorts of CC for transgendered individuals, and Sexy Sims 2 offers penises for females.
Field Researcher
#211 Old 23rd Sep 2011 at 4:30 PM
make a summer camp for your teens and children. The teens can be camp counselors. Children can hike hunt bugs go swimming maybe even make or get something for going to the camp each year like a souvenir. Have winter retreats as well. This can bring teens and children closer together. A way to incorporate the parents would be to have them throw fundraisers for the camp.
Link Ninja
#212 Old 24th Oct 2011 at 9:47 PM
I'm back with a few other tiddlebits:

Change your sims look at least every age if not more. Nothing drastic if you don't think they are the drastic type of Sim but a little hair style change might be nice. One time I had a sim try out a bunch of do's because in my head she had an indesicive personality. In college, I always change up the looks of my sims because they really can be someone new in that experience. Like if a teen girl who had long hair as a child and teen I will give a short do. sometimes I give them glasses or if they had glasses, I'll take them away (they got contacts). Having them change their looks brings about a small freshness in the game as you play them.

SOCIAL Shake-ups

Create a handful of single adult sims (not necessarily all romance aspirations) and move them downtown into some scattered duplex or apartments and have them really get into going out and possibly meeting each other. Or single parented families with the parents finding a love connection again, have them bring home a date and see if the children interact well with him/her.

Have some of the college people date older sims, or have your college sims date someone else than they did as a teen while they aren't tied down anymore.

Don't loose your sims's friends connections; call up old high school friends and have them take a night out on the town to catch some music or dance. Or stay in and blow the bubbler.

Spice up your frat or sorority day-to-day by having a 'parents day' and inviting the sims parents to come out and see how their baby is doing in college.

If you had four siblings growing up together as sims, take time and have one brother/sister invite the families over for dinner or brunch. Or take out all the siblings for adult time at the local pub and play darts and reminisce. If you have some elders with a few kids, have them over for a family get together or take the reunion to the park by managing your groups.

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

Field Researcher
#213 Old 26th Oct 2011 at 4:00 AM
make certain lots available only in different seasons like a community garden should be open summer spring and fall but not winter
or
a community flea market that is outside and has no walls only awnings have that open spring and summer
or
make certain places lower or raise their prices for things during certain seasons
coffee shops, cafes, poetry, movies could be really popular to go to in the fall and winter
in the summer the beach, fast food places, roller skating, etc could be popular

i think the limit on what should be open and when and price ranges that differ will make a big difference in gameplay.
This way the businesses don't always feel the same especially if they got updated looks for holidays and such.
What is popular one season could not be popular the next and if the player can get that to reflect in game that would be cool.
Banned
#214 Old 26th Oct 2011 at 4:18 AM
Make a bunch of college Sims, give them all totally different personalities, pre-create some relationships, and let the games begin!
Lab Assistant
#215 Old 29th Oct 2011 at 8:56 PM
I usually rotate through my families with each family being played for a Sim week, running through each neighborhood/sub-hood and then I run two Sim college terms. For each week I give the Sims something they must accomplish with each subsequent week adding things so that during week one the goal might be simply to have a Sim go to community lot, while week two might require one Sim to go to community lot/hobby lot, and have the family have an outing/first vacation, on week three they have the goals of week two + start or attend a family business, and so on with each additional week adding more things.

If the family fails at all the tasks for that week they must try again in the following week and can not advance to the next week until they accomplish the tasks set for them. this keeps the game interesting for me on top of the usual social things that occupy the Sims lives. the goals might seem simple but when you try to juggle skilling up, work, and caring for the Sims needs and having weekly goals during the latter weeks it really becomes tough to accomplish all those things and their goals as well, (and it keeps those elders really busy so they aren't as boring as most people find them).
Test Subject
#216 Old 8th Nov 2011 at 6:50 AM
Default nice!
This is really interesting! I'm definitely going to try a lot of these.
I usually like to play poor kinda like the "Living Off The Land" you mentioned.
Lab Assistant
#217 Old 8th Nov 2011 at 5:54 PM
sometimes I give my Sims a 70,000+ furnished home, with all the things they need and then take away all their money, and not allow them jobs, or to hire any service workers (TV busted...you fix it, house dirty...you clean it. Garden needs tending...better get to it). the family has to maintain the house, keep the kids happy and do whatever to pay the bills, or they will lose everything.
Lab Assistant
#218 Old 20th Nov 2011 at 10:54 PM
Darren dreamer is probably the most boring sims ever. After Dirk stopped bunking off school and going to resteraunts with Lillith and grew up, I had Darren, a Booring painter with ugly glasses and no hopes of getting with Cassandra (Shes going to get together with Beau Broke when he grows up)

So what did I do?!

He's now gay with a man called Randy- thank you matchmaker! They've adopted a fat girl called violet who thinks she's a fairy. And now their on vacation in the far east wearing those flowery kimonos! my favourite family now lol (apart from the Four seperate pleasant households)

Guess what cheese
Test Subject
#219 Old 28th Nov 2011 at 5:03 PM
I made a sim who was a complete womanizer (by the end of his life he had 14 girlfriends at the same time, he was also left with a child from one). Best thing I ever did, so much fun... might make another womanizer sim now, and try to beat the record of 14! xD
I made a new neighbourhood to try the 'living off the land' thing. Another cool idea, added a few family traditions to the mix (The 'Robin' family names all their kids after types of bird... try saying Redwing Robin 5 times as fast as you possibly can...) makes it really rather fun.
I've also started a vampire apocalypse...
Mad Poster
#220 Old 11th Dec 2011 at 12:15 PM
To kick start an old neighborhood again, I took the families out of their current housing, and put them in brand new houses in the same map-since I had put in better hacks to make them more 'sociable', they seem to have come alive again-with all of their baggage, hatreds and loves. The houses are better made, and more playable.
I get to reset their jobs, and make them more compatible with their interests.
I'm also beta-testing the "Sim Tracker" for Reba, so that has been an interesting process as well-to keep actual tabs on the neighborhood as it progresses.
Test Subject
#221 Old 12th Dec 2011 at 4:38 PM
This is helpful! When I'm bored and I wanna play TS2, I make a weird family and kill them with cheats and stuff... Then I just delete the whole lot and the family. Oh and I LOVE to make drama - One man lives with his wife and they are gonna have a baby but when the woman is pregnant, he cheats on her. Then the woman figures out, gives birth to the baby and kills herself. I like playing with the families from the game but it's getting boring... So thanks, this is pretty helpful!!! :]
Field Researcher
#222 Old 20th Dec 2011 at 2:00 PM
Default good ideas!
i cant wait to try them im so in get married and have kids sims im going to spice it up thx
Site Helper
#223 Old 20th Dec 2011 at 7:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Flowerz33
When I'm bored and I wanna play TS2, I make a weird family and kill them with cheats and stuff... Then I just delete the whole lot and the family.
So, you make the game interesting by completely corrupting your neighborhoods?

Doesn't sound like the best strategy for those of us who want to keep playing our neighborhoods.
Mad Poster
#224 Old 23rd Dec 2011 at 9:01 PM
so i like having perfect families, i want to change that now, im going to get elders marry adults and vice-versa, i wanna experience that gameplay to keep the game interseting.
Test Subject
#225 Old 24th Dec 2011 at 7:20 PM
Default Yah :)
Yah, I have been a little bored with the game lately, and I should probably do something new with it. I usually make sims and then put them in poses with pose boxes and then post photoshoots on my photobucket... im working on a calendar right now, so there's always something to do
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