Have you had the sims you've been playing for several years in real time?

Jeansoo · January 2021

This guy in my profile picture is the oldest sim I ever had. He had been born in 2010 for the first time, and I had lost him around at 2013 with a serious sim bug. Actually, he had died from old age and had been resurrected from Oh my ghost opportunity as a ghost. He had been a ghost singer and had a ghost baby as well. After that I had a serious sim bug with him. Luckily, I had the copied one in SavedSims folder, I restarted a new game with him about at 2013. He started his new sim life with getting every diplomas from university. He has been 7 years in real time by now. The problem is that this saved game causes force quit often than other new saved games. Is there anyone knows how to save the long lived sims from this force quitting? I'm not sure I can play him longer now. He is my most favorite sim. He drank age freeze potion, so he will be staying in young adult forever. I don't want to let him die again because I realized I was in kind of depression for a few day after he had died from old age.

Nikkei_Simmer · January 2021

I've had a passel of sims for several years (the entire time that I've been playing Sims 3. My JAG-Sims (the ones that I've created from Don Bellisario's TV Show JAG (Judge Advocate General) have been with me with some alterations for the entirety of my time playing Sims. Started playing Sims in January of 2017 so it's pretty much 4 years as of this month (January 2021) that I've been playing Sims 3.

The only one of the JAG Sims that wasn't of my creation was Colonel Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie who was created by Audrey at MTS. She was based off Audrey's "Catherine Bell" sim.
I pretty much followed the JAG/NCIS timeline and well since "Captain Harmon Rabb Jr." didn't get promoted to admiral, I've left him as a Captain. But since Meg Austin hasn't been touched since Season 1...well...I decided to keep her in "step" and she came back into the story as a Vice-Admiral.

Needless to say, Harm's reaction to Meg's being promoted over him was priceless.

Needless to say, there's some "romantic sparks" between FADM Tosh Nakamura and VADM Meg Austin.

Outside of my JAGSims, my next group of sims that I play a lot is my Legacy Family which having been rebooted...multiple times...and hopefully this will be my last rebooting of this legacy.

River and Haruo - inseparable.

Jeansoo · January 2021

@Nikkei_Simmer
Wow! I haven’t watched that drama as I’m outside of US. But the sims look gorgeous in the military looks. It’s good to follow the story line. And your legacy married couple are lovely. Are they having no problem from long time play? I mean the saved games will be getting heavier from long time playing and it leads to the force quit in my case.

Brandontaylor · January 2021

For me, I don’t really have a save from when I first started playing. I do have a Sim I’ve played off and on that I created soon after getting it. I do have a save in the 20 Sim weeks range that I’ve played over a year.

Nikkei_Simmer · January 2021

Jeansoo wrote: »

@Nikkei_Simmer
Wow! I haven’t watched that drama as I’m outside of US. But the sims look gorgeous in the military looks. It’s good to follow the story line. And your legacy married couple are lovely. Are they having no problem from long time play? I mean the saved games will be getting heavier from long time playing and it leads to the force quit in my case.

My original legacy started having problems with the save especially when my sims started getting into the third generation, because mainly, I had a pre-generation (the founder's parents as well as the founders - the same way that I'm doing them now. Y'know how Asian families are. We must always include the parents...

)

Mikezumi · January 2021

Most of my favourite sims have been played on and off since their creation. It's very rare for me to play a born-in-game sim over and over, although I can think of at least one exception. My sims "evolve" over the years as I expand my CC or, in the case of sims based on real people, get minor tweaks as I try to get closer to the person I am trying to capture, but I still see them as the same sim and I keep their original sim files as I often use them as the starting point for newer versions. My longest played sim would be Eddie Starr who I made with my son when Late Night first came out. He is mostly used as a background sim these days but as long as I sim he will not be forgotten.

Sorak4 · January 2021

This ladies easily my oldest Sim in two different ways. I've been playing her since at least 2011 across many neighbourhoods. Never had her as a normal Sim ever since supernatural came out, from then on she's always been an occult of some sort, although the vamprism-witch hybrids pretty new.

