I have Simpotence

[yetyak]

I was kind of starting to get this way, too, and decided to play a sim I'd been ignoring.  I picked Kristen Singles, and decided she needed a mate.  Her turn ons were blond hair and fitness, so I paraded every available sim past her and she went meh at all of them.   My granddaughter was on my lap (she loves to watch, she's 4) so I said to her that Kristen didn't like any of the boy sims.  So my precious little grand daughter looked at me and said "Well, Flard".  Guess you could say I play this game a little much...  She helped me make a sim for Kristen and she ended up with 3 bolts for him.  Haven't been back to play, spent about 4 days just deleting ugly hair and crappy furniture.  So now it is time to download more. 

[Zeljka]

The only time I quit without saving is if I notice a glitch (I've had a lot of disappearing objects lately, a sim who was sleeping is suddenly in the pool and their bed is just gone!?)
I used to have the InSiminator in a subfolder and would accidentally kill Sims all the time (usually by flies) and though it was a while before figuring out why, I refused to change history. It made for far more interesting story lines than I'd have come up with myself and actually made the game more appealing. The best such incident being the mother of quadruplet toddlers and a newly transitioned child son in a brand new neighbourhood where the only other Sims were 1 nanny, the paperkid, mailman and one bus driver.

Ancient Sim- I love the idea, the wildcards would certainly add an element of interest, but we'd have to figure out the best way to package. It would probably work best if we created our 'lot' in a new neighbourhood with no characters and got them far enough along to have a home without having made any 'contacts' before packaging them.
I think lot packaging (with all the characters) would have made more sense if a family who knew say Amy the papergirl and Kaylynn the maid could be transferred to a new neighbourhood and still know the Amy and Kaylynn (because they're probably in the new hood too)

[Muisie]

First I was bored
I was petrified . . .

Started the Prosperity Challenge a few months ago and I love it love it love it!
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/prosperity_challenge/

[themaltesebippy]

I haven't played in weeks.  I really want the phone and romance mod hacks first.  I have a fresh new hood with new charatcers waiting to be played.  I have been too busy with other things as well.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, the good news is that the next truck arrives next week. Maybe Nightlife will be on it.

[yetyak]

HUZZAH!!

[Brynne]

LOL, Brynne. I used to have a live pet mouse named Nutmeg.

Now that's bizarre, LOL. My character Nutmeg was based on a stuffed animal I got for Christmas one year. And he was a Nutmeg-colored mouse! My dad named him for me. I didn't even know what Nutmeg was.

One example of a twist I worked into my game was with a popularity sim I have, named Bradley. His dad is Joe and his mom is Brandi Broke. He is married to a romance sim, and I was so proud of the fact that I kept them monogamous (Dayna did have a fling with Bradley's older brother, but that was before she and Bradley began dating). She went for (real time) months without cheating, just occasionally sprang up a "makeout with 3 different sims" want. One day I caved, and had Joe take advantage of TJ's casual romance mod. They did a *bit* more than kiss, but it was over when it was over . They never did it again. But Bradley had never even kissed another woman. He has, to me, taken on this personality of a man very much in love with his wife; they flirt and kiss autonomously more than any other couple I've had in my game (although Joe and his new wife are right up there, now), and back before I had NL and was still able to use the Romance Mod, he would absolutely refuse to accept any flirtations from any other woman. He'd get downright pissy about it, too. He's a hothead, and I love him for it lol. So anyway, months after Dayna's one-time thing with Joe, I had a roomful of sims doing various things at the Bayfield house. Bradley's younger brother, Josh, had an affair a while back with a sim I created, named Monica. She was married, and is a romance sim. She's my avatar, Giles', mom, btw. Josh and Monica had triplets together, but the romance faded and Josh went on to marry his old flame, Meadow Thayer. Anyway, Monica was at the Goth-Bayfield house, too (visiting), and I decided to stir things up. I had her "caress" Bradley. They were friends, sure, but I was positive he'd push her away, since "caress" is a verrrrry dangerous flirt to do. It's almost always rejected if you're not at a certain relationship level with the other sim. Dayna was not at the house, so I went ahead and instigated. I figured I'd just get Bradley pissed off, and he's funny when he's mad. He accepted the flirt! My jaw dropped. So, after not a whole lot of deliberation on my part, I went with it. They had a little fling, and she became pregnant. Bradley already had two grown kids with Dayna and I hadn't planned on him having any more, but with the Risky Woohoo option, I took the chance. Monica gave birth to their son, Cam, three sim-days later. Dayna did catch them at it one day (did NOT know she was on the lot at the time!) and slapped Bradley silly. Bradley and Dayna spent all night and all the next day getting their relationship back on track. (Wish it was that easy in real life to repair a rocky relationship. "Look, Honey, I know you're angry, but check out this great dance move!") Set them off on a date, they made "dream date" status and woohoo'd in the photobooth, the car, then back at Bradley's place, in the hot tub and bedroom as well. Dayna adopted Cam. Josh and Meadow divorced, and he and Monica are now engaged. It's weird, though, that Cam's half-brothers are also his cousins. And Josh's future step-son is his nephew.  All kinds of stuff like that in my game!
I photo-documented the whole thing, of course. Here's a brief portion of that:
 
