I've been playing The Sims since the original game was released, literally growing up with the series. Although the four different games force different playstyles, I still tend to carry mental baggage from game to game. For instance, there was a super-efficient kitchen layout that worked in Sims 1 which I have used in every iteration of the game since, despite it no longer being as good as it was. Another Sims 1 habit I got into was to make Sims pee, THEN shower, because peeing always reduced their hygiene. One of my favorite starter home designs was stumbled upon in Sims 1, and then reused perpetually to this day. If there's ever a Sims 5, I will build the same exact house. I also refer to ANY Maxis-made sim I don't play as a "townie", a Sims 1 reference, even if in the case of Sims 3 and 4, they're playable. From game to game I find myself checking on motives that no longer exist ("Comfort! Comfort! Where's the comfort ba- oh, yeah.") and thinking about my Sim's personality as expressed in other games.
(The trick in Sims 1 was put the fridge, food processor, and stove in an L shape configuration, the stove being on the short end; Sims could simply turn within the same tile to move from processing the food to cooking it. )
Do you have quirks, habits, practices that pass from one game to the next? Do they work just as good, or do some of them lose something in translation?
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And there is at least that one sim where I have to them complete every single skill there is in the game, and collect every single thing there is to collect in the game. I've done this with at least one sim for each of the different sim games, including the different console games I have played in the past.
Oh yes almost forgot, I have to do gardening in all of them as well.
Most of mine revolve around taking care of needs but I've adopted other possibilities available to us now also.
I rarely have them drink coffee and mostly it's when I force myself for a story line. I remember how terrible it was on their bladder need before. It didn't help that when I was trying to let them the maid started swiping it. Mostly none of my sims houses have coffee pots. They only drink tea for a mood I want to bring on (and I use other objects first) or to cure them of illness. Otherwise they avoid drinking at all. I think I'm getting better with this..
Money also use to be harder to come by in past games and I find myself hoarding it.. My sims will be rolling in the dough but if they are hungry I'll have them run to that picnic table with the free and not spoiled hot dogs before they will go to the nifty stands.. I also force that for story lines or aspirations or just to try it out then I go back to my old habits.
My play styles have expanded some in this game... I still love some of my old play styles now and they feel much broader now but I loved playing knowledge sims and romance sims in Sims 2.. still do it's pretty major for me. Partly then it was because it was doable for me. I'd roll the wants to get the next level in a skill and .. well I was going to do that anyway. I'd roll wants to get to know some townie better, ect.. romance wise and that was easy enough also.
I do the cooking skill thing too.. I don't feel safe unless they are at least level 3. Actually they eat a lot of salads and BLT's until then. I had too many stove fires in earlier games.
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I did this for awhile in TS4, but managed to break the habit eventually. But now I can’t stick to new saves. I always end up going back to the one I’ve been playing for probably about 3 years now.
I still think of any environment based influence on a sim as "room score."
Family Tree
Playing Mod & CC Free
I do the same thing! Back when we only had fixed viewpoints, I always situated houses and objects so that I wouldn't have to rotate the camera to see everything. 3 iterations of the game later, I still rarely change the viewpoint of the camera (unless I'm taking pictures). I set up the houses so that I don't have to.
Kennedy Family Tree
In The sims 1, it was pointless to focus on family or generation, cause kids never grew up (OMG YES! What the hell was that even ).
With The sims 2, I could finally focus on generations and the sims itself. I never thought of it before and it directly caught my attention. This was my new playing style, generations. i was still upgrading my house from room to room and saving money to make my house better with more pretty equipment. I learned much later that you could download CC and I could never get it right, so after almost the end of The sims 2, I had some CC like cars, but I think I never managed to have furniture work, so upgrading my house went with real EA objects and their value. It was harder and took some time. I was quite happy with the original furniture in the game or I just didn't know better yet.
In The sims 3, I went crazy with CC. Everything looked so much better and upgrading my house was not really necessary any more, cause CC was always pretty and sometimes even very cheap. I couldn't bare creating this cheap, ugly houses with cheap EA furniture until I had enough money to upgrade it. I had to have a nice house right from the start. My generations playing style went on. For some reason I never came further then the second generation. The second my child sims moved out as YA, I lost all motivation to play.
