Lifetime Fears

[croiduire]

Has anyone (even Maxis in some future expansion?) made lifetime fears to go with lifetime wants? I think it would only be fitting...in real life people do suffer from the never-get-overs, despair so intense they cannot be comforted. Perma-red instead of perma-plat. Some examples that come to mind include the family sim whose child dies or is taken by the social worker, a romance sim who transitions to elder as a virgin, a fortune sim who goes bankrupt (if that is ever possible) and so forth. No matter what good happens after that, the highest aspiration they can achieve is the midpoint, neither red or green.

[Flamingo]

This actually sounds like a good idea. That way my Sims can actually be traumatized. However, I think that they should have to remain permanently at the lowest aspiration level and the only way to undo it would be to achieve a lifetime want. Of course, I think that should only bring it to normal, and that achieving another lifetime want would make them be perma-plat.

A few other things I'd like would be so that nobody remembered when I Sim in terrible aspiration died, that they went with the Grim Reaper willingly if they died of old age, and something like a terrible looking tombstone that nobody would look after. Of course, I also think that there should be a significant toll on the mood when they go to work or school. A few of those may actually be in game, but I probably micro-manage them so much that they are hardly ever in red aspiration.

[dizzy]

Perma red is not that hard to do, actually... 

[nikita]

I'd love to have Sims in permanent aspiration failure.  I could do this to a bunch of townies to make my downtown more realistic.  What's a downtown district without a smattering of homeless raving lunatics?

[croiduire]

I'm not sure I agree that no one would remember (just because one is in despair doesn't mean others don't still love them) but certainly it should shorten life-spans, make them more susceptible to illness, make it harder (or impossible) to get promotions, and so forth. And ideally they would welcome the Grim Reaper, instead of fighting with him...a hug animation would be awesome indeed!

[J. M. Pescado]

LTWs are partly hardcoded and it is not really practical to make something entirely different without code to support it. Or even really to create more, since they can't exactly be made as plugin-packs. This isn't presently a really practical goal. Besides, sim-fears are nearly impossible to fulfill anyway, they always tend to fear the impossible and thus it never happens.

[croiduire]

Besides, sim-fears are nearly impossible to fulfill anyway, they always tend to fear the impossible and thus it never happens.

Really? I haven't found them so (for example, both Jenny and Pollination Tech spawned the fear of having another baby. I locked them and she is, of course, now pregnant, with only a few days to go before she reaches elder...) My amazement is at how quickly they recover--the default is obviously happily ever after. Perhaps at some future time it will be more feasible to create believable despair, or at least something more than momentary angst.

[Soylent Sim]

From a gameplay perspective, LTF's would essentially create "broken" sims.  Much like the yammering at the official BBS for handicapped sims or the like, such requests overlook the fact that most players will simply discard such broken sims out of hand; just look at what happens to fully functional maxian sims that just happen to be ugly.  Sims who can't experience the fullness of gameplay tend to become headstones in short order.

And if you want permanent psychological scarring for your sims, I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree.  I admit it's strange that fufilling a depressed sims' self-destructive wants will bolster their self esteem and return them to functional citizens in short order, but do remember that this game sells itself as escapism.  Escapist little cartoon/sitcom characters tend not to, as a rule, have deep seated issues that can't be resolved by the end of an episode.

[Ancient Sim]

Actually, townies in aspiration failure are a pain in the proverbials.  I have a mod in that means they go up and down in aspiration as the realise wants & fears, the same as playable Sims, and this has resulted in several townies getting a vist from the shrink.  I had one teen in total aspiration failure who was starting fights with every other teen he came across, regardless of whether he knew them or not (he even started one with a best friend), then I had this woman who did nothing but stand around crying (which drives me dolally).  Now when I see them like that I boost them up to green.

[Flamingo]

From a gameplay perspective, LTF's would essentially create "broken" sims.  Much like the yammering at the official BBS for handicapped sims or the like, such requests overlook the fact that most players will simply discard such broken sims out of hand; just look at what happens to fully functional maxian sims that just happen to be ugly.  Sims who can't experience the fullness of gameplay tend to become headstones in short order.

