Lifetime Fears

[J. M. Pescado]

I would think that family sims, being practitioners of the r-strategy, wouldn't really feel THAT permanently bent out of shape by the loss one of their dozen spawn. I would think a knowledge or fortune sim losing their only heir would hit them harder. But then, even "dying before I do" isn't terribly meaningful, if you're, say, a vampire, and thus EXPECT to see them die before you do, since you don't intend on ever dying.

And frankly, even REGULAR fears rarely happen, due to the stompage effect. Just like small wants are often stomped by power-wants, smaller, more reasonable fears are invariably stomped by outlandish, nigh-impossible fears. Sims in the beginning fear plausible things, like being stinky, bladder failure, passing out, and fires. They quickly stop being concerned by even the dreaded bladder failure, instead becoming fixated on impossibilities like becoming enemies with their 100/100 friends, and having their not-elder friends and family die, things which...just aren't really plausible. They seem to have a certain lack of priorities.

[RainbowTigress]

Sims often fear the death of their SO, but unless an accident happens, that fear is only realized when their SO dies of old age.  If they are permaplat, though, this really doesn't have much of an impact.  Toddlers seem to have more problems with this since they often fear the death of a relative, and their aspiration meters are so short, it sends them into aspiration failure.  Fortunately, it doesn't take much to get them out of it.  Some snuggles and tickles from Mommy or Daddy, or learning to potty if it's a want, etc., and they are as good as new.

One of the silliest fears has to be the fear of having a bad conversation that accompanies "Talk to X."  When two sims first meet, it's inevitable that they are going to have a bad conversation sooner or later, as soon as one mentions something the other isn't interested in.

[kutto]

Luckily, that fear is also the most pathethic excuse for a penalty. -350? You can barely tell if it budged.

[RainbowTigress]

It's most noticeable on a date, though.  That's when I actually noticed it.

[jsalemi]

The Sims just isn't a game where your only daughter can be killed by a hitman trying to kill you. Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference.

Godfather III?

[Avalikia]

I've always been annoyed that opposing wants and fears (i.e. want to have a baby and fear of having a baby) don't have the same change in aspiration.  The wants are always more potent than the fears, so even if do realise a few fears you never get hit hard enough to cause yourself problems getting the aspiration meter back up.

[J. M. Pescado]

Godfather III?

And Jsalemi wins the prize.

I've always been annoyed that opposing wants and fears (i.e. want to have a baby and fear of having a baby) don't have the same change in aspiration.  The wants are always more potent than the fears, so even if do realise a few fears you never get hit hard enough to cause yourself problems getting the aspiration meter back up.

The wants are also generally more plausible than the fears are. Sims tend to want things that could potentially happen more often than not, but tend to fear the very implausible or downright impossible. "Be enemies with 100/100 friend" is just not a plausible thing that is likely to happen, as opposed to the more mundane concerns of being stinky, having a bladder failure, fires, or passing out, which hover as everpresent hazards at all times.

[jsalemi]

...as opposed to the more mundane concerns of being stinky, having a bladder failure, fires, or passing out, which hover as everpresent hazards at all times.

The only ones I usually see roll those fears (other than fires) are pregnant sims, who always seem to be afraid of passing out or peeing on the floor.

[J. M. Pescado]

A generally everpresent hazard with real pregnant people, I'm told.

[jsalemi]

Yea, that seems to be one of the few true-to-life things in the game -- guess some of the maxis programmers (or their SOs) were pregnant while the original was being designed.


So what did I win?

[RainbowTigress]

Also, sloppy sims seem to often roll up fears of changing diapers.  But as soon as that fear is realized, they immediately roll up a fear to play with or cuddle the baby, which cancels out the fear.

[J. M. Pescado]

So what did I win?

A free kicking and stomping, which you can redeem in the chat channel at the next available opportunity.

[jsalemi]

So what did I win?

A free kicking and stomping, which you can redeem in the chat channel at the next available opportunity.

Duly noted.

[RainbowTigress]

Those are always free, and unsolicited. 

[fwiffo]

And Jsalemi wins the prize.

