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.

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.

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.

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 (:

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.

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.

I'm giving makeovers to every sim in every city and rebuilding their houses as well.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Make a bunch of college Sims, give them all totally different personalities, pre-create some relationships, and let the games begin!

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).

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.

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.

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)

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...

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.

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!!! :]

good ideas!
 

i cant wait to try them im so in get married and have kids sims im going to spice it up thx

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.

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.

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

hopefully, a new alien born would make the game interesting, especially for the genetics.

I'm tired to play to TS3, I'm back in TS2 I can keep on doing the story of several citizens (many playable families).

I love to control the city a family at once

I had a sim whose wife died while pregnant with his child.

And another sim whose husband and teenage daughter died in a fire. She remarried and then that husband died as well. She was so depressed that I had her run with scissors until she died. O_o

Oh, and I made a family of vampires.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Anyway, these ideas are pretty cool. I might try one some time.

Awesome suggestions ! Thanks a lot !

I usually play a bunch of different families and keep moving them into better houses. change of scenery does wonders.

This is something simple but: Instead of marrying two sims of the same age e.g. two adults, marry an adult to an elder or vice versa, e.g. an elder man and an adult woman and vice versa and let it go from there...

I see that everyone is more interested in The Sims 3 now. It's too bad. The Sims 2 is always better.
Running my own business, creating posebox, taking lots of photos are always interesting to me, I've thought that when The Sims 4,5,6 come out, I would still play The Sims 2 :D

If you have OFB and Seasons, you can run a farmer's market with fish and produce. I'm not sure if that's possible, but it's worth a try.

Its possible with these:

http://www.paladins-place.org/Sims_...acilitators.htm
http://www.paladins-place.org/produ...ing-station.htm
http://www.paladins-place.org/fish-packing-station.htm

Haha and here I was about to ask , but your post is just BRILLANT!
Thank you ! All those pointers made my day and my Sims 2 better ! I'm gonna try them (the positive one that is ) .


LOLLL I'm chocking from laughter here HAHA

I'm gonna take a look at the challenge too , just to add more
Haha and I can see I'm not the only one who's a control freak


That's the plan !
Actually I never took a job for my sims (cose I feel bad that one has to take care of the kids on her own ) and the nanny is useless !
But I'm gonna make them vampire , with one is a vampire and the other is not . The one who'sn't will become one when the kid (only 1..well ok maybe 2..no wait make that 3) grow up and leave . So their parent's are immortal vampire lol But the kids are normal .

Thank you for all these tips !
Edited: it broke the page sorry about that I clicked code instead of quote!
Re-Edit: I just want to point that a link doesn't work .
This one

Since wolves are from the family of dogs, and dogs some times have a litter up to four, werewolves can have a quads with this mod: http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php/topic,18.0.html It is as if the werewolves parents are able to have more than one or two children at a time (note that this mod also works for normal sims, but is great for werewolves).

Once I got a little bored of my simming, so I decided to make a broken home. I created a family with a Romance mom, a Fortune dad, a Pleasure teen daughter, a kid daughter and a toddler son. Then I made the parents argue a ton, made them furious with eachother, and had the mom start having affairs. Played them from there, and I wasn't bored anymore.

Some of my adults aged to elders and they are in this big house by themselves while their children are off at college/living on their own. So I had them take up dog breeding, as well as gardening. I ended up playing them for a sim week with all that stuff to do!

I love the idea of a legacy and living off the land. Gonna totally try that! For me, my game is pretty interesting. I have an orphanage, boarding school, insane asylum, hospital, prision and am in the process of making a daycare center. It's really fun, especially the orphanage and insane asylum and hospital. I have a story for each building as well.

Orphanage-Kassie Nelson was orphaned herself at age 17 so she really feels for orphans. She decided to run an orphanage to help any and all orphans find a good home. She has found homes for many of the children and she's ran through her original group of orphans....almost. There are two girls named Brittany Bransfield and Christa Turner who are BFFs and refuse to be seperated. Most of the people looking to adopt however only want one child as they may be low on money or have low child experience and want to start slow. So, this runs as an issue for Brittany and Christa, but yet they still refuse.

