I like to make my own sims, and I like the challenge of starting with very little money. Although a comfortable house is lovely, the temptation is to make a big mansion that I think wastes time with the moving around it.
I don't like death or moving out of town. I usually play with ageing off or on epic, occasionally using a cake to age up children, and story progression off, though I would like other sims to move on in their careers and have children. It's upsetting to have sims my family has taken a long time to befriend leaving the town or dying.
Trying an immortal dynasty is therefore quite different to my normal style.
What I really like is to play various families around town. It feels more like a community, and if I get bored with a family I don't have to say goodbye to them altogether. I'm not keen on the sims3 set-up, as all the wishes get lost when changing households, so I preferred the first two Sims versions as I could play a different family in the town every day, without my previous families losing wishes, moving out, dying, etc.
I like how when you create a new family they are automatically saved to the bin. I have some favourite families that I place in different towns.
The annoying things are the bugs. Some favourite families have got messed up when returning from holiday. I like the exploring foreign lands, and I wish I could go away without the bugs. After a week abroad exploring, collecting, befriending and developing skills, I am loath to revert to a pre-holiday save.