This can't be good

[Sagana]

Goodness people. No need to get all uppity and flame. If you're getting your teens pregnant, that's your own business.

That wasn't a flame. Flames make your ass glow red and you have trouble sitting for a week. You'd know if you were flamed.

I asked: What are the benefits of getting your teens pregnant? Answer it.

Demanding, ain't ya? Personally I believe I did answer and you just don't see it as an answer. <tries again in my long-winded way>

I suspect you play the Sims as a "game" so you want some sort of in-game benefit to everything ("what can you get out of it" kind of thing). My husband, who plays full-fledged simulation games, thinks the unlocking of benefits for doing well takes the strategy/competition out of the game to start with (he claims The Movies stole this idea from The Sims and a game like Railroad Tycoon wouldn't do it that way.) And for me - I've played that way and can more or less (not as awesomely as Pescado, of course) min-max the game to death (I never use aspiration rewards or cheat codes if I'm playing this way, for example) and got bored with what IMO is too much like the day-to-day drudgery of real life (get up, shower, eat, go to work, earn enough money to buy a bit more, eat, shower, do homework, study, work hard, buy more, make friends, sleep - do it all over again the next day and with the next sim and the next.)

So I don't (mostly) play that way anymore. Nowadays I write stories with my sims game. Sometimes I do more scripting, sometimes it's more autonomous, sometimes I write them only in my head and never even bother with the game - but they're stories that come from or are played out in one way or another in the Sims.

One story I have planned, but not written yet, involves a young man (teen) who got in trouble and was released by the judge as a first offender but only into a "responsible" adult's care. He ends up going to live with an older half-brother who is a doctor at a free clinic (their parents are dead). The young man becomes very involved with the patients at the clinic, primarily the children who live at or pass in and out of homeless shelters - their parents are always poor, often drug or alcohol-addicted and certainly sometimes very young and/or teens. That's what happens in life. Anyway, that's the scenario - there's a lot more to the story and it's not played out yet. Right now (well next, right now I'm doing something else entirely) I'm focusing on the young man, his brother and family, and the children that come to the clinic - but if I should want to go on and tell one of the kid's stories, I might very well need their parents and some of them would need to be pregnant teens.

I dunno if you'll see it or not, but that is the benefit of being able to get teens pregnant right there. So my story can go wherever it needs to.

[simmiecal]

Goodness people. No need to get all uppity and flame. If you're getting your teens pregnant, that's your own business.

I asked: What are the benefits of getting your teens pregnant? Answer it.

Just another thought.

I guess after reading thru several different posts of people flaming Jase for making such a "wicked" "immoral" etc. mod - and it's one of the mods that I consider to be one of my top "must haves" - I guess I tend to read in a moral judgment when people make negative comments about it.

As others have stated, let each person play they want to. Sssh - don't tell el presidente, but I don't have all his mods in my game. I absolutely love the ones I have and I'm happy that he has made all the mods (even the ones I don't use) but "his" style and "my" style of play isn't the same.

[radiophonic]

That's more like it, simmiecal. I wasn't making any judgement, nor was I questioning the moral ethics of the mod, I was trying to get to the reasons for people using it.

If people are going to use a mod such as inteen, they should expect such questions, no? 

I would assume that if they use it, they would be using the VD mod as well. HA!

[BlueSoup]

I don't sit in judgement of people wanting to use Inteen in their game...I just don't understand it.

Having been born to a 16-year-old girl while my father was in jail for trafficking, I know that it's not easy for the mother or the child to live that way.  My mother had 3 kids by the time she was 22 (all to the same man, and that's a saga in and of itself).  Life was hard - she didn't get to finish high school until I was in Grade 7, and she didn't get to start living her life until the three of us had moved out.

Both my sister and my brother had kids by the time they were 16 and 17 respectively, and my brother had 2 by the time he was 19.  His kids were planned with his girlfriend, no doubt because of their oh-so-romantic love (they're separated now, with my brother raising those two kids on his own).  Life is extremely hard for him as well.

My sister went through numerous miscarriages after the birth of her son, and she is once again pregnant with a baby with her partner.  This is the one baby for her that's planned, and it's everyone's hope that she can carry the baby to term.

