How many Sims are you playing?

[Sagana]

Wow, I play the game totally differently than it seems like a lot of you do. I'm very obsessive and very easily distracted - totally incapable of keeping databases or keeping the aging right on different houses or anything like that.

I get an idea, make a sim (or 2 or many), put them in their houses and get obsessed with them and don't stop playing them until I get distracted by something else (building, downloading or making things) or another idea or something (work, food, sleep, other fun and obligation breaks don't count). I can't imagine only doing 6 sim hours - she wouldn't have found a perfect match, he wouldn't have gotten a job and a bunch of promotions, the baby wouldn't be born (I almost never stop the game for anything in between the lullabye and the birth), the toddler wouldn't have learned to talk - I just can't leave them *now*

When I get distracted, I just stop playing them and get obsessed with the new sim or thing. I've had a good number of sims in different neighborhoods, and I do get attached to them - some of them I remember fondly. For awhile I played a single mother who looked vaguely 20sish and her son, Random. She was my first sim to die and every time I see another one wearing that hat, I think it's her. I got distracted making 20-30ish clothes for them (and a paperboy if I remember correctly) and  I dunno what happened to Random. I know he was a teen and I *think* I lost the house in the mess installing Uni was for me - but might have lost track of him before that.

My son wanted to play with a bunch of animal skins that he dl'd and created a neighborhood called Animatown. So I made Jeremy Danvers and his foster son Clayton and Elena Michaels and her foster family (2 households) to be werewolves. These are characters from the book _Bitten_ by Kelly Armstrong and I managed to keep them more or less on track agewise (Clay is somewhat older than Elena - she was in college and he was a visiting prof) tho I played with aging off a lot. Werewolves don't age, do they? Elena ended up with a sister (the foster family's real child) and they killed off her nasty fosterdad and she moved in with Clay and Jeremy. Jeremy got abducted and had a were-alien baby and Elena had quads - a litter of puppies. This was pre-Uni, so they didn't meet at college, and I know this one got lost in the reinstall. My son recreated it, but I didn't make the families again.

For Uni, I created a neighborhood Ethni City, with a bunch of multicultural sims and got obsessed with India - created my beautiful Indian coworker and friend and her husband, and a 2nd couple that were also some friends. Added some other downloaded cultures and my son added Chinese, Japanese and French. I believe we have a Thai section as well. I meant to do Italy but got distracted and haven't got back to it yet. I got way distracted building their houses and making clothes and looking for objects and didn't really play them that much. My friend sim and her husband had twin daughters and her friend and husband had a son.

I managed to get them sent off to Uni - "Watsamata U" with all the buildings and the like based on Rocky and Bullwinkle names (tho they're actually mostly stolen from the 3 Universities that came with - renamed and redecorated some.) I also didn't delete the other three when I'd finished stealing the buildings so my neighborhood (which I'm currently playing) is probably in danger of being eaten by too many iterations bugs - it has 4 attached Universities (tho only 1 has ever been played and the others don't have dorms or buildings in them, so maybe it's ok.)

Anyway, shortly after they got to campus, I got distracted again and created all the sims to live in "A Doll's House" (the graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman. I played them for awhile and got tired of Uni and quit playing... mostly because I was obsessed with the characters and wanted to play just them (not switch back to the neighborhood or even other sims) but was bored with the Uni stuff.

In an interlude - before NL came out, I got interested in building again and made a new neighborhood where I built houses and created some sims to live in them and was enjoying playing them. I never bothered to attach a Uni and it hasn't been touched since NL came out and I got distracted with that.

NL appeared and I was major distracted by that. I decided the Gaiman sims were perfect for vampirization (especially the Spider Ladies), so I picked up Ethni City, dropped them all out of college and dumped them all (after playing around a bit) into the House of the Fallen Trees. There's Hal (who owns the house technically), the Spider Ladies (2 of them), Gilbert, Barbie and Ken (who immediately got pregnant and had twins - my first NL birth) so 8 in the house. They explored DT, became vampires, got over being vampires and I just generally had a good time playing that many at once. After awhile Gilbert moved out, as it was appropriate and made room for the Spider Ladies (they have names - Zelda and Chantal) to adopt a child, so they did.... she's still a toddler...

