I'm a few days late I suppose, but this came up in my head earlier and I really wanted to get it posted.

What are your best and worst memories of Sims-related things that happened to you in 2017? Any stories that stick out? Perhaps you got a few mods that completely changed the game for you?

I got back into the Sims 2 in 2017. I tried a few years prior and uninstalled pretty much instantly, refusing to really give it a chance. After 8 years of consistently playing 3, I've grown sick of it (for now), and I tried 4 but couldn't get into it no matter what I did. The Sims itch was spreading and I had to scratch it, and so I installed Double Deluxe, Pets, Uni, and OFB. A few months later I decided to get the Ultimate Collection. I don't think I could ever go back to just having a few expansions, lol.

I've been building up a 'hood since August and I'm pretty happy with how it's going. I had to get used to rotational play and the lack of open world and automatic story progression were rough on me at first, but I can safely say that I love both playstyles at this point.

2017 was mostly crap for me in real life, but it's been a great sims year. So many exciting things have happened! I try not to talk too much about my hood because once I get going I never shut up (just ask Golden ). I will try to keep it short But to understand the excitement of 2017, I will start with some backstory.

Those of you that have been around a long time might remember that I lost my hood to corruption in 2012. I used to be the kind of player that plays a single family non-stop until I got bored, and then never returned. Never made it past generation 2. But in 2011 I finally had a family that kept my interest, and when I got to generation three of in-game born Sims I found myself attached to all three children. I continued to play all three households as they grew up, which was unheard off for me. I have to have a connection to the Sims in order to play them, some kind of story that makes it interesting for me, and it wasn't until I found this family that I my Sims obsession really took place. It was my hood or no hood.

When the hood went boom, I decided the only way I would keep playing was to restore it. So I spent 2 years and 7 months recreating my hood from scratch, replicating every memory in the correct order for the family that finally caught my interest (which I refer to as my core family). I had to start over many times, and in the process my play style developed as well. I now have a prospering hood with 15 households that are played in a rotational style so that they all stay synced with each other. I love each and every one of them, but the core family still has a very special place in my heart, and right at the center of that very special place is Karl. He was born not long before the old hood went boom, the very first Sim in generation four. And in 2017 I finally got to see him grow up into a child! Despite his 0 nice points, he is one of the sweetest pixel beings ever. He just makes my heart melt. It's really rather ridiculous how gooey I get watching him. And I don't care one jot! He's my sims-baby and I love him so much.

2017 has been the year of the baby boom. Karl now has a baby sister named Sigrid, and a baby brother named William. Not only does Karl now have two siblings, he has a whole heap of cousins! His father is the youngest of the third generation core family, and this year both of his older twin sisters had children of their own. Karl's favorite auntie Moa now has twin girls, and auntie Elna had a baby girl. Karl also got a cousin on his mothers side, her brother and his girlfriend had their baby Tore back in January. This past November was the 5-year anniversary of the original hood going boom, and in that time generation four has gotten five new babies. Exciting!

Not only was it a baby boom, a lot of the babies were unusual babies! Tore became the first prematurely born baby, delivered early for the sake of his rather pregnancy sick mother. Sigrid grew up to a toddler and revealed that she had incorrectly been labeled male by the game, becoming the first trans Sim in my game. Maja, one of Moa's twins, turned out to have Down syndrome. It's a lot of fun when things give you a reason to think outside of the box and make use of mods to simulate things outside of what EA intended. I am especially excited about Maja, because I have a brother with DS. Last but not least, my hood's first ever alien baby was born this year! It had been planning that story almost since the original hood went boom, so it's been very exciting to finally see it happen. In many ways this has been the year I feel my hood really went full circle, starting on the entirely new chapters where generation four become the center points of the hood's future. And I can't wait!

