Nina and Dina bore me to tears

[vilia]

I've never played the maxis families before but after reading this I thought I would give it a whirl...Dina married Morty & they became pregnant with Helen pretty quickly - way to go you gold-digger! Thus ensuring that when Morty shuffles off this mortal coil she will get not one but two inheritances (as the bub will be too young to know any better).  She pretty much ignores Alexander except when Morty's around and then she is laughing and chatting etc.  Poor Alexander is understandably a little confused.

As for Nina - I changed her to knowledge straight away.  Her heart just wasn't into those public displays of affection.  She called the matchmaker, paid top dollar and suprise suprise it actually worked.  She got a waiter as a date and they have...wait for it...3 bolts of attraction for each other (without messing around with turn on/offs).  His name is Gary, they moved in and have just had a kid called Bruce.  I forgot to download the reindeer from Maxis so they are running with scissors a lot but no 'accidents' yet.  They both want to get saved from death, shrugs...As for her and Don - well 3 bolts beat 2 and Gary is a knowledge with no intention of cheating on her so he won the day.  Don still rings up but the she's not too interested. Don will have to make do with the maid. Funnily enough Nina & Dina are now best friends - they must be swapping baby stories or something.  Whenever I am playing one of their households, the other is always ringing up to chat.

Cassy was left at the alter by Don but fortuitously the phone rang about 2 mins after and it was Darren.  She ended the call but her social was still low so I got her to ring him and invite him over.  Turns out they have 2 bolts for each other and so they were engaged & married within the hour.  Noice rebound!  Dirk was a bit surprised when Cassy rocked up but as he spent most of his time snogging Lillith he doesn't seem too upset.  Don & Cassy have a kid now - Daisy.  Cassy wants another but stiff bickies, I play by China rules.

I tried playing the Pleasants and have pretty much given up - too disfunctional.  Angela gets on my nerves and so does Daniel. Mary Sue is bland and the only one I really like is Lillith.  As punishment I have left Mary Sue & Daniel married (let them be miserable together) and sent the two ferals off to uni.  Lillith's body skill myseriously shot up and so she wins all of the fights with Angela. I got their relationship with their parents up just long enough to have their parents teach them how to study - I need that for when they are at uni.  After that, I just sat back and watched them brawl.

I've resurected the Tricou family and they are doing ok.  I had to change the aspirations of the 6 downtownies as they were all pleasure - one is ok, two getting a little much but 6 is unacceptable.  I might have to try and find some goth skins though for young adults as it was quite sad to see Fricaroth go through uni without a proper goth look.  The two daughters of Jon Smith & Jennicor had another kid each, both girls so since the rest of the families names were so bizarre, I had fun choosing theirs.  One became Jessenet & the other Cyrinet.

I lasted about 15 mins playing Brandi before she irritated me too much.  She is supposed to be a loving mother right? One who adores her kids and presumably struggles to give them the best she can?  Sunshine spent her entire time playing the pinball machine while Beau, starved for affection and attention developed deep seated psychological problems that would only be identified later in life with the help of a good shrink. Bleh! I even tried reserrecting Skip and neither of them liked each other so I exited without saving.

Verdict: juries still out but it has been interesting to play sims with a back story - even if I have ended up completely ruining it.

[sara_dippity]

Anyone else name a daughter by Cassandra and Darren "Day"?

[Process Denied]

Vilia--I agree,Brandi sucks as a mother,but surprise!!  Skip is a great father.  I had them in a trailer park with a few other fun to play sims and had Skip and Dustin in one trailer and Brandi and the other children in another trailer.  The other Sims were Romance Sims and they are usually really good with kids.  So the kids were well taken care of.  It is important to marry her off asap--for the children's sake.  She gets better when she has more children.  Most(bad) family sims don't roll wants for their children till the second child so if she has another baby,she gets better.

