You do know you've been nominated, yes?

I was very leery of the game, but am glad I took it for a test drive, because I find I really like it.  That's not to say it'll be to everyone's taste, of course, and it's no skin off my nose if someone doesn't like it, or doesn't like the things I like.  Anyway, I was saying that to preface addressing a couple of the things you mentioned, since you asked for feedback.


While a lot of the townies have round faces, there are other facial types.  The three children of my founding Sims found non-round-face Sims to marry, and that wasn't even one of the criteria I was using in looking for mates for them.  They've now had children for themselves, and while a couple of the girls have squarish jaws, I think they will age up well enough.


In actual gameplay, I don't think they have as scary an effect as in CAS.


I've found that the key to keeping families around is to stay friends with them.  So far no one my Sims cared anything about have moved away.  Granted, I haven't tried switching families -- I'm quite content with the one -- but I would think that if you switch to a family that is friends with someone in your current family, they won't go anywhere.


None of my 10 Sims have been collectors.  They've gotten the odd wish to get a rock or a butterfly, and sometimes I let them get it, but I've been quite happy just focusing on job and family.  If you ignore/delete collection wishes, they quit popping up (unless you have a trait that favors collecting, I'm sure).


Not all.  The art museum can be entered and enjoyed.  The Sims can eat outside at the Bistro, if they choose, though getting them to sit at the same table reminds me of TS1 -- it rarely happens.  They still interact, though.  Let's see, what else .... You can go into the library and read books, work on the computer, or visit with friends.  There may be other places not coming to mind at the moment.  And there are lots of outdoor public areas for fun, like the park, several beach spots, several fishing holes, and the cemetery.

I guess that's about it.  The game has its problems, but I like it. My intention isn't to convince you to get the game.  I just wanted to give you input on the points you asked about.

ETA:  I did marry off and move out two of the founder's three kids.  They maintain relationships with the main family, and recognize each other as brother-in-law, uncle, nephew, cousin, etc.  It's nice.  I have to work to keep the ties between families active, though.

If you manage to get a Sim up to level 10 in handiness, anything they repair will never break again.

Oh, look.  SimplyComplains got canned.  My day is complete :-)

Grammar Police has been sanctioned by JMP.  He is a manager who knows how to delegate.

Read the FAQ (also sanctioned by JMP).  Stop acting like a 12.  

We ARE a cult, you know.  And we don't like you.

I didn't want to post this in the "rigorous genetic testing" thread, since it didn't conform to the standards of the test and since the test is over anyway.  However, I did want to share my andecdotal evidence.

Founding generation:  Holden - dark brown hair; Gwen - red hair

1st generation:
  Single birth: Grant - red hair (married Felicia, lighter red hair)
  Twins:  Moira - dark brown hair (married Claudio, black hair); Angelica  - dark brown hair (married Patrick, black hair)

2nd generation:
  Spawn of Grant/Felcia (active household)
    Single birth: Eldon - red hair
    Triplet girls - one dark brown, one red, one lighter red (I remember their names, but not which hair goes with which girl yet - they just became children).
  Spawn of Moira/Claudio (unplayed)
    Single birth: Lane, red hair
  Spawn of Angelica/Patrick (unplayed)
    None so far

Conclusion:  Either there really is some way the hair traits are passed down, or my families have been coincidence-ridden thus far.

My best friend for spyware removal of late has been malwarebytes.

It's possible that mandababy is like me and doesn't like renaming a Sim once the name has been given. 

I'm not sure why, but I'd no sooner rename a Sim than I would a real-life child or a pet.  It just feels wrong to me, though I know there's no logical reason it should :-)  I remember in one iteration of Strangetown I had a Sim named Adam Curious (son of Pascal Curious) who grew up to look a lot like a wrestler named Samoa Joe.  I always referred to him as Samoa Joe, but I couldn't bring myself to do away with his given name, so I eventually changed it (with SimPE) to Adam "Samoa Joe" Curious.

I know, I'm a nerd ;-)

Did you look outside to see if anyone was peering in the window?  My mailman is a peeping tom and comes to look in the window all the time.  If someone happens to be near the window, they get an action in queue -- I think it's "react to peeping tom Sim" or somesuch.

It works fine for some, not at all for others.  I suspect it's your computer.  Mine is fine.


Yes. You have to engage in romatic interactions and build up to finding each other irresistable.  Somewhere along the way you get a red heart "romantic interest" for the relationship.  When you propose going steady (necessary even if elder), you get boyfriend/girlfriend status.  I know it can happen autonomously, because the gal my Sim married had a red heart for another woman.  However, I don't know how easily it happens if you, the player, do not help it along by chosing romantic interactions.