And... I went and saw the movie Serenity and got distracted. So I spent a long time creating all the Firefly characters (not very well, I'm not good at making sims, but I did the best I could) and turned them into their parents so they could be born in game. Most of them, I just made the created sim male and female and set their personalities to what I thought was fun. I made Zoe's mom a single parent, Simon and River's father is a criminal money sim and their mother's a society b*tch, and Inara's mother is a dumpy housewife who ignores the kids and her father leaves them for a beautiful romance sim. A few of them aren't in game yet (Wash, Sepherd Book) - Mal was just born.

But I got distracted with Kaylee's family. Her father should have been a farmer, but I couldn't really do that and support them, nor could he teach her mechanics that way - so I made him a country dr. and her mother stayed at home and had 6 kids (I *barely* got them in without elixer or turning aging off - I dunno how people have so many in a normal adult sim lifespan, 'cept twins and we didn't get any). Kaylee has 1 sister and 4 brothers - Stella, Delbert, Eldad, Kaylee, Derbie and Rufus. Rufus just turned toddler and Stella went to college (with 1 day left before she aged).

So I followed Stella to Uni. She met a guy she's crazy about, and I played him and his brother a bit so they'd be older than her (they're all 1st semester sophs right now, but the brothers are just slightly ahead in the semester), and they all moved into a house together - 'ready set up for Stella's brothers and sisters to follow her to school. 'cept I haven't touched the family since, so I keep telling myself I'll quit when she gets through her sophomore year and go back and play Delbert until he goes to college, so they'll stay the right distance apart. And then when Kaylee is ready for college (she just transitioned to teen), I'll have to go back and actually bring up the rest of the Firefly crew so they're older than she is.

So, I currently have - 2 families in the neighborhood (Ethni City) with 4 sims, 2 houses with 9 sims (and an abandoned countess who moved in and got deserted if she counts) in Downtown Ethni City based on the Gaiman and 5 Firefly-based houses with 18 total sims, some have been played a lot and some just put in houses, 3 Ethni City kids that went to college and got abandoned and I don't even remember who they all are, and one house from the Firefly crew at Uni with 3 sims in it that I'm playing (and hoping to have a 4th when the other brother finds a gf). I count 37 in the neighborhood I actually play - but I'm only really *playing* 3 of them

It seems I can manage 2 households and keep them together-ish in ages, and I love having lots of sims in the same house. I don't have any problem with grandma and granddad, parents and lots of kids in the same house either (I've done this and left them out up above somewhere) nor playing the same house until ingame born sims die and new ones are born and grow old (or move them to a bigger house, just the same sims). But I don't switch around well.

I love the toddler mirror (or whatever other ones) and will allow money cheats to buy one as I can't stand not being able to fix up the toddlers. Same with shop at home options. I *really* want my sims to wear the clothes I make or download for them.

[windy_moon]

Wow, I play the game totally differently than it seems like a lot of you do. I'm very obsessive and very easily distracted - totally incapable of keeping databases or keeping the aging right on different houses or anything like that.

I get an idea, make a sim (or 2 or many), put them in their houses and get obsessed with them and don't stop playing them until I get distracted by something else (building, downloading or making things) or another idea or something (work, food, sleep, other fun and obligation breaks don't count). I can't imagine only doing 6 sim hours - she wouldn't have found a perfect match, he wouldn't have gotten a job and a bunch of promotions, the baby wouldn't be born (I almost never stop the game for anything in between the lullabye and the birth), the toddler wouldn't have learned to talk - I just can't leave them *now*

Our styles aren't that different, other than a couple of points.

1) You've got way more creativity, imagination and energy than I do! 
2)  My loose ends scream at me to be tied up...even if I'm so mightily distracted by the next shiny baubble that what I do mostly is create even more loose ends

The part of your post that I relate to is getting an idea and just running with that until it runs out of steam.  The idea might be mine or it might (more likely) be originated by Sims. (I know, they are pixels, they don't really have ideas but it sure seems as if they do.)

If the plot is good enough, I very well might play a Sim house for a Sim week or more, straight thru, without visiting another house.  OR, the plot may involve several different Sim households, in which case I might play them alternately for a Sim week or more.  I won't go to the bathroom with a pregnant Sim on my computer, much less switch out of the house!

