No stupid stranger behavior - ever.

[nectere]

Actually I was wondering if you would consider addressing the constant admiration interaction with strangers. It works much like the hugging and stranger dance, its just a bad interaction to try on a stranger and never works. I suppose people walk up to complete strangers and admire them in real life, but I havent seen it and would likely think I was in some kind of creepy "camp" and freak if I did.

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually I was wondering if you would consider addressing the constant admiration interaction with strangers. It works much like the hugging and stranger dance, its just a bad interaction to try on a stranger and never works.

I think this is mostly a nice-sim problem. The acceptance bounds on the interaction appear roughly correct, but nice sims tend to overestimate the relationship involved, and thus fail. Make your sims grouchier. Then you won't have this problem. Grouchy sims, I find, rarely fail socials like that. I mean, sure, they poke, annoy, and insult people, but at least they're choosing an appropriate interaction for their relationship level!

I suppose people walk up to complete strangers and admire them in real life, but I havent seen it and would likely think I was in some kind of creepy "camp" and freak if I did.

That's certainly the way the sims react to it also.

[vcline]

JM, I know you like your sims grouchy, but what do you consider to be the maximum reasonable niceness?  Would 7 be under the creepy-too-nice limit?

Thanks,
Vicki

[Liss]

I always make my sims 5 nice, or they have trouble making friends, and I don't really enjoy the fighting unless I'm not particularly attatched to the sim.  If it's a sim I don't "know" (like the cop and the burglar), it's pretty funny.

[J. M. Pescado]

JM, I know you like your sims grouchy, but what do you consider to be the maximum reasonable niceness?  Would 7 be under the creepy-too-nice limit?

I consider 4 a good limit. 7 is a little on the high side. Of course, some sims end up creepy that way because I simply don't have the time or appropriate influence to resolve it, but hey, like in real life, some people are losers.

[Ancient Sim]

Some Sims are happy to be admired by strangers, usually Romance or Popularity ones, or maybe it's Family, can't remember now.  Otherwise I agree, it's extremely annoying and I always cancel it out if I see it.  I think the word "admire" is wrong too, because nobody admires a stranger, at least not openly.  What are they admiring them for?  It always seems somehow verging on the sexual to me, although it's obviously not meant to be.  There are different kinds of admiration obviously, but unless they have a reason to admire them (perhaps because they're the Mayor of Sim City), it makes no real sense.  Let's face it, they have no real idea how to deal with people they've just met anyway. 

[Sandilou]

I think that they used the same Maxian programming code as they did in Superstar; it's the same type of behaviour as the fans showed for those successful Superstars, aka adoring fan mode. (Lazy programmers).

[veilchen]

I agree, 'admire' is the wrong word. "Compliment" would be a better choice, and far more applicable. I can compliment people on a well thought out idea, a well written article, or even a nice (or intriguing) outfit, but I don't admire them because of that. Maybe it's  because I'm very bad at 'gushing' or other such useless/phony interactions. I find such interactions extremely nauseating.

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

I agree, 'admire' is the wrong word. "Compliment" would be a better choice, and far more applicable.

That's what it was called in TS1. I don't really dig gushing, though. It's annoying. If you gush at me, I will helpfully remind you that you are dumb that your gloves are stupid.

[reggikko]

JM, I know you like your sims grouchy, but what do you consider to be the maximum reasonable niceness?  Would 7 be under the creepy-too-nice limit?

Thanks,
Vicki

I love grouchy Sims. One of my kids was born with 1 nice point and she's hilarious. When she plays Cops and Robbers, when the other child "dies", she goes over and (pretend) kicks them. I find 3-4 nice points optimal. Grouchy Sims are very nice to friends and family members (as long as relationship scores are good). I don't generally have trouble making friends for them, especially with Auto Yak-Yak, Macro Socialize, or a chess table.

[Ancient Sim]

I agree, 'admire' is the wrong word. "Compliment" would be a better choice, and far more applicable. I can compliment people on a well thought out idea, a well written article, or even a nice (or intriguing) outfit, but I don't admire them because of that. Maybe it's  because I'm very bad at 'gushing' or other such useless/phony interactions. I find such interactions extremely nauseating.G.

I agree with you totally on this, I am exactly the same.  And yes, compliment is exactly the right word.  Maybe there is a way to change it in the programming?  Not that it would alter anything, but it would look better!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I prefer the grouchy sims too!  I never find only one nice point makes them nasty to their friends or family, but it does mean that if someone else is nasty to a friend or a family member, they don't at all mind picking fights with them and making them cry!

[JenW]

I have a little girl who was born with 1 nice point also, and she is actually very sweet with her parents and her half-brother (whom she just met) as has been said. She always runs out to greet her mother (Brandi LeTourneau, if anyone's interested), autonomously kissed her half-brother the second time she saw him, and always has wants to play with her parents or that annoying Chloe girl. Other than being able to make crank calls, she's a perfectly sweet girl

Jen

[nectere]

I can infer by your prescription that the answer is no...

gah. Not everyone is capable of being made less nice. Oh and by the way whats the no cry baby mod supposed to do? Because there are certain sims who are still cry babies, incidently I cant "encourage" them only cheat them into compliance. What gives? Did I misunderstand the mods awesomeness or are we talking ID Ten T error here?

