Neighborhood Stories and Single Sims

Well, I am really stubborn and I decided to really see what NS can do in a totally vanilla game with all DLC and these are my results and observations so far...

First of all, Neighborhood Stories is very active and that can be good or bad! For my test, I played with 7 day seasons, aging on normal for all sims, all NS active for everyone. I played a single sim and tried to be as hands off and only interfere if I needed him to do a certain task that he couldn't/wouldn't do autonomously.

Year 1
Lots of activity but mostly geared around my married sims. Many adoptions and births to those families. The single YA sims were mostly getting jobs or leaving jobs but fairly ignored otherwise. A few pet adoptions for cats and dogs. There were a few deaths but not as many as I had expected. Raj Rasoya was the first to go... of many eventually! Lots of move outs and move ins - some single sims moved in to big houses, some families moved out and moved into smaller homes/apartments. Overall, active but nothing too unexpected. A few horse adoptions that were pretty questionable but not that much. One VERY eventful stay over that led to 2 horses being whisked away and a couple of children that had to be at high risk.

Year 2
My sim aged up to Adult. Lots more activity and NS decided it was going to be ruthless - I mean a total bloodbath. So many sims that died this year - I was scared to check the stories but it was funny. Poor Alexander Goth (drowned) and Kyoshi Ito (fell of cliff) - they barely made it out of their teens before tragedy. The Price family had it the worst - first Kevin Puri drowns, then Savannah Price dies from anger, and finally Marcel Price (father) dies from being on the wrong end of a chicken. It was traumatizing but funny as well. Horses were getting adopted at an alarming rate and by houses that barely had enough room for a garbage can outside. Move outs were unsettling as I no longer could find people since they weren't in the house I am familiar with. My sim adopted a child towards the end of the year so that we would have someone to continue. Two more stay overs - I didn't arrange them, they actively happened with a phone call. One was Father Winter who was hitting on every male sim in my game and I am not even exaggerating here. The other was a workplace rival turned friend. I was happy to see the feature working!

Year 3
My sim adopted what we thought was his son by the look of the thumbnail. Twist - thumbnails lie and his daughter rocked a boy haircut and hat for about three days till we figured that one out. The name was Blakely so it wasn't that obvious. Deaths are now just vicious and the game has a wicked sense of humor - "Johnny Zest has had his last laugh". The Ito's made up for their lost son by having three children this year. They seem to be in competition with the Bjergsens and the Spencer-Kim-Lewis houses. Those homes are packed! A few more move outs and move in to new lots and some random single townies started adopting kids. Some houses are still childless (Pancakes) but many are making sure that the household continues. My sim became an elder and his daughter is a teen so we can continue to the next year.

Year 4
This is where I am now - all the original YA premades are now elders and the teens are mature adults. I'm interested in seeing what happens this year as I expect quite the reaping around town.

Here's a pic from the first Stay Over with my sims best friend (Juniper Grove), her husband (that flirted with my sim and got a romance bar started), their teenage son, toddler son, and infant daughter - and two horses that really loved being inside when they weren't leaving 'droppings' all over the yard of my ONE BEDROOM STARTER HOME! My sim got enraged during this visit and the whole experience almost ended in Year 1! And of course they came on Harvestfest Day just to make things even better!

Townie fashion at it's finest!

My poor sim trying to eat breakfast in peace but he's not alone!

Final impression
Still waiting to see what year 4 brings but I am having a lot of fun seeing the insanity of what can happen in just a regular vanilla game. I highly recommend giving it a try with a 'throw away' save just to see what happens if you are bored. I've had alot of fun with it!