More Awesome Than You!

As Strong Bad states in Email #94, "Email is like a prison. A prison with no walls. And no toilet!". And thus the stage is set for the next in crazy challenges.

Objective: Finish a complete sim lifecycle from birth to death of the first generation, on a lot that meets the above criteria: No walls. No toilets. You may create any adult or YA sim starting from Uni, or directly as an adult from CAS. You may create one or two adults at your option. They must be connected in some way on the family tree. No children: Children must be born naturally. Challenge ends when the founders and the last child of the founder(s) have died or are removed from play.

RULES:
1. No cheats except where specifically permitted. You are allowed to use any custom contents or FFS/Twojeffs hacks, but you may not utilize any of the functions to cheat. No magic mood refreshers. No grade adjusters. No free money. None of that. You may use move_objects or the debug cheat only to move or delete stuck objects and sims, or force errors on the same. You may not delete sims to refresh their moods. Examples of legal hacks include "No 20K Handout", "No Cheering", "Authorized Personnel Only", etc. Anything in "More Awesome Than You" is legal when used as directed.

2. No moving between lots unless required. Nobody who moves out without the use of No-20K-Handout (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/uni/hacks/no20Khandouts.zip) may ever move back to the lot. If you move to a different lot as required by University or because your lot becomes bugged, the lot you move to must be a legal Email lot: No walls. No toilet.

3. No visiting community lots, unless they are legal email lots: No walls, no toilet.

4. You may use the college clock or lot debugger to pick a new aspirationally-relevant lifetime want of your choice, at the age transition, aspiration change, or upon the fulfillment of an existing lifetime want. If you fail to achieve it, you incur an additional penalty. You may only reroll your LTW at these specific times. If you choose not to, you forfeit the opportunity.

5. You may use the college clock to fast-forward the time on a Uni semester. You may not rewind or freeze it. You must still earn the grade points.

6. You may use any of the career or aspirational awards, but they must be paid for. You may not purchase them with hacked collections.

7. Any sim which moves off the lot (not to Uni) individually is removed from the challenge. Assess all failure penalties at time of departure, as if the sim had died of natural causes.

8. Time-sync must be maintained if anyone goes to Uni. You may play no more than 1 day on the main lot per year of Uni.

9. You may marry any townie or NPC. Playable sims may only be married if they were born naturally in game, and may only be married if your generation is equal to or greater than theirs. Nobody may marry a CAS(zero-generation) sim, a first-generation sim may only marry a first-generation sim(or townie/NPC). A second generation sim may marry a second or first generation sim, as well as a townie or NPC. A first generation sim may not marry a second generation sim. Only legitimate families are eligible: You may not marry anyone from a family who has used money or mood cheats.

10. You may never move anyone new in. New sims can only join the lot from marriage. Sims may return to the lot from Uni only if they did not receive a 20K handout.

11. You may not receive money from another lot outside of marriages. You may send money to other lots, but you may not receive any back.

12. NO SAVING AND RELOADING unless a bug occurs.

TERMINOLOGIES:
Controllable: Any sim that you can control and give orders to.
Playable: Any sim that is playable: A non-townie, non-NPC that lives on a playable lot or in the lotbin.

SCORING:

GENERAL:
-2000 points for every sim that removed from play by means other than death.
-1500 points for every controllable sim that dies due to factors within your control: No starving, no dying of standard diseases, no burning to death, no drowning, no being scared to death, etc.. Valid causes of death without penalty include the mysterious choking death, natural satelliting, and old age. The penalty applies even if you resurrect the sim, but not if you successfully plead with the Reaper. You may kill noncontrollables without penalty.
-500 points anytime a controllable sim has an accident.
-500 points anytime a playable sim(not necessarily a resident) has an accident at a party. Cumulative with above.
-250 points for every object taken by the repo man or police.
-150 points for every object successfully stolen by a burglar.
-150 points for every failed party. Cumulative with above.
-100 points for every time I am forced to insult you for your inept mismanagement if you share the story of an ongoing challenge.
-50 points for every therapist visit.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT:
Lifetime Achievement penalties are only assessed on death. Sims still alive at the conclusion of the challenge do not incur any of these penalties.
-500 points for dying of old age without a platinum tombstone.
-250 points for every sim that dies without achieving at least one lifetime want. Uni+ only!
-250 points for failing to achieve a lifetime want that you chose, regardless of whether it is the first one or not. Cumulative with above. Uni+ only!
-10 points for every skillpoint a sim fails to earn. All skills must be maximized!

ACHIEVEMENT - CHILDREN:
These penalties are not applicable for generation 0 (CAS).
-1000 points for every child taken by the SS. Penalty applied immediately on arrival of the SS.
-500 points for every teen that runs away. Penalty applied immediately.
-500 points if the police do not recover the runaway. Cumulative with above.
-500 points for every child that fails to enter private school. You may try as many times as you want without penalty. Penalty applied at end of child stage.
-200 points for every toddler skill unlearned. Penalties applied at end of toddler stage.
-200 points for failure to acquire the study skill. Penalty applied at end of child stage.
-150 points for every D or F report card. Penalty applied on return from school.
-100 points for every child that does not have an A+. Penalty applied at end of teen stage.
-10 points for every day of public school attended. Penalty applied immediately on boarding the school bus.

COLLEGE PREP (Uni Only!):
-300 points for failure to earn the Good Grades scholarship.
-250 points for every skill(cook, mech, cha, body, log, crea, clean) scholarship you fail to earn.
-150 points for failure to earn the dancing scholarship.
-100 points for failure to earn the career scholarship.

COLLEGE ITSELF (Uni Only!):
-500 points for failing to graduate Summa Cum Laude (4.0).
-250 points for failing to graduate Magna Cum Laude (?) or better. Cumulative.
-250 points for failing to graduate Cum Laude(?) or better. Cumulative.
-200 points for every academic probation.
-200 points for every failed attempt to join a Greek house. Joining a Greek house is not required, but failure is penalized!

AUTOMATIC LOSS CONDITIONS:
Automatically lose if everyone dies or is removed from play.
Automatically lose if you violate one of the rules.
Automatically lose if no sims are in play at the end of the challenge.
Automatically lose if any sim living on your lot uses a toilet.

Note: There are no positive points. Life doesn't work like that. Positive points are for wusses.
Successfully completing the challenge with a perfect score(0) entitles you to a coupon for a free breakfast at the Intergalactic House Of Waffles.
Disclaimer: There is no such place. Coupon is entirely useless.

I feel I have a good understanding of the spirit of the challenge, but a quick point of clarification - this is banning the money order and similar things correct? (for receiving)
How about inheritances? This new couple is very different from my last and are having to beat friends off with a stick (and fire, that servo with lazer beam eyes you've been teasing us with would be a help) and it's not likely I will play any of them to death when I'm all wrapped up in trying again for that elusive perfect score, but just in case...

0 for 2 on my hunt for perfect score.  First the repoman then the loosing gold status upon entering the energizer.  Third time should be the charm.  I am starting to get a whole section of my neighborhood devoted to the email challenge

First challenge -500 founders wife died, the rest of them are still ok..she is the only one that had an accident os far.
Second and third family still at perfect score.

Started my second time on the challenge. I made a perfect 0 last time, but this time it's going to be a different story I think.
Mr Nate (Uri to his friends) started life as a college student. He got through that OK and has now moved into a nice little corral in Strangetown where he is searching for a perfectly sloppy but outgoing wife.

Are we allowed to run two challenge households at the same time and have their kids get married?