Distraction, though, can set in at any time.  All I need is a glimmer of a shiny new juicy story, and I'm off and running.  Playing this way, with liberal use of Elixir and almost no Sim deaths means there are a lot of Sims tapping their feet, waiting for me to get back to them.

(And I can't stand my aging getting out of sync, generationally I mean, not actual number of days.  Can't stand that... the more Sims I get, the bigger a *itch that is!  )

[hyperCat]

So, when I was growing up, my mother said to me, over and over..."You never finish anything you start!"

Same here. I'm also a perfectionist so I've reinstalled and/or restarted neighbourhoods from scratch at least 30 times since I bought the base game in September 2004. In fact, I did a reinstall for the NL patch just last week (Edit: I know it's not necessary but I do it anyway).

I think I started out creating me and my husband, got frustrated and moved on when I accidentally named our last child "Baby Boy" (before I figured out how to change names). Thereafter I mainly played and restarted Pleasantville, though I did enjoy a brief stint with Strangetown. I think I quit just as I had graduated all the player sims from La Fiesta Tech. Recently played a vampire for awhile but got bored because she didn't want children and you can only go clubbing so many times before it gets old. I kept wishing for a mod that would allow vampires to drain and kill their enemies.

Started again today with a new legacy family, deletedallcharacters and carefully selected/renamed new townies and NPCs. I'm trying to just go with the flow and enjoy myself because my last legacy family involved a script for the entire 10 generations, with the first 2 alone taking up five pages. Got boring and overwhelming because things would always deviate from the script and, well, we can't have that, can we? The last straw was when the vanishing memories bug showed up in the 2nd generation's uni-educated wife.

I think my play style sounds a lot like sagana's. I can easily clock in 8 hours a day, barring work, and mainly stick with one family the whole time (I really hate playing and aging other families to keep them in step with the main one). Then I get frustrated with, say, a lack of clothing options and go on a downloading spree for another 8 hours. I also tend to go on theme kicks--there was the Victorian England neighbourhood, the British-Asian neighbourhood, the ultra-hip gay neighbourhood, the hillbilly neighbourhood, etc. But I never stay with them long enough to fully enjoy the tons of work I intially put into them.

I also stay up really late during the first few days of play... Is it 2 am already?

[Sagana]

You've got way more creativity, imagination and energy than I do!

LOL I doubt that seriously - most of my ideas come from books or stories or something and then the sims run with them (I agree they have ideas of their own That's why I usually try to do secondary characters or start them as children or something. They can end up whatever way they want without me getting annoyed they aren't staying "in character" or frustrated by something that can't be done in the sims (I can't imagine trying to do Buffy when you can't stake vampires. That would annoy me.)

And yeah, distraction comes anytime (tho pregnant sims are a mighty strong pull). I don't mind the generational stuff so much tho - I really don't mind with the townies, tho I know it bothers others to have the same sim friends with 3 generations of those. I just set up justifications for it in my mind - well that's not *really* the same girl, that girl died tragically and the parents had another and gave her the same name and she's kind of unhappy trying to live in her sister's shadow... or that boy is really the nephew of the one my older sim knew and the parents loved their brother soooo much they named their firstborn after him but when he dropped out and moved to Alaska to find himself, they got kind of annoyed so he has a new different nickname. Or something

Then I get frustrated with, say, a lack of clothing options and go on a downloading spree for another 8 hours. I also tend to go on theme kicks

Yes! Exactly! I'm playing along and my sim transitions to child and I suddenly realize I don't have any "country-style" (or whatever I'm doing) clothes for a male child, and next though I know I've spent a week downloading. And I'm also looking up and downloading designs or patterns or clothes that aren't made yet and thinking, "well I'll just make this one and that one" as I can't find them anywhere. And then I never do, so I have folders full of examples all over my harddrive Half of them will be named "can't resist" as I got distracted by some neat furniture that fit the idea and they don't have anything at all to do with little boy's clothes and most of them would require new meshes and I don't even have a 3d program of any kind, let alone know how to use it

I think the journey is actually the fun part anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter if I never really "arrive".

I also stay up really late during the first few days of play... Is it 2 am already?

