What do you do in the Sims 3? «12...Next Go

ImmyQuokka

What do you do in the Sims 3?
Do you have loads of save games or just focus on one?
Do you do challenges or just live your life?
Do you like creating stories with your sims?
I'd love to know!

bekkasan

@ImmyQuokka Hi. I have several saves with ongoing stories all at one time. I don't do challenges as I don't like rules.
I create stories with my sims, even the one that is in a legacy style save have mysteries to solve or life challenges that befall them. My most recent story is here if you are interested in reading it.

KatyFernlily

I prefer building over playing.

MamaSimTee

I start and stop challenges all the time. LOL

I practice my building skills. Every so often I come up with something nice, but I mostly rely on my fellow Simmers to share their interesting builds.

Other times I also just have a "chill" game where I don't do much but let the SIM chose how they want to live their life.

StephSteb

I (try to) build. I have been doing "theme" world saves lately. Basically finding empty worlds and giving them their own look like mountain towns, space worlds, beach towns, etc. Building families. I like a lot of the active careers and I use the jobs mod that adds new and interesting ones. Scouring the inturdweb for all kinds of mods and custom content

Mareah

I have multiple saves going on, each set in a different world. Like, i have one in sunset valley, one in starlight shores, and so on. I do play challenges, which mainly consists of me trying to achieve the lifetime wish i choose for my sims, and some of them are indeed challenging. I have recently started building too! I rarely tried to put that much effort into my builds before despite playing for years. That is because i started playing this game when i was like 12, and designing anything other than a box seemed waaay to hard for little me. I mean, it still kinda is for grown me as well, but at least i am having more fun trying nowadays

pandabear1836

I have multiple save files where I just have the sims live their lives. I mainly focus on family play, so there are children in all my save files. Even on the couple saves I have where I just have a single sim focusing on one career, they have at least one child and are single parents. I just can't resist making my sims have babies and raising children!

Cororon

I play my simself's family, and when I feel creative I make short stories or screenshots with poses I make myself. I have never done challenges.

mw1525

I do a little bit of everything in this game. I have ideas about each world, what the environment, pace and lifestyles of those worlds looks and feels like. Because of this, I spend a good deal of time building homes, businesses and community lots to try to bring my vision to life. It is a lot of work, but each build is tailored to reflect the personality of the Sims and the overall lifestyle of the world in which they occupy.

Because I play with each household individually before putting them in a combined game (save) which is played on rotation. I have a huge amount of save files (which are kept on an external drive. I switch save files depending on who I feel like working with that day). So, I literally have a save file for each resident in each of my worlds.

I do not do challenges, legacies or any other pre-planned type of game play. Nor do I create stories with my Sims. Instead, I watch them as they develop, documenting events with screenshots and video as they progress. Basically, I allow my Sims to live and let their stories unfold to tell itself.

Nyxeris

My favourite has always been to travel/be an archaeologist. Once, ages ago, I had a family going on for so many generations that the family tree had broken generations back, and every few generations, I'd have a new explorer/archaeologist, and the mansion I built from the ground up (no cheats to get money - it was all earned) had a vast private museum to exhibit all they'd gathered (stolen?) and I had to put fences around the sarcophagi because they'd only insist on sleeping in them. They had an orchard full of plants to make wines from.

I miss having more active jobs - I enjoyed the private detective (would rather have that than cops in 4) and the firefighter. Otherwise I tend to do farming and painting, both in this and sims4 - I wish we could get the painter outfit from the university pack, the one with paint splatter, in s4 as well.

It's been so long now since I played so I don't really rememer much else of what I use to do tbh. Miss the house boats though, that was fun

TinySpaceFox

I've got multiple save files in different worlds. Most of my gameplay is quite freeform, it's really just me and my Sims exploring the vast array of content the game has to offer. I've tried several different skills and careers, and still am very far away from having "done it all". In fact, I just got the Supernatural expansion not long ago, and my next venture will be into playing with supernatural Sims

As far as creative expression goes, I mostly create Sims. I've got a huge ongoing project where I create Sims from Sims 4 in Sims 3. The closest I've ever gotten to a challenge in that respect would be creating them without using custom sliders!