I checked the rules, and it doesn't seem to break any of them, but all the speaking of challenges implies that only one is run at a time. Not sure.

And, of course, in grand Sims tradition, the story of an ongoing not-entirely-serious stab at the Email Challenge. I'm not posting the serious one, because I'm too lazy to take pictures of something that I don't find terribly funny.
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=42164

Yes, this is legal.

Very entertaining!

I will rate u 5starz cuz ur story wuz 2 kewl!

I'm so glad you toted this challenge over here with you, Pescado!  I've had a lot of fun- and a bit of frustration- with it.  Any plans brewing in that brilliantly fiendish mind of yours for a follow-up?

Yes, t'was very entertaining...glad to see I'm not the only person thinking some of those townies need a whoopin'

Official restart has commenced. I redid John Waterloo and moved him onto a lot in Strangetown. Stats: Knowledge. Gemini. 0 Neat/10 Outgoing/10 Active/2 Playful/3 Nice. LTW=Chief of Staff.

He just married townie Margaret Howe. Stats: Fortune. Scorpio. 6 Neat/5 Outgoing/8 Active/3 Playful/3 Nice. LTW=Criminal Mastermind. She came with a fair assortment of skills and was in the Business Career. She brought $18K and the Execuputter with her. Woohoo!

You may be interested in the LTW tweak, also. It makes LTWs make more sense relative to the sim in question. :)

This sounds like a really mind-expanding challenge, an opportunity to find out what's really essential to these little electronic critters.  We're doing Sims Au Naturel here.

Does the "no walls" rule mean that you can't use things that normally must be placed against walls, such as sinks, showers, pictures, mirrors, or wall phones?

Yes, that's what it means, although most showers do not need to be placed against walls, there's a desk phone, and there are floor mirror options.

I haven't figured out how to start this one off with college students yet.  Newly created students won't be able to afford even an empty lot, so I tried creating a pottyless, wallless dorm for them.  That worked, sort of, until it came time for the bills to show up.

Since there are no walls, there are no dorm doors, and hence to townies in the dorm.  When the bills are supposed to show up, there's a divide-by-zero error, and no bills.

Is the error fatal enough to break your game, or are there just no bills? It kinda doesn't make any sense to waste someone's time sending them a bill for $0, after all.

I am interested in it. How and when would we be allowed to use it in the challenge? I guess I haven't been clear on this. I know we can reroll on the teen transition and after completing Sophomore year in college. Can newly created or newly acquired Sims be rerolled? I know you said I could do it with that 6 Grandchildren want, but wasn't sure if that was just a special circumstance.

The Waterloos just gave birth to twin boys. Yippee-Kai-Yay!

Nope, it's not fatal.  It's just a way to dodge having to pay for expenses while living at college.  Maybe that makes up for not having a potty.  :)

I think we've just learned that the game calculates the expenses for a dorm based on the number of claimed dorm doors.  It has a brief tantrum about the divide-by-zero error and then everything continues happily as before.

On the other hand, a dorm comes with a lot of elaborate and expensive stuff that otherwise they'd have to pay for themselves or find on a community lot.

It's still fun to play.  So far, except for the inevitable interruptions when the sims are getting desparate about toilets, they're doing quite well.  I gave these sims only 2 personality points for neatness, hoping they would not mind using the front lawn as their loo, but they're still upset about having accidents.

Did you try the 2x2 lot from MTS2?  I have one in my town and it think it's only 342 simoleans.

I thought the entire point was NOT to have accidents.

Simshost, college is a breeze on this challenge, I've done it twice. Your sim has a walless looless dorm all to him/herself, a cook to make meals and no bills. So long as there is a handy bush on the front lawn, even a neat male will use it when directed to so long as he is outgoing enough. Females, of course are a bit more tricky. Aint that the truth.

I've temporarily given up on my second try at this challenge. Uri eventually found the perfect wife, but when their little boy became a toddler I discovered that the little brat had 10 neat points. So there is no way he is going to utilise the shower. Do I remember reading that little boys "use" money trees though? Can someone refresh my memory on that?

So meanwhile I have started again with another female. It's just not right that they are now allowed to pee on the bushes. I mean, come on, who hasn't peed behind a bush in her time?  Yes, I know about the animation thing. She is a knowledge sim whose LTW was to max 7 skills. I didn't bother to get a job for her, yet when she had maxed her skills, with 19 days to go to adulthood, she still had over 6,000 in the bank. Could probably have completed this quicker if I had hired a maid and gardener.
She has become very friendly with Don L and I think he might be just about perfect to father her offspring.

I mean a potty-crisis kind of accident.  I didn't see anyway to avoid that, but then, I just now learned that the guys at least will use a bush if it's available.


Oh!  Gotta have it!  I made my own 2x2 lot, but it's $445 in college town.  I wonder how they got it so cheap.



Too right!  I've done a lot of backpacking trips along the Pacific Coast Trail with the female of our species.  Invariably there's some concern about the lack of toilet facilities, but every one has quickly learned that it's not a big deal.  Admittedly the male plumbing is more convenient, but the lack of it is not a show-stopper.

For your amusement:  My name is Greg.  SimsHost is just one of my many crimes against normalcy.  :)


In other news: I got bored with the pottyless, wallless dorm by the end of the first semester.  By the time I'd convinced myself I could get them to ace their finals and be in a platinum mood, the novelty of forcing the simmies to wet their pants was long gone.

I have tried this challenge twice and now feel utterly indaequate cos I haven't figured out a way to make a female sim who doesn't have accidents.  ???

This feeling of inadequacy that you have is entirely understandable.
Try the energiser.

have a question, since every time a kid goes to public school get I get a minus 10 points , does that mean i should have the sim kids skipping school until i get him/her into private school? but then the  grades are gonna drop and i get penalty for that instead.
so how is it possible to get perfect score?

LordHellscream, you must invite the headmaster on the day the toddles ages. I usually wait until the afternoon of his last day as a toddler, grow him/her up and invite the HM. Or you could time it so that they grow up on a weekend.

As a general rule of thumb, there's a window of optimal conception for sim-children, beginning Wednesday 1800 and running until approximately early Friday morning. Children conceived within this window, and aged immediately out of the baby stage the moment the option is available (you can use the Automated Baby Controller, while holding the baby at the appropriate time, to do this without the annoyance of a finicky and unreliable cake), will be able to enjoy a full 4 day toddler period for maximum skill gain opportunities, and transition to childhood automatically during a weekend with at least one day to spare for the Headmaster. Otherwise, you're going to have to shortchange things by aging via cake or Grow Up sometime after 1000 on the last day. This means you'll immediately lose a day of childhood as the clock will increment again at 1800 that same day. Not such a good deal.

So remember: Wednesday night to Friday morning. That's the time to try for babies.

There are several ways to avoid it.

1. Keep them in gold or platinum and Energize as needed.
2. Get them to at least 3 Logic points so they can meditate. This works well to have them hold off until work. *Especially helpful during pregnancy!
3. Have them change jobs a lot so they go to work every day.
4. If they are sloppy enough, they'll pee in the shower. Buy the expensive shower and have them workout first to get hygiene as low as possible.
5. Acquire a ghost. Be careful, though. That's how I accidentally killed my last one.

What, Reggikko, no dumpster diving? That's pretty dirty business and my female child does that instead of running the obstacle course if her fun bar is full.

What, Reggikko, no dumpster diving? That's pretty dirty business and my female child does that instead of running the obstacle course if her fun bar is full.

