Game Assigns Aspiration

[Darkstormyeve]

Is it possible to create hack that makes the game choose an apiration based on the parents and grandparents aspirations? Even their closet childhood friend?

I often choose an aspiration for my sim based on the sim they are most closet too on the assumption that there is often some main influence in our lives, which can sometimes set the course for our life. The slut friend, the army dad, the family orientated mum.

Does this make sense?

This idea just occured to me when I was reading about JMP's new LTW mod. Maybe it's a shitful idea. Don't know.

I have played the legacy challenge and I sort of found it false rolling a die to find ones aspiration. Aspiration comes from your life.

[Inge]

It should be the person they have the highest short-term relationship with at the time they have to choose the aspiration.  I say short term rather than long term, because at the age sims are when they have to choose, it will be the "flavour of the month" friend who influences them the most

[ZephyrZodiac]

Maybe, but have you noticed how often the childhood friend stays with them throughout their life?  if they don't get in touch, the friend rings them up, or calls round unannouced! 

I often have Romance sims marry their childhood best friend, and they always seems to get on well together.

[Inge]

It's just occurred to me they can't get their aspiration based on a childhood friend, because they wouldn't have their aspiration yet.   Their highest long term relationship is likely to be with a parent, but wouldn't it be boring to have yet one more thing that gets passed down through the family?

In reality there are two things that guide you through life.  Aspirations (often unrealistic) and Expectations.   Expectations you would get through your long-term relationships, the people whose context you define yourself in, while aspirations tend to be based on people you admire, who could be someone unattainable like a pop star - or even someone admirable like Marie Curie.   The majority of us settle down to simply trying to fulfill our expectations.

[speedreader]

I have always decided aspirations based on that Sim's wants and behaviors up to the point that they transition to a teen.  i.e. If the child Sim seemed to always want to be friends with X, Y and Z, I make them a popularity sim.  Some children will run out to the mailbox to meet a parent coming home from work, others won't.  The ones that do may be good family sims material.  At some point in playing them it becomes obvious to me what they should be as an adult and I write it down so when they transition I know what to do. 

So, am I just making this up, or is there some basis for my theory that wants seem to follow a specific trend? 

[KellyQ]

I do the same thing, speedracer. I pay attention to what sort of wants a child rolls up and pick their aspiration based on that trend. Of course, that tends to leave romance aspirations out, as a child will never roll kiss/woohoo wants (thank goodness) but since I don't particularly like romance sims, that's fine with me. Then there are the children that have ADD (have best friend, buy a shrub, gain a skill point, play with family member)type of wants and those are harder to pick aspirations for, so I just make their aspiration based on their personality points.

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't think that hard about aspiration: I just go and pick "Knowledge" pretty much every time. Maybe Popularity.

I mean, think about it:
You have 5 possible choices: Knowledge, Popularity, Fortune, Romance, and Family.

Now we can start eliminating them, based on the fact that this is not our final answer, and we're going to get to change it at Uni.

Fortune: Let's see. You're an unemployed kid with no real earning potential. You're not going to *HAVE* any real earning potential until you graduate. Scratch that.
Romance: Teens don't get any. Sorry.
Family: Ain't gonna happen until post-graduation. No biscuit.

So what does that leave you? Knowledge, if you want to try to get the early platinum from Maximize All Skills, and Popularity, because that's the only aspiration that actually functions in Uni. Not a lot of choices here.

[KellyQ]

Dare I admit I don't send most of my teens to Uni because I find it unbearably tedious? (even with hacks to speed the process up)

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes, but then you limp along with only 4 want slots and 1 lock, which simply isn't adequate with the amount of spam Maxis tends to stuff down your throat. And this will only get worse with each expansion pack as they give you an ever more annoying series of stupid stuff to want.

[dizzy]

We need a hack that randomly assigns your sim an aspiration. None of this letting you choose an aspiration for them. That would make childhood a challenge (for those who aren't Knowledge or Popularity sims, that is).

[Oddysey]

We already have something like that, don't we? It's called, "dice."

I could theoretically make an excel file that gave you an optimal aspiration based on various factors like personality and skills already gained, even possibly adjusting for aspirations of friends and relatives, but that would be kind of ridiculous.

[vecki]

We already have something like that, don't we? It's called, "dice."

Aw man, you mean I have to invest in a small cube shaped object rather than just leech off of a modder?

Besides, I'd kinda like to see the game spin up a random aspiration, no ifs, no buts, no rerolling if you don't like the result.  Although if such a thing did exist, it'd probably suffer from the firstborn effect and we'd have entire neighbourhoods filled with romance sims.  Yikes.

[dizzy]

Actually, I was thinking that Random Aspiration would be something you'd see change randomly at any time of day or night (like the way my Daily Burglar works).

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, considering that aspiration is shortly going to be less a largely lifelong commitment and more a "flavor of the week" deal with that senso-thingamjigy allegedly coming out with Nightlife....I wonder, will Nightlife have LTWs, and will flipping your aspiration around randomly affect that?

[cyperangel]

We need a hack that randomly assigns your sim an aspiration. None of this letting you choose an aspiration for them. That would make childhood a challenge (for those who aren't Knowledge or Popularity sims, that is).

There is such a hack, it is called the Inseminator.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, other than the illogic of aspiring to completely pointless things, anyway. I guess Uni is just not for fambly sims.

[Oddysey]

I don't like the way that Nightlife object sounds . . . I mean, do they honestly think that people don't have more ASP than they know what to do with? The only way to make it actually unusual would be to make it cost upwards of 500,000, but I just can't see that happening, considering that Elixer is only like 30,000. Or maybe you'll only be allowed to do it once . . . no, that would be silly. Huhm.

What the heck will "Pleasure" sims have for LTW? Go on X dates? I can't see them aspiring for career based stuff . . .

[J. M. Pescado]

I suspect this new object may be a bootstrapper for the entire broken turn ons/offs thing that they're probably planning to add, AT RANDOM, to our already existing sims. Because you know they'll love to add annoying crap like that. Rather than picking turn ons and turn offs from the existing spouse, they'll pick them at random to be as inappropriate as possible. Because that's how they picked LTWs.

[dizzy]

Then you can mod it again and people can go on and on about how awesome it is.   

[Oddysey]

Ah hah! That's your evil plot! I knew there had to be one somewhere around here. JMPescado is in league with Maxis! They make bugridden games so that he can fix them and thus further his obvious plot to take over the world, thus guaranteeing them (theoretically) a cut of the action. Yes . . . it all makes sense now . . .

[lauraglenn]

That definitely sounds like the plan... because Maxis is going to continue to add crappy little things to our games that will require fixing.  At least we all know where to look!

[schmoopee]

Heh, I actually use a die that I keep on my desk to pick their aspiration - even if it doesn't suit their personality - it makes it a challenge.
If I roll a one, they're a knowledge sim, 2, they're a family sim, etc etc. If I roll a six I get to pick. I know. Dork city. 

[yetyak]

Not Dork City!  I do the same thing, only 6 means roll again...

[J. M. Pescado]

Even if I did that, it'd be pretty pointless. There a *REASON* nobody wants to play Backgammon against me, after all.