Always the same Townies...

[baratron]

When you visit a Downtown lot, do you always see the same other sims at that lot?

I find that particular sims are "assigned" to particular lots. For example, at Sim Center South in Pleasantview, I get up to 8 visitors. They're a mix of playable and Townie sims, 4 in the daytime and a different 4 at nighttime. (Sim Me is one of the nighttime visitors). It's always the SAME 4. Likewise, the Art Gallery and the One-Twenty-Five Cafe - always the same other visitors. Believe me, these are the 3 places I take my Ethiopian Challenge sims to wash & steal food, so I spend enough time there to notice it's always the same people .

So iIm wondering how to find out which of my lots a particular sim I want to find will be hanging out at? because it definitely seems to be set somewhere in my game...

[ZephyrZodiac]

I don't know how you'd find out, but I'd agree that there is some kind of selection process going on which isn't random.  In OFB you tend to get the same group of townies shopping at your sim's business, and if you decide they aren't buying anything and ask them to leave, they come back next minute to hang around all over again!

[Dea]

That explains why alot of people ask what lots the vampires come on, but I have seen them everywhere.  I get a lot of different sims on my lots...Its true that some visit more often than othes...Like in one of my home business Dirk Dreamer is practically there 24 hrs a day...I play his house just to empty out his inventory or it would explode with all the objects he gets and the threeobject limit shopping rule doesnt apply in my game...I have sims that have inventories chock full of merchandise...

[dadditude]

I just use Squinges shopnosaveitem mod so that the items don't actually end up in the inventory of the uncontrollable sim, nor does the money come out of their family treasury.

[vilia]

I regularly see the same sims hanging out at one store e.g. the hat wearing chick with the striped shirt is always at the 3-1 bookshop - not buying but playing chess or darts or generally wasting oxygen.

No idea how to check why they show up at certain places though

[Jysudo]

I regularly see the same sims hanging out at one store e.g. the hat wearing chick with the striped shirt is always at the 3-1 bookshop - not buying but playing chess or darts or generally wasting oxygen.

I doubt pixels breathe 

[Emma]

I think it might be an OFB thing that certain townies are 'assigned' to certain lots, especially if it is an owned business...maybe it is to do with customer loyalty. I just have UNI and NL and I get a random mix of townies, uni students and downtownies at my downtown lots. I don't see specific ones anywhere. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I have deleted some downtown lots that I don't like such as the clothing stores, the grocery shop, the art gallery and a few other assorted lots that were tedious to play. In my 'home' neighbourhood though I only get townies, no downtownies or uni students at all.

[vilia]

I regularly see the same sims hanging out at one store e.g. the hat wearing chick with the striped shirt is always at the 3-1 bookshop - not buying but playing chess or darts or generally wasting oxygen.

I doubt pixels breathe 

Not any more - I 'fixed' her with a 'tragic' accident 

[J. M. Pescado]

I think it might be an OFB thing that certain townies are 'assigned' to certain lots, especially if it is an owned business...maybe it is to do with customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty affects the percentage chance that that particular sim will be chosen to show up (although it's still, oddly enough, nonzero even if they absolutely detest your store to the 5-red level).

I just have UNI and NL and I get a random mix of townies, uni students and downtownies at my downtown lots. I don't see specific ones anywhere. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I have deleted some downtown lots that I don't like such as the clothing stores, the grocery shop, the art gallery and a few other assorted lots that were tedious to play. In my 'home' neighbourhood though I only get townies, no downtownies or uni students at all.

This is normal, uni students may only appear as visitors at Uni neighborhoods, downtownies can only show up downtown.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I've had the occasional dormie show up in Bluewater Village, and the SS members used to show up Downtown.  (Plus in one hood before OFB i had a dormie come over and kick trashcans in the middle of the night for no reason whatsoever!)

[Ness]

Are you sure the dormie wasn't somehow furious with someone in that house?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Hadn't had a chance!  New install, all the sims were clones and they hadn't been anywhere!  No, the game decided it need to generates some furious sims - it also made the maid furious with Don for no apparent reason (and I checked this in SimPE, she wasn't furious at all!) and she arrived in the middle of the night and kicked over his trashcan too!

Even now I have sims doing it who aren't furious, aren't in red aspiration and have no apparent motive at all, but it frequently seems to happen when they walk by a lot for the third or fourth time and no-one greets them!

But I do think odd things can happen, for example it's not normal for adults to autonomously turn up at Uni houses, but I've known it happen that a parent has just shown up and walked in.

[baratron]

That explains why alot of people ask what lots the vampires come on, but I have seen them everywhere.  I get a lot of different sims on my lots...Its true that some visit more often than othes...

Right. One of the Counts is crazy about the treadmill I have installed at the One-Twenty-Five Cafe. He falls off it several times a night, but he'll stay on it until sunrise unless one of my playable sims interrupts him for a conversation. And one of the Contessas loves the Myshuno at Sim Center South. Nighttimes there are her, Olive Specter, Sim Me and a Downtownie on the Myshuno. I hate that kind of game in real life. How embarrassing.

I think it might be an OFB thing that certain townies are 'assigned' to certain lots, especially if it is an owned business...maybe it is to do with customer loyalty. I just have UNI and NL and I get a random mix of townies, uni students and downtownies at my downtown lots.

I still don't have OFB though, because I'm still trying to finish Ethiopian! (Yes, I'm slow. We know this.)

