Might make a post with pictures soon, but right now I'm in the middle of running a food-stand business while Gavin meditates, conserving motives and aspiration. Very low-maintenance business, and nice to have when you want to play and blog at the same time. But anyway, here's some info about building houses.
I started out not knowing how to design houses in Sims 2. Everyone goes through that phase where they build square or rectangle houses that look horrible and may have problems with routing. With the routing, it is a simple thing, like not placing double-beds sideways against the wall, but designing a good house is quite hard. I had to read many different tutorials which I need to link to soon - they deserve lots of attention!
Square houses are boring, so it's often best to make them L-shaped or even add a smaller square to the corner of the L. A simple design like that will make it so when you add the autoroof, it will have a more pleasing appearance. The gabled roofs will be lower, and will have multiple points, instead of one big point.
Diagonal walls can also make for some pleasing designs, though with some roof types, the results can look ugly. The simplest way to make a square house look good is to add a square at the entrance, and use the short and hipped or short gabled autoroof. For the roof walls, use a stucco wall covering with enclosed timbering.
If you're going for a high-roof design, put some windows on the attic walls to keep them from looking empty. It doesn't matter if you have stairs leading to the attic or not - the windows make it look pretty. Balance the empty space with used space.
You might instead want to build a house with a flat roof, possibly condo-style. If so, the best design would be two pentagons stacked up on each other. The pentagon shape is quite nice, and the roof from the lower pentagon can be used as a balcony. Make sure you put a fence on the balcony as a safety feature, though sims seem to be incapable of falling off of unfenced areas.
If you want to make a foundation, do so, but make sure you build a usable and nice-looking stairway. Maybe build a patio. I may put in some basic drawings of how my condos are set up later on.
Anyway, the internet is full of many different house-designing tutorials, but make sure you have a budget in mind, so you don't blow all your money on a big house and don't have any left for necessities.
Monday, December 3, 2012
The Pleasant Family - Recipe For Disaster Or Opportunity For Change?
The Pleasant Family was created mainly to teach about affairs, jealousy, breaking up, teen-runaways, enemies, service sims and chance-cards. They wanted to teach about the various downsides of chance cards, like demotions or termination. Mary-Sue's chance card in the default Pleasantview is rigged to give bad outcomes for either choice, though you can make it work like any other chance card with a cheat.
Here's the cheat:
Another problem is, Daniel and Mary-Sue's relationship is very distant. The players can choose to rekindle the flames, or let the couple divorce, though it can lead to Lilith running away.
Then there's the twins: they are enemies, and Angela seems to be loved more. She grew up well and was taught all her toddler skills, but Lilith grew up badly and was seemingly neglected. Her grades are pretty bad as well, and she had gotten a D grade.
What I did in my Naughty Nerds neighbourhood, was change Mary-Sue's aspiration to Romance after fulfilling a few of her wishes. Her aspiration was pretty high since she gained some points while I was playing a different sim on a community lot. She and Daniel have the same goals of having multiple lovers, so the arrangement is quite nice. I also have the ACR mod, as well as the Romance mod, which curbs jealousy in Romance sims and allows the player to customize jealousy levels from crush(EA default), love, steady-engaged, married, or no jealousy at all. Another mod I have is an override for non-ACR romantic interactions, so those won't cause jealousy either.
I had them do some flirting with other sims, and neither minded, though I was still careful with them philandering around their kids.
With the twins, I had them chat a little and apologize. Soon, their relationships were around 2/2, which wasn't bad considering they had been enemies. I also had Lilith talk to her parents to bring up her relationship with them. While they were customers on Gavin's Island Treats business lot, they chatted while eating at the food stand, and lost their enemy flags. That is a great start.
Another thing I did was have Lilith go to a community lot, buy some cellphones, and go on a date with Dirk Dreamer. They had a wonderful time and racked up some aspiration points. I may change her aspiration to Family, so she and Dirk will have more chemistry, or to Fortune. I mean, hey, the SensoOrb in their yard still has a few uses yet, so why waste it?
One of my goals is to get the two sisters to become friends, because my sister and I are great friends despite our disagreements, and we have helped each other on many occasions. We undermined several peoples' efforts to drive a wedge between us, even our parents' attempts at getting us to rat on each other for watching forbidden shows. Basically, having a sister is a lot of fun, and sisters should appreciate each other. So I don't like to just let those two fight when they could be friends.
Depending on the expansion packs you have, there are a lot of options. Use them to your heart's content, and see what kind of story evolves from the choices you make. I would recommend not hurting Angela, because honestly, revenge can be sweet for a short while, but burying the hatchet is a lot better and more fulfilling in the end. Find some creative ways to get everyone talking again, and bring the family together. Maybe use the SensoOrb and turn Daniel into a Grilled Cheese sim, and change the secondaries of everyone else into Grilled Cheese, or have the couple open the marriage and do some swinging. The possibilities are endless.
Enjoy the challenge, and maybe get Daniel probeded and make him cry, just because it's funny when that happens.
Here's the cheat:
- Press [CTRL], [Shift] and [C] together, which brings up the cheat window.
