How did you start your first save?

Wow, I can't remember, but I know I played the tutorial and really liked that couple and their house. I went to read lessons about how to make a deck, wow, that blew my mind and custom music, custom TV shows, all the other custom stuff like your own video game etc. Then I think if I remember correctly I checked out the hoods and their stories, was so afraid I would mess them up that I started my own custom hood with a couple and a son. I wouldn't play toddlers forever, like with Brandi because I was afraid of them. lol I was afraid I would kill the family. After that I started building and playing my own custom hoods and it was a few years or longer before I even touched the premade households in the Maxis hoods.

I didn't buy any EPs for at least a year and half so that's why I love TS2 so much and see how much depth it had because I stuck with the base game didn't even think about EPs until like early 2006.

I played the tutorial and tried learning in Pleasnat Valley before I started to set up towns with the maps instead.I started my own town in UC and it's still there to be played though new couples are starting to move in and get settled.I'm setting up for a BACC in TS2 and that one will take a while to grow.It's easy to move them to a new neighborhood if a shopping district or downtown is assigned to your town.It's done just like any other move where you'd have the family start packing up if they're all moving and evict them to move them into their new home.

I started with a new single adult sim, one based on one of the sim kids in my game of The Sims 1. I settled her in Verona and got to know the game, then made my sim-self and his wife. I didn't play Pleasantview for..FOUR YEARS, because my first install was on an older computer that ran things slowly, and I wanted to enjoy that neighborhood the way it was supposed to be enjoyed. After Verona I made a couple of other neighborhoods using default maps, but once I had my new machine, I could use SimCity 4 to create custom maps, and made a "real" neighborhood -- one with municipal buildings, parks, that sort of thing. It looked like a city instead of just a green area with houses and streets.

I remember the first family I created well, because I had been planning in advance the type of family I was going to create when I'd finally get The Sims 2. I had played S2 a couple of times at a friend's house and fallen in love with one of the premade teen Sims in CAS, because she looked like Gabriella from High School Musical (ugh). So when I finally got my own copy of the game, I obviously added her to the family first (and named her Gabriella, duh). I also made her a little brother and a mom and a dad. The family's last name was Merjanen (a random Finnish last name). I moved them into a house in Pleasantview, and the first thing I did was I ordered the dad to go make some food, and since I was such a noob, I was oblivious to the whole skill point system. So yeah... he started a fire. And the young me freaked out and exited the game.

Nowadays I pretty much only play Legacy Challenges. I don't really create families in CAS anymore, because I have a hard time getting attached to them. I also always create a new neighborhood, I never (except with friends) play in the premade hoods.

I also don't freak out about fires anymore.

It's been about 14 years since that first time, but if memory serves I did the tutorial first to get the hang of it. Then it was off to Pleasantview, a mix of one of my own sims and tinkering with the premades. Those days were largely experiments, what can I do - even if it's pushing the envelope. Somewhere along the line discovered the great CC available (that works, first pass, and doesn't need fixing), integrated it, and developed what has become my style - multiple interconnected families with complex (and photo recorded in the family albums) stories that seldom stick to the overall domestic vibe of the game. Great stuff!

Is it weird that I still remember that moment?

I went into CAS and created two Sims. A male Sim called "Lothar" and a female Sim called "Silke". Both had brown hair. I moved them into a small house and pretended that she was a university student renting a room in Lothar's house.

I started "The Sims 3" the same way, but here I created "Tina Traveller" and "Geert Greening".

Strangely I don't remember the first Sims I created for TS4 - must have been overwhelmed with the tactile and intuitive CAS. ;)

"GrandmaJaney;c-16599550" wrote:
Dear ThePinkBookGirl,

I started my first save over a decade ago and I was sitting with my grandson in my lap as we created our sims together. he helped me choose all of their features and clothing and it was so wonderful. i still play with those sims even though he is now in high school.

That is so sweet! Love seeing family playing The Sims together :smile:

When I was a kid and started playing it I just did silly things and downloaded a ton of CC. I moved on from that since CC kinda ruined making babies with all it's bugs. (The extra stuff like unlockable skin tones (zombie, alien, vampire) were all really cool, the unlockable outfits too (No idea how to get them back in The Ultimate Collection though.))
I then went though a phase of where I played a whole town seasonally, trying to fulfil each household's aspirations, continue the family line and so on. Every time it changed Season and I had to move to another family I always charted down in my notebook anything notable like whether something had happened or if something was wrong with a sim.
I now do my own Sims 2 challenge as I apparently have gotten really good at the game over the years. You can find the details on my DeviantART "ZeldaGamer11" (It's really old though). In basic form though I start off with one sim and have to make their family line last as long as possible. Everything is randomly generated. Their names: I pick names that I see in the wild and name them that. Their aspirations: I find a word randomiser online, put all the aspirations in and out comes an order in which I have to pick the new sims aspirations. Turn ons: You only need to pick the first sim's ones so I just wiggle my mouse around with my eyes closed and pick the one closest to the mouse.
It's pretty simple, you fail if they all die or if your save gets wiped.

When I first started playing, I would usually just play the premades, with an occasional family that I made. Then I discovered the exchange and found out about legacies, and I've been doing my own families ever since. I will still occasionally play one of the premade 'hoods, but it never lasts long before I go back to my own families.

I start new saves by moving into a house.