She used to have black hair, and red highlights, although she kinda aged before I could get some ambrosia/age freezing potions. I stuck with the older look though, looks pretty cool

Although her face and traits haven't changed at all since 2011... She's definitely changed other ways, swapping genders twice. Which meant her first name changed by 3 letters as a result due to her already having a pretty neutural name... She even became a German Sheperd for a while in the Sims 3 Pets on the console (I kinda miss Karma Powers)

To some extent I'd say she's my oldest ever Sim even with her dating as far back as TS1 and TS2 saves.

I don't think I have any screenshots of pre-estrogen, pre-occult her though. That's definitely dating very far back and I've cleared my screenshots folder way too much over those years to have a screenshot left on my PC.

Karritz · January 2021

This is the third sim I ever made. I have the first two in a game somewhere but it'll take me hours to find them. They are a mother and teenage daughter.

This is Patience.

I made her in June 2009. I have at least 3 other sims from that month. I have lots of backups on DVD and external drives and over the years I've kept copies of over 700 sims. They come in useful if I need some townies or if I just want a bit of nostalgia in a game.

Patience has been in numerous games over the years. She usually ends up married to Christopher Steel at some point as the game likes to pair them up.

I used her for my first attempt at getting the badge where a sim has to have 15 children. She had the children but the badge didn't get awarded. I did get it years later when I found out the mysterious requirements of that badge. It turns out it is easiest to achieve if you use a male sim and they impregnate several female sims around town. I did it again with a male sim and got that badge but haven't ever used him and his females or their offspring again. I will still have them somewhere.

However, I do have a game I refer to as my Big Game and Patience and her 15 children were the basis for that game. Currently Patience is an elder in that game, and some of her children are Adults. I still have the original young adult version of Patience safely somewhere.

EDIT:

I just came across this picture.

This is Genevieve Steel. She is a born in game sim who is the grand daughter of Patience and Christopher Steel. The game in which Genevieve was born was from 2010. I have her in my Big Game too living in Moonfall Island with her parents and siblings. Patience is living in Lucky Palms in that save.

If you are watching my 30 Grandchildren Badge series of videos you may be familiar with Tony McLean. Well that Tony McLean was Genevieve's maternal grandfather in that old 2010 game. Just in case you haven't noticed him, he is the father of all 15 of Gerri Holden's children who are soon to produce the 30 grandchildren for Gerri and Tony.

Figwit · January 2021

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This is Victoria Farsley as she was in 2011 but she was created in the very first week that Sims 3 was released and she didn't change her look apart from default skin and eye replacements. She was not quite the first sim I ever created. I sort of remember a trial sim who had a baby and a toddler with that good-looking policeman in Sunset Valley (don't remember his name) and I got overwhelmed so gave up on her. I then created Victoria and took it more slowly with her. I played Victoria and her husband, Adam, for years and they had heaps of children, went exploring in World Adventures and then got dumped for the Angel family around Generations time.

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My Angel family has been around since May 2011. I created them to play Generations. I left Sims 3 sometime in 2012 and only just returned late last year drawn back mostly by a desire to play this family again.

Pary · January 2021

Oh wow, it's awesome seeing how many "old" sims people have. I thought I was one of the only people who routinely played sims that were years old, and I always felt it might seem kind of boring. I get really attached to my sims and characters, so I always seem to fall back on playing those that are familiar to me.
Many of my sims travel with me through different games, or some are characters in other games that I've made into sims.

Lincoln & Tricky are my founders for the TS3 apocalypse challenge, way back in 2010 when CAW was first released and @Rflong7 made the (First?) desert world for TS3. With TS3 being very new, it didn't have much in the way of a lot of the challenge rules, but it was fun.

Kyle, and one of his lovely ladies, Victoria, were made right back when TS3 was released, when Vampires were not a thing, and if you wanted a very pale sim you had to use the lightest setting on the blue skintone, and if you wanted a vampire like sim, usually used the "hates the outdoors" trait and had to pretend

It was much nicer when Late Night was released and I could make them properly. Caitlin was not introduced until a bit later but being a human sim, she didn't need anything special.

