New to 4. I have a few questions.

[rmfranco]

I just learned about that dlc unlocker thing a few days ago. Now, I'm downloading mods I think I'll like, so it'll be a bit before I play. Yes, I'm adding mods before I play the game. I've done this before with other games, and It doesn't turn out too bad most of the time.

1. One of the things I've wanted to do would be create a few Sims, maybe play them a bit to set them up in a job I want, then go to my "Main" Sim, and have those other sims be "town-mates." Is that possible? Would they stay in the job I had given them? Like, I kinda wanted to create a Priest Sim. I like the idea.

... Ok, I remembered and looked at that Controller mod, and there is a Freeze career part. https://deaderpool-mccc.com/mccareer.html
Would that work for what I'd want?

2. Since I only know Sims 3, what's changed since then? Or, maybe the easier question is What is gone from Sims 3 to 4?

Any mod suggestions? Maybe obscure stuff I might not otherwise find?
...
I had more questions when I started this, but I've forgotten them.

[larry_roberts]

You can find a lot of answers at Sims 4 Answers:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Sims-4/ct-p/the-sims-4-en

[sandrastarling]

Everything you asked on #1 will be depending on what mods and DLC you might try, but you can in the base game create Sims, give them traits, and even switch to them and go back to your main. It's mostly an experiment then decide if you need mods or DLC to make it all work how you like.

From my understanding, unplayed Sims will pretty much do their own thing and that includes your main if you switch. Including something dumb to get killed.

Please correct me on this if I'm wrong on that last issue.

[stultus3]

1) You can absolutely make "townies" who do their own thing. It's a little confusing at first, but it comes down to Neighborhood Stories which you can edit per all households in your save file, or just specific ones. In World Editing mode, go to your list of households, and per each household you can turn on or off certain "Story" modes (for example, you can turn on random deaths and retirement, and turn off quit job and find job. You can customize however you want within the provided parameters in the game.).

Move in each household you make into a lot so they're no longer "homeless". While in live mode you can still run into "homeless" sims, but I use a mod that limits sims to certain world regions (eg Oasis Springs residents will only be found in their home town), so this narrows down randoms to the specific sims I want to see locally (you won't see the Goths taking a morning jog in Sulani, for example, which is annoying and removes the immersion). If you're interested, it's "Home Regions" by Kuttoe, and their mod does this better than any of the other mods I've tried.

Now, whether or not you want these townies to age is up to you. If you don't want them to age while you're not playing that household, save them into "My Households," and in the setting turn "aging for played households" off. I prefer to do this since I switch playing between a lot of households I've made, while I keep aging on for all the NPC/ randomly generated households.

Definitely get MCCC. This is a vital mod for anyone who wants to customize their world to their liking. I can't remember if there's an option to flag certain sims to freeze their job, but if there's any mod that does that it would be MCCC. If you turn off "find job" and "leave job" in that household's Neighborhood Stories, though, this should prevent those sims from having any changes to their job.

2) Biggest change from TS3 to TS4 is the lack of an open world. This sucks and it removes the immersion. What's replaced this (and the overabundance of rabbitholes) are lot type (it's been awhile since I've played TS3 so I forget if it's a thing in that game as well). In TS4 you can have active lots that act as a bar, lounge, nightclub, museum, park, and a few others which are all available in the base game. If you have Get to Work, you can download LittleMsSam's "More Buyable Venues and Venue Types" mod, which makes the venue system more complicated and interesting, and it complements her other mods too.

A miscellaneous thing to note is the properties of Generic lots. With this lot type, there are no restrictions, but sims don't spawn in it. So if you want to make a church venue, for example, without disguising it as a technical Lounge, you should look into some of the other mods made by LittleMsSam which gives you more customization for lots (eg Dress Code, More Visitors, Entrance Fee).

I have several hundred mods installed. No joke. There are many, many which I would recommend. If I had to narrow it down to just a few that are Basegame compatible (other than the ones I've already mentioned), I'd say, in no real order:

Better Exceptions (TwistedMexi)
Meaningful Stories (roburky)
EA Traits as Reward (Chingyu)
Basemental Alcohol/ Drugs (Basemental)
Wonderful Whims (Turbodriver)
Family Relationships (simsmodelsimmer)
Storytelling Socials (lazarusinashes)

Since you're new to TS4 mods, be aware that updates often ruin some mods (and updates happen every few months on average). So, as a vital resource, look up Scarlet's Realm "The Mod List", since they keep track of mod statuses, when they're updated, and if they're broken. This is also a great resource to find links to various mods, since you can do a search for keywords/ creators.
I know this is kind of an info dump. But good luck out there with TS4 and hope the game doesn't crash and burn!