And if you want permanent psychological scarring for your sims, I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree.  I admit it's strange that fufilling a depressed sims' self-destructive wants will bolster their self esteem and return them to functional citizens in short order, but do remember that this game sells itself as escapism.  Escapist little cartoon/sitcom characters tend not to, as a rule, have deep seated issues that can't be resolved by the end of an episode.

Some people play for escapism, yes, but some people torture Sims. I probably won't be making a permanently broken Sim that nobody likes, yes. However, that doesn't mean when I dislike a certain person I won't make their self-Sim and make their life quite hellish.

Although, I do admit that if you could eventually fix said Sims it would make the game a bit more challenging, and a bit more fun, at least to me.

[starrling]

I had a perma red sim for only as long as I could stand it.  She was a family sim with LTW of graduate 3 kids from college and NONE of her kids went to college, then her mate died.  It wasn't pretty.  I finally gave her a fake boost.

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually, townies in aspiration failure are a pain in the proverbials.  I have a mod in that means they go up and down in aspiration as the realise wants & fears, the same as playable Sims, and this has resulted in several townies getting a vist from the shrink.  I had one teen in total aspiration failure who was starting fights with every other teen he came across, regardless of whether he knew them or not (he even started one with a best friend), then I had this woman who did nothing but stand around crying (which drives me dolally).  Now when I see them like that I boost them up to green.

Oh? That stopped working and now needs a mod to restore? Wherezzis? Teens that run around starting fights all the time? OOH! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Where's this?

[aussieone]

Oh? That stopped working and now needs a mod to restore? Wherezzis? Teens that run around starting fights all the time? OOH! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Where's this?

*aussieone drops dead on the spot, but not before gasping*

"I think that's the first time I've 'seen' Pescado genuinely excited about anything!"   

[J. M. Pescado]

*aussieone drops dead on the spot, but not before gasping*

"I think that's the first time I've 'seen' Pescado genuinely excited about anything!"   

You obviously missed the time they polled about torture and death.

[SaraMK]

I think that hack is Squinge's. Maybe.

I know I had it a while ago, and it had some funny results. I had a maid come over to clean the house, but instead of cleaning he collapsed in the living room... because at his last job he had been rejected for a woohoo on the Love bed. At the end of the day he said "Sorry, but I have to go" and left. I think that pretty much explains why I got rid of that hack. It would have been great if it had only affected townies, not working NPCs. I like my NPCs to actually work... they do very little of that as it is.

[croiduire]

Perpetual sweetness and light is BORING! I am not particularly interested in torturing sims per se, but I do like them to face a certain measure of challenge--bills they can't pay, promotions that don't happen, failing grades despite trying, and--occasionally--overwhelming grief.

As far as NPCs not working, one of my all-time favorite scenes was when Kaylynn Langerak discovered Don Lothario embracing the very pregnant Nina (Caliente) Lothario. Kaylynn did the typical shock reaction but then, instead of continuing on with the typical bitchslapping loop, began crying and stormed out, while Don looked at Nina and did the "she's crazy" gesture, in a perfectly timed expression of plausible deniability. What made it even better was that Kaylynn got in her truck...and got stuck on the lot. Yes, it was just a glitch, but it looked for all the world like she was stalking them. (When I finally stopped laughing had to use moveobjects to delete the truck.)

With the exception of the repairmen, I usually find service people to be more trouble than they're worth anyway. How is a mopey and despondent maid any worse than an obsessive-compulsive fish-tank cleaner? (Yes, I know there are hacks to fix that, but my point remains: NPCs are fundamentally broken.)

[nocomment]

The hack is here:

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=7049

With it you can experience fun things like this:





He hasn't had a nervous breakdown...yet.

[croiduire]

A fireman afraid of fire?? Oh, now THAT is priceless! *grin*

[neriana]

A fireman afraid of fire?? Oh, now THAT is priceless! *grin*

I've had that happen without any hacks to create it. I also have a maid who's wandering around crying for some reason. I think he was traumatized when a vampire hit on him.

[syberspunk]

Haha, that's great. I actually haven't experienced failures that bad in my game yet... but definitely gives me something to look forward to. hehe 

Townies are kinda boring as it is. And for the most part, I see a lot of wants being satisfied. It looks like a lot of them are probably just from wants to meet someone new. This is probably because I rebooted my hood since installing NL, and my Pleasantview is still relatively new. I've thus far only focused on playing 3 households, and I usually don't visit Comm Lots much, so the only townies I interacted with were usually ones that I needed to just to socialize and what not to satisfy my own sims' wants and promotion needs.

