I have Simpotence

[Myth]

Well like everyone else here I go through phases as well.  When it gets really bad is about a month before a new EP.  At first I fought it and tried to do different things like make a movie.  Which provided to be more frustrating because I couldn't think of a good enough plot and then when I thought of a halfway decent one I couldn't get it the way I wanted it.  (obviously that project was abandoned)

I have yet to play one challenge all the way through.  I try, I really do but mostly I end up online with the game on permanent pause.  I know it sounds like I have ADD but it's actually more like SADD (Sims Attention Defencency Disorder), I get interested in something and then it gets tedious and I abandon it.

Ahem <reloading>

[ZephyrZodiac]

I have to admit, I get really annoyed at the way sims are losing their queues now - you can't queue them to do anything if they come home from work by car, if you send them to the toilet with the queue use/clean/shower, they forget the use, clean the toilet and take a shower!  As for the stairs, it depends on the stairs - some staircases always had this problem, others have always been ok.

What I do to stop boredom setting in, which it does eventually, is to rotate between Downtown, Uni and Pleasantview.  I guess, with further EPs, we'll have more places to go to, so the interest will stay high for longer.

[BlueSoup]

I used to spend a lot of time on the Sims 2 website at work and back home but lately I prefer to hang in here mostly because you guys rocks and know what you are talking about and I learned a lot here (yes yes, I changed my mind on many things, mea culpa I was a sheep before).

I definitely know how you feel with that one, I feel the same way.  I pretty much hate the BBS now, although I was more about helping than finding help.  The things I do need help with, I find here. 

And the game is a little boring now, so I am no longer playing to make stories, except the Email challenge, which I haven't played for about a week now.  I find I have to gear myself up to play that lot, since it involves some concentration (and ruling with an iron fist, as opposed to letting the Sims call some of the shots).

[reggikko]

How about if a group of us get together and each come-up with a 'start-off' storyline - i.e., we each provide one family.  We could either choose for ourselves who the family consisted of, or use dice to roll the family members and their aspirations, signs, etc., rather like in a challenge.  Once we had our family we would set them up in a certain way, which could be anything we want from battling teens (a la the Pleasants) to a couple who are absolute opposites with nothing whatsoever in common.  Each of us would create a different type of family. Once we'd done that, we could either upload them in their houses to the official site and put them into our games (they'd have to be created in brand-new neighbourhoods to avoid any extra character files),

I like this idea. To carry it a bit further, we could have a  "monkey wrench" option. By this I mean that each family's creator would come up with a wild card option to the storyline. Say my family is John and Debbie Sim, a married couple. At any time, I can post a wild card story point that everyone would have to work into the story. For example, I could decide that John and Debbie should have a baby. What, they just had one yesterday? Oops. Guess you'll be busy for a while, then. Or maybe I decide that no Aspiration rewards can be used for 3 Sim days. Your kid just became a toddler? Guess you'll be busy again. Or I could decide that John buys a winning lotto ticket and the family gets $10K. You get the idea. The wild cards could be scheduled or could be totally random.

That way, we would be playing and planning, but then the surprise element would be there, too. We could be benevolent or evil in our wild cards, or a combination of both. Then we could compare notes on what we did to resolve the issue, or how we let it play out.

[KellyQ]

How about if a group of us get together and each come-up with a 'start-off' storyline - i.e., we each provide one family.  We could either choose for ourselves who the family consisted of, or use dice to roll the family members and their aspirations, signs, etc., rather like in a challenge.  Once we had our family we would set them up in a certain way, which could be anything we want from battling teens (a la the Pleasants) to a couple who are absolute opposites with nothing whatsoever in common.  Each of us would create a different type of family. Once we'd done that, we could either upload them in their houses to the official site and put them into our games (they'd have to be created in brand-new neighbourhoods to avoid any extra character files),

I like this idea. To carry it a bit further, we could have a  "monkey wrench" option. By this I mean that each family's creator would come up with a wild card option to the storyline. Say my family is John and Debbie Sim, a married couple. At any time, I can post a wild card story point that everyone would have to work into the story. For example, I could decide that John and Debbie should have a baby. What, they just had one yesterday? Oops. Guess you'll be busy for a while, then. Or maybe I decide that no Aspiration rewards can be used for 3 Sim days. Your kid just became a toddler? Guess you'll be busy again. Or I could decide that John buys a winning lotto ticket and the family gets $10K. You get the idea. The wild cards could be scheduled or could be totally random.

