Do you play or just build?

[SimsFan_1]

As I've started to get more into skinning, I've noticed that there's very few active creators making skins anymore.  The only ones I can think of are Dramatica, (to a lesser extent) SirenShadow, and (maybe) Vivacious.

On top of that, I've noticed that there's also been an increase in "deco only" objects over the last 5-10 years as well.  Simtonic and SpaceCadet (to cite two examples) have made so many gorgeous things, but so many of their sets have statue-based furniture and plumbing objects that are 100% useless in playable houses -- they can't even be made functional with invisible objects.

It seems like the majority of Simmers only build nowadays and don't play the game, hence all of the non-functional objects and lack of interest in skins.  I wonder why that's the case?  Is it because the community has gotten older and has less interest in playing?🤔

Well, I still play the game, and I've always made sure to release sets that can be used by players.  Even when I made deco beds for a Christmas advent gift, I used a rug base and included an invisible lovebed.  I will never recolor a statue-based bed, no matter how beautiful it may look!

Does anyone else here still play the game?

[clairecharming123]

I enjoy both. I go back and forth between phases of actively playing and building. I have an airport that's under construction, but it's been sitting for a while since I'm in a playing mood lately.

I also enjoy making over all the townies/stranges/vacation people with simenhancer.

[jonesie]

  Please don't hate me...I mostly just build these days.  Occasionally, I've used a Sim in Magic Town, but that was just to be able to build something in the "residential" area, where you need a Sim to bring in Magic Coins to buy the lot.

"Just building" is totally My Bad.  I lost patience dealing with the Sims, their little tantrums, constant needy behavior, etc. etc.  
And...sometimes it got a little "weird" because, in essence, the player is "playing God."  I would sometimes get fed up with my Sims and kill them off...with great glee.  It may be only a game, but it bothered me that I would do this, so I eventually switched over to just building. 
I honestly don't think it's because many players have gotten "older." I think it will always just boil down to personal preferences.

If it's any consolation, I take great joy and delight in anything a creator makes...deco-only and playable alike.  

[damondamore]

I've always had more fun playing. Deco-only objects have always been an irritation for me. Particularly when creators used to assume they were known as deco-only creators and don't tell you their bed is just a slab. Beds seem to be the worst offenders, probably owing to the number of sprites.


Of course, creations which change fully when you rotate them and are on a mysterious base object that makes no sense for the bar-stairs-fountain-statue but sims can sit on it as a dining chair!


My creations are often things I'm making for myself, to add to my own game and enhance my own gameplay. I wonder sometimes if I'd be more motivated to create more if I were around people who actually played and used my hacks.

[SimsFan_1]

Mar 13, 2023 16:51:16 GMT -5 clairecharming123 said:

I enjoy both. I go back and forth between phases of actively playing and building. I have an airport that's under construction, but it's been sitting for a while since I'm in a playing mood lately.

I also enjoy making over all the townies/stranges/vacation people with simenhancer.

I definitely know that feeling of going back and forth between playing and building.  You need to build houses and stores for your Sims, but that can take a while, and it's easy to get bored and wanna play with them instead.  I also love giving Townies SimEnhancer makeovers, too!👍

Mar 13, 2023 18:25:34 GMT -5 jonesie said:

  Please don't hate me...I mostly just build these days.  Occasionally, I've used a Sim in Magic Town, but that was just to be able to build something in the "residential" area, where you need a Sim to bring in Magic Coins to buy the lot.

"Just building" is totally My Bad.  I lost patience dealing with the Sims, their little tantrums, constant needy behavior, etc. etc.  
And...sometimes it got a little "weird" because, in essence, the player is "playing God."  I would sometimes get fed up with my Sims and kill them off...with great glee.  It may be only a game, but it bothered me that I would do this, so I eventually switched over to just building. 
I honestly don't think it's because many players have gotten "older." I think it will always just boil down to personal preferences.

If it's any consolation, I take great joy and delight in anything a creator makes...deco-only and playable alike.  

I get it... admittedly, even I can't play without lots of hacked objects keeping the Sims in line!😄  They are fundamentally stupid creatures that will throw their dirty dishes on the floor and piss their pants if you let them.  They constantly run out of energy and can never fulfill their motives, so Supersculptures are a must on every lot. 

I can understand why many don't wanna put up with any of this, but it's fun for me.  It's like playing with Barbies, but in virtual form.😋

Mar 13, 2023 19:50:16 GMT -5 damondamore said:

I've always had more fun playing. Deco-only objects have always been an irritation for me. Particularly when creators used to assume they were known as deco-only creators and don't tell you their bed is just a slab. Beds seem to be the worst offenders, probably owing to the number of sprites.


Of course, creations which change fully when you rotate them and are on a mysterious base object that makes no sense for the bar-stairs-fountain-statue but sims can sit on it as a dining chair!


