The World's Slowest Sims Player

[windy_moon]

 

I have to be.  I'm curious if there is anybody who is slower than I am.  My 11 year old was watching me play the other day, and I was driving him nuts...constantly hitting the pause button, queing commands, taking pictures, etc.

I've been playing the Sims 2 for just about 2 1/2 months now. (Resisted buying earlier because I was a weeeee bit too obsessed with Sims 1 )

Anyway, the point of this thing is generations, right?  I swear I have at least 300 hours of game play in so far (maybe more but I shudder to count higher), and I can't get past my first generation. I've grown up most of my teenagers I first created (Sims 1 favorites redux), and some of them have children, but that's as far as I've gotten...and no Univ sidetracking.

My stories keep expanding as more Sims interact with my core Sims.  I get interested in a Maxis family all of sudden and then there goes that weekend of play, as I get involved in those characters and bring them along.  And then of course, I have to age everybody evenly or I go nuts.  The other weekend I got a little bored and made a handful of fresh CAS because I despise townies.....new stories, lots of new stories...but the same generation.

Sigh.  Anybody as slow as I am?  Anybody used to be as slow as I am and then found themselves in recovery?  (Don't even get me started on the Elixir of Life....I don't think anybody in my Sims neighborhood will ever die.  I can't help myself.  I freak when my Sims have a cold and make them rest a lot.)

 

Andrea

[Shivani]

It's only been within the past week or so that any sim of mine ever died of old age, and at that, I felt horribly guilty for some reason.

Now, killing them off on purpose is a different story entirely.

[Inge]

I didn't start really playing a serious neighbourhood until after Uni was out.  Until then I was just getting my teeth into how we could mod the code, and testing, and experimenting with ridiculous in-game situations.   I also had a problem feeling at all involved with the Sims - I couldn't empathise with them at all with their weird facial expressions, I had got used to Sims 1 where you chose a face complete with its fixed expression, to portray a certain personality of Sim.   To me all the Sims 2 sims looked like the same sort of person.

Then I decided to start a proper game and see what happened.  I made 4 men and 4 women and spent ages getting them exactly right - and each of them had unique and deliberately exaggerated facial features, like huge brooding eyebrows, or a tiny pointy chin.

Since making those, I have played through at least 6 generations, rotating through each house at midnight Sim Time to keep their ages up to date.   I play one Uni Year to one Sim Day in the neighbourhood.   But I only allow myself 4 regular home lots, one temporary overspill emergency lot, and a holding lot for boring Sims I might want to bring back into play some time.   That means I have to practice restraint with the breeding.  Often in a family of 4 children, only one of those children will be allowed to marry and have children of their own in the next generation.  The others live in the holding lot, or join a large household and have parties (so my breeder sims can meet and get to know one another).

I have actually become very fond of a couple of Sims in this neighbourhood, and was actually quite tearful when one of them died.  My current favourite has just become an elder, but she's still beautiful to me.   I think the ones you like don't seem to go as braindead when they become elders.   In fact I use my birthday cake to do euthanasia on the more boring elders.

[linolino]

hehe, you know, i used to be just like that.

Actually, only this month is that i got my second generation. since the game came out. i was kinda of playing with aging off.

But i suddenly realized why i shouldn't do that:

1 - When I play that way, i aways end up playing for like 2 days straight and when i stop playing, I have that bugging feeling that i wasted my time, cause nothing evolved in my game.

2 - Another reason for that is because I used to pause ALL the time too. And i realized that i was taking about 1 hour and a half to play 1 single sim day!!! and thats actually goes by in 16 minutes if you don't pause.

3 - And to end with, playing that way, I don't get all the fun and features that the game offers, cause it's very unchallenging.

So what i'm doing now is the following:

1 - I ONLY use pause the game 1 + 1 time per sim / each sim day. so if i have 4 sims in the house, i can only pause the game 5 times.

2 - Also i don't turn aging off, and have a restrict policy about Elixir of life: I only allow adults sims to drink it, and ONLY 1  hourglass.