Started here. Monica is dressed in huge pink dress for comedic purposes. I find it entertaining.


Then moved to the couch:


Next stop: Bradley's room!


And Bradley's feelin' a little frisky...


I was as surprised as Bradley was. I didn't know Dayna was there!


A lot of talking went on (once Bradley dressed himself. Not a good idea to apologize for having an affair while still naked from said affair) And you can see Dayna is thinking about "the other woman" here:


Still trying to make nicey-nice with the wife, and Dayna's warming up to it:


...and everything's just peachy-keen between Bradley and Dayna, now.:

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, JM, if it isn't, guess you'll have to take a helicopter trip downtown!

As to the original idea, what kind of rules will thre be about custom stuff?  (Obviously some paysite stuff is out, per se, but what about things which allow file-sharing etc.)

[Muisie]

Well, the good news is that the next truck arrives next week. Maybe Nightlife will be on it.

Ok, I figured it out. JM either lives on a satelite or Antarctica.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Or Nebraska......

[Brynne]

So did you guys all go off to play without me? I feel so unloved!!!

[cheriem]

I just had an interesting situation happen.  I recently had to reinstall my game as the computer went down.  I was luck to still have most downloads on disk.  I started to play again, from the start, Pleasantville - today.  I decided to start elsewhere than the Goths this time.  So when I went there and started them up, I had Cassandra sent Don home so I could get some new clothes and other things downtown.  To my surprise when I checked her chemistry, she had none with Don!  None at all I tell you!  This is the first time breaking up with Don will be totally easy for Cassandra!  He can tramp around to his hearts content this time around!
Anyway I just thougt this might make those who are bored amused.  On another note I kind of think it would be fun to play with other peoples designs and storylines, instead of just my own.  Since I do have to admit my imagination just isn't that wild.

[SaraMK]

If there were around half-a-dozen of us doing this, we could have a separate neighbourhood for it and play each family the same amount of time and see how differently (or the same) they develop for all of us.  Something like that anyway.

Not sure if this is a good idea or a crap one, but I'm just trying to think of ways to break the monotony.

It's a great idea.

I swap whole neighborhoods with other players, and it certainly puts a new spin on playing when you aren't the only one controlling the sims. So I am generally of the opinion that any kind of collaboration makes the game more exciting.

Personally, I wish people would create their own entire neighborhoods and upload them. Many players love messing around with the Maxis neighborhoods, and I think that's precisely because so many things are already set up for you and you are not starting from scratch. You have to work with what was given to you. Heck, I'd do one myself except I'm terrified no one would like it.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with your idea, I'm just saying there are various ways of playing a "joint" neighborhood, and your idea is as good as any of the ones I've already tried.

