Rotational gameplay, Story progresssion, or a new option

ts3seml

TS2 is my favorite of the Sims series and I always enjoyed playing with my families in rotational style play. TS3 was difficult for me because I wanted to move out my grown children but still play with my different families which really wasn't workable in TS3 (rotational play style). I appreciated the townies aged, married, developed careers, etc. I'm struggling in 4 because I can't see a way to make it all work without turning aging off for everyone except my played sims which I suppose isn't as good.

I tried just leaving aging alone and rotating but that didn't really work out. My sims didn't seem to be making much progress on their own. I tried only aging my playable families but the townies were aging too quickly because they just kept aging at their same rate. One of my YA girls ended up with an elder for her boyfriend while I was playing her sister's family.

Any ideas out there on how we get story progression (townies developing full lives) but allow rotational gameplay? I don't see how to make it work. I feel like there is a great solution out there but I can't think of it.

ButterFliKysssss

I feel your pain. I actually loved the TS3 style of gameplay. I have found that I have to go play like 15 families just to make sure they have a legacy to leave behind. I didn't play the Caliente household and now they are almost elders, so since I wanted to have them and Don have children for the next gen of sims, i had to go play them before they got too old to produce! It seems like unless you play the "town" you won't have children or teens for the families you created. I feel so sad for the families I wasn't able to play and now they leave the Sim world with no family to mourn them :'(

I hope you find a happy medium, bc I am just having headaches, lol :)

pguida

ts3seml wrote: »

TS2 is my favorite of the Sims series and I always enjoyed playing with my families in rotational style play. TS3 was difficult for me because I wanted to move out my grown children but still play with my different families which really wasn't workable in TS3 (rotational play style).

Story progression and aging off. Birthday cakes.

MsPhy

I play with the townies set to ageing off and the played Sims set to Active Household Only. This is about as close to TS2 as you're going to get. When I switch households, I always switch on the same day and time as I did the last household (Monday at 6:00 a.m.), because while your Sims do not age while you are away, they do not freeze: the days still pass. If you come back at different day/time, they may be off the lot--at work, school, or at a public venue. 6:00 a.m., everyone always seems to be home, usually still asleep.

Another thing to beware of is changing households when a Sim is pregnant. The pregnancy will not freeze; the baby will be born without you, and the game will assign a random name.

Another thing I do is "Save as," and frequently (at least once per Sim day). Autosave is worthless, as far as I can tell.

So far, so good; everyone is progressing the way I want them to. There have been reports of people who say they are playing this way who come in and find some of their Sims have disappeared, but my suspicion is that they are either not using "Save as," or they are returning to an earlier save of the game rather than the most current "Save as." The "Save as" will name the game after whichever family is being played at the time of the save. I suspect that some people, when they want to go back to a previously played house, are choosing the last save in that family's name, and that's not the way it works; that takes you back in time, before any of your more recent stuff has been done.

Anyway, good luck and enjoy! I know I am enjoying greatly!

CK213

I just identify one key household as the beginning of a rotation.
I turn aging on when I play this household, so the whole town ages while I play them. I turn it off when I play the others so no one ages before I can play them. Everyone gets about 3 days of play before I move on to the next. Basically I just turn aging on when It's time for the town to age. The only issue I have is forgetting birthdays. I want to play the household when a sim ages up. I have to keep track of those.