My Sim had triplet girls.  No fertility treatments.  Just bada-bing, bada-boom, triplets.

My initial reaction was to want to shoot myself.

My second reaction was to want to take a hammer and pummel about the head and shoulders each 12 who ever screamed for a triplets hack.

I'm adjusting to the notion that it will be challenging and (ever hopeful) fun.  I used to enjoy the surprise of the occasional natural twins in TS2, but so far out of 5 pregnancies with 3 couples there's been a set of twins and a set of triplets.  Multiple births cease to be fun for me when it's not a novelty.

I also do wish they'd alert you that you have twins or triplets, and the genders, before the naming starts.  I like to do dorky things like coordinating names.

I wondered how they'd get the three girls home from the hospital, especially since they were riding bikes.  (Yes, my pregnant Sim jumped on her bike and peddled to the hospital.  What a trooper!).  She brought them home in a basket the size of a picnic basket (but it was white), then unloaded them one at a time.

In other news, I think maybe Sims do carry the physical traits of the parent they do not favor.  One of my Sim's sisters had a baby boy awhile back.  He got his grandmother's red hair, even though mom had her dad's brown hair and dad had black hair.  Of course, I'm not playing this family, so it could just be random.  I'm hoping not, though.

I discovered when they got married that the gal my Sim married had a love interest relationship with another woman. 

GRRR!  The Interwebz, they hates me! I've been having the worst time lately, here worse than anyway.  Pescado, give that little Malaysian kid some sugar or something!

Anyway, was going to say that the orange question mark belongs to absent-minded sims.  They'll just walk into the room and look around, and sometimes say something that sounds like, "Duhh....".  My absent-nminded fella was a great writer and kisser, but he'd be on the way back to the bedroom with his wife to woo-hoo and just stop, then turn to do something else.  She'd eventually holler at him from the bed to get his ass over there.

I really am liking the combos of personality traits!

Well, it's certainly an incentive to make and keep lots of friends :-)  Someone else was talking earlier about how there was no incentive, but there ya go.


So my Sim's nephew isn't really the child of his sister and her husband?  The boy's a clone of his mom?  Hmm.  


I love you, too :-)

Something I've noticed (and I'm into my 2nd generation born in-game now):  The only families who seem to move out are ones where noone in my active family is friends with any member of the moving family.  Now, it could be just coincidence, but this is what I've observed.  If it were intentional, it would make sense.  If your family doesn't become interested in another family, the game moves it away and brings in someone new.

Also, someone earlier mentioned that they'd read of a new family moving in but couldn't find them.  I've observed that new families sometimes move in with old families.  The household retains the name of the original occupant(s), so it's not immediately obvious that that's where the new folks live.

I've enjoyed having the sisters of my current active Sim living their own lives, having babies, etc.  I invite them and their families over for parties; the sisters-in-law get together for lunch sometimes.  I need to take my toddler over to the house of the sister who has a toddler.  Maybe they can play with the dollhouse together or something.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention my observations.

I've raised a generation so far, and their friends did age up with them, though not necessarily on the same day (because they're not all exactly the same age).  If a school friend has not aged up fast enough to suit you, invite them over, get a birthday cake, click on the cake and choose them to blow out the candles.

Why use a key + a click, when you can just use a click, noob?  Fail.

I just remembered something I wanted to say before, but forgot.  Since there have been posts since, I don't suppose this counts as double-posting ;-)

Anyway, regarding game compatibility with later builds:  Back in the day, I did some alpha and beta testing for various TS1 and TS2 expansions.  They'd take our feedback (and theorectically do something with it -- I suspect they just dragged it into the trash bin) and then send us a new build (with the same problems we reported before).  No builds required uninstalling the old one and reinstalling the new one -- it was basically just a series of patches.  However, when it was all over and the final release came out, we could not just update the last build we had.  We had to uninstall/reinstall, and start all over.  I tried bringing my test families into the final version, but it never worked.

My point is, if the version we're playing now is indeed a "pre-final" version, it's likely that we won't be able to bring anything over from this version to the official release.  This doesn't upset me, particularly, but I know others will not be happy with it.  I just wanted to prepare those folks for the possibility.

Tangent:  People often ask me why I quit beta testing.  I did so because it was extremely frustrating.  I'd report the same bugs over and over, and they'd still make it into the official release and have to be patched later.  Bleh.