3 - I realized that i don't have to make a sim live everything a person would live, first because no person has a life of 86 days anyway, so it's like I'm just playing some, not all, of their days; and second because if make every sim do everything in the game, i will have played everything in the game in only 1 generation, then i'll get bored.

I'm gettig more fun this way, and i only need to play a few hours to get enough sim for the day!
Without pausing the game, i can't control them all the time and some unexpected situations happens, like a plot twist, and i finnaly get to see some unfriedly interactions (cause i never allowed them to get to that point, before), and some that only happens autonomously (like sim drinking milk from the fridge)

BUT, this is beeing good for ME. I know that lots of people have fun playing the other way, im not judging anyone, just sharing my experience!!! good simming!

PS: OH, i just remembered this. You know, one thing that helps a lot becuase i can't control them all the time now, is a mod i found in www.modthesims2.com that is called plumbob3d. it is a set of differents methods of free-will, focused on different stuff. there are 4 options: the Player control, where there is no free-will. Fun free-will, where they will focus on having fun; Social free-will; and the last one, Ask Plumbob, that will make them focus in mantaining their lowest needs. if there is no low needs, they will just sit in a nearby chair or sofa.

[Renatus]

Yeah, I'm about that slow anymore. I only managed to get through generations and let sims die when I took a stab at a Legacy challenge; that ended when I was bored to tears on generation 4. Even when I didn't control them like little puppets, it was too easy; the only thing that brought any variety into their lives was a couple of bad chance cards (and I made all of the money lost from those back in less than a sim generation).

Part of what slows me down is that I like to make nearly everything custom. I have two custom neighborhoods, both of which have custom terrains, houses, and townies, all of which take quite some time. Even in prebuilt neighborhoods or with NPCs I go to the trouble of altering them so their appearances match their personalities better and so they don't look so generic - in MY worlds, people get to look like themselves even when they are at work!

I also tend to play with aging off or lots of elixir when I am trying to set up a story, or in general, as sometimes I feel that their life cycles are too fast to get some things done, and too slow for other things. The first sim I made should have died twice over, I played her so long; I kept feeding her elixir so that I could continue to play out her story! It doesn't help that I set up really intricate story lines, and insist on everyone aging in sync - so all teen sims of like age go to Uni at the same time, period.

Still, I like playing at more of a slow stroll than a fast run - but I know how to play at a fast run when things get tedious (hello, Uni). It's definitely a play-as-I-feel sort of game for me, truly a virtual dollhouse, so much so that I even extract my favourite sims for re-use in any future neighborhoods. *g*

[windy_moon]

Interesting responses.  I love this board.

linolino, I can really relate to your post.  I'm not altogether unhappy with being slow, and I love most of my storylines...but I do get frustrated that I'm not close to getting anywhere on generations.  I've experienced exactly that "2 days of play and where did it get me" feeling!

Renatus, I think it is reading other people's legacy stories that makes me feel I'm missing a big part of the game by being so slow.  Legacy stories are so much more interesting than pausing the game to take five pictures of a Sim who just burned the chilli!

(I'm big on the chance cards, by the way, and love them even more when they have a negative effect...about the only negative thing I let happen to my Sims!)

As far as custom goes, I've barely gotten there yet, Lord help me when I do.  I spent an entire Saturday rearranging my existing neighborhood into better defined areas (with $ houses grouped together like you would have in a real town)...and that was with OPH (other people's houses).   If I start building from scratch, I'm sunk.

Inge, you are cracking me up with your self discipline in the way you age your Sims.  I can't imagine breaking off at midnight to switch through all my houses....I get so wrapped up.  I really should try that though...it might force me to move along a little more quickly!

Shivani, lol!  Guilt is a big part of it for me.  I wonder sometimes if the Sims is a government sponsored experiment in psychological manipulation...if so, I consider myself manipulated.

Thanks for all the responses.....

