When you first started playing the sims...what took you a while to figure out? «123...Next Go

the_red_simmer

I had no idea that you could use Alt to move objects freely in build mode. I had no idea how people had such amazing decor!

cmbaker16

I started with sims on pc and what took me longest to figure out was manage the sim and their time, also for th elongest time i didn't realize that the time stopped at on the home lot when they traveled so i always tried getting them back home at a decent hour. When i discovered i have the sims leave a few hours before work in hope to gain skills or friends. Took me some time before i realized sims couldn't learn skills on community lots. LOL

sims 3 didn't take me long to adjust to it was pretty straight forward but i think what took me the longest to figure out was building and learning all the build cheats.

Potsae

How to delete something in The Sims 1 was the biggest mystery in the world which was only solved with internet.
I spent years before I figured out how to use groups for outing in The Sims 2. Turned out they come in handy for all sorts of social events.
Managing needs was also challenging especially environment and comfort. I hope they'll return one day.
Probably something more, but that what I remember.

deedles64

I think it was TS2 where I couldn't figure out how to get groceries and my poor pregnant sim died of starvation on her way to answer the door for a pizza delivery. I was quite upset at the time :(

KayeStar

How to manage their motives. My first game was Bustin' Out on PS2 at 9 years old. I could never keep the motives high.

EnkiSchmidt

I don't remember if it had been a problem the first time I played the game, but when I (briefly) returned to Sims 1 I had trouble telling what interaction was friendly and what romantic, resulting in lots of jealousy.

In Sims 2 it was roofs. I think I never learned how to properly build a roof in all the years.

cody6268

CAS in TS4 as well as a lot of the Build/Buy. Only now really starting to get proficient with TS4's CAS.

I'm still figuring TS3 CAS out. And I'm pretty much useless in that.

Still clueless with most of TS2's stuff.

Karababy52

I've been wracking my brain trying to remember, but The Sims came out over 20 years ago now so it's tough. I don't remember with TS2 either. Never played TS3. The most prominent thing I remember being clueless about with TS4 was just after I'd gotten the Vampires GP about how a Sim changes to a vampire once they've begun the process. I thought I knew, but I was so wrong. I read in a thread that it takes around 2-3 days and they will get sick if they eat any food before they completely change. I thought that meant don't let them eat at all.

My Sim was miserable, of course. I felt so bad watching her, lip quivering, pointing to her mouth, crying in the shower, etc., and all I could do is say out loud, "I know Honey, but it won't be much longer. You'll be okay." I sent her to bed thinking that would speed things up and I wouldn't have to watch her suffer. A few hours later, she got out of bed and I thought, "Yay! Finally, this is it!" Uh, it wasn't. Imagine my horror when she keeled over and died of starvation instead.

Next thing I know, here comes Grim and then I got the dreaded 'Game Over' pop up with the tombstone. She lived alone so I couldn't have anyone plead for her life. Plus, she was the very first vampire I'd ever created. I couldn't just let her die. I didn't save and started all over again. Thankfully, I'd had the presence of mind to do a save just after she'd had Caleb turn her so the do over wasn't too long at least.

I felt like such a noob at that point. Those threads actually meant that yes, she would get sick if she ate anything, but let them eat anyway. D'oh! o.O

TeeSea

I started with Sims 3 and played for almost 4 years before I discovered Mods.

notthatbellagoth

TS1: I never grasped the lack of aging in the game and just assumed I needed to wait. I was like permakids just doesn't make /sense/ right?????

TS2: I lost like twenty Sims to the cowplant until I understood that the way you keep it from "cake"-ing is to feed it /normally/

TS3: So much of Island Paradise. Just all of Island Paradise.

TS4: Some day I will be able to figure out how to design a room that a snobby sim actually tolerates. Some day...

Rflong7

TS1 - Getting Married. . . It was a Pain. Those Townies were so demanding.

TS2 - I didn't find much of it hard to play but I've always had a hard time staying with a neighborhood for more then a generation.

TS3 - I still haven't figured out how to modify CAW as much as I want to do. It might be more like I don't want to spend the time learning but still~

Seera1024

That patches existed. And that the Tragic Clown not being able to be taken away by the police in Sims 1 was a bug fixed in a patch for that game. The workaround was easy enough: don't have the Tragic Clown painting.

