Do You Fast Forward?

[Sagana]

With several people talking about playing with aging off, I was just curious. I like aging on - I love toddlers but I get bored with them about the time they grow up, so it works well for me. Same with all the other age-groups... I kinda see aging as a milestone and work to get them there. I also tend to use those milestones to keep lots in sync. Play all the ones with toddlers until they hit children and even if they don't have kids, play them 4 days to keep them even. Like that.

But I'm the impatient type and even with aging on, I get bored if they're all doing something that'll be awhile, so I set the game speed up and fast forward them through all the boring parts of life (I think I wish I could do this in real life too :) Often I set it on 2 and even occasionally on 3 (when everyone is skilling or restocking or something.) But I kinda feel bad, they've got these little short lifespan of a fly lives and I fast forward them through at least a quarter of it.

Sooooo, I was wondering, especially people that play with aging off, do you get bored and speed your game up also? Do game play speed and aging have any relationship? What do you do with all that extra time? :)

[JenW]

I fast forward a lot. If they're skilling or even eating or taking a bath, I put it on 3. I also put it on 3 when the taxi arrives and is leaving because it takes them 30 minutes to get into the car and the driver to finally drive away And I do play with aging on almost always. I am not afraid of the Elixer of Life so generally no one ages before I'm ready for them to.

I'm impatient and want to get things done! lol

[sintrinity]

I fast forward all the time but I play with aging on.  I hate pregnancies, babies, and toddlers and I am more than sick of most sims by the time they reach elder.  Ironically, the only ones I don't fast forward are the sims I don't like that I am letting do their own thing.  I like to see just how stupid they can be and cheer when they set themselves on fire or realize they are starving and too tired to eat.

I do slow down time if there is something going on that I need to micromanage like making a parent help with homework or getting someone platinum before work for a promotion though.

[Emma]

I always play with aging on. I always play on speed 2, and on speed 3 if they are skill building...this is why I am useless at writing sim stories-by the time I notice something has happened I have zoomed past it!
I guess I am the impatient type.

[Ancient Sim]

I would never play with ageing off because to me that defeats the entire object of the game.  Nobody lives forever and I get mighty sick of mine when they're elders anyway.  Since having the Lot Synchroniser I've made copious notes, even down to the times babies are conceived, so everyone is born in the right order (although I mucked it up at the start, so Cassandra got a boy and Dustin got a girl instead of the other way around - you wouldn't believe how annoyed I got about that!).

Speedwise, I play on 3 a lot, especially on lots where there are single Sims and they're skilling or whatever.  I also teleport them everywhere (courtesy of the Insim) because I can't be bothered to wait while they walk.  Some of my townhouses have so many floors they'd probably not even make it to work if I didn't.  I do play on 1 the majority of the time, especially on lots with quite a few Sims, but I would hate to be without the option to speed things up when there's nothing much happening.

[jsalemi]

I used to find elders boring until OFB came out -- now I find them to be perfect business owners, or better yet employees at their kid's business, rather than having them sit around all day watching TV. Since I always move at least one kid back into the family house after they graduate college to keep the 'family fortune' going, the kid(s) can start a business and retired mom/dad are great for making craft-type stock all day.

[radiophonic]

Aging off. It's only natural. This is, after all, a life simulation and besides, who wants to play the same sim at the same age forever and ever. It just gets boring. If you want them to live a little longer, use the elixer, that's what its there for.

[jack_d_spratt]

Some of my lots have aging on, others have aging off.  Makes for some odd situations (like the female teen in my trailer park that has woohooed with 3 generations of teens trying to get out of that trailer park), but some Sims I like to keep around and others I like to age and die.

My default play speed is 2.  I use 1 as slow motion.

[ZiggyDoodle]

I play with aging on as I can always use the elixir for the Sims I like and may want to hang around a bit longer.  Definitely fast forward when playing Maxis Sims, such as the adult Tinkers, who somehow survived to middle age without learning one dratted cooking skill! I combine the fast foward with maxmotives.

I don't speed up any of my born-in-game Sims, although there are a few I may feed to the cow plant.

[MissDoh]

I fast forward when they are skilling or doing lame things otherwise I mostly play at speed 2.

Sometimes when there are only adults on the lot I play at aging off but not for long, when they have enough aspiration points to get the elixir I put it back at on and if I wish to make them younger I can if I wish.

I always hated the elder stage... now with OFB I found the elders lot more interesting.  They can now start their business, it is nice since there is a utility to the money they stack from time to time.

[dmchess]

I play with aging on (but lots of elixir!).  I usually play at speed 1 (except when no one's awake on the lot), but I go up to 2 if nothing interesting's going to happen for awhile, and once in awhile to 3 if say someone's alone in the house and skilling or doing homework or an assignment.  But mostly I run at speed 1 (and take tons and tons and tons of pictures!).  This is unlike with the original Sims, which I usually played at speed 2.

I don't feel at all guilty about speeding up when I do; I figure it only changes the speed at which the game shows us stuff, and the Sims themselves still experience their lives at the same subjective speed.  I've never heard anyone suggest that turning up the game speed has any effect on aging; I would be very surprised if that was true.

[cyperangel]

i play with aging on, and at gamespeed 1.
 I micromanage my sims a whole lot, so speed 1 suits me just fine. The only time it fastforwards at 3, is if everybody is asleep, or nobodys home.
I do play with free will on, but they hardly ever get to use it, as i always have something for them to do

[Lyall]

I play with againg on. Though I've never gotten past generation two because of how slow and distracted I am. 

