More Awesome Than You!

* technical error with original post, edited! *

You hate Family Sims.  You love Family Sims.  You have a whole neighborhood of Family Sims.  You think Fortune Sims are self-centered.  Romance Sims are hot.  Popularity Sims are boring.

The Battle of the Aspirations touches a good chunk of posts on this board.  I don't know that it has ever had it's own thread yet so.....

Me first.

I like all of the aspirations.  I don't have NL installed yet, so I can't speak to Pleasure or Grilled Cheese, but I'm expecting to like them, too.

I think my favorite Sims are Fortune, when they are married to Family.  I like the landscaping wants!  (I can do without the $6000 sculpture want, though  ::) )  It's only money.  If they are going to work so hard toward that next promotion, why not indulge in a fancy piece of musical equipment, or cram the yard with every toy money can buy?  (I don't notice the Family Sims leaving the toys alone after the Fortune Sims acquire them!)

Lately, I've been steering a lot of my Sims toward becoming Knowledge Sims.  Their homes are so peaceful.  Chess boards, bookcases, telescopes.  No TVs or music blaring.  Quiet meals.

But, how much fun in a Popularity Sims house.  Permenantly installed buffet tabled, "burned out" phone lines, a party a minute!

And Romance.  ;)

So, what are your favorite Aspirations? What do you hate? Whom do you like to pair up?

I've always liked fortune myself too. They are even easier to deal with now with the inventory too. If you get them happy enough they'll get other wants like lovey dovey ones and such. The herbiforous wants do annoy me a lot though. They are a pain when dealing with a small lot or a pre-furnished and landscaped one. I used TwoJeffs hack to squelch them.

I used to hate Romance, but NL has made them fun. I guess I do like all of the Aspirations now. Popularity annoys me more than the others.

My favorites are the Knowledge Sims. Fortune and Pleasure make a good combination. Fortune loves to buy the fun stuff and Pleasure loves to play with it. Right now I play a pretty good mix of all the Aspirations, which keeps the game interesting.

I like Knowledge and Family sims.

My least favourite are popularity and Romance sims.

I don't know how I feel about Pleasure or Grilled Cheese sims yet. I haven't played with them enough to know.

It would be really hard for me to say which I prefer but I do have a little more fun with Pleasure Sims.

Their needs are all about fun things like watching tv, jumping on the coach, having a bubble bath, be a dj, all fun fun fun  :)

My second favorites are knowledge Sims which are a complete opposite of pleasure Sims, I love to make them stargazing and love the fact they just love every paranormal side of the game.  Then there are those wonderful romance Sims who unfortunately create chaos around them (even if it is really not their intention, they want every Sims to be in love... with them).

Popularity, fortune and family are the ones I find the less interesting but depending with which aspiration I match them they can be fun too.

I never ever make 2 sims with the same aspiration be a couple and get married, I find it dull that both would have the exact same wants and fears.  For me the phrase "opposite attracts" is a way of life in my game.  I like to have as much variety as possible in my game so there is an equal amount of all the aspirations according to gender.  Same goes with zodiac signs but that is another story.

I hate knowledge. I am SO sick to death of them constantly wanting to be saved from death (um unless force the issue yourself it's pretty damned rare) and see a ghost, even if the damned house has no tombstones. It's not as bad for uni graduates, but for ones who aren't, that's pretty much almost consistantly half their wants. :P

I love Romance sims, because I'm a Romance sim in real life :D.

I also love Knowledge sims, because most of my friends and both my partners are Knowledge sims :).

I hate Family sims, because in real life I have very little interest in children. I'm slightly more interested in them in the game, but nowhere near as much as most of you. The majority of my families are adults only - sometimes adults with teens, but the only family with actual children I play regularly is the Specter household, which in my game has Olive Specter, her husband Scot (former handyman), her son Nervous Subject, his husband Pascal Curious, and their two alien children. Having the grandparents around and a stupid amount of money makes their game weird and a bit different. Other than that, kids are a novelty.

Fortune sims? OK, but not my sort of people. (We live in a house that's furnished entirely from Ikea - and frequently boggle at the prices of furniture in other shops. Why pay £1500 for a sofa when it won't last any longer and looks no better than one that cost £300?).

Popularity sims? Yeah, I quite like them. Their needs are very similar to the way I used to play sims in Sims 1, where most of my families were friends with everyone else in the Neighbourhood. So I find them easy.

Pleasure sims? Haven't played them yet, as I only got Nightlife yesterday.

 :o

Don't know if I even want to go there. And remind me not to go clothes shopping or near a photobooth with you. ;)

I prefer playing knowledge sims.. they are easy to play and keep their wants high.  But if I were to catagorize myself.. I'd fall into the Family aspiration.

I hope that in Sims 3 (yeah, I'm thinking ahead) that you can have 2 aspirations.. or at least more ways to change your aspiration in the game without resorting to cheats. 

You've fulfilled your LTWs .. you've been both Hero and Master Criminal.. now it's time to try to woohoo 20 sims before dying ;D

~misty

I like the knowledge sims. The saved from death want is definitely annoying, as is the get abducted one. That one usually pops up after a knowledge sim has been abducted, but with TJ's little tweak, not a big problem for the females, for the males I just ignore that want (I play on a one baby maximum, if they want more they have to get lucky and have twins). Ignoring that particular want, or any annoying knowledge want,  is not a big deal, with all their skill wants, they usually go permaplat very quickly. The ghost want I have no problems with.... you know... the unfortunate incident with the townie....I don't know why it happens in all of their houses officer.... what cow plant?...ahem...

I don't like the family sims, mainly because of their wants (one baby max, remember?), and also because romance sims and knowledge sims make far superior parents, at least in my game.

I like the romance sims because they make the game more interesting, especially with NL.

The fortune sims are just plain funny. They provide the comic relief in my style of playing.

I don't know that much about the pleasure sims yet, to new.