My founder brought Lazlo Curious home from work. After a while, Lazlo went and ate out of the trash. Too bad he's:

1. Male
2. A Playable character

He'd have been a perfect mate.

You could still use him as a genetic donor...well, except for his overwhelming laziness. That's not really such a great trait.

Gah! Add lack of imagination to feelings of inadequacy.  ::)

Heh,heh. Add me to that category!
But, isn't this why we join such forums aka imagination/ideas/knowledge collectives?

Hmm...I could tie that in with both my plans for a second Email family in Strangetown and my upcoming Curious "Legacy". Great idea.

I like burning toaster pastries.  One burning toaster, and everyone in the household are ready for a shower.

ah, Homestar Runner. What would we do without it?

This challenge looks amusing to say the least. I'll give it a try the next time I get a chance to play the game.

The first chapter of my Email Challenge is up on the Exchange. http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=45028

Fun stuff, so go read it! :)

Awesome story...:). Please give us chapter 2 soon. Rated you 5-stars...:).

Thanks, Gali. I'm working on it. The twins are kids now. John had to encourage sloppiness in Joseph, but both boys will pee on the money tree. HUZZAH! :) John is about to become an elder.

Great story, how did you make the foundation (Well, not exactly the foundation but the "thing" that serves the same purpose.) so high?

Loved your story can't wait for chapter 2.

You can raise an area of the lot using the terrain tool, then start your foundation or deck on the high spot and just drag it out as usual. 8 clicks of the terrain tool is double the height of the regular foundation. Or if the terrain os already uneven, just start on a high point or slope. Actually, I wound up redoing the whole lot because there is a hill behind it and it was irritating trying to get the right perspective for the pictures. The Waterloos are ground-dwellers now.  ;D

And thanks to you and Katze. Glad you liked the story!

Great story reggikko, and you were right, it was built for the challenge.

Amusing story. But actually, it's not true that your sim cannot use a toilet while being an uncontrolled visitor at another lot. That's not actually in the ruleset, since your sim isn't controllable, and thus you don't really influence this.

Ah, I'll be sure to correct that. I thought the rule stating if they use a toilet at any time would also cover that situation. Glad you were amused, at least.  :P

They can't use one at any time they're playable and thus being tracked. Since you don't control them as visitors, what they do there is out of your control: You can't accidentally disqualify yourself if you're playing a non-email family, and one of them shows up as a community lot visitor and uses a toilet. That would simply be unfair, since what they do there has no real influence on the challenge.

(http://www.simshost.com/images/char/rofl-yim.gif) (http://www.simshost.com/images/char/rofl-yim.gif) (http://www.simshost.com/images/char/rofl-yim.gif) (http://www.simshost.com/images/char/rofl-yim.gif) (http://www.simshost.com/images/char/rofl-yim.gif)

Oh flip! My Sim just gve birth to identical twin boys,I thought I had timed it right so that hubby would be there for the birth, but no he was an hour late (I forgot about the promotion). So she had her first "accident", she was so worried about taking care of the babies she just wouldn't use the Energizer.  Never mind, I have no intention of loosing this family, so I'll just have to be more careful next time.

Joan

Well that sucks. My twins are teens. Joseph has all skills maxed and has qualified for all necessary scholarships. LTW achieved. I'm basically having him stargaze all night while he waits for Napoleon to catch up (3 cleaning skill pts to go) and I'll send them both to University. Napoleon didn't have the sticky Smart Milk, so it's taking him a little longer. Once my founder became an elder, I had him encourage his wife from 6 neat points down to 0, so she's easier to manage now. Both the founder & wife have all skills maxed and fulfilled LTWs. The wife is due to become an elder in 2 days.

I still have a perfect score going.

Nice going reg, I'm going to start another one. I think I'll make Julie's dreams come true, and actually let her have the toilet of her dreams. But no walls still. Funny how a Sim gets used to the open-air life. isn't it? They hate going to parties and things where there are walls, they tend to drift outside at the first oppertunity. :)

I don't think this would affect the basic challenge play anyway.  Your visiting email sim can leave a neighbor's lot totally refreshed or totally wasted, but the next time you enter the email lot the sim will have exactly the same motive levels as the last time you saved the lot.

That's why I'm saying that's not in the ruleset. You don't need to worry about what your sims do when you're not playing them.

Howdy
yep I'm new here... actually new to the whole sims thing period but I caught on quick and when J.M.  stuff disappered from MTS2 I found him quick.

Just to state the haaaz thread about J.M. being banned from VS was very entertaining I read it last night when I should have went to bed.

Okay get to the point this challenge well I'm not doing so hot in the hole 1500 yep 3 accidents.  I read this before I started and people said shower and bushes can prevent the accidents, well I have yet to see that.  I started out with single male, leo, knowledge aspiration, and LTW is to be criminal mastermind.

For anyone who is intrested here is the beginning of the story... love this challenge b/c it is a challenge!

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=46494

I noticed you have one of the tub/shower combinations. They won't pee in those, only the shower stalls. How I got my Sim to use the bushes is that I let his bladder get really low and then I cancelled everything that came up in his queue until he went and peed. After that, when their bladder gets low enough, you can click on the bush to use it. My kids and now my elder founder will not pee on bushes, but they all pee on the money trees. Good luck with it!

Thanks for the tip about the bushes.  As far as the shower stall thing I sold of the bath/shower combo and got a cheap shower stall thinking that might be a problem.

Chapter 2 of my Email Challenge is up.

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=46837

The twins grew up, went to college and are now back at home. Still a perfect score!

I love your story they always make me laugh haven't played the e-mail challege for a while was to busy with work, can't wait for your next chapter.

Very amusing story, reggikko - will he marry the cow? Waiting for chapter 3...:).

Heh-heh. Wait until you see what happens next. Woe is me!

I have finally gotten up enough guts to start this challenge. Reggikko, your stories have inspired me.

You wrecked your perfect score again?

Well I guess I am a wussie because I am having much problems with this challenge.  I can't get my sim to use the shower, bush, or money tree.  I did figure out that meditation will stop everything, but darn it I want him to pee in the shower.  I got other sims that do it all the freakin time on there own and I really don't have to pee.  So what is the secret to this?

My updated score is -2500

So when do we hear the rest of the Reggikko story?

Could it be that your sim's Neatness rating is too high to use the bush or the shower?

Next on my list. I've been updating legacies. It's been hard to go back to the lot since my heartbreaking defeat!

Could it be that your sim's Neatness rating is too high to use the bush or the shower?


is 2, to high?

A neatness rating of 2 is pretty much downright disgusting, so I'd guess that that's not the source of the problem.

Actually, to "use" a shrub, you need outgoing > 900 or active < 100 (and to be male). Neatness < 100 affects whether you can "use" a shower.

I am pretty sure I am pretty maxed in the outgoing part but I will check that.  As far as the neatness thing are you saying it has to be 1 or less to use the shower? 

Darn darn I'm not giving up...guess just have to meditate, meditate, meditate. 
Does the outgoing part work for a guy using a money tree too?
Thanks everyone for the help just figued the damn sim was screwin w/ me just b/c it someone how knew it was part of a challenge.   :-[

Less than 1, actually. Preferably 0.  ;D

Don't feel bad on my second challenge I'm at -500 stupid founders wife peed herself the day before she died thaught she was save on her way to work but she missed the car pool, there she was standing on the side walk peeing I could have smacked her.
Had her meditating all night and she misses the stupid car pool, gave her enough time to get there but those elders walk like snails.
I wish someone would make a mod to get them moving faster.

