There is painful and then there is excruciating

[angelyne]

I never bothered much with sending my kids to college.  I only did it once, long ago, before my hiatus. I had forgotten how dull it was, and how incredibly loooooong it takes. 

I started a new neighborhood and wanted to make my new family more rounded by graduating them from college.  I want them to have access to the LTW, multiple wants locking and new careers and rewards.  Blah, is all I can say.  It's even more boring that I remember.  I finally resorted to locking the needs decay and just having them do assignments, essays and research at triple speed and then having them take the exams soon as their bar if filled.  Even then it's boring and too long.  So that took care of that, but I don't look forward to having to do it over and over again

Any tricks on either speeding up the process, or making it at least more bearable? like in oh, I don't know...fun??

 

[Li'l Brudder]

I suggest getting the colledge rampage macro.  It makes your sims fill up their GP Bar and if you have all the required skillz, it goes up to the top.  Then you have like somewhat of a day for fun stuff like Community Lots, working on skillz, and going Downtown(nightlife).

[MissDoh]

I personally use Twojeffs college clock adjuster to speed-up semester.  It is a really useful tool that you can use the way you want.  I cannot live without it now.

I did had a lot of Nightlife stuff on the college community lots like restaurants, bowling alleys, discotheque, etc. which makes it a lot more interesting to send them there to past the time and have fun while meeting other YA.

[TaWanda]

Is the lot de-bugger updated for NL? You could just skip UNI if it is, and still get the things you want.

[BlueSoup]

But using the Lot Debugger is cheating (and it is updated for NL).

I'm dreading Uni as well, but I promised myself this time I'd send my Sims to Uni.  I've only ever tried it once, and it was so bloody boring I made him drop out and then I never went back. 

[Pegasys]

Well having just graduated 4 Sims from college over a period of a few days, I can relate  

In addition to using the aforementioned hacks to speed up the process,  you can use the time to find your Sims partners. I got all four engaged. It took a semester or two to find them partners, a semester of wooing/woohooing, and then engagement. Of course all this can be done very quickly but I like to draw things out.

Going downtown is fun BUT the clock stops so if you want to get through quickly, don't go downtown. Also another thing is I like to have my Sims synchronized according to clock and classes if possible. If it makes sense, have your Sims who are living together major in the same thing, or if not, don't declare a major until necessary (Junior year). Then they'll all go to classes at the same time until their majors separate them. If they go to a college community lot, have them all go to the lot at the same time to keep the clocks synchronized, or use one of the college hacks to synchronize their college clocks.

And of course, meditation is very important. I got frustrated with my alien Sim in college who couldn't meditate 'cause he was too playful. So I just put him on the bubble blower.

[TaWanda]

But using the Lot Debugger is cheating (and it is updated for NL).

I'm dreading Uni as well, but I promised myself this time I'd send my Sims to Uni.  I've only ever tried it once, and it was so bloody boring I made him drop out and then I never went back. 

True, but she din't specify no cheats and I LIKE cheating.  And Blue, are you updating your avatar hourly now??? LOL

[BlueSoup]

True, but she din't specify no cheats and I LIKE cheating.  And Blue, are you updating your avatar hourly now??? LOL

I know, but I try to stay away from cheating too much.  Anyway, yes, my avatar is going through some growing pains, I can't decide what to choose. 

[MissDoh]

Blue in the past I was against all hacks/mods in the world and promised myself I would never cheat.  In previous games I had, I graduated painfully at least 20 students.  I did my part    Now I feel comfortable using the college clock to speed up the time when they are ready to take the final exam.  I usually still make them do their assignment and go to class and gain their skills (though the option to set grades is really really really tempting in some cases, ok I used it too lol but not on all of them).

Make one Sim go all the way through without cheating and I would say you gained your right to use the college adjuster without feeling guilty at all.     I don't feel guilty at all.

I find it less cheating to use college clock than the FFS lot debugger, ok college years do past by fast (though it is all up to you how fast they go) but at least they really got into University.  I also like the fact they can meet potential perfect match (or worst match ever) while in University.

I personally miss the cat in the hammock, where is it and what is that monkey doing?  Did I mention I saw that picture (cat one) hanging on a bathroom wall during Christmas time 

[cwieberdink]

I had fun in college by throwing parties, going to community lots, woohooing, working on greek house levels, etc.  Basically, by not studying.     I did this in my sims game too.   

C

[BlueSoup]

I am not opposed to hacks at all, that is not what I was saying.  I am saying it's not as much fun to just *give* them the careers and career rewards without them working for it. 

As for the avatar, the monkey is holding a gun.  It isn't a permanant choice, and I'm trying out a few before I decide.  And truthfully, I will still probably change it again after that.    Everything is leading me back to the blue faery at this point though.  I can't get away from that one, and I miss it when it's not at the top of the page. 

[Persephone]

I never bothered much with sending my kids to college.  I only did it once, long ago, before my hiatus. I had forgotten how dull it was, and how incredibly loooooong it takes. 

I started a new neighborhood and wanted to make my new family more rounded by graduating them from college.  I want them to have access to the LTW, multiple wants locking and new careers and rewards.  Blah, is all I can say.  It's even more boring that I remember.  I finally resorted to locking the needs decay and just having them do assignments, essays and research at triple speed and then having them take the exams soon as their bar if filled.  Even then it's boring and too long.  So that took care of that, but I don't look forward to having to do it over and over again

Any tricks on either speeding up the process, or making it at least more bearable? like in oh, I don't know...fun??