Oh yes, forgot about that part. Once one person in the neighborhood gets abducted they all want to be abducted and often want family members to be abducted too. Same thing with zombies and vampires too. Once one person becomes one, they all want it. The zombie wants still don't even work either. :P

I Like Romance Sims,Popularity Sims,Family,and Pleasure Sims .Fortune drives me insane because they roll the same wants over and over and over again. Knowledge  sims constant want to see a ghost I have solved I send them on a nightly Jaunt to the cemetary where I have 8 dead sims in repose. to be saved from Death takes alot more work and the insimenator. other than that they are fairly easy to keep happy. as far as LTW's go  career wants are relatively easy to fulfill  as long as your sim has high skill levels the top of the chosen career isnt to far in the distant future.for my Romance Sims if they roll a Career LTW first I leave it alone so they reach perma plat easily. I save the woohoo wants and such til after they are permaplat. the best parents in the game Ironically is the Romance sim. I didnt use to think so until I got Justin and his children from Brynne and his father. My Romance sims love their kids to no end and as long as their wooho wants are met you see a lot of wants roll for their kids. Justin is permaplat in my game as is his father So I see alot of family oriented wants. come to think of it I have alot of perma plat's on my custom hood. Grilled cheese is hysterical as you watch the poor sim go through their day driving other sims crazy talking about grilled cheese sandwiches and serving up platters of the sandwiches to sims who arent hungry and never eat them they will even serve  a sim they are furious with a grilled cheese sandwich,I tested the aspiration on a college dormie to see what would happen and I laughed so hard  I almost fell off the chair . I have since changed her back to her original aspiration

I like all the original aspirations, but Pleasure and Cheese don't do much for me.  I've only run one sim with the Pleasure aspiration and I had a terrible time keeping her in the green.  All she wanted to do was blow bubbles all day.   >:(  And Cheese is just monotonous.   :(

I'd love to see a different "backfire" aspiration instead of Cheese - something more like Psychotic.  Big points for making enemies, getting into fights, getting caught cheating, pranks, drinking the essence of other sims, and making zombies; major fears of making friends, getting hugged, having a good conversation, etc.   ;D

I have a pleasure sim at Uni and she is easy to keep happy. she is content as long as she gets to go downtown and have some fun..her inventory is chocka block full with gifts from dates she has been on. the only sims i keep her away from are Vampires. as she frequents night clubs where they go. and  I keep an eye out for Mrs. crumple bottom who can spoil a dream date in a hurry and knock it down to great date with her whacking she does with the purse. I must say buying a toy for a college dorm seemed a bit odd but oh well she has her toybox and is happy

Knowledge sims are simply the easiest sims to play in the game for me.  All of their wants are reasonable.  And the only time they ever want to buy anything is when they want to upgrade their bookcase or telescope.  (of course, now with NL they also want to buy a car.  But any old car will do for them)

I like Family sims.  They have managable wants.  And often find themselves paried up with a Knowledge sim in my game because the two make a good match.  Though they do annoy me sometimes.  Like when the Knowledge and Family sims have romantic wants for each other.  The Knowledge sim will spin Talk to, Flirt with, Kiss, Make Out, and Whoohoo in that order.  But the Family sim will more likely then not spin Talk to, Flirt with, Kiss, then throw a big monkey wrench into the works and have every want spin up with Tell Dirty Joke, Play with, Appreciate, and so on, totally killing the mood for the poor Knowledge sim.  They're nothing but damn teases.   >:(

Fortune sims are manageable.  They're quick and to the point when it comes to job promotions.  Only wanting to make the exact number of friends and gain the exact number of skill points for that promotion.  And I like that aspect of them.  What I don't like is when they spin up a want for something that let's say costs $3000 and they only have $2000.  Where's the scense in that?  And they constantly want to upgrade everthing on the lot to the next highest dollar amount, totally screwing up the family's net worth and forever dooming them to live in that cramped up starter house.  But hey, at least it has a lot of nice trees!  On second thought, I don't really like Fortune sims.  If I had let Jennifer Burb have her way the Burbs wouldn't be living in the nice house that they are living in now that had the space they desperatly needed.

Popularity sims?  Meh...  They're less annoying than some others though.  They're a nice alternative to Romance sims.  They have most of the same wants, they just don't want to Woohoo everything that walks by.

Romance sims?  I have absolutely no use for these guys.  I mean whats the point them?  They offer nothing to the rest of the nieghborhood except for causing drama in the other families in the form of infidelity.  And you pretty much HAVE to do this to keep them happy.  I have better things to do...

Pleasure sims?  If they didn't keep spinning up stupid wants like Watch TV, Jump on Couch, and whatever and actually want to do something usefull I might like them a little more.

And lastly Grilled Cheese...  Hey, at least their wants are easily fufilled.  And they're compatible with all of the other asperations.

Wow, didn't know I would go off on such a tangent there...  At least I made my point I guess.   :-\

Live and learn. I didn't know that about Mrs. Crumplebottom, you know, knocking the date meter down with her interference. Makes sense though, who enjoys getting whacked with a purse :D. I better hightail it over to TJ's forum and get the zapper. I hope it works for Crumplebottom, although I think I read somewhere that it does.

Motoki, the want to have everyone around them abducted/zombiefied/vampirized is a pain in the neck, but I can live with that. I regulary ignore the zombie want anyway, so I wasn't even aware it was broken. I once turned a YA into a zombie (well, she kicked my trashcan, okay) and I felt terribly guilty, seeing the poor wretch dragging all over the place looking hideous. I know she was just a pixel person, but still, wow what a guilt trip :D

Oh my god, I'm sure that's the most unhackable thing that's ever not been hacked, but it sounds awesome! Especially if you could use the biotech station to be a bioterrorist and start a lethal flu pandemic!

Ahem.

I tend to end up with a serious excess of knowledge and family sims. (I made myself and my boyfriend in the game--I am knowledge and he is family. We are married with four butt-ugly kids, oh well.) I like knowledge ones cause they are made happy by peaceful solo pursuits and don't constantly have to be inviting more sims over for me to deal with--I guess cause they are made happy by the same things as me. I like family sims cause I like to have lots and lots of kids because I'm captivated by the multigenerational aspect of the game. But they do get monotonous because I have so many so I am trying to get a better balance.

