What do you spend your time on?

I play a variety of ways.  My favorite thing to do is make Sims in CAS!❤️  But I also like to play large families! 🥳 I get most involved with a large family.  When I play single Sims or just a couple or 2 roommates, it is because I am trying out some new feature that the game offers, or a feature that I have not previously explored. Large families aren't the best for exploring game features, unless those features have to do with family life (like the ones that came in the Parenthood GP). 😉

I also micromanage my Sims, but I always play with free will on.  I am amused by their own choices, but I also don't want them to collapse in exhaustion after peeing themselves! 🤒😃

Some households I do pay more attention to goals.  I focus on different things depending on my mood. Other households I use to tell a story (That is one style you didn't mention: Storytelling! ❤️) But storytelling was best with TS2! ❤️

Finally I really love to test things in the game.  Part of that comes from trying to help people here on this forum... I will test something to see if I get the same result. Experimenting in this way can help to figure out what is going on in another person's game.:eahigh_file:  But I also like to test things just to see them for myself.  It challenges me to try to recreate some scenarios. 🥳

One thing I rarely do that many other players usually do is I rarely play rotationally.  I have almost all my households in their own Save Games.  I don't like when things happen to my families when I'm playing other families! 😞  I do have a few saves where I play rotationally, but I hardly ever play them.  😳

@PristineInsanity The majority of my time over the last year is spent building - so that covers 6, 7, & 8. I have spent tons of time playing in the past (and somewhat now). I play with aging off, and also have all packs so I do try out many new features, careers, etc. Lately I play mainly to test my builds thoroughly and to test bugs and questions for the forum, and build for a few challenges or just for the gallery.  I mostly play my 'established sims' (my original sims couple - a very loose recreation of myself and hubby - and their off-spring and their families). I play & build pretty 'Type A', yet I always have free will on. I press them to accomplish certain things, yet treat them well. None of my sims have died, and basically all are highly achieving in various ways and accumulate a lot of skills. I also usually play large and complicated households who own & run businesses, have large gardens, and over-achieve in goals &/or several careers. 

So I think overall that almost covers all of your numbers to one degree or another... without much of certain types of 'chaos'. For instance, I don't play mean or evil sims (and I even delete them when I find them), no vampires or spells (just not my thing), yet I have had mermaids, completed the Strangerville challenge, and I have had my sims beat the tar out of a clepto that would not leaver their restaurant after hours. And when he still wouldn't leave I hunted him down in 'households' and deleted him. :eahigh_file:

I mostly spent my time on gameplay, managing each individual but still with the free will turned on. I don't want to play a big family, because I probably need to move some of them out of the household (maximum 8 sims in a household), and I don't want them to die single (because we don't have Story Progression 😞). But I can move them out once they're married and have kids tho. I play with aging turned on and long lifespan, but somehow I find this long lifespan is too long while normal lifespan is too short, that's why I wanted a feature to adjust lifespan manually like in TS3.

I also spent a lot of time on building, I love TS4 build mode, the furniture/objects are great, but sadly we don't have a color wheel. I spent a whole week just to build this base game mansion located in Newcrest, yeah I'm a very slow builder. But I'm quicker now, the last mansion cost around 3-4 days to finish.

After spending hundreds of hours in gameplay and building, my worlds become so boring. There's also not a lot of teenagers around for my teen sims to find a lover. So I decided to create a new teenager and put her into the world. Elders are dying, houses are empty because "Fill Empty House" is not working properly.

After my kid sims growing into a teenager, her outfits are very bad, then I start to give her a new look and that how I found Create A Sims is also fun! Later I started to create a family with a little story added. They also got their house built by me (the seconds image is their house). I've added that family into my main save file. This led me to have the intention to create entirely new worlds, all new lots and households, so there will be no Goth and Landgraab family. 😃

I'm the opposite of @SheriGR, I even intentionally create an evil sim, with atrocious reputation! LOL. I don't want the worlds to be like a utopia where everything is good/positive. I want a world where there's a little negativity in there (evil, mean, jealous, hot-headed, kleptomaniac, quake zone, haunted, etc) so there will a contrast in the game, less plain and boring for me (of course we all have our own preference and there's no judging here 😃).

I don't have many save files like others. Only 3 save files. 1. Main save file where I didn't use cheat and play normally. 2. Building save file where I build houses, community lot and household. 3. The testing file where I test new features of a new pack before diving into my main save file.