Boarding School-Julia Brown is the Headmaster at the school and the teachers are Mr. John Smith (Math), Ms. Samantha Rose (Science) Mrs. Laura Lee (Language Arts) Mr. Kevin Jones (Social Studies and Gym) Ms. Gretchen Anderson (Study Hall) Mr. Kyle Evans (Librarian) and Mrs. Dora Phillips, Ms. Leslie Nelson (unrelated to Kassie Nelson) and Mrs. Heather WIlson (Lunch ladies). They love the kids, but there are these two kids named Ashleigh Marks and Lucas Marks (twins) that are absoloutly horrible. What will happen?

Hospital-There are many nurses and doctors here, but there is a certain Doctor, a Dr. James Mitchell that seems to be falling head over heels for a cancer patient named Britney Baker. With her life slowly slipping away what will happen to these star-crossed lovers? (My fav!)

Prision-There are prisioners and guards here, natrually. But one of the guards, a Ms. Kenzie Williams is starting to wonder what exactly happened with a Ms. Lucy Marks, a teenager who was accused of murdering her parents and her little brother and sent to life in prision. But was it really Lucy? Or is the real killer still on the loose?

Insane Asylum: The Sane family, a Mr. Issac Sane, Mrs. Jane Sane and their little child aged daughter Carly Sane run the asylum. The Insane are moaning and freaking out in their cells, except one girl. That girl is Tanya Larkson whom Carly has sectretly befriended. What exactly happened to Tanya and why is she in the Asylum? Carly is determined to find out

I don't have a story planned out for the Daycare yet....sorry.

I'm also trying my first home buisness! I was never really a fan of the idea, but I decided to try it. My furniture store reached level 1 in a day! That may not seem impressive, but considering this is my first buisness, I decided to try it.

Struggling with debt/not earning enough money. I'm spending one household wondering how much rent my sim's going to miss, how many bills are going to be late, what the repo man's going to take when she gets her last warning, and whether I'm going to have to evict her for a cheaper apartment. This has largely come about due to various mods: lower wages, NPC careers, higher/more frequent bills, limited careers (both in what level a sim can get promoted to without having the want to get promoted and what careers they can get a job in).

It makes me feel a lot more accomplished when I have an actual rich sim because they've achieved it through hard work.

Thanks so much for this informative thread! I'm going to try a few of these for sure.

Im currently doing a fallout nehigborhoud! ONe family survived the apocalypse and the rest are fending for thier lives killin anyone who ets into them! It keeps me occupied and I love doing it practailly everyday! Ill upload the neighborhood soon!

Make a country club that only lets playables in.

I had never played the apartment hood, and I have some interesting mods, so I managed to have everyone from the bin and the hood move into one house. No one got a job unless they already had one, but I cheated to build a house to accomodate everyone. They starting killing themselves off, which isn't easy as a few of them would autonomously fix meals for everyone. And since I have ACR they were cheating/fighting/makeing babies; lots of crying and stench - and not just the babies! Pretty interesting. Hay, sounds like a challenge!...?

Recently i tried going back and recreating original sims 1 and 2 families and there neighborhoods(houses and all) right from the beginning of the family tree, FYI the curious/smith families tree's from strangetown will keep you scratching your head for quite some time XD

The main change I've made in my game is embracing debt. I've downloaded the mortgage Shrubs from Simbology so if my sims run out of money they can get a loan (which of course puts them in debt) and now the average funds of my families is $8000 as opposed to $999999999. They also have to pay school fees, bills, buy groceries and fix up their houses. They are only allowed to get jobs if they roll a want for one, and this is basically the only thing that keeps them on their feet. I'm not saying that all my sims are poor (though some are), they just take out a lot of loans and often get into debt. I like it this way because it's more realistic. I've also decided to start playing with aliens (never have!) so it should get interesting.

When I get in a rut, I try something radically different from my normal play - usually some sort of challenge (ISBI, Apocalypse, etc.).

