Sims Talk: Free Time hobby determination

[strangetomato]

I'm getting pretty ready to install Free Time, especially now that InSIM SimPE has been updated (that was fast). I will, however, need a plan of attack for all of my story sims, and their hobbies. I have a little list going already, and maybe I'll post it later to think out loud. I just found a list of traits that determine a sim's "true hobby", so I thought I'd share, in case you haven't seen it yet. This gives me a good idea of what my sims might end up with, but I'm not really liking how this element of the game works.

So it seems that the pre-determined "true hobby" that sims are given with Free Time is based on a combination of personality, skills, and interests. And here are the categories (I swiped this from the BBS somewhere):


Arts & Crafts - sloppy, nice - creativity - culture, fashion
Cuisine - neat, lazy - cooking - food
Film & Literature - shy, lazy - charisma - entertainment, culture
Fitness - outgoing, active - body - health
Games - playful, grouchy - logic - entertainment
Music & Dance - outgoing, serious - creativity - entertainment
Nature - sloppy, playful - cleaning - animals, environment, weather
Science - neat, serious - logic - sci-fi
Sports - active, grouchy - body - sports
Tinkering - shy, nice - mechanical - toys


I'm not really into this idea. It's way too limiting and it creates these "types" for each hobby. (Oh, but why don't I love grouping people into limiting categories? It's so much fun. *sigh*) Like aspiration, why not let us look at the personality of our sims and determine the hobby interest ourselves? Or let it be random, or at least more random than it is right now. The way it's set up now, you can only be into certain hobbies if you have a certain personality, which is, quite frankly, bullshit. I know plenty of musicians that are not serious, plenty of neat artsy types (more than sloppy ones, really), and why on earth would you need to be grouchy to enjoy sports? Argh, I say. Argh!

Using Buck Grunt as an example, he could end up with cuisine (not so bad), science (errm...), or he could end up with tinkering. Tinkering, people! What happened to him wanting to be a "pet stylist to the stars"? I have no idea why shyness would be connected to tinkering, anyway. Seriousness would be more accurate, in my opinion. But how limiting is that?! I want him to have arts and crafts (and he'll have it, don't worry), but the game creators have decided that a neat sim wouldn't like sewing? This makes no sense to me. Have they never heard of Martha Stewart? She's not exactly a slob.

... and Nervous Subject will probably like sports? That just seems wrong to me too. Shouldn't outgoingness be a factor for that one too? (I think I'm leaning towards film and literature for Nervous, myself. I haven't decided yet, but he does seem to like to read a lot, despite the high energy level.)

I'm not sure what to think of it all, really, but I don't really like it. It's just too limiting for me (but at least gender was not a factor). I think I will be taking the hobby destiny of my sims into my own hands, in most cases.

So what do you think?

Edited to add: My brain read that as InSIM, but I should have said SimPE. Oops! I need a nap.

Comments

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

It's very limiting when you're in the middle of telling a story. It would be different to start out with the hobbies already in place, and letting it shape the story form the beginning. But I like being about to choose things like that myself. I've already given the sims in this story hobbies of sorts, like Ophelia and her flowers. I like being able to choose.

I totally agree. It could help you to develop a new character, but wouldn't it be more interesting if that was more random? You could end up with some really odd, interesting characters that way.

I'd like to see it work more like the LTWs do. Based on something, but pretty random within those parameters.

[amaryssobellus.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! I would love it if it was more random and I'm sure someone will develop a hack/mod that does that eventually, just like they did with the LTW randomizer hack. ^_^

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

True enough. I'm sure that someone will do that, and I'll probably use it.

The LTW randomizer is a very interesting hack, but I don't use it (yet). It just makes all the career LTWs open to all, right? Not something like giving family sims the "woohoo with 20 sims" LTW? (Though that would be very amusing too.)

[amaryssobellus.livejournal.com]

I think that it opens more LTW careers to all. I have as yet seen a family sim with that kind of LTW. ^_^

For example I've had knowledge sims with become business tycoon or popularity sims with become mad scientist. That kind of thing.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. I think that I'll have to add that to my game at some point. I've considered it before.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

(my turn to butt in!)

