How do you make University more interesting?

How do you make University more interesting?

Maybe it's just me, but so far I find sending my sims to University boring. I like all the stuff that came with the expansion, like lifetime aspirations (even though I've been overloaded with sims who want to be chief of staff, yawn), the groovy furniture, the ability to influence other Sims ... I'm gonna have a toddler try that next, could be funny.

And I like the Young Adult age group because let's face it who wouldn't want to be twentysomething and cute for the rest of our lives, and they have the best clothing, too.

But yawn-o-matic on the having to go to class, etc. I hated sororities in college and hate 'em even more as mindless Sims. They're just a little too manic for me. The cow must die and the dorms are mega-icky. Water balloon spills that stay there for weeks, yuck. Plus the fact that they saunter everywhere, which was cute at first, but is now a little frustrating.

I have a LOT of young adults stagnating in college right now because frankly I can't stand to play it. My plan is to have all of the kids of the same generation in college at once, lump them into rental housing (I have some at each campus) and then play their college years as quickly as possible. So far the only really interesting possiblities I've found is having a young engaged couple share a house and trying to have my 20 woohoo Sim fulfill his lifetime aspiration before he ever leaves college, not easy since I started him there. (Hey, I had a new eye color I wanted to try, and boy is he yummy.)

Maybe it's my fault for starting with such a big neighborhood. No one ever marries NPCs in my little universe, though there's a supercute juicebar waiter named Zak I'd be willing to make an exception for ... anyway, had to have lots of options for dating, marriage, etc., and now I have more than 100 Sims. I'm gonna have to let some of them die of old age to make way for new generations. Sigh. So hard to let go.

Anyway, I digress. Here's my question, in case you've snoozed off by now ... How do YOU make University interesting? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Oh, and P.S. ...

Who comes up with these titles? Village drunk, indeed.

I live in the city.

 

Last weekend I had discovered Greek House play for the first time and quite enjoied it. I built my own on a college campus that I created, and let two "Popularity" sims, one of each gender, charter their house. Then the challenge became adding people to the house. I use a hack(I know, I'm bad LOL) to raise skill levels so that my sims do not have to waste time skill building. If they go to class and fulfill wants such as "Influence someone to do my Term Paper" they are going to get A's, anyway. So the challenge is building relationships, which is my speical area of intrest with my game, anyway.

 

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

 

good suggestions, all of them!

I don't play with cheats, just the opposite of KatAnubis, I guess (love your moniker BTW) I just don't see the point of 'em ... I prefer to make my Sims earn that wallpaper ... my richest family so far has $250,000 and I know just about everyone can probably top that but I'm proud of them anyway. Both Moms are superheroes. They live with their one adult son (slacker guy) because the other kid and grandkids are, you guessed it, stuck at University.

Like Kristalrose, I mostly play for the relationships. I'm looking forward to the "true love" thingy in Nightlife, since my favorite thing to do is play matchmaker.

One thing I'm doing is renting a house and then having Freshman move in as they go to college, the plan being that at least one of my Sims will live in that house at all times ... I can always stick a NPC in there as a placeholder if everyone else has graduated. That way they will get to keep the cool decorations, furniture, etc. Typical, huh? Make the older kids work for the younger ones' benefit.

I already do influence other Sims to do my dirty work, heh, heh, but unfortunately I have a Sim who let's say is a bit antisocial and well, she didn't have enough friends to influence anyone to clean. I moved her into a house with some other Sims, though, and am hoping to get her engaged to one of her roommates.

I will try the "make your own sorority" idea. I was already thinking along those lines and made a group of uni Sims who I plan to move into their own house at the Academie and see if they can start its first sorority ...

Maybe i just need to buckle down and play. I've got a lot of different types of Sims, and maybe it will get more interesting if I just play the university for a while. I've tried it but my neighborhood just seemed so much more interesting ...

could this have something to do with the fact that I HATED how stressful college was and really like my life now? Hmmm ...

Maybe I just have to let them party more than I did ... it's true that youth is wasted on the wrong people. If I could live my life backwards I'd have had so much more fun!

 

Well, it's sort of like the titles I made up where I host all my stuff: I use a lot of the sim aspirational failure titles.

WARNING!
Greek houses contain a severe bug which will slowly mindwipe your sims memories and important inventory tokens while you're not looking! A fix for this bug is here.