My game got boring because I got into the habit of using the anti-aging cheats to avoid the trauma of losing the Sims I had got most attached to (ie Mortimer Goth, of whom I had become somewhat over-fond over many years of playing The Sims!). I am now trying to wean myself off using the cheats, or the Elixir of Life, and letting my families evolve a little more naturally.

I am also attempting my own version of some of the Challenges out there, and am currently playing several Neanderthalesque families, for whom I do not use any cheats at all.
I have also started playing all my neighbourhoods and families in strict rotation, which helps to make things a little more interesting.

I have picked up so many great ideas from MTS over the last year or so, but have only just joined. It is always full of tips and inspirations that help me to keep the game fun!

I've never been one to turn aging cheats off but I like it that way because its just like real life. Generations later you can look back at the family tree and see and remember the fond memories of them. I'm also really into genetics so its pretty cool when a sim is born with a trait from grandparents and whatnot :D

I found a good way to make university a little more interesting. If you're doing Greek Houses you could have random outings and 'Bar Crawl' outings. In my Legacy Hood I created a University town strictly devoted to Bar Crawls, Entertainment Venues etc all on one small strip, and I have them hop from one to the other, and do all sorts of things. It's a lot of fun, and I don't like outings usually, but add in a theme for the outing and go by that theme makes for really interesting times.

Also for Greek Houses instead of influencing the newbies, you could find ways to haze/humiliate them by making shy sims streak or shy sims have parties or make the pledges do everyone's homework and/or Woohoo so many Sims/Kiss/makeout or something that a real college/Greek House might do.

Neighborhood covenants. It's not as much as real life. However, rushing to put a bowling alley, swimming pools, cars and pets into every neighborhood makes each nieghborhood the same as the two before it. So, i put restrictions and themes on the hoods - to make each one play differently. The current #1 hood is a Florida key with single story architecture, and I love the irony of no swimming pools at all. Also, I built a tech restriction here. Generation 0 - radio and books. Generaton 1 small TVs available. Generation 2. granted large tvs and computrs. Generation 3 all tech restrictions lifted.
Some neighborhoods are run by robots. Some ban vampires entirely. Some are business based while others have no businessses.

The quickest way to make the game interesting? Play TS3 for a day.

I got it as a gift and can't believe how boring that game is. So much potential but such a waste of pixels.

I have an overarching storyline for my neighbourhood, which dates back to Sims 1. In fact, one of my Sims is a (very heavily-aged) version of one of the founding Sims.

By having the storyline, days when the Sims themselves don't come up with anything have me looking back at my neighbourhood narrative, looking at my Sims' states and then throwing in some event that would make things more interesting (whether that's something small like "The Sims in one part of the neighbourhood decide to put on a new TV show" or major like "Oh no! The plague has entered town!"

I also have things like a teen cultural boarding school for certain Sims, a monastery, rival magical groups (two of which are apt to produce havoc at any moment), a spaceport with residential staff and (sometimes) a "reality TV" house. Parts of the neighbourhood operate under special rules. Between all these different things, there's usually something going on in the neighbourhood.

I downloaded the ACR hack, best thing I ever did! Furthermore, I rediscovered the game when I started to play the default families and continued their stories.

I have ACR, and also LOVE it! It's fun to see what they will do ALL BY THEMSELVES {OMG you left the toddler to eat dog food so you could make a baby with you sister-in-law!?}. Now if the settings also included "you're happily married, don't sleep with that cad!"

It does! You can use the Sim settings to change their cheating to 'totally faithful.'

I've been playing a particular neighborhood for a while, and I've created my own private journal for it-nothing new there-but I downloaded a set of all the icons for the game that was posted at MATY-and extracted them to note what happened in the various households on any given day.

It certainly perks up the interest when you edit a journal and put in special icons to mark a birth, a death, cheating or a promotion. It makes it less boring to read the developments as they happened.

"Oh, my god, I forgot that happened! No wonder they're so depressed!"