Call me crazy (and only me, as I realize I'm speaking for myself here), but I just don't want that level of realism in my Sims game.  I like them just fine in their idealized world that doesn't include the harshness of real life.

[Jorenne]

I guess it's each to their own Blue   I don't understand why people would want aging on either lol, I am way too attached to my simmies to let them age faster than I want.  I know Gali is going to have a heart attack here, but I've actually been playing the same sims for years.  My current hood, the founders were created in TS1 right around the time Unleashed came out, I stuck with them all through TS1 and have never even really touched any other hood in TS2, sure it took me about a month to recreate all my TS1 sims and some of them have left now and new faces have arrived, but my Core families are still there after all this time, and apart from a couple of accidents here and there, still all alive and well.  I couldn't imagine playing without them.

Now here's an answer for your question you might prefer radiophonic.

The benefit to getting teens pregnant is an increased enjoyment of the game play for some gamers.

No one says you have to or should use any mod you don't want to, but I'll play my game how I want and you play your game the way you want.

[wishy-washy]

Now that I think about it, I realize that I don't use the inteenimater for it's "primary function" of getting teens pregnant. Actually, I've never gotten a teen sim pregnant and I've been using this mod for months. What I like is the biological clock. I like to turn on fertility treatment when I want my adult sims to have a baby. Otherwise sometimes it takes me like three tries of "try for baby" before I hear the music. It drives me insane! I also like the birth control option for safe woohoo. I also use the biological clock to speed up pregnancy to one day. It seems to fit in with the timing better to me. One sim day = one year. I like the miscarriage feature of this mod as well, more randomness.

[jase]

After reading so many threads about bugs in The InTeenimator (or whatever it's called), it's a wonder why anyone uses it at all.

What is its primary function?

Its primary function is to get teen sims pregnant.

While I will concede teen pregnancy is arguably InTeen's most popular feature, it is by no means its "primary function".  Had it been such, I would have stopped development of this mod ages ago. 

When I first scored a copy of TS2, I was disappointed with how lackluster and uninteresting Maxis had designed the teenage years.  I was unimpressed with the selection and impermanance of their choices.  There were too few consequences and few too important decisions teens could make that would alter the direction of their life and ultimately the game; they were little more than "large children".  They couldn't even remember who they were in love with when they grew up!  All the choices seemed remarkably safe and transient - which to my recollection, my teenage years were anything but.  The teenage years are supposed to be something of a high-seas adventure - fun, exciting, and yet ominous and fraught with difficult and potentially life altering choices (education, social image, sex, relationships, college, etc...)  Not to mention the hormone-driven establishment of personal values (and perhaps most central of which is sexuality).  We enter the teenage cocoon as pimply children and emerge as something resembling an adult where suddenly choices matter.  There's an important transition during these years and one I felt was notably absent during game play.

The broader intent of the InTeenimater is to bring back those years and give some kind of meaning to being a teen...to inject some kind of continuity between teens and adults.  It's to give definition to a life stage that had little to begin with.  The universe of the teenager is not this "sterile test tube" that Maxis created for the purposes of acquiring a T rating from the ESRB.  The teenage years are framed by relationships and the struggle against personal values and self identity.  This is why the relationship system was revamped to include support for multiple committed relationships, jealous proposals, teen marriage, fertility and miscarriage modelling, birth control, and ultimately pregnancy.  This is why you actually have to work your way into college.  This is why some choices are hidden from you when you are 12 and why others are opened to you as you age.  This is why pregnant teens are treated as other teens in some social circumstances, and more like adults in others.  In fact, the decision to covertly age teens into the adult lifestage when pregnant was not a "technical punt" or a logistical issue, as much as it was a strategic one.  With the introduction of University, there was a similar opportunity to "extend" this trend - by allowing you to build more serious relationships, to have a family, and struggle with the choices of raising a baby, holding down a job, and getting educated.  It's about gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.

InTeen is not an "accidental hack".  It is not intended nor is it written with the purpose of simply "uncensoring" Maxis code so you can knock up your teens and watch them waddle.  It augments the game by adding its own dimension of gameplay.  It is, for all intents and purposes more a "micro-expansion" for teens and young adults than it is a "hack".  The people who understand this are those who are able to seize upon that value and fold it into their story lines.  They are also better equiped to diagnose problems because they understand what the mod is really giving them (and why).  Those who simply view InTeen as a "pregnancy/woohoo hack for teens" are adopting a very narrow view and will generally come away frustrated when they find their gameplay has been altered.  There are already two other mods (one with and the other without teen pregnancy) which cover the woohoo space very nicely.  If knocked up teens is all you're after, these other mods are better suited to this end than InTeen.  They are smaller, lighter, and much less likely to conflict w/ existing content.