In The sims 4, i wanted to really try and move generations forwards until it was so expanded, I would loose control over who came from who. It was all about generations and upgrading my house totally got banned from my mind. I only create nice looking homes and if I have to put in less, cause im on a budget, then so be it, but I never want to go back to using cheap EA furniture ever again until they make it look decent enough like CC. I am now on my third generation and the stories become better and better. I give all my sims nice houses that suit them without ever using cheats or crazy cheap CC furniture. I guess making money is also easier then before.
Wake up - use toilet - use shower - eat breakfast. I also always have my Sims use the toilet before the shower. I'm sure I have many other quirks since I've played since the original but I'm not sure what's carry over and what I've changed - I've always played the same type of style (family play) so I'm sure I've carried over many habits from game to game.
Sims 1, 2, and 3. I didn't use any cheats. Not motive cheats, not money cheats. I wouldn't even use moo or building cheats. I didn't even know cheats were a thing, tbh, in Sims 1 and Sims 2.
Now, 18 years later, I *will* play with money cheats, but it has to fit that sims story, which happens about once every 6-12 months. And more often then not, tragedy strikes and my sim will eventually lose it all. I just prefer my sims earn their wealthy (And I love wealthy sims).
I'd say taking care of my sims (needs being in green as much/often as possible) and no cheats is my quirks that have passed down thru all the games.
I have since loosened the need to play that way and sometimes set my sims up with free real estate cheats ect.. because I'm much more story driven now. I think it's not so much of a big deal because your sim isn't suffering and scraping by from the beginning for the most part unless you really put for an effort for them to live that way. Your sim simply won't starve for instance in this game .. there is always free food out there and even snacks from the fridge is free. I like that things are like this in the past games really limited my play before and made it seem wrong to play any other way.
I still avoid cheating so I get it done fast when I do lol.. so it must still have some hold on me. I love there to be built in options.
I also like to design houses in which the tall items are at the back or sides so that my view isn't blocked and I don't have to rotate to see the whole house. (For one thing, I like to have my rotation set to square-on, not diagonal, and it's a bit tricky to get the camera back to that if I have to move it.)
Another thing - I don't let my parents go off lot when there's a toddler in the house. Sims 4 will let you do it without summoning the nanny or day care, unless you actually leave the neighbourhood area, so I could send my Sim off to fish, for example, leaving little Simmy alone in the house. But, it's just not right. Kids, fine, but toddlers no.
(While babysitting as a teen, I was making dinner and talking to the six-year old. Meanwhile, not five squares away, the toddler had decided that Aveeno bath oatmeal sounded better than what I was cooking. Can't take your eyes off 'em for a second. A call to the poison hotline determined that the bath oatmeal was probably less toxic than my cooking, fortunately.)
Now, it's a hard habit to break and even remember that I can add so much more in decorating the inside and outside. So most of my houses are usually essentials only at first until I can remember I can splurge a bit more.
I still try to have my families interact more.
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Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
My Sims usually start with a Knowledge aspiration so having some skill building objects on the lots I use is a must. I'm talking easels and chess sets not giant observatories or microscopes.
In Sims 1 all of my families had kids. When I started playing Sims 2, my families started out with kids but I lost interest in them because of all the training a Sim had to do to get a kid up and running. Which made sense because kids do require work but I was always in a hurry because I had limited time to play. In Sims 4, none of my main Sims have kids anymore but the townie families that I use to populate the game all have teens and kids.
One thing that is different in my game-play is that in Sims 2 none of my Sims ever owned a television but in Sims 4 they all do.
I just thought of one more thing - I don't do parties. From Sims 1 to Sims 4 I have never figured out how to have a decent party. I did try in Sims 1 but the mime always showed up. It was very sad.
Windows had interactions before so I kept placing them with the "right" side facing out, even the ones which have equal sides.
Everytime a sim gets abducted I start seaching for the telescope. Sims 2 habits.
I put a fire alarm in every kitchen, and never remember to place the water thing.
Still get afraid when my sims go outside to watch the sky.
Legacy Photomode
One thing that kinda bugs me since toddlers came about is whenever my sim visits a house that has at least one toddler, upon their arrival to said house, there is one toddler outside on the sidewalk(if there is one). Meanwhile everyone else of the household is inside doing their thing. It's like going to visit someone and there's the house reject standing outside, only they are 2 years old and ready to just get scooped up by anyone passing by.