- Type boolprop testingcheatsenabled true
- Press [Shift] and click on Mary-Sue before she leaves for work
- Some extra options will appear on her interaction pie menu
- With the pie menu, select "Spawn..." and then choose the Chance Card Tester
- A yellow box will appear next to her
- Click on the box, then select the option for the chance card outcomes, and set it to 'clear'
- Keep the box if you wish, or sell it in Build/Buy mode
- Select whichever choice you wish, because now the negative outcome is not guaranteed, though a positive outcome isn't guaranteed either, so still be careful
Another problem is, Daniel and Mary-Sue's relationship is very distant. The players can choose to rekindle the flames, or let the couple divorce, though it can lead to Lilith running away.
Then there's the twins: they are enemies, and Angela seems to be loved more. She grew up well and was taught all her toddler skills, but Lilith grew up badly and was seemingly neglected. Her grades are pretty bad as well, and she had gotten a D grade.
What I did in my Naughty Nerds neighbourhood, was change Mary-Sue's aspiration to Romance after fulfilling a few of her wishes. Her aspiration was pretty high since she gained some points while I was playing a different sim on a community lot. She and Daniel have the same goals of having multiple lovers, so the arrangement is quite nice. I also have the ACR mod, as well as the Romance mod, which curbs jealousy in Romance sims and allows the player to customize jealousy levels from crush(EA default), love, steady-engaged, married, or no jealousy at all. Another mod I have is an override for non-ACR romantic interactions, so those won't cause jealousy either.
I had them do some flirting with other sims, and neither minded, though I was still careful with them philandering around their kids.
With the twins, I had them chat a little and apologize. Soon, their relationships were around 2/2, which wasn't bad considering they had been enemies. I also had Lilith talk to her parents to bring up her relationship with them. While they were customers on Gavin's Island Treats business lot, they chatted while eating at the food stand, and lost their enemy flags. That is a great start.
Another thing I did was have Lilith go to a community lot, buy some cellphones, and go on a date with Dirk Dreamer. They had a wonderful time and racked up some aspiration points. I may change her aspiration to Family, so she and Dirk will have more chemistry, or to Fortune. I mean, hey, the SensoOrb in their yard still has a few uses yet, so why waste it?
One of my goals is to get the two sisters to become friends, because my sister and I are great friends despite our disagreements, and we have helped each other on many occasions. We undermined several peoples' efforts to drive a wedge between us, even our parents' attempts at getting us to rat on each other for watching forbidden shows. Basically, having a sister is a lot of fun, and sisters should appreciate each other. So I don't like to just let those two fight when they could be friends.
Depending on the expansion packs you have, there are a lot of options. Use them to your heart's content, and see what kind of story evolves from the choices you make. I would recommend not hurting Angela, because honestly, revenge can be sweet for a short while, but burying the hatchet is a lot better and more fulfilling in the end. Find some creative ways to get everyone talking again, and bring the family together. Maybe use the SensoOrb and turn Daniel into a Grilled Cheese sim, and change the secondaries of everyone else into Grilled Cheese, or have the couple open the marriage and do some swinging. The possibilities are endless.
Enjoy the challenge, and maybe get Daniel probeded and make him cry, just because it's funny when that happens.
The Newson Family: How To Survive The Insanity
Now, I did use a cheat when playing the Newsons; I simply set the hour to six in the morning so the children wouldn't be late for school(dunno if freshly-created and moved-in children will lose grades on that first day but it never hurts to take some precautions). I built a modest two-story house and put in four beds, two cribs and some other necessities and fun objects. I also bought some toddler toys and an activity table, though there was only so much room in the bedroom, so I didn't buy the xylophone(besides, it would be noisy and wake up anyone who was sleeping in that room. Besides, toddlers could gain creativity from the table without the noise and get mechanical skills from playing with the blocks.
Quickly, I had Gavin call a nanny. There was some chaos for a few days, and one night, I even called another nanny in so the first one wouldn't abandon the children before the teens came home from work. I wanted them to get scholarships for being overachievers, so they needed to have teen jobs. After the toddlers grew up to be children, the nanny only needed to arrive a little while before the children got home.
At the beginning of the scenario, I had Ginger socialize with the toddlers, and it wasn't easy at first to teach them their skills, but after enough aspiration points were accumulated, I first bought an energizer to allow the teens to keep their motives up so they could care for their siblings. The Newsons are orphans, so there are no grown-ups in that family at the beginning, and none in the family tree, though Gloria, apparently their mother, had died some time after adopting the children. I don't know how EA Games was able to create a family like that, but I would love to find out how so I can create my own adult-less family.
Anyway, back to the point: Ginger has a low relationship with the toddlers, so the player has to get her to socialize with them a few times, doing things like tickling, snuggling, kissing, peek-a-boo, and possibly joining them while they play with their toddler toys. Her low relationship with her youngest siblings prevents Ginger from teaching them their toddler skills - it isn't a glitch.
Another challenge is time management; between school and work, and possibly sleep, the eldest Newsons have little time to teach the toddlers their skills, and they need smart milk. After fulfilling some wants and buying the energizer, I was able to buy some smart milk, and managed to get the teens to teach the young 'uns all their skills, plus the nursery rhymes. They grew up FABULOUSLY. I also had the teens help each other with homework, though I had Ginger finish Gavin's since he was filling up his critically low fun motive. Then he helped her, and they helped the kids, then the toddlers(after they grew up to be children).
