Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:19 pm

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I don't know what to do with Bailee's urn, but putting it outside for anyone to pay their respects turns it into a headstone. Okay, fine. There's a grave in Jeff's front yard now.

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Jeff takes some of Bailee's other friends and invites the group over to the Delgado household to console Bailee's son the only way he knows how

by throwing a house party

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It might not have been a great idea, since the first interaction between Jeff and Dale gets the friendship-penalty minus. I can only assume the opening conversation was something like "Hey, Dale, sorry about your mom. And, uh, sorry I tried to bone her the night of your birthday party." "YOU TRIED WHAT"

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It's actually okay, Jeff has thrown a satisfying number of good parties, and now only needs to throw parties of whatever quality at other places. So...

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Let's afterparty at Liberty's place.

So the "throw parties at other locations" is another not-entirely-obvious way to do things. Venues like the nightclubs and museums and stuff are only open for birthday parties and weddings, and as we have discovered those have the side effects of force-aging and household-merging the sims involved. But you can throw a house party or dinner party at the home of any of the participants! Keep that one in mind unless you want to die from premature birthday-candle-extinguishing!

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Remember, Liberty lives right next door, so Jeff just needs to walk down the block (past Bailee's headstone) to relieve his aching bladder, take a bath, and go to sleep. It's like 6 am, he's tired.

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I'm gonna be honest, I don't really want to throw fifteen more parties. Given how quickly Bailee progressed from newly-elderly to a grave in Jeff's front yard, I doubt I even have time. Alas, poor Jeff, cut down in his prime by unintuitive game mechanics.

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I guess I could just revert to a previous save before The Fateful Cake.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:50 am

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When a Sim is mourning, "Call Sadness Hotline" is available on the phone. It reduces the Sadness priority of their moods from +5 to +3, making it slightly less likely that they're constantly depressed. Getting other moodlets to promote another mood higher than +3 is not terribly difficult, but getting past +5 is tough.

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I find the suggested/default epitaph to be in somewhat poor taste.

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I also find Jeff's choice of insults to be in poor taste, particularly because he himself is still bummed about Dale's mom dying.

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IT KEEPS HAPPENING

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And is going to happen on a more personal level pretty soon!

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Jeff is gonna have to go full Slurms MacKenzie and party nonstop until he dies if he's gonna make it.

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This doesn't have anything to do with anything, it's just an elderly, overweight fishman watching a much younger woman in knee-high boots and a skirt dance in his living room while he eats his dinner. why you gotta be so creepy, Jeff

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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:59 am

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Jeff's Guest List is much shorter now. He's either fallen out of friendship with a bunch of people, or just that many people died all at once.

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Jeff's Gold-Medal dinner party is a clean-out-the-fridge style affair where he invites a bunch of other people over to help him eat all the leftover cake from all the other times a dinner party demanded he prepare and serve dessert right at that moment.

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See, this is what I'm talking about. The cake we're eating right now is because the game prompted me to have four guests eat the stuff! I don't need to make another one!

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What's this?

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It doesn't age him down into an adult, but it does reset the time he has remaining as an elder. Still gonna Slurms it until he throws enough parties to die happy, though.

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He also purchases an upgrade that decreases his need to pee. Jeff's drinking a lot of coffee and cocktails these days.

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It must have happened a dozen times by now. Guests have dinner and drinks, they all drop their plates and glasses William-Nilliam onto whatever countertop happens to be convenient, I get the prompt to bake yet another cake, and Jeff can't find a place to work because all his countertops are covered in dirty dishes. So I expand the kitchen purely to get extra counterspace.

Okay, and a dishwasher. That might help. Jeff immediately upgrades the dishwasher to run quietly, clean more quickly, and not break as often.

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As usual, bills come in as soon as I've spent all the household cash on remodeling, so Jeff has to take a break from throwing parties to do some work.

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Eliza, this is nice and all, but if you'll excuse me I'm going to go inside and fulfill my lifelong dream. You're invited, of course. I'm inviting everyone I know.