[RainbowTigress]

Brandi only sucks as a mother if you play her that way.  You should sell the pinball machine right away because they need the cash and it's worth a bunch.  The sooner you sell it, the more you'll get for it.  The reason she played it so much is because it has a high advertisement value.  I am so sick of people saying how terrible Brandi is as a mom.  She was and continues to be a great mom in my game, one of my favorite characters.  I've played her longer than any of my other sims.  I had to make myself play the others to keep them in sync.  And I don't know why family sims get such a bad rap either.  Sims are what you make them. 

Angela was another one of my favorites.  In my Pleasantview, I worked at Angela and Lilith's relationship to make them friends because I got tired of them fighting all the time.  I had to tweak some things because Maxis had stacked things against them in ways that don't occur in normal gameplay.  They only had one or two interests in common, so I had to get them some magazines and have them read up on each other's interests, and from then on it was much easier to get them to talk to each other.

[agcons]

By far the best thing is to get Brandi married off after stripping the house of anything saleable that wasn't strictly necessary.  After Dustin had grown up and moved out, I realised that if I got Brandi a job she still wouldn't earn enough to pay the taxes or a nanny.  Then she popped a belly, which was a disagreeable surprise.

Since Dan and Mary-Sue had broken up long before, I introduced Brandi and Mary-Sue when the latter did a walk-by.   That went well, and Brandi moved into the Pleasant house with Beau.  She married Mary-Sue, had her male clone, and became attentive to her children even without my assistance.  Beau and Stone are long gone now, and in homes of their own. 

After the break-up, Mary-Sue and Dan were able to make friends again, and when Dan's new family (with Richard) was mostly grown I had Mary-Sue invite them to move in.  She and Dan still have all their memories concerning each other, but there's been no drama.  Dan and Richard won't leave each other alone; Mary-Sue and Brandi aren't far behind, and no one minds.   They're all one big happy, and surprisingly functional, family.

I did much the same as Rainbow with Angela and Lilith, but I admit also to a dirty bit of cheating by flipping the "enemy" bit in SimPE.  With that set, it was impossible to get them to build a calmer relationship.  Once it was off things were still pretty bouncy but it was easier.  By the time they were ready to go to university they were getting along well enough for me to risk having them rent a house together.  That worked out just fine, surprisingly.  Perhaps their shared hatred for Jasmine Bui helped.

Lilith married John Burb, with whom she's had the ugliest sprog (a toddler still) I've seen yet, and that's saying something.  Angela is destined to become a future crazy cat lady, assuming that all the clamouring for pets results in that sort of expansion package.

[vilia]

Brandi only sucks as a mother if you play her that way.  You should sell the pinball machine right away because they need the cash and it's worth a bunch.  The sooner you sell it, the more you'll get for it.  The reason she played it so much is because it has a high advertisement value.  I am so sick of people saying how terrible Brandi is as a mom.  She was and continues to be a great mom in my game, one of my favorite characters.  I've played her longer than any of my other sims.  I had to make myself play the others to keep them in sync.  And I don't know why family sims get such a bad rap either.  Sims are what you make them. 

Whoa, settle down rainbow, I've obviously hit a raw nerve.  You're much nicer and fairer with your sims than I am.  I do like family sims and play them quite a bit but most of my family sims roll wants such as potty training, teaching to walk & talk - my Brandi didn't roll any of those wants.  I guess I expected Maxis to have created Brandi in such a way that she rolled stacks of wants re her kids.  I thought it was sad that Dustin actually spent more time with Beau than she did.  I had left the pinball machine in as that is how Maxis shipped her lot and I wanted to see how it played out - and as you could tell from my previous post I wasn't too impressed. 

In case I have been unduly unfair, I'll give the Broke's family another shot today & perhaps I'll try moving her into Mary Sue's place as agcons did.  Maybe with more support things will turn out differently.  I don't like playing more than 4 sims at once so I'm thinking I might have Mary Sue & Dan break up and Dan can move in with Don - the D brothers, lovin' & leavin' all the townies.