My creations are often things I'm making for myself, to add to my own game and enhance my own gameplay. I wonder sometimes if I'd be more motivated to create more if I were around people who actually played and used my hacks.

Beds are especially what I was thinking of when I started this thread.  I understand that functioning beds require many sprites... but the great creators of the past didn't seem to have any trouble with that.  Go look through the bedroom sets at SimFreaks, Dincer, Parsimonious, STP Carly, or any of the other early 00s sites, and you won't find anything besides fully-functional and fully-animated beds.

But, nowadays?  The most you'll ever see are "semi-deco" beds that function, but have no animations, and even those are rare.  Most creators just make all of their beds deco-only without question.  I don't know if someone has even made a new fully-animated and functional bed within the last 10 years.

What changed?🤔  Why did functional beds seemingly disappear?  I know that many of those old sites were pay, so it's possible that those creators had more time and money to spend on making functional beds.  But, on the other hand, they also had access to more limited technology and knowledge than today's creators have.

This is why I feel that people's interest in playing the game has declined over time.  You don't see functional beds anymore, because most people build and there's no interest in them.

[damondamore]

I think a lot of people who played the game moved on, if not to sims 2 then to something else. I was one of the last people hacking when sims 2 came out, I think. I think some people moved to FreeSO but honestly the players play it like any other MMO and just want to grind skills and money, so I have no interest in it since that's just real life. More rewarding to teach myself Latin than get 1000 fake charisma points for my avatar. I can go to work in real life and earn money to eat and sleep indoors as well as purchase blind bags of rockstar cats and use the internet to complain about a video game (oh).


Since it's mostly decorators left, they don't care if the beds are useable. They probably prefer them not useable to keep the filesize down.

[SimsFan_1]

Mar 14, 2023 20:49:01 GMT -5 damondamore said:

I think a lot of people who played the game moved on, if not to sims 2 then to something else. I was one of the last people hacking when sims 2 came out, I think. I think some people moved to FreeSO but honestly the players play it like any other MMO and just want to grind skills and money, so I have no interest in it since that's just real life. More rewarding to teach myself Latin than get 1000 fake charisma points for my avatar. I can go to work in real life and earn money to eat and sleep indoors as well as purchase blind bags of rockstar cats and use the internet to complain about a video game (oh).


Since it's mostly decorators left, they don't care if the beds are useable. They probably prefer them not useable to keep the filesize down.

That's a good point.  I can see why more of the players probably moved onto Sims 2-4, especially since those games have more involved gameplay with things like aging and aspirations.  And, on the flipside, I can see how Sims 1 may be a more rewarding game for decorators since it's leaner and lacks most of that extra life simulation stuff.

For me, though, I view the games kind of the opposite way.  The few times I played Sims 2, I almost exclusively built things, as I loved the more realistic build features that game had (3rd/4th floors, basements, diagonal windows, customizable roofs, etc), while I found the gameplay to be too complex and took too much control away from the player.  I prefer the more open-ended and lower-stakes gameplay that Sims 1 has.

[damondamore]

I actually play sims 2 a lot. I don't mind the game fighting against me some, it makes it feel like a collaborative story between myself and some dice.


Meanwhile, sims 4 is the most permissive sims game to date and it is boring to play.

[madoria]

I just installed my game again ... ( Double Dluxe HD and MM ) and are playing with the bachelor household . Not added much downloads just yet ...

Deco beds , well for one thing , the gazzillion sprites in a double bed is so scary to redo and takes a lot of time . I only recoloured a doublebed and I thought that took for ever . Knowing that I do understand a creators point of view that a deco bed was less time consuming . They also started to appear when players had accumulated quite a lot of downloads and dumped into the game . Which off course made their games slow and often crashing.

I like to play and also do build challenges . But I often got derailed into creating something instead. So the most played Sim in my game was Madoria Tester ...

[damondamore]

I understand the perspective of the creators with beds. I think it's three sprites per tile, and six tiles. That's a lot of spritework. For creators who work loving placing each pixel by hand, that's a lot of man-hours. For creators who generate them from 3D models... well they have to model the sleeping and messy states, too.

It's just very disappointing to find a whole matching set where everything is functional but the bed.

[madoria]

Yes, that is really dissapointing .   

However , there is also the case of items based of a expansion pack  object  , and off course it is always that expack I don't have installed.  Not every creator made objects that could work in any game set up . 

Paysites also come to mind , Well Dressed Sims  for example had a few objects for free and the larger objects were pay.  That ment that I could not get a full set of theirs .

[damondamore]

I think a lot of creators didn't understand what was going on behind the scenes with objects. I try to make things at least work decoratively in the base game, although even I'm not sure which features came with which expansions sometimes.


Worse than full paysites where the mostly free sites with donation gifts. Like you said you can have a whole set less one thing. Very annoying!