That way, we would be playing and planning, but then the surprise element would be there, too. We could be benevolent or evil in our wild cards, or a combination of both. Then we could compare notes on what we did to resolve the issue, or how we let it play out.

That would be awesome. Bring on the evil wild cards!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I like the wild card idea1 Whatever happened to the phone calls in sims 1 that encouraged you to have your sims pick up the phone?

How long does the original storyline need to be?  And do we all start out with the same custom neighbourhood?   And presumably we deleteallcharacters?

[Brynne]

Intriguing ideas, Ancient and Reggikko...
Although I'm not bored with my current game, yet, I guess I could create another neighborhood for this and switch between the two... 

[laeshanin]

How about if a group of us get together and each come-up with a 'start-off' storyline - i.e., we each provide one family.  We could either choose for ourselves who the family consisted of, or use dice to roll the family members and their aspirations, signs, etc., rather like in a challenge.  Once we had our family we would set them up in a certain way, which could be anything we want from battling teens (a la the Pleasants) to a couple who are absolute opposites with nothing whatsoever in common.  Each of us would create a different type of family. Once we'd done that, we could either upload them in their houses to the official site and put them into our games (they'd have to be created in brand-new neighbourhoods to avoid any extra character files),

I like this idea. To carry it a bit further, we could have a  "monkey wrench" option. By this I mean that each family's creator would come up with a wild card option to the storyline. Say my family is John and Debbie Sim, a married couple. At any time, I can post a wild card story point that everyone would have to work into the story. For example, I could decide that John and Debbie should have a baby. What, they just had one yesterday? Oops. Guess you'll be busy for a while, then. Or maybe I decide that no Aspiration rewards can be used for 3 Sim days. Your kid just became a toddler? Guess you'll be busy again. Or I could decide that John buys a winning lotto ticket and the family gets $10K. You get the idea. The wild cards could be scheduled or could be totally random.

That way, we would be playing and planning, but then the surprise element would be there, too. We could be benevolent or evil in our wild cards, or a combination of both. Then we could compare notes on what we did to resolve the issue, or how we let it play out.

This sounds really interesting. I get bored too, and haven't played properly for any length of time recently. Mostly I've been setting up a RPG on another forum, doing research for my job or wasting...spending valuable time at MATY!  

[Renatus]

I like the sharing of storylines/wildcard idea a lot. I've been feeling a bit bored lately when I've been playing, too, I've had to think up some 'rules' for myself to make the game more interesting, and considered starting up a number of challenges. Not that it's been a huge problem since I haven't had any time to play since November started, and won't until December...

[Marvelleaux]

How about if a group of us get together and each come-up with a 'start-off' storyline - i.e., we each provide one family.  We could either choose for ourselves who the family consisted of, or use dice to roll the family members and their aspirations, signs, etc., rather like in a challenge.  Once we had our family we would set them up in a certain way, which could be anything we want from battling teens (a la the Pleasants) to a couple who are absolute opposites with nothing whatsoever in common.  Each of us would create a different type of family. Once we'd done that, we could either upload them in their houses to the official site and put them into our games (they'd have to be created in brand-new neighbourhoods to avoid any extra character files),

I like this idea. To carry it a bit further, we could have a  "monkey wrench" option. By this I mean that each family's creator would come up with a wild card option to the storyline. Say my family is John and Debbie Sim, a married couple. At any time, I can post a wild card story point that everyone would have to work into the story. For example, I could decide that John and Debbie should have a baby. What, they just had one yesterday? Oops. Guess you'll be busy for a while, then. Or maybe I decide that no Aspiration rewards can be used for 3 Sim days. Your kid just became a toddler? Guess you'll be busy again. Or I could decide that John buys a winning lotto ticket and the family gets $10K. You get the idea. The wild cards could be scheduled or could be totally random.