I always have the speed at one except for when my Sims are skilling and when I get bored with what they are doing. Like when they're cleaning puddles from the shower, drives me insane.

[Pegasys]

I play with aging on, and usually speed 1, although I'll use speed 2 and 3 through showers, skilling, and food preparation if there are only a few Sims on the lot.

[Renatus]

Main neighborhood is played with aging on, no life extension enhancements except under certain circumstances (house and money will be lost if eldest sim is allowed to die before child comes home from uni), mainly at speed 1. I use speed 2 to power through boring tasks or short waiting periods and speed 3 for anything with a lengthy waiting time. I do tend to pause a lot to micromanage but I am trying to get out of that habit and just let things happen while I switch between sims.

[DoomPuppy]

I'm guilty of speeding things up a majority of the time, mostly at speed 3 because I'm impatient dammit .  I haven't used aging off since I first started playing the original, I tend to feel like it's cheating, but I use the elixir sparingly when I need it.

[ElviraGoth]

Aging on, since I feel that the life cycle is what this game is all about.  But usually at speed 1 unless, like others here, there's just one or two sims and they're skilling or something like that, then it's usually 2 and at Uni usually 3.  I use 1 when I just want to see what kind of things they'll do on their own without me telling them what to do.

And if it's just a toddler who's awake while everyone else is asleep, and s/he's playing with a learning toy, usually 3.  But I always keep a watchful eye on everyone's stats when I "fast-forward".  Would hate to have a sim die because they decided to paint themselves to death!

[idtaminger]

My hand is perpetually on the 1 & 3 buttons. When they're doing something boring, I hit 3. When they do something I want to observe, I hit 1. Back and forth, back and forth.

It's gotten to the pt. where I'll be doing something else, like loading a program, and my hand'll automatically shift up to the 3 and 1, only to realize that, sadly, it doesn't work for everything else.

[Sagana]

I've never heard anyone suggest that turning up the game speed has any effect on aging; I would be very surprised if that was true.

Oh oops, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean have an effect on aging in the game. I meant, do people that play with aging off tend not to fast forward and those with aging on fast forward more or whatever combination. Is there a correlation in the way people play the game :)

Thanks for the answers. It's interesting to me to know how other people do things. I tend to micromanage as well and hit pause a lot, then when all the commands are there, that's when I speed it up. I do watch the game when I play - I've never had a sim die because I made them do something for too long. And I actually must kinda like clicking, as I get bored if I don't feel like I have some input.

But lately (due mostly to the OFB strategy thread) I've been trying to let them have more choices (not telling toddlers what to do, not always making parents feed/diaper/bathe/play with the kids and my newest one, not changing the randomly rolled lightning bolts likes and dislikes so they choose more on their own if they're interested in a vampire or a redhead or whatever.) 'Cept now I find if I'm letting them do a lot on their own, I speed that up too so they'll hurry up and *do* something. Ok, definately impatient-type here :)

[JadeEliott]

Okay, you guys might think I'm nuts, but not only do I play on 1 most of the time,  but I have even slowed the time down to 70-50% of the normal clock using merola's time control clock. The clock moved too fast for me before!

[jfade]

Okay, you guys might think I'm nuts, but not only do I play on 1 most of the time,  but I have even slowed the time down to 70-50% of the normal clock using merola's time control clock. The clock moved too fast for me before!

Heh, well, in most cases, I would call you nuts, but I can see why you would want to slow it down in some cases. For me, in single or small households, it's on 3 or 2 most of the time, but in some houses where I have lots of sims (meaning more than 8, I do have houses with more than 8 sims occasionally, and had a house of 18 at one point), it does get to the point of being rather unmanageable, so I wind up playing between 1 or 2 and pause most of the time so I can queue up commands for the sims, otherwise they'd probably end up doing something foolish (if free will was on, which it usually is) and killing themselves.

[BlueSoup]

I fast-forward with the 3 key depending on what I have the Sims doing.  Actually, it's more like 3131313131133131....

I always played with aging on, but I am starting to experiment with Aging off now with my new Sims.  In my old families though, I'd play a single Sim by themselves for about a Sim-week (especially in the Legacy family), and when their mate joined the household, I'd make them drink elixir to make them approximately the same ages.  I really hate having one die before their mate.

[aussieone]

I fast forward through the boring bits like most others. bath time skilling time etc.

I play with aging on too.....I don't usually get attached enough to any one sim or family. I let them die when it's their time to die 

[jsalemi]

Oh, and to actually answer the question ,  I play aging on, usually equally split between speed 1 and 2, and only speed up to 3 when they're doing a task that takes a while (skilling, doing term papers, etc).  But I have found I've been playing more at speed 1 since I got OFB, especially at owned businesses -- the want for higher sales badges seems to pop up a lot, and that's hard to manage at speed 2 in a sole-proprietor place.

[Shivani]

I play almost exclusively at speed 1, with aging on.  The most I normally do is hit pause if I'm trying to set something specific up.  Aside from that, I multitask.  I often read a book (or browse on the laptop) while the game is running, and switch focus as necessary.

Then again, I've not been able to install OFB yet, so I have no idea how that will affect my side reading activities.