I don't send my sims to college at all.  I just use merola's mulitpainting (modthesims2.com) to get them in any career I want and there's another hack, I can't remember where I got it though, anyway it looks like the money tree but it will give you the want locks and slots.  The new nightlife cheat will also give you all the careerrewards.  Only thing my sims don't have is the stupid diploma.
 

[skandelouslala]

I use the college adjustor feature of the insiminator. That way I can just speed it up and get it over with.  There's a few LTW that are best worked on during the college years (dates, woohoo, lovers) and for sims who have those I play slower during the uni years.

[MissDoh]

Oh Blue I know you are not against hacks/mods, I was talking about myself only.  What I meant was more like the college adjuster is not that much of a cheat if you don't want it too, you can use it the way you want, it is actually very flexible though some options are really tempting and you might clic on something without even realizing it  .

By making one Sim go the "regular" way, you will remember how long it is and surely will feel very comfortable using a hack to do it a bit faster, you might even graduate/send some Sims you would have not because it was too long in the 1st place.

[BlueSoup]

I don't mind speeding up the length of college, only I personally wouldn't want to just give them the rewards and the job for nothing.  We should both suffer through the Uni experience together. 

[MissDoh]

I completely agree with your last statement Blue.  After my reinstall, I started fresh and was able to age down some Sims that I was not able too before and only Sims that graduated got Uni jobs.

I, like in the past, only play Pleasantview right now but already set Stangetown and Veronaville the way I like so these 2 hoods are ready to be played and I also added 3 custom hoods, I should not get bored with my game this time    Only thing left for me to do is to add all the MATY Sims and create a hood for them, I will probably delete one of the 3 I added and replace it with the MATY hood which will be really fun to play.   The only thing is that unlike others, I cannot play with 8 Sims on a lot, my maximum is 4 adults so I will have to get a few custom houses to place them in.

[BlueSoup]

For this latest version of my game, I deleted all of the Sims and lots (including the Maxis lots in the bin) from Pleasantview, renamed it Soupville and started the long, painful process of rebuilding.  So far, BlueSoup, Pescado and Reggikko have made it into the new neighbourhood, and this weekend I'll probably do a few more.  If this cold persists, I won't be going out after all, which completely sucks but ehh...what're you gonna do? 

[MissDoh]

Instead of blue soup (which was cute in Bridget Jone's diary movie), you might want to try some chicken noodle soup (even Lipton 1,000,000 noodles soup will do) for a change.  Never know it might help for your cold! 

[BlueSoup]

Bourbon.

The answer to all my problems is bourbon.

[MissDoh]

One shot of bourbon coming your way!  Now where is my bottle of Jack Daniel's..... or I could had bourbon to Lipton soup if you wish? 

[vector]

I had fun in college by throwing parties, going to community lots, woohooing, working on greek house levels, etc.  Basically, by not studying.     I did this in my sims game too.   

C

Going to university is useful for popularity sims, particularly ones with the 20 best friends LTW. It's awful for just about everybody else, apart from perhaps romance sims (but it does tend to get a bit hairy sometimes if you're not careful).

[Ancient Sim]

Uni is quite good now with Pescado's mod for the dormies.  In my old Pleasantview I had about five of them die of starvation because of it, so there was lots of fun with ghosties and the like.  I haven't made a Uni in my new Pleasantview yet, but once I do no doubt it will all start again.  

One thing I sometimes do is let the ones who express Uni-related wants go through normally, but if they only ask for unrelated stuff I am more inclined to speed them up.

[Swiftgold]

Having a ton of Sims and wanting to get most of them out of the parents' houses when they're old enough, I tend to end up doing the "college on speed" also. It just took soooo long otherwise, I didn't even want them to meet the dormies, etc, so I put five Sims through normally and gave that up. I basically just let them fulfill all their skilling as needed, then used the adjuster to give them all As and then immediately send them to finals *grin* Using Inge's plant to keep up energy and occasionally letting them eat together, I generally breeze them through it and go on with things. My latest batch, I may let them go a bit slower because few of them had relationships beforehand and so I'm interested to see how they might interact with each other.

This reminds me though, I know that some people in the interests of keeping things synched played the students' family house four days to account for the "four days" in college, but then I read that that just makes the age gap between parents/siblings and student larger, because they don't actually age four days while doing their four "years" in college? Is this true?

[ElviraGoth]

If you want to keep the age gap even, you would have to send the teen to college four days before they become an adult, then play one year of college for each day of the family home.

I just started putting the buyable rewards on my dorm lots, then let all of the YAs spend their extra time skilling.  Any that haven't reached 8 points in most of their skills are usually close to max by the time they graduate.  But I don't let them use the thinking cap before they become adults anyway.  And while they're skilling, I set the speed up to 2 so it goes faster and just keep an eye on their needs.

Once I get this generation through college, I've been thinking about setting up a building that would essentially be for classrooms.  Then one room will be for cooking class and have several candy machines, one for charisma and have both putting greens and podiums, etc.  Maybe just have a speech class with the podiums and a golf "team" with the putting greens.  Probably have an area for ROTC with several obstacle courses.  You get the idea.  Then send them all to the same "class" so they can all work on the same skill at the same time, and use the same amount of time away from the dorm so their clocks stay synched.

I only use the buyable rewards at Uni because I figure college is supposed to be a place where a person gets more opportunities than he/she would otherwise.

[speedreader]

Bourbon.

The answer to all my problems is bourbon.

A woman after my own heart.  Me and Mr. Beam go back a long way.