@AndyZhang2896 It sounds to me like you are a fast builder... and I am a much slower builder. 🤔 Also, your mansion is lovely! I agree with you that I think I need to 'mix it up a bit' with my personalities and interactions... and I have begun to adjust a bit with that in mind, plus have begun downloading some sim households that others that I know made that are really cool. I build, and I have a couple of friends for whom making such households their thing - one even enters challenges for this - so I am having fun trying out their awesome households. I even built a couple of special request houses for one (yes, I'm talking about you, @PugLove888 :eahigh_file🙂! It was pretty fun to report back what adventures and changes have gone on with her household in my game - and to hear about her enjoying the home. As I look through these responses it is a fun reminder of how many aspects of this game I really love! ❤️

@AndyZhang2896, you might think you are the opposite of @SheriGR , but you are also the opposite of me-- at least when it comes to Save Games! 😉  I don't know how many I have.  Some are just tests that I do to answer questions here (I don't want to mess up my famlies by testing certain things ).  But I have many others that I play.  But in all but a few cases, I don't play rotationally in my saves.  (I just rotate out my saves). I partially do this becasue I want to control my Sims if I'm telling a story, and for other saves I just don't want to miss anything that  my Sims do!  🤨😃  And then there are those families that I didn't create for testing, but I have played so long that I use them to check certain things in the game or to test certain things that are within my plans for that family. 

@AndyZhang2896  your house looks lovely! :eahigh_file:  I think you built that rather quickly! 🤨🙂 It is way better than what I can build! 😃 I build a little, but almost nothing worth sharing .  But I really enjoy @SheriGR 's builds (although I have been too busy with ROM and testing lately to really play them as much as I want! ☹️  And she has been known to use some of my Sims in her houses, so it works out.  I am usually very detailed with my Sims, giving them multiple outfits and making sure that Sims are all wearing socks for shoes you would wear socks with in real life, and things like that.  I might put on too much jewlery on my Sims for some people, but I really enjoy that aspect of making Sims.

And one of the best things about @SheriGR 's houses are that she play-tests them! ❤️  I've downloaded houses that were beautiful from other people, but sadly I have to change a bucnch of things in them to have them actually work with Sims in Live Mode.  I don't have that problem with Sheri's builds! :eahigh_file:

So, in short, rarely people play the game. You create worlds and their characters.

I apparently have been playing wrong. I rarely build, and if I do, I use presets, and focus on minmaxing my chars, like an RPG

@AndyZhang2896 No, if someone uses cc to build their sim or lot the cc does not download with the item from the gallery. If someone added cc hair to a sim, for instance, or a cc couch, if you did not already have that particular cc installed in your game when you download the sim it will be bald, and if you download the room or lot with the cc couch it will be missing. 

No, I never use Mods or CC. I did begin using moo (the 'move objects on' cheat) and hidden objects in my builds within the last year. I drank the kool-aid and there is no going back. I am very careful, though, about how I use it, and it does make both my placement testing and play testing much more difficult. I spend days on testing to make sure that every aspect of and item in the build will place correctly for someone without moo activated or having to do any tricks/cheats/etc. to place it correctly, plus to make sure every aspect of the game is usable correctly to the sim in the game. I like to challenge myself by adding aspects to the build that are creative, budget-challenges, terrain height (which can be tricky) or other aspects that make it more fun or practical for the player using the build. I don't even play them any more much beyond the testing process, but I am absolutely driven to work way more hours on builds than I would want to admit just for the satisfaction of others downloading and enjoying them. This is the 'wind beneath my wings' so to speak. My motivator. 🙂 

And I usually add photos &/or paintings from other players to my builds and #tag them so others can find their artwork which makes them happy, and I even get to do some creative things like grow, nurture, and add to my gallery and builds plants for cooking during play, so that gives me a fun use for the work I put into those items in my game.

So... @PristineInsanity There is absolutely no need for you to be 'into' or enjoy building or making sims... If you enjoy playing them and want to download builds and households other players have made and shared in the gallery, you will find many thousands of players like me out there who are thrilled if you will try out our creations, because this is our favorite way to play! Symbiotic relationships abound here. :eahigh_file:

SheriGR ☕ – I play on Mac, no Mods or CC, & backup daily. I don’t work for EA.