Andrea

[Ancient Sim]

I've been playing since TS2 first came out (which was almost a year ago?) and although I've had a fair number of deaths, apart from accidental ones, they've all been first generation, mainly the Maxis-made Sims.  My eldest born-in-game Sim (excluding Brandi Broke's third) is an elder now, but still has 17 of her 27 days left.  Up until this weekend, she had a lot more as I hadn't played her lot in ages.  The next batch to die in my game (within a few days) are Dustin & Angela Broke and Dirk & Lilith Pleasant, and they've been in the game since the start!  Even the afore-mentioned elder has been in it almost since the beginning, as she is Cassandra & Don's eldest.  In fact, Cassandra only finally met the Reaper over the weekend, mainly due to all the elixir she'd been knocking back on the sly.

I have no idea how many game hours I've put in, but I'm suire it's nearer 3000 than 300 and probably a lot more.  My main problem is trying to keep everyone in synch.  I can't play this Sim because that Sim needs playing first, that sort of thing, which means some lots don't get played for weeks on end, even months, because they're too far ahead.  This has been even more difficult since Uni.  I have now taken to putting siblings in the same house whenever I can, to reduce the number of houses I need to play and keep them in synch chronologically, hence I have Dustin, Angela, Dirk & Lilith all together in the Pleasant house. 

Of course, in my case it would help if my Pleasantview wasn't so large.  I currently have around 450 character files (including dead Sims and all the NCP's) and so many lots it often takes me 5 minutes or more to find the one I want to play.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Decisions, decisions!  I sometimes take a while making up my mind who I want to interact with today!

So far, none of my sims have died of old age, but I just might let Mary-Sue and Daniel meet the Grim Reaper before long!

[lauraglenn]

Reading this post made me realize that I'm playing very, very slowly.  All of the Maxis made families are intact in Pleasantview, the only neighborhood that I play.  Daniel is still an elder, and because I rarely play them, Mary Sue is still an adult!  I restarted my game when Uni came out, and I am still in first generation.  Boy, I really have to let someone die soon...  How can I move graves to the cemetary in NL if I have none to move? 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, there are some at the Goth house, and an urn in the Caliente house.  You could also kill a few townies!

[linolino]

I have now taken to putting siblings in the same house whenever I can, to reduce the number of houses I need to play and keep them in synch chronologically

Hey Ancient Sim, hehehe, yes, thats the most effective technique as to make the playing faster and more synch.

Whenever i can i join 2 couples in the same house. Recently i just reduced the number of playable houses in my neighborhood from 8 to 4, by joining the families. now each house has 2 couples and their kids, wich can be 2 per couple (its a resonable number).

Its much better now, the game flows better.

As for synchroning the families, i often use the following technique:

I play a house until its time for someone's birthday. just before they grow up, i stop playing, then i go cycling through the houses doing the same.

Except when it's a baby or toddler's birthday, since they can't be invited to someone's house anyway.

When im over cycling, I go back to the 1st house and start the new lifestage.

[ZephyrZodiac]

8 houses only!!!!

I prefer having just three or four sims per house, I find the game flows better, even if it means more houses!

[linolino]

My idea of a good-flowing game = more things happening in less time of playing, not necessarily with full control of the sims.

and Hey! it's not only 8 houses. its a lot of houses!
My poor computer is only a Athlon XP 1.6  ,  256MB RAM  ,  GeForce4 440 MX

I have to play with everything on low, and dorms and community lots runs sloooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww......
its extremely unsettling have to wait for the lots to load. the less lots, the better

[ZephyrZodiac]

In that case, my sympathies!  I'm surprised your game plays at all!  When I installed Uni I had to upgrade to 1GB of RAM, or I missed so many options!

[Shivani]

I can't really get into the idea of playing more than one house, so synching isn't usually an issue for me.  Spare children get shipped off once they're adults to a new home so they're available as friends (or further down the line, remarried back in).  Even so, the "legacy" family I'm playing right now doesn't even come close to being to spec, but I simply can't make an actual story out of it.