Crim is another character that actually belonged to my son, in another game about 11 years ago. My son had reached that awkward age where playing sims himself wasn't cool anymore but he was still young enough to be interested in what was going on in my game, so I had to put his character into my sim worlds. He's Lincoln's "Best friend" , which means they're best buddies but since they both have the evil trait all they do is fight, and wherever Linc goes, Crim had to go too

All my sims have undergone many makeovers over the last decade, and some of them are still a WIP, and none of them look the way they used to thanks to the marvelous CC provided by the community.

Karritz · January 2021

This is another sim I made early on. I think she was probably No 5. She was also made in June 2009. A year or so ago I came across some really old games that were saved in June and July of that year. At the time I was looking for a version of Ella that I could use in one of my mermaid stories. When I got it opened I remembered why I hadn't continued to play. It had broken and become unplayable. I think Ella's picture had vanished from the portrait panel and since she was the only sim in the save I couldn't do much with it back in July 2009.

This is a pic of Ella being turned into a mermaid. All I've changed at this point is she has scales.

The thing about Ella was she had a high pitched giggle and she had the Loves the Outdoors trait and she was addicted to sprinklers so for many years I avoided that trait as if my life depended on it. I've since discovered that not all sims with that trait become addicted to sprinklers - although I'm still very wary of adding sprinklers to my games, especially if anyone in the household has that trait.

In the end I decided to demonstrate Ella's addiction by posting a short recording of her autonomously enjoying the sprinkler. Problem was she had been squealing and playing happily until I started recording and then she suddenly stopped and started complaining loudly of a routing error. I paused the game and moved another sprinkler closer to her and she quickly moved on to it and she demonstrated her addiction. I'm convinced she's squealing 'it tickles' quite often.

https://youtu.be/fDvm4WQdvtQ

Archivist · January 2021

The grandkids of the first Sims I played were all born a little over 11 years ago in October 2009. They've been stuck as teens in my game since 2011 because I enjoy their teen drama too much to let them grow up. From top to bottom: Cassie, Cathy, and Gwydion (2009 vs. 2019/2020)

I also used to post silly comics about them on the old TS3 forum:

Jeansoo · January 2021

@Nikkei_Simmer
Can I ask what kind of bug do you have with the legacy family? Yes I know usually, the young people mostly live with their parents until get married.

@Brandontaylor
Do you mostly create sims after short term playing or mainly create many sims more than playing? Some simmers I know in person, they like to create many type of sims more than actual play.

@Mikezumi
Oh yea actually this guy in my profile picture he has been evolved many times since he was born with more expansion packs. Do you save the original version of your sims as skilled or the original version of them in created status without ANY skill? Maybe I better split this guy only from his fmaily and go back to the single play again or just start with the copied one in CAS without any skill. The saved sim family file of him and his family is too big. The game gets heavier very soon although I start playing with them in the new world.

@Sorak4
She is awesome! She is pretty and also attractive. I'd like to learn how to make the sims like her without CC. At least I need ONE CC skintone.

I'm surprised that your sim has been since TS1..??? I started the sims game with TS3. It wouldn't be easy to keep one sim for a long time through the whole sims series. I got impressed.

@Karritz
Hmm..The most number of babies were only 7 in my game I ever had with Don Rosario in Riverview. He had Casanova reputation which he impregnate 15 female sims in Sunset Valley and completed his Heartbreaker LTW. I won't be able to get 30 children.

Usually I play with 1 or 2 sims and mainly teach many skills to them. I want to try this challenge that you've done.

I can see Christopher's gene from your screenshot. 2 thumbs up! I like Christopher Steel in SV.

"When I got it opened I remembered why I hadn't continued to play. It had broken and become unplayable. I think Ella's picture had vanished from the portrait panel and since she was the only sim in the save I couldn't do much with it back in July 2009."