I tend to pair up knowledge with family sims, probably just because I have so many of both. I don't like having two knowledge sims together cause it gets boring (and I do get sick unto death of the "be saved from death" want) but I'll put two family sims together if they're both lovely and I don't mind having their genes passed on to a bazillion kids.

Fortune sims get boring cause they always have the same wants--plus, I tend to put my sims in really small houses, and usually there is no space for the crap they want. I do like that they are pretty much guaranteed to want the skills that will get them promoted.

Popularity sims are boring cause they are the same people I can't stand in real life--as some random person once brilliantly put it "socially-addicted co-dependent morons". Usually easy to keep them happy though.

Romance sims are fun! I don't have very many because I'm so fixated on pairing my sims off, but I should have more. They rock. Except it's annoying when they have wants to flirt with six different people, so you invite one over, flirt with him--and then where a normal sim would spin up a bunch of new wants concerning *that* sim, a romance sim will just lose interest and want to have someone else over to flirt with. Makes it hard to get them into platinum romantically, whereas it's really easy if they only have *one* partner. They are inconvenient if they can only be kept happy by homewrecking--but that's why you just need MORE of them, so they can keep each other happy without breaking up marriages. Also, I need someone to cause drama, as my neighborhoods are too placid and so long as nobody hacks a bioterrorist station for me that can start a lethal flu pandemic, I need drama wherever I can get it.

Pleasure sims are cool because their wants are always 500 points and easy--although since they get the points as soon as they start the activity, mine just jump back and forth between various amusements all day long and never do anything for an extended period at a time. So they take some micromanagement, which is annoying.

Is that all? I haven't subjected anyone to a grilled cheese aspiration yet. I imagine it would get boring.

I have taken to using TJ's college adjuster to randomize every sim's aspiration when they hit teenagerhood, because it's hard to pick and also because I need to have a balance and not let my neighborhood be overrun by knowledge and family sims. Sometimes their personality or upbringing will incline them towards a particular one but usually I let the adjuster pick.

"Benes" for you all!...:).

  no thanks ;D

LOL, why thank you Gali, but can I have a cookie instead? My, you're up early on a saturday, what is it, like 6 or 7 in the morning where you are?

I bet your favorites are the fortune sims, you know, always shopping and redecorating :D

OK, I'll compomise with 5-stars...:). You can't push it away - too attempting...:).

Edit:  No, Veil, I am fond of the Knowledge aspiration too...:).  - Yes, it's 6 AM, and just am drinking my coffee (slept over 6 hours). 

Fortune and Family are my favorites.  The combo together is great.  I have a "try for baby" problem as I tend to keep my sims pregnant all the time.  I just love the kids  :)  Now I'm starting most of my kids as Knowledge sims to get the aspiration points for all of the skill building they do in prep for Uni.  I don't like Romance sims especially now with NL.  My Romance sims are outcasts!  Everyone is furious with them. 

I have Romance sims galore in my neighborhood and I dont have the furious problem after learning how to work their wants aaround the fury and jealousy that occur if caught.I have one Romance sim who goes to the bordello regularly and is happily married and since he a this point could careless about falling in  love he only wants the woohoo and the make out sessions , so the bordelo is a discrete way for him to cheat without the entanglement and fury that falling in love would bring him from other sims as in spite of his woohoo desire he is deeply in love with his wife and has tremendous chemistry with her. he also has five kids at home he loves very much and a sixth on the way so this may surpise you  but out of six want slots  four of his wants pertain to his kids 1 pertains to his wife and one is all about being a Romance sim. he wants four of 5 kids to get an a+ report card  he wants to woohoo with his wife and he wants to make out with 5 different sims. so he will be headed for the Bordello when I enter his  house next to satisfy the make out issue his kids wants are done deal all 5 are A+ he is perma plat already so not much is going to phase him enough to send his aspiration status south. His fears pertain only to hids family not the romance issues. once a Romance sim reaches PermaPlat they are the easiest sims to deal with and make the best  parents.

I've found that Romance Sims can be kept quite happily monogamous, especially with NL. I have a married couple that are both Romance. When their Aspiration level gets a bit low, just have one ask the other on a date. No need to even leave the lot. You get them both into full platinum in no time.

Romance and Fortune are two aspirations you have to train a bit. If you don't ever give in to their more annoying wants, they'll start spinning new ones. And I agree with Veilchen. Romance Sims make awesome parents. I didn't play Romance for a long time but I rather like them now.

I have a married Romance couple with twins. I don't like Romance sims in general but these two have gorwn on me. A woohoo a day keeps them both happy. And they have 3 lightning bolts for each other, they are my only 3 bolt couple (off the top of my head at least). They were in love the night they met. She got him as a date from the gypsy matchmaker.

I love Knowledge Sims. Especially as parents - they always want to teach the little ones, and they don't want a bazillion kids. Family is my other favourite, although the 'have a baby' want drives me insane after a while, and Grilled Cheese is just hilarious.

A lot of aspirations drive me batty. Fortune - for the love of the gods, just use the things you've got! Popularity - all those phone calls. Pleasure - just pick one thing and stick with it!

Romance Sims tend to die in my game. Especially townies and other NPCs. I become vicious and the next thing you know they've forgotten to eat, or a satellite's fallen from the sky, or the gate to the cowplant was accidentally left in.

I used to hate Romance sims  now I see an awesome side to them since I have six in my hood three of which are happily married and two who have kids . they are super parents if given a chance

I like all the aspirations but my favourites would be knowledge and romance.  Knowledge sims are so adaptable - they are quite happy on their own but make great spouses and parents to any of the other aspirations.  My Legacy families always start with a knowledge sim.

Romance sims are fun and I find if you marry two romance sims they keep each other very happy with constant flirt/makeout/woohoo wants.  I agree they make great parents.  

