Sims dream, and discussion about premade reluctance.

[strangetomato]

I had a dream about sims last night. I was playing the game, though of course it was more like this very large scale thing that I was observing in the dream. I think I had discovered a new premade character, possibly a university student, who was a pleasure sim and she had the LTW to "Have everyone's phone number." I think it was to be filled by meeting every sim in the game! :P I was excited to have discovered a new LTW in the game (and poor Pleasure sims need more than the two they're given). The character was a female with short black hair and pretty plain clothing. Nothing special, but I liked her. She was throwing a huge party.

Then the dream got weird and I was trying to screencap some of the odd scenes at this sim's party so I could share them. There was something about a General Buzz type character making out with a sim that looked like Bowser or a Sesame Street monster. Yeah, like I said, it got weird fast.

I've been playing through all the university characters lately, trying to get all the university premades out into the adult world for the current timeframe of S,HWC, to be replaced by the younger generation (any sims that were children or toddlers at game start). It's pretty fun, and I'm playing up the entire uberhood to be at roughly the 14 day mark (using the lot sync timer), but I'm finally feeling that reluctance some simmers mention about not wanting to play the premades because they feel it's ruining the stories and not using the "right" path for them. This usually doesn't bother me, but I tend to look at the S,HWC universe as my more or less official take on the premades, so I do feel this desire to set them all on some sort of best path for my take on things.

This is, no doubt, ridiculous. Many of these characters have at least two different paths that would be equally pleasing to me, and some of them are just complete wild cards. I've already played through a lot of it with the original versions of these hoods for my story and I liked that direction, but the second play through invariably brings new ideas and new chance happenings, ACR surprises, etc. No two plays through this game will ever be the same. That's part of what I like about it, and really, it's also part of my idea of the story universe that some rare sims are aware of the infinite versions of themselves out there, like their version of quantum physics.

Has anyone else had that feeling about the premades? I love trying different variations, but working on a complete uberhood has me feeling like I have to get this version "right."

Comments

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I try to play Pleasure sims more often, but they're so one-track. They're almost as bad as Grilled Cheese sims, who become really tedious really fast. I pretty much keep it to only Natasha Una in the uberhood.

And yeah, that LTW would be better if it had a number to reach, maybe. But ALL the other sims? Haha! Pretty tough.

For some of the households, I have very defnite ideas of how I like to see things go, but others have a number of options that I like. I think I'm noticing it that much more with the Uni students because so many of them have nothing set up for them, so it's wide open. And now, with the unis all connected in the uberhood, there are so many possibilities.

I think the thing that gets me most are sim children. They REALLY make the hood your own, and this one set thing. There are so many possibilities with looks and personality. After they come along, everything is so much further from all the initial story shell. It's cool that it makes it your own, but also it feels so... final, somehow.

I think a huge part of the appeal of playing the premades is that there's no one true version of any of it. And God, that Tara Kat thing. It was a departure for the character, for sure, but sometimes I like to really mess with the interpretation of characters. There's nothing wrong with that. I've seen people do it and it was brilliant, and others have left me cold. But that's all part of the fun of it.

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

I usually have trouble knowing what to do with some of the Uni sims, it's like their past is TOO open... It varies a lot, though. I keep wanting to give them families and such, but then I have even MORE sims on my hands, that need to be played. :P

I agree about sim children. They're all unique to your game, and yet... once they're there, the storyline is, yes, final. I'm always thinking, what if they had children with someone else instead?

Indeed. I love looking at other people's interpretations. If I don't like them, I don't really feel the need to TELL anyone about it, I mean, each to their own. And it's a lot of fun when I come across a completely new take on a character that I find really cool. Sometimes it changes how I view that character myself.

BTW, completely unrelated, but I put your Lyla in my fixed-dead Strangetown, and she's adorable ingame. :) Too bad she's... dead.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

There's so much you can do with them, and I certainly have had more fun with the uni students I've fleshed out in one way or another, but recreating the families does add a lot of extra sims! I started in on that in my old Strangetown, but I think I'll only be doing that when it's essential for the story in the future. Like I'll keep the Worthingtons, but maybe skip making Guy Wrightly and Zoe Zimmerman's folks. You probably won't see them in the story anyway. If I needed to show them, I could always use another hood for it.

Then I have some original sims, too, which I have no problem with (some people are very Maxis-only about sim stories, but I don't mind seeing originals mixed in), but once again I need to watch the numbers.

I let ACR do its thing with some of the children in my game, so I have some odd pairings there and single parents, etc. I sort of like it, but then I also sort of don't in some cases. Oh well. *shrug* I suppose I could always give them up for adoption if I really want to go a different direction with it. (LOL - how cruel!)

It's funny, because I do sometimes feel invested enough in some of the premades to want to be like, "this is bullshit" to some of the things I see, but yeah... is it really necessary to say anything? As they say, just scroll on if you don't like it. And a lot of the time you see things that you really like, so it balances out. Half the fun is that my version is different from your version is different from their version, etc. I've had my share of run ins with so-called canon sticklers, though, so yeah...

Great! I'm glad it worked out for you. So, I guess the idea is that she can be resurrected now? It'd be interesting to see a story where Lyla suddenly just came back.

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

I recently made Roxie and Edwin Sharpe's parents (and made their mother, Michelle, the sister of Stella Roth). That was fun. I made Blossom Moonbeam's adoptive hippie parents once too, who I was very pleased with. But I'm not really very good at making my own original sims, I tend to lose interest in them quickly (sigh).

I don't mind other people's originals in premade stories, as long as they don't start outnumbering the premades. (But it's different when it's an original story with premades being used as "guest actors", that's fine, I just don't want to read a story I think is about Pleasantview and then you only see Brandi Broke every four chapters or something.)

Anyway. Haha, giving them up for adoption. I need to use adoption more in my game! I just... don't really want the randomly generated, straight face template ones. Hm. Guess I should make myself an adoption pool. If I play Pleasantview, I like to put the townie kids up for adoption, though.

Heheh, canon fights are kinda funny. Besides the stupid Tara Kat "drama", there hasn't been enough of that in simsecrets lately. :P

Lyla should indeed be able to be resurrected safely in this version, yes. I replaced all of her character files. I should be uploading Pleasantview and Strangetown sometime this week, they're pretty much done. I still can't absolutely guarantee that it's safe to resurrect everyone, but it's certainly a lot safer than it was. A lot of ghosts in Olive's graveyard were... incredibly broken. If you want some horror for Halloween, you should resurrect Lyla, Willow and Creon in the original Strangetown, and send them to the mirror a couple of times (I think you have to do it twice for it to stick), to see their ... true facial structure. Dear god.

The only thing I wasn't able to completely fix was Knut Futa, his personality and skills randomize when he's resurrected for some bizarre reason, instead of being what I set them to in SimPE. But he's not a wriggling adult baby with no aspiration, age, personalty, zodiac or wants, anymore. >_>