The chaos was for the most part over, and I had Gavin go to a Downtown lot and do some digging. I also had Ginger dig a little on that same lot, though I had her stop when I spotted a teen townie with a very compatible aspiration. She's sort of indifferent to him, but at least there's some chemistry between the two, and they seemed to get along pretty well. But anyway, Gavin did a lot of digging, got very dirty, dug some more, got lots of cool stuff including a treasure chest and a transport urn, netting more than 5,000 simoleons. With that 'bonus', I had him open his first business.
Gavin's first business was hard at first, and he had to do some digging in order to get some money for a few necessaries, and a custom arcade which I got from SimWardrobe. With the hungernator(also from Simwardrobe), the customers had pretty low moods a lot of the time, so some of the sales interactions failed. Despite the setbacks, he maxxed his first business and gained a boost in his lifetime aspiration level. Now for the first kiss...
I did, of course, have Gavin use all his one-time monetary benefits, so he is pretty rich but much of the money will be saved and used for other business ventures, and to hopefully get the kids into a private school. I've done that scenario before and it is terrific fun.
Other things you can do to help the Newsons:
Quickly, I had Gavin call a nanny. There was some chaos for a few days, and one night, I even called another nanny in so the first one wouldn't abandon the children before the teens came home from work. I wanted them to get scholarships for being overachievers, so they needed to have teen jobs. After the toddlers grew up to be children, the nanny only needed to arrive a little while before the children got home.
At the beginning of the scenario, I had Ginger socialize with the toddlers, and it wasn't easy at first to teach them their skills, but after enough aspiration points were accumulated, I first bought an energizer to allow the teens to keep their motives up so they could care for their siblings. The Newsons are orphans, so there are no grown-ups in that family at the beginning, and none in the family tree, though Gloria, apparently their mother, had died some time after adopting the children. I don't know how EA Games was able to create a family like that, but I would love to find out how so I can create my own adult-less family.
Anyway, back to the point: Ginger has a low relationship with the toddlers, so the player has to get her to socialize with them a few times, doing things like tickling, snuggling, kissing, peek-a-boo, and possibly joining them while they play with their toddler toys. Her low relationship with her youngest siblings prevents Ginger from teaching them their toddler skills - it isn't a glitch.
Another challenge is time management; between school and work, and possibly sleep, the eldest Newsons have little time to teach the toddlers their skills, and they need smart milk. After fulfilling some wants and buying the energizer, I was able to buy some smart milk, and managed to get the teens to teach the young 'uns all their skills, plus the nursery rhymes. They grew up FABULOUSLY. I also had the teens help each other with homework, though I had Ginger finish Gavin's since he was filling up his critically low fun motive. Then he helped her, and they helped the kids, then the toddlers(after they grew up to be children).
The chaos was for the most part over, and I had Gavin go to a Downtown lot and do some digging. I also had Ginger dig a little on that same lot, though I had her stop when I spotted a teen townie with a very compatible aspiration. She's sort of indifferent to him, but at least there's some chemistry between the two, and they seemed to get along pretty well. But anyway, Gavin did a lot of digging, got very dirty, dug some more, got lots of cool stuff including a treasure chest and a transport urn, netting more than 5,000 simoleons. With that 'bonus', I had him open his first business.
Gavin's first business was hard at first, and he had to do some digging in order to get some money for a few necessaries, and a custom arcade which I got from SimWardrobe. With the hungernator(also from Simwardrobe), the customers had pretty low moods a lot of the time, so some of the sales interactions failed. Despite the setbacks, he maxxed his first business and gained a boost in his lifetime aspiration level. Now for the first kiss...
I did, of course, have Gavin use all his one-time monetary benefits, so he is pretty rich but much of the money will be saved and used for other business ventures, and to hopefully get the kids into a private school. I've done that scenario before and it is terrific fun.
Other things you can do to help the Newsons:
- Move them in with an adult couple, preferably where one is unemployed, if University is installed
- Turn them into witches, since teen sims do not roll any witch-related wants or fears
- Use Inteenimater(I use that mod myself for College families, not teen pregnancies) and invite a best friend to move in
- Have them find a significant other and date for aspiration points(kind of a luck-based mission) if Nightlife is installed
- Have them alternate between going to school and staying home(will hurt their grades, but give them some opportunity for dates with passer-bys)
- Gardening and digging, if Seasons and Bon Voyage are installed
- Hobbies, if Freetime is installed
- Crafting stations if Freetime or Open For Business are installed
- Giving them lots of aspiration benefits, as well as secondary aspirations
- Turn them into good witches for the most benefit, as they will be able to cast spells that boost the moods of the toddlers and children, as well as everyone else in the family.
- Turn them into evil witches and make them impervious to bugs, though either alignment will be able to make thrones that will fill all their motives, and evil witches can do some nasty things to sims that displease them.
- Have all six of them socialize with each other - have the toddlers huggle since they have high relationships at the beginning, in case the nanny is neglectful
- Get the toddlers to ask their nanny for attention - the results may vary, but are likely to be positive if the nanny just snuggles or tosses them in the air.
- Have the teens play for money on public lots if Nightlife is installed
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Invasion Of The Naughty Nerds
Right now I'm working on a custom neighbourhood with Pleasantview, Strangetown and Riverblossom Hills as subhoods. In this setup, Kaylynn Langarak has a twin sister, and started out with a random name due to the mechanics of subhood townies and service sims. Her twin started out with the name Kaylynn Langarak, but I changed her first name to Mandy, as it was the original Kaylynn's initial first name.