Rowena - um, don't remember ever seeing "totally faithful"; is that the "ignore committed relationships"?

Sim Settings/Cheating/Set To Totally Faithful

Hope you're still out there. I don't see this path; the closest I can find is overrides/autonomy/spouse only. Could I have an outdated version?

thanks so much(:

Well, if you're using the original ACR, that could explain it. I use ACR2.

ACR isn't "outdated", really, it's just that ACR2 refined and added a few features.

That's the path I have as well. I am using 1.10.10 (for technical reasons having to do with the aging mod I am also using). The other version is still in beta, but a lot of folks use it. I suspect that path is from Version 2 of ACR.

Instead of giving your sims money through motherlode, use the checkbook available at simwardrobe (here: http://www.paladins-place.org/checkbook/checkbook.htm ) to send money between sims. With limited resources, the game can be fun. Also, this is one method of draining the money out of your rich sims, especially if they have children who don't live with them (anymore) and want to buy a house and furnish it, throw a wedding party, etc...

Not true.
=P

I find doing challenges to break things up is very revitalizing.

For example, I just opened a hippie commune in my BACC, and find I look forward to playing that household in every round. I think part of it is that I play that one mostly hands off (I am a terrible micro-manager, generally speaking), and never know what they'll get up to next.

Celebrity sims.

Download a custom sim, or create a famous person, and try to play the game simulating the person's life. For example, if you have Elvis Presley, get him to the music career, or entertainment career, earn fame and then make him enter the military career. Then return to the music career, or entertainment career, and in the end make him buy the Graceland mansion (here you may bluff a bit to get the necessary funds). Then enjoy the family life, marry Priscilla (or any approppriate sim girlie) and create the Elvis' kids.

This is even better if there is some custom career readily made for a specific sim. One is the Politics career (available here at MTS) where you end up being the President of the United States. Create Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama and make them all enter the same career. Any other politicians are welcome additions, but make sure you have only one President at time, and the first one you have get to the top is Bill Clinton. Play with him at the White House (bluff again the funds) until he dies, and then leave the urn at the memorial hall. This is where the fun starts: once the next President George W. Bush moves into the White House there are the previous presidents haunting the place, which is kinda cool. Then, when Bush dies, keep his urn there and move in Barack Obama. You can of course start this from George Washington if you wish, but that would be a long game. Remember too to take an 'official' picture, or a painting by an artist, of all the Presidents when they still are in office and place it near to the place where their urn is.

This game never stops making me laugh. Random accidents, people slapping each other, mrs Crumplebottom plummeting in the elevator (Omg, did happen, so funny), etc.


The funniest moment though would have to be when i died from getting crushed by my bed. Lmao. I had an apartment with a pull out bed. My sim pulled the bed down and got crushed.

My Sims family has been so busy lately: Mom: gardening: take a lot of time to tend, Dad: going to work, helping with gardening, fishing, Son: going to school, fishing, gardening. They've run a shop of vegetables, fruit and fish and had to work hard to get the products plus 6 cats (4 was born yesterday :o). It's like they've never enjoyed their life. I don't want to use cheats or mods of course. Can someone suggest?

Community lot visits - get right away from work. They can put together an outing, go to the park or museum or rec center or whatever, meet other sims, relax, and when they get hungry eat fish, hot dogs, or hamburgers. When they get tired, send them home, put them down (in good beds so they recharge faster) and get up to work at odd hours 'cause the work is always there. You'll have to watch the clock so the kid's not too exhausted to go to school, but that's just resource management.

Also, play another family as well as this one. Play them differently, but ensure that they make contact with your first family and include them in their lives. Sims can do a lot of living on the lots of other sims - attend parties, help out around the house, watch TV, soak in hot tubs, play games or sports, share in important life events like births and weddings. When you get stale on one family you switch back to the other. If you find they're both getting into ruts, throw in a third family and institute a rule intended to prevent ruts. Like, This sim lives by impulse and can't lock wants. This is an ISBI house. This is my dysfunctional family.