Pssh, building relationships is even easier than building skills. Very formulaic process. I have it automated into a macro.
Snag the latest update of this puppy and let 'er rip. All you have to do is push "go" and watch the fun.

 

Oh, yes, darlin', I have your hacks. They make my game so much more fun. hehehe. I downloaded your greek house fix before I even started building mine.

 

I also see they've suckered you into being a moderator. Sucks to be you.

 

Votes for Pescado to be a mod ...

 

If you don't want the spills from water balloons or sprinklers to stay for weeks, you can have a student mop them up or hire a maid.

I only play with a few of the facilities of the university, and hardly play with other students than those I send to a dorm in the university from an original neighbourhood and their dorm mates. (They are not really room mates, so I would call them dorm mates.) I find it more interesting to play with students with a history that I can relate to by knowing their family and background.

Furthermore, I don't care much about their going to class, as they do that autonomous.

Another aspect that I find interesting is watching who become friends with whom and when who can fall in love and be engaged to whom. When it is possible, I like having the same amount of male and female playable sims in a dorm, and when they graduate from university, each male is in love with a female and vice versa. From my point of view the social interactions are the fun part of university. The activities related to the study are just activities that need to be done - just like children and teenagers need to go to school and do homework, and adults need to go to work and take care of business at home.

Best regards,
Boerge

 

Meh, I don't see why I should have to pay my money to clean up somebody else's pools of urine on the floor. My sims aren't the ones with the bladder control issues, after all. So what if the dorm is awash in urine? Somebody else's problem.

The dormies are pretty useless, but do provide something for my sims to make fun of, as they constantly wet themselves, allowing my sims to point and laugh at them.

I don't even have to worry about this, I have a nice fully-automated macro that tells your sims what to do to max out their grade meter, with zero intervention from me. They'll automatically study, do assignments, eat, chug coffee, use the terlet, and kick flamingos, all without my having to lift a finger. It's pretty sweet.

 

Yeah, they kindof surprised me with it. Thanks for noticing.

 

They surprised you with it? So, what, you were suddenly shanghaied into the task? One moment, you're a regular visitor, and the next moment, you wake up and you're a moderator?

 

ROTF!!! Yep, that was about it!!! I logged on yesterday with new "powers" hehehe. So, you'd better be good. Or else you might be next!!!

 

No, you have the problem with bad environment that you want to have taken care of. The sims that threw water balloons, set off sprinklers or peed on the floor have probably left the house. Furthermore, the maid also clean the toilet, the bath, the kitchen, remove dirty dishes and put away books - among other things.

By the way, I forgot that you might be able to influence the sim that does the mess to clean.

I don't think that I wrote anything about whether the townies living in the dorm are useless. To me, they just live in the dorm together with the sims that I put there, and I ignore them as much as possible. I hardly visit the other households in the university neighbourhoods.

Best regards,
Boerge

Best regards,
Boerge

 

At MY expense, I might add. The environment? Doesn't affect me, my sims have permanent platinum mood already. Otherwise wouldn't be sending them to live in THAT pit.

I point out that this costs *ME* points. This is fundamentally opposed to my stated philosophy of refusing to expend my personal resources on other people's problems. If I *WERE* forced to do something about it, I would simply execute the offenders. It's a much nicer and more cathartic solution. It seems to be strictly the dorm cook that actually prevents them from dying horrible deaths of starvation, since I sure as hell aren't providing them with any of my food! It is strict policy that I refuse to feed any non-controllable/non-resident sim unless absolutely necessary.

Well, I have a slightly higher opinion of any controllable households, be they mine or Maxian-premades...simply because they fall under my strict thumb, and can thus be considered to be my people. Dormies, however, are under no such constraints, and besides, when you move them in, no matter how badly traumatized they were while dormies, how many pairs of pants they ruined, they get a free Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind treatment and forget all of it. So it is no loss to me.

 

That "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" that happend to Towines when they move in or marry into a household infuriates me. I have one cheerleader who was ummm, a "friendly" girl in college with several of my male game-born sims. She finally settled down and married one of them. Now all her ex-boyfriends remember her, quite fondly, and she had no memories of them. I haven't yet had the "jellousy" problem come up at a community lot or a party, but eventually it will happen. LOL

Just makes for another game of "These Are The Days Of My Sims".