Yup, yup - this too. I keep telling myself (and my husband) I'm not going to be tired at work tomorrow, I'm going to bed. In just half an hour, 15 more min. just a bit. And then it's waaaaay toooo late

[Kala]

I'm playing over ten families at the moment.  Most of my families consist of 2-4 sims.  I usualy play 2-3 families a sesion. I've played more than ten families at times. My new focus is to get past the secoond genoration.

Brynne, your pictures are funny as hell and they remind me of the new sims comercial I saw earlier tonight.

[AllenABQ]

I can't imagine only doing 6 sim hours - she wouldn't have found a perfect match, he wouldn't have gotten a job and a bunch of promotions, the baby wouldn't be born (I almost never stop the game for anything in between the lullabye and the birth), the toddler wouldn't have learned to talk - I just can't leave them *now*

I'm with you there.

I actually play each household four sim days at a time, which allows for plenty of birthdays, dates, promotions, etc., in any one round of playing my families. So there's plenty of change going on in my neighborhood all the time.  It also gives me time to set up larger events or continue interesting lines of play when I switch to another household where there is cross-over involvement.

[Dark Trepie]

I don't know about anyone else, but all of my neighborhoods always ME in them.  A CAS made sim self, alter ego, reicarnation, whatever you want to call it.  Because really, I see no point to this game if you're not going to have yourself somewhere in there mixing it up with the other sims.

And in case you were wondering, that's him in my avatar.

I'll usually find myself a nice townie or an availiable pre-made sim that doesn't have any attachments to any other sims, have them settle down and establish a family of about two or three kids before I start playing the other families in an effort to mix the family bloodlines with the second generation.  Ever since Uni came out I've grown a strong attachment to Stella Terrano, and usually have my sim fall in love with her and get them married.  I don't know, I guess I have a thing for exotic women.  And being a space alien is about as exotic as you can get.

I play Pleasentview mostly.  But I've been playing Strangetown more and more lately.  Sometime in the near future I'll force myself to play Veronaville.  I would start my own custom neighborhood.  But I like the pre-made neighborhoods, and I guess I'm just too lazy and/or uncreative enough to start a neighborhood from scratch.

I also let a little infidelity happen in controled situations.  Because it happens in real life more than we'd like to admit.  But I make sure the guilty party gets caught and that they pay the price.  It usually happens in the form of groveling and appologizing profusely.  Or if I deem it fit, a total break up.

Speaking of which, I've never seen a break up be a good memory untill NL came out.  Reading "Boy, am I glad I dropped that loser." in the memory caption gave me a good laugh.   

[KellyQ]

Hehehe, I had wondered if that avatar was suppose to be you, Trepie.  I actually have never made a "ME" to play in any of my neighborhoods but hmmm..maybe I will. I had been very much looking forward to NL but ironically since I bought it I have had very little time to play; a half hour here, 45 minutes there, which as anyone knows, seems to not be any time at all.
I used to play Pleasantview most often but I have been feeling overwhelmed by how many families I have there so I haven't been playing it as much. I've been playing Strangetown and my own custom 'hood more often. I'm not very good at thinking out "storylines" so I am finding that I get bored quickly. I need to start coming up with some plots and shake things up. I tend to get stuck in a rut of having my sims skilling, going to work/school, meeting a significant other, having babies, ad nauseum. Reading other people's posts on MATY has given me some inspiration to start trying some new ideas.

[Lynda]

I've been enjoying this thread immensely.  I love discussions on how people actually play the game.  They seem few and far between.

First I guess I should say I usually get bored with games VERY quickly.  I played Sims 2 daily from its release date in September 2004 until December 2004.  I spent most of my play time on my Legacy family (which never even got past three generations) and updating my website with a Big Brother-ish Sim "game" called The Nut House.  I became so fed up with The Nut House, updating my site and answering questions that I abandoned it and the entire Sims 2 game before it ever finished.

I didn't play again until University was released.  I have no idea how long I played University, but it couldn't have been more than a month or so.  It was at that time I created myself for the first time in TS2. I also created my husband and we had some ugly ass children.  That was a little weird and I doubt I'll ever repeat the experience.