I had this exact same bug as her after being resurrected by his son. Have you tried her with saved sim file in CAS newly? I was able to restart with my sim file with NO any skill. Thanks for sharing this info. I may restart a new fresh game with him again. So far, there's no sim bug this time, but the game quit itself often, and I think myself it could be his data has been piled up too much as he is challenging to complete all skill journals.

@Figwit
Ohh...I know that good looking policeman is called 'Hank Goddard'. His 2nd generations will be good looking too. Victoria is so beautiful.

Have you hadn't any bugs around Angel family from long time playing?

@Pary
Yeah I was surprised to see the notice this morning because I thought it could be rare to have the long lived sims in real time. LOL.. Your sims are very similar age to mine but look more unique and attractive. But I wonder why one of your black haired male sims owns 2 wives in the 2nd picture? I'm jealous at him has 2 lovers.

Oh yea 2 evil traits like to fight. I put my 2 sims in the same household. One had mean trait and the other one had hotheaded trait. Mostly they've done for a day was arguing, mocking and fighting each other. LOL.. Good conversation was rare to them.

@Archivist
The kids from 2009. Actually they will be the oldest kids ever

Your comic is so cute. 'I can go home and check the forum'

Mikezumi · January 2021

Jeansoo wrote: »

@Mikezumi
Oh yea actually this guy in my profile picture he has been evolved many times since he was born with more expansion packs. Do you save the original version of your sims as skilled or the original version of them in created status without ANY skill? Maybe I better split this guy only from his fmaily and go back to the single play again or just start with the copied one in CAS without any skill. The saved sim family file of him and his family is too big. The game gets heavier very soon although I start playing with them in the new world.

I only save their bin files. If I need them to start a new save with skills I will add them with MC as needed. I do have some library files for some sims who are skilled and are either single or part of a larger household, but they are mostly used to populate towns when I start new saves.

Nikkei_Simmer · January 2021

@Jeansoo - I find my save and load times get very slow and the game tends to crash every so often. It's mainly because the save gets clogged with way too much information for the game to cope with. Then I end up having to use NRAAS Porter and port my family into a new world to keep the game running smoothly.

I also have to yank up all the graves (of family members) from the cemetery and bring them along with me...in the inventory of one of the live family members - it's a bit macabre. "Hey, grandpa, I know you're just decomposing, but...well...we're all moving so we need to dig you and the rest of the dead family up and have you all come along, y'know..."

izecson · January 2021

Ever since The Sims 3 Pets came out back then, I always played with Felipe Marshall, Benjamin Schmidt & Gracie Loveland three of whom are premades from appaloosa plains, I always include Gracie Loveland in every of my saves as she has a mission to charm every guy with the help of witchcraft in hope that one of them becoming her true soulmate.

Pary · January 2021

Jeansoo wrote: »

@Pary
Yeah I was surprised to see the notice this morning because I thought it could be rare to have the long lived sims in real time. LOL.. Your sims are very similar age to mine but look more unique and attractive. But I wonder why one of your black haired male sims owns 2 wives in the 2nd picture? I'm jealous at him has 2 lovers. Oh yea 2 evil traits like to fight. I put my 2 sims in the same household. One had mean trait and the other one had hotheaded trait. Mostly they've done for a day was arguing, mocking and fighting each other. LOL.. Good conversation was rare to them.

He doesn't actually have two wives at a time, it's just in my head story he and Victoria split for good, and he spends his time with Caitlin from there on in. However, I just love Victoria, so I have a save where Kyle & Caitlin are married, and I have a save where Kyle & Victoria are still together and I play each of them, whichever I feel like at the time

I suppose I could have them all living together, but since I play them true to their personalities, none of them would allow for a polyamorous relationship.