Aside from that, every non-romance sim has Romance as a secondary aspiration - even Family sims like Rose Greenman and Nervous Subject. Romance sims have Knowledge as a secondary. Bigfoots are an exception as they can't do any romantic interactions, marry or have kids(even by getting probeded). So far it's very interesting, and it made playing the Grunt household LOADS of fun. General Buzz has had quite a few dates with different women, but has yet to get any woohoo. The Curious brothers have all gotten hitched and started families, and when Pascal gave birth, I randomized the number of kids he had; luckily, he just had twins, both sons.
Vidcund and Lazlo had alien babies as well, and Vidcund is currently pregnant with another alien spawn. All three brothers went on honeymoons to Takemizu Village and got some nice souvenirs that helped them with skilling. Pascal's family even went on an island vacation and conceived a baby there(at least two of the couples conceived during their honeymoons, as well as had some dream dates).
The Grunts went on a mountain vacation, got a few souvenirs and one big free souvenir - Bigfoot. He's a good babysitter, and great with doggies as well(but not with kitties).
My main sticking point was to get my CAS student, Elise Jordan, to woo Nervous Subject. I will admit it was a bit easy, since both had plenty of Romance aspiration benefits, including massive attraction. It did take a few romantic interactions though to show the chemistry because Nervous started out with the notion that girls have cooties. I also had to give her some business perks, including the 'head for numbers' perk, in order to contact him because I was having the darndest time even finding Nervous on a public lot.
By the way, he also became a plantsim before meeting her, and looked pretty in his leafy outfit, the 'just a little growth' skin overlay override by Almighty Hat, and his original hair(since I have the no leafy hair mod). Right now he has leafy hair only because of his warlock hat which I may remove later on using Pescado's lot debugger from More Awesome Than You.
With the Pleasant household, I thought of changing Daniel's aspiration, but instead I decided to change Mary-Sue's to Romance. Luck was smiling upon me and my sims, because with her new aspiration, Mary-Sue had the same Lifetime Want as Daniel: have 20 simultaneous lovers. Basically, my story is, everyone is having a midlife crisis and finding ways to deal with it and the inevitable influx of supernatural creatures. So they both started flirting around with different people, and I even had Nina Caliente go on a date with Daniel Pleasant, while Mary-Sue flirted with the likes of Christian Love and some other walkbys, and even 'friends' she brought home from work. Lilith asked Dirk Dreamer, her boyfriend, on a date, and it was a major success(plus it brought quite a haul of aspiration points that will be deposited in Boiling Oil's aspiration reward catalog for buying some neat toys or at least keeping aspirations up when my sims roll some hard-to-fulfill wants).
One of the Pleasant twins, Angela I think, has the lifetime want to own five top-level businesses. She will so go permaplat before going to college.
I have been playing the Oldies and Goodies rather heavily as well, and am trying to play them until they get a lamp. Once they get the lamp(and possibly a Bigfoot to watch the house), I'll have them wish for youth and become teens again, so they can go to College. I may remove any extra want slots before then, in case of the Oldies. I want them to have biological children and see what they look like. With the Oldies, I had them both change their aspirations to Fortune, and they both got the lifetime want to own five top-level businesses due to a mod that keeps elders from rolling career-related Lifetime Wants.
With the Specter household, I eventually had Nervous Subject take a lamp from one of the Curious households, and then had Olive wish for youth. Will have to upload a picture of Teen-Olive. She is very pretty, and has a rather bad reputation due to all the fights she had gotten into. At least at her stage, she doesn't have to worry about negative networking. And with the hacking I had done to the want trees, her son won't be obsessing about her being cured of any creature states(because she may well get herself bitten sooner or later). And I definitely want her to become a plantsim. If she has a plantbrat, I'll name him or her Kinmokusei, which is the name for a kind of olive tree with sweet blossoms. Kinmokusei is also a name of a star on Sailor Moon.
One of the sweetest things that happened while playing the Specter household(with Nervous living there) was, after Nervous became a plantsim, he soon rolled the want to grow a plantbaby. I obliged, and now Olive is a grandma. Nervous had spawned a little girl, named Thorny. Might have him grow another baby, and name that one Prickly. Yup, creative, I know, but it would be a perfect name. I may have him turn her into a witch, because magic is awesome. She might become an evil witch though, and make a few sims act like chickens.
The Newson family was hectic at first, but I made it work. I budgeted their money enough, and had Gavin do some financial insulting for some extra dough. There were some setbacks, mainly Gavin getting fired, but he bounced back and got a new job, and is now working on his second business.
By the way, here's a tip: Want a business that requires very little sales interactions and the like? Build one with a Bon Voyage or Apartment Life food stand. Customers often decide very quickly to eat there, and if you use the hungernator from SimWardrobe, it can make them want to eat at the stand more, because they will always be hungry. I may have Gavin do some retail as well - selling stoves, ovens, fridges, barbeques and other cooking-related stuff. Ginger will probably sell some electronics and other stuff while looking for a potential mate. But what I'm aiming for is to have enough points to buy some elixir of life so the eldest teens will have more time to skill for College.