If there's something you always do automatically because it's good strategy or seems like the "right" way to play, like open a community business or do homework every night or have one designated cook in the house, avoid that behavior in one of your families. Always play nuclear families? Play a household of swinging singles. Always start with one sim, get married, have kids, etc? Start with eight. Even if you don't play that household very often, having it to play when you get stale will provide you with a vacation and will loosen up your playstyle and teach you things - about the game and about what you enjoy - that will help you when you return to your primary family. And your primary family will be doing things independently on community lots and visits to the the other families that will help you feel that they're taking more time to enjoy their lives.

Experiment. Experimentation never fails to freshen things up.

You just gave me.
The best idea.

What if you did go crazy and put all the presidents through the White House? Create their families, keep the neighborhood populated by having the heirs of former presidents living on around the 'hood. Try to keep it historically accurate, put 'em through Uni if their real counterparts did so, give them siblings and spouses if they had them...
Hey, Franklin Pierce once ran down an old woman on his horse while in the White House!

My best trick:

If the game is starting to get boring and you have a sim that is married to someone i try to cheat on the wife/husband with so many persons i can before the wife/husband finds out. Quite funny!

Playing sims "against type" can be fun, even if you do not have secondary aspirations for them. For example, I just started playing Florence Delarosa in Bluewater--she's a Knowledge sim. But now that I've let her do some achieving that will be relevant to her ongoing life (maxed out Creativity and Cooking, almost have her home business to rank 10), she's going to branch out and become a woman who likes to date around, taking her multiple boyfriends on fun dates Downtown and elsewhere. Basically, she's financially and emotionally independent (not a romantic), she will have a number of steady boyfriends she enjoys for different reasons, and thanks to ACR she'll probably get accidentally pregnant at some point and then be a happy single mom. Since her business mostly runs itself she'll have plenty of time and money to pursue her own interests (still a Knowledge sim, after all) and enjoy the kid(s) she will have.

In Riverblossom, Liam and Chloe are a great match as Fortune sims, but they are going to live on Liam's farm and not have jobs. Jobs are obvious for Fortune sims, but they will make money in other ways--him through growing food and maybe running a farm stand, her through financial consulting and probably writing books. It would be easy for them to get jobs, but then they would be like 90% of my other sims.

It can be easy and obvious to always play sims "to type" (a Romance sim who plays around, a Fortune sim with a job, a Knowledge sim always studying), but it shakes up my play to play them differently than I might normally.

The hippie commune idea above sounds fun, and I have plans to incorporate it into my neighborhood after the commune founder graduates from university. He's majoring in philosophy, is wearing John Lennon glasses, and wants to be a cult leader I'm really looking forward to setting that commune up. I will probably move him into an empty lot somewhere--maybe Riverblossom--and then build the commune buildings over time. (That's another kind of challenge and difference in game play which can be a lot of fun, building a lot out over time.)

Watching Desperate Housewives is helpful, kinda gives me an incentive to change my playstyle a bit. :P

ETA: In general, just watch TV, you'll get ideas (and some motivation).

Try the mega-list of mini challanges it sure looks fun it gives you a challange to do when you click and the eps that the challange need im going to download it once my new heir gets out of collage.

[QUOTE=ansleon
The hippie commune idea above sounds fun..(That's another kind of challenge and difference in game play which can be a lot of fun, building a lot out over time.)[/QUOTE]

I still have a commune going - impossible without mods that allow any number of people & pets. And I like it better with ACR's "no jealously" - free love and lots of babies, ya know. Nobody worked except a few pets, and the "odd" serious and industrious child

Listening to the game's music and sounds using ear/headphones can create a whole a difference than with speakers. Trust me, it gets you into the zone!

I am currently in a funk, but one of the best things I did to make the game more interesting was download a mod for more realistic pay. It makes the game harder, cause you can't instantly get everything you want it takes time.

The maid and the gardener might also want some little extra pay. They work for eight hours, and earn something like 85 bucks for the day.

If there was some nasty thing in the game, like inflation, it would make the game more realistic but maybe actually too difficult, especially for all new sims families.