I've always WANTED to be the type of player who filled a neighborhood with multiple playable families and rich storylines.  I've never really had the attention span for it.  Like sagana, when I played, I played one family for hours at a time.  It was difficult to play multiple families in one neighborhood and have them interact with one another in any way because no one's age would ever be in synch.  I usually became bored with the family after three generations (I've NEVER gotten past three generations) and moved on to another one.

I started playing University again from a fresh reinstall a few weeks before Nightlife came out to prep myself for it.  I created my very first custom neighborhood and filled it with decorations and houses and created a few families to move in.  I still focused on just one family though and found myself slipping back to my old ways.

Prior to this, I didn't have a whole lot of custom content aside from clothes and had no use for hacks.  In the newest awakening of my Sims 2 obsession, however I started installing custom content like MAD.  I also started installing objects and hacks which I previously stayed away from.  (I prefer hacks which enhance the game, not cheat around it.  I have debug mode for cheating.)  This enhanced my gameplay quite a bit.  The custom content I love the most are things that make a Sim house look more like a real one.  Toilet paper, closets with clothing racks and shelves, clutter in the bathroom, etc.  I learned a little about SimPE and got the clean file installer to organize my downloads.  I read a post by someone here and it inspired me to create another custom neighborhood whose residents either always had their greatest want fulfilled, or their greatest fear.  I'd never played to the Sims' wants and fears before, only to my own.

I started with four CAS sims: Samantha Sands (family), Cynthia Mallard (knowledge), Sabrina Tate (romance) and Debra Walsh (fortune).  I moved all of them into the same house and started playing them with the simple goal to only do what they wanted to do.  (If they need a skill point for a promotion, they're not getting it unless they want to gain a skill point).

Samantha met Jordan, a knowledge townie and they fell in love.  I actually wanted Samantha to get together with a different townie, but they just didn't click.  When Samantha and Jordan got married, Sabrina and Cynthia moved out into another house and I started a rotation. 

Sabrina spent all of her time going on dates and has woo-hoo'd with the majority of the adult men in the neighborhood, plus a few elder men she wasn't too crazy about, but woo-hoo'd with anyway to satisfy the craving.  Cynthia discovered she had a strong attraction to Sabrina's ex-boyfriend Tyler, a fortune townie and they started dating.  This didn't sit well with Sabrina and she became furious with both Tyler and Cynthia.  Cynthia knew her dear old friend would get over it eventually and she and Tyler were married at a private ceremony.  (This whole ordeal made me fall in LOVE with the new furious state - I don't get why people say the state lasts too long. Sabrina has had PLENTY of people furious with her and most of her boyfriends forgive her after a couple apologies and a few Sim days' time.  Sabrina was mad at Cynthia and Tyler for a few days, but they're best friends now)

Back at the Sands house, Samantha quickly popped out two baby girls with one pregnancy after another.  Cassandra and Tayla.  Debra Walsh the fortune sim fell in love with Sabrina.  Sabrina is more into guys, but she gave in to Debra's desires because woo-hoo is woo-hoo any way you slice it!  Debra was clogging up the Sands house and I didn't want her heart to be broken by Sabrina, so I moved her to the family bin (which I've decided is actually Sim City - a mega metropolis about a two hour drive noth) where she still remains.

Cynthia and Tyler had one child, Matthew.  Neither of them ever wanted to have a baby again, so one child is all they'll ever get.

I don't know how many family Sims I can play in this neighborhood because Samantha's desires for babies never subsided.  I allowed her to become pregnant one more time because she wanted it and because I really wanted a boy for that family.  I decided that despite Samantha's wishes, this would probably be her last pregnancy.  Imagine my surprise when she produced TWINS!  Alex and Tiffany became the newest addition to the Sands family.  Of course, Samantha immediately wanted another baby.  It was at this time I set a rule that after four births, the Sim has to roll the baby want for three consecutive mornings in order to be given another child. 

I won't go on with their story as this post is far too long already and for that I apologize.