I really love seeing everyone's beloved sims. I guess it makes me feel a bit less "weird" just playing my own sims that I love dearly, over and over again

Karritz · January 2021

@Jeansoo when I got the badge for a single sim to have 15 babies I made a male sim and 5 female sims with the badge in mind. I forget the exact traits I gave them but they all had traits that I thought would make them all co-operative. I planned for each of the 5 females to have 3 babies. But one of them got upset after having 2 babies and refused to have anything more to do with him so I got another one of the females to have an extra baby. I think you probably need to be logged into the website to get the badge recognised and awarded.

As for the challenge I'm working on now, it is not easy to get. Others have managed to get it and as far as I can work out the sim who is to be the grandparent must live in the same house all of the time. You must be logged into the website at all times. Once the 30 grandchildren have been born the grandmother must have another child. It doesn't matter if they adopt. I think the active household has to be the grandparent's household throughout the births of all 30 grandchildren. I've made a game of it and I've been teaching them all skills and making them get their lifetime wishes. I've also made spouses for each of the 15 children (some spouses still to be made). The spouses I'm making are each made specifically for each of the 15 by making sure they share 2 or more traits. with the exception of the first spouse, I made sure all of the spouses I've made have the 'Surrounded by Family' lifetime wish and I make sure they all are family oriented. Some are nurturing too.

To add to the fun, in all of my games I have my mods set to ensure every sim born in my active household will get an imaginary friend doll at birth. The world I've got the game in is very underpopulated. I decided to populate the world by getting the household members to make their imaginary friend real and teaching the now real imaginary friends a few skills and making them read a few recipes and fishing bait books and then moving them out to become townies. The town is becoming quite lively with various single sims finding partners from around town and some have started having babies.

As for the old game that had the but I couldn't fix way back in 2010. Well I now have mods and I managed to fix the problem within minutes of opening the game. That's how I recorded the video.

As for the game quitting. I have that sometime too. I tend to save as soon as a few of my sims have made some progress or if something significant has happened. Then after saving 2 or 3 times I will quit and reload. This takes a bit of time but I find I lose a lot less progress this way. I have mostly stopped a sudden shutdown, and if I do get a shutdown it is always because I decided to try to do just a little bit more before closing and reloading. I've also eliminated error 12 from happening. But when I save I always go to a part of the world where there are no houses or sims. This seems to release memory and significantly increases my chances of having a successful save without having to deal with Error 12.

I also speed up loading times and reduce memory tied up with background issues by getting rid of the FeaturedItems folder and replacing it with an empty text file named FeaturedItems

I wish you best of luck with your future challenges.

Brandontaylor · January 2021

@Jeansoo Truthfully, I don't actually create many Sims at all. I have a small handful of my own creations but most of my Sims are ones that are born in game. I do a lot more playing than creating them, but I will jump into CAS to edit them if they need it.

Cororon · January 2021

My selfsim is the oldest one I have. I made her just a week or so after the game was released, and she is the matriarch of my sim family. I move my family to a new world when the old one starts to have problems or getting too big for the RAM to handle.

Figwit · January 2021

I am loving this thread. There are so many beautiful sims and it is so nice to realise that I am not the only quirky player that gets attached to their sims.

@jeansoo. Yes, it was Hank Goddard. He is gorgeous. The sim I created as a husband for my Victoria was not nearly so handsome but he was a nice sim and I loved him.

I have saved my Angel family to the bin, so I just use that copy of them every time I start a new save. I start saves fairly regularly as I can't stand it when the game gets buggy and slow. In the old days, I used to merge all my cc and porter my families but I can't be bothered with that now. I don't use much cc these days and my sim family just goes through the same skill learning, job achieving whatever every time. Poor things. If only they knew. Because I haven't played Sims 3 for such a long time, I am like a kid with a new toy with all the lovely custom worlds I can download and explore so starting a new save in yet another new world is no chore to me. I haven't even touched the EA worlds that I bought yet either.

@Archivist. I thought I was unkind keeping my sim Lucy as a teen but she is so entertaining that I can't let her grow up.

Jeansoo · January 2021

@Mikezumi
Thanks. I decided to restart a fresh new game with my profile sim from the beginning from CAS, not from the household bin in Edit town mode. Of course it will be pain for learning new popular drinks recipes all over again but at least, he will be safe from random force quitting.

