Stay away from that expresso machine!

[nothingbutsims]

JM - what about a hack that would keep your Sims away from the coffee/expresso machine unless you told them to have a drink?  When it's 11:00 at night and your Sim is dead tired, it frustrates me that they choose the expresso instead of sleeping.  I don't want to get rid of the expresso machine, however, just have them use it when I tell them to.

[J. M. Pescado]

Look, man, it's getting really old to track down every single form of stupid sim behavior. You really just need to exert some more control. If it's not a problem which causes visitors to do stupid stuff, it's not worth trying to resolve anymore. The autonomy system is simply irreversibly flawed and broken. Also, why are you sims running out of fuel that early anyway?

[veilchen]

As you can probably tell, JM is an adherent to the "free will off" school of thought. I don't like to play with it off all the time, so I have gotten used to switching between off and on. I also hide things from the sims I play, or make them inaccessible, like the computer and the expresso machine. The dormers come in handy for that purpose :P

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

Using Authorized Personnel Only's "Deny Autonomous" option is also rather handy if you care that much.

As for free will on or off, while I don't like having to babysit, it sure as hell beats constantly going, "NO! NO! NO!". Then we have Macrotastic Power Idle, which gives you better effectiveness than Free Will *AND* less annoying stupidity.

[veilchen]

That's true, the "authorized personnel only" device is very handy. As for the "power idle", I couldn't use it in my game, because I could not turn it off once it was turned on. I see now that you corrected that, so I have to try it again, thank you for reminding me.

As far as turning stupidity off along with free will, sometimes I like to watch them do incredibly stupid things. Sometimes (although not all too often, or not often enough I'm told by friends) I do have the urge to be mean too, especially after a trying day at work

G.

[LK]

As you can probably tell, JM is an adherent to the "free will off" school of thought. I don't like to play with it off all the time, so I have gotten used to switching between off and on. I also hide things from the sims I play, or make them inaccessible, like the computer and the expresso machine. The dormers come in handy for that purpose

So you operate under a guise of free will?  Letting you Sims live their lives, but locking them out of, say, a bathroom when you do not want them to take a shower? 

I use free will only when there are 3+ Sims on a lot.  Less than that, and it becomes more of a hassle to play, as Sims seem to think that dancing to the radio is much more fulfilling than, I don't know, eating.

[nothingbutsims]

I always use free will - especially when I have a large family - then I would have Sims peeing themselves or starving to death one of the two.

[veilchen]

Posted by: laurenke
I use free will only when there are 3+ Sims on a lot.  Less than that, and it becomes more of a hassle to play, as Sims seem to think that dancing to the radio is much more fulfulling than, I don't know, eating.

Oh, most definitely, especially since not eating is one sure way for them to die, and I don't want them to die unless I give permission to do so :P.

Free will is always turned off when there is only one sim on the lot. Where would be the fun in that, seeing that they only do really pointless, unfunny, and stupid things. I turn it on (sparingly) when there are more than one because their autonomous interactions are often funny to watch. I even get the very JM-like urge to point and laugh.

G.

[jrd]

I don't like Power Idle, it makes Sims boring. If they'd pick up books in PI at least they'd be doing something useful (in combination with Inge's learning skills mod).

[nothingbutsims]

Look, man, it's getting really old to track down every single form of stupid sim behavior.

I just figured since you had just about "cured" every other stupid sim behavior, you might consider this one.  Sorry for the bother.

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't like Power Idle, it makes Sims boring. If they'd pick up books in PI at least they'd be doing something useful (in combination with Inge's learning skills mod).

Power Idle isn't about doing something useful. Power Idle is about keeping green and out of your hair while waiting for orders. If you want them to do something USEFUL, tell them to Skillinate.

[RainbowTigress]

Power Idle isn't about doing something useful. Power Idle is about keeping green and out of your hair while waiting for orders. If you want them to do something USEFUL, tell them to Skillinate.

What's left to do after they've maxed out all their skills? 