[RainbowTigress]

That sounds great, villa.  Brandi deserves to be happy.   I made her a special CAS sim to marry her to the first time, and they had bunches of kids, way too many, actually.  But I had fun doing it.  This time, I resurrected Skip and made him a family sim, and he and Brandi have 3 bolts and are crazy about each other.  They of course want another baby, but I'm trying to do population control this time as my first Pleasantview never got past the second generation because there are so many kids to pair up and send through Uni.  Now I've gone back and played it, they are almost through Uni so now I have to find houses for everyone and start making babies.  I have combined some because I get bored just playing one or two sims.  Big houses are more entertaining for me, especially with Macrotastics to take care of the more mundane tasks. 

Oh, and my previous comments weren't aimed at you personally.  It's just that I've seen this same thing many times before in the past from different people, and I guess it's like you said, it's the way Maxis set things up.

[Process Denied]

I played three almost Identical games(kept losing them) and sims play differently everytime you play them.  Cassie was an awesome Mom one of the times and aweful the other times.  This last time, I turned her into a teen and she is completely different(everyone is)she is a wonderful mother and a wonderful wife( to Ty Bubbler if you can believe it).  Brandi didn't really do well till her fourth child then she started rolling wants for them(it's weird when the step father rolls more wants for them than their real mom).  I think the biggest thing that changes Brandi is how long you wait to play her.  She replaces her mommy wants with wants to be friends with sims.  Daniel Pleasant in my game is only in love with Mary Sue and has never strayed.  That sure hadn't happened in other games.  Every game is different no matter how you play it.

[BeckerCheez]

I've never really played Pleasantview in the whole time I've owned the game, but on a whim I cloned Dina and Nina and put them into my second custom neighborhood along with Don.  I moved all three into a house with two other CAS sims, and when the three went to visit the Curious Cloned Brothers next door when they moved in...well...let's just say they all had a nice b**** slap fest.  Way to be neighborly.   

Also, I put the exact number of personality points for Dina and Nina, but they had different Zodiac signs than what they had in Pleasantview.  Odd.   

[Process Denied]

A lot of Maxis Sims are like that.  If I come across an obnoxous character, I usually make them fit their Zodiac.  They will play better usually.  I love hacks!!!

[RainbowTigress]

I've noticed that a lot too.  If you use debug mode to change their personality points in-game, you'll notice the Zodiac sign change from what it was even if you put it back the same as it was.  Also, if I'm not mistaken, Lilith's personality points didn't match her genetic personality shown by the white line underneath.  I guess we are to assume that Daniel or Mary-Sue spent time "encouraging" her, although she has a horrible relationship with them.

[Velda]

I'm never happy with what I've done to Pleasantview, so I keep a backup of it in pristine condition and start fresh whenever I like.  Last time, I turned Nina and Dina into zombies, bought them much worse clothing and made them over with the most garish makeup possible.  What Pleasantview really needed was a couple of zombie hookers, lurching down the street in low-cut leopard print dresses and big curly hairdos.  Usually I just kill Nina and have Dina bear Mortimer's love child, but the results are so unpredictable.  It's either beautiful or a Nose Creature.  I never know what to do with the Pleasants, either.  Maybe I'll make Lilith a Mad Scientist on a mission to weed out the local riffraff with use of the darwincowplant hack.  

[vilia]

Ok, Pleasantview update. I moved Brandi & kids into the Pleasant house after Mary-Sue kicked Daniel out for cheating on her with the maid.  NB Daniel ended up shacking up with Don & they now have a cute son called Damian - they are very affectionate.

Brandi started rolling wants to train Beau in the basic necessities and was telling jokes & stuff to Dustin (who ended up with A+ at private school).  There are more distractions at the Pleasant house than there ever were at the trailer but Brandi got into the whole Mum thing with a vengance [I, Vilia have to confess that Rainbow was right and there was more to Brandi than I initially thought:) ].  I decided to hook Mary-Sue up with a mate and as the Gypsy worked last time, I thought I would give it another go.  She ended up summoning Mr Big & they have 3 bolts for each other - noice.  Brandi ended up with a 2 bolt townie but I think he is definitely a keeper.  She ran off at the start of their date to change the nappy of new bub Justin and the date just wandered in, casually spoke the Simlish equivelant of 'good-oh' and went off to play with Beau.