@Nikkei_Simmer
That's what I've been doing with my sim. He has moved to the new worlds so many times with porter mod, and he and his family were safe for a long time but not any more.. unfortunately. I decided to restart a fresh new game with him from the beginning. He will be much safer from random force quit.

@izecson
"I always include Gracie Loveland in every of my saves as she has a mission to charm every guy with the help of witchcraft in hope that one of them becoming her true soulmate."

I envy her. She has tons of chance to fall in love with many male sims.

She is very lucky! Actually I was thinking about my sim who has 'mean' trait while reading your comment. 'true soulmate' looked like 'rude soulmate' for 1 second in my eyes.

I rubbed my eyes and read one more time and realized it was 'true', not 'rude'.

@Karritz
Thanks for the great tip how to manage the saved game. I decided to start a fresh new game with him and his spouse with No skills. I will use your way of managing the saved game with them. Thanks a lot. Also YES! I can try your babies challenge for earning badge with a new sim next time. It will be a good challenge with a big fun! Thanks!

@Brandontaylor Ohh..I realized you are kind of my favor. It's not easy to make a good looking or unique looking sims in CAS, so yes I have more sims was born in game as 2nd generations.

@Cororon
I've never played with myself sim but it will be real fun!

Yes I think that's what I've been doing with my sim but I don't think I can do it any more because random force quit starts to happen in a couple of sim months since I started a game in a new world but thanks for sharing your way of managing your household.

@Figwit
Thank you for the good tip.

I can start a fresh new game without any skill, and I will try your way. Yeah I agree. Actually I'm kind of a bit bored with learning the same thing and living the same kind of sim life over and over. I love your expression,"I am like a kid with a new toy with all the lovely custom worlds I can download and explore"

@Pary
Oh that's actually a good way of having different spouse for each save with one sim. I can try this one with my Profile Sim.

That's lovely! In case of my sim, he can love them fairly as he is my best sim ever! Yes I'm the same one.

Sleepstar · January 2021

My oldest Sim I have is Lucas Hill and family (Created in late 2017 when I finally brought The Sims 3 from Steam, but when I got my laptop I was playing my sister's Sims 3 game, her oldest is the supernatural Kirkland Family); following from that is the McCormack Family, then The Rivers Family, the Mather Family, The Mason Family and a Household that consists of a Vampire, Fairy and two humans (Originally it was going to be a Vampire, Fairy and a Witch with the only human being the older brother to the Witch. I decided to scrap the idea of Keanu being the Witch. Like many of my Sims, Keanu is based on a character of mine). Some of my older Sims have showed up as background Sims in cameos in several Saves, however in my current McCormack Save the supernatural Kirkland Family have appeared in the background (There are in fact, three different Households with the Kirkland tag due to the fact the family is massive; at one time my sister was controlling sixteen Sims in that Household; the Vampire branch is in The Oakley Legacy 2.0 while the Werewolf branch is in The McCormack Save)

Avatarit · January 2021

Yes. I've been playing The Sims 3 since 2016, and the few sims that I created in the begining are still with me in my ongoing Sunset Vally save (which is my main one).
I'll try to post some pictures later.

Potsae · January 2021

Wow, that is so cool for how long simmers play with their sims. My saves don't tend to live that long... even my computers die faster. Also, I usually play on a normal lifespan and let my sims die even if I really like them. Recently I started my first save with aging disabled. Gonna see for how long those sims will last

Jeansoo · January 2021

@Sleepstar Marvelous how your sister can manage many house members in ONE household. I cannot do that.

The maximum numbers in a household is only 4 to 5 for me.

@Avatarit Lovely, they would be now 4 years old in real age.

That's quite old.

@Potsae You don't need to disable the sims age. Just change some clothes or hairs in CAS by cheat, after that, your sims age will be somewhat reduced.

That's how my sims have been so old.

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Have you had the sims you've been playing for several years in real time?

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