My point (if indeed I ever had one) is that I think with this neighborhood I can finally start playing the way I've always WANTED to play.  And who knows, maybe I'll be able to get past a third generation!  Nightlife makes it very easy to rotate houses since you just have to click on the lot to load it.  I usually play only one Sim day per house and then rotate to the next one (this neighborhood has three playable houses at this point).  I stop at 4am since Sims are usually asleep at that time and it's close enough to the following morning so I don't have to spend too many precious seconds fast forwarding after loading the lot to start playing.  Sometimes I play two Sim days per rotation, but I generally don't like people to age too much or too much to happen between rotations.  I notice that's when I start getting bored with the whole idea.  When I've finished my Simming session (I play for about an hour and a half every morning before work and usually about two hours a day on weekends) I go back to the neighborhood and document the real life date and the day of the week the houses are at so I'll know where to start next.  Rotation also helps in that I have one house in this neighborhood (a new CAS family) that I don't really care for.  Taking them in small doses isn't really so bad and bides some time until they either get their own storyline or I get so bored of them I abolish them to Sim City.

I keep all the houses in synch with one another not only by age, but also by day of the week.  I'm not sure how that's going to work when I start sending kids off to college though since I'm planning on playing through one college year for one Sim day.  They'll probably have to be out of synch for college.  I'm not sure about moving them back into the neighborhood either.  One idea was to have them move back into their old house until Sunday after 6pm and then let them move out on their own if they'd like.  I'll see how much that delays them starting a family.  Any known cheats to change the day of the week on the clock? 

Any Sim not going to college will spend four glorious "years" in Sim City to keep them exactly synched up to everyone else. 

And finally, to, um, actually answer the question posed, I'm currently playing 14 sims across three houses.

[Swiftgold]

Yay, older thread. Oh well, I shall answer anyway. ^^

I have one neighborhood which, despite rounds of me accidentally deleting skins and Sims, still hasn't corrupted and exploded in a big ball of firey goodness yet. *grin* I started with the main characters of a video game, fourteen of them, as toddlers, and created parents for them. Some two parents, some with one, and about... oh, ten or eleven houses total.

Well, the parents married and had kids... me allowing my favorite Family Sim to have his ten kids and twenty grandkids didn't help... and now there's hundreds of them. Those original toddlers are finally approaching their elderhood (one of their parents is still alive and kicking as a permaplat elder, too) and I use them as the measuring bar. So far I think there MAY be a single Sim in the fourth generation, most are second and third now.

I do tend to play some houses more than others thanks to the plots but I generally try to keep them even in terms of aging, so I can't play one of my favorite houses until the older sibling reaches elderhood because the second sibling is about to and she's supposed to be younger!

Without being able to look at the game, right now I have around twenty houses, each with 2-8 Sims in them. I've culled the herd a bit, killing off clones and hack-twins and now I'm limiting the population to mostly only kids conceived through Risky WooHoo, unless it's a couple I really want to see a kid from. *grin*

Oh, yeah. This is the only neighborhood I've had since I got the game when it first came out. I'm tempted to start a legacy challenge or something in a new one, though, to see if I can play one family that long.

[baratron]

To finally answer the original question:
I have 78 sims that I actually play plus a further 13 sims who are playable but I have little or no interest in.

That's spread across 3 Neighbourhoods + 2 Universities. I play with aging off or lots of Elixir of Life. Not very interested in the multi-generational side of things - the only third-generation sims I have are the Oldie family that came with the game.

[AllenABQ]

I've only ever played Pleasantview since I got the game.  But due to the number of sims I play and how I play them, I'm only just starting to give birth to the 4th generation of my oldest families.  I like the generational thing.  When a sim is getting close to death, I'm usually ready for them to move on.

Of course I also tinker a LOT with Pleasantview.  I imagine it'll go up in a big fiery ball as well sometime, but I can live with that.  Once that happens I likely build a completely custom neighborhood and populate it with new sims and be much more selective about generating the first townies, NPCs and such.  Of course I also clone copies of all my favorite sims made in CAS or born in the game.  So if I do lose Pleasantview eventually, I might just recreate a select few in the new neighborhood and pretend they moved to a whole new city.

[Bangelnuts]

I've only ever played Pleasantview since I got the game.  But due to the number of sims I play and how I play them, I'm only just starting to give birth to the 4th generation of my oldest families.  I like the generational thing.  When a sim is getting close to death, I'm usually ready for them to move on.

