More Awesome Than You!

is anyone but me irritated that twin toddlers dont even know each other?   the one interaction they can do is play with the dollhouse.    i have to check the water wriggler now, but if an adult can 'play with'  the toddler on the toy, why cant another toddler?

Sometimes toddlers will autonomously play with eachother, but you can't make them do it. It would be nice, I suppose, if there were a hack that would allow you to have them do it.

oh wow, i didnt know that.  thanks! well if there is such a behavior it makes a hack that much easier to do because the animations are already there.  now that i moved into my new apartment i need to start getting back to work.  i was about to start doing recolors in simpe when i had to move, and im sick so i only have a few usuable hours a day... and then i was going to start looking at the code but the dang simpe changed...

*didn't know about that*  I'll have to take away all their toys and leave them alone together, see if it happens.

You could try requesting Squinge to make a hack for it at Insimenator, as he takes requests.

Speaking of kids playing together, is it possible for more than two kids to play together at a time?  In my Legacy family, I have three kids in the current gen (and I've never had more than two before), so I was wondering if I could have them all play together.  So far, I haven't seemed to be able to.

cool, thanks!   im really surprised that maxis didnt allow it in their new toys.  hm, you know what else they missed?  the train set from sims1.

oops another post came up.  so far toddlers can only play together on the dollhouse.   maybe the new water sprinkler.  i havent had time to
try that yet.   they can fight over a bottle, but they drink so fast i have only had that happen once.

Somebody has been able to do it in the past, but it's ultimately purposeless and bothersome to even attempt. Especially since all of those toys are totally useless, and you end up having to fall back on the classic standbys anyway.

something with a strong advertisement causing toddlers to play with each other or their older siblings would save me havig to manually up their relationship scores.  i realize you only see toddlers as useful with barbeque sauce, (which follows a certain logic)   but i get off on the cuteness sometimes!   some of my favorite things are when the toddlers dance or watch the fishes.  come to think of it, mean kids could wake the sleeping baby and make it cry!

Yea, didn't OFB add a 'Tease' command that lets kids bother toddlers?  I haven't seen that happen autonomously yet, but then I rarely have kids and toddlers in the same house at the same time.  I usually wait until there's at least one teen in the house before allowing the next baby (excepting where 'risky woohoo' kicks in, of course, and I even lowered the odds on that to do some level of population control).

i'll have to check that one out!

Yes they do autonomously tease. I've had a child tease her toddler sister a lot. She has about 2 or 3 points of niceness though, so that may have something to do with it.

No, you're not the only one who finds this annoying. And why can't more than two kids play together, as Bluesoup has pointed out, as in real life - which is what this game is supposed to be about - there are roaming herds of the little darlings? It wastes time trying to build up relationships manually which often means that I ignore the kids in favour of something else.

I've had a number of kids tease their siblings autonomously, but my sims seem to breed mean little oiks for the most part.

I actually requested a mod at MTS2 only to have it shot down for this :) My kids tend to run in cycles, as I hack how long their ages last (I'm impatient!).  Generally, it would be nice to have the two toddlers playing with one another - not playing with the same toy at the same time.

Nope.  Sign me up on the pissy-list.  Maxis has severe myopia in too many areas.

Which water sprinkler? Did it come with ffs? I never saw the 'new' water sprinkler :( I can't have missed it. But then again, I could have missed it easily :D

It's something your sims can build in OFB with the toymaking workshop thing.  I believe it needs a gold level badge, but the toy workshop is a good way to keep stay-at-home moms/dads busy while the kids are at school or asleep.


Or you could have a gold-level sim make a bunch and sell them at a business so your other sims could go buy them. :)

Oh, I haven't used the toy-making bench at all yet, and haven't played the game much since the EP, first I fixed a gazillion problems, then work got in the way, now I'm re-binning and sorting custom hairs.
But thanks for pointing that out, I'm off to build a toystore-house combo for one of my homeless sims! :D

Ditto. I had Dustin Broke marry Dagmar the mail lady (three bolts for each other and can't leave each other alone...Dustin left Angela in a heartbeat), they had 4 girls, two of them twins, in rapid order. I find it very annoying that these sibilings so close together in age (not to mention, twins!) have almost zero in relationship scores with each other.
I realize that TS2 is unrealistic in many ways but I think this one of the most highly unrealistic points of the game and it annoys me to no end.

According to the article on this page:

http://www.simshost.com/chronicle/chronicle-20050408.html

toddlers can be directed to play together with the toybox. I've never tried it myself, though so I'm not making any promises.

From what I understand, it's actually very common in RL for toddlers to ignore each other and play separately in the same space.  They don't usually start to have meaningful interactions until it occurs to them that the other guy is, in fact, another person and not just an inconvenient piece of equipment that keeps stealing the best toys.  XD  (Although I have no idea whether this differs for twins, and I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to be found.)

Yep, developmentally, kids don't "cooperative play" until around 2.5 or 3.  Before that, it's called "parallel play" where they play in the same area, but not together.  There are exceptions to everything, of course, depending on where the kid is developmentally, and how much access a child has to other children.  Kids in daycare will learn to cooperative play faster than an only child who stays home with mom (or dad)

I would like to see kids playing together, and I would love to see children interacting with babies...even just making faces at the baby.  I know my daughter loved talking to and tickling the baby and she was a toddler when I had my second.  There are alot of things I would like to see, being able to sit and hold the baby, being able to cook and talk on the phone, etc.