Faster than a speeding . . . er . . . something very slow.
Stronger than anyone in the household when it comes to withstanding their shower screeching!
Able to make it to the bathroom without peeing on the floor!

Super elder, to the rescue!

Maybe being Captain Hero would allow them to move fast enough to be useful?

So your has to be either a boor or a slug.  No wonder I could never get anywhere with this one!  I encourage my sims to be as active as they can get, and boorishness is a capital offense in my game.

I have my males 10 outgoing 10 active and zero neat and the use the scrub or money tree never had any trouble with them, its the women that cause all the trouble specially the elders they have to pee all the time and they are so slow moving.

Chapter 3 is up. See my sig for My Sim Page address.

On my way to read it. Thanks was waiting for it. Mine went down the drain today stupid founder peed himself now I'm -1000.

Great story, I read it just after it was released. Too bad you don't get any waffles.  ;)

reggikko, doesn't the Challenge allows you to resurrect the elders - it was quite sad to see them dying...:). Besides that - wonderful story. And the toddler is gorgeous!

Thanks, Gali. Yes, I could resurrect them, but I already have too many Sims on this lot. As it is, people spend a lot of time meditating so I can keep track of everyone. I never used to let my Sims die, but I've found I prefer letting them go and moving on to the next generations. Sad sometimes, but it helps me keep interested to move on.

John will be back, reincarnated for my next attempt at this challenge. That particular Sim has been my founder each time. :) Then again, maybe I should ditch him. He's been kind of a jinx!

Reggiko!
I am so glad to see you're still in this... have to say I haven't done much on mine lately, my second couple had just finished toddler training their twin boys (freaks) when something went screwy with the neighbourhood. Have been trying to get my computer sorted out as I consider finally buying University so I can get all the yummy new downloads I've been missing out on. How could this not be easier with the help with hacks like the encouri-whatever... one of my twins, despite both parents' 0 neat points had 7!

Your stories have inspired me to continue... must try again...

Well, hey! I haven't seen you in forever. I'm considering starting with a couple next time. I have some new strategies I want to try out, too. ;) I will beat this challenge!

I know, I can't believe how long it's been since I've been on - I've been playing, but the game has been boring lately, and challenges with walls... well, they just don't seem challenging at all now. heh heh

I started a new one tonight. I won't say third, because my second is still fine, just not in a neighbourhood that is currently loaded.

I used a couple this time because my I started my first with a single, and that mailman (Sheldon) introduced an ugly gene that still sends twinges through me when I see his grandsons...

Not sure how this one will go, I'd forgotten how scary that first few days is... but the jobs worked out great so that she worked almost constantly until her maternity leave. Science, medicine, culinary, slacker, military (if I recall correctly)
Because I'm obsessed with the culinary reward for toddlers, I put him into the career and he earned it the night his son was born. Glad for a son, but remembering how handy the little puke-machines are, I may go for a daughter... so much easier to breed.

Thanks to this challenge, for the first time in my game, I saw a sim having nightmares. He had nightmares of the cow mascott; He was sleeping and then suddenly a bubble above his head with the head of the cow in it and he woke up screaming in his bed and then fell asleep again. Hilarious!

The Puke Machines are actually quite useful. Feed the baby, mess with it until it pukes, then use the shower due to low hygiene to satisfy bladder.

Aha!  Good point!  Babies can be an important bit of strategery here!

That's a better way to get the sims to spend some time in the shower than working their tushes off on the obstacle course or weight machine because you don't have to wear them out just to get them to do their duty.

Exactly my point,
Babies and toddlers are wonderful additions to any Email home... poor things get fed and shaken until they toss, then they transition and can't figure out why their parents can't be bothered to play with them once they hit the child stage.

I've been playing this challenge with 2 families because i had a plan to marry their kids off. The first family started with one guy, and it was going well untill he married badly. It was Ericka the gardner girl, who has horrible personality, but is actually quite neat. She hasn't had any accidents, but Derk, her husband caught her cheating (she's romance), and since the marriage is not going so well, and she is annoying, I am wondering if they can break up and I can move her out, or will that incur I penalty? My reading of the rules is that it would be okay, but I wanted to check. I know she can't move back in later, but no one wants her to.

I had a problem with my second family (started with a couple) because the guy wouldn't pee on bushes, but from reading the posts here it seems he wasn't quite outgoing enough. The woman is happy to remain an emailian, and they will raise their child(ren) email, so they will be excellent potential mates for the orthodox emailian family.

Working on a story, but I want to finish the bachelorette series first.

I am steeling myself for mockery. Here's the first part of my email story:
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=54564

Great job! I was sorry to get to the end.

No mockery from me. I enjoyed it very much. And thanks for the plug! :)

No, no, thank you!  ;) I learned heaps about making good sims stories from reading your stories, reggikko.

This is one of the funniest stories I've read yet. I know I'm entering this thread late, but I wanted to tell you I laughed so hard when you introduced the Viking Mime guy I thought I was going to pee my pants ... and thus lose the RL Email challenge LOL.

Thanks for the bump! I enjoyed rohina's & Oddysey's stories.

I'm still wondering why the challenge is called "Email", though...

Ahem, "Email is like a prison. A prison with no walls. And no toilet. (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/video_games#Transcript)"
(This site has way too many Homestar references. I'm glad I decided not to add all of them to the Wiki.)

I'm going to wait till he has it updated for nightlife then I will try again.

I read it it was great, wish I could write stories.

Finally got another email chapter up.

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=56719

Enjoy.

Great update, rohina! But three kids, oy!

rohina and reggikko your stories are great waiting for the next installment. :)

Thanks for the laugh. Very funny stuff, Rohina.  :D

That third one was the killer, and I really truly was surprised. I swear I didn't "try for baby," and I freaked out when I heard the music. Then she has to be a girl. I think she may be the one who stays at uni to keep the lot going.

Since I installed Nightlife, my sims (0 neat 10 outgoing and 10 active) have lost the ability to pee on the bushes or the money tree... They'd rather pee themselves...

Yet another reason not to get Nightlife. Huh. I have noticed that the peeing on bushes does seem to have some weird issues; not all sims who have 10 outgoing and 0 neat will do it. (Well, obviously, *female* sims never do it, which is completely unfair. I think girls should be able to go behind the bushes.)  I have a story about one guy with this problem coming soon. Also, some of the kids wouldn't pee on the bushes until they were teens, and I think reggikko had a story about a guy who stopped using the bushes when he became an elder. I don't think any of my sims has ever peed on a money tree.

Here's how you get a baby when you didn't intentionally try for one.  Notice in the picture where the arrow is, and which selection is highlighted?  If you draw a line from her left eye to the point on the arrow, anything on that line or above will do Try for Baby.  Anything below the line will do a simple Woohoo.

http://img1.yoxio.com/img/133823.jpg

I suspect the odds of this happening are about the same as normal birth control failing, and for the same reasons:  human error. :)  It does add some spice to the game tho, doesn't it? :D

Hook

but there is also risky woohoo which I believe people still use, I do anyway and it only seems to happen by surprise when I least expect (and want) it.

Enjoying the story and looking forward to more awesome updates.

