Which do you play more: townies, or sims you create?

napstablook · January 2016

I'm very new to the forums, so I wanted to join in discussions ASAP! :D

I remember reading how Sims 3 would have a sort of "backstory" for many of the townies from Sims 2, and then I realized I didn't really know any of the stories from the Sims 2! I always played sims of my own design.

Even in 3, I only ever glance at some of the pre-built family descriptions and then think, "hmm... I don't want to bother their story progression!" but I have a hard time getting invested in them anyway.

So, which do you play more? Sims already built into the game, or sims you make in CAS? (Or custom sims from different websites!) Do you play with their stories in mind?

Karritz · January 2016

I play sims I've made or sims born to sims I'm already playing.

Recently I've been starting to add occasional premixed sims to some of my families.

CravenLestat · January 2016

Townies,they are perfectly made.Love almost all them.Btw check out my recent post in the "What happened in your game thread" might make you see townies in a new way.

Plus townies have great features like jawlines and noses and great eyes and even when used as a base for your own sim just tweaking a small part on a premade you can make your own unique sim from them and with wayyy!!! less effort then from scratch.

IreneSwift · January 2016

I always make my own sims. I only play townies if my single female sim marries one of them. I have saved a few pre-made guys to the CAS bin to use when I make a new household with an already married couple. Sometimes I'll use one of those saved pre-made sims to add to a town for my sim to marry, because either I don't like any of the single guys in that town, or all the decent townie guys are already taken by the time my sim is ready to find a husband. I also play sims born in the game, which I will usually save to the CAS bin for starting new households, sometimes with different names and traits.

napstablook · January 2016

Honestly I've been hitting randomizer and playing with genetics more often lately -- I find I'm just often too repetitive or too stuck on making beautiful sims, but randomizer doesn't let me do that, so I can just make a few tweaks but ultimately leave them alone. I always feel like I'm interfering with townies' lives, but I do marry into them sometimes.

I'd love to have the patience for playing through several generations, that seems more interesting. o:

IreneSwift · January 2016

I don't play through generations myself. If I like one of the sims born in any given game, I'll play them in a save of their own, not continue them in the same save as their parents. Usually, I'll move them to a new town to play them. I had a set of twin sisters I really liked in one family in Lunar Lakes. One of the sisters was a virtuoso, the other athletic. I bought them an apartment in Bridgeport and had the first sister in the band career, and the second sister in the sports career. When they married, I split the save into two separate saves, one for each sister and her family. This sort of thing works a lot better for me than generational play where everyone stays in the same house.

napstablook · January 2016

I was thinking more along the lines of playing through generations while still moving sims out when they reached adulthood, but splitting saves does sound interesting, especially moving to different towns. I'm always worried I'll get too attached and be emotionally wrecked when a sim dies after I've played them since birth.

Charlottesmom · January 2016

I have a split right now, in my main house I have Connor and Jared (Townie brothers) but I remade them so I could add 2 CAS brothers (Nate, a tweaked duplicate of Connor and Brandon a tweaked duplicate of Jared) and parents (Lillian and Chester Frio) to their family, I love that Connor and Jared now have a complete family.

The 3 other main houses I rotate between are all CAS Sims I made.

The newest house I have in town that I have in town all townies from Bridgeport, Matthew Hamming, his brother and his best friend Ritchie. I tried to put Bianca and her roommates from Bridgeport into the house my game kept crashing, I tried to get them in the house 3 times and it crashed all 3 times. I may go get another copy of them for my library and delete the other copy and see if that helps.

cwaddell · January 2016

I always start a game with a household I make in CAS, whether it is a single sim or multiple sims. I will sometimes ask EA townies and NPCs to move in. But I have never started off playing an EA created townie household or an EA one from the library.

Edit to add: I also almost never play in an EA created house, unaltered. I enjoy building my own and have particular features I like so prefer my own builds. Same way with sims. I enjoy creating them and have certain features I prefer so don't play with other sims, unaltered.

Jodain · January 2016

I only ever play townies if they get married into the family. Otherwise, all my sims I play I made.

fxchrfxchr · January 2016

I tend to play in a new empty world and populate them with Households from the Exchange after I run them through CUSTARD to strip out the CC if any. Then I will create a Sim and parachute him into the world. This way I don't know what traits and skills the new Townies have beforehand and I have some fun getting to know the new inhabitants.

GITTE2001 · January 2016

Sims I create of course.

Deshong04 · January 2016

I've always been more interested in creating my own sims with their own stories. Although I have played with pre-made sims at some point.

Right now I've gotten some saved sims from my external hard drive to put in my game. I ended up tweaking two of my sims I had for awhile but not too much that would dramatically change their appearance. I'm still not done quite yet and want to take one of them back in CAS. It's actually easier to play them in-game to see how they look compared to CAS. So I am starting to put together the sims for my new save which will take me a while to finish. So far I have Simon, Lisa and Spencer who is entirely new and I just created. Spencer so far has gone through quite a few changes already, pretty dramatic but I'm still not happy with the kind of look I'm going for so I'll be bringing him back in CAS along with Lisa.