I have some great mods that I used to aid in this scenario, like a special hacked computer that allows sims to study all skills and talent badges, shop and bank online, and earn money from writing articles. Of course, if you think your sim is too rich and it's taking fun out of the game, you can donate some of his or her money. But I prefer to to get my sims earning money, since it's easier to earn cash in Simworld than in real life. I wrote a tutorial on the sims wiki about the Newson family, and how to survive; I will write a better one here in another post. Anyway, this neighbourhood is a lot of fun. Try some of my tricks yourself, as well as the mods, but please make sure you take loads and loads of caution before hacking the want trees - can't stress that enough because hacking wants directly does run the risk of causing problems and possibly want tree corruption. And that would make any sim-fan a saaaaad panda.
Aside from that, every non-romance sim has Romance as a secondary aspiration - even Family sims like Rose Greenman and Nervous Subject. Romance sims have Knowledge as a secondary. Bigfoots are an exception as they can't do any romantic interactions, marry or have kids(even by getting probeded). So far it's very interesting, and it made playing the Grunt household LOADS of fun. General Buzz has had quite a few dates with different women, but has yet to get any woohoo. The Curious brothers have all gotten hitched and started families, and when Pascal gave birth, I randomized the number of kids he had; luckily, he just had twins, both sons.
Vidcund and Lazlo had alien babies as well, and Vidcund is currently pregnant with another alien spawn. All three brothers went on honeymoons to Takemizu Village and got some nice souvenirs that helped them with skilling. Pascal's family even went on an island vacation and conceived a baby there(at least two of the couples conceived during their honeymoons, as well as had some dream dates).
The Grunts went on a mountain vacation, got a few souvenirs and one big free souvenir - Bigfoot. He's a good babysitter, and great with doggies as well(but not with kitties).
My main sticking point was to get my CAS student, Elise Jordan, to woo Nervous Subject. I will admit it was a bit easy, since both had plenty of Romance aspiration benefits, including massive attraction. It did take a few romantic interactions though to show the chemistry because Nervous started out with the notion that girls have cooties. I also had to give her some business perks, including the 'head for numbers' perk, in order to contact him because I was having the darndest time even finding Nervous on a public lot.
By the way, he also became a plantsim before meeting her, and looked pretty in his leafy outfit, the 'just a little growth' skin overlay override by Almighty Hat, and his original hair(since I have the no leafy hair mod). Right now he has leafy hair only because of his warlock hat which I may remove later on using Pescado's lot debugger from More Awesome Than You.
With the Pleasant household, I thought of changing Daniel's aspiration, but instead I decided to change Mary-Sue's to Romance. Luck was smiling upon me and my sims, because with her new aspiration, Mary-Sue had the same Lifetime Want as Daniel: have 20 simultaneous lovers. Basically, my story is, everyone is having a midlife crisis and finding ways to deal with it and the inevitable influx of supernatural creatures. So they both started flirting around with different people, and I even had Nina Caliente go on a date with Daniel Pleasant, while Mary-Sue flirted with the likes of Christian Love and some other walkbys, and even 'friends' she brought home from work. Lilith asked Dirk Dreamer, her boyfriend, on a date, and it was a major success(plus it brought quite a haul of aspiration points that will be deposited in Boiling Oil's aspiration reward catalog for buying some neat toys or at least keeping aspirations up when my sims roll some hard-to-fulfill wants).
One of the Pleasant twins, Angela I think, has the lifetime want to own five top-level businesses. She will so go permaplat before going to college.
I have been playing the Oldies and Goodies rather heavily as well, and am trying to play them until they get a lamp. Once they get the lamp(and possibly a Bigfoot to watch the house), I'll have them wish for youth and become teens again, so they can go to College. I may remove any extra want slots before then, in case of the Oldies. I want them to have biological children and see what they look like. With the Oldies, I had them both change their aspirations to Fortune, and they both got the lifetime want to own five top-level businesses due to a mod that keeps elders from rolling career-related Lifetime Wants.
With the Specter household, I eventually had Nervous Subject take a lamp from one of the Curious households, and then had Olive wish for youth. Will have to upload a picture of Teen-Olive. She is very pretty, and has a rather bad reputation due to all the fights she had gotten into. At least at her stage, she doesn't have to worry about negative networking. And with the hacking I had done to the want trees, her son won't be obsessing about her being cured of any creature states(because she may well get herself bitten sooner or later). And I definitely want her to become a plantsim. If she has a plantbrat, I'll name him or her Kinmokusei, which is the name for a kind of olive tree with sweet blossoms. Kinmokusei is also a name of a star on Sailor Moon.
One of the sweetest things that happened while playing the Specter household(with Nervous living there) was, after Nervous became a plantsim, he soon rolled the want to grow a plantbaby. I obliged, and now Olive is a grandma. Nervous had spawned a little girl, named Thorny. Might have him grow another baby, and name that one Prickly. Yup, creative, I know, but it would be a perfect name. I may have him turn her into a witch, because magic is awesome. She might become an evil witch though, and make a few sims act like chickens.
The Newson family was hectic at first, but I made it work. I budgeted their money enough, and had Gavin do some financial insulting for some extra dough. There were some setbacks, mainly Gavin getting fired, but he bounced back and got a new job, and is now working on his second business.