I was going to mention the LTW hack. I have it and I think (if memory serves) I got a knowledge sim with a "x kids graduate college" LTW (it was my wifeSelfsim!). But don't quote me on that.

If you can fiddle with it in simPE then you can get what you want (though I agree, that's a lot of work and irritating). And for the idle animations, I'm sure there will be a hack that will either squash them all together or an animation box so you can make a sim do whatever one you want.

I get irritated when existing sims (pre adding a new expansion) get crapped on by the new features. It's not enough that everyone gets reset (so they're maxed out needs in the dead of night when you'd just got them on a sleep schedule) but then (like with NL) they have dumb ass attraction and you have to fiddle with every sim so they don't hate the spouse they've been married to for "years". Bah.

And if worse comes to worse, can't you just ignore hobbies all together with pre-existing sims? (really, I don't know, I would think you could)

[amaryssobellus.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can ignore the hobbies. There's no rule saying that you have to use them.

It's not enough that everyone gets reset (so they're maxed out needs in the dead of night when you'd just got them on a sleep schedule)

OH GOSH!! I get so irritated with that because I usually like to end my play time when they're all home and in bed (I've had sims never come home and I think it was due to the fact that I saved when they where at work. )

Someone has already made a hack that cancels out the new idle animations. I would post a link but I'm at POM right now.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

The only real impact of the OTH is the choice of idle animation and a little boost to the rate of hobby enthusiasm gained, so there is something, but it's not really all that significant. It can easily be ignored, if necessary.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm liking the sound of that hack, so I do think that I'll add it to my game. Anything to shake things up and makes them interesting. Well, maybe not ACR... my sims are all horndogs as it is. It's nice to hear that non-family sims might get family related wants. Some of those things, if they do happen, would make things interesting. And I've always wanted to see more sims get the want to become a rock star, but now it's limited to romance.

I'm hoping that InSIM (when it is actually updated, and not just my wishful thinking *sigh*) will give an option to change it, like it does for LTWs and turn ons, etc. That would be the easiest way to deal with it.

I've seen a hack to stop those animations, though I probably won't use it unless they do it way too much. I tend to like that "annoying" habits, like the constant autonomous dirty jokes and pillow fights. They amuse me.

About having all their needs set to full... you could use the InSIM motive adjuster to reduce their energy meter. That's an easy way to get them on the right sleep schedule again. I fiddle with that a lot to do things in the story (like getting Johnny and Ripp to stand up at the toilet instead of sit *snicker*, which is dependent on the level of the bladder meter - when they REALLY have to go, it's always no. 2). It's easy to do, and you can always adjust it back afterwards if you need to.

The chemistry system must have caused a bit of an uproar when it was first introduced, because of the existing characters. Thankfully, they included that method of changing turn ons. I always change the turn ons to suit my own needs. It's a minor part of the chemistry anyway (I'm sure that aspiration and personality/zodiac plays a much bigger role), so I just set it to suit my needs. If two characters are already attracted, I change the turn ons to enhance it.

Yeah, apparently, the sims can participate in any hobby, regardless of their OTH, so it's only a minor gripe.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

I should check my wife sim and see if I was lieing. The way I understand the LTW hack, it also is a "family" thing (so kids take after their parents in the LTW department). I want to say I'm seeing that in my prosperity hood. I randomly roll everyone, but one kid rolled pleasure and got the same LTW as the grandfather. Then another kid rolled fortune and got the same LTW as her father. I could just be reading into it, though (super small sample size and all). I like kids taking after their parents (especially when I'm random rolling aspirations).

You can use simPE to change LTW's too. And I think you can give any LTW to any aspiration (I've never tried it, the changes I wanted to make didn't need that--I usually just blitz the "pet friends" and "raise puppies" LTW's).

I use inSim to diddle with needs all the time. Poor Pascal has been awake for two days straight! I just never thought about it for the "reset" thing. Maybe I secretly like the challenge of getting my sims back into their groove. (I love dragging social down so sims will talk longer)

I've been using the "chemistry potion" a lot lately, too. Some of those college sims have dumb turn ons (like full face makeup and vampirism--hell, you're never going to get a mate that way).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

From what I've read, there is trend toward the LTW running in families with that hack, and I also think that it's very cool. It's pretty funny to get a pleasure sim with a career LTW, though, since they often roll the want to stay home from work. The poor conflicted things.