Here is one thing to remember: If one person has all the EPs and another person does not (or has only one EP), the person with no EPs will be unable to download and install anything the person with the EPs creates.

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

When my friends and I swap neighborhoods, custom content is not uploaded. We just give each other the locations of the things they should download. It makes a ton more sense than having to pay attention to "fire share policies" and such.

As for those popup thingies, I've been trying to figure out how they're done for a long time. Pescado once said they might be inside the lot files themselves, if I recall right. I think I'll go look for them.

If only families and not the whole neighborhood are being shared, then it makes more sense to use Sim Bios to tell the family story. Each sim has their own bio, and you can fit quite a lot of info in there. Plus there's the Family Bio as well, which shows up in neighborhood view.

[Torkle]

What I would love to see in the Sims is something like the technology trees of 4X games.  Examples:

If you don't teach your toddler to speak, then the adult sim is mute - no phone conversations, no jokes, etc.  Can't even propose marriage.

If you don't potty train your toddler, then they won't use a toilet in adult life.  This might actually be desirable in the email challenge.

Only sims that can speak and have a playful attribute greater than 5 can tell jokes.  Only sims that can tell jokes and have at least one affair memory can tell dirty jokes.

The basic premise is that a sim's personality and experiences (memories) determine what actions are possible for that sim to perform.  A mod like this would be huge and ungainly, as it would modify a lot of the global interaction files, but I think if done correctly, would add a lot to the game.

[Brynne]

I can kind of compare the way I play my sims game to a hobby I used to do a lot: scrapbooking. I found that scrapbooking was less about your creativity in the initial work,  and more about your creativity with working your mistakes into the picture, since it's all done in ink with expensive pens and paper. I tend to play my game the same way. Except that I won't let my Bayfields die



Agh, I thought I posted this a while back, but here it is still on my monitor with the stupid "warning! while you were typing 2 new replies have been added..thing at the top

Posting again...

[Ancient Sim]

I swap whole neighborhoods with other players, and it certainly puts a new spin on playing when you aren't the only one controlling the sims.

Where do you go to do this?  I really like the idea of playing someone else's neighbourhood, one that's already set-up.  I've started a new one now but my heart just isn't in it, I miss my Pleasantview Sims too much.  Trouble is, there are far too many of them and a lot of them I have no desire to play.  But I really do want to see how some of the younger ones grow-up.  I need to find a way to cull the neighbourhood without having to resort to mass killing.  I'm hoping the SimPE Deleter tool will work properly eventually, so I can get rid of the ones I don't want cleanly, as if they never existed.

[SaraMK]

I swap whole neighborhoods with other players, and it certainly puts a new spin on playing when you aren't the only one controlling the sims.

Where do you go to do this?  I really like the idea of playing someone else's neighbourhood, one that's already set-up.  I've started a new one now but my heart just isn't in it, I miss my Pleasantview Sims too much.  Trouble is, there are far too many of them and a lot of them I have no desire to play.  But I really do want to see how some of the younger ones grow-up.  I need to find a way to cull the neighbourhood without having to resort to mass killing.  I'm hoping the SimPE Deleter tool will work properly eventually, so I can get rid of the ones I don't want cleanly, as if they never existed.

I met some other players on MTS2 way back... in January, I think. We first did a Legacy family together, and now I'm doing Prosperity with them. And I'm doing a second Prosperity neighborhood with another group. I also had a friend that I've done several swaps with, but she seems to have vanished from the community.

I met almost everyone by word-of-mouth. Probably the easiest way to meet people is just to make a post saying you're looking for that. I don't think there's a lack of people who would be interested. Just make sure that everyone has the same game specs (you all need the same game in terms of what EPs you have installed), and that everyone is comfortable with the process of installing a neighborhood they receive from another player. You'll absolutely need the notownieregen hack, do everything possible to limit the number of sims and lots, and be able to use 7zip to zip up the files. As for actually sending them to each other, we always do it through Yahoo Mail.

