Mods for Legacies?

I am considering trying the Random Legacy Challenge, the Wishacy Challenge or both. While reading over the rules for Random Legacy, it says "Playing a legacy is going to be almost impossible without mods like Overwatch..." Is this true? I've never used mods and am a bit hesitant to start doing so now. I also had no idea there were so many (Risky WooHoo!)! Am I missing out by not using mods or is it better that I err on the side of caution? Any and all advice welcomed. Thanking you in advance.

Mods make or break your game. I can't live without mods! EA's base game is either really screwy or ugly so we use mods to fix it up! I have mods to make Vampires more fierce by having them automatically bite people without asking. I have a mod for cosmetic things like better non ea skintones and height sliders! Sure a few bumps and glitches here and there but its better this way than never getting it at all.

If you're looking for legacy mods, try Twallens Story Progression Mod. Look it up on Google. It basically makes Story Progression more personalised like you can choose whether or not you want to have a family keep a property and never move out over time, you can have a family tweaked to be destined for death, you can even choose how many people in the legacy you want!

That's a tough question. I could NOT live without mods, either. Overwatch helps clean up things as well as Error Trap. However, on my laptop that I used to play on, Story Progression was TOO much for it. It could NOT handle the amount of memory or something. With my newer computer (tower), it works much better, though, it still takes a few minutes to "load" itself once the save file finally loads. If you have ALL the ep's and sp's, I'd think about it. I couldn't live without Master Controller. It helps in so many ways. The biggest thing I use it for is when I want my sim (or ANY sim) to change their clothes. I choose what is needed and they AUTOMATICALLY are changed. They don't have to "spin" to do so. That is nice when it comes to picture taking & such.

Also, I spent a lot of time learning how to "fix" my computer game file. There were times that I needed to clean out the cache file and learned which ones were safe and which files weren't safe to delete. Now, though, Delphy's Dashboard does it for me and is really simple to use. I just open it up and all the cache files that are safe to delete are in ONE spot. I can choose delete caches and it does so.

So, if you want to spend the time to learn how to work the mods to your benefit and such, then yes, I would. If you are nervous about it, I might try to play without for awhile. There are some things you can do WITHOUT mods that help make game play better. Clearing caches, reset everything in the game (all objects) (though you can do it easier with Master Controller, and one I've used numerous times before resetting my game file WITHOUT uninstalling everything. The biggest advice I can give you is BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP. I have like 3 backups of the last few weeks. I also backup all my downloads/mods/anything to do with the Sims 3. I think when I backed it up yesterday, it was around 60 GB's. Yes, I have LOTS of things in my game. I love the Woohooer mod, but I have played around with it before, but I'll only use it if it is necessary. I know it is a lot to take in, but we love the mods and our CC ENOUGH to learn how to take care of them.

Thanks @Simon Graceffa and @lovesstorms. A lot of helpful information for such a pitiful mod virgin like me. I may try to add a few and see what happens. I'm obviously more of a novice player than I realized, despite that I've been playing Sims since the original. Guess it's time to step it up and play with the grown-ups! I have a custom gaming tower but have struggled with blue screen crashes for quite a while (clock_watchdog_timeout error). I've also heard horror stories about viruses, so I've avoided all CC and mods like the plague. Now I just need to figure out which mod(s) to use. I also never "fix" files, clean the cache (except for the Internet cache), backup, etc. Sigh...much work to do!

I'll take all the help I can get! I started a Random Legacy Challenge last night and am already having trouble. I rolled "random traits" for miscellaneous fun and my couple doesn't seem to like each other very much. I kept everything random/default except that I did keep clicking the dice until the random traits gave me LTWs that would support incomes I had rolled (Firefighter and Criminal/Evil). I didn't pay much attention to their zodiac signs, but the hubby is an evil hopeless romantic and the wife is unflirty. I can barely get them to talk to each other, much less woohoo. I may really need that woohoo mod. They're supposed to become deadbeat parents to two children so unless the challenge rules allow for adoption they're going to have to woohoo at some point. Just hoping I don't end up failing the challenge, re-rolling, and starting over.

I have all of the EPs and most of the SPs (no Movie Stuff, Fast Lane or KP Sweet Treats). So I'm thinking about the following mods to start: story progression, overwatch, master controller and Delphy's Dashboard and whichever will give me the height slider and woohoo help!

Thank you, again.

We all started at one point, so no biggie at all. I appreciated those who helped me get started, so anything to help.

If you are going with ONLY the Random legacy challenge, then I'm not sure as I don't know those rules. I'd assume you could adopt, but it sounds like you may definitely need the woohooer mod. I did like that mod for "one night" stands. You've got quite the challenge ahead of you. They may not stay together. The wife is unflirty? Ha! That's going to be tough!

Well, technically, Delphy's Dashboard isn't a mod, but just a program you use. I'd also suggest (if you eventually decide to add CC) to use the Delphy's Custard to check CC before you put it in your game. It may be a bit tricky at first to see, but eventually, you'll see if something has extra things that shouldn't be there.

NORMALLY, I take all my CC that comes as a sims3pack file and change it over into a package file. The less I have to deal with the launcher, the better. I also have more control over my package files this way. I use Delphy's sims3pack multi installer.

Another trick I learned about CC is to try to always have a picture in that file. That way, when I'm not in the game anymore and I'm looking for CC that I want to get rid of, I can find it by looking in the file. Granted, if you have a lot, it may take time. Hope you enjoy using your new mods!!

For me, I categorise mods as fixers or tweaks.

Fixers would be mods like Overwatch and others which fix bugs, broken textures or unlock hidden content (some of the paintings and plants have been hidden for some reason with no way to unlock them through gameplay). For Legacy Challenges, I do not count these as rule breaking.

Tweaks would be mods that alter the game to add or change gameplay (there are many for vampires for examples giving them new abilities or making them deadly), things which make the game easier (like increased skill gain or faster repairs) or those which make items cheaper or available to purchase when they shouldn't be, and it's mods like these which I would consider rule breaking for Legacy Challenges.

With regards to their use in general, I can only offer three peices of advice;

1. Always back up your save before trying a new mod. Most mods are well tested though some sites are more reputable than others with regards to checking this.
   
2. Always check for updates when a patch is released as they may stop your game from working until they themselves get updated (this usually happens really quickly though!).
3. Experiment. You won't know if you'll like the changes until you try.

Some mods that I myself couldn't live without are Overwatch (Paradise Island's World has insane lag for me without this mod cleaning everything up.) MasterController (I can use it to makeover ugly townies, sort inventories and many other things), Hybrid (who said that Vampires can't learn witchcraft?!) and OnceRead (I love bookworms, but hate them reading the same book over and over when not being controlled).

I use nraas, I'm so glad it doesn't need you to log in/register to download. I really like the look of some of the MTS mods but I don't want to register.

Don't take my word for it, but J.M Pescado could possibly develop a tool for TS4 much like Twallan's MC tool, there's no where I seen him say he was going to retire from modding after all. Awesomemod was really cool for TS3 (removed all sorts of annoyances as well as utilized some auto-cleanup scripts to optimize the game performance), the only thing that slightly annoyed me is how I was forced to re-download the mod after a little while.

I preferred Nrass too
But yeah, just in case no one bothers picking up Twallan's torch, that'll have to be the way to go in the meantime

@Gigi: Seems like I guessed right From the looks of it, Pescado's willing to mod for TS4
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,22931.msg605651.html#msg605651