By the way, here's a tip: Want a business that requires very little sales interactions and the like? Build one with a Bon Voyage or Apartment Life food stand. Customers often decide very quickly to eat there, and if you use the hungernator from SimWardrobe, it can make them want to eat at the stand more, because they will always be hungry. I may have Gavin do some retail as well - selling stoves, ovens, fridges, barbeques and other cooking-related stuff. Ginger will probably sell some electronics and other stuff while looking for a potential mate. But what I'm aiming for is to have enough points to buy some elixir of life so the eldest teens will have more time to skill for College.
I have some great mods that I used to aid in this scenario, like a special hacked computer that allows sims to study all skills and talent badges, shop and bank online, and earn money from writing articles. Of course, if you think your sim is too rich and it's taking fun out of the game, you can donate some of his or her money. But I prefer to to get my sims earning money, since it's easier to earn cash in Simworld than in real life. I wrote a tutorial on the sims wiki about the Newson family, and how to survive; I will write a better one here in another post. Anyway, this neighbourhood is a lot of fun. Try some of my tricks yourself, as well as the mods, but please make sure you take loads and loads of caution before hacking the want trees - can't stress that enough because hacking wants directly does run the risk of causing problems and possibly want tree corruption. And that would make any sim-fan a saaaaad panda.
Plantsim And Witch Want Trees
From my experience in playing Sims 2, the want trees relating to plantsims are very different from those for other creatures. If a sim becomes a witch, for example, other non-knowledge sims will usually only roll fears relating to becoming a witch, while non-knowledge friends or lovers of newly-turned witches will want them cured. With Plantsims, it's a different story. If a sim becomes a plantsim, any non-knowledge sim who knows him or her will roll wants for that sim to be cured. Even with wfsanity from More Awesome Than You, non-knowledge plantsims will still roll fears of their lovers becoming plantsims. I'm not so sure about non-knowledge witches fearing others becoming witches with that mod in place.
Sims with Knowledge as a secondary aspiration will still fear becoming plantsims, while wanting to become witches and werewolves. They tend to get iffy once they turn, and when they turn others into werewolves, but seem to be fine with turning others into witches.
Young adults, despite officially not being able to become plantsims(though a glitch may allow them to do so), they will still fear either want or fear turning into one.
Teens, however, will not have any witch-related wants, regardless of aspiration. The witch want trees only affect adults and elders, much like the plantsim want trees. Teens will still have wants and fears related to vampires, werewolves and possibly zombies. I don't know for sure yet, but when a sim dies, I will likely find out. They have wants and fears relating to Bigfoot as well, and will either want or fear meeting him, while children will want to see him. I have modified the 'see wolf' wants in my game so that children will want to see one(kind of makes sense, because kids often do like to see scary animals at the zoo).
Studying want trees can be quite informative, and if you know what you're doing(and back them up first), you can customize them in case you want to make a paranormal-themed custom hood without sending most of the population into aspiration failure.
Sims with Knowledge as a secondary aspiration will still fear becoming plantsims, while wanting to become witches and werewolves. They tend to get iffy once they turn, and when they turn others into werewolves, but seem to be fine with turning others into witches.
Young adults, despite officially not being able to become plantsims(though a glitch may allow them to do so), they will still fear either want or fear turning into one.
Teens, however, will not have any witch-related wants, regardless of aspiration. The witch want trees only affect adults and elders, much like the plantsim want trees. Teens will still have wants and fears related to vampires, werewolves and possibly zombies. I don't know for sure yet, but when a sim dies, I will likely find out. They have wants and fears relating to Bigfoot as well, and will either want or fear meeting him, while children will want to see him. I have modified the 'see wolf' wants in my game so that children will want to see one(kind of makes sense, because kids often do like to see scary animals at the zoo).
Studying want trees can be quite informative, and if you know what you're doing(and back them up first), you can customize them in case you want to make a paranormal-themed custom hood without sending most of the population into aspiration failure.
Want Tree Hacking And Some Pictures
Warning: BACK UP the wanttrees package file before doing any editing in SimPE. This will allow you to start over if you make a mistake while editing that file. Make sure you know a little about programming as well, because it is possible to hose your game if you mess up while editing.
*** Remember! Back Up Your Files Before Editing! ***
Well, I wanted to give some information, rather basic stuff, on want trees and locations. I do have some locations written down but others I will have to hunt for again since I forgot to save them in the wanttreemarkers text file.
Anyway, here they are:
Witch want trees: 0xB53C770F (-1254328561)
Meet Bigfoot trees: 0xF39701C7 (-208207417)
Become plantsim trees 1: 0x1264A363 (308585315)
Plantsim trees 2: 0x5264A138 (1382326584)
Wolf and Werewolf trees(there are probably three of them so I will have to hunt to get an update on those):
0xD12EDE99 (-785457511) and 9x31301E47 (825237063)
Please note that this is ONLY for those who know what they are doing. Make sure you BACK UP the wanttrees package file BEFORE doing this.
The hacking I did was simple switching True with False for wants related to sim or other sim being cured, and for those that I wanted to have the wants related to turning or to other sims turning, I switched False with True. With my setup, I have the Family sims wanting, not fearing, meeting Bigfoot, and wanting to have him move in - he's a terrific guardian and can be a wonderful babysitter for families where the mother may need to rest. I may also later edit it in SimPE again to have Fortune sims want to meet Bigfoot, because hey, in real life, if such a creature existed, people who were interested in money would want to meet this fellow, scary as he might be. I probably won't take away the fear of meeting him, mind you, because it would be nice to have some wishy-whashiness in certain aspirations. But hey, no pain, no gain?