Doh, I was gonna say Death Wish staring the immortal Charles Bronson.  Or was it Death Wish II?  Whichever one where a gangster played by what's-his-stupid-face from The Fly and Macintosh commercials killed his daughter.  Or was that his wife?  Or was that the sequel?  I think it was the one that had the soundtrack by Herbie Hancock, not the other one, which was Jimmy Page.  It wasn't the third one, when he accquired the sidekick that held his box of bullets for him.  Anyhow, the best Charles Bronson movie is Once Upon a Time in the West.  What was this thread about again?

Oh, fears.  Yeah, they're pretty much impossible.  I've been trying to get a satellite death in my Legacy house for a few generations now.  I had a husband and wife who spent pretty much all their free time watching clouds/stars together.  Finally, she gets taken out, but they were perma-plat, so aside from a little sobbing, no problem.  Even one of the teenage kids who had her death as a fear was hardly fazed.  So I thought I would have some drama with the widower since legacy is so freaking boring after generation 1.  I used the surgery machine to give him a permenent scowl then had him make enemies with every townie that walked by.  I had his cousin make friends with them so I could invite them to their joint B-day party, and he kicked all their asses repeatedly, making them cry, and a bunch of people got scared by the ex-wife's ghost, then he fed himself to the cowplant.  And it was still a roof-raiser!  His daughter had his death as a fear and she didn't quite get low enough to get into aspiration failure.

What does it take to make sims unhappy?

[BeckerCheez]

Man that's one heck of a party.   

The only time I had a Sim go into aspiration failure was when a woman lost her hubby to old age, and what did the Therapist "recommend" as therapy?  Get another lover, you silly Family Sim.   

[dizzy]

You want sims to be unhappy? Play the ISBI challenge with all fortune sims.

[Avalikia]

Actually, in my ISBI challenge game my starting Sim's husband turned out to be a Fortune Sim and he's doing quite well.  He must have come with a lot of skillpoints because he keeps getting promoted, and you know how Fortune sims like being promoted.  It also helps that I chose for my starting sim to have the Fortune aspiration as well so often times when I buy the stuff she Wants me to buy, the stuff floating over his head indicates that he wanted it as well.

[croiduire]

I frequently have sims in mild aspiration failure (mostly because I usually don't pay any attention to illogical wants or fears, and I have to want something before I'll buy it). My most recent of any duration was a YA who started with fear of getting sick. He caught the ubiquitous campus cold, which--since he was caffeine-ating instead of sleeping--soon became pneumonia. He'd managed to roll up all the sick-related fears--passing out, having an accident, etc.--along with a few others, and all his wants were pretty grandiose, so he hit red and stayed there for quite a while. He was actually pretty cool that way...every time he went to the bathroom he'd cry, and he kept waking up in the middle of the night to stare into space. Otherwise he behaved normally, and eventually the game corrected, as it does. His wants became simpler and simpler until it was impossible NOT to meet them, even if I'd been trying (which, as it happens, I wasn't--it was too entertaining to see what he'd do next when left pretty much to his own devices) Eventually he had a whole screen of comfort foods and routine activities (eat mac-and-cheese, eat spaghetti, eat pancakes, do assignment, go to class) and was soon green again.

Actually, overall my sims tend to have very reasonable wants and fears (the only exception is when I killed Mrs. Crumplebottom, and almost every sim in that neighborhood for a while had the fear that she'd come back as a zombie. While that's illogical, I can truly understand why the thought would be terrifying. I mean, the thought of a zombie-Crumplebottom scares me too!) I ignore the silly ones, and as the aspiration bar drops they spawn ever more reasonable wants until they can be met. And for every completely irrational fear, they seem to spawn another that's almost inevitable (newly preggo sim with a fear of throwing up, new parent afraid of changing diapers, sim working out who doesn't want to be stinky, etc.)

Illogical wants that can never be achieved don't bother me (I have several of those too...I wanted to be an astronaut, I wanted to be a physicist, I wanted to write a novel...it ain't gonna happen. Fortunately I can entertain far more than six wants at any given time! *grin*) I think it's rather unfortunate that legitimate grief isn't more enduring in game...death of a spouse, death of a child, lose of a job...it shouldn't take mere hours to recover.