I am thoroughly impressed with myself that I managed to keep this so short, and with no pictures. Maybe 2018 will be the year I become less long-winded

2017 was a great game year for me. My main hood was Monopoly, the totalitarian world. The country was on really on a roll, grabbing more territory and oppressing its citizens. The hood was growing and expanding well until a sneak nuclear attack from Downton, another country (also my handmaid hood), caused the land to become uninhabitable. Fortunately for the Council and citizens there is plenty of land available in their world, so a forced immigration led them to the beautiful coast of Elsewhere. Many, many new provinces were created and the citizens resettled in their new land. Surrounding areas, formerly independent, were occupied, and the beat goes on. Fortunately for me, I have become quite fastidious about record keeping, so I was able to restore the citizens. Their new appearances are caused by the nuclear fallout.

I did create the country of Downton, as well. It's a militarily-aggressive hood, and the technical victor in the Monopoly wars. Though Downton won the war, they have paid with the poisoning of their air and water. The technology and infrastructure remained intact, though, as they were able to repel the military advances of their foes. The country appears to be doing well. However, fertility has dropped to an astonishingly low, and pregnancies end in miscarriage and/or death of the woman more often than not. The country's hierarchy has completely changed. It is harder for most citizens since taxes have skyrocketed to 90 percent of net income. Girls no longer are allowed to attend school, but are subject to conscription as handmaids for the military and other elites. The hood is still young and is a work in progress, but it is humming along quite nicely. Of great interest to me is the nascent, but growing, resistance movement which has begun in one of the conquered territories.

My uberhood suffered a bit of a setback when I had to reinstall it because I was trying to add Old Town as a subhood and was too stupid to do so. I did finally get it right, but only after I reinstalled the hood. However, I have all my old data and will dabble with it when I finish punishing my Downton citizens. mwah ha ha

I'm with Gummi; you probably shouldn't asked, but I'm so glad you did because I love talking about my sim children

Roughly 99% baby pictures, non-story pics of the cast from my story, and testing CC. Other than that, not so much has happened in my game. I was quite busy in 2017, so I didn't have a lot of time for lengthy playing.

Out of the game I've made lots of CC (mostly conversions) and started cleaning up in my story Downloads folder.

Intermittent - I guess. I actually played very little though some time did pass in both Little Carping and Polgannon. I like to make things for the game and I had a lot of fun this year thinking of ideas. My problem is I am very busy, I'm now a mod here and quite a lot of the time I get home from work and just don't want to do something like work. Being a mod means when I turn up here, I prioritize anything that needs doing - and that is like work. So my projects have been ... intermittent. Some things I have done as I wanted, but about 85% of ideas have made little or no progress. I really enjoy it when I'm working on something but find it a bit depressing when I can't find the energy and enthusiasm which is most of the time, especially during term time. <sigh> Sorry don't mean to moan and that was probably a bit TMI. I really appreciate the responses I get on my uploads though. It's really nice when people say thanks and encouraging things. So thanks.

Played a bit - realised that I truly love the maxi townies (Oh, Goopy!) and will not bother to try to play without them again.
Built a bit - really enjoyed Jo's competition. Added Jo's village as a subhood to mine.
Became a grandmother, which put some projects on hold in November 2017 (completely understanding Dora Ottomas right now)!

oooo JustPetro - I became a Great Aunt just 10 days ago. I've been knitting like mad.

Wonderful, Maxon - wish I were a good knitter, but I am (not for a lack of trying) not very capable So I went shopping instead

It wasn't twins, was it?

Hahahaha! (Un)fortunately not, @smorbie1!
Which reminds me - every set of twins born in my game last year was kind of a highlight too

I think I did good. I managed not to blow up my neighborhood. I uploaded a few nice pet breeds. I helped people on MTS sometimes too.

2017 was my first The Sims 2 experience. I bought every expansion and stuff pack in September. The Sims 3 was my very first The Sims but out of blue I got tired of it after playing for 4 years. When I started it for the first time, I was mesmerized by how lively the Sims are. The way they move, socialize and do things are well developed, things that sadly I didn't find in The Sims 3. And the cinematic scenes, I wasn't aware that this 2004 game could bring out such a power like that. The woohoo scene cracked me up, the birth scene made me awwed. I really love it. Also the voice, the way the voice actors sound, they seem to be very fluent in Simlish, The Sims 3 voice sounds like they're reading scripts.