[Issac Brock]

Originally posted by rmfranco:

I just learned about that dlc unlocker thing a few days ago. Now, I'm downloading mods I think I'll like, so it'll be a bit before I play. Yes, I'm adding mods before I play the game. I've done this before with other games, and It doesn't turn out too bad most of the time.

1. One of the things I've wanted to do would be create a few Sims, maybe play them a bit to set them up in a job I want, then go to my "Main" Sim, and have those other sims be "town-mates." Is that possible? Would they stay in the job I had given them? Like, I kinda wanted to create a Priest Sim. I like the idea.

... Ok, I remembered and looked at that Controller mod, and there is a Freeze career part. https://deaderpool-mccc.com/mccareer.html
Would that work for what I'd want?

2. Since I only know Sims 3, what's changed since then? Or, maybe the easier question is What is gone from Sims 3 to 4?

Any mod suggestions? Maybe obscure stuff I might not otherwise find?
...
I had more questions when I started this, but I've forgotten them.

Any chance you want to share that "dlc unlocker thing"?

[rmfranco]

Originally posted by Issac Brock:

Originally posted by rmfranco:

I just learned about that dlc unlocker thing a few days ago. Now, I'm downloading mods I think I'll like, so it'll be a bit before I play. Yes, I'm adding mods before I play the game. I've done this before with other games, and It doesn't turn out too bad most of the time.

1. One of the things I've wanted to do would be create a few Sims, maybe play them a bit to set them up in a job I want, then go to my "Main" Sim, and have those other sims be "town-mates." Is that possible? Would they stay in the job I had given them? Like, I kinda wanted to create a Priest Sim. I like the idea.

... Ok, I remembered and looked at that Controller mod, and there is a Freeze career part. https://deaderpool-mccc.com/mccareer.html
Would that work for what I'd want?

2. Since I only know Sims 3, what's changed since then? Or, maybe the easier question is What is gone from Sims 3 to 4?

Any mod suggestions? Maybe obscure stuff I might not otherwise find?
...
I had more questions when I started this, but I've forgotten them.

Any chance you want to share that "dlc unlocker thing"?

Uh.. Not directly, but if you google Sims 4 Dlc unlocker you can find it. It's also mentioned in the comments of the Reddit post on the Currently 3'rd link on the search.

Only things are with it, is I wasn't aware the download was a Torrent til I downloaded, and the reason it's a grey area is while the torrent of this unlocker is allowed, it's legality varies based on where you live, and their laws, and if your ISP cares to follow up on it. Apparently, this is due to it's illegal in some places to Torrent Copyrighted stuff. Hence why I'm reluctant to share it.

At present, I've given up on Sims 4, I miss the open world too much, I've gone back to 3.

[Issac Brock]

Originally posted by rmfranco:

Originally posted by Issac Brock:

Any chance you want to share that "dlc unlocker thing"?

Uh.. Not directly, but if you google Sims 4 Dlc unlocker you can find it. It's also mentioned in the comments of the Reddit post on the Currently 3'rd link on the search.

Only things are with it, is I wasn't aware the download was a Torrent til I downloaded, and the reason it's a grey area is while the torrent of this unlocker is allowed, it's legality varies based on where you live, and their laws, and if your ISP cares to follow up on it. Apparently, this is due to it's illegal in some places to Torrent Copyrighted stuff. Hence why I'm reluctant to share it.

At present, I've given up on Sims 4, I miss the open world too much, I've gone back to 3.

Thanks for the reply, but I thought it might have something to do with if you already owned the dlc on EA and you wanted to use it on your Steam copy that did not have any DLC.

Thanks anyway.

P.S. Yes there is a certain charm that I still like about Sims 3.

[Xeriath]

Originally posted by rmfranco:

Only things are with it, is I wasn't aware the download was a Torrent til I downloaded, and the reason it's a grey area is while the torrent of this unlocker is allowed, it's legality varies based on where you live, and their laws, and if your ISP cares to follow up on it. Apparently, this is due to it's illegal in some places to Torrent Copyrighted stuff. Hence why I'm reluctant to share it.

I don’t know a single country which this thing is allowed without proof that you purchased a legal license key from a software first.

It’s simply piracy and if you got caught then you need to force the consequences which is mostly paying a high sum and a lifetime ban from all products from the company. The only reason why this still get so much ignored you have enough player which still purchased your product legal, but this makes it not gray or legal to use this thing. Its just cool to talk about that you can steal from EA becuase EA is a bad company, still make it not right/legal or gray.