Oh man, the pet LTWs bother me too. Ophelia has one, and I think I'm actually going to change it. I was thinking that I'd get her into some dog breeding, but that idea is less appealing to me all of the time. A little wouldn't be bad, but 20 puppies? It's so extreme. You have to be a crazy recluse for that to make sense in the story (how else would all of the dogs even fit in the house?). I think I'm going to reroll her for a child-based want, whatever that may be. Or if she gets the golden anniversary, I'd take that too. But the pet thing... I think it just has to go.

I agree. I mess with social and fun a lot, especially to force prolonged conversations and dancing.

Oh, but there are SO MANY vampires with full face makeup out there! *snort* Some of those turn ons have a very limited appeal. I really wish that eye colour was one of the options, since they have hair colour (and it's not as risqué as skin tone). Did they add attraction to aliens in BV/FT? They've done most of the other special sims, right? I'd love to see attraction to aliens.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Ophelia as a pet breeder is all wrong. I could see Nervous as "pet obsessed" though. He already has one dog and said dog was his only companion for a while. He'd want to preserve the line. The pet best friend one pisses me off more than the breeding one. What kind of weirdo wants pet best friends? And what a pain in the ass that must be? It's not like you can call up the neighbors cat/dog. Dumb, Maxis, DUMB!

(as for completing the "pet breeding" LTW, I think you only have to get the pets to adult, then you get rid of them--and have your sim crying about it if they got attached during the puppy/kitten days--I can't handle sims crying over pets, it's annoying and just too sad).

I have a question about the "golden anniversary". That's based only on having an anniversary party, right? So if one sim is elder but the spouse is still adult, will it work (I'm thinking about it for Paul, he's going to elder way before Aggie and I don't want him not to get his LTW).

I don't think they added alien attraction with BV. All the other "weird" sims but not alien. I guess alien walks the line of "race" so best not to go there (since the other "weird" sims are reversible).

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm going to change her. Nervous can do some breeding with the dogs they've collectively taken in, but Phi needs to forget about pet breeding. She already has her gardening and flowers, so that's enough of a hobby for her. (Speaking of which, does gardening relate to any of the hobby interests? I guess not, since they try to make the EPs not rely on each other.) Also, she might want to concentrate on having some babies of her own.

Pet best friends would work for a crazy cat lady. But yeah, that's about it. So dumb.

I'm not sure about the golden anniversary, since I've never fulfilled it. I'm not sure if it works when just one of them is an elder. If the option is there for throwing a party, then it would probably work. You might need both of them to be elders, though. I do know that it is okay if they cheat (not an issue with Aggie and Paul, I know), as long as they don't get caught.

You're right. It does walk the race line, so figured it got left out because of that. I'd still like to see it, though.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

With FT, the "not relying on other EP's thing" is really being pushed. I was looking at the prima guide (unreliable but entertaining) and it listed all the items that can help build enthusiasm for different hobbies. There are quite a few that are EP dependant (though no one hobby is completely EP dependant). I went through and saw how many had BV only stuff and it wasn't significant enough to make me want BV.

Ooh, Bjorn and Bottom are unequal in years. I'll see if Bjorn has the "throw anniversary party" option.

[ndainye.livejournal.com]

It mainly just opens job related lifetime wants though there are odd ones here and there, I've seen pleasure seekers that want 20 woohoo's (fittingly) and pops that want to marry off six kids.

The mod takes aspiration, personality, interests and mentor type professions into consideration. Example of mentor type professions would be that relatives of a Captain Hero would be less likely to want to be Criminal Masterminds.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Wow. The mod takes all that into consideration? EA could stand to learn a thing or two, since it sounds way more complex and interesting than the way the hobbies are determined. This hack sounds better and better all of the time.

I especially like that the children of parents with certain careers will keep that in mind with their LTWs (though it would also be fun to see them rebel against their parents).