That way, we would be playing and planning, but then the surprise element would be there, too. We could be benevolent or evil in our wild cards, or a combination of both. Then we could compare notes on what we did to resolve the issue, or how we let it play out.

Here's a twist on this:

I say we let Supreme Troglodyte Pescado give us family perimeters.  He says:  "Family Number One Shall Have..., Family Number Two Shall Have...., etc."  We build the families using his guidelines in a brand new neighborhood.  Every day he throws a game a bit by putting some restriction on one (or two, or three...) of the families.  This would be an interactive way to bring the element of the "hand of Pescado" into our game.


Sorry you're bored, Motoki.  I suggest that you play your game only as means of punishment and then see how you react  Now THAT could be an interesting psychological experiment

cheers~

[Motoki]

Has anyone ever figured out how to create the little text pop up with background info when you first play a lot like Maxis does with the default neighborhood? It might help to create a little story if we were to say share custom neighborhoods and such. Of course those files if they included terrain, houses, neighborhoods, characters etc would be huge. :O

[Brynne]

Isn't there an option when you single-click on the house to add information?

[ZephyrZodiac]

You can, and you can do the same with custom neighbourhoods.  And rather than downloading one huge file, I'd suggest everyone uses the same neighbourhood template to create their neighbourhood.  Where the lots go would be up to individual players, but I think it would be good if we had to create our own Downtown and University!

[Gus Smedstad]

I wish there were stories and mini-scenarios. Sort of like how the default neighborhoods were setup except that it would actually let you play out to some sort of conclusion or goal where the outcome actually gets resolved one way or another.

That's precisely how I'm feeling right now.  Like you, I'm bored with the standard game, yet I still visit MATY hoping for ideas.  Now and then I see something and try it out, and inevitably it's some odd restriction or goal that makes the game tougher.

For example, I recently started playing an "I'm Surrounded By Idiots" game.  I enjoyed having to deal with managing several other Sims indirectly.  I had my first unintentional starvation death, my Sim's wife passed out while hungry, and I couldn't figure out how to wake her up and get her to eat fast enough.  I could have put a stereo in the room, of course, but I felt that was outside the boundries.  My Sim won the ensuing "plead with death" roll, which was another first, but I could have used the Resurrector career object if I'd failed, which would also have been interesting.  To make it tougher, I had 3 kids, which is a lot tougher when just one Sim has to prod them to do homework.  Getting A+'s was actually a struggle, which was new.

Alas, I'm losing interest.  The big problem was sending my heir to college.  College is really, really boring with just one playable character.  Particularly since she'd maxed out her Creativity skill while brainless, and kept rolling both the Painting and Novel wants.  Watching a Sim paint is about as interesting as, well, watching paint dry.  Now that she's back, I should send the other two kids to college to fulfill the original Torch Holder's LTW, but that seems really dull.

The problem with ISBI is the same as the Legacy game - it's long enough to get repetitive.  ISBI's main redeeming features are that it can actually be hard in places, and it gives you a reason to use the otherwise-useless "influence" actions in a creative way.  I normally play with at least 5-6 Sims in a household to keep from getting bored, and ISBI is a lot like that because you're trying to take care of several Sims while issuing commands to only one.

We need more ideas for house rules or mods that make the game harder for those of us who are bored.

 - Gus

[Motoki]

I have an idea for a story. It's called Whatever Happened to Baby Pam.

Two elder sisters Pam and Inge live together. Pam was once a well liked and respected star but has now become quite deranged and jealous of her sister. She's locked Inge up in her room putting her on 'moderation' preventing her from having contact with the outside world.

We could use Windkeeper's wheelchair from MTS2 and Inge's lockable doors and prison stuff. All we'd need is a dead canary custom food. LOL

[Inge]

It has to be something about why various people play computer games.  I don't usually play games at all apart from tetris and solitaire.  I have a couple of rollercoaster games where I get into the car and sit there as the thing runs round the tracks, and I have Trainz, where I nagged and nagged till they added passenger mode.   I don't want to have to learn to drive the wretched engines!

