Revival of Sims 1 phone calls!!

[smochina]

  Hello!!  . Do you remember how there used to be those phone calls on the sims 1 that sometimes rewarded you money, or gave you decorating tips according to what season you were? I think there were also some scary ones that said "They are coming - don't even think about leaving town," or something like that.

I was wondering if you could revive these calls since they are more interesting than other sims calling to chat or "ask if we are still friends." Thanks.

[Ellatrue]

I liked the psychic adviser phone calls. That having been said, I doubt anyone here would be interested in making that. In terms of gameplay, it would just end up being more spam.

[Zazazu]

God, I hated those calls after the first two or three. Damn phone would ring for an hour until I finally had a sim free to answer it, and then it was that crap.

[Kyna]

My sims are constantly busy, which is why I have the phone hack (found here at MATY), so that I can turn the phone ringing OFF and not have to deal with pointless calls.

If you want to stop the pointless calls, get the phone hack.

If you want to make easy, effortless cash, then you can make far better cash already in the game than those phone calls:

- If you only have the base game, have your sim paint a lot.
- If you have uni, go to a community lot with instruments and play for money.  Or freestyle for cash.  Or work as a barista at a community lot.
- If you have Nightlife, go on outings or dates on community lots (so that they don't cut into your sim's lifespan/work time).  Sell the date & outing rewards.
- If you have OFB, open a home business, stick an electrono-ticket machine out the front, set the price to ridiculously cheap, and ignore the business from then on.  Customers will turn up, socialise, watch tv, dance to the stereo, play with your sim's stuff (put the stuff you want to reserve for your sim behind locked doors), etc and your sim will make cash without having to do anything.
- If you have Seasons, go fishing and sell the fish.  If your sim needs to work on friendships, invite their friends over to go fishing with your sim or greet walkbys and ask them to join your sim fishing.  Gain friendship, social and fun, and then make cash when you sell the fish your sim caught.
- If you have BV, dig for stuff, and sell the items your sim digs up.

[Mens Mortuus]

I have to admit, I found them hilarious and I do miss them a little. Like the 'They are watching you. They are coming." or something like that. I had real life prank calls like that  I always wished I could add to the game the call I got once by a guy yelling at me to come and clean up after my cow, cause it pooped all over his lawn.

[sloppyhousewife]

Man, did I hate these calls - especially because of the non-interruptable "react annoyed to prank call" animation.

[Liz]

I did kind of miss the "random chance" phone calls when I first started playing Sims 2. I get that they "evolved" into the career chance cards and added the "spin the wheel" element to it to determine whether it's the lady or the tiger, but it's kind of nice when playing Sims 1 to get that call sometimes just to say, "Hey, have a free $250 on us." It's not the money I missed (since, more than enough ways to scare up our own cash in TS2) so much as the little pleasant surprise of it. So I still like that element of Sims 1. I think it still works okay there because there's less time spent on the phone in general. But with so many more calls coming in with TS2 it would start jangling my last nerve in no time.

Sims 1 is a much more relaxed game for me to play - I seem not to be trying to queue as many tasks for my sims to accomplish in a given day, seeing as they're all pretty much gonna live forever unless I'm in a smite-y mood, so given the potential for a pleasant surprise I'm less fussed over the weird crank calls there than I would be in TS2.

[delonariel]

Haha, I remember that the very first time I played I got the 'they're coming. Lock all the doors and don't leave the house' message. I was  terrified and deleted all the doors and windows on the house
Oh, I loved those things. Especially the cash awards and the 'adopt a baby?'

[Ellatrue]

I would often wait for the decorator call before deciding how to decorate the house. It kind of added a fun sense of variety to the whole decorating thing.

[J. M. Pescado]

That call just made me confuzzled and I had no idea how to interpret that.

[buddha pest]

I loved being confuzzled, and I loved the Smile Now/Cry Later masks.

I liked the creepy late night calls, and I miss them.

