I could have swore there was a thread about this before, but I couldn’t find it (I did find one about *least* favorite premades), so here we are.

For me it’s the Pleasant twins, probably because when I first played University they were the ones I picked to send to college for the first time and I spent quite a bit of time with them in that round of Pleasantview. That was in 2005. I give them such a radically different story line now that makes them almost a custom character now though.

I like the Goths and the Brokes too. Calientes and Lothario are fun to play with, but fun to hate too. The Veronaville characters are interesting as well with the feud.

Pleasantview: Nina Caliente, my accidental founder sim married her and they had twelve kids and became super old through copious amounts of elixir of life. She was a fun, cool sim and never really seemed that grouchy other than beating up a garden club member for being mean to her husband. Also, if townies count, Randy London. As an adult, he became best friends with one of my sims and married another, and was very nice, chill and delightfully awkward.

Strangetown: Tank Grunt - the way he acted in my game made him come across as a very complex character, who eventually started coming into his own and became very likable and endearingly stiff. I like his brothers too.

Veronaville: This is the neighbourhood where the premades really got to shine in my game as I played with just them and none of my own sims. My favourites have sometimes shifted from day to day, but my all-time faves would probably be Desdemona Capp, Beatrice Monty and Benedick Monty.

Desiderata Valley: Natasha Una.

Angela Pleasant of course. I like how they are twins, which requires quite a bit of tinkering to make two people the same, and how the mouth doesn't have a cupid's bow, which is also a task for careful sculpting. She is the kind of person who can get far by manipulating others (popularity) and that is a useful and hard to attain power. She is the queen of Pleasantview because of this. And she has a supernatural origin.

Imagine having a male child called Caliente.

In Pleasantview I think I like Angela and Dustin best, but I like Lilith and Dirk too. I think, under Dustin's influence, Angela has come to see how badly her sister has been treated. So I hope for a reconciliation between the twins, allowing Angela, Lilith, Dustin and Dirk to come together as a formidable foursome, who will sweep the cobwebs from the skies over Pleasantview, and drag the town, kicking and screaming into a revitalised 21st Century future, in much the same way as the transformation my Sims are already achieving in Veronaville.

In Veronaville, I mostly concentrate on my CAS-made Sims, whom I see as the ordinary townspeople, rather than the rich leading families, whose feuding has blighted the town for decades, if not centuries. But even in these families, the younger generation has no appetite to continue this destructive conflict. I think my favourites of the pre-made families are probably the Capp girls, Juliette, Hermia and Miranda. Juliette of course has fallen in love with Romeo Monty, and Hermia has a zany sense of humour which makes her fun to be with. Miranda is just loveable. Juliette is now Grand Duchess and titular Head of State, and Consort has moved out of Capp Manor with his new bride April Hutchins and their baby, leaving Capp Manor to Juliette and Hermia. (Tybalt also married and moved out.) Desdemona, Beatrice and Benedick are still children in my very slow-paced game. No doubt their time will come.

I don't like picking favourites, but, if I have to name one, I think Ravi Bertino may be my absolute favourite. Possibly better known to you all as Patrick Teens (or even Patrick Tricou) he is a wrong-side-of-the-blanket child of the late Jon Smith Tricou. After I gave him extra Nice points, to enable him to take part in an "open" relationship under the rules of Pescado's Romance Mod, which I was using at the time, he became one of the kindest, most considerate characters I have ever had the good fortune to meet. He's a Pleasure Sim who loves to give pleasure to others. He's the kind of person who likes to brighten up the day of everyone he meets, unusual at any age, and especially unusual in someone still so young.

Angie seems to be a love/hate kind of character (and Lily too for that matter). Oddly enough, it’s always seemed like more didn’t like Angie than liked her, so it’s nice to see it seems like the opposite here. She’s actually one of the main characters in my story, married to a custom. (I edited that last sentence in).

Angie as a manipulator is an interesting take. I always thought that was more of a Daniel thing (possibly even the mom as well). I guess in your world the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 😉

It could be Pong Grundstrom from Takemizu Village.

Or Cyd Roseland from the bin?

Perhaps it is Natasha Una from Desiderata Village...

The Curios brothers always had a special place in my heart too -

But it is definitely not a sim from Pleasantview.