I think the thing that is helping me keep my game interesting is that I'm blogging about it. Now I have to manipulate what happens in game to make it fit the story I'm telling in my blog and I have to make all the families in town affected by what happens at the other houses. Before I just focused on each family as separate from the others and not as a whole neighborhood. Also, I no longer try for perfect families. Several people are in aspiration failure right now.

The key to keeping one neighborhood interesting over the long run is variety. But not just crazy idiots in pink ape suits, I mean real subtle variety.

Number one, by class. Have streets with nothing but poor sims and the Grunge set decor. Probably one third of my houses are these lower class people, they don't care about children born out of wedlock, they use every aspiration reward they can get a hold of (especially energizers, money trees, and printing presses). They can't have good jobs and they are armed with guns in their house if a burglar or enemy comes by. Their kids never go to college unless someone is exceptional. A fraction of these poor people are criminals who will do anything for money. You just have to roleplay them.

Next on the middle class streets are desperate strivers. These families focus like mad on making money so they can move out and move up the block to a better house. They don't break the laws ever, but they will go crazy with home businesses, investing in other lots, getting their kids to college. If they get someone up to the top career of politics then I say they have a voice in the town council. I'm nerdy enough to keep track of my town council. It is still totally controlled by the old money conservatives.

And I have 2 to 3 families very rich, they consider themselves nobility and won't mingle with the middle class folk. Those ones have total control over what kind of houses are built in the hood. You have to rp this -- you have to say, "Okay, Family X has a a lot money and wants a better house, but if it doesn't meet building codes they have to live downtown or in a subhood if they want some fancy house that is not up to code."

My rich sims are protectors of the whole town, and will not let ugly buildings be made. At this point, after seeing how boring University is, they are the only ones whose children can go to Uni. My first rush on getting Uni was like cool! Uni! And half the kids went. Now it's maybe five percent.

I have 40 households in my custom hood that I have run for years, and never the same family twice because they are all unique and full of drama. And by the time I get back to a family, I have mostly forgot what is going on with them. I use the photo album to remind me, I always pause, check their inventory, check their aspiration rewards, read the photo story, then go from there. Many are dealing with traumatic memories -- so and so dumped them, so and so died, etc. .. but many others are totally fine. I will still shake things up if needed.

Also have variety in sexual preference. Myself I'm a straight boy (yes yes name), but it was fun for me to try out gays, prudes, religious fanatics, etc. I try to make each household different. Most boring to me is gay men, but having a few in my hood anyway made me think about how they would feel and what they would do for fun. Like for any guy, making lesbians was too easy. I have a sort of lesbian epidemic I'm trying to slowly ease out of.

I would suggest using the Simbologism tree to make sure your hood has realistic mix of gay and straight (about 10% gay?). It makes it more challenging for gay sims, but what you do is make downtown lots that are gay or les nightclubs, using the Visitor Controller, which bans marrieds, straights, wrong gender, elders, etc. The Maxis default of everyone being bi is kind of not realistic or interesting for storytelling.

I would like to get TG girls into my mix but I have not really found a good tool for it. I have about 400 sims, so maybe 5 or so should be TG.

Other things you could do, which will work and I can put in another post:

Prisons, simlogical
Asylums, not like the challenge, just for people who don't fit anymore
Retirement Homes, push your old folks from the poor hoods here, watch TV while it runs in the background. Have one sim who is the Manager, not an elder, he or she tells the others what to do. Move graves to a common lot in your hood.
Private Clubs: I have one for my rich sims, no townies, no downtownies. I want to make something similar for only Crime path sims, using the SimBlender

So there are some ideas, hope they help!

The way I made the sims 2 fun was I created a custom neighborhood with custom npc/townies and the like. Initially I had few community lots because I'm not the best builder, but I eventually downloaded several lots (and used maxis lots) to create a neighborhood with a ton of community lots to visit for sims of all personalities. I had clubs, hangouts, bowling allies, restaurants, shops, plazas, parks, gyms (with pools), and even a children specific lot shaped like a dollhouse. (If you look hard enough like me, you can find a lot of lots without a ton of custom content, or any at all, so you don't need to over-bloat your downloads file).