Of course I also tinker a LOT with Pleasantview.  I imagine it'll go up in a big fiery ball as well sometime, but I can live with that.  Once that happens I likely build a completely custom neighborhood and populate it with new sims and be much more selective about generating the first townies, NPCs and such.  Of course I also clone copies of all my favorite sims made in CAS or born in the game.  So if I do lose Pleasantview eventually, I might just recreate a select few in the new neighborhood and pretend they moved to a whole new city.

Thats what I did when I lost a custom hood in a post patch nightmare that has since bee resolved. and then lost the recreation due to a corruted saved sims filed.I am now playng in the recreated hood wth the sim families I recreated  that I really liked from the hood I created. with a whole new family that moved in  courtesy of Brynne.with Brynnes Family the neighborhood has really expanded the storyline and the amount of sims in the hood. the family she sent me consisted of 8 sims and since they moved in 3 of the eight have married and the result is additional in game babies and marriages to other sims and a divorce not to mention lots of cheating going on. my original families have expanded in size as well.I am really curious to see how many generations will end up in each family before the neighbor hood gets so corrupt it cant be played any more. as of right now there has been zero intermarriage all of my sims    have married totally  non blood related sims. occasionally I go into CAS and create  a new sim If I need a potential mate for one of my sims. however I have created sims for certain sims I had in mind only to have a marriage to a totally different sim occur.for example I created a female adult sim for The Brother of Brynne's pixelated hottie Justin and instead of this sim who was created several days ago ending up with Justin's Brother she and Justin Met and Started Dating  and the chemistry was electric betwwen the two of them so I went with it and Justin and My CAS sim are now newlyweds.  the first gwnration of born in the game sims is growing quickly because of a sudden  surge of twins. I am not usings a hack for Twins. I decided that the amount of babies a sim has at one time  ie one or two will remain random

[sadiebutterfly]

I was talking about this the other day with my sister. We worked out she has around 100 playable Sims in Pleasantview, most of them CAS or CAS descendants. Her Maxis teens  (Lilith, Angela, Dustin, Dirk) are now elders.

I have less than that because I spend half my time with my Legacy neighbourhood (Victorian themed, no residents apart from legacy family & descendants, plus the orphan children my founder's younger son has adopted. My plan is to gradually update all the clothing/interiors through different periods.) But then I also feel compelled to play with all the pre-made Uni Sims, so I probably play around 60 in Pleasantview. I have my favourites, of course, but if I haven't been to see anyone in a while I'll force myself to spend time with them.

[PKTrekGirl]

I just reinstalled for NL, but before that I had been playing a Bottom Up Challenge Hood almost exclusively since UNI came out.

I probably was up to somewhere between 125 and 150 sims in that hood, which was into the 3rd generation.

[Gus Smedstad]

I just reinstalled for NL, but before that I had been playing a Bottom Up Challenge Hood almost exclusively since UNI came out.

What are the rules for that?  I just recently started an I'm Surrounded By Idiots challenge.

 - Gus

[dmchess]

Oh look, it's this thread again!  Good thread.

(Have to remember to try it with Jen and Jan Danvers next time I play that house again.)

Tried it, and it worked great:


"Hey Jan, what's the formula for laminar flow over a boat keel, again?"
They could both talk at this point, but neither could walk; their Grampa John got the toys out for them.

Aren't they cuuuuuuuute?   *8)

DC

[Gus Smedstad]

It is indeed bizzare to see toddlers talking algebra.

 - Gus

[Kristalrose]

I'm not OCD, I've got Co-Dependent Personality Disorder.      So I, like, WORRY about my Simmies, and try very hard to make them happy.  LOL LOL  And I understand that Co-Dependents also have some Control-Freak tendencies. 

Anway, I started my neighborhood with 30 uni students.  By the time I got them all graduated, and got NL, I was sick of over half of them.  So, I moved them into the lot bin.  I play 5 families regularly and 3 more sometimes when I'm bored.  Right now, I'm managing 34 sims, give or take a few I might have miscounted. 

[witch]

...So, I moved them into the lot bin...

Why not make them into townies? If I get a bit loose with births - my Geek family had five children - I usually only plan to follow the storyline of one chosen sim - the heir I guess a lot of legacy players call it. I'll take all the sims through Uni & skill them as normal, then back in the main n'hood I make them into townies using Inge's teleport plus bush. That way they can marry back into a storyline if I want them to, I know their genetics and they usually make better looking townies than the Maxis ones. Plus I still get to see them wandering around without having to worry about them.