My Family sims will want to become plantsims and witches, and fear being cured. They are neutral to other lifestates except for zombies, because vampires can watch the house at night and keep the place safe from burglars, and werewolves can also be great protectors, as they are able to fight intruders. Bigfoots will wake up if a burglar comes onto the lot, and scare the intruder away. These can be great upsides for both Family and Fortune sims. As for vampires, they have extremely easy pregnancies as their motives stay static during the night.
Plantsim mothers(and fathers, if they get probeded by aliens) have fairly easy pregnancies as well - all they need are a pool(or shower), a sunlamp, and a sim, pet or plant to love. They can even grow plantbabies, which can fulfill their aspirations for getting lots of grandchildren or marrying off lots of kids VERY quickly. See, plantsims have only three stages of life - toddler, adult and elder. Plantbabies will not get the 'never went to college' memory when growing up, and can be updated using the Batbox Lotdebugger from More Awesome Than You - a site which has many of the best mods a Sims 2 player can have. Use the 'Upgrade Sim - Pre-Uni' pie-menu options and select the major based either on the sim's interests or Lifetime Want, and you have all the Uni perks.
When upgrading a sim to graduate status, I like to often give that sim the necessary skills first, possibly by having them gain the skills on a semester-basis, but with no set class or finals times. But you can decide what to do, and with plantbabies, that may not be necessary as they get a lot of skills from their parents.
Romance and Pleasure sims will want to be most of the paranormals except for zombies(they're icky and have no benefits except immortality and infertility for Romance sims) and plantsims(because Romance and Pleasure sims tend to fear reproducing). My reasoning is, they would like to try some new things out, and honestly, witches, vampires and werewolves are quite romantic. They are, however, neutral towards plantsimism.
Fortune and Grilled Cheese sims are currently neutral toward all lifestates except zombies, though I may change that a little for Fortune, like I said, because Fortune sims may have plans for making some money off of 'freak shows'. In my planned edit, Fortune sims will fear their friends, lovers and acquaintances being cured, but will not have any other paranormal-related wants or fears, except for those relating to zombies.
Grilled Cheese sims, on the other hand, are neutral towards every life state except zombies, because hey, what's to worry about when there's grilled cheese to be eaten?
Popularity sims are the only ones with the default creature wants and fears - they're basically the 'Supernatural Skeptics' of my installation of Sims 2, while the Knowledge sims are the Supernatural Fans. I like this setup because there's more variety instead of the usual where only Knowledge sims want to become different creatures, while all other aspirations want to cure them and fear changing.
Again I re-iterate: Back Up Those Files Before Editing! Make sure you know what you're doing before hand as well, and have lots of fun with your hacked wants and fears!
Anyway, enough of that. Here's some pictures from one of my legacy hoods on the HP laptop(the one with the installation that only goes up to Pets). Enjoy!
*** Remember! Back Up Your Files Before Editing! ***
Well, I wanted to give some information, rather basic stuff, on want trees and locations. I do have some locations written down but others I will have to hunt for again since I forgot to save them in the wanttreemarkers text file.
Anyway, here they are:
Witch want trees: 0xB53C770F (-1254328561)
Meet Bigfoot trees: 0xF39701C7 (-208207417)
Become plantsim trees 1: 0x1264A363 (308585315)
Plantsim trees 2: 0x5264A138 (1382326584)
Wolf and Werewolf trees(there are probably three of them so I will have to hunt to get an update on those):
0xD12EDE99 (-785457511) and 9x31301E47 (825237063)
Please note that this is ONLY for those who know what they are doing. Make sure you BACK UP the wanttrees package file BEFORE doing this.
The hacking I did was simple switching True with False for wants related to sim or other sim being cured, and for those that I wanted to have the wants related to turning or to other sims turning, I switched False with True. With my setup, I have the Family sims wanting, not fearing, meeting Bigfoot, and wanting to have him move in - he's a terrific guardian and can be a wonderful babysitter for families where the mother may need to rest. I may also later edit it in SimPE again to have Fortune sims want to meet Bigfoot, because hey, in real life, if such a creature existed, people who were interested in money would want to meet this fellow, scary as he might be. I probably won't take away the fear of meeting him, mind you, because it would be nice to have some wishy-whashiness in certain aspirations. But hey, no pain, no gain?
My Family sims will want to become plantsims and witches, and fear being cured. They are neutral to other lifestates except for zombies, because vampires can watch the house at night and keep the place safe from burglars, and werewolves can also be great protectors, as they are able to fight intruders. Bigfoots will wake up if a burglar comes onto the lot, and scare the intruder away. These can be great upsides for both Family and Fortune sims. As for vampires, they have extremely easy pregnancies as their motives stay static during the night.
Plantsim mothers(and fathers, if they get probeded by aliens) have fairly easy pregnancies as well - all they need are a pool(or shower), a sunlamp, and a sim, pet or plant to love. They can even grow plantbabies, which can fulfill their aspirations for getting lots of grandchildren or marrying off lots of kids VERY quickly. See, plantsims have only three stages of life - toddler, adult and elder. Plantbabies will not get the 'never went to college' memory when growing up, and can be updated using the Batbox Lotdebugger from More Awesome Than You - a site which has many of the best mods a Sims 2 player can have. Use the 'Upgrade Sim - Pre-Uni' pie-menu options and select the major based either on the sim's interests or Lifetime Want, and you have all the Uni perks.