I've found a lot of 0 Neat, 9+Outgoing who refuse to pee on bushes, but will pee on money trees, though others with identical personalities will not pee anywhere except a toilet.
Somebody said Sims were more likely to pee on the plants grown from the Slacker career reward, but the first time I did the Challenge, there were dozens of those stupid plants and not a single taker.
I also discovered that my Son in the family who happily peed on bushes as a teen and adult lost the ability after being abducted and having twins... (my first non-cheat abduction and couldn't have been worse timing)

Two new installments in my email saga. First, the one where I suck, and lose the perfect score:
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=57684

And then the one where I sucked from day one, so the inability to keep the zero score intact IS the story:
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=57686&asset_type=story&user_id=797212

Enjoy, mock, whatever.

Rohina, I feel your pain. I wonder what it is that causes Sims to lose their ability to pee on the bushes? How many Email families do you have going, anyway?  ;)

And may I ask where you get the hippy-ish clothing I see in your stories?

I was so kicking myself about the non-bush-peeing elder, because it wasn't like I hadn't read your story, reggikko.

I have the main email family that is strictly observant. In addition, there is one more strict household - Sirius and his wife and now son. Then there's the family Mandy came from, but they are not strict emailers, and Blake's family, but they just have email personalities; they live in a proper house. So that's four families, and there are a bunch of other people in the neighbourhood, mostly from the bachelor challenge. I am playing some of them more than others.

The majority of the hippie clothes are by HappyMoonBelly, and you can get them at parsimonious.org. They have some of the best clothes, I think.

OMG I have tears in my eyes. That was the funniest thing I've read in a while.

And where did you get Emily's hair? It looks very realistic. I'd love to download it for my own sims. Thanks!

They're awesome! I absolutely loved Mandy's story and the conflict between mom's orthodox lifestyle vs. dad's attempts to be more traditional. The potty training killed me. Great job!

Witches, Emily's hair came from The Sims Resource. It's by angelmarie. TSR is a pay site, which I know people don't like, but I don't mind paying them because their rates are really reasonable and they have such huge numbers of things to download. They also rotate their free content, so it might come up, but I have no idea how long you would have to wait.

I'm going to attempt this challenge - I've been rather uninspired with my legacy lately.

Well, make sure you let us know how it goes, and where to read your story, if you do one. I want to laugh at someone else's misery.

Oh, I will absolutely do a story  ;D

I'll link it when I have something.  I can't believe no one has beaten this challenge - I'll do my best (although I have a feeling I might suck).

I have completely sucked at this challenge thus far.

My founder, J.M. Pescado, and his wife Minion, are pictured here:



[attachment deleted by admin]

Isn't the beard supposed to be white? Anyway, come on, tell what happened.

The beard will be white when he's old.  ;)

First try - Both Sims peed themselves and Minion went into aspiration failure.  She was pregnant at the time.

Second try - Minion peed herself, and Pescado made fun of me.

Third try - I made the Sims more to J.M.'s specifications, and so far, so good.  ;D

Edit:  J.M. is now the proud and doting (okay, maybe not doting) father of daughter Hellion.  ;D

Well, so far so good.  Here's a picture of Hellion Pescado, daughter of J.M.

She inherited the nosebrow.  ;D

[attachment deleted by admin]

Either Pescado has put some serious gris-gris on me or the Universe is out to get me. First child was just born. Not only is she not a boy, she has 10 FREAKING neat points. I have had one born with 9 before, so I know I can deal, but jeezus. Fortunately, encouraging sloppiness goes quickly compared to some others.

I started a e-mail challenge again hopefully this time I get that elusive perfect score.
So far so good no babies yet will try for pregnacy soon.
Everyone that stated again good luck.

I started an E-mail challenge a while back. Been a bit lazy with it though. I'm trying to get back into it. I left off after marrying my founder, his wife was a disappointment. Not only was she neat but she came with a Lifetime Want of graduating three children. Isn't that one glitched?
Christy Stratton (I hope I got her name right) is not good E-mail material. At least she came at the top of a career and with Simoleons to last 'till at least her children get married. :P

Off I go to try (and most likely fail) to get a perfect score. I can already see myself losing points...

I like your stories Rohina, very funny. My favorite so far is the one in Uni.
I kind of like Hellion, BlueSoup. Evil mastermind in the making? ;)

Hellion will be even more evil than her daddy, if that's even possible.  I haven't had a chance to play with the family for the past couple of days, but after tonight, I have no Internet for a few weeks, so I will have lots of time to kick this challenge's ass!

Psst....Pescado - get ready, I am going to get a perfect score.  :P

I had my first baby born and its a girl I  wanted a boy oh well. >:( At least she is 0 neat, 10 outgoing, 10 active she will get alot of exercise to stay stinky,4 playfull and 9 nice. Just got her into private school last day before she had to start school.
So far still a perfect score wonder for how long.

My kid just aged to teen. The stupid "Watch out!" driveway command caused her to lose her stuck smart milk, though. She got stuck in a loop trying to hug her mom and I had no choice but to reset her. Bummer.

Also, I wanted her to stay a child for the full time instead of growing her up the day before, but she didn't pee at school and came home with very low bladder. I had to age her so she could use the Energizer. She wasn't getting stinky fast enough.  ;)

My founder is an elder and in Perma-Plat. Her husband also achieved his LTW and has about 10 days to go before he's an elder (I think). Perfect so far, but I know all too well that it only takes one stupid thing to blow it.

Question for El Presidente. For those without Uni, do they have to meet the skilling requirements with teens just as you would if they were going to college? IE, all skills to Level 8 and Over-achiever status?

If you do not have Uni, then you don't need to score the points for Uni scholarships. As such, teen overachiever status is not important (since teen jobs are basically useless otherwise).

My attempts (one real, two ongoing yet neglected at the second generation toddler level) without University...
My teens all had part time jobs to give them a break from skilling and meet new friends. They were all overachievers (on their first day on the job) as they were all pretty much max skill by the time they got there anyway. I do think I left cleaning until last though, just because cleaning is such a waste of time when there's hired help for that.
My other two homes are waiting for the EPs...

by the way, girl babies puke just as much as boy babies, and though the child stage can be more trying for them, it's much easier for them to produce more puke machines to help everyone else out. The advantage is that you don't even have to worry about moving in an inappropriate housemate.
Adult Ivy Copur seems she'd be sloppy enough to be suitable, and I used a grown Ricky Cormier.

okay, I have tried this challenge and for some reason my 0 neat points male sim won't go in the bushes... are there any hacks that could mess with that behaviour?

Right - I've decided to give this a go - but I have a question for your Awesomeness.  You state we can start with two sims that must be connected on the family tree somehow.  Does this mean I can start with a married couple?

I don't know about hacks, but the sims have to have full outgoing (someone said 9 outgoing works, but it didn't for me), and sometimes even then they won't do it. Like stupid Derk and how he stopped going on the bushes when he became an elder. In my experience, you have to get the sim to pee spontaneously the first time, and after he's done it once, you can direct him, but only when the bladder is quite low. If you have free will off, that would be a problem, I expect. Try cancelling everything in the queue and then make your sim stand near some bushes when his bladder is low, and see what happens. Of course, he might make a break for the shower.

Another Sim aged to elder and cannot pee on bushes any more. So he's stuck meditating most of the time. My founder has 2 or 3 days left, The "heir" has returned from Uni and gotten married.

I did notice a rather strange thing this time around. When the girl was a teen she suddenly stopped bringing report cards home. When I checked her grade, she had an A rather than an A+, which she had gotten as a child. I was wondering and contemplating what to do about it when she suddenly had an A+ again. Also, though she qualified for the Dancing scholarship, she didn't get it. I am not counting that against myself since she did rightfully qualify. I had her apply several times and no-go.