I get that they "evolved" into the career chance cards

Not really. In Sims 1, you still got the random "getting shot on the job" pop-ups, or demotion pop-ups, OR CAREER CHANGES without any choice on the matter...which I think were the actual substitutes for chance cards. Well, or vice versa.

[Emma]

I liked the career changes.

[sloppyhousewife]

Me too - too bad that IIRC there was no way to make the career change random (the occurance, yes, but not the career path). As for the other chance cards, I just deleted them which was easy enough with the career creator.

[ebonyspiral]

Haha, I remember that the very first time I played I got the 'they're coming. Lock all the doors and don't leave the house' message. I was  terrified and deleted all the doors and windows on the house

I remember it freaked me out too. I think I got my sim to call the police... and then, of course, got fined. *facepalm

[Zazazu]

I liked the career changes.

I adored the career changes. Having an elder suddenly decide to switch from their LTW career at level 9 with two days left to live would be fantastic. I'm not being facetious. Too many of my sims have been getting their LTW lately.

[Liz]

...Too many of my sims have been getting their LTW lately.

Tell me about it. Lately I've been trying to keep my sims from transitioning in plat, since the only benefit from doing that is yet more days in the elder age. I mean, if it'd give them more time as an Adult instead, that might be cool, but I swear, the "clothing equality mod" and Inge's "elders sleep through the night" hack are the only things that makes that age even playable to me.  I know there are age-length hacks out there (including Inge's), but IIRC, they rely on shifting the number of days around, as opposed to just chopping off a few at the end (which is what I'd prefer). Actually, what I'd really love to see is a hack that lets you use the Elixir of Life to "borrow" against your Elder days instead of just adding to where you are now.

[/hijackbabble]

I remember being first miffed, then highly amused, the first time Sims 1 decided to whip a new career on one of my sims. Not really a bad idea there, shake things up a little instead of letting them trudge away to the same damn job for eternity.

[Kyna]

TwoJeffs has a hack that moves the plat life-length bonus from the elder transition to the adult transition, based on Inge's age hack.  Sims get the extra days in the adult stage rather than the elder stage.  Take a look at TJ's stuff over at Insim.

[Ellatrue]

Wasn't there someone who made a hack to change perma-plat to perma-gold?

[jsalemi]

Yes, I think that's part of dizzy's batch of hacks, archived over in Peasantry.

[J. M. Pescado]

Permaplat is meh now, anyway. They nerfed the super-promotion-bonus, so now it's no better than the Noodlesoother.

[Liz]

TwoJeffs has a hack that moves the plat life-length bonus from the elder transition to the adult transition, based on Inge's age hack.  Sims get the extra days in the adult stage rather than the elder stage.  Take a look at TJ's stuff over at Insim.

Thanks for the into, Kyna - I'll have to give that one a try!

Y'know, I've never really made much use of the Noodlesoother. Seeing the pitiful shape it left my only guinea pig in when she took it off, I've been too nervous to send any of my guys off to work wearing the thing.

[Ellatrue]

Permaplat is meh now, anyway. They nerfed the super-promotion-bonus, so now it's no better than the Noodlesoother.

I hadn't noticed. How did they mess it up?

[BastDawn]

Going to work while platinum used to fill the work bar all the way up, so promotion was guaranteed if you met all the requirements.  Now it just gives a little extra boost.  Wussy!

[Zazazu]

Bah, promotions are stupid-easy anyways. I keep meaning to add harderjobs to my collections. Again, too many sims getting their LTW's.

Liz, you can edit that hack from TJ, too. I think he gives instructions. I set my teens to 8 days instead of 15 because the length seemed idiotic to me. My teens might have one minor romance while they are in the lifestage, and 8 days is enough to reach level 3 in their teen job, get a couple scholarships, and have a little tet-a-tet. 15 days means that the parents are elders before they get to adulthood. I don't really have high-school sweethearts getting married, because even with my townie aging rotation it's rare that they'll end up adults together.

[Ellatrue]

I hate the teen stage. It's no different from adult, only less fun, and with different clothes.