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Achievement Unlocked: Whimmy Wham Wham Wozzle

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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:07 am

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I want to see how far I can get in a path that Jeff has zero experience with whatsoever. He's still at Fitness skill level 1.

I'd also like to see if I can get him to shed some of the weight he put on virtually overnight when he turned from a svelte young adult into a fat geriatric.

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Oh. Okay. So Jeff is nigh-addicted to coffee, struggles to complete everyday tasks while grappling with the grief of losing a loved one, and now he can't exert any physical effort without feeling like his heart is going to explode. I'm not sure at what point this game about a hard-partying prematurely-aged shirtless fish-man turned into a fuckin' autobiography but there you go.

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Oh, somebody else is throwing a party this time.

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All those Flirt prompts during Jeff's parties, without the gaps in between to let the romance meter with Liberty decay, has led to her becoming legit attracted to Jeff.

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Well, it's not like he brought a present or anything.

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It's just the jump-in-the-air-and-spin-around-in-a-cartoon-tornado animation Sims use when they change models, in this case Liberty loading in the character for her next age category, but in a still screenshot it looks like she spun a cocoon around herself to metamorphose. Menopause. Metamenomorphopause.

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Liberty emerges from her chrysalis, complains about her lower back pain, and immediately runs to the bathroom to pee. Ha ha, being old sure is like that.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:13 am

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Spoilers: This is where it ends. Jeff makes it to Fitness level 5 eventually, but he can't Push the Limits without being hit with Dangerously Tired and having to quit.

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I get him the home gym, though.

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Jeff invites Juni over for a workout, partly because she's one of the few people he knows who has the Fitness skill already and partially because he feels partially responsible for her lifetime weight gain because of all the cake he's had to make for the dinner parties she's attended.

They mostly just sit at the bar drinking coffee and chatting. Oh well.

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Turns out when you Travel you can travel between neighborhoods. I didn't know that.

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Not that the date goes particularly well, because Liberty is up against her own list of criteria for making it successful, and she ignores it in favor of sitting halfway down the bar from Jeff and talking to Katherine instead.

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The date is terrible enough that it tanks the Romance meter with Liberty, so Jeff invites her over and builds it back up with his well-practiced charisma.

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They're in a committed relationship now, and celebrate with a selfie. How cute!

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Oh, Liberty. I love you even if you have the bladder of a cocker spaniel.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:16 am

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Jeff brushes his teeth with a cup of coffee in his other hand. I'm not sayin' I agree, but I understand.

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All that acid is taking its toll on Jeff's rapidly-developing GERD, though.

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...well.

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One more small, intimate gathering of friends, then. Party of six, finished with a toast of Jeff's go-to cocktail.

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No regrets.

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Whimmy... wham... wham... wozz...

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Thus ends the saga of Jeff. With no one else in the household, it's game over, time to gen a new family. Who's up next?

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Silversong
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby Silversong » Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:46 pm

I am very upset at those caterers and bartenders and their lack of catering and tending. Also, I too wish to have that much kitchen counter space.
Also who bakes a cake in the middle of a party?? Always get that done before, geez.

I enjoyed the Undertale characters. Maybe FF4 characters?

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby Friday » Sun Mar 14, 2021 6:53 pm

seconding vote for FF4 characters
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nosimpleway
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:43 pm

Caterers will cook as the whim takes them, but it doesn't stop your party host from also running into the kitchen and getting a board full of ingredients to start a dish too. And it feels like there's no point in hiring a caterer if the party to-do list is just gonna hit your character with "Serve a group meal" and then "Make a dessert" anyway.

But I've never seen a bartender pour a single damn drink.

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:22 pm

Cecil: As the knight in shining armor I'm almost tempted to leave Cecil out entirely and do entirely supporting cast. In FF4 he struggled with the decision to be either lawful or good and eventually redeemed himself, but character arcs like that aren't in the Sims. After he sheds his Dark Knight armor he repeatedly fucks up and fails every mission he attempts except the last one, and NGL lie, playing that guy in the Sims would get really frustrating really fast.
Traits: Good, maybe Outgoing or Ambitious?
Career: Nothing really applies, so fuck it, Astronaut. His dad is from the moon, why not. He can be a Space Ranger.