Like I already said, I think it is high time for some Maxis-like neighborhoods to be created by players and made available to everyone. I'm just not up to doing one all by myself.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I deleted a lot of townies with SimPE, and any memories of having met goopy Gilscarbo and co seem to have gone.  But I'd be wary of sims that I'd been playing for any length of time - you have all those invisible memories, and they aren't, as far as I can see, deleted when you delete the sim.

Referring back to Cassandra - she has no chemistry with don in my game either - but it didn't stop her getting furious when she saw him downtown with Kaylynn!  she does get two lightning bolts for Darren Dreamer, but if you resurrect Darleen, they have three LBs for each other, and in my game they get the special event camera every time they woohoo!  And dirk seems to get at least 2 for every sim teen female he scopes except one blonde!  I dread to think what will happen when he goes to college!

[rohina]

I had some ideas for handicaps which I suggested a while ago in my "more challenging challenge" thread. I'd love to play a neighbourhood that everyone contributed too. I have to confess that I have never played any of the maxis hoods - I just delete them and make my own. I think it would be really cool if we did stories, or a chain story.

[Regina]

I've seen many, many threads like this in the past and often contributed to them with my own woes, then one day I thought of asking myself this question:

"Just what is it about The Sims that make us feel like we HAVE to play this game constantly?"

I mean seriously--here just about all of us go through this thing of feeling like we need to play with these little bitty pixelated people on a daily basis.  Doesn't this make you ask something about our mental states?  As in are we all in need of serious help?

To be perfectly honest, it's a normal thing to get tired of doing something after a while and/or to run out of creativity for that particular thing.  There's nothing wrong with us other than that we should move on to another interest and perhaps broaden our horizon for new ones.

I really think we start to feel a responsibility to these little computerized people, much like we do to our own families.  They become entirely too real to us and we feel that if we're not playing with them it's some sort of neglect because their lives can't move on without us.

Last night I was reading an article in our local newspaper written by one of its regular contributors.  The fellow was going on about how his teenage son won't go out hunting with him every weekend of the season.  His son wants to have other interests in addition to hunting while the dad wants to spend all hunting season out every chance he gets.  I thought about it for a minute and realized the son had a very healthy attitude and the dad was completely obsessed.

One question I have is how many games do you folks own?  Do you own more than one or two?  How often do you play those games in comparison to TS2?  I personally have an entire CD tower full of games I only play when I get tired of my simmies.

So, in summation, you all have my permission to get tired of playing with your little people for a while and go off and do something else.  Walk away from the computer and watch a movie, hug your loved ones, go out to dinner or what have you.  You're under absolutely no obligation to play with those sims.

In the meantime, I'm going to go fiddle around with my re-make of Ophelia whats-her-name in Strangetown--just might even put Motoki's afro hair on her too!

[Motoki]

I own very few other games. I'm very picky about what games I get and only like certain types. I like role-playing games but they are few and far between these days. I know there are Japanese ones on the consoles and I used to be really into those but in recent years I've found most of them trite and too simplistic.

I do like other sort of sims-ish type games but there really aren't many of those I can think of either. I liked Animal Crossing on the Game Cube. If you can get over the cutesiness of it, it's not a bad game and it does a little better job simulating personalities of the 'townies' but it gets old after a while too.

I don't really like most standard simulation type games. I just find them boring plotless and too much about numbers.

I wouldn't mind doing some sort of neighborhood share thing if we could establish a reasonable method to do it in.

[rohina]

I'm playing Nintendogs every day. It has quite sim-tational qualities. However, unlike sims, Nintendogs has all kinds of limits built in for how much you can play in a day - this severely limits the addictiveness.

