More Awesome Than You!

Actually I was wondering if you would consider addressing the constant admiration interaction with strangers. It works much like the hugging and stranger dance, its just a bad interaction to try on a stranger and never works. I suppose people walk up to complete strangers and admire them in real life, but I havent seen it and would likely think I was in some kind of creepy "camp" and freak if I did.

I think this is mostly a nice-sim problem. The acceptance bounds on the interaction appear roughly correct, but nice sims tend to overestimate the relationship involved, and thus fail. Make your sims grouchier. Then you won't have this problem. Grouchy sims, I find, rarely fail socials like that. I mean, sure, they poke, annoy, and insult people, but at least they're choosing an appropriate interaction for their relationship level!

That's certainly the way the sims react to it also.

JM, I know you like your sims grouchy, but what do you consider to be the maximum reasonable niceness?  Would 7 be under the creepy-too-nice limit?

Thanks,
Vicki

I always make my sims 5 nice, or they have trouble making friends, and I don't really enjoy the fighting unless I'm not particularly attatched to the sim.  If it's a sim I don't "know" (like the cop and the burglar), it's pretty funny.

I consider 4 a good limit. 7 is a little on the high side. Of course, some sims end up creepy that way because I simply don't have the time or appropriate influence to resolve it, but hey, like in real life, some people are losers.

Some Sims are happy to be admired by strangers, usually Romance or Popularity ones, or maybe it's Family, can't remember now.  Otherwise I agree, it's extremely annoying and I always cancel it out if I see it.  I think the word "admire" is wrong too, because nobody admires a stranger, at least not openly.  What are they admiring them for?  It always seems somehow verging on the sexual to me, although it's obviously not meant to be.  There are different kinds of admiration obviously, but unless they have a reason to admire them (perhaps because they're the Mayor of Sim City), it makes no real sense.  Let's face it, they have no real idea how to deal with people they've just met anyway. 

I think that they used the same Maxian programming code as they did in Superstar; it's the same type of behaviour as the fans showed for those successful Superstars, aka adoring fan mode. (Lazy programmers).

I agree, 'admire' is the wrong word. "Compliment" would be a better choice, and far more applicable. I can compliment people on a well thought out idea, a well written article, or even a nice (or intriguing) outfit, but I don't admire them because of that. Maybe it's  because I'm very bad at 'gushing' or other such useless/phony interactions. I find such interactions extremely nauseating.

G.

That's what it was called in TS1. I don't really dig gushing, though. It's annoying. If you gush at me, I will helpfully remind you that you are dumb that your gloves are stupid.

I love grouchy Sims. One of my kids was born with 1 nice point and she's hilarious. When she plays Cops and Robbers, when the other child "dies", she goes over and (pretend) kicks them. I find 3-4 nice points optimal. Grouchy Sims are very nice to friends and family members (as long as relationship scores are good). I don't generally have trouble making friends for them, especially with Auto Yak-Yak, Macro Socialize, or a chess table.

I agree with you totally on this, I am exactly the same.  And yes, compliment is exactly the right word.  Maybe there is a way to change it in the programming?  Not that it would alter anything, but it would look better!

I prefer the grouchy sims too!  I never find only one nice point makes them nasty to their friends or family, but it does mean that if someone else is nasty to a friend or a family member, they don't at all mind picking fights with them and making them cry!

I have a little girl who was born with 1 nice point also, and she is actually very sweet with her parents and her half-brother (whom she just met) as has been said. She always runs out to greet her mother (Brandi LeTourneau, if anyone's interested), autonomously kissed her half-brother the second time she saw him, and always has wants to play with her parents or that annoying Chloe girl. Other than being able to make crank calls, she's a perfectly sweet girl ;D

Jen

I can infer by your prescription that the answer is no...

gah. Not everyone is capable of being made less nice. Oh and by the way whats the no cry baby mod supposed to do? Because there are certain sims who are still cry babies, incidently I cant "encourage" them only cheat them into compliance. What gives? Did I misunderstand the mods awesomeness or are we talking ID Ten T error here?

It greatly raises the wussiness threshold that sims are much less likely to whine like babies which insulted, poked, and slapped, unless they are EXTREMELY nice like the little wussies they are, or they're not grouchy and have really bad aspirational state, as formerly suggested by somebody on rentech.com.

The one thing that really makes me angry (at a game at that) is when the silly pixel people cry at the sight of roaches. What the heck is up with that? Although I don't have them at my house, I don't exactly jump for joy when I observe them; I sure as heck don't burst into tears... repeatedly. I get the urge to whap them on the head, a rare occurance for me.

G.

I think that they are right to cry because roaches are the source of the simkiller plague.  Atleast it is in my game because just like real life, sims/ people aren't allowed to lie in bed when they think that their ill, they just have to get on with it.  In such circumstances, Death is never far away.