Played Sims 1 pretty much from when the first expansion pack hit through all of the numerous patches. Sims 2 was the first Sims game I patched and it was well into Sims 3 before I discovered that Sims 1 had patches at all...

izecson

I was playing The Sims 2 pets for console, the first sims I played.

I couldnt figure out how to get a money, I played the all women household with only 2000 simoleons, I used those simoleon to buy arcade system and gaming station etc, with no simoleons left all of those sims repeatedly passed out because of the hunger and i was unable to make them some food (no money)

And i put toilet and shower in a bedroom, not separated by another room but literally put toilet beside the bed lol

Kelvin

It took me forever to figure out that one could actually take pictures in CAS.

Oh, and the fixed camera angel tool that came with the sims 3, and the ability to rotate camera in tab mode, too.

Onverser

I'm honestly not sure. My first "sims" game was Sims 3 pets on the DS like a decade ago so probably something related to pets. My memory of little things doesn't go back that far lol.

One notable thing is in like 2014 I made a post titled "HELP!!" on this forum asking how to buy a house in the ITF world in s3, so I guess that's the earliest example I can think of of something that took me a while to get in the sims.

alyssasim87

when i 1st started playing the sims i didnt know how important fire alarms were. i didnt know they brought fire men in. so of course i got a fire and my sim died trying to put it out. her sister lived and became my favorite sim i ever made because of her tragic story of losing her sister. on top of that i ended up deleting all the stoves off my other sims lots so a fire didnt happen. one day i just looked at the manual and saw what the fire alarms do and started placing them and adding back stoves to peoples houses.

Korgly

I play on console and just figured out today I can pan up and down in camera mode with A and Y buttons.. been playing off and on for 2 years on the Xbox.. always would use the right and left trigger and face downward to zoom pan b4.

OliwkaWidmo

When I first played The Sims 1 as a child, I had no idea that I need to decorate the walls with wallpaper and put some kind of floor on the ground. I was terrible at building houses, I didn't find this interesting at all, so my houses were just all huge squares or rectangles, I would put a door in the wall, no windows, no rooms, nothing, and then I was surprised that they don't want to use the bathroom if there's somebody else in the house and that they are always unhappy.

ehud8651

Manage worlds and the fact I could have less than 8 sims in a household

phantasmkiss

Maybe a bit basic, but just... how on earth to keep them happy! They always needed to eat or pee or sleep, and somewhere along the way they'd have a breakdown and need a quick visit from the therapist to even function...

MaWhil

In Sims 1, I didn't know how to switch between sims so one of them burned to death because I didn't know how to switch to the other sim to call the fire department. Then, I didn't know you needed a ladder to get out of the pool so one sim drowned. I definitely learned the hard way how to play lol.

DeafSimmer

TS2: Motives (TS2 Pets on Gamecube) There was also a time when a dog has stars spinning around its head and I don't know what that meant.
TS3: Maybe CAS? I can't really remember what took me to figure out.
TS4: Once again, probably CAS because unlike TS3, you have to push and pull. The previous iteration has sliders.

peterskywalker

When I first played the sims 2 I didn’t know how fast needs would drain. I ended up having a tired sim who was also hungry and every time I tried to have him cook a meal on the stove he would pass out before he could finish preparing the meal. He ended up dying of hunger.

DoodlyDoofus

Yeah I was wondering why I couldn't keep my Sims alive. Apparently they need to eat I guess. Also they just wouldn't stop burning to death.

Calico45

Friendships. In Sims 1 we needed friends to get promoted and the needs were so punishing even with top tier furniture that it was beyond difficult to make time to visit other households to make and maintain friendships. Community lots, too, really. Pretty well as soon as I learned them, they began degrading.

Add to that the fact that I was a child playing one of my first few PC games, and certainly the most complex of them, and I completely ignored relationships. If it was not in my household, I did not care and nothing could make me. Not romance (child me found it disgusting anyway), nor career promotions (I sort of tried for these, but friendships just weren't worth it), nor even the social need/visiting community lots (I visited for my purpose and ignored all the randos).

I am fairly certain this has impacted me throughout all the Sims games at this point, though I have grown more tolerant of the NPCs. I know for sure that even to this day that I still do not find friends worth it in 1. I went back, conquered it, and agreed to never do it again.