So when I play my sims it's mainly just for the pleasure of sitting back and watching how they deal with the houses I have given them.  I hate the aspirations system and being challenged to fill their wants.  The wants could be realistic but only if Sims make some sort of attempt to fulfill them given the opportunity.   I resent the fact it was bolted on just to give gamers a challenge to play.

[Inge]

Lol Motoki!  You don't have the evil nanny avatar for nothing, do you?

[Gus Smedstad]

I resent the fact it was bolted on just to give gamers a challenge to play.

People really do approach the Sims differently.  The aspiration system is the only reason I play The Sims 2.  I stopped playing The Sims 1 after about 2 weeks and never purchased any of the expansion packs because there were few in-game goals, and I ran out of my own goals for the game rather quickly.  The Wants gave me hundred of goals to pursue.  I don't even like the aspiration rewards, and in fact I refuse to use anything but the Smart Milk.  Simply keeping each Sim's aspiration meter topped up is enough.

Watching the Sims do their own thing isn't very interesting to me, and not just because they're terminally stupid.  If I'm not taking an active part in the game, I'm bored.

 - Gus

[Witches]

I get this problem quite often, which is usually when I take a break and do something else. Or, I'll improve a community lot, or make a new one ... I made one modeled after the Bronze that has a stairway to hell in the middle of it. Did you know the underworld is filled with marshmallow roasting flamethrowers? Now you do.

I write a story thread on World Sims, which helps with my creativity when it's low. I also have rules I've made for myself based on my experiences with the game. First and foremost is, never have too many sims. I have one main family and only create peripheral characters when the story calls for it. My total sim count (including a beautician I invented for the purpose of helping the NPC fashion victims in the game) is 21 right now, and that includes three generations, three husbands that married in, a fiance, a live-in biker nanny and the frat and sorority sims that came with Sim State. Since I altered/incorporated the "greeks" I count them as players, now. (The girls are vamps, the two remaining boys are nervous ...)

Second rule? Never do the same thing twice. Each sim's story should be unique, otherwise I agree you're heading for Groundhog's Day. That's not to say that some of the things can't be the same, but variety is the key to keeping things interesting. I like to try different aspirations and combinations of aspirations, and if a relationship is getting complacent it's 1) time for them to become elders and be put out to pasture or 2) time to shake things up.

I like the wild card idea, though I'm a bit too much of a goat to do what I'm told. Ever. I admit it's a problem.

However, if someone comes up with something really diabolical I'd be tempted to try it.

My current story thread? A knowledge sim who's a bit too interested in vampires is heading for trouble ...

Oh, and I'm a control freak. I choreograph their every move. So once in a while, just for fun, I let them do their own thing, as long as it's not stupid. Sims in love, for example, can be really sweet to each other, left to their own devices ... my vampire couple is head over heels and are always after a smooch or a cuddle if I let them.

Of course, if I have a sim who clearly has to pee who then goes to use the easel the hand of goddess must intervene.

I hate cleaning up puddles.

[Brynne]

I have an idea for a story. It's called Whatever Happened to Baby Pam.

Two elder sisters Pam and Inge live together. Pam was once a well liked and respected star but has now become quite deranged and jealous of her sister. She's locked Inge up in her room putting her on 'moderation' preventing her from having contact with the outside world.

We could use Windkeeper's wheelchair from MTS2 and Inge's lockable doors and prison stuff. All we'd need is a dead canary custom food. LOL

There needs to be a window, though, so she can "watch" what's going on.

[baratron]

Every game I've ever cared about has times when I feel like I'm just going through the motions. I've put something like 400 hours of my life into the various GameBoy Advance Pokemon series, and I still don't have all 386 Pokemon, even though I'm an obsessive completist. I get obsessed with it for a while, and then put it down again. I don't see this as a problem.