[J. M. Pescado]

gah. Not everyone is capable of being made less nice. Oh and by the way whats the no cry baby mod supposed to do? Because there are certain sims who are still cry babies, incidently I cant "encourage" them only cheat them into compliance. What gives? Did I misunderstand the mods awesomeness or are we talking ID Ten T error here?

It greatly raises the wussiness threshold that sims are much less likely to whine like babies which insulted, poked, and slapped, unless they are EXTREMELY nice like the little wussies they are, or they're not grouchy and have really bad aspirational state, as formerly suggested by somebody on rentech.com.

[veilchen]

The one thing that really makes me angry (at a game at that) is when the silly pixel people cry at the sight of roaches. What the heck is up with that? Although I don't have them at my house, I don't exactly jump for joy when I observe them; I sure as heck don't burst into tears... repeatedly. I get the urge to whap them on the head, a rare occurance for me.

G.

[Sandilou]

I think that they are right to cry because roaches are the source of the simkiller plague.  Atleast it is in my game because just like real life, sims/ people aren't allowed to lie in bed when they think that their ill, they just have to get on with it.  In such circumstances, Death is never far away.

[DuckSpeak]

Well, even if roaches are quite dangerous I would think that the better reaction would be to go immediatly call the exterminator or spray them yourself. (which I always do) Sims are such wusses, sometimes.  I remember my paramount frustration when Sims constantly stomped roaches in the Sims 1... heh

[ZephyrZodiac]

But at least in Sims 1 they didn't cry about them!  And although it was slower than spraying, it did kill them!  And if you had unleashed, the dogs or cats would get rid of them!  Or you could use Move_objects on, keep them and the flies somewhere safe, then sell them in the morning!

[veilchen]

If I saw something around me and my family that had the potential of killing everyone, the last thing that would come to my mind to do would be wasting my time crying...repeatedly. I would try to remove that source of doom in any way I could. The idea that roaches spread the bubonic plague is ridiculous anyway, the plague is spread by the fleas and the mites on rodents. They can change hosts, bite, and thusly introduce all kinds of goodies into the new hosts body.

Aside from trying to find logic in TS2, which is an exercise in futility anyway, I never had one of my pixel people die of the flu (or the plague for that matter). Reading about all the things that happen in other people's games, I find that mine behaves incredibly boring.

[vecki]

Some Sims are happy to be admired by strangers, usually Romance or Popularity ones, or maybe it's Family, can't remember now.

I have a super-grouchy (0 nice points at all) teen fortune sim, Milton Mysterious, who LOVES it when other sims admire him... especially the cute teen Kristy Mills, who he met last night.  I hadn't decided who I was going to set her up with before now.

Everybody seems to want to admire him, too, despite his tendency to prank everyone 2 minutes after meeting them.

[Ardin Topani]

I think the word "admire" is wrong too, because nobody admires a stranger, at least not openly.  What are they admiring them for?  It always seems somehow verging on the sexual to me, although it's obviously not meant to be.  There are different kinds of admiration obviously, but unless they have a reason to admire them (perhaps because they're the Mayor of Sim City), it makes no real sense.

I thought "admire" was meant to be a sexual action in the game. When I first got the game, I had one of my sims invite the headmaster over and was schmoozing poorly. I told her to admire and suddenly her son was crying and her husband was coming over to slap the headmaster! I cancelled that out, but looked at her memories and saw "Had an Affair with X." I don't know if this has changed since Uni, but I have avoided using that interaction ever since with an attached sim. (nless, of course, they are the only one home.) That's one of my favorite interactions to use when I'm trying to hook someone up though and haven't gotten to an acceptable kissing stage.

[veilchen]

My sims don't get crushes from 'admire' at all, they use it when they are friends and all it does is push the friendship rate up. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's due to one of JM's fixes. I have just about all of them in my game, and I seem to remember reading somewhere that 'admire' can produce crushes. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, since the unfixed game had sims develop crushes over 'teaching' and the hand-held thingies.

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

Admire is not romantic, and never has been. In fact, the AutoSocializer abuses it heavily.

[Brynne]

If I saw something around me and my family that had the potential of killing everyone, the last thing that would come to my mind to do would be wasting my time crying...repeatedly.

This gets on my nerves, big time. My sims have no reason to fear illness from roaches, anyway, because I have Carrigon's no sickness from roaches hack. Or whatever it's called. Yet my grown, male sims are bawling like babies, anyway, for the rest of the day. My military general is sobbing in the corner, my captain hero is blubbering in the kitchen...ridiculous.

I have to admit, thought, that I have roachaphobia in real life. I live in the south where we have those big, freaking palmetto bugs, and they always seem to make a beeline for my hair. One landed on my shoulder from behind late the other night. I jumped up, knocking my laptop to the floor, did the Daffy Duck dance for a few minutes (hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo!) then trapped him under an upside-down garbage can next to the couch. It is still waiting for its demise at the hands of my husband. Or the flush of the toilet. And my cats are useless, by the way. They didn't even lift a mighty hunting paw to help me.