Fortune are easy (except for all the damn shrubbery!) and unlike knowledge sims actually want to get skill points they need.  

I like to put family sims with knowledge or fortune and occasionally with another family sim - but only if I want a huge family.

Popularity sims are probably the hardest for me to play but my current favourite sim is a teenage boy popularity.  Everyone loves him!  

One thing I have found is that when a couple have been married for ages, especially if they are elders, all the aspirations are pretty much the same.  They all want their kids to do well, and to flirt/kiss/woohoo with their partners.

Ok, let me be different then: I love popularity sims. They are fun, get along with everyone and are great parents. And with autoyak they are a breeze to play.

Knowledge sims used to be my favorite, now they bore me. Too quiet and concerned with skill building. Family sims are fun and lovey and I like kids so that keeps them happy. Fortune sims are easy to play and keep happy. I rather like those.

Romance and Pleasure? Haven't made my mind up yet. Need to play them more to see how they act with NL. I have several of them, but haven't played them much.

I think Romance sims are fun if you want a whole 'hood full of cheaters; otherwise they are just a pain. I like popularity sims, but I think that is just a function of how I play because I like all my playable sims to be friends with one another. Family sims often seem easy but become tedious and demanding - the majority of their LTWs are not acheivable until they become elders (this is one reason to like the popularity sims, since the LTW of having 20 best friends can easily happen to a teen).
I tend to go through stages of preferring one aspiration over another; it really depends on how I am playing the game.

Most of my sims are knowledge/family and I have to admit it's gotten fairly boring playing them now.  I have noticed a change in family sims since I've installed NL.  Most of my family sims don't even get the "Teach wants" once the baby turns toddler.  I even tested it with 4-5 families I have and only 1 sim rolled the want.

Fortune sims are not too bad to play.  I've only gotten the shubbery want on one sim, all my other fortune sims have never rolled that want, and I have at least 7-8 of them, half of them elders already.  So depends on star-sign maybe?

Romance sims can be fun to play, I always have a few of them stirring things up now and then  ;)

Pleasure sims....I have to say is the worst aspiration ever.  I've played about 6 sims who are about a few days away from turning elder, and 2 that have turned elder.  They dont mind being married but sheesh, have some wants towards the wife/hubby/kids. Never got a want for teaching toddlers anything (even some of my romance sims get the want)  Rarely get a want for flirt/gossip etc.  If they go on a date well diff story, but that doesnt make them unique cos all aspirations get the same wants when on a date.

How many times can you constantly use the bubble-blower, play SSX, play chess and then it goes back to the same thing over and over.  My elder wants to jump on that silly couch every morning when she wakes up  :-\ I can go on and on but I think I've said enough  ;)

Cheese Asp doesn't appeal to me much but I guess I'll get around to it sometime.

By the way, for people who hate the Fortune shrubbery wants, TwoJeffs has a hack for that and why, it's right here on MATY!  ;D

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1238.0

I agree that if Fortune Sims are left completely to their own devices they can get boring. Anybody in RL who wakes up in the morning just to earn money and then comes home just to spend it is boring...but it's not hard to break the chain of just $$ wants.  They are excellent spouses and usually decent parents if encouraged in that direction.  My Fortune Sims show a lot of depth, wanting good things for their families...even teaching the toddlers to walk and talk.

They do need a relatively large lot, though.  My favorite Fortune Sim's house has an expensive loveseat in every bedroom....and counters in every bathroom. 

I really love my fortune sims and I consider a fortune-family couple as the easiest to play. However, I use Twojeffs Hack to get rid of all the flower, tree and shrub wants.
Is there actually a hack to get rid off the want for a toy worth more than 5000 simoleons? Because the only thing I found to fulfill it is a bowling alley which I don´t want them to have at their home, it´s just to big!

*raises hand*

Me too. Actually, I haven't installed NL yet (this weekend, probably this weekend), so I don't have that want...but there are a couple of high $ wants that make me crazy.  The $6000 sculpture want can only be filled by the huge ass fountain thing you can put soap in.  I put that on a suburban Sims lawn once and it was hysterical...for about a minute.  And then just annoying.  Delete.

I'd prefer a variety of object choices for those wants rather than actual elimination of the wants...but I'll settle for elimination.

(I wish I had any modding skills or talent at all.   :P  I would love to make a Fortune Sims collection of high $ sculpture and objects to fill the wants and make the homes look cool, too. Alas, I am far lower than peasantry.)

Well, that would work too.
I can´t create custom content (I lack a lot of patience), but maybe someone who reads this desperate cry for help could get us a small and pretty sculpture that´s worth 6000 and a cute little chess board for 7000?

sounds like a plan there!

crazy - most recolours end up being priced ridiculously low - and here we are asking for the exact opposite!

a nice little super-expensive vase, chess board and painting and fortune sims could be kept happily quite easily!

as a nother poster pointed out to me when we were discussing My Popularity sim who until I hooked her up with a Romance sim that was single would inform me all the "married sims" were "hot" when I would have her Scope a Room. she would totally ignore the single male sims. She now has super strong attraction to her hubby and the two of them nearly swoon when they look at each other. any way the poster was saying Family sims will cheat at the Drop of a but get more self righteouss  about it..Romance sims on the other hand  cheat but are more honest and out front about it. I current Have  6 Romance sims in my custom neighborhood  and I have family sims and I have popularity sims  as well as ffotune,knowledge and pleasure. Ihave found that the easiest way to deal with my Romance Sims was to set up a Bordello using the DMA setup. I also noticed that my married Romance sims are less inclined to cheat if they have children.on the other hand I have a family sim who is pregnant with her 9th child that was at a wedding of one of my Romance sims  and she was making attempts to flirt with the grooms brother who was also a Romance sim and the Brother rebuffed her several times. the grooms brother is marrieid and has 5 children from a previous marriage and his wife is expecting their 1st child together.I think Romance sims are terribly misunderstood. here is a picture of the Romance Sims first dance with his Bride my  popularity sim .singing for the couple is his Father and Brother  unfortunately I couldnt get the Brother in the shot but the father of the groom is clearly shown and is a Romance sim himself

