Entire Neighbourhood Experiment

[pallyndrome]

Hi I thought some of you might like to know how my experiment is going with controlling the whole of sunset valley. I used to love doing this in sims 2, so I thought I'd give it a shot in sims 3. I had to change aging off, and story progression off. So I count days for the sims and age them up when the time is right. I deleted a lot of families I thought were boring because there are just too many families for me to fathom! But there are 2 problems I have found with story progression.

The first (minor) problem is that there are 2 new (single-sim) families that have appeared without my knowledge! I'll just have to delete those I guess.

The second (bigger) problem is that I change to another family, leaving a member of the previous family pregnant, by the time I get back to the first family the child will be born and named! Very frustrating! I will have to change some of their names at town hall I think.

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting that turning story progression off doesn't work completely.

[Joria]

That really is interesting.  How are you changing the neighborhood?  What are you doing exactly?  I'm doing a similar thing but only by flipping houses, which, by the way, is a LOT of work but even more fun than work.  Wish more folks would join that contest.

[Nilla]

I’ve almost tried this with Sunset Valley once, but ignored a few of the households. It was fun and I had no problems with it for about one generation but then weird stuff started happening like a couple of children disappearing and sim aging acting a little strange. Maybe it's just my computer or something the latest two patches fixed but I'd still advise you to keep the number of children down a bit or the game might suddenly consider the town overpopulated. I'm interested in seeing how this works out for you, good luck.

[pallyndrome]

That really is interesting.  How are you changing the neighborhood?  What are you doing exactly?  I'm doing a similar thing but only by flipping houses, which, by the way, is a LOT of work but even more fun than work.  Wish more folks would join that contest.

I'm not changing any community buildings yet. I've changed the families as I like. For example, I deleted some boring (to me anyway) families like the Kennedy woman and the Clavells (to be deleted today), and I killed off some sims with the evil trait (I could have played them ages to earn 20K points for the traits change reward but I couldn't be bothered). I've played matchmaker with lots of the single young adults, so there's a lot of new families. And I've given a lot of sims make overs. Like Zelda Mae (now Zelda Frio) looks totally different with her natural hair colour and a cute bandana. And I think Agnes looks way better with the long curly hairstyle from fast lane.

I’ve almost tried this with Sunset Valley once, but ignored a few of the households. It was fun and I had no problems with it for about one generation but then weird stuff started happening like a couple of children disappearing and sim aging acting a little strange. Maybe it's just my computer or something the latest two patches fixed but I'd still advise you to keep the number of children down a bit or the game might suddenly consider the town overpopulated. I'm interested in seeing how this works out for you, good luck.

I hope my children don't start disappearing. Though I have hope that it won't be overpopulated, considering I deleted so many it's adding new ones.

I'm going to have to stop leaving families with a pregnant sim - so annoying to come back to find the baby already born and named. Jefferson? I wouldn't name a kid Jefferson. Though I have Ingrid in mind for Agnes' baby, she named her Patricia, which I don't mind.

EDIT: I just checked back with the Crumplebottoms, and Agnes has somehow joined the stylist career and reached level 8 all on her own! Plus had a baby and all in no time at all! How annoying.  

[MasterSiwel]

The first (minor) problem is that there are 2 new (single-sim) families that have appeared without my knowledge! I'll just have to delete those I guess.

The reason that happens is because the game automatically creates townies to accommodate for your Sims workplace or for another reason i'm not yet aware of. As of right now, there's no solution and the whole thing about Story Progression not working is... Interesting to say the least… I'll check it out sometime soon.

[Crimson]

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting that turning story progression off doesn't work completely.

My guess is that they figured no one would use it so they didn't spend to much time working with it.

[RunAmokSims]

I often play whole neighborhoods. In fact that's my major play theme. I leave the story progression on but turn off aging until I get the town the way I want it. Right now I'm playing Barnacle Bay. I create Sims for all the empty houses, upgrade the houses as I go and get everyone jobs.  I really like the random way that couples form and other things that happen. One thing I'm finding in BB is that a lot of the townies are moving or disappearing and I haven't found them yet.

[PlatnumDymnd]

Wow you guys make it sound interesting and fun to play the neighborhood. I have never played any of the installed families unless its and emergency. Like in sims 2 when my teen has grown up and her boyfriend was still a teen. I had to go play that fam to get him aged up. In fact, I don't think I've played one since the first Sims. I always make my own family. Usually after my own dramatic life.

Wait, which game had the Broke family? Single mom, husband died, teenager and a toddler. That was Sims2 I believe. Yes because I played that fam till University came out. Then I sent Dustin to college and left him there.

SO how long do you stay in each household? When do you move on to another family? Or come back to another one?