It's far more tempting to take stories I've written for other reasons and attempt to simify those instead.  Then I suppose I'd play really slowly in order to get exactly what I want, but then...it wouldn't exactly be playing at that point.  If I did that, I'd set up a neighborhood called Pixel Studios with stage sets.

I made a bunch of townie kids so mine had friends to bring home or get their first kiss from, uni YAs, and of course, a bunch of people for the "heirs" to marry.  I think I spend more time re-designing the house or admiring the way the kids come out.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I couldn't just play one house!  I eventually get bored with one family and have to move on to another, then later down the line I'll play that house again!

[linolino]

actually it runs very acceptable in small lots with 10 or less sims on it, with all graphic options on low. the problem is when the lot starts to have to many floors and objects.

Oh and the load process of the lots. thats really a pain!

[sadiebutterfly]

I play slowly because I get hung up on micromanaging my sims. If there are more than about four in the house I'm forever hitting pause to check that they're all ok. I also have a lot of houses and like to distribute my time evenly between them so the ages don't get out of synch. The only Maxis sims I've had die of old age are Mortimer Goth and Daniel Pleasant. My sister's Beau Broke is an adult with a teenage daughter, mine is a college sophomore. But then, she plays more than me.

[syberspunk]

Hehe, I play fairly slowly as well. Probably more painfully slowly than most. I've taken to creating sims based on real people (friends, family, and acquaintances) and I've mostly been tryin to duplicate what has happened to them in real life. For the longest time, I had been playing with aging off, and I had no idea about aspiration and career rewards. And even after I got Uni, I never played it until I felt ready enough to send my own simself to college. Then, I started creating all these CAS YAs based on my friends and acquaintances I've known through high school, college, and grad school. I've alternated a bit playing through some of the diff dorms, but now I got a bit bored with that and I've been playing this one house in the regular neighborhood lately, so I've had a chance to check out some of the latest hacks I've downloaded but weren't really functional in Uni. I'm also partly holding off and playing any Uni lots any further as I want my YAs to enjoy the upcoming features of the NL EP before they have to grow up and become adults and enter the "real world" so to speak that is sim adulthood.

Anyways, for my friends and acquaintances that I don't know a lot about, I just made them YAs if I don't know like their family configuration or like know enough to make what their parents or sibs are like. So I just start them off as single YAs in Uni. Other than that, I only really have 3 main families in the regular neighborhood, with three additional families that I acquired from my sister's game. Unfortunately, two of them were added before we knew that installing packaged lots would lead to bfbvfs syndrome. The last one, I fortunately was able to install without those extra files issues. I play those lots when I'm a bit bored of my main ones. And I hardly ever play any of the Maxis-made lots. I did play the Goth one for a while: I saved Mortimer from an early death by old age and aged Alexander to a teen, but that was it so far. I really can't stand some of these other lots, like the Pleasants or Don Lothario. I've pretty much neglected them, but perhaps out of boredom, I might play them and build upon their stories. So far, they are just the background players and  neighbors who occassionally show up in my regular families lives.

Right now, I'm desperately just trying to resist the urge to play my Uni dorm lots until the NL EP comes and all my hacks have been updated. Before I played with aging off because I didn't know about the Elixir of Life and other aspiration rewards, and that having too many memories could cause jump bugs  but who would have thought that would happen anyways? It's a shame that the game was so poorly thought out considering how easily these problems would pop up just by how many different playing styles people have. They really should have had REAL game players actually beta test the game rather than whatever  method they used. It seems painfully obvious that they didn't think of different situations that might come up gameplay wise that would cause the game to break so badly. They even Tell you in the game guide how to turn off aging! Something seemingly benign as that could easily result in a bfbvfs and they didn't even bother to test out the long term ramifications of gameplay. Anyways, as it stands, I cannot play my game without my hacks, and I guess I'll just keep trucking along with my current game, keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't explode too soon, forcing me to start over. For now, I'll just have to constantly backup my game and hacks, and in the very least, keep extracted copies of my favorite sims, so that I could start all over from the beginning if that ever does happen. At least I won't have to spend so much time rebuilding and tweaking my sims in BS or CAS.