When upgrading a sim to graduate status, I like to often give that sim the necessary skills first, possibly by having them gain the skills on a semester-basis, but with no set class or finals times. But you can decide what to do, and with plantbabies, that may not be necessary as they get a lot of skills from their parents.
Romance and Pleasure sims will want to be most of the paranormals except for zombies(they're icky and have no benefits except immortality and infertility for Romance sims) and plantsims(because Romance and Pleasure sims tend to fear reproducing). My reasoning is, they would like to try some new things out, and honestly, witches, vampires and werewolves are quite romantic. They are, however, neutral towards plantsimism.
Fortune and Grilled Cheese sims are currently neutral toward all lifestates except zombies, though I may change that a little for Fortune, like I said, because Fortune sims may have plans for making some money off of 'freak shows'. In my planned edit, Fortune sims will fear their friends, lovers and acquaintances being cured, but will not have any other paranormal-related wants or fears, except for those relating to zombies.
Grilled Cheese sims, on the other hand, are neutral towards every life state except zombies, because hey, what's to worry about when there's grilled cheese to be eaten?
Popularity sims are the only ones with the default creature wants and fears - they're basically the 'Supernatural Skeptics' of my installation of Sims 2, while the Knowledge sims are the Supernatural Fans. I like this setup because there's more variety instead of the usual where only Knowledge sims want to become different creatures, while all other aspirations want to cure them and fear changing.
Again I re-iterate: Back Up Those Files Before Editing! Make sure you know what you're doing before hand as well, and have lots of fun with your hacked wants and fears!
Anyway, enough of that. Here's some pictures from one of my legacy hoods on the HP laptop(the one with the installation that only goes up to Pets). Enjoy!
 |
| One of the Founders' sons, the second-youngest, getting romantic with his chosen mate. They're both Fortune sims, and he fulfilled his Lifetime Want to earn LOADS of money before graduating. AWESOME! He also knocked up his sweetie, but thanks to the presence of a couple brainiacs who had all their skills maxxed(partially due to using the simvac on some annoying NPCs), the pregnancy was paused. They are engaged, currently, though his mate accidentally cheated with one of her customers, and hopefully he will never find out. ACR can be the pits sometimes, but I use it because I want Romance sims to not be so jealous when they see their significant others doing the same things THEY are doing. |
 |
| Our Founder, a Popularity sim, has found the love of her life: the Family dormie with the leisure suit and ugly-handsome face. Against all odds, they are a match made in Heaven! She's now an elder, and her hubby had one alien baby, and after they became elders, they adopted Chloe Gonzaga(I temporarily added her to the family and then put her into the adoption pool, so she could grow up and go to college and stuff). |
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| Our Founders' only biological(and non-alien) daughter getting into a fight with one of the cowies. Miss Cowie doesn't seem to understand that you don't just pillow-fight random people. It tends to make them want to poke you... or use the simvac and play 'Vac the Vacca'. I also had loads of fun watching her talk to her little volleyball pal. Might have one of the grandkids get together with her and have little cowies - after all, even cow-mascots need love! |
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| Our First Heir's chosen mate, the spiky-haired Romance dormie, realizing that she got a whole lot more than what she bargained for. She had twins on her first pregnancy, and is a very good mother. Her mate's aspiration is Popularity, like his mother's, and he's got his dad's Lifetime Want: Become Captain Hero. Spiky-haired Romance dormie on the other hand, wants to be a Professional Party Guest. She didn't mind getting married because his family is supremely-loaded. She even wanted to teach her twins to walk, talk and potty, which is quite adorable! |
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Introduction
I have two different installations, one that only goes up to the Pets expansion pack, and the other that goes up to Apartment Life. I've recently done some hacking of the wanttrees package file which made it so some non-knowledge sims will want to become certain kinds of creatures. Romance and Pleasure sims, for example, will want to become witches, vampires and werewolves, while Family sims will want to become witches or plantsims, though all except for the Popularity sims will be tolerant of different life states. Fortune sims will be very apathetic about the various creature states, except possibly for zombies(those are gross), since they're more interested in making money, and Grilled Cheese sims will similarly be okay with different creatures, since why should they worry, when there's grilled cheese sandwiches to be eaten?
I also use a lot of mods and custom content in my Sims 2 game, which ads to the fun and realism, and opportunities and fun for both the player and the sims. I will be writing some reviews on these mods, as well as the expansion packs.
For those who have some experience in programming, or are familiar with XML, it is possible to hack the wanttrees package file, but it should be done with extreme caution, and the original file should always be backed up first. Other mods, like wfsanity, gives some overrides to have the wants and fears make sense.
Some really useful and fun mods include cloned computers which allow the sims to write articles, study badges, bank online and more. There's even a ZX Spectrum that can be used for playing games or writing programs and setting them for sale. Sites like Modthesims.info have thousands of useful mods, and More Awesome Than You has some that are important for those who want to avoid neighbourhood and game corruption.
I may upload some pictures in the next post, if I can can tear myself away from my game long enough. Later!
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