[JadeEliott]

I REALLY want to do neighborhood share...I have been watching and thinking about this thread all day...and trying to think of a way to share a hood among a small group...

So if you guys want, I we could start with my Whimsy Valley layout. if we can figure out a way to send it back and forth, I am in.

[Motoki]

I'm playing Nintendogs every day. It has quite sim-tational qualities. However, unlike sims, Nintendogs has all kinds of limits built in for how much you can play in a day - this severely limits the addictiveness.

How is that? It kind of seemed like Unleashed with just the animals and no sims. They had it up on a little station for demo at the local Electronics Boutique. Scratching the pixelated puppies with a plastic pencil was certainly interesting, but it's cute. Having a limit on how much time you can spend on it daily can be both good and bad, but mostly good I think. I've spent way too many hours on TS2 sometimes. And this kind of evens the playing field a bit so you can't get an edge on someone else by being a couch potato and scratching your puppies all day long lol.

I just wasn't really sure I wanted to buy the DS just for that one game. I know they were releasing Animal Crossing for it too, but it looks like it's more or less the same as the Gamecube version just with some more interface options.

[Ancient Sim]

I own hardly any other computer games, although I used to in the good old days of the Spectrum (anyone remember that?!).  I was even paid to review them.  Anyone remember the Lords of Midnight trilogy (well, the third one never materialised)?  The Hobbit?  Valhalla?  I used to love those games and what I used to wish would happen in the games is basically what happens in The Sims (i.e., autonomous behaviour), which is probably why I love it so much - been waiting for it for years!  Anyway, I still have all my old Spectrum games and several Spectrum computers, although I don't think any of them work now.  The kids have 3 systems - PS1, some sort of Super Nintendo affair and Wotsit Dreamcast.  They prefer those sort, but I don't like them.

Of course, I do have TS1 (with all expansions), but it's on the PC before this, so I don't play it anymore.  I do have SimCity4 on here, but as I bought it just before I got TS2 I never really got into it.  In fact, I couldn't fathom it out at all, I prefer SC3, which is on the other PC.  I enjoyed that and played it quite a lot.  I also have Scrabble & Risk, both of which I played a lot before TS2 came out (after I got fed-up with TS1).  I used to play them both online on The Zone as well as on my own.  Now when I want to play a different game I either play Scrabble online, or a card game.  I used to be one of the admin team on a crib league and I still play quite a lot of crib.  I admit that I stopped being an admin because I was spending too much time playing TS2 and not enough helping to run the league and host tournaments!  What a sad person I am.

Anyway, on another note - that hairdo on Motoki's avatar is hideous.  If I could delete it from my hard-drive, I would.  In fact, I'd delete most of the Maxis hairstyles (and clothes) if I could.  And I've also just realised that it's sitting on top of a nanny's head.  If a nanny looking like that went to one of my Sim's houses I'd burn her alive. (assuming it is a 'her', looks more like a 'him' to me.  In fact, I'm sure that hairstyle is only available for men).

Oh and Jade (just seen your post appear while I was typing this), your Whimsy Valley layout would be fine.  I have a lovely one I use that I found on MTS2 (it's got brilliant views in the lots), but it's quite large and it doesn't need to be large for this.  We wouldn't need to 'share' the hood, would we?  Well, not in terms of uploading anything.  We could all download the hood individually and get it into our games, it would be the families we'd need to download, which is why I suggested we each put our chosen lot & family onto the official site (I don't think families on their own can be uploaded, only families in lots).  If we made them, put them into their houses and left straightaway, they wouldn't have the chance to encounter any paperboys or whatever.  We'd probably have to agree to use Maxis-made lots (or downloaded lots with no custom content) and the same for clothes/makeup/accessories, but once we had them in our game we could customise them to suit, obviously.  

This is going to take some discussion and planning, but first of all we need to ascertain exactly who wants to be in on it and go from there.