More Awesome Than You!

I know I'm norminating myself for retardo land asking this, but here goes anyway.  Is dancing another ADHD problem area when fun is full or nearly so?  I've been having great difficulty getting my sims (with free will off and power idle either on or off) to dance for longer than the initial head bobbing.  This makes it very difficult to gain dancing skill to get the bust-a-move option or the scholarship.  They will sometimes dance with someone else for a little bit longer, but even that is not sustained the way it was before macrotastics.  I even tried setting the fun option to 25% but they still wouldn't dance very long and kept wanting to run to the gnome, which had been stolen, and they couldn't get back because with free-will off, they won't go get it!  :-\

Is there any way to add a "dance" option to the skillinator?  Even though there's no progress bar?  Especially since dancing skill is so powerful, dare I say essential to friendship building?

Chris

Yes, dancing is another ADHD thing. The ideal time to learn dancing is right after your sim comes home from school, with his new friend. At this point in time, everyone's fun will be sufficiently low to prevent the ADHD effect, and both sims can simultaneously learn the dancing skill (the visiting sim will also gain dancing skill if he doesn't already have it). Thus, the dancing skill can be learned at zero time cost.

If I could ask a related question...is there a correlation between how long two Sims dance and how many relationship points are earned? And it seems that the "better" dancer your Sim is, the faster relationship points are earned, is that correct or am I imagining things again?

Jen

No relationship: The +rel for dancing with somebody is independent of how long the dancing actually lasts.

Good to know, thanks J.M. I won't waste too much time dancing to build up relationship points then.

Jen

That is one feature that will be nice in NL, if it works as advertised. There's going to be a lot of nested actions that let you have more control over how your sims interact while dancing, with the basic effect being that they'll be able to build relationship with it.

Oh, bugger. That's going to be a royal mess in the romance mod, in all likelyhood.

And a royal mess in every other conceivable way, in all likelyhood, since statistically it will probably be coded by a half-blind terminally bored monkey with half his brain gone.

Aren't dancing skills also based on the sim's personality?  If they're real outgoing and playful, they're gonna do more than head bobbing.

Yes, but the shy ones can learn to dance well if they have an outgoing friend or family member to encourage them.  They'll still whine, though, if you tell them to dance when what they really want to do is isolate themselves on the computer!

Dancing skill is not related to personality.

I think that was what I was trying to say - it's just the shy ones (especially if they're serious too) often don't like doing it!

Right - outgoing sims are dancers and the shy ones aren't.  That's been my experience.  I don't think sims can actually "learn" to dance.  They either like to or they don't.

No, the personality of a sim has absolutely no effect on dancing skill. The dancing skilll is what determines the scholarship and "Bust-A-Move". Outgoingness or Shyness has no effect.

How does a Sim learn how to dance?  There is no skill meter to tell you what level they are at or they can't practice or learn like they can for cooking or logic, for example.

There is a score, but it's not displayed in any meter. Yes, yes, I suppose now you WANT a meter. I'll look into it.

Awwwwh...you're so sweet.  Now...don't even consider my lips because I'm being so moooshy.   :-X  And while you're at it....what about a meter for romance?  Or is that pushing my luck?  ;D

Love what ya do, JM!

 :D You make me laugh.  So Sims actually learn to dance.  I have learned something new today thanks to the neverending talents of our WONDERFUL El Presidente Pescado!

There is no Romance quantity that can be given a meter. Romance is not a skill, nor a progression, so cannot be metered.

What is the "Romance" bar with number values in SimPE for?

Chris

The animations displayed while a sim is dancing are controlled by two things: their personality, and their skill. Higher skill=more advanced moves. I don't think that dancing with someone is affected by personality, but I know that a shy sim dances much more reservedly than an outgoing sim when dancing solo. Shy and (possibley) serious sims also complain when asked to dance, but this shouldn't affect how long they do it for, except for the side effects of having respectively slower fun and social decay.

The romance bar is an unused skill that presumably was going to be in the game but got nixed.

Mostly you can tell when they are good enough dancers to win the scholarship by the kind of moves they make, really good dancers twirl right round, bend backwards till their head touches the floor etc.  Can't see why you should need a meter for this!

Well, if what JM says is true that Sims actually have to learn to dance, then it would be cool to see how far they have to go before they can kick John Travolta's arse in a dance contest.  It's kind of like the novel-writing meter.  Eventually, you know when the novel is done because you get a notation that tells you, but the meter let's you know where you stand.

So, when they go to the mirror to earn charisma, if they choose "practice speech" or "Practice romance" there is no difference, it's just straight up charisma?

Chris

Right. The Romance skill is a discontinued attribute that is never used (and since Maxis has been known to recycle unused attributes for something new and unrelated, it's best to leave that alone!). Practicing Speech or Romance simply provides you with two choices of animation type, both of which increase the same skill at the same rate. See the War Room.

Can we modify the dancing skill with SimPE? I can't figure out what controls this.

The dance skill seems to be a memory token that can be found in '(internal) Memory' - in an unused copy of the Pleasantview files with a university installed Mary-Sue and Angela Pleasant have it already, which might explain why it took a little longer for Lilith to get the dancing scholarship the last time I was in their house. I don't know what numbers you need in the box to get it to work properly though.

Possibly also takes Lilith longer since her parents don't like her and don't choose to dance with her!  I always find that, once Angela is out of the way, Lilith blossoms! She may be the bad-tempered twin, but I do prefer her to Angela with her sugary simpering sweetness!