do you play with sound on?

Sound, yes. Music, no.

My hearing isn't very good. I have 97% deficit in one ear and 50% deficit in the other, so in order to hear most of it would be disturbing to my family members so I just don't use the sound feature at all. I could just wear headphones, but then I run the risk of not hearing family members when they call to me. Maybe that will change next month when I'm finally fitted with hearing aides.

yes, but I have the in-game volume turned down to like 30% so I can play my own music overtop

"Cupid;c-16862598" wrote:
Sound, yes. Music, no.

Basically this

I turn music and the emotion sounds off, but I like to hear my sims.

Absolutely, I get a kick out of some of the sounds, plus I have filled all of the music stations with my own music to listen to so I definitely want the music playing. I leave one stereo on any household running set to volume of loud at all times, even when no sims are listening to it.

That, plus there are audio cues that alert me to things I might miss otherwise. Example is the sad sound that plays when something in the house breaks and needs to be repaired.

Yes, I love all the sounds in the game! I especially love listening to toddlers talking/babbling. Their voices are so cute :)

"Cupid;c-16862598" wrote:
Sound, yes. Music, no.

Same. I listen to my own music while playing.

I thought I was just weird for playing with the sound off so much. It's cool to see a couple other people play the same. I will sometimes turn it on with the sound effects and voices only. But most times I play it either on weekend mornings before the kids wake up or weekday nights after they go to sleep. And after all the effort to get them to go to sleep in the first place, I'd rather play in silence than risk waking them up, even if I wouldn't play very loud.

Fun story: My son likes to use "you're being too loud" as an excuse to get up past bedtime, so last time he tried it, I was happy to reply, "I was not being loud. I literally had the game muted."

I think playing with no sound sometimes lets me get into the characters' heads a bit more, too. I can take the serious moments a little more seriously when I don't hear my Sims babbling nonsense. I'm more likely to play with sound on when something funny is happening. Once, when I turned it up, I realized I had a Sim I'd created without listening to her voice... and she had a husky masculine voice. Opps! ^_^;;

I do enjoy the toddler voices, though. And they'd be babbling nonsense whether it was English or Simlish.

I feel like if you don't play with the sound on it just takes away a lot from the gameplay but that's just me.