Ste

[RainbowTigress]

My idea of a good-flowing game = more things happening in less time of playing, not necessarily with full control of the sims.

and Hey! it's not only 8 houses. its a lot of houses!
My poor computer is only a Athlon XP 1.6  ,  256MB RAM  ,  GeForce4 440 MX

I have to play with everything on low, and dorms and community lots runs sloooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww......
its extremely unsettling have to wait for the lots to load. the less lots, the better

I feel the same way.  I have more houses, but I am running out of houses to put my sims in, so I am combining families when it makes sense.  I had too many kids on my second generation because I wanted to fulfill Brandi and Cassandra's 10 children wants, plus having 2-4 kids in each of the other families and a CAS family I started of my own!

My computer is about the same as yours, only I have 1 GB RAM and  my video card is a GeForce2 440 MX 400.  I run my settings between low and medium.  If the lot is too big or I have a party, sometimes I have to turn down the settings.  I agree, waiting for lots to load is a major pain.  That's why I rarely ever go to community lots.  I miss how you could pop in and out of houses in Sims 1 without having to wait at all.  I am concerned about that aspect of Nightlife.

I have been trying to catch some of the other families up that I don't play as much.  Some of the premade families I just couldn't get into, like Dina and Nina.  I let them die of old age, and so are Daniel and Mary-Sue.  Mortimer finally died for the second time after one of his several grandsons resurrected him after Uni came out.  He and Bella had another son, and after achieving several LTWs (thanks to JMP's career hack for elders), he died again.  I am having trouble letting Cassandra and her husband become elders because they just aren't the same anymore.  I hate how Maxis did elders.  But they have to become elders to die of old age, and Cassandra has been around forever so she really should start looking her age I suppose.  Her youngest is a teen and almost ready for college.  He is waiting for his girlfriend to get ready.   

[ZephyrZodiac]

Change Don Lothario 's careeer to the Catering one, give him a bit of a make-over - new hairstyle, smaller beard, put Brandi Broke in the same career and you wouldn't believe how they hit it off!  In my game they are married and now have a teenage daughter.  Don gets on well with all his stepsons and is forever showing up at their houses, especially when they've had a new baby!  Brandi being a typical family sim and expecting them all to com visit her never ever shows up unannounced since she married Don!

I never used to play the Maxis sims much, but they grow on you!

[RainbowTigress]

I would never put Brandi with Don.  She deserves a lot better than that male whore!  I put Don with Bella.  Those two deserve each other.  They made some pretty babies too.  Their daughter Dana looks a lot like Bella, especially with the same hairstyle, and Don Jr looks just like his dad.  I put Brandi with a CAS sim I made in the beginning, but now that he died of old age, she is back with Skip, her first love.  Brandi is probably my favorite sim.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I always find Brandi a bone idle sim who couldn't bring up her kids properly!  And Don very rarely gets romance sim wants - he's far less of a problem than Daniel!  And he may be messy, but he does learn to clean up, just doesn't like being told to do it!  I've never played Bella, she doesn't interest me, as far as I'm concerned she can stay in Strangetown!

[vecki]

I tend to play one family way too much (Goths, anyone?) and then realise that I've got a pile of other families I'm going to have to spend time with in order to get them to get back in sync.

Thankfully it's only Pleasantview and Aridia (my Legacy neighbourhood) I play.

Cass Goth has married twice, had 4 children (Hector by Don; Antony, Mortimer and Bella with Darren), and is 3 days away from becoming an elder, while Alexander only just got out of university (he's married to Meadow Thayer and now has 2 children, Julius and Rain)

[ZephyrZodiac]

My Cassandra stalks anything in trousers and is forever trying to break up happy relationships!  I've stuck her in the cabin in the woods!  She acts like an old witch, so she can live like one!