Kain: Kain has exactly two character hooks. "Easily brainwashed" is not a trait, and "Fuck your best friend's SO" is not an aspiration.
Traits: Erratic, Loner, maybe Self-Assured?
Career: Secret Agent, though there's no option to switch between the Villain branch and the Agent branch at random.

Rydia: The team pet, more or less.
Traits: Good, Cheerful, maybe Creative or Genius?
Career: No great options here. Painter, probably, though that's more Relm than Rydia.

Rosa: The team mom, more or less. That her role in FF4 is defined entirely by her relationship to Cecil is... not great.
Traits: Good, Jealous (she basically needs to be around Cecil 24/7), Outgoing? Romantic? Family-Oriented would mean introducing Ceodore and... no.
Career: Neither "medical professional" nor "archer" is an option, so probably a stay-at-home housespouse. She can cook the meals and tend the garden. (I have discovered that gardening is one of the easiest ways to make utterly nonsensical stacks of cash once it gets going, so this would actually make Rosa the most successful careerwoman in the party...)

Tellah: Is old. Dies for realsies.
Traits: Hot-Headed, for all three slots. (that's not actually possible but it'd fit)

Edward: Spoony. There's no "physically frail" trait to make sure he's injured for most of the game.
Traits: Romantic, Music Lover, Clumsy
Career: Musician, obvs

Yang: RATED M FOR MUSTACHE
Traits: Active, Self-Assured... really not sure what to make the last one.
Career: Bodybuilder

Palom: Starting at an earlier age category means he'll get to mourn all of his friends as they age up and die one by one.
Traits: Childish, Goofball, (The Mysidian) Genius
Career: Schoolchild, I guess, until he ages up out of being a teen halfway through the game

Porom: yawn
Traits: Bookworm, Neat, Snob? Who cares, it's Porom. She exists as a prop to keep Palom in line, because FF4 is good with female characters.

Cid: Where's the trait that makes a guy immune to being dangerously overexerted? Because that's where Cid's at. There's no stopping the guy.
Traits: Perfectionist, Bookworm, Active
Career: There's no airships, and the only career path that demands the Handiness skill used to build and repair stuff is the thuggish line of the Criminal career. So he'd be another Astronaut, I guess. But he can be an Interstellar Smuggler.

Edge: All relationships in Sims 4 are requited, so his hook of having a crush on Rydia doesn't really work.
Traits: Hot-Headed, Childish, Active I guess
Career: "Ninja" is not a job description. Either he'd be Bodybuilder bros with Yang, or go for Professional Sports I guess.

FuSoYa: Cecil's uncle. There's no "utterly ageless" category where someone looks like an elder but just never dies of old age, so his role in a Sims household would be about the same as Tellah's. (I'd need to get 1500 Achievement points and buy a Potion of Youth in the two weeks or so before FuSoYa croaks, and repeat that every couple of weeks to keep him from keeling over. And that seems... pretty unlikely.)

Golbez: meh

The Elemental Archfiends: Hmm... Scarmilogne working with wood and dirt as the handyman and gardener (but wait... shouldn't he be Scarmilogne of Poison?). Cagnazzo mixes cocktails while Rubicante applies heat to food. Barbariccia's the toughest role to fill.

Shiela: Yang's wife. I'd have to mod the game to capture her unwavering awesomeness.

A single household can have... uh... holy shit eight Sims in it? That sounds utterly miserable to juggle but would probably be funny to LP I guess. What do you guys think?

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zaratustra
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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby zaratustra » Wed Mar 17, 2021 7:29 pm

There's a "Maker" trait in the... Eco expansion? Rydia would probably need the Pets expansion to do properly, too.

some other suggestions:

Cecil: Good, Noncommittal, Gloomy
Edge needs Slob, after all he's throwing things all over the place
Yang... if the Proper and Vegetarian DLC traits are not available, Neat for some nice friction?
Porom has Adventurous / Loves Outdoors in the After Years.