It took me quite a few weeks to understand the whole game, mainly the building stuff because I got used to how easily building a lot in The Sims 3. After I learned a lot of stuff, I immediately began creating my first downtown because I despise the premade one. And now I have two downtowns and one business hood. The lack of open world and story progression don't mind me at all as long as I got the lots of gameplays that The Sims 2 offers.

It was a very busy year for my game!

I've taken over 1000 images in 2017 and the two driving reasons for the picto-extravaganza was I began posting a new sims story called 'Nest of Vipers' and I joined the 'What's happening in your Neighborhood (TS2)' social group, started by Emperor Crat, which I started a very informational thread about my old hood detailing the families, businesses, updates, and general history of the spaces in it.

In terms of mods that were game changers, in 2017 there was a renaissance in the ts2 mod community and I think one of the biggest, most anticipated mods that came out were the detailed face sliders. I grabbed the set by nopke from here at MTS but there's a whole bunch out there. See here for a bonanza of sliders.

The sky mods by lowdeus and the water mod by voeille were also big ones that improved my game visually in 2017. I love them to death.

I was a judge in the 'Community Spirit' contest by JoandSarah77, and even though it was a challenge with so many contestants, it filled my heart to know there's still so many sims 2 players out there interested in this sort of thing. The Contestant roster overfloweth! The builds in that event were very good and it was exciting to see what people could come up with for each set of restrictions/guidelines each round. I hope there are a few more ts2 contests coming down the pipeline in 2018.

Creations! This year I learned more about SimPe. I found out how to make my collection of pose boxes usable by any sims, even visiting ones and how to get them to show up on community lots (thanks to direction from Gummilut) - and then wrote a tutorial about it to help others that ran into those issues. I figured out how to make wall art objects too, so I entered my first upload of that category to MTS and it was accepted. I really like to take other simmers in game shots and apply them to art canvases, I did this recently for some landscapes but that download can be found on my simblr. I'm kind of torn in between if I want to put downloads to MTS or just upload them to SFS nowadays. Part of it has to do with patience. I think I would rather put a lot for upload here, but then quick things like art canvases I like to upload and share immediately. Oh! and I finally joined Garden of Shadows where I partook in some events, including Secret Santa. So learned how to make sims injury make up in 2017 too!

Game play has actually been slow. Not a lot of birthdays or births. Maybe 1 or 2 new sims babbies. This is mostly due to I spent most of my time in game taking pics for story purposes. There were more graduations than anything. One exciting thing that did happen was a wild fire.

As for low points, right around Easter 2017, my solid state drive which ran my game and contained my back-ups went dead. It looked absolutely grim but by some form of computer wizardry my husband managed to get my back-up off of the dead drive. He built a stronger, better, faster, rig with mirrored hard drives so if one went dead the other would have a complete back up. So my game was saved and the value of it is priceless since, and I am sure many of you have seen me say this before, but the sims hood I play is 10 years old. So 2018 will be it's 11th year surviving corruption and other accidental stupid things I do to it. (Like put an occupied lot in the lot bin, of which I did in 2017 and cursed myself for it.)

Personally, in 2017 I went on my honeymoon to Hawaii and I became a first time aunt since my sister, who I sometimes referenced in the 'What did you say while playing sims' thread, moved out of town and had a real child so now she can't help me take care of the fake ones.

Sorry for the mini novel (this was a good thread topic), but I hope to bring you more sim pics, laughs, and links in 2018!

I really enjoyed the stories, @Charmful, and the posts about your sister!

Uh, I downloaded a bunch of stuff

I had a lot of malfunctions this year, too.

As for playing, it was slow this year. I didn't progress too much. Just installing and testing mods, and setting up new hoods.

2016 and 2017 were bad depression years for me so, not much playing

Was in hospital for a while, couldn't really play there. Then didn't I had too much to sort out.