Well, even if roaches are quite dangerous I would think that the better reaction would be to go immediatly call the exterminator or spray them yourself. (which I always do) Sims are such wusses, sometimes.  >:( I remember my paramount frustration when Sims constantly stomped roaches in the Sims 1... heh

But at least in Sims 1 they didn't cry about them!  And although it was slower than spraying, it did kill them!  And if you had unleashed, the dogs or cats would get rid of them!  Or you could use Move_objects on, keep them and the flies somewhere safe, then sell them in the morning!

If I saw something around me and my family that had the potential of killing everyone, the last thing that would come to my mind to do would be wasting my time crying...repeatedly. I would try to remove that source of doom in any way I could. The idea that roaches spread the bubonic plague is ridiculous anyway, the plague is spread by the fleas and the mites on rodents. They can change hosts, bite, and thusly introduce all kinds of goodies into the new hosts body.

Aside from trying to find logic in TS2, which is an exercise in futility anyway, I never had one of my pixel people die of the flu (or the plague for that matter). Reading about all the things that happen in other people's games, I find that mine behaves incredibly boring.

I have a super-grouchy (0 nice points at all) teen fortune sim, Milton Mysterious, who LOVES it when other sims admire him... especially the cute teen Kristy Mills, who he met last night.  I hadn't decided who I was going to set her up with before now.

Everybody seems to want to admire him, too, despite his tendency to prank everyone 2 minutes after meeting them.

I thought "admire" was meant to be a sexual action in the game. When I first got the game, I had one of my sims invite the headmaster over and was schmoozing poorly. I told her to admire and suddenly her son was crying and her husband was coming over to slap the headmaster! I cancelled that out, but looked at her memories and saw "Had an Affair with X." I don't know if this has changed since Uni, but I have avoided using that interaction ever since with an attached sim. (nless, of course, they are the only one home.) That's one of my favorite interactions to use when I'm trying to hook someone up though and haven't gotten to an acceptable kissing stage.

My sims don't get crushes from 'admire' at all, they use it when they are friends and all it does is push the friendship rate up. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's due to one of JM's fixes. I have just about all of them in my game, and I seem to remember reading somewhere that 'admire' can produce crushes. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, since the unfixed game had sims develop crushes over 'teaching' and the hand-held thingies.

G.

Admire is not romantic, and never has been. In fact, the AutoSocializer abuses it heavily.

This gets on my nerves, big time. My sims have no reason to fear illness from roaches, anyway, because I have Carrigon's no sickness from roaches hack. Or whatever it's called. Yet my grown, male sims are bawling like babies, anyway, for the rest of the day. My military general is sobbing in the corner, my captain hero is blubbering in the kitchen...ridiculous.

I have to admit, thought, that I have roachaphobia in real life. I live in the south where we have those big, freaking palmetto bugs, and they always seem to make a beeline for my hair. One landed on my shoulder from behind late the other night. I jumped up, knocking my laptop to the floor, did the Daffy Duck dance for a few minutes (hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo!) then trapped him under an upside-down garbage can next to the couch. It is still waiting for its demise at the hands of my husband. Or the flush of the toilet. And my cats are useless, by the way. They didn't even lift a mighty hunting paw to help me.

I had the same issue with Admire early on, it did produce a "had an affair memory". It was my very first family and the wife, wanting to get ahead admired a coworker she brought home. Her husband went ballistic and their relationship took a huge hit. I was stunned. Perhaps it was fixed in the patch?

Get a male Maine Coon - mine loves chasing anything that wriggles!

Mine like food. And that's about it.

lol so do Rat Terriers. I too live in the south and we have some huge flying roaches, tree roaches I think they are called. Its pretty scary walking the dogs at night, you can see them flying around, crawling on the side of buildings etc. And they are mean little devil bugs too, every so often I will see one on the ceiling or wall and I will attempt to Raid it, as soon as it sees that bright red can it rears up and flies at me. OF course I run screaming like a banshee up the stairs. Pity those that have been on the phone with me at the time.

But the dogs, the two wild and crazy guys, they love to torture anything that moves or makes noise. Bugs (and anything else inanimate, or not) don't stand a chance if they are less than about 4.5 feet off the ground, my dogs will find a way to wound them enough so that they are ground bound, where they then enact a ritual of slow death. Good little terminators!

My cats were quite the little huntresses. The older one loved the slow torture method--hold onto them, then let go so the prey thinks if can get away and then before it does, smash her paw down on it again. This would be on until the bug died from exhaustion. My younger cat never attacked anything that moved--light, shadows, feet. She wasn't big on torturing the bugs, but once they were on their backs, she would leave them for me to dispose of.