I went back to playing Uni again, after finally getting sick of playing this household with 6 teens. I've had a lot of dormies passing out and pissin themselves, and I even had one death, but I don't seem to have a lot of fears being fulfilled much yet. Maybe over a longer period of time, I might get to see some aspiration failures. Heh.

As for Liftetime Fears, that would be a neat idea. I like Flamingo's ideas, that you could maybe reverse them by fulfilling a Lifetime Want. And despite the claim that people might not want broken sims, why is it that so many people seem to love to torture their sims. I think as long as the LTFs are reasonably balanced, and not like super easy to fulfill, in a similar way to LTWs, it would probably work. I think it'd be interesting to make things more challenging. But I doubt they'd ever actually implement this


Ste

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, what exactly would such "lifetime" fears consist of, that sims would actually be able to recognize?

[Avalikia]

croiduire had two good ones.  Others that come to my mind include "Repoman! X times" for fortune sims, "No Maxed Skills" for knowledge Sims who become an elder with no maxed skills, "X Bad Dates" for pleasure sims, "X Bad Parties" for popularity sims.  Just as a sim's progress forward is measured by the game and makes them happy, often their steps backwards are also measured and makes them sad.  An LTF just makes this sadness more extreme for some particular event.  Or in some cases their lack of progress can be measured.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, but I don't see how the Xth bad date is worse than the X-1th. Especially if you had 151 successful ones. People aren't broken over some minor transitory event that they've seen before, and amazingly enough "maximize all skills" isn't actually mandatory, even for knowledge sims, as incomprehensible as it sounds. Even the most horrible, indelible thing that can happen to a sim, like, say, bladder failure at a party, something that will never go away, is not enough to really destroy someone. The Sims just isn't a game where your only daughter can be killed by a hitman trying to kill you. Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference.

[Avalikia]

Well maybe mine aren't that great, but I can imagine a family-type person going to pieces if their kid dies before them or gets taken by a social worker, or a romance type person who is still a virgin even after they retire.

[Soylent Sim]

First, to everyone who thinks this will make the game more challenging, can I ask how a random "you lose" button laying around somewhere will do that?  Especially given how hard you have to work already to fufill your sims' fears, LTF's would be nigh-unfufillable and as such rather pointless.  If you actually want the game to be more challenging, you're better off asking Maxis to stop balancing their games around the assumption that the player is a retarted chimpanzee.  Or rather, given the nature of your average sims fan, ask modders to help ramp the difficulty up for you.

Second, for people who like to torture their sims, yes it is because they're cartoony and harmless.  A large part of the fun is in their over-the-top emoting, and that wouldn't come across the same way if Karen Gast quietly cut herself in a dark room.  It might be fun once or twice to see the "you just realized your LTF!" animation, but like most sims animations it would get old fast.  And then you'd go back to torturing them just like you do now; cause their motive bars to plummet and then send them to a horrible end.

And finally, people already complain that LTW's make their game feel frustratingly channeled.  LTF's would have to be one of three things;

• Have (something reasonable) happen, in which case enjoy watching your favorite sims break on regular occasions.
• Have (something extraordinarily unlikely) happen, in which case what's the point of programming for something so obscure?
• (Something) doesn't happen before (specified point in time), in which case doing it once removes the need to care about a game feature you evidently want trumpeted.
  

So while the idea may sound good when you just think of it and want to say something witty for the board, even EA's concept people saw the flaws in it.  If they can do it, it can't be too hard.

ETA:  Avalikia, are you aware how difficult most of those things aren't?  (With the exception of family sims losing a kid, and even in that case they have so many they won't really notice one more or less.)  The only way you'll have a (romance virgin/knowledge ignoramus/family childless spinster/etc.) is if you go out of your way to make that happen, in which case the player shouldn't be punished for making such unusual choices.  If you want a way to keep your sims in the red, I'm sure Pes or some other modder could whip something up to cap how high their aspiration meter could go.  LTF's are a silly way to go about it.

And if you're one of those people who wants sims to go into permanent fits when their LTF's hit, just kill 'em off the old fashioned way.  A sim who literally can't do anything is like an undead elder before they patched university, and we all know how much fun those actually were.