I like making my own sims very much, so I hardly play the Maxis sims! I remember playing Pleasantview and Strangetown a bit in the early days of Sims 2, so I know the characters well. But I hardly played Veronaville, and seldom the Maxis universities. And I didn't play the neighbourhoods that came with the later EPs at all. Maybe I should!

However, I do remember that I loved the Strangetown characters, very intriguing with the aliens and PT 9 trying to blend in with his lawns and picket fences. I always tried to rescue Nervous and have him reunite with Olive before she died, so that he got some inheritance! But Ajay Loner was the one I usually played from that town, I always thought he seemed like someone who had just arrived in the area, and had no idea of what was going on there. It was fun to find him a house and have him meet everyone. I loved Strangetown Bella Goth too, such a great character for the creators to have put there for you to discover!

From Pleasantview I liked the Pleasants, and usually banished Daniel to that little cabin in the forest on the outskirts of town. Mary Sue usually ended up marrying one of the NPCs or townies, someone useful (unlike her ex!). Once I brought Bella back and reunited her with her long lost family, only for Sim Sample to move in next door and steal her away.

My longest played sims and hoods are my own creations, and I was often inspired by the Maxis buildings (adapting floorplans or ideas for my own lots). I always make my own subhoods, townies and NPCs- as well as the terrains and lots. That's most fun for me.

Mine are:
1. The Grunt boys, with Tank being my favorite all-time premade
2. Benedick Monty
3. Aldric Davis from La Fiesta Tech
4. Dustin Broke
5. Olive Specter

But I am fond of most of them, at least from the three base game hoods and the three universities.

Another pre-made Sim, of whom I have a, perhaps surprisingly, positive opinion is Buzz Grunt. I maybe wouldn't say I like him, but I do have respect for him. He is a dreadful parent, but I think he's a good soldier, and his promotion to General is deserved on merit. He has a very strong sense of duty and he's not lacking in courage. He'll get involved where I know I would chicken out. I think he's the sort of soldier you'd be glad to have beside you under enemy fire in a foxhole in No Man's Land.

Another Sim for whom I have great respect is Ginger Newson. I think she and Buzz have far more in common than you might think. Both are primarily motivated by a very strong sense of duty. And both would rather die than fail in their duty. She has been heard to say-, "My family will only go into 'care'" (she spits the word "care" out) "over my dead body." I think she's safe in my game; I certainly wouldn't want the death of somebody so courageous on my conscience.

The curious brothers. I don't know why, but I always keep coming back to them if I (once in a blue moon) feel like just playing the game without taking pictures and all that.

I like the Broke family. Maybe it's a lot to do with the challenge they come with, and the interesting ways you can interpret them as characters, but I think I would have liked them anyway. I usually end up getting Brandi a good relationship to someone with money because I feel so bad for her. Apart from the Brokes, I have soft spots for Puck Summerdream, Pollination Technician 9, John Mole and Natasha Una. Oh, and Goopy. I like him, in all his plaid-short, cowboy-shirt, failed-romance-sim glory! But I haven't played the premades all that much, for most of my sims 2-playing years I have focused heavily on my own sims.

I love the Curious brothers too - their obsession with conceiving their own alien babies despite being the brothers, uncles and brothers-in-law to aliens already, their different personalities (especially the fact that Lazlo, the lazy stoner brother, is doing the best at his job at the science lab!), the connection to Nervous Subject and his mysteries and burdens. I don't play Maxis hoods much, but when I do, it's usually them.

However, due to my struggles with following complex instructions, I've ended up with the Pleasantview townies in all three of the hoods I play most. (And by the time I realised I'd installed empty templates incorrectly yet again, I'd already made my first family in the new hood and was desperate to just play them rather than start the whole process again.) So their faces are familiar and they've become part of my playable families in multiple incarnations. Tosha Go grew up and married a playable and had seven children and, so far, eight grandchildren; her fellow teen townies Randy London, Sophie Miguel, Orlando Centowski and teen Ivy Copur all married into playable families. Pizza delivery driver Marie Mazza has married playables in two hoods. Christy Stratton was a spouse in a legacy hood and in my current game she's just had a baby - she always passes on red hair. Joe Carr has randomised as gay in every hood I've played! Komei Tellerman has had two children with wonderfully distinctive faces - his nose and jawbone are, shall we say, striking, especially on toddlers. One day I'll be in the mood to start a new hood and it will be populated with sims from face templates I chose... but for now, the Pleasantview sims are familiar companions.

Goopy!!!