All relationships pretty much start out that way, unless you're very charismatic.  It advances from "being okay" to "being sociable," "being amusing," etc.  These are the non-romantic interactions.  If you want to kick it up a notch, you have to delve into the romantic relationships, when it starts getting "is being flirtatios," "is being alluring," and finally (and most importantly), "is being irresistable."  Once you're irresistable, you can propose marriage, woo-hoo, whatever, and willl likely be accepted unless the other Sim is low on basic needs.  

It's been a little disquieting that I've been able to develop romantic relationships with whatever Sims I've chosen thusfar.  Maybe I was just lucky and they were compatible.  Or maybe there are no incompatiblities that would stand in the way of romance; I just don't know.  I know one couple of mine had a basic incompatibility in that he was a computer whiz and she was a technophobe, but they fell in love and got married anyway.  I'm not playing that couple, so I don't know if it causes conflict in their daily lives or not.


One of my Sims has Grimmie showing up in his relationship panel.  I have no clue why.  He did see his mother die, but he couldn't/didn't interact with the Reaper.

In other news, my main family now has a nephew.  Grant's sister, Moira -- who married and moved in with her husband -- showed up at a party very pregnant, and it was in the paper next day that she delivered a baby boy named Lane.  Confirmed on the family tree.

Something I miss: being able to adjust names with SimPE.  I like my women taking on the husband's name if they have brothers.  Before I know it, the entire town will be named Wozny.  I know you can change names at City Hall, but as far as I can determine, that's only with the active family.  At least I can give the households the man's name, else I'd never be able to remember who was living where.

ETA:  jolrei, if you don't like a Sim's wish, just right-click it and it goes away.  It (probably) won't come back unless it's associated with a trait or lifetime wish of the Sim.  Also, one of my Sims had been staying home a lot after retirement, and he got a wish to get out of the house because he was feeling stir-crazy ;-)  I sent him to the library.  He was a bookworm and loved hanging out there.

I've now married off the three children of my founding couple, and said founding couple has bitten the dust.  The guy died at 90, but the woman hung on until 98.  I'm not sure if it was because she lived a good life, or if they were just giving her a little more time to meet her lifetime goal, which she finally did a couple of days before passing on.

I've been watching the homes of the three children -- Grant, Moira, and Angelica -- with interest.

Grant and wife Felicia stayed in the founding home.  Felicia has no mother in her family tree, just a father and a brother.  Since her marriage, her father has "acquired" another son, which was announced in the paper and verified in the family tree.  However, in the paper it said "mother and child are sleeping well," as it always does.

When I moved Moira and Angelica into their husband's homes, I noticed a number of other people living there and was curious about who they might be.  I used the "save as" option to save the neighborhood under a different name, and went into the saved copy to investigate -- did not want to lose progress with my primary family.  Moira's husband had an unrelated young adult male living there, who apparently was only an acquaintance of her husband's.  Angelica's husband had his father living there, plus another man with his teen son who were also mere acquaintances.  This says to me that the game sticks random people into households rather than finding them their own places to live.  Not sure why they'd do that -- maybe it's to help these other Sims make friends etc.  

Anyway, after determining who these people were, I went back to my original neighborhood (and threw out the saved one) and used edit town to evict these barely-known people.  When you do that, you get the option to merge them with another family, move them into their own place, or trash them.  I've been watching Angelica's and Moira's houses since then.  No spawn yet, and no strangers have moved in.  Grant still has good relationships with his sisters, and Felicia gets the want to hang with her father sometimes.  She has a relationship with her eldest brother, but not with the newborn over there.

Oh, also, I've been keeping an eye on Mortimer and Bella.  They are both elders now and never married.  Mortimer lives alone.  Bella still lives with her brother, Michael.  I would see Mortimer and Bella interacting playfully in town sometimes, but I guess if a player wants them married, they have to play that family or keep their fingers crossed.  Just an interesting observation.

Thought I'd mention that this works for any Sim on the lot.  When my twin teens became YAs, one of their boyfriends was a YA already and one was still in high school.  I wasn't sure how long the one in high school would take to age naturally, so I put a cake down for him and had him blow out the candles too.  Just have any active Sim click on the cake, and a dropdown list with everyone on the lot except elders should show up.

Hrmm. Well that bites.  I only used it once, on a gal who was average weight and very athletic.

My Sims make little happy noises and clap their hands when they get their favorite food.

Kind of like real life.  Or mine and Oprah's and Kirstie Alley's, anyway.

One of the lifetime reward thingies is a fast metabolism that'll help keep that from happening.

Re: assigning traits, I haven't had any problems with my 3 spawn.  Don't know if I'm just lucky, or doing something differently than some other folks.