Lucy Burb & Worthington III became pregnant at uni and after graduating moved back home.  John & Jennifer insisted on a wedding even though Worthington wanted to marry a rich sim.  Lucy wanted to graduate 3 kids from uni so she had 3 in quick succession.  Worthington left all of the kid rearing to Lucy, John & Jennifer and turned to a life of crime to get out of the house.

I'm the same as you Velda - always creating, destroying & starting over.  I've got a separate hood Dead Tree Canyon now where I experiment.  I make all my sims be nice & upstanding members of the community (well most of them) in the maxis hoods & get them all to permaplat but in Dead Tree Canyon anything goes.

[RainbowTigress]

I'm afraid that there is a glitch with the LTW of "Graduate 3 kids."  Specifically, they don't always get the want satisfied.  JM says there is a bug with certain LTWs such as this, and it may have to do with the fact that the parent wasn't there to witness the actual graduation.  This was discussed somewhere around here...I know there have been some who experienced this problem.  I'm thinking Ancient Sim was one, but I'm not sure.  But I try to avoid these and reroll them to something else.  As a consequence, most of my family sims end up being Captain Hero to get permaplat unless they can get Celebrity Chef or something else due to the "greater LTW variety" hack.

[skandelouslala]

Brandi only sucks as a mother if you play her that way. 

Brandi was a good mother in my game as well when I played her that way.  She didn't take as much of an interest in her children's lives as some of my other family sims but she was still close with them all.  Skip was a horrible father when I brought him back. I've played Brandi as the "bad" parent once before and she fits the role for sure if you play it that way.  Skip was horrible regardless and if I ever need to reinstall or Pleasantview goes kersplat again I am never bringing him back. I just...didn't like him lol

[vilia]

I'm afraid that there is a glitch with the LTW of "Graduate 3 kids."  Specifically, they don't always get the want satisfied.  JM says there is a bug with certain LTWs such as this, and it may have to do with the fact that the parent wasn't there to witness the actual graduation.  This was discussed somewhere around here...I know there have been some who experienced this problem.  I'm thinking Ancient Sim was one, but I'm not sure.  But I try to avoid these and reroll them to something else.  As a consequence, most of my family sims end up being Captain Hero to get permaplat unless they can get Celebrity Chef or something else due to the "greater LTW variety" hack.

Groans loudly...I wonder if I invite the mum to all the graduation parties and then she would have it in her memory?  Never mind. I'll reroll the want as I don't want to take a chance.  Thanks for the heads up

[RainbowTigress]

I think JM said they have to be present when they actually graduate, as in when they come back from their final exam and get the memory of having graduated.

[vilia]

I'll reset to be on the safe side but maybe Maxis will fix it in the new expansion pack 

[BeckerCheez]

I played the house in which the Caliente sister clones were placed.  Whoever the blonde one is most certainly a b***h and hates Don's guts.     Oddly enough Don won the next fight after that one, which is amusing...

[Zeljka]

hmm, I tried playing Pleasantville when I installed University (recently) and though I'd heard such wonderful things about about it, I found the whole place pretty dull.
Just clicked on a random house, Dreamers, well, they certainly put me to sleep. Tried the infamous Brandi Broke next and decided to make her kids the first to try Uni. I moved in the red head Calliente to help with the bills but she was pretty useless (except she seemed to like the toddlers) Dustin and his kid brothers turned into hideous YA's and I experimented with the Plastic Surgery to make them more interesting. Guess I'm just not good with Maxis Sims.

[jsalemi]

Well, my Nina is kinda boring, even as the town sort-of hooker, but I think my Dina is cursed. She married Morty Goth, had a daughter with him on their very first woohoo, and they weren't even trying for a baby. Right after their daughter turned into a child she got pregnant again, and again on a regular woohoo (risk is raised a bit via InTeen in my game).  This time, the same night she had the baby the ol' GR came for Morty.  Poor Dina didn't have an easy time of it for the next couple of sim-days -- she had to use some of the money he left to hire a nanny for 8 hour stretches just so she could get some sleep. 

