An unused asperation?

[Dark Trepie]

I've just played around with the Sim Modder for the first time.  (Yeah, I'm slow about things like this)  And I noticed there was an unused asperation.  "Power."



I tried changing Jill Smith's asperation to it.  But the asperation icon in the UI pannel went blank.  And none of the wants or fears seemed any different from her old asperation.  Her LTW stayed the same too.

So, either this is an asperation Maxis plans to enable in a future expansion or one they were going to introduce but decided to scap it at the last minute.  But if its the latter than that's a pitty.  "Power asperation" has a nice and evil sound to it.   

[ZephyrZodiac]

I always thought one should have been included, after all it's at the base of human nature in some form or another.  Perhaps they were going to include it and then found it was more complex than they'd thought, and couldn't get it finished in time, and it just got forgotten.

[Ancient Sim]

I think it came in with Nightlife, I would imagine they initially intended to tie it in with the vampires, seeing as that's all about power at basic level.  I've tried giving it to sims too, but it doesn't change anything.  It's the same as the Romance skill, it exists and SimPE even covers it, but when you get them to try for it at the mirror, all they get is charisma.  I don't think manually giving them high Romance skill changes anything, either.

What I'd like to see is a Creativity aspiration.  None of the current ones really fit me, I'm sort of a cross between Knowledge & Pleasure, which makes no sense insofar as in the game they're opposites.  Creativity would fit me perfectly, though.

[ZephyrZodiac]

What I'd also like to see is an extra level of skills for each aspiration in a suitable area - knowledge could be logic, say up to level 20, and maybe split between different activities so you can'y just go and stargaze every night to get there.  And as I said before when we were discussing this, I think a total fitness aspiration would be good, and then to reach level 20 in body you'd have to be an expert with every method of achieving body skills!

[jrd]

Wants and aspirations can't really be edited without modifying core game files. And that makes you non-awesome...

It should be possible to turn the Power Aspiration into a custom one, though. Afterall, the hooks are there, and you just need to alter the wants.package and wanttrees.package files to "Power" the wants and LTWs you want.

[vilia]

I think it shows up in Mr P's census tool as well...I think it ought to be activated as it could be quite fun to play with

[ZephyrZodiac]

I can already think of some sims it would suit down to the ground!  Malcolm Landgraab for starters!

[veilchen]

True ZZ, a power aspiration sounds very much like a business related aspiration. Or a politician one for that matter. Isn't that what it's all about? Money and Power?

[IcemanTO]

If I remember well, this aspiration wasn't inside NL but it's up from OFB.

Maybe....nothing to do with Servos?

[Tyraa Rane]

Man, I wish they'd decided to keep that...I've got some sims that aspiration would suit perfectly.

[syberspunk]

Actually I think Power was in there since the basegame. It is number 4 (I think) in Aspirations and originally, a lot of the 'power' Wants were suppose to be for this Power aspiration. The wants that are like, have 5 of this or earn a huge amount of money. I think they got split up and shifted over as 'power' Wants for the corresponding Aspirations and the Power aspiration was kind of abandoned. It probably just morphed into the Fortune/Wealth aspiration. I recall reading about it somewhere... or perhaps it was discussed in chat by Pescado?

Aspirations are even flags, not simple values, so it is thought that probably during development, Maxis was considering allowing sims to have more than one Aspiration. This could have had some interesting possibilities, and would have made sense in a way, since many people don't consider themselves necessarily fitting into one Aspiration. But I guess that was abandoned as well. Who knows? Maybe it could be basis for another expansion? To actually add a few more aspirations, and/or enable multiple aspirations per sim.

Ste

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think it could also suit some Family sims - ie   power = control and some people who put family at the head of their list do so because they like to have someone they can boss around!

[Simsbaby]

I think it was in the base game, you just can't use it until NL. If you stick it on a sim that has been living for a long time you won't get the wants. Try sticking it on a fresh sim. It seems to work fine, they act like a mix of popularity and fortune, I think a bit of romance too.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Do you mean a sim straight out of CAS, or a kid just grown up to teen?

[Simsbaby]

A sim fresh out of CAS, if they fulfilled any wants before you change the aspiration it won't work because they just roll up stuff from their old one.

[ZephyrZodiac]

So you move them to a lot and pause so they can't fulfil a want autonomously.  Do they get related LTWs or just a mix of those already in use?

[Simsbaby]

I don't quite remember but I think they get any of the LTWs.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That could be interesting!  and if they roll the Have 20 lovers at once LTW it will only go to prove that powerful sims are sexy!

[AllenABQ]

I wish the whole Aspiration thing could be re-thought from the beginning so as to make them more like characteristics.

If there was a way to have some combination of Aspiration-like qualities that drove wants and fears, that would seem to be far more realistic than one dominating over all others.

Like myself... I'm about 40% knowledge, 40% family, 10% wealth, and the other 10% split amongst the others.  And that has not been consistent throughout my life.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I knowwhat you mean, and one of the reasons I don't really like playing elders is the stupid LTWs - I know you can change them to something achievable if they should live so long, but they are so unrealistic.  I mean, when you get to my age and are not married and have no kids, it's a bit ridiculous to want 6 grandchildren!

[J. M. Pescado]

I knowwhat you mean, and one of the reasons I don't really like playing elders is the stupid LTWs - I know you can change them to something achievable if they should live so long, but they are so unrealistic.  I mean, when you get to my age and are not married and have no kids, it's a bit ridiculous to want 6 grandchildren!

Well, a CAS elder is effectively hamstrung by the fact that the great majority of his life has been stolen from him outright, but for a sim that was born in game, you get plenty of advance warning that they want 6 grandchildren, after all. As far as LTWs go, it's not completely unreasonable, if not entirely good, gamewise, either.

[skandelouslala]

I always thought you should be able to choose a main aspiration and then like a sub one so you could create sims with combos, get a variety of wants and what not.  That's just me though.

I do wonder where they thought of going with the power aspiration though...doesn't seem like it would be far off from the fortune one, except maybe sims would have wants to boss people around more using influence points or something like that 

I wonder if they are ever going to introduce anymore new aspirations into the game although I can't think of anymore really that would be in depth enough to be fun.  Stupid Pleasure aspiration is boring to me, wouldn't want to see anymore like that.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I think many of the top-of-career jobs are power-based - general, mayor, tycoon, chief of staff spring to mind, but only the business tycoon is really money-orientated.  In fact, the others pay quite poorly compared to celebrity chef or professional party guest etc.

JM, you're right, of course, about the limitations of being created in CAS - in fact all CAS sims apart from toddlers are similarly hamstrung, though not as much!

[Ellatrue]

I just wish the influence were more useful. Outside of uni it isn't very helpful... you can't influence another sim to be your friend, or babysit the kids, or anything really interesting like that.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Influence simA to ventrilofart simB - what ever kind of use is that?  and if they choose a water balloon instead, you're stuck with the mopping up!  Really useful use of influence!