Does Maxis do this on purpose?

[minonda]

I've been playing TS2 for about 2 months and NL for about 2 weeks. For most of that time I was playing my first neighborhood, with about 6 CAS Sims and their progeny. Then I uninstalled the game and deleted everything so I could start over, and for the past week have been playing 8 new Sims who so far have not reproduced, so it's just them, the Maxis-created playable Sims and the townies.

Here's my question: I've noticed a  curious development that seems to happen in spite of anything I do -- there seems to be a Sim who is designated as the bad luck Sim, the one who is always having crises, especially when things are going very well. This unfortunate Sim just can't seem to cut a break. Two of my Sims, one born in game of CAS Sims in the first game, the other a CAS in my new game, have this curse. So I'm wondering, does Maxis deliberately program it so that somebody in the game is constantly having bad luck?

Something else that made me think Maxis has a list of character types or behaviors that must be in the game is what happened when I deleted Mortimer Goth in the first game (before I knew you should never delete Sims). Mortimer was being a pain, running into peoples' houses and starting fights. I found him tiresome so I decided to move him out of his house and then delete him. Instead of being rid of his behavior, I then found that John Burb suddenly became confrontational and difficult. So it appears that the disruptive behavior that Mortimer was demonstrating is something Maxis thinks is essential to the game.

Does anyone know for sure, or think, that this stuff is programmed into the game (to make it more like life, I guess?)?

[nocomment]

Mortimer was running into your houses because the other sims were spying on him with the telescope.  When they use it during the day, they spy on a neighbor.

When you deleted him, they started spying on someone else.

As for the bad luck sim, that sounds like real life to me, not special programming!

[minonda]

Thanks! I did have several of them looking through the telescope during the day in the first game. I haven't done that in the second game, and now that you say that, I realize that I don't have anyone bursting in to anyone's house, either. I stopped having them use the telescope during the day because I wasn't sure if they got logic points if it wasn't literally "stargazing."


How did you find out what was making Mortimer mad? I would never have put those two things together.

[Karen]

If Mortimer is not available, I think the game selects the Sim with the earliest-numbered character file.  Mortimer is character 001.  In my game, his son Alexander became the "slapper" after Mortimer died, but it can vary.

If you don't like this behavior, twojeffs has a "no shoving from looking through telescope" hack here:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1189.0

And yes, they do get logic points from stargazing during the day....

Karen

[minonda]

Thank you, Karen, that's very helpful. I guess I can tolerate the unpleasant behavior, now that I know the reason for it. It's also very helpful to know that they can fulfill their logic requirement during the day, but then of course I'm inviting the wrath of Mortimer. Have to decide whether it's worth it.

[Ancient Sim]

I have a mod that chooses a random Sim to be spied on, so it's not always the same person.  Usually it's someone who lives nearby.  Makes it far more realistic and you never know who it's going to be.  Incidentally, not all Sims will spy on others, usually it's just the not-so-nice ones who do it.  And you can sometimes stop the slapping happening (and the resulting relationship plummet) if you cancel out the "Be Slapped" thingy at the right time.  Or you can simply delete or teleport out the slapper.

[BlueSoup]

I've had nice Sims spy only on shrubs and flowerbeds, but they still get slapped by someone.  So what's going on in those flowerbeds anyway? 

[Jelenedra]

Yeah, I use the no-shove-from-telescope hack myself. I got fed up with stupid neighbors interrupting my Sim's skill building.

Before the noshove hack, I always stuck with the chess table, that way they get social if you make someone join them too. (also more comfortable, depending on the chair you use)

[ElfPuddle]

How did you find out what was making Mortimer mad? I would never have put those two things together.

Because we're awesome.

Well, someone here told me.

[starrling]

Does anyone know for sure, or think, that this stuff is programmed into the game (to make it more like life, I guess?)?

I think they used me for a model 

[Regina]

Maxis built so many "cool" features into TS2, but unfortunately no one thought about how uncool and/or annoying they would be after the 100th or so time of seeing them.  (Oh yeah--we all want our sims running to let us know how badly they hate that bare lightbulb we just put on their wall.)

Learn what irritates you and make a list, then go shopping for mods (aka hacks).  There're mods to squelch just about every annoying action in the game, from the toddlers not sleeping through the night to that blasted "furious" feature they added in NL.

As for the down on his luck character, after you play for a while you'll probably notice the same thing I do.  While things are supposed to be relatively random, they don't normally happen that way in-game.  For example, you may play for weeks on end and never see a chance card and if you do always manage to pick the "right" choice, then all of a sudden one sim might get fired or demoted four days in a row.  You may go for weeks without a sim ever starting a kitchen fire, then *poof* your sim with high cooking skills will burst into flames while cooking pancakes and three or four more fires might start within the next couple of sim days.

[Jack Rudd]

As for the down on his luck character, after you play for a while you'll probably notice the same thing I do.  While things are supposed to be relatively random, they don't normally happen that way in-game.  For example, you may play for weeks on end and never see a chance card and if you do always manage to pick the "right" choice, then all of a sudden one sim might get fired or demoted four days in a row.  You may go for weeks without a sim ever starting a kitchen fire, then *poof* your sim with high cooking skills will burst into flames while cooking pancakes and three or four more fires might start within the next couple of sim days.

That's the way random variables work. You often get results clumping together in ways which might suggest a non-random pattern, even when there isn't one.

[J. M. Pescado]

Computer random number generators are actually known as "pseudorandom". One known artifact of random-number generation on computers is that low-order bits are often correlated, which can result in lengthy streaks. In Maxis's case, the resulting behavior translates more as "sadorandom".

[minonda]

Thanks, Regina. Actually, I can put up with most of the annoying stuff if I know why it's happening. What I especially don't like is when they start yelling at me if something is in the way, but even that is not worth trying to remove. I just yell back at them and move whatever is in the way.

I just thought these two things, the persistent bad luck and the crazy angry person, were deliberately put in there and wanted to know if I was right about that. Now I understand the reason for a Sim coming into the house all angry, so it's okay. I did have a Sim looking through the telescope during daylight yesterday, and all he saw were flower beds, bushes and trees. I'm waiting to see if he gets any angry visitors. I would think that looking at plants and flowers is harmless enough, but maybe the Sim whose property they're on will see it differently.

I hope my poor unlucky Sim can ride his clump of negative randomness and get to the good stuff.

[jsalemi]

Computer random number generators are actually known as "pseudorandom". One known artifact of random-number generation on computers is that low-order bits are often correlated, which can result in lengthy streaks. In Maxis's case, the resulting behavior translates more as "sadorandom".

Yea, I saw this last night -- first time I played a uni in a while, and in all three dorms I played, a sink broke. Got kinda funny after a while, just waiting for it to happen.

[tIIsuggas]

After looking at the date to make sure I am not breaking the Necromancy rule.

I found a way to stop spyees from slapping.  If you build a swimming pool between your sims house and the road, the spyees will just come and shake their fist.  This is also a lazy way of gaining body skill points.  Sims have to navigate the pool before going to the carpool.  Similar to cleaning and cooking skill points gained gradually while doing these jobs, insead of intensive skill building.

The maid and repairman still do their jobs, though,  I havn't tried this with the repoman/social worker/fire service/burlar yet, so I don't know the outcome of these scenarios.

[jsalemi]

There are hacks around that do everything from reducing to eliminating the telescope slapping.  I'm pretty sure one of the fine modders here has one, but I can't find it right now.