Tomorrow is a special day for the game that brings us all to these forums -
The Sims 20th birthday!
This week we want to invite you to share some memories, stories, and chat about your experiences with the game. Whether you started playing 20 years or just booted up the game today, we are Simmers together, so let's celebrate The Sims!
We are starting this week off with a trip down memory lane to our first gaming sessions with our little Sims. A time when we were 'noobs' and everything in The Sims universe was new.
What first mistakes, surprises or discoveries do you remember?
Comments
I remember my first steps as a builder in The Sims. I had this obsession with creating 'flying houses'! I'd place a lot of columns in the lot, build a house on top, and then delete all the columns with move_objects. Past young me found it hilarious so I did it with most of my builds
One experience did shake me a bit. During my Sunset Valley Furystrykar save on TS3, when I was setting up a scene, Rachel Applebee, the sim I was controlling at the time, decided to investigate a strange lightshow outside the house. I couldn't stop it from happening, and before I knew it, Rachel had been abducted by an interstellar interloper. That was not pleasant for me.
During my Sims 1 sessions, I would deliberately place a fire place in a room, fill it with flammable objects and then tell the unfortunate sims to go into the room. I took away the door and watched the Grim Reaper have his work cut out.
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
Quote from Isaiah 41:10
Husband left me after 25 years. Had married as a teen and being suddenly single was very scary.
I stumbled upon the Sims when it came out in 2000 and it has kept me company ever since through all the series.
It filled in lonely hours, made me laugh and occasionally cry. Seriously when I saw the first baby born in Sims2 I actually had tears.
Its been a staple in my life which may sound strange except to Simmers of course. Thank you for so many years of laughter, tears, frustration (which usually led to laughter) & joy.
Happy Anniversary
I think my first "surprise" was the first time a Sim looked straight at me as if to ask what the heck I was doing. That was in Sims 2 and its never been as "real" as that first time.
AHQ Champion
I was traumatized. Anywho, Happy 20th Anniversary!
I also loved going on vacation I spent way to many hours trying to win tickets so my sims could buy souvenirs.
Another big surprise was the ending of Sims Bustin Out on Gameboy Advance, I don't want to spoil it but it was a big twist!
I remember first playing it, watching sims wonder past, usually Alex Moyer, Zoe Patel and Summer Holiday wondering around in the base game.
Several of my sims have become successful in their own right but Sandra as a sim is one i enjoy playing.
As far as mistakes are concerned? i didn't have that many at all, the game tutorial didn't teach me much at all, and it was trial and error from there on, more trial than error.
I still play Sims 2, 3, and 4
I then moved on to TS2 for PS2, UrbZ, Bustin' Out for PS2 & DS, before moving on to Sims Stories as my first PC game. I eventually got TS3(and all the expansion/stuff packs as they came out) and Sims Medieval. Lastly, got TS4 and GTW.
When Sims 3 came out I bought the base game and World Adventures but than got caught up in college and forgot about it for awhile. When Sims 4 came out I decided to buy all the Sims 3 expansions for a discounted price and played that for a couple years until my computer just couldn't handle the game anymore.
About that time Vampires and toddlers were coming to Sims 4, so I decided to give it a try. Bought some bundles and haven't looked back.
The wife became pregnant and some time after she had given birth, her husband died by getting hit by a satellite. His ghost then came back and scares both his wife and grandma to death, so the only one left was the grandfather and the baby. All that happened in less than 30 minutes, and it’s one if my favorite sims related memories her reaction to the whole thing was hilarious 😆
At first I had no idea what to do, for example I failed a lot on romance actions, because I didn't know that I should stop when it's an "awkward encounter". I just continued flirting until my Sim peed in his pants (I didn't notice that his bladder need was on red), became mortified and died of embarrassement. Game over.
Then I tried out the sims4 create a sim demo and I ended up really liking it. I bought the sims4 on release and I have played it from time to time.
I remember when I started playing in Oasis Springs and I think there was a bug in the beginning where my sims lost their job performance, so they ended up losing their jobs all the time so I had to earn money by writing books and doing other things...it was pretty fun actually.
Other things I remember was if you had a save that was too large, then the game used too much RAM and crashed because it was only 32-bit.
gallery: RainesimsUwU
Sims 2 though that was the game that had both of us hooked for many more years. I still love Sims 2 to this day. OFB and FreeTime were some of the best expansions released for that game. Seasons too. There are lots of things Maxis/Sims Studio can learn from Sims 2 that they can improve and implement in TS4.
Adding in real life music artists songs but Simlish versions was something to this day I love and I hope it continues.
Real life brands should be more considerate of choosing though. Things like IKEA and H&M (Sims 2 Stuff Packs) worked because they didn't need to showcase English at all to work and get the concept across.
Mistakes
I think TS3 being just so poorly optimized and with TS4 one mistake I feel is a combination of recycled animations /lackluster animations and just neglecting certain age groups over and over again. Take your time. Delay things if needed to give a more fuller rounded experience. Sometimes Sims 4 seems like a step back not a step forward. Oh also limitations. Sometimes it makes sense from a storytelling/world immersion thing but sometimes as a gamer who is given these tools it's baffling to be like why CAN'T I do this? Why won't the game let me?
Thank you Sims for giving me a franchise where I can have fun telling stories, customizing Sims and building dream homes all without having to shoot people or kill aliens like in other mainstream popular games at the time. 🥰😋🐻🐾💚
My friend passed away a few years ago, but I always think about how much she'd love little things from The Sims 4 like how mirrors reflect now.
2 will always be my favorite even more so than Sims 3 which was very innovative for its time but with all the new features The Sims itself lose a little of it's soul and quirkiness but it was still fun to play. I wish I could say Sims 4 was an blast but I can't as it upstart was full of controversy and less than meaty features and still that way to this day. Sure they allow the player to edit the terrain but that is it for me and my love for the Sims series is waning down.
I'd made a sim, who I'd decided was going to be a wizard with Makin' Magic. She was also in the Circus career if I remember correctly. So I had her do wizard stuff, work on her career, try to keep her alive, and I was doing pretty well at it as she was able to get a boyfriend and I was in the process of trying to convince him to marry her (Oh man, Simmers today don't know how easy they have it ). Anyway, I finally saved up enough wizard coins to buy a dragon egg. When it hatched, it was the golden one. Well, I was spending a lot of time trying to keep my Sim alive and my poor dragon felt neglected and ran away. So I saved up more wizard coins and bought another egg, put the headphones on and off my Sim went to work. WELL... It was her last day of work as the egg hatched into a red dragon, who promptly lit the yard on fire. She got home, and put the fires out and all was well for... maybe 5 seconds before the dragon lit the shower on fire and she ran to put it out, only to die.
Honestly, that's the first time in a really long time I've had a Sim die (mainly because I haven't stuck with a Sim that long. There was something about her that I came back to over a couple different start ups of the game rather than making a new Sim)
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