More Awesome Than You!

Thanks to the miracle of Macrotastics, I have recently come to appreciate the unmatchable power and appeal of the Sport of Kings in The Sims 2.

And to tell the truth, it is a bit too powerful for my tastes. Throws the game out of balance, makes things too easy...it almost feels like cheating.

I don't suppose anyone would be interested in making a hack that would nerf the Sport of Kings? Kicking stuff could still be fun, but not as fun; and it would seem appropriate to have flamingos and gnomes and such break often (more often?), to introduce a tradeoff factor while injecting a dose of realism.

And the best part, in my book, is that naming the hack would be half the fun. Viz:

Gnome Sympathy Hack
Plastic-Animal-Rights Hack
4 out of 5 Podiatrists Recommend This Hack
The All-American Soccer-Is-Not-That-Fun Hack

I'm not feeling my full funny powers this afternoon, but you get the idea.

To be honest, it wouldn't really help. There's other sources of fun-inject that fall in at a close second place, like statuegazing. Downgrading the Sport of Kings would just bring those into the obvious new dominant position. In some cases, statuegazing may actually be cheaper and even MORE powerful...but it's pretty boring to watch. At least the Sport of Kings is entertaining.

Statuegazing. You know, I never even tried that.

My sims had always been too poor to be blowing their Simoleons on silly fancy stuff like statues, after all...until papa Sim brought home a §50,000 chance card bonus from his Science career, that is.

Which was such a ridiculous amount of money to fall from the sky. Chance cards are definitely Not Awesome. (Core game elements can be Not Awesome too, can't they? Enough of them are sure deserving of the title...)

As I get more experienced with playing TS2, it starts to seem that the hardest thing about the game is...finding effective and elegant ways to make it harder!

I remember when my sweetheart of a Pleasure sim came home with a $50,000 bonus for his amazing decision of: "I dunno, bunnies?"

I don't plunk down a lot of statues in my houses either (Although everyone seems to make their custom deco content as sculptures), I have lots of paintings though.

Y'know... one solution would be to.. I dunno... not use flamingos and gnomes? :)

I actually only have gnomes at my college Greek House where it has become a matter of honor to protect the Gnome Brigade from the treacherous intentions of the random dormie visitors that try to kidnap them.

While I know it's probalby not as awesome as the Sport of Kings, I tend to give games or music as the fun choice. Most of my houses have at least a dart board, and as soon as I can afford it, a piano. The Greek House has a Karoke machine and a bubble blower, but they actually go for the karoke machine more often.

There are $15 statues that grant as much fun as 2 or 3 whomps of a flamingo or gnome that come with the Holiday Pack. Only slightly more expensive than a flamingo, way cheaper than a gnome. And even cheaper paintings, that can be gazed for the same effect.

Isn't Awesomeness defined by whether or not JMP (and to a slightly lesser extent TJ and CB, and to a much lesser extent the residents of Peasantry) made it?  Therefore, the core game is definately not Awesome.  It seems, due to the number of mods we have that fix the game, much of the core game isn't even close to Awesome.

Yeah, I rarely use flamingos or gnomes. Wait... scratch that.. I NEVER use them. Never use pinball machines or dart boards. My sims only recourse is the television, the bookshelf, pianos (rarely break down for anything other than a piano, instrument wise) or chess set. In other words, only things that boost a skill point at the same time.

As a result, I have sims crowding in the bathroom to view a CC towel rack like it's the bloody Mona Lisa.

If you had Bathroom Uses You properly installed, they'd have been ejected for trying it. But all Jelenedras suck.

True. Very true.

Even though I'd miss seeing some good kicking now and then, I'd have gotten rid of all such items yesterday except that a) I've taken a liking to Monique's Relationship Panel Remover (which resides in a fully-functional gnome), and b) I'm afraid that certain Macrotastics functions would work less awesomely if there were nothing for my sims to kick when they wanted to take a kick-break.

Do what I do: Use the Sport of Kings when your sims are busy and working, use the other fun objects at other times when you just want to keep them busy and don't care how fast it regenerates...or if it regenerates at all! Fun is a silly motive, anyway. Real people don't need "fun", they need "lack of boredom". Which can easily be satisfied by, say, releasing hungry wild animals into their home, forcing them to run for their lives. It's not fun, at least for them, but at least they won't be bored. Because sometimes you have fun, and sometimes fun has you.

Sounds like you're already thinking up ideas for hacking the next EP. That one right there would be excellent. [/Monty Burns]

Actually, flamingo-kicking doesn't always work properly because the flamingos constantly become unusable, so rather than stop and mess about forcing errors (which doesn't always work) and/or buying more flamingos, you could always let them stop at that point and not max their fun out.  I only use "Kick Stuff" when they're extremely low on fun, which happens quite a lot with Knowledge Sims as they're forever using the autonomous study bookcases.  I also use them with the more playful kids who come home from school with their fun way down.  Plus they're needed with Macrotastics for it to work properly, as has already been said.

I didn't realise statue-gazing was better than kicking stuff.  A lot of mine stare at paintings, but I always thought it was because their beloved was occupied with something in the immediate vicinity.  Don Lothario had an obsession with those stupid masks in his bedroom, but only when Nina was asleep in the bed.

Statue gazing isn't consistently better, but it's definitely a strong competitor. It CAN be better under certain circumstances which vary widely. One advantage is that statues and paintings never fall over or otherwise need to be reset. However, the entire "view" animation takes somewhat longer. Gazing thus can outclass in cases where the kicked item falls over a lot.

Another advantage is that paintings don't need to be outdoors.

Well, I'm sorry for not using your precious BUY. =P Besides that, it was an exaggeration. My sims, like Ancient Sims', actually prefer the paintings I use over their beds more than the ones in the bathroom (probably because I use more expensive paintings in the bedroom).

Besides that...

http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=877359

Hmm, my game doesn't have Frungy in it.  I want a refund.