At one point I downloaded stuff for a neighbourhood that would recast the Pleasantview and Bluewater Village premades as Medieval lords and ladies, however all those defaults and CC made my game load too slow.
Scrapped that and now I'm playing a combined Beginning of Pleasantview/Beginning of Bluewater Village neighbourhood. It's really fun so far ^_^

I think the biggest thing was my building contest here that Petro mentioned above. I learnt to recolour, I uploaded 6 lots, 1 sim and 1 recolour.

Coral Bay got a uni and saw the first grandchildren of the founders born. The oldest of those is now a child. I had fun with a heap of sun&moon items in my medieval hood and tested a number of mods for other creators.

After many years of playing pure vanilla, 2017 was the year I finally discovered mods. No more time-consuming messing around with inventory to give Sims a share of household funds instead of the unrealistic $20k handout - all these years, there was a simple mod I could have been using! With that, plus Monique's computer and Cyjon's loan jar, I now have all the control over Sim finances that I was longing for. Stupid parenting is greatly reduced and I'm finally rid of that pesky burglar. I also added InTeen a couple of months ago, which I love.

Sheffield, the hood I started last January, is still going strong; I've tried a couple of variations on the BaCC; and I just started playing my first megahood, in which General Buzz, Daniel Pleasant and Opal Contrary are now trying out my first jail.

2017 was a mess IRL and I didnt have much time to play anything for the longest time until I quit my anti-morals job and got excommunicated by a church!

It was rough but my recent discovery of the neighborhood cheat modifyNeighborhoodTerrain really cheered me up. It may not be grand or a mod, but it definitely helped me make my game really MY game. I used to be so frustrated when maps I like didnt have beach lots or certain elevations. But with that cheat I feel like I have control over something...it's rather comforting really.

OH AND THAT NEW MOD THAT LETS YOU ACCESS HIGHCHAIRS AT THE SIDES BY LAMARE?! Oh my goodness gracious Im so happy to be alive

EDIT: can't believe I forgot these fine ladies! They were actually the ones that re-ignited my love for this game. The friendship they have is so strong I feel so sad when I married them off. It's like I destroyed the gang, ya know? After they went their separate ways I lost my mojo. I also accidentally deleted their neighborhood lmao so that was sad. Luckily I have them in bodyshop so I can relive the glory one more time

I got a new job during 2017 which left me with less time to play. The highlight of the year was joandsarah's community building contest, which got me enthused. I did a bit of building after that but overall my Sims were neglected and nothing significant comes to mind. I installed quite a bit during the first half of the year but am still disappointed that my real sickness mod is not killing off sims (they recover too quickly). I started losing dead Sims as well - they weren't turning up at the cemetery so I'm creating a new cemetery and trying to recover those poor souls in limbo.

Sims related; gotten 3 more packs in December. Pets, Seasons, Apartment Life.
packs at the start of 2017:: University, Nightlife.

2017 for me was a good year game play wise. I downloaded a neighbourhood (I believe the original name was Blue Haven but I changed it, but for the life of me I can't remember the simmer on MTS whom I downloaded it from). I made custom sims (7 sims), with new CC and deep back stories and traits, and started them off at University and now majoiry of them have families of their own and I've reached Generation 2 (with my original university sims being Generation 1), which is an achievemet because I really don't ever get that far before moving onto another neighbourhood or doing something else.

2017 was a baby boom for my hood, starting with only 7, I've added sims along the way and created extended families for some and created new families as well and incorporated the townies into stories a bit more.

I will say this, 2017 was good for me in terms of writing. Documenting Raven Hill has led me to a 80 page 'novel' of my sims lives out of university and doesn't even include my documentation of thier lives back in university. This has NEVER happened ever, now it might not be good but I'm glad to be writing again; maybe I'll finally start posting something on my wordpress blog.

I downloaded Emerald Heights, which again allowed me to explore my more creative side in terms of background stories and interpretations and thus allowing me to again write and be more creative.

My goal for 2018 will be to write more, maybe finally be more proactive in terms of getting my writing (even if it's just sims writing) out there. My friend called me out the other day, saying that she was disappointed that she hadn't read anything I've ever written... so I'm going to try better this year and maybe see what happens.