She and the husband are both Romance Sims! I am waiting for her to fulfill her LTW before she has a baby, in case of the fear. I would be extremely pissed if a visit from the Sim Shrink caused me to lose. So far, still perfect. :)

Reggikko try them with a moneytree outside it worked for me my elders peed on that.

Darn lost my perfect score stupid women wasn't fast enough to get to the energizer and peed right in front of it.
Will keep the family and use there kid to marry the kid from the other e-mail family.
-500 now. :'(

I am convinced that my female "heir" is just buggy. First, the A+ thing, then no dancing scholarship and just now I couldn't click on her for any reason. Other Sims could not interact with her and I couldn't shift-click to force an error. I wound up having to delete her off the lot. She had achieved her LTW the day before. When I went back into the game, she was no longer Perma-Plat. Also, before she became unselectable, when she came home from work she was promoted to the top of her career, the same promotion she received the day before to achieve the LTW. Her new LTW is easy enough to achieve (Professional Party Guest), but she was already there!

I had to uninstall the whole game it turned buggy and now I have to install everything again.
I hate when this happen.

Oh, Katze, that sucks. :(

Okay, I've decided to risk ridicule and put my Email family story up on the exchange.  So far a perfect score but its come close a few times.  I should get the next installment up in a few days.

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=60267 (http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=60267)

Very nice Rascal and good luck.  I just started one again still only at day 3.

Good going so far, Rascal!

I have run into a couple of interesting problems. Lydia and Lilly have finished college and are living together on an email lot, but suddenly they can't rummage in the garbage. No idea why.
Also, can anyone confirm that being 10 playful means you can't meditate? Mandy is pregnant, and this is the first time I've needed her to meditate, but it just doesn't come up. Yes, she has maxed her logic.
I'm hoping to get a new installment of my story up soon.

Do you have NL? Since I got it, random sims can't meditate. Heather Huffington, for one, and she's not that playful (I don't think, anyway.) I thought it was because she's a vampire but my other vamps can meditate, so I think it could be a NL glitch.

Also, one of my vamps who can meditate can't always meditate, or do yoga. Sometimes he can, sometimes he can't.

Which is why I'm thinking glitch.

Hi Rohina

I only have the original game, but none of my playful sims can meditate.  I am very glad Zak is a boy with 10 playful - I suspect that's why he wouldn't upchuck when shaken - he just giggled.

The only thing that controls whether or not a sim wil puke when shaken is its current hunger level. Personality, relationships, none of that matters. If a sim has over 0 hunger, it will be increasingly likely to puke when shaken.

Sims with 8 or above Playful cannot meditate.

EDIT: Great job so far, Rascal. I loved the story. :)

I'm close to the home stretch. Both my founder and husband have died. Urethra is a couple of days away from elder. Her child, Sansiford, is a teen.

Thanks for the confirmations. I solved the can't salvage problem - apparently, they had to empty the garbage disposal into the trash once. Which is kind of logical, I guess, since if there's nothing in there, how can they salvage, and kind of illogical, since what they manage to find in there has no relationship to the household garbage they put in.

Babies won't always puke, I usually play with them immediately after a bottle.
Feed, play up to 3 times, if they don't do it, I feed them again and play with them again.

Thanks for that Zeljka - I never thought to feed them again.   ::)  This might be very important info for me as Tamara's second pregnacy turned out to be twins!  This was NOT part of the plan.  My poor sims have had a very stressfull Sunday.  Zak grew up on Saturday as planned but Sunday morning Tamara gave birth to the twins.  I thought I'd timed it so she would give birth on Monday.  So newly born twins, a child that wont pee on the bushes despite his zero neat, 10 outgoing and the Headmaster due at 5pm.  Fortunately the babies slept through the visit but Zak (only 1 nice point and 10 playful) refused to talk to the headmaster and started jumping on the bed instead.  Somehow Zak got accepted.  Zane's salmon and his niceness saved the day.  Tamara manged to get -2 smooze points but Zane bumped it up to 13 just by chatting to him over dinner.  I have a horrible feeling my perfect score is not going to last much longer.

Rascal try and see if he pees on the money tree, my male kids and elders on pee on that.

Quite literally laughing out loud, here. Yeah, the game always seems to choose the worst possible moment to give you twins :).

Your sims had a stressful Sunday? What about yours?! :D

Oh yeah - I was stressing alright!  My husband thought I'd finally gone mad.

Katze thanks for the tip but I'm afraid Zak wont use the money tree either.  I think because he's such a grumpy sim he's just trying to make things difficult for me! 

How exactly does a sim REFUSE to talk to the headmaster? You clicked on the headmaster and chose "Talk", right?

"How exactly does a sim REFUSE to talk to the headmaster? You clicked on the headmaster and chose "Talk", right?"


Yep.  Repeatedly.  It dropped out of his queue every time.

wow, I've never had the nerve to let my emailers eat with the headmaster, I'm always afraid that their horrible table manners will put him off. I usually have the most charismatic greet and tour him, while the other is cooking, call him to dinner and send everyone else far far away, leaving only whichever one parent impressed him more to accompany him for the meal. (usually sit only, no eating)

I've heard they like to pee on the Slacker reward plants though I've never seen it myself, it may be worth a try?

It didn't seem to bother him at all. It was quite funny to watch though, my family bolted their meals down as usual then I had Tamara clean up and go play the piano and Zane just sit there while the headmaster finished his meal.  It took him ages to finish.

Reggikko said that some of her kids wouldn't use the bushes but did as teens so hopefully that will be true in Zak's case.

The twins are toddlers now and due to grow up in 2 days.  Poor old Tamara is back to using the energiser constantly to keep up with them (and I wish I could use the jolly thing - I'm exhusted!)  Just to make things even more interesting the girl twin (Averil) has 7 Neat points!

That whole twin thing sort of boggles my mind. I have twojeffs tripletsquad mod, but in challenges I pick 'original' and of 3 e-mail families, two have had sets of twins!
I've also had a non-cheat abduction (which resulted in alien twins, filled everyone's slot with unsatisfyable abduction wants and ruined my adult male from peeing on shrubs) always the worst timing.

MY perfect score went down the drain stupid burglar took a dresser, he arrived at 10:30 pm anyone else had him come so early usally I had the burglars arrive around 2 am.

Oh Katze - what a shame!   :-[

Well, Pescado has died - in permanant platinum, and as a cranky old curmudgeon.  May he rest in peace.  Well, not peace, but he better not be as bitter a ghost as he was a Sim.

Fat chance.

?!! :o


Oh. SimPescado has died. Phew! Don't do that to me - my nerves can't take it!

Well, I have been posting that my E-Mail challenge Sim was named Pescado....but sorry, I will make it more clear next time I refer to him.

It's hard to admit, but he was one of my favourite Sims - I learned to like the grouchy Sims from that one.