I also created several starting families to give the town more life, made sure a bunch of my npcs/townies had custom hair, and put in a few geneticized eyes (and face defautls) that worked with the default maxis skin to make my townies more interesting and varied.

This makes my game fun because it gives me a variety of community lots to visit where I can meet a variety of beautiful adult sims, and cute children.

Hi, this is a great thread.

I have been a Sims fan since The Sims and I must admit one can get into a rut..

I have always made my own characters and my own houses. Lots of unique CC. Always played the same Hood.

Since a coupla days ago I have been doing Pure Maxis. (with my hacks/mods to combat the stupid, of course).

I placed every Maxis house/business. I placed every Sim from the SimBin.

EVEN UNI.

I will Bat Box the LTW's that are repititive and use a few "fake college degees" to get into as many jobs as possible. Other than that I plan to let all the Hoods interact via Bluewater Village and Uni and see what stories emerge.

Uni is a challenge. I have reduced each semester to 24 hours which should make it less tedious. I won't play every character in Uni, just my move-ins from my Hoods, but all the Binned Sims willl be there for interactions.

OFB families will have to run their businessess, babies must be born, grandchildren must graduate from college.!

With default skins and faces, the best BHav mods, and judicious use of my userstartup.cheat it Just Might Work!

A girl with whom I used to be friends was the master of spicing up her game play.
My favourite of hers was the "Human Zoo." In the back garden of her sims house, She'd make a multi-level box house covered in windows and use 'Moveobjects on" to trap any walkbys or NPCs in there. Her family would go out every day and watch the suffering trapped people in the seats provided. She soon tired of that, so she decided she's have a sadistic matriachal family, throwing all the boys born into the family into an enclosure of the zoo so the social worker couldn't get to them, but refused to look after them too. She'd put garden sprinklers in the enclosures for some reason... O_o

In another one it was compulsory for her family to take the maid as a mistress, until they had tons of housekeeper-lovers through the generations.

I wish I could remember some more of her projects like that but I've either repressed my memories of her or I just can't remember.

A midlife crisis is always fun to play out - buy a new car, ditch the spouse for someone young, try and befriend the teenagers.

I've also had sims who have lived with tons of families in the neighbourhood - but steals stuff whenever they move out.

The "Too far ahead" or "Too far behind" the times are always a cool one for me, since I play a mid-century based neighbourhood - so I'll have a sim family from 2012 in my 50s neighbourhood, etc.

If I ever get bored of my sims game, I usually try a different game entirely for a few days. Bethesda games are pretty good for that sort of inspiration, but recently I've played Forza Horizon and Mass Effect. Mass Effect got me wanting to interact with sims more, and Horizon is great for landscaping and architectural inspiration...There is a town in it that drives me crazy though. It just doesn't fit in. The wood on the houses is dark and exposed, there's river rock used for everything, hardly any bright colors on the housing...It feels a lot like a European style village on the east coast, not a small town in Colorado.

I don't remember which game inspired me to make Miller's Village, which I made a long while ago. There are townies, but they're all the cookie cutter ones made when spawning a town, with no familes in the bins or in other houses. There's no one else but the one family, and the goal is to fill up the town, downtown, and shopping district with interesting sims that branch off the original family. These other branches grow with the original family, and they can keep family ties or forget they have cousins and meet them in a different town. It's a good Sim challenge, and it's also a good challenge for building, since each of the 'towns' (Downtown, original world and shopping district) have a different appeal and style.

Another thing I've started doing is the Deathroll condition. Basically, I roll a (virtual) 10 sided die, and if it's 10, then the sim I was rolling for is having a 'Day of Fate'. I roll on random events throughout the day, such as a sim going outside (Random lightning), or taking a bath (Slipping fall), or even interacting with the kids (Sickness). If I roll a ten on a event like this, I then kill the sim with the tombstone in a manner related to their death roll. It makes things more interesting, and a bit more realistic, since accidents happen all the time. I could post full rules if there isn't something already like this, and if anyone's interested.