[veilchen]

Posted by: rainbow
What's left to do after they've maxed out all their skills?

Nothing. That's when I turn on the power idle and simply ignore them until it becomes necesarry for me to direct them to something or other.

G.

[Marvin Kosh]

Yep, Power Idle is useful in that it keeps your Sims idle.  You also then have an iconic indicator of idle status to remind you to give commands if you want them to do something useful or interesting.  Autonomy is overrated and, in the hands of Sims, downright dangerous at times.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I always have free will turned on, and I haven't lost a sim yet!  And between my different installations and pcs I must have a couple of thousand of them!  I actually find that the more you allow them to think for themselves, the better they get at it!  Quite a human trait, when you come to think of it!

[J. M. Pescado]

All review of the code suggests that the phenomenon you observe is purely imaginary, because Sims do not actually learn from their mistakes, as they don't have attempt-memory. This is why sims always fall into the same ruts over and over: The pool table, the Myshuno, the TV, all are common sources of sim obsession, even though they do not provide the level of motive boost they claim to. If sims were really intelligent, they'd all end up doing the stuff they're told to do by Macrotastics!

[ZephyrZodiac]

You're probably right, but I like to think my sims are more than the sum of their programming!  If I didn't think they had more about them then a woodlouse, I'd go back to collecting stamps!

[J. M. Pescado]

Sorry, but if you want the sims to rise above their piss-poor programming, you're going to have to substitute someone else's programming instead.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I suppose anything's possible...........

[Oddysey]

The AI in the sims annoys me. It's what caused me to eventually get bored with TS1 and go back to Sim City. It's not emergent or complex. There's no feedback.

That's the big problem with it, actually. Feedback. And I doubt we're going to get feedback, because I can't really see Maxis not doing anything other than recycling the old engine and adding a few bells and whistles to make it explode for TS3, now that the Wrightmaster has moved on to other things. As it stands, the engine would completely implode if you added feedback, because a variety of the more interesting behaviors are what I call "exceptions," in that they're tacked on rather than grow out of the simulation. Grieving, for example. If you magically caused the TS2 engine to give sims feedback on whether an object actually did what it advertised, they would learn that mourning was completely pointless. They would also never care for their children, because the game gets them to do this by tricking them into thinking it will do something for them.

AI wise, The Sims is sort of like those fake houses they make for TV sets: as simple as you can possibly make it and still have it look like its doing about ten times as much as it actually is.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have to say this - how does that behaviour differ from humans?  Does taking flowers to Mum's grave on a Sunday and saying a couple of prayers actually do anything for a human other than make them feel they're doing their duty?  People don't have kids for the kid's sake, they have them to satisfy some personal need.  And they're genetically programmed to care for them, which is why in some cases when the programming goes wrong, they don't!

[J. M. Pescado]

Have to say this - how does that behaviour differ from humans?  Does taking flowers to Mum's grave on a Sunday and saying a couple of prayers actually do anything for a human other than make them feel they're doing their duty?

Well, obviously, not everyone is as awesome as me. My mother was cremated at sea in a rather festive occasion. We would be reminiscing occasionally about her glorious final battle, but I'm the last living member of the family within 15 generations, so that kinda puts a damper on that. We don't do the entire flowers thing in my family. That's simply sentimentally wussy and disgraceful to the memory of a fallen warrior.

[veilchen]

Posted by: J. M. Pescado
We don't do the entire flowers thing in my family. That's simply sentimentally wussy and disgraceful to the memory of a fallen warrior.

Hmm, how about thistles and burning nettles then? Does that sound more appealing?

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

We prefer the ceremony of setting the deceased on fire in some particularly impressive way, then getting roaring drunk and having some fistfights.

[veilchen]

Posted by: J. M. Pescado
We prefer the ceremony of setting the deceased on fire in some particularly impressive way, then getting roaring drunk and having some fistfights.

Oh, the old Roman Empire Method. How very classical of you :)

G.