Barbariccia needs the EXTREMELY GAY trait which i figure does not exist

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:38 pm

I regret to inform you all that an FF4 household is neither particularly fun to play nor interesting enough to document playing.

Honestly the most interesting thing to have happened is that I decided in character creation that since I can't at all replicate the original designs of the Archfiends, I just made them all snappy dressers all the time. imo opinion a buxom blonde is hotter in a navy pinstripe suit-and-tie than a bikini and pareo, anyhow.

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Here, everyone's Social meters were suffering, so I wanted everyone to sit down and have a chat. Rydia and Edward, specced as teenagers, could do their homework, too. But I could. not. get. everyone. to. sit. down. Even if I formed a group, clicked on a chair, and gave the command for everyone to "Sit Together", about six people would find a seat, the other two would ask for someone to move, and then everyone would get up and swap seats, leaving three or four people standing. Then repeat the process. Then everyone would sort of wander off to get a glass of water or read a book or whatever.

Here Rubicante and Cid aren't even in the picture. Barbariccia returns to the kitchen with a glass of water she poured herself from the bathroom sink. Edward and Rydia are about to go wander off again because it turns out you can't Do Homework Together without sitting on a sofa or bed next to each other, and if I tell her to do her homework by herself Rydia gets out of her chair and sits on the floor. Homework at a table is simply unheard of.

Juggling this many sims just isn't a good time, doubly so if I have to split the party so that, say, Rosa can go on a date. The AI control does absolutely fuck all for keeping Sims occupied, building skills, or fulfilling their own needs. Speaking of, I took Cecil out of the game because he's boring, but then realized that Rosa can't fulfill her life goal of having a soulmate without getting hitched. And this household's full, so her new hubby (whoever it is) can't move in. So I booted her out of the household to go live somewhere else.

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:13 pm

With FF4 turning out to be not terribly fruitful a playthrough, I'm gonna spin off on my own and try something else: A legacy game.

It's a kind of challenge run I managed to pull off in Sims 3, once. You start with a character, get 'em hitched, have a kid. The kid gets old enough to grow into adulthood, gets hitched, has another kid. Your original character is now a grandparent. So grandkid grows up, gets hitched, has a kid... and your original character is now a great-grandparent.

Because, see, they're still around. The goal of the game is that the original character, and all children born, survive long enough that eight generations live in the same house.

In Sims 3, this meant that your first character had to master Gardening, Fishing, and Cooking as quickly as possible. Growing a special fruit, catching a special fish, and cooking them together just so made Ambrosia, which reset a Sim's age to the start of the category they were in. I think you could eat two in a row to age down a category? I forget, not important.

Sims 4 doesn't have Ambrosia, far as I can tell, so I'll need to keep earning Aspiration whims and buying Youth Potions. Or successfully raise a Cowplant, more on that if I can get it to work I guess.

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This is a New Game, which I didn't realize was a complete world reset. This house is back to being Daisy Hovel rather than the Casa de Jeff it was previously. My other households, including FF4, are gone entirely.

I don't have a great intro screenshot of our young protagonist. His name is Merle. He has something of an aesthetic going on, and wants to raise the best and biggest family imaginable. As a teen he yet holds out hope that his two-wolf t-shirt will help him in this goal.

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Another reset effect: Liberty Lee is still a fresh-faced young woman, bearing hazardous fruitcake. No randos showed up for the Welcome Wagon this time, it was just the three BFFs living across the street.

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Since I'm not sure this kind of challenge run is even possible in Sims 4 I gave myself a little edge to start with: Merle is only a teenager, living by himself. He can't reasonably hold down a job yet, so I've got to wait for the Snapdragons to start blooming in the local forage spots for him to have any income. His job is to enter adulthood with some practical skills learned, and maybe a blooming romance with someone age-appropriate.

That last point works out quite well, as the first friend he makes when he goes to school is Cassandra Goth. Perfect.

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It does not take long before Cassandra starts inviting herself over to escape her own family drama. Merle's little house isn't much, but how many of us wouldn't have killed to have a friend living on their own who left open invitation for us to drop by anytime, when we were teens?

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It's all perfectly innocent, mostly they just do their homework together and eat salads, which is the most complicated thing Merle can cook. His Cooking skill is growing, sure, but I didn't buy him a stove. Can't have him burning down his new house, he's too young to buy insurance.

But Cassandra makes herself at home, and at one point stays up all night at Merle's browsing the web while he sleeps.

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After they're pretty good friends already I go ahead and let the awkward teenage romance bloom. Aww, tough luck buddy, friendzone already... (No, not really, the romance meter is still there for Cassandra, it's just an unfortunate juxtaposition of messages.)

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There's very else little to report for this intro step. Living on your own as a high school student is actually pretty dull. Merle eats when he gets hungry, pees when he needs to, takes a shower when things get grungy, and does his homework. It takes a full week to go by before he gets to leave his house, but thankfully by then the local forage spots have bloomed and he can start harvesting flowers and rocks to sell... to... whoever buys all these flowers and rocks. I dunno.

But one run can net a batch of 50 Snapdragons, which sell for $800, so it's good news. I don't have to be quite so frugal just to make sure Merle can pay the bills and buy his groceries out of his starting funds.

While I'm out at one point I notice that it's an option to water this tree in the park. It's an ingame model I haven't seen anywhere else, so I'm gonna see what happens. I dunno.

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It takes about two weeks for a Teen Sim to age up into Young Adult.

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Of course there's a party. But hey, nobody go into the bathroom, the shower exploded.

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A party so damn wild that Merle teleports clips right outside the house when he blows his candles out. Just imagine you're at a birthday party, the celebrant whiffs their cake, fucking vanishes, then a minute later kicks open their own front door shouting "Let's eat some fuckin' cake already! Wooo!" because that's basically what happened.

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The party itself was okay, thanks to elements demanded by the party meter that were out of my control like usual. Seriously, "Compliment the birthday sim"? That's just bragging a lot!

Merle picks up Perfectionist to go with Genius and Bookworm. Genius is "skills develop a little faster" and Bookworm is "reading books is fun". I wanted to enter Young Adulthood at full stride, like I said, I stacked the deck since I'm not sure this kind of run is even possible.

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:23 pm

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Merle and Cassandra are still buds but now that it's an adult talking to a teenager, the romance options are gone. That's... probably best, really.

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Next step: expand the little crow's nest into something big enough for more than one person. A bed that sleeps two is an important tool to have, moving forward...

I also pick up a few gardening boxes, so Merle can plant his own snapdragons and make more cash more quickly.

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By the next time Cassandra visits, she's also aged up into an adult. She didn't even have a birthday party, but Cassandra is a naturally Gloomy sort of person, so that tracks.

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Since both of them are adults, the option to enter a long-term relationship is on the table. I'm not sure how the game would have handled the two being romantically involved on the one day that Merle was an adult and Cassandra a teen. I assume that's why it's locked until now.

But Merle has his Goth GF for only a few minutes, anyway...

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...before the high-school sweethearts promise to get married.

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(She said yes btw)

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"Do you wanna just get this done and dealt with, or do you want to throw a party?" man I didn't spend all that time as Jeff for nothin', let's get some friends together and make it a shindig

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Weirdly, none of Cassandra's family can show up to her wedding, although it's available as a venue. Only people Merle knows can be invited, which seems unfair.

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I choose the park anyway.

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...which has its downsides, such as random passersby getting waaay to close while the two recite their vows.

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Fuckin' power move.

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Aww!

'Scuse me a minute.

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"Oh, you're the caterer! That's why you're here, in this park, while I'm marrying my Goth GF!"
"Well, yes..."

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"THEN WHY IS NOBODY EATING? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE WITHOUT ANY FOOD, YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT? WHERE IS MY WEDDING CAKE?"

Merle goes and grills elotes with some corn he happened to have in his tuxedo pocket for some reason, and everyone has a grand old time getting their wedding gear smeared with mayonnaise and chili powder, and the wedding is... well, not saved, I still got a silver medal and still got a hot Goth wife, but still.

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:49 pm

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It's possible for a Sim to be married to someone without moving that someone into the household. That's something you have to do manually.

The Goths are a well-established family, having been in most of the Sims games in some form or another. There's not a ton of built-in narrative, but Bella Goth getting abducted by aliens is one of the few story threads the game series has. Or had, since apparently that didn't happen to the Sims 4 version of Bella. But whatever. Point is the Goths are loaded (by Sims standards) and I collect a generous dowry from their coffers as I move Bella into the Cormick household.

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Having saved and quit in the middle of the wedding ceremony, or perhaps a combination of that and the household shuffle that teleported Cassandra home, got the newlyweds trapped in a time warp where the wedding concluded but the event never ends, so they can't go home.

That's a problem mostly in that it's 5 AM now, their needs meters are pretty poorly maintained, and napping on a park bench in her wedding dress is really not a great way for Cassandra to start her new life as a spouse. It takes a game reboot to let the happy couple go home, grab some more substantial food than a corncob, take a couple quick showers, and consummate their union.

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A couple days of wedded bliss later...

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Wow, talk about insecurity.
"Hey... are we friends? Like... best friends?"
"I just married you."
"Yeah sure but... are we friends though."

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The little happy dance that Cassandra does when she executes the Share Happy News command is adorable.

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It doesn't take long before she starts showing a baby bump. Pregnancy in the Sims lasts something like three days, during which Cassandra's Hunger and Bladder needs in particular demand constant attention. But for the most part, it's business as usual for the two. She practices her Violin (she's got the Musical Genius aspiration), he tends the garden and works around the house. Occasionally they go out foraging for snapdragons and vegetables in the community garden. (Cassandra is a Collector, so she's more likely to find rare stuff. She gets to dig for fossils and hunt for frogs, Merle collects the flowers.)

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:05 pm

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As a Sims's Gardening skill improves, they eventually develop the ability to Talk to Plants. It fills their social need and counts as Gardening practice, so it's pretty handy as commands go. One fine day while out foraging, Merle decides to tell the local tree about his recent life events.

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And the tree... opens?

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What follows is a series of text prompts describing Merle stumbling around in the dark, trying to find... whatever might be found inside a giant apparently-magical tree in the neighborhood greenspace.

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It takes a couple of tries, but getting lost just has him reemerge from the tree trunk, none the worse for wear and able to try again. Until eventually he finds...

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...A pocket dimension of eternal twilight and undisturbed greenery.

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Sylvan Glade has two fishing spots and a bunch of harvestable plants. It'd be a useful shortcut to get some of the harder-to-find gardening plants, except you need a pretty fair Gardening skill just to open the tree to get here? By the time Merle found the place I'm pretty sure I can order seeds for any of the plants here on the PC.

And even once they sprout, probably don't fuck with the mushrooms arranged in a perfect circle in what is apparently the Sims version of the Feywild.

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I set Cassandra to care for her own needs while Merle waits for the plants to bloom and become harvestable so he can take some fruit home. That Cassandra's icon in the bar never changes from the bright red "Uncomfortable" is no surprise, as I have noted before the game is god-awful at having Sims take care of themselves without manual control. But wait! That's not just that she's hungry and sleepy but can't find the fridge or the bed by herself! She's in labor! It's time!

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I switch control to Cassandra, have her go to the hospital for delivery, and... ultimately not much of anything happens. Cassandra comes home, throws some confetti into the air in celebration, and a bassinet appears in the other bedroom I built for just such an occasion.

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Caring for a small child isn't that involved or difficult. Sims babies cry because they need to be fed, and get visible clouds of miasma if they need a diaper change. Other than that... it's just how much you want to socialize with them between their frequent naps, allowing mom and dad to go take a shower or scarf down a quick plate of food. At least that's true enough to real life.

With infancy being so uninvolved, I'm going to go look and see if there are any downsides to the Age Up command that presumably skips straight to toddlerhood. I don't know how long infancy typically lasts, but it's kind of dull.

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Though... hmm. Merle has rocked and cooed and made funny faces with Tristis all afternoon, and it doesn't achieve any of his goals of interacting with his child. It's definitely socialization, they're building a relationship meter. And that is totally a child. The only question left is whether it counts as "yours"...

Cassandra? We need to talk...

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:43 pm

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Right. The baby the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby

etc.

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The only thing infants can do that effects anything is build social relationships with people who interact with them. And, uh, if their needs get neglected they get teleported to child services and you lose 'em, but y'know, whatever. So there's no reason not to manually age them up from "houseplant, but louder" to "actual person".

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Doing this naturally takes several days in Sim time or maybe a year, year and a half IRL. When she ages up, Tristis gets her pick of Toddler traits, most of which have both upsides and downsides. Given Merle's aspirations to play with her a ton I considered giving her Clingy, since Clingy kids to best when their parents are around, but ultimately I settled on Inquisitive. It seems to match my own IRL kid better than the rest.

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Isn't she just adorbs

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Merle finally starts achieving his whims. It's not that Tristis isn't his, of course she is, it's that infants don't count as "children" for whatever dumb reason. Maybe because you can't read to them? Which is also dumb, reading to infants is an excellent pastime and one I much enjoyed doing for my own daughter.

I feel like this part of the LP is going to be heavily in the differences between The Simsulation rules and Actual IRL rules.

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:44 pm

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Toddlers have their own skills: Communication, Movement, Thinking, Imagination... and one more I'm forgetting. I think these only go to level 5? There's not a ton of time to spend as a toddler so they don't have a full one-to-ten skill range, at any rate. As I understand it these translated directly into children's skills at age-up, and there are some big bonuses to harvest later on for having a clever, well-cared-for toddler. That's true Actual IRL, but having some meters to read sure would be nice.

Before Movement level 1 the kiddo can barely walk. At level 2 they can climb stairs, and later learn to run and dance. Dancing is as fun and cares for Social as well as it does for adults, and Cassandra loves music, so getting Tristis to dance turns out to be awfully good Movement practice for everyone involved.

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Communication is probably important overall but how can you really tell if someone has graduated from "children's babbling" to "fluent in Simlish" if Simlish is also a nonsense language of random syllables? That's what the skill meter's for, I guess.

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Thinking decreases defiance and tantrums. This is absolutely the opposite of Actual IRL, where a thoughtful child can find more reasons to argue with her dad, not fewer. Trust me on this one.

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Developing Thinking also decreases the chance of kiddo waking up in the middle of the night. Which is... not entirely accurate to Actual IRL, where nightmares would be based more on increases in Imagination instead. There's a brief period of childhood between a child making it through an eight- to ten-hour sleep without needing a diaper change, or to be fed, or whatever and the development of enough imagination that they have the mental capacity to start dreaming. Or maybe my own kid is just really good at sleeping, I dunno. She is my kid and sleeping is basically all I ever want to do. That tracks.

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Imagination doesn't seem to have any direct effect on much of anything. It's easy to practice, though, since reading books and playing with toys both exercise it. At level 3 the kiddo can name their dolls and toys, so that's cute.

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Oh, right. The last skill is Potty. As far as I can tell full potty training happens at level 3, not 5, so that's as high as it goes. In Actual IRL this seems like the hardest skill to master, since it requires no small amount of development in Thinking and Motor and Communication to even begin. Tristis certainly picked it up faster than my IRL daughter did.

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:59 pm

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One of Merle's first whims was to own $1000 worth of "kid's stuff", but I bought children's toys instead of Toddler gear. If I'd thought ahead I'd have bought a high chair and a potty already, since kids can't eat without a high chair and relieving their bladders without a potty completely tanks their Hygeine meter, since they need a diaper change.

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As you may have gathered from the screenshots I picked to illustrate toddler skill development, toddlers are mercurial creatures by nature. They often fight with their parents even against their own interests, and get angry and sad for no particular reason.

This is absolutely True IRL.

To reflect their short attention spans, they typically pick up an Angry moodlet against whatever it is they just finished doing.

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Angry toddlers defy more often. The solution to this Tired moodlet is to go to sleep.

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Tristis argues and pitches a tantrum over the idea of going to bed for the better part of an hour.

This is absolutely True IRL.

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A child sleeping by hovering a foot off their bed and cramming their heads through the wall is outside my experience and not something I've read about, so it seems to be a Simsulation thing.

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The part that makes this part of the game unfun, and quite possibly the entirety of a Legacy challenge run unfeasible too, is that the parents are even more defiant against my commands, too. When Tristis woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, Merle refused to Comfort her like I told him to do and put her in her high chair for a snack instead.

It helped run out the meter on Tristis being scared and sad, sure, it's not great IRL to teach your children to fix their emotional problems by eating. That, uh, tends to bloom into bigger issues later in life.

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Another night, another nightmare. This time Merle brings Tristis into his own bedroom, where Cassandra is still sleeping, and plays a nice loud boisterous wrestling game with her instead of giving her a hug and a pat and putting her back to bed. LISTEN TO WHAT I AM TELLING YOU, VIRTUAL PERSON.

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Actually True IRL: Sometimes kids will just wander around and point at things asking "What's that? What's that? What's that?" regardless of what the answer is or how much they understand it. It's a precursor to the "Endless Why" phase so infamously frustrating for toddler parents. In Tristis's case it may be specifically because she's an Inquisitive tot, and asking "What's That?" is pretty good Thinking practice.

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Lastly, you might think taking your child to a colorful place full of the wonders of nature might be a good enrichment activity, but as far as I can tell nobody going to the Sylvan Glade can take anyone else with them. Merle deuced out and left Cassandra and Tristis at home with this command, even though Cassandra can go to the Glade too at this point.

Anyway not much of Tristis's toddlerhood has actually passed, this is all less than a week in game time. It's just really frustrating having so little functional control of the adults, and then when the adults try to do anything for Tristis, she argues with them and the command is canceled. I mean, if I wanted to have no motivation to do what's good and right and productive and then argue with a three-year-old about everything when I finally get around to doing it, I don't need the Sims. I have real life for that!

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Re: Regular-Forum Fervor! Let's Play the Sims 4!

Postby nosimpleway » Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:32 pm

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Holy crap, Merle actually managed to Comfort his daughter when she had a nightmare. The "Scared" moodlet that keeps the kiddo up normally lasts two hours, a Comfort command cuts that by about half an hour.

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So it takes about an hour of ingame time to get two Comforts to actually happen, so I make up the difference by just reading to Tristis until she falls back asleep.

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...Tristis does not want to be read to sleep. Tristis wants to dance.

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The adults haven't gotten any better, either. It takes a threat from child services for Cassandra to actually put Tristis in her high chair, at which point like four different "GIVE YOUR CHILD SOME FUCKING FOOD, DAMMIT" commands all resolve and she pulls a sandwich, some cereal, some yogurt, and a bowl of peas out of thin air and throws them around the room since only one will fit on the high chair at a time.

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Anyway, Merle wants more kids, so after a few more long difficult conversations and some dickin' Cassandra's ready to pop out another one.

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This is a Simsulation thing. Kids will bounce from one set of toys to another to another for as long as you let them.

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...uh, maybe we shouldn't let the four-year-old... -ish have enough influence over family finances to approve a $740 repair bill.

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I found that kids can have lots of fun just playing in a kitchen cabinet by grabbing pans (that don't exist ingame for any other reason) and flinging them about. This is pretty True IRL.

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The sugar high is here and gone in a blink.

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This doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just think it's a cute picture.

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