Well, wouldn't you know it -- her daughter is about to become a teen-age mom!  Ophelia had her first woohoo with Jason Burb (Lucy's younger brother, born in-game), in the hot tub, and bang -- morning sickness.  A quick check with InSim showed she was a couple of hours pregnant. Poor Dina's probably going to have to quit her job to take care of her grandkid so Ophelia can go back to school...

[Batelle]

I wiped out Pleasantview after some tinkering with the Goth kids and the Broke kids.  I used clones of Morty, Bella, Brandi and Skip to make more attractive children.  The Pleasant girls are being left alone because I shudder to think wht Mary Sue's offspring would look like.

Anyway, after making over the Dreamers, Burbs and Pleasants I went into the Caliente house.  Everything was going swell, Dina proposed to Mortimer and he said yes, Nina got her job as a slacker.  Then Don called and asked if Nina wanted to go downtown.  Thinking that this meant some time out from the watchful eye of Dina, I had Nina accept. 

Huuuuuuuge mistake.

I should have known that things had gone to hell when Dina, clad in panties, decided to ride along.  When the taxi arrived at Crypt O'Night Club, guess who should pop of the taxi after Don?  Why none other than Kaylynn the maid followed by Cassandra Goth!  It was, like, totally random.  Right.  So of course something was bound to happen.  Try as I might to keep Nina away from Don, she went in for a "Charm" and thus began a long night of clenched fists, bitch slapping and fisticuffs.  At first the anger was focused on Mr. Lothario (who I've yet to make-over, so he still looks like Ben Affleck circa Chasing Amy) and Cassandra, Kaylynn and Dina all took their turns expressing their hurt.  Then they turned, quite systematically, on Nina.  Is it really Nina's fault that Donny boy has the complete inability to keep the pink hearts out of friendship?  I think not.

Soooo much fun.  At the end of day one everyone's been played except the Lothario house.  Dina is married to Mort, Cassie is engaged to Mr. Dreamer (who is kind of cute once you get him out of the green shades and icky goatee) and I already have plans to have a whole soap opera starring the Burbs and the Brokes.

[RainbowTigress]

At first the anger was focused on Mr. Lothario (who I've yet to make-over, so he still looks like Ben Affleck circa Chasing Amy)

LOL, I never thought of him looking like Ben Affleck.  He doesn't look that bad to me, but I gave him a makeover just to see what he would look like, and he just didn't look like Don to me.  But Ancient Sim thinks he looks quite sexy in the floppy hairdo...

Cassie is engaged to Mr. Dreamer (who is kind of cute once you get him out of the green shades and icky goatee)

I agree, the green glasses suck.  I never use them at all.  I gave him some clear lenses, and he looked pretty nice.  The goatee doesn't bother me so much.  But in my second incarnation of Pleasantview, I did try something different with everyone, especially after downloading several new hairstyles that I like.   The ones from SimCribbling are quite striking.

[vilia]

I don' think Don needs a makeover - Daniel likes him just the way he is.  An update on my Pleasantview - Lillith & Angela who are now best friends and went to college together where they met the Davis brothers (La Fiesta Tech).  They married a brother each and moved into a house together, popping out 2 kids each.  Now I thought I was doing alright by changing the hairstyles a bit & different clothes but when Aldric failed to get a point boost at the birth of a kid I checked their memories.  It seems that I had been grabbing the wrong Pleasant - both brothers have a kid each by Angela & Lillith (you think they could have told me!).  As I have LizzLove's no jealosy hack I simply didn't notice.  Anyway, I moved Lillith, hubby & kids out so it wouldn't get even more confusing.

[RainbowTigress]

Now I thought I was doing alright by changing the hairstyles a bit & different clothes but when Aldric failed to get a point boost at the birth of a kid I checked their memories.  It seems that I had been grabbing the wrong Pleasant - both brothers have a kid each by Angela & Lillith (you think they could have told me!).

Oh my gosh, that is hilarious!  LOL!  I think I might have done some fixing in SimPE if that happened to me.