That's pretty cool!  I have a set of twins on the way in one family -- I'll have to try this when they hit the toddler stage.

I tried to get a set of twins to do that at one stage - I didn't get them to be able to interact at all. 

They can definitely play together at the toybox. I've used it and the dollhouse to make them "best Friends".

I tried both and got absolutely no relationship boost at all...  Now I just make them use all their toddler time to skill, and worry about making friends when they are children or teens.

I've seen individual toddlers play with the toy box autonomously, but for some reason I never thought they could play with the dollhouse.  I'll have to put one in one of my families with toddlers.  I wonder if children and toddlers can play together with it?  I'll have to try that out.

Yes, they can.

 Brandi Broke's twins are still at the toddler stage (and she will soon be a pregnant elder - should be an interesting birthday party) - so will give it a go tonight.

Off to the toybox....

The toybox option does work.  The Broke twins did "socialize" by banging their toys on the ground, muttering "ah ah" repeatedly (they both have learned to speak, so maybe that's twinspeak) and "communicated" about college, skiing,travel, etc. ....which they don't agree on as Brianna had positive signs and Brett negative signs for the most part.  Their relationship scores did increase during the play session. 

I popped a dollhouse into the room and directed them to play with it.  Two toddlers can play with the dollhouse at the same time (and are quite cute doing so) but they don't communicate or socialize - that I could see.  Just chewed on the dolls/furniture or stuck them up their noses. 

I wouldn't do this again as it wastes too much toddler wakeup time;  I tend to focus my todders on skill building with an emphasis on charisma.  Sibling relationships are usually easily developed once they transition into kids. 

I wish they could socialize while skilling and especially wish that toddlers could travel.  Running a day care center would have been a terrific business opportunity.

sometimes when you direct the two tots (or more) to play with the toys at the same time, they dont always talk to each other, in that case have them both cease and then direct them to play with the toys again. Anyone can get out the toys for the toddlers, but many adults and some teens can be obsessive about cleaning up the toys. If the toddlers can walk they can get the toys out for themselves. I have never tried having them play together without being able to talk and potty so I dont know if the talking skill is a requirement or not.

I'm pretty sure the toddlers need to have "learned to talk" before they will get a relationship boost from playing with the dollhouse or toybox.

I may have to try it again...  this time making sure that my toddlers have learned to talk.

The whole idea of a day care centre really appeals!  I wonder if you could teleport the toddlers in with an Ingelogical shrub and make it work that way?

You'd have to make it an aging off or community lot.

To stop the toddlers inconveniently aging to child while there?

I'm quite tempted to try this...  but it will need to wait for a few weeks - must finish my reports!

The toybox thing does work for me, mine chat about money and sports and fashion while chewing on their toys. The dollhouse thing is quite funny as well, since mostly mine like to stick the doll's feet in their mouths and bang things.

I'm pretty sure they need to have learned to talk before they can play with another child (sim in the child stage, that is). Teenagers, adults & elders can play with toddlers, but children can only do it if the toddler's learned to talk.

If you have toddlers who have learned to walk and talk, the toybox definately works and kids can join as well.

Apart from the toddlers having to be able to talk to gain social, it seems you have to direct them one at a time to take a toy from the toybox, wait a second or two, cancel it then click a second time to get them to play in a 'group'. (they will move out of the way so the next one will be able to get a toy)

I've occasionally used Inge's shrub to teleport toddler cousins and those of their parents' best friends in because it's stupid that these toddlers wouldn't know each other.
In one neighbourhood, I teleported every toddler in the neighbourhood (20 -give or take) moved them in and turned aging off for a few days, just to see how things would go. (mass toddler training/socialization is so much more efficient)

I've also seen a kid and a toddler playing together at the dollhouse, with a parent sitting nearby and playing. I am pretty sure they were all playing (the toddler had a doll in her mouth) or the parent was "watching" or whatever they do - and and it was autonomous. But this was a very large and close knit family (8 kids altogether including one set of twins and a younger sibling born ASAP after they were).

I also seem to remember seeing the children in this family, at least, interacting with these toddlers, and the toddlers following some of the children around the way they follow around their mom and dad. But I could be imagining that!

I wish toddlers had wants for other people besides their mother or father - it would be nice if the wanted their siblings and or grandparents especially if they live with them also. Toddlers should have social wants like any other sim in my opinion (age appropriate ones obviously)

Meh, the little rugrats are annoying enough without them being subject to want spam on only 4 slots. The "obsession with people who aren't here" is enough of an annoyance as it is. At least the toddlers are immune to it.

The good thing about toddlers is that if the parents aren't on the lot the wants spin to a generic "be talked to" kind of thing.

Toddlers can socialize on the rabbit thing too. Only one can get charisma points from it, but the 2nd gets the fun points for it. It also works with kids, teens, and adults. I've had Townies come home from work with my Sims, only to spend the night playing and making friends with the toddler. They usually pass out on the sidewalk at 2 am. Stupid Townies.

Yea, I saw a weird version of that last night -- old lady Jaquet in Bluewater kept rolling a fear of catching her husband cheating.  Which would be a good trick, since he's dead.  And I still see sims rolling fears of falling out of love with deceased lovers...