I downloaded the Sims I made, and then I made him as the first character in a new neighbourhood.  I placed him, and then went to create and play a new family, and what was the first thing he did?  Steal the man's newspaper when he went off to work!  :D

I haven't got round to updating my story (you could probably tell from the first one that stories aren't really my thing :-\).  All the kids are now teens and Zane and Tamara are due to turn into elder's today.  So far so good.  I grew Averil up the morning of her birthday so I could spend the whole day having her Mum and Dad encourage her neatness points away.  Very tedious but it did the trick.  Zak turned out rather cute so I made him romance.  Dylan is fortune (for no particular reason) and Averil is knowledge because she has managed to retain her stuck smart milk all the way to her teens.  Zak has fallen for my Legacy heiress, Chelsea (also romance).  Normally I would be planning the wedding by now, but they can't marry (against the rules of both challenges).  I might just let them have a child together though since they're both very cute.  Dylan wouldn't use the bushes as a child either, but both boys do as teens.  I am anxiously waiting to see if Zane is going to go all shy on me in his old age.  I have yet to throw a party (I suck at parties) but I think I will for Zane and Tamara's birthday.  (If you never hear anything more from me it will be because I'm too embarassed to tell you I ruined a perfect score with a lousy party!)

8. Time-sync must be maintained if anyone goes to Uni. You may play no more than 1 day on the main lot per year of Uni.


I am confused by this statement. Time snyc must be maintained with the email lot? But you can only play one day per uni year? Just what is time sync? I have seen it on the college clock but I dont know what it does because when I click on it nothing happens.

Time-sync is the practice of making sure your neighborhood doesn't age out of sequence. Uni-time is greatly exploded in comparison to regular neighborhood time, so a day of Uni is not equivalent to a day in your regular neighborhood, and better ratio is roughly around 3-4 days per 8 semesters.

Sims with fewer than 2 neat points make HUGE puddles when they take showers, and they won't pee in the shower if they have 2 or more neat points.

How do you deal with the puddles?  They take forever to clean up and put the environment score in the red.  Plus, I can't make Sims clean them up if the shower is on the grass - I have to put floor tiles around the shower or else the puddles are unselectable.

Regardless, I love this challenge.

So put floor tiles. Floors are not forbidden, only walls.

I guess I was just looking for a magic solution to my puddle problem.  If I were a Sim, I'd be extremely lazy  ;)

There is a solution.  However, I will let you figure it out for yourself.  ;)

oh, and here I was ready to type it out...

If you are really lazy, you can put fencing around the shower area, which stops the spread of the puddle, too. If you make a small bathroom, then you limit the mopping. Or you can hire a maid and have her do it, or have kids and have them do it.

I like the fencing idea - thanks!  ;D 

If you have kids and make them splash in it, this reduces their hygiene level.

I prefer them to rummage in the trash because of the cash bonus.

Rummaging in the trash carries the risk of disease....Reggikko has found that this can be very, very bad, oh yes.

I'm thinking some of my annoying emailers could really benefit from a plague in the neighbourhood. Except the mysterious choking death was supposedly erradicated by the patch.

Yes, but my Sim got sick at work. I've never tried the trash rummaging.

Thanks to the email challenge..Im in the middle of my very first burglary.  Ive had this game over a year and no burgulars and place one domestic situation with no walls or toilet and this is what you get!.. hee hee  ... I was just bitching about it earlier and now this..... This is too funny. The music freaked me out..never heard it before. 

You've never had a burglary?  Wow, that is amazing.  I get them all the time!

Although, email is different because I took a page out of Pescado's book and I have someone awake at all times now. 

never had one... I guess it was just too much for my game and it sensed stupidity and sent me one..and this one was a real dork.. Dumb look on her face as she took the stuff.... crap..he had just saved some money too...grrr...

Well, you lost the challenge.  Are you going to start again?

omg...youre right!!! damn it.. this was probably the quickest one yet...shit!!!  It was going so well ...damn it he just had a dream date and got engaged...lyes I suppose I will have to.....FAD......the one time I dont want a burgular and it shows up..but you cant put up an alarm......augh!!!..Well he ought to love this scenario....*kicks computer.... now it gives me a burgular.

Reggikko uses stealthy means to avoid this issue.  ;) Poor Kewian!

Kewian you not alone I lost one like that too, next time put a car on the lot with a burglar alarm on and that should stop the thief.  :)

hee hee  he couldnt afford a car.... and the money he got didnt even cover what he lost...augh..oh well back to t he sim bin for him.....Niina would have made a bad wife anyway..

That happened to me once.  It was like playing Sim Chasie with him.  Nobody could interact with the HM after the tour.  Not to talk, Schmooze, Call for Dinner, or anything.

Why is it when you least want twins, you get them?  :-\

I started another E-Mail lot, in addition to my first one, and I waited until the appropriate time for my founding lady, Morticia, to conceive a child.   She did, and then 3 days and 3 hours later, she gave birth to TWINS!  Arggghhh....

Meet Morticia, holding Wednesday:

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Sims%202/3c1eb53e.jpg)

And Pugsley:

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Sims%202/aa1d1c76.jpg)

(If you're wondering about the lighting, it's the Radiance lighting mod, from Gunmod).

I finally got another chapter of my email story up.
http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/mysimpage.php?user_id=797212

I think I'm going to try this challenge...looks pretty hard though! Mind you I suppose that's why it is called a 'challenge'  ::)

I loved your story Rohina.   ;D You've done so well to keep it interesting for so long - I'm afraid I've gotten bored with my constantly meditating elders and haven't played them for a while.

That's my problem, too, Rascal. I am close to the end, but it is soooooo boring. Work, meditate, rinse, repeat.

Just gotta push through, Reg.  So close now...

I have boring elders in who just float, go to work and f***, but I have all those other crazy sims running around, so it isn't boring. Only 95 more essays and 80-something exams, and then I can do the next chapter.

  LOL!  Now I'm glad I don't have Uni!

Yes, but in Uni, you don't get to play the Professor, anyway.

I need a clarification here - If your founder was a single mother and is long since dead and buried and finally the legacy heir dies of old age without ever marrying or having kids, did you complete the challenge successfully or lose automatically?

You need a live Sim on the lot (third generation)

Heir needs to produce at least one offspring, or that was my interpretation anyway...

Have you considered marrying your sim on the last day of his or her life? 

Then there'd be a sim in play when the first generation dies off.

BlueSoup, did you survive the twins?  Post your story!

Actually, after I had the twins, I haven't been back to the lot.  I'm playing the families in rotation, and with all the new MATY Sims being added to the neighbourhood, it's hard to get back to them.  At some point, though, I'm going to just have to say enough, and stop adding more Self-Sims.

That's a great story!  The lots (and for that matter the characters) all look so (what?) so surreal.  And the Inner Cow bit was great.  *8)  And the final snapshot. 

And mostly there's so much more going on in your story than I had imagined just from reading the email rules.  I figured it'd just be like a nearly empty lot with no more than about three people alive on it at once just waiting for each other to die.  You've made it very crowded and complex and wierd.  And of course that's good. *8)

I think it is because I have never been able to play just one lot in a neighbourhood. I like the interactions between households so much, I just can't stick to one email family on one lot.

Putting up fences sure feels like cheating.  I'm ready to let them have an offspring - will post my story soon.  My founder was a bushman right from the start.  We'll see how easy the wife will be.  I have a feeling she may need a lot of energizing with 2 neat points.  Are we allowed to use the aspiration changing orb reward thingy?  I have Uni & NL.

My E-Mail family lives on a deck, and the entire thing is enclosed with a fence, so I don't feel bad about that at all.  It's really the only place to put lights too, besides surfaces, which are generally used for other things.

I have one email household with an upstairs bedroom, using pillars. I figured since the email women hardly ever sleep, that the bedroom shouldn't take up floorspace on the ground.

I used pillars to create levels and fences for bedrooms, I only used lights in areas the headmaster would be touring.

Here it is, my first chapter

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=64868

The Adventures of Zorro!