This is Spencer. I've originally created him on my laptop in a save with no mods/no store content/only base game content and then copied and transferred him to my desktop.

So I gave him a makeover with with mods. My first attempt. But then I decided that is not what I was going for so I went back to the original and started over.

Second attempt.

Third attempt.

I didn't change much with Simon except tweak his nose, make his lips slightly fuller, change his eyebrows and made him a little taller. I forgot to put his glasses back on but I'll save that for his work outfit.

I changed Lisa's hair color to one of the preset colors because I don't know why I thought that custom hair color looked good. But that reminds me to research any hex and/or RGB triplets relating to hair colors. What else did I change? Her body some, eyebrows but I want to make her arms bigger. It always annoys me that the heavier your sim they all still have noodle arms. Also that they lose their face shape.

So after all that editing, I put them all in a household to see how they look in-game and then make further changes that way. Funny I noticed that Simon and Lisa does not really get along that well, she argues how he is a workaholic. I wonder is her family-orientated trait drives this interaction the most or does anyone regardless of traits autonomously argue about someone being a workaholic? Then again, Simon and Spencer gets along well and I don't recall Spencer ever arguing with Simon about anything. He also does not have the family-orientated nor workaholic trait. Lisa doesn't argue with Spencer. Also all of them are roommates since this is just a test.

These screenshots are hilariously creepy to me, lol.

james64468 · January 2016

I play the sims I create. Sometimes I do make a toddler. Sometimes I don't plan out relationships for the next generation.

InfraGreen · January 2016

I'll admit it: I love playing pre-made sims...when I can get a good story out of them. Which often necessitates including them in the adventures of sims I make myself.

And I always prefer for my sims to marry either pre-mades or their descendants, unless there's a good reason not to.

CravenLestat · January 2016

InfraGreen wrote: »

I'll admit it: I love playing pre-made sims...when I can get a good story out of them. Which often necessitates including them in the adventures of sims I make myself.

And I always prefer for my sims to marry either pre-mades or their descendants, unless there's a good reason not to.

I like the way you think.We play the same

TreyNutz · January 2016

When I first started playing TS3 I made my own sims, but quickly discovered I'm not very good at that. Now I usually use pre-made sims that I find in various worlds and copy to the sim bin. Occasionally I'll use sims I've downloaded. When I do play pre-made sims I don't play their stories. Often I'll have copied them to the bin and will use them in completely different worlds. If I do play them in their original world I won't play out the story EA had set up; I do my own thing.

edit: oh, I also re-use sims born in my game too. I actually prefer that.

dreamerz13 · January 2016

Oh *definitely* my own creations, I have my own style I like on my sims and the premades don't fit that, at all. I'd have to make them all over and it's not worth the effort. I occasionally make one over to be a spouse for my sim but even that's pretty rare, and by "makeover" I mean "give extreme plastic surgery to".

GaiaHypothesis · January 2016

I only play my own created sims, or born in-game to MY sim sims. The can/do breed with townies at times, but mostly I only play my own couples.

MsRed · January 2016

For me, it's a mix. I certainly like creating my own Sims and achieving their goals, but I get the best kicks from "fixing" the lives of all Sims in Sunset Valley, for example. I know each one's backstory, who's in love with who, who needs to get married, who has marital problems...
I rarely start my own families in Sunset Valley, because I get so worried about the pre-made families being left alone to fend for themselves, that I can't enjoy my own! ;-)

becomingjenn · January 2016

I really like sims that I make myself. I do mix it up and have my sim marry a townie, but not always. Only 2x have I ever just started out with the townie family and even then, I edit them either by traits or slightly mess with their genetics. (gotta love NRaas' M/C

)

bee1977 · January 2016

I usually play my created sims, and will only play townies when they marry into my household. I have one game where that happened. I should try playing a townie household sometime though

Iseanna · January 2016

I didn't know other people played townies! I've never actually played a townie but it seems kinda fun. I only play sims I make.

Eiszimmer · January 2016

I tend to play with my "own" -- otherwise, edited Sims I have downloaded from other creators; like my favorite Game of Thrones characters. I end up moving in my favorite townies / pre mades to the games I play since I see them like old friends.

Charlottesmom · January 2016

Eiszimmer wrote: »

I tend to play with my "own" -- otherwise, edited Sims I have downloaded from other creators; like my favorite Game of Thrones characters. I end up moving in my favorite townies / pre mades to the games I play since I see them like old friends.

I was thinking of doing a CAS Sansa, Arya, Littlefinger, and Theon throwing them and house and letting them run amock...Hehe!!!

JoAnne65 · January 2016

I only play selfmade sims, but having them interact with premade families is a lot of fun. I always go to the Sims Wiki to find out more about them and use that in my story. Some of their backgrounds are really funny and useful.

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Which do you play more: townies, or sims you create?

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