Nikkei_Simmer

I was a “fanfiction” writer before I ever came to the Sims 3, which meant that I used to craft my environment and character interactions with words instead of pictures (so my writing tends into the word-count of tomes - between 80K to 120K words a work and at least 8K to 10K words a chapter. I used to write fan fiction for a military lawyer TV show called JAG which necessitated a lot of research into the characters and created a OC (original character) that complemented the main characters in the story but did not overshadow the other characters.

My Sims 3 characters that I created feature in narrative stories and can be sometimes utilized like “actors playing a role” for a particular scene or sometimes when a nasty case of writer’s block hits, I end up having to do a “freeplay” which pretty much means I just play the game without any direction. In any case, I enjoy apocalyptic fics so a lot of my narratives revolve around that.

Occasionally my id (if you are familiar with psychology terms) just happens to beg to be let out to play so I appease it by utilizing mods to zap Sims who don’t do what I tell them to do and I do have an unholy fascination with det-packs and meteors which makes life for the sims (the ones I do not favor using) a living hell (with the sole exception of two sims, River McIrish and Bebe Hart who rank amongst the EA created sims in the favored circle of this Watcher.

There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to play the Sims - it’s all in what you like to do. I just enjoy telling stories and use my Sims in a way that can best convey what story I want to narrate.

RobbyC

I've been using a main save game (play folder) since spring 2018. As I've played, I've split my save in three playthroughs. I'm playing my current playthrough in more of an RPG style, which I've titled as "A Quest Ahead", and I have a set of connected regions, developed within the previous playthroughs, via NRaas Traveler that I've been playing in a more or so linear fashion.

In the current playthrough, certain sims have storylines associated with them. I also have a sim version of myself within the playthrough.

mw1525

There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to play the Sims

After all....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOPo5OUVgtM

Simmer2500

I started over with a new install of the game not that long ago and started over in Sunset Valley. I haven't tried playing in more than one neighborhood before and just have one saved games in Sunset Valley. When I first start out I like to create two married Sims, build them a house, get them jobs and start a family. Once their children are Young Adults I move them out to start their own families. I prefer to move them out into and empty lot and build them their own house the way I want it rather than moving them into an already built house with a bunch of the cheap ugly furniture that I will just end up deleting and replacing with better furniture. I also recently got the University expansion pack and have sent a few of my Sims to the University. The Sim parents of my first family in the Sunset Valley neighborhood have passed away from old age now but they had three children and I sent two out of the three to the University plus I sent one that I was getting married to one of my Sims back to the University as it showed she had an unfinished degree. It has taken longer than it usually would to move them out of the original house to start their own families because of this though. I have only moved one set of them out of the original house so far and this is the one I have been playing. I want to have one of out of the three to stay in the original house though. But, I think from now on I will probably just pick one or maybe two from each of those families depending on how many kids end up in each family to send to the University because of the amount of time it takes for a lot of them to complete at the University and have a good amount of them not go to University and have them move out into their own houses a little sooner this time around.

heavenlydivine81

I only play one game at a time. Right now, I am doing a legacy challenge but not really following the exact rules, it's more of an inspiration :P I started with my founder in the 1700s and I am building my legacy up to 10 generations but also writing a story so that's why I don't follow all of the typical rules of a legacy challenge :)

Sprottenham

My maIn idea (core idea) is sort of to let the sims be autonomous and then base their personality or story line on whatever just happens, but every now and then something happens that trigger me to do "detours" where I go into making "mini stories" as part of the bigger story, or something like that, which includes using the pose player.

I play rotationally with several towns that all tie together one way or another, because the sims in them have family relations or in some instances just know each other inbetween the towns, which makes it a little complicated.. but I think its more real that way, because nobody only knows people from their own hometown, and of course, they have to travel to visit friends and relatives.

ZeeGee

Mostly I make movies about the Goths! Just kidding, right now I'm working on a movie about the Wolffs.

I do love just playing though and have several different types of play style. One town where I control everything that goes on, and another that I let them do what they want with story progression turned on.

