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How do YOU keep track of your Sims?
NRowe
Posts: 7,894 Member
Simple question (or maybe not). How do you keep track of your Sims, their achievements, their goals, their memories, their relationships, their stories?
Do you have spreadsheets?
Is your screenshot folder crammed? (If so, do you organize it and how??)
Do you have a forum thread? A blog?
Are there things out there I haven't heard or thought of?
Let me know!!!
Do you have spreadsheets?
Is your screenshot folder crammed? (If so, do you organize it and how??)
Do you have a forum thread? A blog?
Are there things out there I haven't heard or thought of?
Let me know!!!
2
Comments
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
I have Danish forum threads at https://dksimlinger.danskforum.net.
It looks like sims tend to show up as visitors or in front of homes when they would like some attention.
It's very easy with tumblr and tags. I even can track events from almost 10 years ago (that's when I started my simblr there).
When I create a post, I tag the name of the sim, the location, the world, the event...
And I have a list there with the links to my most used tags.
So if I want to know everything that had happened around Strawberry Cake Fashion, for example, I open the list and click on the link that leads to the chrono or I enter the tag in my search.
Plus I have my archives there. If I want to know what happened in June 2016 I can find it with 2 clicks.
🎁 Best of Buydebug ☃️ Short trips to the Oggiverse - Short Clips 🎬 My Builds: Houses 🏘 Rooms 🛋 SciFi 👾 creatively edited Screenshots 🎨
I tried spread sheets but I didn't like them as well. Plus, because I used Google docs, I always forgot to update them after a play session. With my method above, I can have both of those docs open on my second monitor and add to them as I go.
I only really play one save, and to keep track of its population, I have a very big Excel file that lists all sims alphabetically by name, along with information about their gender, career, traits, etc. Here's an example, I split it in two screenshots to make it easier to read, but it's really one long row per sim.
Explanation: Bonnie Bumblebee is a female human, young adult, lives in Brindleton Bay, is neither a celebrity nor a ghost, works as a an environmental manager, her traits are Childish, Geek, and Loves the Outdoors, no university degrees or club memberships at this time.
Since I play with ageing, free will and neighbourhood stories off, not much ever changes without my approval. When somebody does move, change jobs or occult status, I update their entry accordingly. Cats and dogs are also listed, but not small pets or farm animals. One thing I do not keep track of is aspirations and bonus traits because I change them on the fly. I also don't care about relationships, but there's a separate tab in this same file listing all the households and their members.
There's a reason I'm using numbers instead of X's or check marks for the species and gender entries. It's for the statistics at the bottom of the list. I only learned much later that Excel can also count words, not just numbers, which means this list could be a lot less bloated, but it is what it is now. And it will get even more bloated if my language (German) ever gets the pronoun update, because then I might add a third gender option. At the moment, sims with custom gender settings are categorised based on the pronoun the game uses for them.
The statistics also tell me how many sims and households live in each world (Newcrest is currently number one with 32 played residents, but San Myshuno has more households), and how many sims are in each age group (unsurprisingly, almost half of my played sims are young adults, and there are currently no toddlers in my world). Sooner or later I'll add career statistics as well because I'd like to see which ones I use the most.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
Simmimg moments thread:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/918301/ck213s-ts4-favorite-simming-moments-the-bella-goth-chat-pg-21/p1
Photobucket broke image links to the first twelve pages, so I have to repair it.
Progress is slow.
- Nope
Is your screenshot folder crammed? (If so, do you organize it and how??)
- I have folder for every potential story for example with Vlad Returns I have folders
> Spare
> CH
all screenshots of vlad household go to Vlad folder
then spare gets all the duplicate screenshots or pictures that don't really apply to story moving forward
CH I always throw in things after ive posted them and then CH is transferred to memory stick folder with number whatever
and i make new CH folder for next time i post
on memorystick I have
Book of Shallow Stories
> Vlad Returns (or whichever story it is)
>> CH 1
>> CH 2
etc. with backups to everything i have actually posted and also a text file for particular post
hopefully sooner rather than later so I still have some idea what i was up to lmao
this is why i sometimes end up with overwhelming amounts of screenshots to sort through cause i just keep playing and not writing
and obviously before any screens it all just lives in my head rent free
Do you have a forum thread?
- yeah I have the one in my signature where i throw links to all my story threads and related and then theres the actual story threads
🏡 Gallery 📖 Stories 🌍 World Project 🥔 MOD/CC Free
Then I have a PowerPoint doc for each household. This contains a pic and facts about each sim in the household and then division slides for each season with a short piece detailing what happened in that season followed by screenshots.
I also make fancier slides for special events, eg for a wedding I would do something that looks kind of like an invitation with the location and guest list detailed on it.
I referenced that when I made a save file to redo some of them for Sims 4.
Now, I just get an idea, and wing it, and don't really keep track of them.
Oops! I just remembered I had a family tree in Family Echo for my crazy Keene-Friend family, which has like 100 second cousins and such!
It's pretty easy for me. I only have one main family so it's not difficult at all to keep track of them. My one family is completing all the aspirations, careers, traits, etc and I document it all in a thread in Creative Corner.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/1005742/my-super-sim-family-challenge/p1
Each family member has an introductory post with all their traits, completed aspirations, careers, degrees, clubs, skills, and owned businesses. Although the businesses are owned by the entire family I'll list it under the family member who operates it. I update when another achievement is completed.
First of all, the spreadsheet. I have an aging spreadsheet. I keep every single member of my family in that spreadsheet. I track what age stage they are in, how old in years, when they're supposed to age up (and age them up accordingly, because the game likes to wait two more days), what date a sim died, cause of death, what life state they are, romantic orientation, gender... Next to that, I have a bunch of charts and tables so I can see the big numbers at a glance.
It basically looks like this:
Next to my spreadsheet, I use the Plum Tree App to keep track of my whole family tree. I play a Not So Berry challenge, so I put the challenge objectives and accomplishments in the bio there.
Overview:
If you want to look at it in-depth:
https://www.theplumtreeapp.com/public/5ce66907bd39c600069627cb
I also track the family branch I play in a family tree on Miro for a prettier overview:
My Sims screenshots I sort by generation. I rotate through some different families and I know where to go next by looking at my screenshots. The ones I've played the longest ago will have older screenshots. I post my screenshots with my story on Twitter with a hashtag and on Tumblr with multiple tags.
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog