strangetomato | Sims Talk: Free Time

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Sims Talk: Free Time

So, I've finally joined the Free Time party, and I'm liking it just as much as I thought I would.

The first thing I did was adjust the One True Hobby of my characters to something that made sense. I followed the tutorial that

simgaroop posted, and it's very easy to make this change using the Lot Debugger.

Johnny discovers his interest in sports (he's only just realizing that now? *snicker*). Though he's tossing a football, he's actually more into the other type of football, aka soccer. The cool, international sport of choice. Seriously, doesn't Johnny seem like a soccer player to you? Works for me.

I used Gadwin Printscreen to take this screencap, and, let me tell you, I'm not likely to switch over to screencapping my images anytime soon. Sure, it looks clearer, but do I want to exit the program every time I take a photo? No. Do I want to have to open up every image and centre it in GIMP on the correct format that I want the photo to be in? No. Are the shots that I take with the in-game camera clear enough? Yes. So why go through so much trouble? *scratches head*

The reason this is all squashed and distorted is because I set Gadwin to take the caps at the same format as the in-game camera, but because I have a wide-format screen (yeah, I'm spoiled), it just squished the full screen image (instead of adding extra information to the top and bottom like the in-game camera does... which also took some adjusting to). Not acceptable. And the pause lines are annoying too - though there's a hack to remove them, right? To get what I want, I'd have to figure out the right format for my screen, and then go into GIMP with every image to crop it to what I want. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I don't think I'd have the same motivation to do sim stories if I had to go through that for every image if it's not necessary.

Anyway, back to Free Time.

I gave Ripp Music and Dance, which makes more sense than Arts and Crafts. He is in a band, and known for busting moves on people almost every day.

Unfortunately, he's going to have to lose his signature guitar, since the custom instruments hack causes all guitars to stop increasing enthusiasm levels, and not just the custom ones (I thought I might get away with just switching them in for photos, which I suppose I could still do, though it's a lot more annoying to have to remove and add them from the game every time I need them). So, I may have to just suck it up and give every musician the very same guitar. *sigh* Why is there only one texture for the guitar? They are options for all the other instruments!

Ophelia got Nature as her hobby (although the florist bench is considered an Arts and Crafts thing, so she'll have two hobbies). I didn't get a screen cap of that. Johnny and Ophelia both had Music and Dance when I started the game. They do like to dance, but I didn't want that to be their main hobby, since they already had hobbies suggested by the game for me (Johnny has the sports career LTW, and Ophelia rolled to want to buy a florist bench out of nowhere).

Then there were the secondary aspirations. Ophelia got knowledge, and Johnny and Ripp both got family. There was an immediate change in the chemistry level in the house.

As I suspected, there was a boost from the secondary aspiration. Oddly, though, it was only to Ripp. Hmm, I wonder why. I think the most obvious reason could be the fact that Ripp and Ophelia have better chemistry with each other if aspirations are not taken into consideration (having 2 bolts with each other, despite completely opposing aspirations), so with this leveling of the playing field, Ripp gets a little edge on Johnny. I'll play around with turn ons to see how close it is... oh wait, I don't have InSIM anymore. I knew this would come up.

Wait... that's not it. I just remembered. It's the romance aspiration reward thing. Ripp gets a boost in chemistry with everyone! Very sneaky, Ripp. I haven't checked to see how he reacts to other girls in his little black book, but right now, Phi is the only one that's showing as triple bolt (my first in all of Strangetown, by the way).

The effects of this chemistry increase are already very evident.

Ripp: Oh, I hate to see you go, but I LOVE to watch you leave.

Phi: You're actually following me, you know, so I'm not really leaving.

Ripp: Yeah... I can't really help that.

Phi: Why don't we, umm, sit over here... on the couch?

Ripp: *is happy*

So, now I'm thinking that ACR is probably a very bad idea.

Another odd change in my game is with dancing. It became a lot more... homophobic? No, it's more like it's based strictly on sexual preference now. Guys who like girls don't dance with guys, and so on.

Johnny and Ripp, for example, no longer like to dance with each other. Oh, they still initiate dancing all of the time, but then they decide that they don't like it. It makes them seem very... conflicted.

(As a side note, Johnny is the exact same colour as the siding on the house!)

Nervous and Ophelia do not like to dance with each other either.

Pascal and Nervous, however, do enjoy dancing with each other. A lot. Hmm... how interesting. (Keep in mind that I have not done anything to influence their sexuality in the game yet. Nervous doesn't even register chemistry for anyone. Pascal is pre-set to like females... supposedly.)

I think this dancing thing might be caused by the MATY romance hack, which I decided to add with the updated hacks. It doesn't say anything specific about it on the hack description thread, but it does say this:

"Sexual orientation of a sim now actually matters! A very straight sim will decline homosexual interactions and vice-versa."

That makes me think that dancing is grouped as a flirtatious activity, even though it has no effect on romance in-game. I'm not impressed. I like having everyone dance with each other, regardless of gender and sexuality (even if they do sometimes grind up on each other suggestively *snicker*). I'm not sure if the romance hack is really what's causing this. Can anyone confirm this for me?

Then we have Buck, who is enjoying his new sewing machine very much. Actually, it's not new. It's a hand-me-down from the Smith family (it used to be Kitty's and Jenny gave it to Jill in a moment of wishful thinking). Now it's Buck's.

This makes all of the trouble with updating hacks and figuring out the no-cd crack totally worth it. I love Buck and I love to see him rocking the sewing machine like nobody's business. Free Time is great.

I was a little hesitant about secondary aspirations for these two. I'm leaning towards popularity for Jill and fortune for Buck, since he's so reasonable about money, and hard-working. The wants to buy things would match up with him wanting to decorate the house too, so I think it works. I'm still working my way around to the other characters. Tank's hobby is fitness, and his secondary aspiration is fortune. Frances got music and dance (because of the piano playing), and his secondary aspiration is knowledge.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite new social interactions, the sweet talk.

It's just too cute.

ETA: I removed the MATY romance hack, and my sims are dancing normally again. I think it really did have something to do with the increased strictness about sexuality in romantic interactions with that hack. I like the idea of the different aspirations behaving differently about jealousy (though I have some issues with that too), but I really dislike that it makes the sexuality of sims even more rigid than it is now. Things aren't always black or white when it comes to sexuality, so MATY can keep its romance hack.

They aren't about to let a silly hack ruin all their fun!

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Oh, nice. I think I might add that. Ripp is lucky that YAs can't get pregnant, isn't he?

I like the idea of that. I've played female romance sims like that before, having them always trying for baby, but having risky woohoo would be better, since the odds are lower.

What do you mean by have trouble seeing? They don't show up?

Yeah, your posts don't seem to show up on my f-list and I have to come to your journal to see if you've updated. It's not big thing and only happens every once in a while but I tend to miss updates because of it. Like the last one that I'm just now starting to read. :)

So, now I'm thinking that ACR is probably a very bad idea.

I know exactly what would happen if you did! You'll leave your attention off of Ripp and Phi for one second. ONE second, and you hear "BOIIIIIIIIING." Then you see Johnny doing the "I was just cheated on face." Which is kind of like: D:

I'm glad you installed Free Time, I find it very fun to play. I'd love to see Ripp doing the Ballerina idle action. XD

Ophelia making omelettes(or maybe pancakes?) in the last picture: very cute. :D

Well, there are other risky woohoo's out there but I haven't used them. I found this one at MTS2.

I've set my Ripp up that way and it is so sweet and confused and fun. It really does seem to be the way his mind works. Like I've always thought he was Romance because he deep down secretly craved a mother's love, so for me, Romance/Family works perfectly for him.

It's so funny to see all the conflicting wants and fears. Have X number of loves at once, get engaged, fall in love with so and so, have a baby... and fear of getting caught cheating, getting engaged, and having a baby. XD

How cute is Buck with his sewing machine? *squees a little*

Three bolters are deadly with ACR involved, at least most of the time. You just know it's a matter of time before they're 'Relaxing' together... What I love the most is the fact that they decide the number of babies themselves - and sometimes they really surprise you. I have a Pleasure/Romance couple who gave me two girls all by themselves :) You can turn autonomy off (but then what's the point?) and make a lot of custom adjustments though. I haven't bothered fiddling around with it. I'm lazy *lol*

As for Ripp's second aspiration: he's perfect as romance/family. I was playing around in CAS this weekend and stumbled upon Ophelia's face. Of course I just _had_ to make her and Ripp (who I just happened to have in my SavedSims folder) a couple. Let's just say that their children are beautiful (and very messy) and that Ripp is a great parent who never spun a fear of having a baby and even lost his fear of changing diapers at one point. *sigh*

All your secondary asp. choices sound good - I really wish my laptop could handle another EP...

I have a question.

IS MR. DOE ROBERT SMITH. DID ROBERT SMITH FROM THE CURE GET PROBED BY ALIENS. IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED.

I agree. I think he's trying to fill a void in his life, but also he has a distrust of commitment and marriage, based on the failures of his parents, so he wants everything to be carefree with no attachments. But deep down, it's not what he really wants, so the family thing works there. The only other aspirations that would have worked for him, in my mind, would have been popularity or pleasure, but that's a bit too "more of the same". I like having the contrast, especially for my conflicted Ripp.

The funny thing about Ripp is that I have him rolling those "get engaged" and "fall in love" wants already, so this won't be anything completely new. Well, the baby wants will be new. *snicker* Poor Ripp. Wanting and fearing at the same time. He wants a happy family, but he fears that it will all go wrong in that classic Grunt way.

It will be a lot of fun writing out these conflicting desires. I've already taken a stab at it with that dream he had, where he was marrying Ophelia. That about sums up the nature of his trouble.

No. You have the wrong "the" band. I based him on Morrissey from The Smiths. He's not meant to be him exactly, either, just inspired by. I'm a big fan, so it was for my own amusement, and he seemed to fit the profile of the alien's target demographic very well.

Oh, that's so odd. I wonder why that's happening? Madame seems to get a lot of trouble like that, with the white spaces in her posts too.

Yeah, I'm considering that one myself. I like the idea of a small chance of pregnancy from woohoo (though 30% seems a bit high... sims must be seriously clueless at using condoms with that rate).

Well, Johnny would do that if he was allowed to, but I usually turn jealousy off in their household, just in case. (Though, the non-jealousy things seem sort of flawed in university, so Johnny has done that "BBOOOIIINNGG!!!" thing a couple of times, and gave Ripp a decent smack down. :P Too funny.

I love Free Time so far. It adds so much to the game, and I love the new objects and everything.

I almost forgot about the ballerina idle animation! *snort* That's going to be funny. The music hobby seems to have the most animation associated with it. He'll tap his legs and whistle too, which seems to suit him.

I think she's making omelettes. It was very cute. She had to walk almost through Johnny and Ripp, but she didn't whine about it, she just went about her business, as if to say, "Oh, dancing in the kitchen, huh? Nothing unusual here..."

Don't know honestly, lj's more tempermental than a pregnant woman. *shurg* I've just learn to except it.

I love Buck and his sewing machine SO MUCH. That was something that I had envisioned since I first heard about FT. I could just see Buck in his own home one day, making quilts and curtains to decorate the place.

I know what you mean about the autonomy being the whole point of ACR. That's what the A stands for, afterall. I don't think I'd put it in unless I was willing to accept the consequences. For Ripp, that would mean that I was going to allow him and Ophelia to do their thing, so we'll have to see how that all works out first.

I've played around with a cloned Ripp and Ophelia family before myself. Here are the children that they had:

Ripp is always a good parent when I play him as one. The house becomes a total mess, but the kids get a lot of attention, so they're happy at least. He does fear those diapers, though, doesn't he? He sort of just hands them over to Ophelia, pretending that he has no idea what to do. *snicker* As if to say, "Do you really trust me to do this myself?"

I totally agree with you on the camera mod. I tend to use the in-game camera for most story shots myself (with the exception of those special events, because the videos amuse the hell out of me and I keep hoping for someone to get left at the altar since that and rejected engagement are the only ones I've not seen... is there an S.E. video for that particular golden moment?) and your in-game shots always look gorgeous. Plus the camera hack is complete and utter love.

I still haven't reinstalled ACR; I don't play romance sims well, but so far none of my romantics have complained and been having marvelous luck in that area... including my secondary-romance aspiration Servo who has a locked Woohoo in Bed want that I'm planning to attend to soon.

Three bolters are deadly with ACR involved, at least most of the time. You just know it's a matter of time before they're 'Relaxing' together... What I love the most is the fact that they decide the number of babies themselves - and sometimes they really surprise you.

Oh god, don't I know it. My self-sim and Lazlo Curious are a three-bolt couple and I had ACR installed when I first started playing her. Group outing to Londoste (I think) and next thing I know they're going at it in the hot tub and she returns home preggers. And, to top it off, they had twins. So my current Curious lot is Pascal, his teen son Sprog, Vidcund, his toddler son Sprite, Lazlo, D. Marie, and their twins Cameron (daughter) and Carson (son). And thankfully I have neither ACR as updated for FT nor Lot Full of Sims because anymore than 8 would drive me bonkers.

I'm definitely going to wait on the ACR thing. The thought of it crashing headlong into my Nocheat neighborhood makes me terrified.

Good to know you're having no issues with LizzLove's. I'll try the keu(whatever) thing first and report back.

I've never used that MATY romance mod. I don't use the whole director's cut. I pick out the dozen or so things that I really want and leave the rest out. Some of those mods look like they'd take the fun right out of playing.

I have FT and the potty pack. I'll toss them both in at the same time. I have a lot of prep to still do before installing. I have to clone off some sims and make backups.

OH, did you get simPe working again? Crap, I have to get a new one of those, too. Man, the work we go through for this stupid game, huh?

The idea that sims can get pregnant on a community lot outside of your contol in very interesting. That's one of the things that I like about ACR. If it happens randomly, and not all of the time, that is.

Personally, I think you take great pictures now. I don't see how you can improve. Just using the basic in-game camera it can be a pain to get certain shots so I can't imagine how much more work it can be to have to jump through all kind of hoops to get a picture.

Ooo, Ophelia's got it bad for the luv machine, has she? Ophelia does seem to be one of those sims who seems to have bolts with just about anybody. If I ever start Strangetown over again for any reason I just have to make her a romance sim. She has some kind of attraction to damn near everybody now! :)
Buck looks really sweet at that sewing machine.
I doubt I'll get either BV or Freetime anytime soon. I was worried about adding Seasons and I think I've got about as much going on now as my computer can handle. I'm not that interested in BV but Freetime does look like it's got some fun things.
Off topic, I finally friended you back to my sims journal. I forgot about it before. >__< Sometimes I think I'm brain-dead.

I'm happy with the way the photos were. They could be a little crisper, I guess, but I think they're clear enough.

I like your photos the way they were, too. I'm actually not a fan of the extremely crisp photos, except for photoshoots (like the ones that

sixamsims does, for example). For most things, the softer edges look better to me.

Thanks. I think they're fine as they are too. I'm sure they could be better, but I'm happy enough with things the way they are, so why go to so much extra effort, right?

The luv machine. *snicker* I can just see Ripp using that to sign his name.

Ahh, but if Ophelia was a romance sim, she wouldn't have bolts with the Curious brothers, would she? (Ripp would love it, though, and Johnny too.)

I love Buck. Love him.

I'm not that interested in Bon Voyage either, but I had it, so I installed it. I think it might have slowed things down a little, but it's still too early to know for sure.

Thanks for friending me. ^_^ You didn't have to friend me back, just out of principle, but it will be useful if you want to follow the story.

Now, I know that Pascal is supposed to be slightly set for females, but why is he not rejecting Nervous for the dance when the hack so clearly sets it up that way? Very curious *teehee* indeed.

Maybe because Nervous has no sexual orientation yet? That's just a guess, I've never played around with this hack, and your discussion of it here is the most I've even read about it.

Wait, NM on the hack. I misunderstood, and thought you had tested it.

But it could still be because Nervous has no sexual orientation. If you had him flirt with a female, he and Pascal might dislike dancing with each other. (But again, this is just a guess)

Wait... you DID test it. Clearly I haven't had enough coffee yet. I'm shutting up now... :p

I keep flip-flopping on ACR. I really want to test it out to see how everyone reacts, but I don't want everything to go crazy either. I suppose I could drop it in to see, and not save anything, if I get really curious.

Yeah, I tested the LizzLove thing with J/R/O and they had no issues. They were happy campers. So that one works, at least.

I'm the same way with the director's cut. There are a lot of fun-reducing nitpicky things that seem to have a very limited appeal. I guess that's the nature of the director's cut. The director has very specific tastes, and they don't always match what the common gamer wants. Some of that stuff is great, though. I wonder if we use the same ones. I just added the yellow pee hack, and the Specter estate is just rotten now. So gross.

There is a lot of prep to it, isn't there? I was working on it on and off throughout the day, and then installing and testing took a lot of time too. It's a long process.

I used SimPE to extract some sims, even though it isn't supposed to be used with K&B. I've heard that extractions aren't an issue, though. I haven't been able to update it for K&B yet, but I'm working on it.

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Sims Talk: Free Time

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