Sleepstar

It depends for me. At the moment, I have two ongoing Saves: The Oakley Save, in which I try and have at least fifteen children, and the Molyneux Save, a story-based Save inspired by an original character named Achilles Molyneux (I write about him in my stories, and even though I have another one of his friends, Carolina Mason, in the same Save file, I don't plan to add any more of my original characters for a while. So far, I have created seven families based on my original characters, I still have three other families planned out; the Mulrooney, Adlingtons and Mather families) and I also love building as well.

texxx78

I like to play challenges (self-made or already existent) because i need to have some kind of goal...

Right now i've started a save and played the youngest sim in the first premade household. I was trying to complete his lifetime wish while also following his whims. As soon as i realized his life was getting monotonous i rotated to the next premade household. I found that the girl living there was already married, had 2 kids and was pregnant. I chose the youngest child and will play him until i complete his LTW or i get bored.

Playing one only sim per household and playing rotations is new to me. I use to play legacy style and control all sims in the household.

I know that usually rotational players hate when things change without their imput but i'm loving to find different family situations which i didn't decide myself

Also playing with just one sim is so liberating... Autonomy is pretty awesome in this game, so the others will live their lives and i can follow my sim everywhere, living life in his personal perspective and focusing on his goals, relationships...

izecson

I'm always doing random thing in game, following my sims wish but he usually only revolve around wanting anything with his spouse probably because they just recently married, other than that i usually grind skill points and collect mini pets.

viola-illyria

I'm currently doing a rotational save in Moonlight Falls (thanks to PleasantSims' guide on how to set this up with nraas) and I'm just about to start a casual legacy in Sunset Valley.

Puddinroy

I'm currently playing in Lunar Lakes with a female sim named Luna Butterfly and her kitty Rainbow Comet.

Simmingal

I don't play it often anymore but usually end up killing sims because I just don't like ts3 sims for some reason

making vlads sort of helps tho
vlad will fix everything
even if his mustache glitches

yoshi_dragur2012

What do you do in the Sims 3?...

Play large legacy families from craddle to grave. But tbh haven't been playing much for while now. Distracted by too many other games atm that are out (Farm Sim 22, Space Engineer/NMS/X4/EGS/Elite Dangerous, RDR2, Elder Scrolls/Fallout etc. And soon Starfield next year. Hopefully Sims Studio will step up their game soon...

Do you have loads of save games or just focus on one?

Yes.

Do you do challenges or just live your life?

Live life. Community challenges and other such mini game scenarios are already part of the life simulator by default...

Do you like creating stories with your sims?

Isn't that what living and playing legacy sim families is all about?

I'd love to know!

Now you do!

Quinnikolite

I do a bit of everything: challenges, legacies, and building mostly.

I mainly play A-Z legacies (the name of each first born matches the next letter), where I like to go from rich to poor and back and forth, mainly because I really enjoy playing with realism. So my first family would be poor, and then by the time their offsping get rich, they don't need to work hard or anything so they can do silly jobs like be bartender or acrobat or chess master and fail or whatever. Then by the time they burn through the wealth a few generations later, I'll have a kid that just wants to work hard and be the top doctor at the hospital for the highest pay and try to get a bigger house, etc. I mainly dictate what happens by rolling dice (which decides how they'll meet their mate, how they'll die, whether they'll be a Type A or Type B person, what type of parent they will be, etc.) and then try to get them to achieve their lifetime wish

Other times, I've gone on building binges, which I love, where I've built arcades, laundromats, community colleges, restaurants, salons, bars, clubs, amuseument parks, country clubs, churches, I can go on, and on. I do love building, until I don't. But I usually do it every now and then when the need arises for something better than what the game offers. At the start of every time I move to a new town, I place my previously built lots.

And occasionally I'll do challenges like the Apocalypse challenge, but its not too often. They always have a bunch of unnecessary rules and regulations to make the game hard even when the rules don't really make sense, so I'll edit them for realism and just fun factor. Otherwise, I get a lot of good ideas from other people's challenges.