[attachment deleted by admin]

my favorite is the knowledge sim, they are easiest to get to lifetime platinum because most of them just want to max out all skills or be a mad scientist.   the only thing I hate about them now is they are the only ones who want to be vampires. 
 If you turn other aspirations into vamps or they get bitten downtown,  they have the "buy vampocillin d" want.   they don't want to be vamps.   ;D

I have to agree That Knowledge can be very easy to get perma plat.my most difficult to reach perma plat is Family. Fotune is difficult if its the 100,000 simoleon LTW. Romance ,Knowledge,Popularity  and Pleasure have been the easiest for me to get to perma plat status and I usually reach permaplat with those aspirations by the time they are in Uni.or shortly after if the LTW's are career related for teen Romance sims  I have  the bordello pack which allows teens to woohoo safely and reach the woohoo with x amount of sims and reach perma plat before sending them to Uni. that way I dont deal with the furious sim issue with them. and once Romance is perma plat they are a breeze to deal with as you can get them married,engaged or whatever  with out  aspiration failure occuring

i love knowledge and family sims. knowledge sims are so easy to play but they basically have the same lifetime want (ie mad scientist or criminal mastermind or max all 7 skills) which is pretty boring at times, but they learn skills faster. i always have my teens with knowlegde aspiration then change them in university.

family sims are sweet! they are just like me, and i love to laugh everytime they get a 'have a baby want', which is like always! they never get tired..

popular sims are easy once you have the phonehack. i think i like them too :)

romance sims are a rare lot in my game. only Nathan are allowed to touch other woman :D that's him in the picture. others are all in aspiration failure :D seen the therapist drop in several times.

fortune sims are troublesome to maintain in my opinion! they always want to buy this, and buy that..and then this, and then that again. shrubs, trees, flowerbeds, tables, counters, sofas... even when they're dead broke.

pleasure and grilled cheese i don't know yet as i haven't got NL yet too

Well the thing with fortune though too is they are very good about wanting to gain skills if it will get them a promotion and thus money! ;) They also will want promotions and they generally want to go to work (as opposed to pleasure ;) ). If you are fairly consistantly getting a fortune sim promoted you should have no problems getting their aspiration up as they'll get plenty between skilling up for the promotion and going to work and actually getting the promotion.

I loathe romance sims.  Popularity sims come in at a close second.  I beleive that the romance sims should be called, more appropriately, "slut sims".  Romance would be fitting if they just wanted to fall in love or make as many fall in love with them as possible, but they want to woohoo with anyone on 2 legs.  I would like more woo-ing and less woohoo-ing.  (hehe, I am so clever)  In Hot Date, weren't we able to buy gifts for our sim's love interests?  I can't remember.  I wish they would have incorporated that into NL.  I dislike popularity sisms because it is a pain to maintain all of the friendships they want.  Thank god for J.M.'s phone Hack.

Knowledge sims I think are the easiest, followed by Family.  These are also my favorites, and I have a lot of them paired up in my game as well.    Fortune sims are funny, I don't really have any trouble playing them, they just get on my nerves with all of their material wants.  ( I think I am going to have to kill off Circe Curious, she has made Vidcund turn to a life of crime to afford all of her material wants.  He lost his Mad scientist job after a bad chance card mishap.)  I am really enjoying the pleasure aspiration.  I didn't think I would like it, I thought it would be too much like romance, but It is actually pretty cool.  I changed Ripp Grunt to a pleasure sim, he is now a vamp and I am going to get him and his alien/vamp wife the bouncing castle over at MTS2 so they don't have to bounce on their furniture.

Well, since I refuse to pay for downloads of any type, shape, or form, I can't use that set-up, but LizzyLove's swinger stuff works just as well ;D

At any rate, romance sims are easy to take care of if they have a significant other. It requires a little training and attention at first, but it's quite worth it in the fun department. I found the unattached ones a great asset whenever my game gets too boring, they certainly keep things hopping

My favourites were always Knowledge Sims, probably because in the absence of Creativity Sims, they're the nearest to me in the game.  They can get a bit boring I agree, but mine do tend to surprise me now and again with wants to flirt.  I remember one who'd been happily married for years and was almost an elder, suddenly developing an urge to flirt with the friend his teenage daughter brought home from school and this was before Nightlife.  

I agree that Romance Sims  make the best parents, especially males.  Family & Fortune Sim females overall are the worst parents, with the males it seems to vary.  Robert Broke (Brandi's 3 child) has always been a great father, although his wife (also Family) isn't so hot.  Currently, by far the Sim with the most family-oriented wants in my game is the 'soon-to-die-again' Don Lothario and has been for some time.  He never has less than 3 of his 4 wants related to anything but family.  His usual are to get a grandchild, relative get engaged and relative get married.  His fourth will never be Romance-oriented, it varies but more often than not is a transient want related to the two grandchildren who live in the same house, such as the teen getting a scholarship or wanting to play with the toddler.  Even if I deliberately send him to the bordello or out on a date, he will still come home and re-roll the family-oriented wants.  His Romance Sim son is the same, all he wants most of the time are things to do with his sons.  It's the Romance Sims who don't have kids who tend to want the aspiration-related stuff.  Since NL I've really got into my Romance Sims and in my new custom neighbourhood I've realised that most of the ones I am making are Romance or kids destined to be Romance.