The fundamental point about gaming is that it's supposed to be fun.  It's supposed to be an escape from reality - something to occupy your mind and entertain you. This means it's pointless to carry on playing a game when it's ceased to be fun. Doesn't mean it won't ever be fun again, just that you need to do something else for a bit - pick up another game, or a book, or a TV series.

I don't think it's strange to still want to download objects for Sims 2, because in a way the downloading is part of the fun - looking for interesting new furniture, or whatever. Frankly, if it was as easy to change real life decor & furniture as it is in the Sims, I'd have completely new furniture every couple of months . You can still be a fan of the game & its community/ies while you don't feel like playing it. Right now, my partner & I, big kids that we are, sit & watch the Pokemon anime when we have dinner (I bought him a cuddly Wobbuffet for his birthday today, and he loved it!) - but I'm not playing the games at all.

This post is a wee bit incoherent, but I have to leave for work now . Sorry.

[Witches]

Not incoherent at all.

You're absolutely right. If it's not fun, why do it?

Eventually it will pull you back in, or it won't. Life goes on.

[Brynne]

I play mine kind of like a soap-opera. Or even like playing Barbies, I guess.  I was never much of a barbie-player, but I think many can relate to the doll-house style of playing. My characters are all based on characters I created as a child, except back then Joe was a mouse named Nutmeg. He had a brother named Cocoa, who is Joe's brother, Gary , in my game.  And Nutmeg was also not at all sexual like 'ol Romance Joe, since I was just a little kid and wasn't interested in anything mushy and didn't know anything about sex. He just always got himself into silly messes at school, etc. and was a very mischievous little mouse. He was also not-so-loosely based on me (yes, Nutmeg was a male mouse and I'm a girl. A girl, dammit! But I was a real tomboy. I preferred my tonka trucks over silly girlie dolls. Now I collect dolls. Pretty funny how that turned out. But I digress...). Because since I was a baby, "things just happened" with me.  That was what my mom said as she shook her head. "Valerie, Valerie, Valerie. Things just happen with you, don't they?". Now my husband says the very same thing. lol

But back to my original point, I think it's the fact that Joe's been a part of my life in one way or another for over 25 years that keeps me drawn to this game. Joe's just who Nutmeg would have turned out to be, except probably not as ..."romantic". ahem. He's also hot and not a mouse, lol. I just like to see how Joe gets himself into, and out of, every situation I can think of. And any little "surprise occurences" in my game will have to be written in and dealt with just like the "surprise occurances" I have to deal with, still. Joe's son Josh has tried to die on me twice, now. I had to exit without saving. I have my limits. There will be no Bayfield deaths!

[Witches]

LOL, Brynne. I used to have a live pet mouse named Nutmeg. The other one was named Kate. (I'm a Shakespeare fan.) Nutmeg was, well, nutmeg-colored and Kate was black and white spotted. They were adorable. (Don't ask what happened to them. That wasn't so adorable.)

I too have a rule about not quitting if something happens I don't like, including death. My first Buffy Summers lasted exactly two minutes, real time, before being hit by a satellite. And my favorite sims had a boy for their only child when I really wanted a girl, but I dealt with it and now I'm glad I did. It wouldn't have felt right to just delete him.

The only time I quit without saving is if I really screw up a remodel or if the game gets glitchy on me, like the time my sim walked in circles and wouldn't get into the @90! cab. Or do anything else, for that matter.

[RabidAngel]

Oh, I definitely have to agree, Motoki....
I have those periods alot!  In fact, I only recently played a few days ago after my whole re-installation fiasco.  I simply couldn't bring myself to play for quite some time before that...I really wish there was a way to keep it all fresh.  I am not very imaginative, and all of my familys end up living the same types of lives, lol.  Even when I try to think up different scenarios, it ends up turning into the same old thing.  We definitely need to figure out a way to freshen up the game.
Sadly, even when Nightlife came out, I was exceedingly bored with it. I haven't played it much at all, even though it's the most fun I've had since I first got my copy of the Sims 2 awhile back.
So, I too suffer from Simpotence and feel your pain.  You have my shoulder to cry on if ever you need.