Zorro appears to be well-suited to the lifestyle. Loved the car in the kitchen, especially that comment about "you can touch it if you like."  :D

So, here are some pics of the toddlers, Wednesday and Pugsley:

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Sims%202/snapshot_d0a35c2a_d0b9396d.jpg)

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Sims%202/snapshot_d0a35c2a_70b939ef.jpg)

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Sims%202/snapshot_d0a35c2a_30b9397a.jpg)

Aaaawww, Blue, they are adorable...:). Who are the parents?

I bet the parents names are Gomez and Morticia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family)!  ;)

Haha, you are right.

I have no idea what possessed me to name them that, but it was pretty handy that they had twins, although for practical reasons, I curse thee, twins!  And the parents who created you!

Pretty fancy looking house, for an email lot, too.

Oh believe me, it didn't always look like that.  ;)  I've only recently upgraded it, and it's still only a deck and a fence.

Okay, I finally got another chapter up.
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=66820

Actually, there will be 2 more installments coming pretty rapidly because apparently I went mental and just wrote this epic novel twice the length of Finnegan's wake. Enjoy, mock, whatever.

Where's my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes Buzz off, kid.
It is an evil alter-ego.
That's not my cow.

  :D :D :D :D :D

rohina, I now worship you. *clutches Thud! and bows before the new goddess*

I was wondering who would get that allusion. Have you also read "Where's My Cow?"

Sadly, no, not yet. But I shall!

Thud!

Just added 2 more chapters. It was all one chapter, but then I realised it was ridiculously long.

http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/uploads.php?user_id=797212&asset_type=story

Awesome Rohina!  Of course ;D.  I had gotten bored with my email family so my computer decided to teach me a lesson.  The CD drive has been broken for the last 3 weeks and I am suffering extreme sim withdrawal!  To top it off I was given Uni for Christmas and I can't even install it.  Aaaah!

Has Rohina lost already, and is just playing on for the heck of it? I'm having difficulty keeping all these people straight: Who's still in the challenge, and who's just in for the lifestyle? Also, all Rohinas suck, and that is the ugliest butt I have ever seen.

Well thank god my back is no longer considered the ugliest butt anymore!

Well, yours wasn't as hairy as that one was.

 I have often wondered if you could tell your arse from you elbow, Pescado, and now I know.

I told you before, Email is not about the score, it's about zeitgeist.

That's a pretty hairy elbow, then.

I really don't want to comment on your personal grooming issues.

Sigh ... I have to report I've failed.  I was unable to play for 3 weeks due to hardware problems and in the excitement of returning to play I recklessly decided to throw a birthday party for Zak.  For some reason I have never had a successful birthday party.  House parties and Weddding parties are always roof-raisers but birthday's always go wrong.  So I had avoided them on the email lot till now.  Sure enough ...  :'(

/me points and laughs.

and now you lose by EVEN more points....

I'm having a hard time getting started again after my last neighbourhood BFBVFS.  :-\  Maybe I'll do the combined challenge, that oughtta keep me challenged for a bit.

I presume it is legal to use the potty-training potty for toddlers, as there is no other way for them to do their business, and no other way to accomplish potty training...  Just wanted to verify before I started producing the little buggers...

Yes, the toddler potty does not count as a terlet.

Necromancy! Necromancy! :P

Ahem. Well, it is. But since it's your site, I say go for it. ::)

I was inspired to make some community lots for this challenge. Take them or leave them, but I thought I would share.

Pool (no EP):
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/lot_detail.php?asset_id=423045&asset_type=lot&user_id=1212206

Park (needs NL):
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=147254

Flea Market:
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/lot_detail.php?asset_id=423043&asset_type=lot&user_id=1212206

Nice. It's so hard to make attractive email lots, although the awnings make it more possible to have things that look like buildings.

I decided to give this challenge a try yesterday.  Unfortunately, my founder rolled the "own 5 top-level buisnesses"  LTW.

Is there an email-legal way to open a business?  The open/closed sign appears to require a wall segment.

move_objects on is your friend.

I made a garden centre lot that had a fenced employee area, and I just used move_objects to stick the sign on the fence. Or rather, in the air above the fence. You get the idea.

Another way is to select the object and press Ctrl+Alt, then click where you want it.

You don't need a sign to run a business, just to close one.

Technically true, but impractical. The really important thing is that you need to be able to put up the BRY sign.

It did not occur to me that I could use moveobjects in such a devious way.  Thanks for the tip.

Now I wonder if loading up all relevant lots with snapdragons would defeat the purpose of the challenge...

Yep. I am surprised there has not been an OFB rule update.

Didn't I see a post by Pescado somewhere saying that OFB broke this challenge and Ethiopian?

EDIT: found the post.  It was about Ethiopian, but it could also be applied to E-Mail.

I don't know why he doesn't just change the rules to outlaw snapdragons.

I'd ban businesses, too.  Townies are so easy to swindle, you may as well consider running a business to be no more ethical than using a money cheat.

Probably because I'm not terribly ban-happy. I'd rather just declare that a challenge has run its duration under a ruleset than to keep trying to shoehorn it into an expanded game in which it is no longer poses a challenge. You can play it under the old ruleset under the provision that it's not OFB-enabled at all, or consider that both of these challenges have lapsed.

Well, money was never a shortcoming in either challenge, it's just not hard to maintain positive income when your options for expenditures are so drastically curtailed, but since I'm currently looking to expand the challenge to OFB, the use of OFB in the challenge is effectively taking it beyond its existing parameters.

I think snapdragons aside, the simple change that meditating sims don't experience aspiration decay makes the challenge ridiculously easy. When I was playing it pre OFB (and pre NL) it was a lot harder to keep sims happy enough to be able to use the energiser.

Yes, yes, Necromancy and a double post, but I wanted to re-open the discussion of this challenge. Does Seasons make email interesting again, given that being outside can now be hazardous to your health?

If so, what modifications do the rules need?

1) Start in winter.  ;D

Well, lesse. OFB is what really put the nail into challenges in general, with that snapdragon business. There otherwise aren't any real rule revisions to consider other than I will laugh at you if you use motive-boost auras like snapdragons or plantsims to circumvent it.

Good luck with that. I started a new legacy, and for a bit of difficulty, started it in winter. I ended up having to sell nearly all her furniture to build her a roof, because every two seconds, she's drop out of whatever I'd cued up for her, or sleeping, or bathing, to whine, "It's snowing in my house!"

Not sure how one would accomplish anything living outdoors in winter.

I thought "There's Weather In My House!" only occurs when you actually put them "inside" by old TS2 standards. If you leave them on the lawn, they shouldn't say that because there's no house.

Hmmmm. Still trying to think about this, because having a roof seems kind of cheaty for emailers.

And hey, Pescado 10000 posts! Wow!

I started the challenge in winter, and am having them live in a facility I built with the foundation tool. It doesn't have to be an actual roof above their head- you can use a platform instead, and it's quite cheap.

However, with all the time they spent warming themselves by the stove, I didn't have much time left for skilling. I've decided to add to the flavor of the challenge by having them completely live off the land now, with fishing and gardening. We'll see how well that works when the garden is dormant and the pond freezes over.

Building a wall with the foundation tool is still a wall. No walls. No toilets.

It's not a wall, it's a floor raised up on pillars.

Update: here's the first chapter of my email challenge story. I failed the challenge when the spawn became a child, but perhaps it will entertain. I screwed up and upped it in blog mode, but you can switch the view.

As suggested, the challenge was begun in winter.

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=157190&asset_type=story&user_id=1212206