What do you like playing with most?With custom or Premade families?

Usually I play with premade families, but when I'm starting a new EP (breakthrough EPs)
I've made about 5 Custom families that I played with

1]The Sims 2 Pets PS2
2]The Sims 2
3]The Sims 2 Nightlife
4]The Sims 3
5]The Sims Medieval

I don't think I've ever played the pre-made families.

I don't generally play the pre-made neighborhoods, for that matter.

I've never played the premades.

Boht.

In TS2, before I discovered how wonderful custom hoods are, I always played pleasentview's pre-made families, and my own. After I discovered custom hoods, I changed to those. Now In the megahood I'm only playing Maxis Sims.

In TS3, I also play both. I play a custom hood but I have brought some of the most interesting Sims from Twinbrooks to my town. But these people I treat as Townies and they only get played if they marry into the playable households.

Both.

Custom sims in my main hood, premades in the other ones. Of the maxis hoods, I play mainly RBH, Pleasantview, and now Strangetown (just started that one a couple of days ago... it was an instant "click", even though I don't care for aliens or the desert setting much). The others, especially Belladonna Cove and Desiderata Valley, bore me for some reason. The families just aren't that interesting to me, I guess.

For the first couple of years I only played my own sims and thought the premades were boring (I test played a couple of hoods for like 5 minutes, and that was it), but I guess I just test played the wrong hoods, or then the "timing" just wasn't right. This spring I started playing Pleasantview with no expectations whatsoever (just wanted to know who everybody was, since I got tired of reading about the Caliente sisters and the Goths etc., having no clue who they were), and ended up loving it.

Custom sims only (with the rare exception of a premade sim marrying or getting pregnant by a game-generated sim.) Completely not interested in fugly EAxis sims.

I've only played the premade neighborhoods during my experimental period. Once I got down to serious play, I didn't want to deal with their history, I wanted the one that spontaneously generated in my brain. However, I didn't want to build a University or a Downtown from scratch, so I'm using the premades that came in Sim State, and I've used some of the family lot sims. On the whole, I prefer sims I make, but it's possible to grow fond of premade sims, and having random family bin sims or townies thrown into your mix is one way to keep the neighborhood from being too controlled.

And sometimes, since I know the premade neighborhoods are there, and I know something about the sims in them due to my experimental phase and to reading other people's stories about them, I'll while away my insomniac nights planning things like: "Okay, take Strangetown, send Johnny Smith, Ophelia Nigamos, and Tank Grunt to La Fiesta Tech, put them in that five-person dorm with Stella Terrano and, oh, somebody else from the lot bin there. That way you don't have to mess with dormies. Then play in rotation, starting with University and adding the main hood..." But doing that would take too much time away from my beloved Drama Acres, so I never do any of them.

the EAxis sims get too much of a hard time I think, yes the majority of townies are not attractive, but in the pre-made hoods I think there are some good genes.

I feel totally the other way. Maxis families sims are too "pretty", bland and boring in looks. And thats why I only use the "ugly" townies and custom sims

Last edited by gulhare : 8th Jul 2011 at 09:22 AM. Reason: I seriously cant spell anything

Custom only. I've played Pleasentview premades in the past but once I customized a hood I had no interest in going back.

Oh, I see...

Most of you enjoy playing with custom families...as I told above I enjoy more when playing with Premade families...when I actually play with sims...I usually build, more specific I build Neighborhoods!

I can't be bothered to spend hours in CAS creating original looking sims. I mean really how do you people do that there's not even a way to identify what point the slider is at so how do u know not to repeat it so u end up with same looking sims.

Premade is the way to go because as i've always viewed it playing sims is like a soap opera. You start out with a long back story history of the characters and town and start somewhere in the middle going towards the end. Very rarely do you ever start at the very beginning. It's just how i like to play I guess. More creative license for me rather then having to adhere to a scripted history that cant be modified since I started at the beginning. For instance I once brought in a townie as Brandi Broke's long lost sister even though we "know" that the newbies only had one child...or did they? If you start at the very beginning you lose that sort of ability because from a certain standpoint the history will generally conflict with what you're trying to bring in because it's there in balck and white. The premades have alot of grey history that can be modified which gives endless possibilities for storylines.

In the past I had a lot of fun playing in Strangetown and Pleasantview (and also RBH for a month, but I didn't do much here). History of the Goths and the Smiths went on so fast! I spent hours on changing Sims' apperances, builing homes and improving their life Characters such as Don Lothario and Ophelia Nigmos were really interesting ones
Later there were my own residents, who married Maxis' Sims or were going to do so.
After my hard disc's crash I've never returned to pre-mades. Probably I was little affraid of my next Maxis made neighbourhood (BOTH crashed about a half of year after I started playing with them).

For two years I've been playing in my custom 'hood. Starting it was a horror, I was still upset after losing Pleasantview and RBH.
Things changed fast and Nieznanowo (something like 'Unknowntown' in English) got new residents. Now I have to play in more than 30 households, which isn't easy (visiting single family once a year, haha :D).

My answer will be: 'both'. I always enjoy my game and it doesn't matter in which household I play

Depends on the family.

I like certain premade families, the others fall victim to the Batbox. :D

i like playing custom families because i can start their lives the way i want them to be,and build generations, i only play premades when backing up my custom neighborhood.

My main neighborhood is Pleasantview and most of the sims I'm playing now are premades, their children and a few CAS sims thrown in for diversity. The last time I did a fresh install though, I was all about exploring the dynamics between these two CAS families.