When I visit a lot with members of the same family, I always get the same ~8 sims as NPCs. It does vary a bit if I go there with sims from a different family, but only the Townies and playable sims that are visiting NPCs seem to change - the Downtownies seem to be fixed. (Does that make sense talking about playable sims as NPCs? I mean sims that I would be able to play but that I am not currently controlling.) It's obviously different between different Downtowns - N002's Sim Center South doesn't have the same people as N004's Sim Center South. But, as I tend to favour particular locations for dates and outings, I do keep seeing the same people. And it's boring!

And I want Sim Ryan to meet the guy I have picked out to be his partner "naturally" by bumping into him Downtown, not through Inge's shrub! I might have to *cough* arrange things with the *cough* shrub, though, if the game is going to be so annoying...

[jsalemi]

(Does that make sense talking about playable sims as NPCs? I mean sims that I would be able to play but that I am not currently controlling.)

Maybe we should call them PUPs, for 'presently un-playable'.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think it may have to do with them being next on the list for your sims to meet!  Just lately I've been moving loads of romance and Popularity sims into new houses, and the welcome wagon is almost always the same three (or at least a combination of three out of five or so) sims, presumably because they've met most of the rest.  I've just moved Ricky Cormier back from Uni, and it'll be interesting to see if he joins the WW - but for some reason I never get a Knowledge sim visit!

[Ancient Sim]

Oddly enough, I noticed this today, although it wasn't the same downtown lot, it was the same Sim.  One of mine was invited Downtown by a BF (1 bolt) and the party included another BF (2 bolts).  The taxi that brought her home had literally just left when the next taxi arrived to take her straight out again after she was invited by the 2-bolter from the original group.  Not only were 3 members of the group the same, so were the visitors to the lot.  The first lot was Londoste and the second was the bowling alley beginning with S.  There were some different playables there, but the non-playables were basically the same.  This never happened before I installed OFB, though.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think with OFB they changed the programming in this to keep the numbers down and somewhow to make it less memory draining if the same sims show up each time.   I've moved in yet another sim, and the same three welcomers have shown up again.  And, although a sim may only know 5 other sims, the ones walking past his house are usually either the same ones five times in succession, or Bluewater village originals, I get sick and tired of seeing Checo Ramirez walking by!

And another thing, the game has gone sexist!  Before OFB, if your teen went off to college, it was a toss-up which parent would see them off.   Now, it's always Dad (if they have one), and if they have two, it's always the same one.  Presumably this is to save memory too.

[baratron]

I think it may have to do with them being next on the list for your sims to meet!  Just lately I've been moving loads of romance and Popularity sims into new houses, and the welcome wagon is almost always the same three (or at least a combination of three out of five or so) sims, presumably because they've met most of the rest. 

Actually, I think the ZephyrZodiac has it  .

In N002, my Ethiopian Challenge family contains an ex-Townie and now an ex-NPC. Between the four family members and the hanging out on community lots for the free food and sanitation, they have over 50 family friends! By the time I count all the sims they've met in passing, they probably know the vast majority of the Neighbourhood (something like 20-30 sims each, and not the same 20-30, either.) So yeah, many of the sims that are turning up are sims that the family doesn't know yet, or at least, sims that are known by only one family member.

In contrast, I created a family of one sim in N004, based on a real-life friend. For complicated reasons to do with a plotline I'm scripting, I have a family in N004 that are 6 clones of the same sim: one of each Aspiration, with subtly tweaked personalities (one or two point differences between them.) They all wear the same outfit but have different colour hair and hairstyles. Five of the six clones were happy, but my Romance clone (K-Three) was about to go into aspiration failure owing to the fact he knew no one except his brothers (aww! ). So, as I can't do sim torture, I decided to make a sim for him to fall in love with, so he'd be happy. Ryan and I are always joking about how, if human cloning was possible, we'd want to clone the real-life person that the 6 clones are based on, so I figured making simRyan would be the ideal solution.

Anyway, the reason I was asking the question in the first place was that I wanted simRyan and K-Three to meet each other "naturally" - without cheats or Inge's summoning shrubs. So I wanted to find out where K-Three might hang out, so I could send simRyan there. In the end, it was FATE, FATE I tell you - K-Three turned up as the third visitor on the first lot that I sent simRyan to . Was it because they were both unloved Romance sims? I'm not sure, because neither of them had a sexual orientation set at that time... though both of them matched the Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs of the other. Could just be because neither of them knew anyone outside their homes. But they got to meet naturally, and that's all I care about.

[ZephyrZodiac]

It makes such a difference, doesn't it - you don't feel like you're manipulating them then!  In my present game, I have two sims, father and son, Jack and Jimmy Cash.  Jack is Romance and Jimmy is Popularity, and he spun the LTW of owning 5 top-level businesses.  Well, since they were CAS sims and only had 20K to get started, Jimmy had to start a home business and try to run it as well as going to school and doing his homework, and trying hard to get enough skill points for a scholarship.  (His father may be Romance, but he spun loads of wants regarding his son!)  Well, eventually they were able to hire an employee or two, and first off it was Lilith, who worked really hard for them, and then they employed Brandi who kept throwing up everywhere!  But the amazing thing was, although they have absolutely NO chemistry, Jack and Brandi were absolutely hooked on each other, and when I finally played the Brokes, Jack kept turning up unannounced to visit!  Eventually Jack moved in, and next time I play their lot I shall have to do something about Brandi's want to get married to Jack!  They must really have a thing going between them, as every time they've been invited to a party by one of the Broke brothers, or by Jimmy, they've been all over each other!  I mean, you'd need a crowbar to prise them apart!

And the really odd thing is, when in other games I've created romance sims specially FOR Brandi, she's always gone for them in a big way, and then you tell her to scope room, and she does the shrug shoulders routine, but she always prefers them to any other sim she meets apart from John Burb!