Overall I don't like Family Sims, probably because their wants are the hardest to satisfy and like one of the posters above, I operate a 1 baby per family policy, at least in my over-populated Pleasantview.  Occasionally I will succumb and let Family Sims have an extra one.  I also never make Family Sims with kids in CAS, otherwise they just have to have more in the game and that means more characters in the neighbourhood.  They don't get kids until they roll the want for them in the game (which doesn't usually take long) if you make them married from the start.  Fortune Sims are mainly too selfish for me and I don't like them very much at all, particuarly the females.  Too of my most-hated Sims in the game have been Dina Caliente and Jennifer Burb and both were Fortune.  I just hated the way they totally ignored their children.  Dina in particular was the crappiest mother I have ever come across, Don did absolutely all the work bringing up their twins.  However, if you change them to Fortune rather than them being Fortune from the start, it works better.  I made Bella Fortune (what I always felt she should have been going by her character in TS1) and she was a good mother overall, when she wasn't working hard, she made the top of her career - as for grandmother, well the only word to describe her was AWESOME.  Best grandparent I have ever had in the game by a mile.  The first thing she did when she came back as a ghost was go check on her grandsons.  She taught them everything when they were toddlers, apart from one or two things which Mortimer managed to wangle.  He was a great grandfather, too.

As far as Popularity is concerned, I have far too many of these because for some reason the majority of my kids are born with very high Outgoing and there isn't much else for them to be.  Even parents who are low in Outgoing are having these really outgoing kids.  I read somewhere that it can happen if the mother communicates a lot during pregnancy, but that seems highly suspicious to me (almost akin to eating cookies to get twins).  It even happens when I use the Randomiser function on the Lot Debugger.

I don't really understand how the aspirations and the zodiac signs match-up, either.  I notice that Maxis make townies with high Neatness into Fortune Sims (Sagittarians, as I recall), which goes totally against what they say about Fortune Sims needing to be low in neatness so they're not bogged-down with trivialities when they should be out making money.  I also always make my low Neatness Sims Fortune.  I do wonder how they game would be if I made them all opposite to what their personalities suggest, whether it would make the game more interesting or not make any difference at all.

Pleasure I don't like much as there is no way they will achieve their LTW unless it's career-related.  All those dates would bore me stupid, it's a nightmare having to keep hitting "Flirt", "Hug", "Kiss" ... over and over again, then all the hassle with trying to woo-hoo in the car which most of the time doesn't work properly.  I won't be making many Pleasure Sims.   As for Cheese, well I made one by mistake soon after getting Uni (forgot about the need to be in gold and above) and I was in stitches.  Robert Broke's wife was cornered as she innocently walked by, but luckily she's Family and top of Culinary, so was more than happy to discuss grilled cheese sandwich recipes for an entire afternoon.  She was even happy to eat them for both lunch and dinner.  My Sim was in Platinum within a very short time and I changed her to Family as I'd intended in the first place - then when I realised how boring she had become, I changed her back to Grilled Cheese.  I've also changed a few townies and dormies to it, but not noticed any autonomous discussing of cheese sandwiches yet.  My main problem with it is that for some reason I can't stop calling it Green Cheese.  I'd also love to see that aspiration come-up randomly for ALL Sims using the aspiration-changer-thingy, regardless of aspiration level (I'd like the same with the Resurrector-Thngy too, come to that).  When the only way to get Grilled Cheese (or a zombie) is by design rather than unexpectedly, it spoils the majority of the fun of it, at least for me.

Well, I read through all this thread and thought "I don't have much to say on this topic, I won't be prattling on as long as some of this lot" ... ahem.  Thank you and good afternoon.

Hey, I don't do the cheating thing (it's totally against my ethics). I do the open relationship with all concerned knowing & consenting to it thing :). And I only flirt with other people in open relationships, whose other partners at least vaguely like me. I generally have an allergy to Drama.

I'm non-monogamous and, when healthy, quite extroverted. I gain energy from being with people and need a lot of people around me to feel happy. In contrast, the partner I live with is very monogamous, but also very introverted. He loses energy from having to deal with other people, and gets over-peopled just by living with me. (Pretty much every night, he goes out for a long walk or a bike ride by himself, just to be alone.) So he actually likes the fact that I have other people in my life to get time & affection from, as otherwise he'd be permanently exhausted. My other partner is non-monogamous, but also introverted. She has multiple partners but doesn't live with any of them. She comes to see us when she feels social.

Real people are much more complicated than sims :D.

I have to say that Romance Sims are probably my favorite. Quite a few of my Bayfield clan is Romance. And the men do make great parents. When Joe (who is Romance) was married to his first wife, Jennie (who is family) I found Joe much easier to maintain. He was not yet permaplat, as this was very early on in my game, but he could satisfy his romance wants easily by flirting, hugging, kissing, etc. Jennie. He was also in a much better mood to take care of the kiddies. Jennie, however, immediately spun a want for another child. She became quite selfish, just wanting to fulfill her goal of marrying off a zillion kids, or whatever, and fell into aspiration failure. Which made it necessary for Joe to fulfill his romantic wants with one (or several) of his lady friends. Which then sent Jennie deeper into the red once she found out. But Joe was (still is!) a great daddy, preferring to spend his time with the children he already had rather than obsess over when the next one will be born.

I am with Ancient in that I think the Grilled Cheese Aspiration is funny as hell. I have one female romance sim who occasionally switches to Cheese for my amusement. Funny to see the men swoon over her one day, then push her away the next because of constant grilled cheese chat.

The Fortune sims crack me up when they go into the red, as well, and start panhandling to the school bus.  I did have to break down and buy my teen sim, Jory, that bowling alley that every child needs...

I sympathize the most with Knowledge sims, but they're kind of dull to play because they only want to build skills, and watching them sit around studying isn't very interesting.

Family sims are a lot of fun to play, and I get a charge out the "have a baby" want.  In fact, that's such an issue that I've had to institute a house rule that Sims won't "try for baby" unless at least one Sim Wants a baby, and at least one sim Wants Woo Hoo.  Woo Hoos that neither Sim wants are strictly forbidden.  For a while I was so baby-obsessed that I had a rule that when both Sims had a Woo Hoo want, they'd "try for baby" because they were in too much of a hurry to use birth control.  It was the only way that families with no Family sim would reproduce.  I've eased off on that, both because I've got too many Sims and because the Risky Woo Hoo mod gives some of the desire effect.

