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University - any difference between Dorm and Residential?
Simmerville
Posts: 11,673 Member
I had fun playing dorms, but in the longer run, due to my rotational play, I'll use a residential lot not connected to either university for my students. The reason is that I can only play one student home at the time, and by having them in a normal housing, they won't have to move out when I pause their progress between terms.
But now I wonder if I will miss any game features by using Residential instead of Dorm? I'll advertise for roommates, so there will still be a few NPC students in the housing. Aside of NPCs, is there more I should think of? Any reason why I should not use Residential pretending it is a dorm?
But now I wonder if I will miss any game features by using Residential instead of Dorm? I'll advertise for roommates, so there will still be a few NPC students in the housing. Aside of NPCs, is there more I should think of? Any reason why I should not use Residential pretending it is a dorm?
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Yes they do, but I think that might depend on what hood you stay in. If possible to use one of the Ubrite student housings as residential, students will probably walk over to the building for classes, with all possibilities to stop on their way. At least that's one more reason I like staying at Gibbs Hill
Yup, if you move into one of the lots in either Uni neighbourhood your sim will walk, bike etc over to the building. The middle Britechester neighbourhood or any other world and they'll just vanish quickly at the edge of the lot. Forgot to mention that thankyou.
That's interesting, I never thought about how you could perhaps change the lots from student housing to residential. With that being the case, I don't see much difference at all between residential and university housing.
Unless you don't like doing money cheats and your sims aren't loaded, anyway. Paying those bills without working would get expensive real quick, I imagine.
Good point! It will obviously be more expensive. But then again, the house might be better equipped, can even have a full kitchen
The day you enroll. So enroll on a friday to have the whole weekend off to do your presentation and term paper work and get homework all set before first class.
Only if it's a pure residential lot. otherwise I believe they will need to move out when no longer enrolled. You could sign up for a new class just to get enrolled, and perhaps take only one class per term, which should not really take a lot of time per week. Would be tricky to start a family, though.
I don't mind it because I think it forces them to engage with university spaces more but it is also something to take into account. If they live off-campus then they can cook for themselves. That might also give them less incentive to hang out in common areas.
I try to make sure that my sims aren't just hanging out in their dorms the whole time for the most part.
My Sims went to Britechester-U. Behind the Commons down next to the canal there is a barbecue grill. It is entirely possible to have a Sim grill up a meal and to take it back to the dorm. (This was prior to me discovering that the 'cafeteria' inside the Commons was actually a functional one, I just needed to discover the hours for the different meal times). Nice to know they also serve Holiday meals on the Holiday itself. Made for a less grim Winterfest.
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Cool! Might be a good location for family or friends to visit the student.
I started off by having my two main sims (husband and wife) study from home - the wife at U-Brite and the hubby at Foxbury. In the beginning they lived in Gibb's Hill and were mostly getting term GPAs of A+ without too much effort on my part. But I was also playing the university aspiration (I forget what it's called) and I wanted my sims to be able to attend guest lectures and tutor students more easily, so I converted one of the student housing lots on the U-Brite campus into a residential lot and moved them there. Then the game became more difficult. My sim hubby was okay, because he just disappeared for his classes as usual, but the wife would run or cycle to every class, which took ages, so she was often late and her performance suffered. I had to really micro-manage her to get her through her degree, but in the end both of them did well.
Then I wanted to go the whole hog, so I enrolled a different sim in Foxbury and had her live in a dorm. She is about halfway through her degree now and I am finding it a lot more challenging than I did with both of the other two put together. Even though she lives right on campus, she is often late for class, because it takes so long to get there. She doesn't have the AI to choose the quickest route, as opposed to the most direct one (which involves going up and down all those steps). Plus, within a couple of days of the start of term, she has an unhappy moodlet from the unhealthy food that is the only thing she has time to eat. She never seems to have enough time to go out and get a decent meal, as well as keep up with her studies. And lastly - and this is a mystery to me - she has difficulty satisfying her social needs, so that makes her unhappy too. I really don't understand this, because she is friendly and outgoing and spends a lot of time interacting with her dorm-mates. It just doesn't seem to satisfy her. I have never had her participate in any of the events on campus, because - again - she hasn't the time to do anything other than keep up with her studies and try to keep her needs reasonably well satisfied. My problem, of course, is that I want her to do well. If I didn't care about her results, then she - and I - could probably have a lot more fun. As it is, I am finding it quite a grind. Next time I am going to try it with a sim I don't care about so much!
And I think that's it, in a nutshell. If you just want your sims to get good results, then off-campus living makes it easier. If you want more of a challenge, then dorm living is the best option. If you are trying to fulfil the aspiration as well as get a degree, then you might like to consider a middle ground, like converting an on-campus lot to private residential use. That way you have the benefits of home life, while still being close to events on campus.