More Awesome Than You!

I've read on other boards that you get to see things from the opening credits, like cradling the flour bag baby, begging for money, etc. from your Sims aspiration meter going into the red.

Used Merola's painting last night and made a few Sims aspirationally miserable. Was only able to get the psychiatrist to come for a family Sim and she did the chicken dance. Was not able to get her to play with the fake flour baby or recreate any of the other reactions. Aspiration meters were completely red and mood being good or bad seemed to have no effect.

Have any of you been able to get any of the failures to happen? And if so, how? I'd love to see my fortune Sims begging on the street corner.

I've seen them quite often - yes, my Sims are that miserable....

Their aspiration determines what kind of response you get - e.g. Family Sims get the whole floursack baby thing, Popularity Sims talk to a cup on a stick.. I think?  Romance sims woo some mop thing, knowledge Sims talk to a ball, and the fortunes beg in the street. One of the funniest things I saw in the game was Dina Goth harrassing the school bus driver for money one day.....

Makes you wonder what Aspirational Failure for Pleasure Sims will look like.

Maybe that's where those flamethrowers will come in handy..?

Keep them in failure for a while, you'll see it.

They can't be totally bottomed out in the red to see  it - then you just get the psychologist. They have to be mostly in the red but not all. Then just wait, you'll see it eventually.

I've seen them all, I think, although some more than others.  The begging for Simoleans is the one I see most of all.  I think I've only seen the Knowledge and Popularity ones once or twice, because those aspirations are easier to keep topped-up.  If they're not too far in the red, they just stand around and worry, a little bit further red and they cry a lot.  Next stage after that I think is the begging or whatever.  They will do this on their own lots, but also when they're visiting other people's or at community lots.  If you want to see it regularly, try using the SimVac on an obnoxious townie to drain their aspiration meter.  I have two or three who always beg for Simoleans or whatever whenever they happen to be greeted.

Go for social need failure, too. That way, you can get a visit from the Social Bunny.  ;D

That's not really that uncommon, really. A sim can have 20 friends, call them very day, and still run out of social. The Bunny is amusing, but unhelpful, really, as the reason sims run out of social is generally not because of a lack of anyone to socialize with, but the fact that they're too busy to do it. It's particularly prevalent in teens, as their social meters drop like stones, and they're generally too busy for such frivolous nonsense. Who has time for pointless socializing when there are skillpoints to be maximized?

With Gnomon's flamingo of contentment on every lot, my sims never get quite that low for long!

The only reason I want the Social Bunny is so that I can have a Sim beat it up.

Ah, but that would be cheating. Besides, I don't consider it a *PROBLEM* that they get low. It just happens. And the burnination continues.

Is cheating so bad?

Other than that it invalidates your score, yes. I mean, you can do what you want, but it's nothing to brag about when you cheated.

I wasn't bragging!  I don't let my sims brag, so it would be a bit two-faced to do it myself!

Aspirational failure is fun. I keep most of my Sims in a state of permanent unhappiness because I love seeing them go bonkers.

It'd be nice if they actually went bonkers meaningfully. As it stands, all they do is see the shrink, and waste my time by not obeying orders, so I don't really see much value in it.

As far as I know, the only ones who can have a fear of the Social Bunny are Popularity Sims.  I'm not sure about Romance.  But for Knowledge Sims and the others, they might complain that their social is bottomed out, but they don't lose aspirational points by fearing the Social Bunny.

Beware of the NSPCS!  (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sims)

Haven't seen the flour sack or the mop, but I have seen the others.  Had a fortune sim with a fear of having something stolen.  Burglar came, got that 4500 simoleon painting that my sim wanted so bad, and even though the police came and caught the burglar, poor guy was standing by the mailbox in his pjs, begging.  Pitiful.  He finally stopped and went inside and kept looking at the wall where the painting was and had the "Miss this object" icon.  So I got him another one and he was happy again.

But it was funny watching him beg in his pjs!

I've seen that stupid Social Bunny more times than I want to.  He just gets in the way.  So if I can't get the sim someone to call, I just have them relax on the bed and daydream.  It helps social.

Thank you.  That's what I was doing wrong.  Off to try again...

I didn't know that.  That's strange. 

I think I've seen them all at least once, except for Professor Von Ball.  It's funny but I've never had any of my Knowledge Sims go into aspirational failure.  Once I saw the Paper Stick Buddy because my popularity sim caught her lover cheating on her and lost him as a best friend.  The others I've seen a little bit more frequently, but none lately.  I guess it's a combination my learning how to achieve wants better and the Uni LTW helps too.  I am not one that likes torturing Sims.  ::)

I just ignore it and let them see the bunny. Relaxing and daydreaming is a waste of valuable productive time, and a well-designed house doesn't tend to suffer severe obstructions from one bunny.

About the Social Bunny - do your sims cry when he arrives?

I remember the Sad Clown from TS1, which made all the sims cry and be sad.

In TS2 I never gave my sims to have aspiration failure. I saw once Cassandra, after being left at the altar, playing with some doll, and a shrink came to give her a treatment - twice. But I left the house without saving, thinking how to prevent this situation (I found a good solution for this).

Nope, there's a brief piss and whine at the exact moment, but this goes largely unheralded because all the previous whines to that point are either squashed by "Less Whiny", or silenced by the fact that the sim is pinned down in the Skillinator. Once the bunny arrives, they actually laugh at his antics.