I don't like Fortune Sims much, and I think they're kind of dull to play since they pretty much focus on climbing the corporate ladder.  I really don't like all the "buy object" wants because they're usually completely impractical due to space considerations.  Some like "buy a more expensive countertop" are annoying because if you fulfill them, you're either stuck with one mismatched counter or you have to shell out a lot of cash to upgrade the other items.

Real-life Popularity personalities really grate on me, so it took me a long time to warm to playing them.  But really seriously playing a Popularity Sim can be very challenging, and I like that.  Getting 30 best friends can be really tough.

I avoided Romance sims for a long time because playing them naturally causes utter chaos.  I did discover that if you ignore the infidelity wants, they're actually reasonably fun to play.  All they want is a little affection and woo-hoo each day, and they're happy, plus it comes across as nice if you ignore the fact that they don't care who they do this stuff with.  As far as playing them the "natural" way, 20 woo-hoos isn't really that hard to achieve, except that it requires a fair sized population of playable Sims, since so many of the townies are much too ugly to woo-hoo.  Having 20 loves at the same time is an interesting challenge I'll take up sometime.

The Pleasure aspiration is completely uninteresting to me.  These Sims never have any long-term goals, and long-term Wants are what keeps the game fun for me.  I do make Pleasure sims because I have a rule about evenly distributing aspirations, but I don't like them so far.

Grilled cheese is just silly.  I made a couple Cheese sims just to see what it was like, but I changed them back quickly.

 - Gus

I am enjoying my Romance clan as well and will enjoy them more now that I found out why Justin and Joe would woohoo and still  get extramarital affairs pregnant,  I had a long forgotten risky woohoo mod in my game .I had created a brand new female sim Cinderella Patterson who is Romance. she and Justin met through the neighborhood welcome commitee. Justin  has been on the welcome committees continuosly of Late, they hit it off  and I had her call Justin Later and ask him for a date  so Justin being  a Romance sim and permaplat readily agreed the date progressed  and Justin fell in love with my sim so I sent them to fulfill the woohoo want  clicked woohoo and I hear  the lullaby I checked her info on the DMA Box  and she is pregnant. as much as I am loving my Romance sims if you haave them in your game to any extant  make sure you dont have a risky woohoo mod in place,  as for grilled cheese  that aspiration is hysterical        

I most dislike Family Sims. My ideal Sim family has a maximum of two children; I'll only wind up with three if the second birth is twins, or I have an unexpected abduction.

Popularity is approacting my favorite, as they're pretty easy to keep happy. I just tend to throw one-guest parties when I feel like it.

I don't have many Romance Sims, but I like them more than family Sims.  Currently, all of my Romance Sims are monogamous and happy.

Fortune, I don't mund much either. For the most part, it seems to be a matter of keeping track of the oldest item they Want,  and replacing that with a new one.

Knowledge is okay.  While Fortune Sims tend to be focused on gaining skills for jobs, Knowledge Sims tend to be geared on gaining skills for the sake of gaining them, which tends to require balancing out skill-gain for bes effect.

I have to do the same thing, making rules about try for baby. I will only let them try if they *both* want a baby (which they usually do once they're married and moved into a new place, regardless of aspiration). This usually gets most non-family couples one child and any subsequent ones must be accidental. Although it actually gets a lot of couples two children--I think there is something in the water.

*nods*

It must be a habit leftover from Sims 1, when money was so hard to come by.  Of course, how much an object cost didn't really matter as I just money cheated my ass off in that game.  Still, I appreciated creators who made reasonably inexpensive nice objects so I didn't have to keep typing the cheats in to buy them. ;)

Now that my Sims work for a living, I'd like to be able to spend that money on nice, compact objects that may or may not appreciate in value. The Maxis objects are too big.  And they are pretty ugly, the stupid sculptures at least.  Imagine a Fortune Sim with a lovely little Ming Vase collection....coins, how about coin collectors!  (Okay, coins are dumb as they are too small, but my point is that RL fortune type folks certainly collect expensive small items, not just lot hoggers.)



Oooh, you know there are some wonderful RL collector's chess boards.  I don't even play chess and I've often thought that when my Ship Comes In, I'd love to have a gorgeous chess board for my home. 

Gus wrote:

FWIW, I'd die before I had mismatched countertops in the kitchen.  I generally use the expensive countertop wants to put counters in elsewhere.  (I'm a big fan of built ins in real life, so it's fun for me.)

I like countertops or islands in:

bathrooms
nursery (must for easy smart milk access)
dining room (use them for a sideboard)
living room/library (espresso station)
outdoor entertaining area

I do the same with the dining chair wants.  I'll either upgrade a single chair by a desk or add a little chair in a previously unoccupied spot. 

It's really only the expensive sculpture or electronic toy wants that I find cumbersome to play.  (Landscaping can be fun, I insist, but would be much better if I took the time to find more variety.  I think I only have Maxis landscaping.  I'm going to have to go download hunting.)

I just think Family sims are fun to play - maybe cause I'm family-oriented myself.   I love a house-full of kids running around playing cops and robbers or the teens who invite all their friends over after school to watch that crazy crap on T.V.  Mom and dad have very simple wants, the kids want to get A+'s on their report cards, the teens are a bit different of course; they always seem to want that first kiss, which is normal in real life.  I also love having a pregnant mom on the house.  There's so much anticipation.  Babies are easy to care for.  Toddlers are a little more demanding (except I've got Igne's toddlers sleep through the night hack and TJ's toddlers don't play in toilet hack, which help a whole lot).

My next choice would be the Knowledge sims - they're easy to play but not as exciting.  I usually end up getting their LTW met and turning them into Family sims  ;).

Fortune sims are okay, except they always want, want, want.  Just when you get them that new couch they wanted, they want another one!

Rarely do I have a Romance sim - too much chaos for me  :D unless you get their LTW met.

Popularity sims are fun but they remind me of the Romancers, wanting all those dates (haven't tried the Cheese yet)

Lastly are the Popularlity Sims, which are just a pain to me for some reason.  I never pick that aspiration.

