If you lost interest in the game, what did you do to develop interest in it again?

I've started making shops in New Crest. I want my sims to shop instead of using buy, so I'm making specialized shops for each category. I plan to make a toy shop and an Electronics store next. If I have enough room, I plan to use the final spots for restaurants and the largest for a park, pool, and wishing well spot.

The idea of buying stuff and giving it as gifts is one of the things I'm thinking about, plus my sims shopping. :)

If only they would add farming, university, and a Grim/ghost/cemetery/wills/afterlife packs, we would have a bunch of opportunities.

I like creating new sims and giving them messed up backstories. I also will will make sims for Casting Calls in the creative corner section for sim lit stories that need additional background sims. This helps with making things fresh in regards to making & playing with sims.

Most of the time I just want to create something. I spend a lot of time in CAS, which I also consider playing the game. And sometimes I get a very specific idea and then I really want to do it and am incredibly focussed on it. Like recently, I wanted to build a restaurant with healthy food. I thought it would be good to actually manage it to train the employees, so I decided I would change the life of one lucky townie the game created. So I picked an unfortunate looking townie to be the manager/owner of the restaurant I built. But since she had to buy the restaurant first and I only use cheats to reduce funds, I had to find a way to make money quickly while also finding time to visit the gym and make friends. So I sent her fishing to catch a couple of Dragon fruit and so on and so forth ... anyway this is how a sudden impulse of mine can turn into a week of playing TS4 (in my spare time).
I go into CAS at least once a week, but sometimes I won't go into live mode for a couple of months after playing the game a lot for 1-2 weeks.

My interest in sims ebbs and flows. Some months I'll binge play for hours and hours. Others I don't even so much as look at the icon. When I do want to play but I'm a little stuck on ideas I try to explore something I haven't done before. I have one family opening a Floral Arrangement and Herbal Potion store which, assuming I get it nicely stocked, should be a interesting resource for my other rotational families.

For me, you can say it's not something I did, but something that naturally and unexpectedly developed. I used to be one of those very casual simmers who'd play for a few weeks then forget about the game entirely. Since TS3, the main thing that has kept me interested is the storytelling aspect of it. TS3 was the first time I made sims I grew attached to, and rather than have them go about mundane daily tasks to gain gameplay achievements, I've created details of their personalities and full life stories in my mind, with screenshots, and writing. They have now become my very own characters that I write full on novels about. I have carried them on to TS4 and will likely do the same for the next iteration. So it's not even the gameplay that keeps me going back. Without the deep fondness I have for my sims as characters with a story, I would have stopped playing after my brief stint with TS2 many years ago.

I added mods. Prior to installing mods I really didn't play much because it was too boring. After installing mods I have a much more realistic game and have lots more fun with my sims. The modding community is truly the only reason I continue to play. Mods like Explore More, SOL, MCCC and etc.... make the game much more fun and tolerable.

Simple, I become the modern Pygmalion and spend so long making and editing sims in CAS that when I'm done I don't know what day of the week it is. I've made zero progress with the storylines I planned but at least my sims are GORGEOUS ?

I also tend to download gameplay mods or explore aspects of the game I hadn't looked into yet, but these days, mostly CAS. I barely actually play the game at all lately.

"Goth583;c-17074630" wrote:
I added mods. Prior to installing mods I really didn't play much because it was too boring. After installing mods I have a much more realistic game and have lots more fun with my sims. The modding community is truly the only reason I continue to play. Mods like Explore More, SOL, MCCC and etc.... make the game much more fun and tolerable.

Mccc is awesome! I never used mods but it changed my game in a very interesting way. Only now I realize that the world was dull... Now I'm always seeing pregnant women and finding them later with their kids, knowing their families, interacting in such a better way.

I will explore a new challenge. I particularly enjoy finding new ways to do rags to riches. I also go on the hunt for mods that will shake things up.