No, they don't cry.  They either go about their business doing what you've directed them to do, and the bunny will sit or stand quietly amusing himself.  Your sim may choose to interact with the bunny or you can direct him to do any of several interactions.  The bunny leaves by himself once the sim's social is repaired.  It's funny when the bunny comes crashing out of the sky though, although the noise startled me a couple of times.  It's funny too that the other sims cannot see the bunny, so when they see the sim interacting with someone who isn't there, they make the "You're Crazy" sign at him when they pass by.

With Cassandra, the solution for me was either to get her relationship high enough with Don that he would not leave her at the altar, or to raise her aspiration to platinum so that his rejection would not send her into aspirational failure.  It would have to be pretty high because being left at the altar carries a huge aspiration hit.  Or ignore the scenario altogether.  I didn't want her to marry him anyway.  She deserved better than him.  My Cassandra married a custom Sim I made and had lots of babies.  She is very pretty in my opinion once you get rid of those hideous ponytails and glasses and put on some makeup.

Well, not REALLY in the way.  Just in My way.  And the relax/daydream is rarely used.  Just think the name "social bunny" is too cutesey for me.  Kind of like calling a hooded sweatshirt a "hoodie".  Yuck!  What drivel.

I hope we're going to get Bunny Hunters, as we did Clown Catchers in TS1. They should be short, balding, illtempered guys called 'Elmer'.

Oh, rainbow - that's just what I have done too! I created a beautiful male sim, befriended them, and then made them fall in love. Then I invited Don, and gave Cassie cheat on him with the new lover. Don broke the engagement, but it didn't hurt her a bit (although she cried a little bit) - but right after that she wanted to be engaged and married to the new sim.

"Collective mind"...:).

Bunny Hunters wouldn't make any sense. Because there isn't any actual bunny, he's purely imaginary. And also nondisruptive and actually beneficial, since it suppresses any further whines.

I usually get Cassandra to break it off with Don, she doesn't get so upset that way - he's the one who stands around crying!

Once I used a hack to further reduce Mortimer and Don's relationship and boost Mortimer's body score, and then I had him repeatedly beat up Don for the grief he caused his daughter.  That was fun.  That was when I made a copy of Pleasantview in another neighborhood.  In my real Pleasantview, I had Cassandra beat Don up after she caught him cheating.  I have pictures of this, with Don bawling like a baby afterwards.  Sometimes I'll see them gossiping about it.  But to this day, Cassandra will still spin up a fear of Don's death, I don't know why.

Bah, that's not fun unless you earned it fair and square.

Sims just can't break up properly.

It is so much easier making enemies now with the auto-socializer to repeatedly insult and annoy the other sim.  I was just using that neighborhood for an experiment and wasn't keeping it, so I took a few shortcuts.  :P

The bunny is very useful, because its mere presence on the lot raises the sim's social.

I found it fun how Mary Sue and Daniel Pleasant were pining for eachother in their wants after she kicked him out, to the point where I eventually let them get back together, but Cass and Don?  They had a son, Hector, but then Cass caught Don out with Nina.  Since the breakup, they've completely forgotten about eachother!  Cass married Darren Dreamer (who is now best friends with Hector) the following day, and Don is living with Nina and their two children, Sophie and Brendan... until he does a runner on her.  Which should be any day now.

I have seen the social bunny twice both time with Dina.  She was totally depleted of social.  Both times I ignored him and just went about my business.  He went away after she woohooed the first time and the second time he hopped away after a phone call.  Which the phone call was strange because it wasn't a friend it was someone she had no relationship with at all.

I saw the shrink once Alex Goth (Bella's and Mort's son) after his wife died (he was a family sim) he broke down and shrink came.  But he wasn't around that long couple minutes.  Alex was off the ground eating the salmon he prepared for her right after and shrink never came back.

As far as letting the aspiration drop I really don't do that on purpose think it is cooler to just let the game flow on its own and see what breaks who down.  As far as cheats and hacks I have JM's fixes and that is about it.  Slow decay in plantinum, pay at the box, no homework everyday... nothing that like really changes just stuff that takes out a few steps.  I have never tweaked an relationship other than using global woohoo bed and hot tub.  I have never changed a LTW or none of that stuff.  I pretty much go for the slightly game modifing hacks like seeing my simmies naked and w/ real body parts  ;)

I had very loving social bunnies that kept spontaneously making out and serenading each other.  I loaded a video/storyboard of it on mysimpage over on the bbs.  http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=33820&asset_type=story&user_id=201176
I thought that it was particularly odd, because the sims involved were best friends only, yet their bunnies were crazy about each other. 

This is supposedly designed to happen whenever you get the pink and blue social bunnies together.  I heard about it on the BBS when reading the original legacy challenge rules, apparently you get bonus points for getting this to happen.  It's really not hard though, and you don't have to cheat.  I tried it once with Dustin and his son, both of whom were fortune sims, and they were painting together and totally drained on social.  I just had to keep them busy so they wouldn't socialize with each other or anyone else in the house, and soon two different social bunnies appeared.  They were pink and blue, so soon they were kissing and making out and stuff.  It was funny to watch.  I'm not sure if this helped Dustin and his son, because they went to eat dinner together and the bunnies soon left.