Windy - for new garden stuff try this link:

http://www.aussietopenders-sims2.com/

You have to use IE though for the downloads to show up properly, Modzilla Firefox doesn't seem to work properly.

Also MTS2 has some landscaping articles, but I haven't had the time to browse through them yet. I like landscaping, nothing beats a nice garden. That's one of the reasons I don't mind the fortune sims too much (after I get them out of the starter homes :D).

http://forums.modthesims2.com/download.php?f=410&page=1&filter=

I do use Inge's no maintenance shrub mod though. I can't deal with shrubbery that overgrows so erratically. She has a mod for no maintenance flowerbeds, but it keeps the flowerbeds at one stage, and no butterflies. I love butterflies, so I had to pass on that one, darn it. Did I mention that I love the no maintenance shrubs? (Thanks bunches Inge :D)

Have fun.

Knowledge all the way.
No expensive needs, no need for children, no need for companionship. Pure hermit aspiration.

Knowledge sims will live on a concrete slab with the bare necessities and never complain.

Knowledge need some training and they're okay.  If you don't give into their constant skill building wants they will focus on other things...such as their spouse and family.  I had a knowledge sim where I ignored his skill building wants and he became completely obsessed with his wife..which was  nice for a change.


Fortune are nice now with NL and the inventory thing.  They seem to have wants that concern their spouse...in between the buying things and building appropriate skills for job advancement.  They also get a lot of wants for their  kids once they have them..want to see them do good things with their lives!

Family is probably still my favorite.  Once they stop having babies for good..they start focusing on the children they already have lol

Popularity is sourta boring but they're pretty easy to keep happy, especially if you let them throw their parties.

Romance is fun to play and they're pretty easy to train as well if you ignore thier outlandish wants...but sometimes those are fun to give into.

Pleasure is ehh..it's okay..but I hate their LTWs. 

Grilled Cheese..proper punishment for some sims I suppose ha...
 

Oh, thank you! :)

I was quite addicted to Persimmon Grove, back in Sims 1.  Landscaping is fun.  I just finished installling NL early this AM and now that I can see the neighbor's yards, it's bugging me that so many of them are plug ugly.  :P

thanks for the links

I probably like knowledge best. Skill building is fun, and getting abducted by aliens is even better. Mwahahah.

Family and popularity are about even. I use them as glue for neighborhood cohesion. Most of my couples have one or the other.

I don't dislike Fortune, but I don't particularly like them, either. Same thing with Romance. When I want to play old school sims 1 style, I go with fortune. When I want to play something challenging, or a change of pace, I play romance.

Pleasure sims are okay, but kind of irritating sometimes. Probably end up around Romance and Fortune. Grilled Cheese are good for a change of pace, or for punishing sims, but not something I'd want a whole lot of. Except for Grilled Cheese Alien Zombie Vampires.

The only one I don't really like so far is pleasure - mine just don't seem to get enough power wants to keep them happy.  It's all these little 500pt ones, so they're just running from jumping on the couch to blowing bubbles to diving in the pool to playing on the computer to "looking at" the neighbours and endlessly juggling cups at the espresso machine... I'm exhausted and they're still not happy!

I just had a pleasure sim get married in my game and He got 8000 aspiration points for getting the want fulfilled

Agreed. It's a really, really lame aspiration. It's like they took romance and merged it with fortune then added a bunch of crap wants.

Idunno about that wait til see a popularity sims wants after they are Perma Plat. they resemble a fortune sims

My permaplat popularity still just wants to talk to everybody. Not that it matters, anymore...

At Aussie Top Enders, with Firefox, if you right click and "save target as" or "save link as" it downloads the rar files just fine.  Anything to help avoid IE!!

mine wats to buy a bed costing at least 2500  etc...

I've found that when Family sims spin those Entertain/Play With/Appreciate/Flirt wants, you can move it to Kiss/Make-Out/Woohoo by choosing "Hold Hands" for your flirt action. I haven't ever conducted an actual test to see if this works 100% of the time (you know, the disclaimer, so no one thinks I'm claiming something along the eating-cookies-causes-twins line) but it's what I always do, and it works for me, so you might want to try it out.

Thanks, eaglezero.  I'll try that out. Good info.

Hook

You're quite welcome Windy and Bangle... how's that for a lightning speed reply? I'm sorry, I wish I had more time for myself. I just have to hang in there, soon, very soon...

And thank you for the info Yetyak, I try to avoid IE as much as possible too :D

some of the family sim wants are totally moronic

Has anyone been brave enough to play with the (presumably unfinished) 'power' aspiration?

Power aspiration? What is that? My only excuse for asking that, is that I just got the ep, sorry if its a dumb question.

That's available from the 'sim modder' using the 'testingCheatsEnabled' directive when using the Nightlife EP.

I thought that was just an internal name for the fortune aspiration.

Oh my stars, now I feel really stupid. I have absolutely no clue who or what a 'sims modder' is. I do know what testingcheatsenabled is though, at least there is that. On the other hand power = fortune, sounds corporate enough to me :D

It's a new debug cheat tool you can spawn when you hold shift and click on the sim. It was added with Nightlife to the list of other spawned tools such as the tombstone of life and death etc. The actual object itself is a baby standing up. lol

Numenor on Mod the Sims 2 has one  he calls Vincents modder

The object you get from the debug Spawn... menu is also called Vincent's Sim Modder.  Actually, the debug version would be the original.  I guess some people really are afraid of debug mode to download a separate object that's just a couple of clicks away in their game.

Power is not Fortune.  But that's about all I know about it.  I think I tried it but didn't get anything useful.  We're assuming it's part of the Open for Business EP that's coming next.

Hook

I cant wait to see what the next expansion pack has to offer.I have Uni,and NL of course. I love NL but as my Sims would say Uni is MEH  to me . I send my Simmies to Uni  but to be truthful Uni is a Tad boring.