helpful ghosts

[Persephone]

I have yet to even get a friendly ghost. They all come back mean. Most of the time I'm forced to delete their tombstone because of their antics. I really thought I'd like having ghosts because I love ghost stories but they're really  more of an annoyance to me.

Likewise.  I recently had a grandparent pass away, who acheived two lifetime wants. I didn't sell the beds or anything, but 2 days after he died, he went to scare a couple of the grandchildren with which he had relationship scores of 100/100.

I just think if a sim who dies of old age in platinum and has had a perfect overall life etc, they shouldn't be so mean.  That being said, I've never had a helpful ghost in my game, even though almost all my sims have at least 5+ in neatness.

Ghosts will still scare sometimes even if they aren't angry.  Even the helpful ghosts will do that now and again.  The way to tell if a ghost is ANGRY or not is to watch them idle.  They fume and fuss just like a furious sims.  They will scare more aggressively (but ALL ghosts will scare).  Also +5 neat is not going to result in a cleaning ghost unless they are all the way to 10. 

[tunaisafish]

The angriness of the ghost affects their haunting range.  I think the minimum range is 3 squares.

[Muisie]

Ghosts suck.  I had 24 ghosts in my legacy house.  Some were really mean and others where helpful, but they all scared the crap out of my family.    Their targeting preference seem to be (pure superstition on my part I'm sure):
1. pregnant sim
2. child
3. teen
4. visiting sims (especially at parties)
5. elder sim
6. adult sim
100. any age sim with Knowledge aspiration

They especially like teaming up and scaring the same sim twice.  I did notice that previous family members were a lot more vengeful than  say, innocent townies who happened to die on the lot.  (I might just add that I specifically never deleted beds, instead had a warehouse stacked with haunted ones.)

[Brynne]

I just "got a new ghost" the other day (see the bright, shiny halo over my head? I didn't do nuthin'  ), and I sent a couple of knowledge teens out on the front lawn one night when she was active, free will off. Both my knowledge sims wanted to see a ghost. I also had an assortment of family members and aspirations out there with them. The ghost scared the same sim NINE TIMES until he finally peed his pants and had to shower. He is a popularity sim, and had absolutely no desire to see this ghost. She ignored everyone else until I sent Cam in to shower, so she then picked on a teen pleasure-seeker until dawn broke. Not a good memory for him, either, and he had to shower after the 5th or 6th time. My knowledge sims didn't get spooked once.

[nectere]

I have to get my knowledge sims to chase the ghost around a few times before it will finally scare him/her. Of course ghosts arent allowed in the house so it usually only takes a couple of minutes.

[Brynne]

What's funny is that the ghost was scaring the sims on either side of the knowledge sim. In this pic, Luke says he wants to "see a ghost". Evidentally he needs to be whacked over the head with one to see it since he's looking right at her.

[vecki]

Oh yes, sims will be watching ghosts float past them but still haven't 'seen' the ghost.

[BeckerCheez]

Amazing.  I had Aerith the Knowledge Elder see her brother-in-law's ghost (on accident, I wasn't even looking) and not only did it fulfill her want to see the ghost, she also died from fright.   

[vcline]

Hence the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for."