My first attempts at making my own sims in CAS or Bodyshop were quite frustrating. I agree with SingleClawDesigns that it is not easy. But after a while, having unique sims is a motivation to figure out how BodyShop and CAS works. For instance, I never drag the sliders, I click on the arrows and watch the sliders to see how much they move. Normally, I just count clicks. But since I don't like creating duplicates, I don't really plan to duplicate the process of getting the exact same face shape. If I want to use one as a template, then they can be saved in BodyShop. Or, for those that can use SimPE, you can always extract sims.

For me, the pre-made sims never feel like MY sims. Most are too bland and too American suburbs. I like sims that look like they have some personality not designed by Maxis, or not designed by a machine. Most of the female sims look like dolls one can buy in any toy shop, even the cheap dollar stores. That is what I call the "Barbie" syndrome.

As for the stories, when I do play the pre-made sims, I never follow the stories in their bios. I like to break up the couples and make my own. Most of the marriages I will keep intact, as long as they don't cheat on each other. Once the cheating starts, they've forfeited any privilege to be married.

Usually, I enjoy creating a detailed story much more than playing. I like to describe the scenes (lots and houses) in the stories I make for myself. I think I can more easily describe my own houses than any of the maxis houses - or at least there isn't as much negativity. Even some of the lots I looked at downloading seemed too often like, "Walked into the downstairs bathroom with the blue walls where there was a toilet, sink, and tub. It was a tiny room but there was just enough room to turn around and walk out." Which is not at all interesting to me and most of the bathrooms are like that. What is the point of getting rich if all the rooms are just going to be closets and you are hindered by other household members just trying to get from one room to another or getting out the front door to go to work or school?

Or, "On the second floor landing, I came upon the same picture I remember seeing in the dining room, living room, and the master bedroom. But the kid came out of his room so there wasn't enough room in the hall for me to study the picture. After I yielded the tiny hallway to the kid, I lost interest in studying the picture to see why the previous owner or decorator liked that painting so much."

Normal people can move about a small house without constant arguing and traffic jams, but sims are just too stupid for that. Do I want my entire story to be about stupidity? I think not. With very short stories or satirical ditties, perhaps. But not anything that I want to play with in depth. All the details and word play is what makes it fun. Even giving some history and backstories to my houses can be fun and more interesting when they are MY houses. It makes sense why I created a narrow hallway on the third floor "... only one bedroom up there and the doors to the third floor stairwell was locked. It was where the Mistress disappeared for hours at a time to be alone, or entertain her special guests privately. We dared not interrupt her unless the door was open. It was always closed and locked with the key that dangled from the silver chain on her slender wrists. The previous owner had spent most of her days in that room working on her crafts and painting the garden she could see from the large picture window. It was a running joke among the neighbors. When they came to visit unannounced and saw movement when they glanced up at that window, they returned from where they came, feeling her icy rejection before they dismounted from their horses."

With pre-made sims, one practically has to go on a full-scale investigation to figure out all the relationships. Mostly cheating and impulsive relationships. They couldn't even be bothered to make it look like Malcolm Landgraab had any skills or talents whatsoever with all that money and multiple businesses. A really rich guy in a stupidly designed house with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Just about all the pre-made sims are a joke or irony. It is a lot of frustrating work to undo all the pre-made stuff instead of just starting my own stuff I can play with some pride and understanding of purpose and plots.

After learning to create my own sims, houses and community/business lots, the pre-made sims are just peripheral characters that fill up space in the crowds. I think the game for me just was not as addicting when I played just the pre-made characters. Actually, I don't think I ever did. I tried making my own sims right away, but most looked just like pre-made sims for quite a long time. I think I figured out how to make a playable house before I figured out how to make unique sims. I still make a few bland sims now and then, which I am not proud of, but sometimes it happens. Thanks goodness there is cc makeup, hair and skintones.

I think I've never actually played premade families from my neighborhoods (or I may have played those families when I first started playing Sims 2 and I didn't quite know too many things about the game, so I needed an already-made story).
But now I usually like creating my own Sims and their own stories (not the the ones already existing in the game aren't interesting, but I have a lot of custom content installed in my game and I like using it).
The good thing about premade families is that usually they have many ancestors (grandparents and great grandparents or even more and lots of uncles and cousins ^^ ).It takes me some time to make their family three so diverse.
But when I used to play Sims 3, I never played a premade family ^^"

Both
I once played 1 neighborhood until almost all of the premade families were at gen. 5 haha it took a while. Then my computer got a virus and we had to get a new one.
Now I play mainly sims that I make, but i do like to play premades still.

I pretty much threw all the pre-made hoods and sims to the trash bin and started cultivating a custom hood from scratch. After planting a few dozen sims, I am happy with their children and playing out generations that way.

I only play custom families. None of the pre-made families have ever interested me and I like to create my own storyline for each household. If I play a Maxis-made neighborhood I always remove all pre-made families (safely of course.)

I have played pre-made almost exclusively. Every time that I try to create my own families, I remember just how much I hate that part of the game.

I play both.

I cant make unique looking sims in CAS so I only limit myself to a couple CAS families since the tend to look the same besides hair color.

I do enjoy certain pre-mades. Since this is my third installment I dont use the ones I've played before because it feels 'wrong' to play them again, so I play people I've never played before The rest get get turned into townies.

A mix over the years, but probably custom for the majority.

Keeping that in mind, my costums usually start out with as much history as any premade family Can't stop the storytelling, so my customs always come from somewhere, or has some kinda background.

I play premades only, with the except of a few custom sims that I've made and then added to the townie pool. I've tried to make custom families/hoods but I always grow bored of them almost instantly.