Later in TS2's run, they developed a feature that, when a Sim aged up, allowed them to also age three (?) friends as well. As far as I know, that was it. The rest of the world stayed the same unless you manually went around aging everyone up yourself. Otherwise, a child could have the same childhood friends as their great-great-grandparent had when they were kids. As someone who doesn't enjoy playing rotationally, I couldn't get past that.
I have the opposite situation as that game feature enables me to maintain control over my households. I like to weave complex inter-connected stories involving multiple households, so I need my sims where and how I left them when it's time to resume their part of the story. As a writer I feel I should control the story, not the medium I happen to be using to tell it.
That's exactly why I think that any subsequent games in the series should have options for both playstyles. The Devs tried in TS3, though they didn't succeed. Strangely enough, NRaas mods managed to do it. Go figure. With that mod, I'm able to play the one family -- parents with adult children who live in separate homes. Everyone else takes care of themselves.
I'll never understand why EA gets paid the big bucks, yet they can't provide nearly as much functionality as the modders. The level of options and control provided by the NRaas and Pescado mods are flipping astounding.
The good thing about TS2 aging was Maxis supplied cheats to players unlike TS4 taking away cheats or not supplying cheats. Maxis back then was more willing to share their knowledge of how to play the sandbox you wanted to play. Yes, aging up three Sims was later added to the game in an EP. However, the ability to age up any Sim, anywhere was always available in the game and especially after the first EP, University. Heck we could even run the debug cheat testers to do things Maxis could do.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
Comments
That's exactly why I think that any subsequent games in the series should have options for both playstyles. The Devs tried in TS3, though they didn't succeed. Strangely enough, NRaas mods managed to do it. Go figure. With that mod, I'm able to play the one family -- parents with adult children who live in separate homes. Everyone else takes care of themselves.
I'll never understand why EA gets paid the big bucks, yet they can't provide nearly as much functionality as the modders. The level of options and control provided by the NRaas and Pescado mods are flipping astounding.
Mod glitches the game and i dont have that disk space that you guys do..