InTeen is not "yet another teen woohoo" w/ a bunch of superfluous odds-and-ends slapped together and shoved into a box for shitz-n-giggles.  There is no "primary function".  It is a "whole vision" whose pieces have (and always have) been carefully choreographed to work together.  InTeen wasn't hacked - it was designed.  Anyone who participated in the private beta between April and September of this year understands this higher-order dimension and knows just how much forethought and laborious discussion went into the new gameplay aspects.  In fact, most of the new functionality introduced in 1.2 and 1.3 are the "brain children" of those 15-20 some-odd testers (in addition to various other users who have contributed their ideas in private).  Non-awesome it may be, but I take exception to the assertion made by some that the mod is fundamentally "broken".  More correctly: it is fundamentally "misunderstood" - people don't know what to expect of it because they will not be bothered to read - and this person's post illustrates this point quite well.

J

PS. Whoever was asking: InTeen and InSim are not in any way related to each other.  They are entirely different mods, written by entirely different authors, with entirely different aims.  Despite the similarities they share in their name, they are in no way "spin offs" of the other.

[simmiecal]

I would assume that if they use it, they would be using the VD mod as well. HA!

Were you being sarcastic or is there really a VD mod? As I stated, I like to have more realism in the game and to have consequences for the choices simmies make. It would make "woohoo with 20 sims" more interesting if they were a little leary of "catching something" - maybe Lizz's waterbed wouldn't be so popular. Nah, Lizz's water bed would still be popular.

[PlaidSquirrel]

LOL. Maybe I'm a sucker but I was wondering the same thing.
Surely if there isn't one one could be written. They could use a random chance of the flu basically right?

[cabelle]

PS. Whoever was asking: InTeen and InSim are not in any way related to each other.  They are entirely different mods, written by entirely different authors, with entirely different aims.  Despite the similarities they share in their name, they are in no way "spin offs" of the other.

Oops! My mistake. I apologize for inadvertedly linking the two. I assumed they were similar. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

[simmiecal]

LOL. Maybe I'm a sucker but I was wondering the same thing.
Surely if there isn't one one could be written. They could use a random chance of the flu basically right?

I'd like to see that show up in the gossip...little thought bubbles about who has VD. 

[Process Denied]

Inteen and Insim were my first hacks that I ever put into my game and if I were to choose only two hacks that would be them.  My probs with hacks are usually forgetting the uses.  I don't use Inteen to get teens pregnant--well,the one time with Angela--but the other features make the game play so enjoyable.  For example: in NL you could no longer dance with your parents--you can with Inteen.  That was always a special time--tradition--the teen earning their dance token with their parent--that was taken away if you didn't have Inteen.

[jase]

That was always a special time--tradition--the teen earning their dance token with their parent--that was taken away if you didn't have Inteen.

Exactly.  That is at the very heart of what InTeen is meant to be.  None of that is by accident.  So much more than a teenage uterus and yet many - if not most - will ever see beyond to even notice such subtleties.  Oh well, what can you do?

[Jorenne]

Jase,

I know we've had our differences in the past, but I for one appreciate you, your work, and being able to use the inteen, which is so much a part of my game that I really notice if it's not there, I use many of the features in every sim house, it is definately one of my must-haves, and mostly not for teen pregnancy, and I will defend it to the last against the idiots.

Remember that there are those of us out there who do appreciate and support you, even if we aren't always vehemently vocal about it.

[katemonster]

I love the Inteenimater (and its excellent and oh-so-patient support, and I'm sorry for being such a moron), I've had it in my game since the first public incarnations of it, and I've only had *one* teen pregnancy--and it was an accident. Actually, I think accidental pregnancy is my absolute favorite feature of Inteen.