I started a family, consisting of two girls and one guy.
First I made ​​a couple of first girl and the guy, and then made ​​a couple of the other girl and the same guy.

The girls did not know that the guy sleeping with the two of them.

When the first girl found out about this situation, she became very angry. She learned the evil spells, has become a real witch, and turned the guy into a vampire.

She made it to the other girl and the guy and could not be together. That's the story.

For the longest time my hoods pretty much ran with one family at a time, only a single member of another family interacting with them if they happened to walk by the house. But this time I have focused a lot on businesses which bring all members of the neighborhood out and about to mingle. Also, the thing that I have found most fun recently is building a 'school' for all children in the neighborhood. It is basically a place where all children in the hood gather from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm and mingle with each other. Some became fast friends, others became enemies right away and are still enemies though they have grown into adults already.

I also had the school kids all move into the same house as teens to learn skills and develop romantic interests. Much drama ensued but it was fun. Now they all have coupled off and have children, though only one couple is married. Ironically the couple with no kids. :D

Anyway, just an idea.

Anyone got some ideas from me?, i have a couple, Dante is my heir from gen 2 and he had a wife but she died in birth and now is moving on with new girlfriend Helena, well Dante is full skilled and completed his ltw so whats next?, i hate affairs and alien babies

Apart from "Fully skilled and completed his ltw" what is Dante like? What would he do? I would think he'd be overprotective of his new wife and the kid, for one thing. Do his new girlfriend and the child get along? What about spares - can you move in someone to complicate his life? What about starting a business? Becoming a witch? Rivalries/enmities with other sims?

It strikes me that if you're bored in second generation of a legacy, legacy play may not be for you; or, you need to find a way to play your legacy which is more interesting to you.

Focus on other characters. What's Helena want? What do their kids want? There's no earthly reason you have to stay completely stuck on one male Sim when there are other people in the house.

Ahh.. they dont have kids the baby died with Dante first wife,Helena is a knowledge sim so she often rolls for skiling i think its boring because i am attached to them the household only has Dante and helena, my first gen just died, also Dante is a warlock and a single child i have one child-per-gen so i dont have to choose heirs its so hard.

But easy is boring and hard is interesting, so there's your problem right there.

I agree

I created a family who neglected their kids just so I could see the Social Worker take them away.
Now I'm interested in seeing if I will have them pop up again when I someone adopts. Maybe I'll place them with a nice older couple

Going to University is always fun

A friend of mine wanted to keep the game Interesting by modifying it till it no longer looks like The Sims 2 He makes street plans using Sim City 4. He decided to Modify the entire game Land, Signage, Max occupancy, maximum tenancy, and if I'm not mistaken he has even made a change to Lot types. It's Insane to see the Town you left behind in Sim form.

Something I did that never fails to amuse me is to throw a party at a greek house but then when everyone gets there, use the sim blender to change everyone into their pajamas or underwear. Then if you have ACR let the random college woo-hooing begin, It feels like it should be close to a college experience for the greek sims.

This was the result of the first one I did.

Create a new neighbourhood and make all the sims have the exact same look and name but different (or not) personality and aspiration *cough*clonewoohoo*cough*.

I just want the Sims to look like Sims. OKAY? Sims 2 deforms all of them. Why after this long working? My computer has 1 TB of memory w/4GB of hard drive memory and yet, the Sims 2 are deformed. Who wants to play with deformed sims? The only game that works is ironically Sims 1! Because EA is too lazy update hardly anything. I tried Monte Vista in Sims 3..deformity. I tried Sims 2 again. Deformity. The only things that don't deform are the animals, interestingly enough. I can't play this game anymore because I sims with no heads, babies with bodies of adults that aren't attached. This is ridiculous. I am writer, not a tech person, but EA pees on your leg and tells you it's raining so I expect someone over here to find reasonable solution before I put them (EA--not you guys..I like you) out of business...and believe, they don't know that I can right now.