[skandelouslala]

I can't imagine only doing 6 sim hours - she wouldn't have found a perfect match, he wouldn't have gotten a job and a bunch of promotions, the baby wouldn't be born (I almost never stop the game for anything in between the lullabye and the birth), the toddler wouldn't have learned to talk - I just can't leave them *now*

I am the exact same way...only worse..there are many times when I won't quit a household between lullabye and transition into childhood.

Must...see...what...child...will...look like! hehe

I play a lot of my games in fast forward mode as well...I dunno how many other people do that.

I know when my fiance occassionaly tinkers with TS2 he plays in normal speed and I'll walk by and be like "You can speed that up you know"  and he'll see no reason to and likes to see the little interactions..while I'm zooming through life spans. 

[hyperCat]

I play a lot of my games in fast forward mode as well...I dunno how many other people do that.

I know when my fiance occassionaly tinkers with TS2 he plays in normal speed and I'll walk by and be like "You can speed that up you know"  and he'll see no reason to and likes to see the little interactions..while I'm zooming through life spans.

Ditto that. My husband also plays in normal speed whilst I'm going at fast or ultra. I always start out with the intention of going slow, enjoying the little details of a sim's life, but it's usually when they're skilling for a promotion that the fast playing starts. Then I'm zipping through pregnancies, dates, university, until the game is almost always on ultra speed. And that's when I stop playing because it's so boring. The objective has become "get as rich and skilled as possible, as soon as possible" and that's not fun for me. I sabatoge my own enjoyment.

[Brynne]

I'm finding myself not speeding up the game as much now as I did with the console Sims and TS1. I hardly ever played in regular mode, then. For some reason, except for the times mentioned before like skilling and sometimes during pregnancies, I'll keep the game at normal speed. And it's hard to spot bizarre little things worth taking pictures of in fast mode.


dmChess, that picture is so funny! I have one like that with the toddler playing with the rabbit head, and the toddler has the equation bubble and all the adults joining him around him are talking about factories and stuff. Worst baby toy ever! What ever happened to "The cow says mooooooooooo"? lol 

[dmchess]

I'm finding myself not speeding up the game as much now as I did with the console Sims and TS1. I hardly ever played in regular mode, then. For some reason, except for the times mentioned before like skilling and sometimes during pregnancies, I'll keep the game at normal speed. And it's hard to spot bizarre little things worth taking pictures of in fast mode.

Yeah, in the original Sims I almost always played at speed 2, but in TS2 I'm at normal speed except when absolutely everyone on the lot is either skilling, meditating, or asleep.  Ultra makes me nervous even when everyone's asleep (heck, someone's off-lot lover might get up and do something funny on the way out and I'd miss taking a picture of it!).  So I'm the same that way.

dmChess, that picture is so funny! I have one like that with the toddler playing with the rabbit head, and the toddler has the equation bubble and all the adults joining him around him are talking about factories and stuff. Worst baby toy ever! What ever happened to "The cow says mooooooooooo"? lol 

*8)  I keep forgetting I want to try having grownups join when kids are playing with kid toys (although I understand that it can be fatal for non-controllable adults!).  The toddler toys definitely seem to lead to unexpectedly intellectual conversations.

On the other hand the only children's book anyone in my neighborhood seems to have is the one about the teddy bear.


Gina to Gabriel: "And then the Teddy Bear said..."


Georgia to Jen: "And then the Teddy Bear said...";
Jan (background, thinking): "Not the #$*^@ Teddy Bear story again!"

They need to get "Wind in the Willows" or something else with some real content...

(And on the "how many Sims are you playing?" question, I've now moved in Kennedy Cox and he's on his way to Chief of Staff (if his LTW was in the Medical career, what was he doing as a Business Tycoon anyway; these Sims don't know their own minds!), and Gina's had her baby, and Kaylynn Langerak's pregnant again.  And since I still can't bring myself to let anyone die there's going to be a serious overpopulation problem with time!  I'll have to build a big Retirement Home or something...)

DC
[Lots more pictures]

[Brynne]

On the other hand the only children's book anyone in my neighborhood seems to have is the one about the teddy bear.

My sims seem to love hearing potty stories.