I also wanted to say that I had the same scholarship problem (teen loses top-of-teen-career scholarship when they're promoted to the adult career.) I would have mentioned it long ago, but I assumed it was just some obscure hack conflict (as all my problems seem to turn out to be) and didn't want to pester people about it since I was too lazy myself to figure out what if anything was conflicting, and besides I didn't really care. Um, anyway, since someone else noticed it, I thought it might actually be legitimate and worth mentioning. Although it's still probably some obscure hack conflict.

[PlaidSquirrel]

Can you not just apply for the scholarship before they reach the psuedo adult days of the teen stage?

[Dark Trepie]

You can.  But once they hit that "psuedo adult days" stage they get promoted to the next level in that career and thus are no longer in the top of their career.  And loose the scholarship.

That's the reason I use the No Adult Teen flavor pack.  My families do well enough without a third income as it is.  And the $1000 (or is it $750) that scholarship provides is useful in Uni.  Where money has more of an impact on your sim's life.  (Unless you motherlode the hell out of them that is)

[jase]

I'll see what I can do about the scholarship thing - maybe this weekend or the next - time permitting.  Watch the website.  Is it just the top-of-teen-career scholarship that is affected or all scholarships?  Maybe someone can just PM me the details.  I don't want to hijack El Presidente's bandwidth by fielding support issues.  There's already enough mentions of the unmentionable to warrant a room full of lips I'm certain.

[Swiftgold]

I'll see what I can do about the scholarship thing - maybe this weekend or the next - time permitting.  Watch the website.  Is it just the top-of-teen-career scholarship that is affected or all scholarships?  Maybe someone can just PM me the details.  I don't want to hijack El Presidente's bandwidth by fielding support issues.  There's already enough mentions of the unmentionable to warrant a room full of lips I'm certain.

Risking my lips - it's just the job scholarship that's affected. You get a message that since the Sim is no longer at the top of the career track, they've lost the scholarship.

[Liss]

I just want to add, Jase, that I love Inteen.  I've only had ONE pregnant teenager, and it was an accident.  And I loved it.  It played out a whole story in my head.

I love the birth control/fertility features and the risky woohoo.  These are features I use every time I play.  I also kind of like the miscarriage feature.  And yes, I've had one.  It makes me really pay attention to the mothers and take good care of them.

I'm sorry about the break with insim, since you guys seemed to be working together to make sure the mods were completely compatible with each other though.  They play very nicely together.

If you don't get enough appreciation for how much you've worked on this, just know that there are a lot of us that never posted at the insim board that appreciate you very much

[jase]

I'll see what I can do about the scholarship thing - maybe this weekend or the next - time permitting.  Watch the website.  Is it just the top-of-teen-career scholarship that is affected or all scholarships?  Maybe someone can just PM me the details.  I don't want to hijack El Presidente's bandwidth by fielding support issues.  There's already enough mentions of the unmentionable to warrant a room full of lips I'm certain.

Risking my lips - it's just the job scholarship that's affected. You get a message that since the Sim is no longer at the top of the career track, they've lost the scholarship.

A hotfix for this issue has been posted.

[skandelouslala]

Ack Jase...lol...I *just* downloaded Inteen shortly before you put  up your fixes.  I'll have to remember to download it next time I reboot the game.

Anyways..I do want to thank you for Inteen and still keeping it available somewhere for those of us who want to play with it.  I just downloaded it today and played with it, checking out the different features for quite a while and like it very much.  I am very happy how it actually makes the teenage years more worthwhile to play.  I'll admit that for a long time I thought Inteen was just a mod mostly enabling teen woohoo and pregnancy b/c that's how a lot of what I suppose now are inexperienced players made it sound like.

I changed my mind rather recently as you can see and downloaded it after I read your big long response here about what went into this mod.  Definitely sounded to me worth the try and just playing with it for a short bit, the teen days for my sims are a lot more exciting and flying by.  I also like the options for adults as well as far as conceiving children go and what not.

[RainbowTigress]

Where is the new website for InTeen?  I have not been able to pull it up with Google, nor have I seen anyone else here mention it.

[jase]

http://mysite.verizon.net/aestudios/sims2/index.htm

(I thought you were using Jenflower's mod?  Jen's are still over at InSim.net in the community downloads section.)

[RainbowTigress]

Yeah, but I am thinking about switching...I had been tinkering with the idea before it was pulled from InSim.net.  I like to keep my options open.