My cats will actually chase laser beams, string, etc. Anything that doesn't need to be chased.  They won't chase anything I would like them to chase; I point my finger at a bug and they'll come over and bonk my finger. Occasionally they'll bat around a cricket, or my siamese will go nuts when he sees a moth. But when they catch it, they let it go. Playful little guys, but useful? Other than companionship, no.

Oh, I forgot about those "flying roaches". I won't leave my porch light on for long, because they...will...come. And they will fly straight to my hair. Not intimidated by people at all. I'm in tears just thinking about it. And the can of Raid thing? Oh, yes, they have to have commit one final act of terror before they go. Again, in my hair.

Meh, roaches. You know what *WILL* kill roaches? Rats. If I see roaches, I go to the warrens and get a bag of rats, then let them loose.

Then I eat the rats.

I had the same thing happen. Cassandra had brought home a co-worker and wanting to bump up their friendship for a promotion, I had her "admire" him. Don immediately went over and smacked her around and she had the "affair" memory. I can't remember if this was before or after I had Uni...I believe before.

I don't remember having this problem with the Admire interaction in Sims 2.  I remember in Sims 1 that a "spouse" (or someone who was in love with them, since they didn't technically have spouses then) would come over and slap them silly anytime they admired someone.  I didn't think this should have been a romantic action, and I remember thinking that they seemed to have fixed it in Sims 2. 

This admire slap happy action happened to me before the patch in Sims2 so I am thinking perhaps the patch fixed it. Then again, having learned my lesson I dont purposely choose that interaction with married sims to anyone else anymore.

I'll try it on someone tonight to see if it happens again. (Things are entirely to quiet in my Prosperity Neighborhood anyway.) I've avoided this action in certain situations since getting that first affair memory, so I, too, wondered if the patch corrected it.

Yup, this is my experience too. But I only got TS2 in June, and installed the second patch straightaway before even running the game.

I'll have to move the romance mod out to check again also, just in case it has an effect.

Admiring definitely does not cause romantic behaviors, or else all of my sims would be having affairs left and right, because Admire is one of the dominant interactions of every AutoSoc run.

I heard you and I believe you.

BUT I know for a fact that when I first got the game with my first family and my first marriage the elderly wife admired a coworker and got bitch slapped for it.

I have never had to use autosocialize on anyone that is married though. However I did notice last night that extended family members where admiring each other left and right. Probably because they are all filthy stinking rich, ah those prolific multigen Hamptons...

Either way it now works as intended so it really doesnt matter anymore.

i love your avatar nectere :)

Its a funny little llama, I assume it was chopped. I liked my other one better, it was a licking llama but everyone thought it was a horse.  ::)

Your old avatar used to crack me up. Especially when you'd be all serious in a post, and there's that goofy llama staring out at us. It's right up there with Motoki's peeing nanny on my list of favorite avatars!

 
Get a male Maine Coon - mine loves chasing anything that wriggles!

One of my cats, a great tabby idiot, is actually scared of creepy crawlies (particularly spiders), and runs and hides behind the sofa whilst the arachnaphobes in the household have to beat it to death with a book or shoe. Unless I'm there when I rescue it and place it outside! My littlest pussa is a mighty hunter and is soooo proud of her kills that she talks to us for ages about them.

Wussy sims eh? I prefer 'em grouchy too as they are far more fun and likely to pick a fight.

I agree with you there. They are # 1 and 2 respectively on my favorites list too. :D

My cat is an old cat. He is 16 years old and thinks we are his pets and on earth to do his bidding. He has had a long and fruitful life, keeping our stables and garden free of vermin and rodents, so now he is an in-house cat only with all the priviledges he so rightfully earned. If he sees something wriggly he just sits and stares at it, and then at us, as if to say: "Well, are you going to take care of this, you lazy bum?"

By the way, if it's a spider, we also rescue and release, since it's considered bad luck to kill a spider (or a bat) in my part of the world.

That made me laugh. My cats aren't scared, they just aren't interested. I'll point out a bug and they'll look at it and go "eh.". My siamese will play with little creatures, but he never actually kills them. Just bats them around a bit. My other cat just wants food.

My dog was a bug killer, and spider killer, without being taught to do that. Bugs couldn't survive in my house when she was around...:).

I'm a bug and spider killer. They know this and avoid me, because if I see one, I will grab it and eat it.

Bon Apetite, or Guten Appetit. Sounds like an intriguing meal choice JM. :D

I just asked my mother about the spider/bat thing. It's considered bad luck to kill them because they are considered helpful in keeping the pest-bugs at bay. They eat flies, mosquitoes, etc. Makes sense, sort of...

It's illegal to kill bats in the UK.  If they get into your loft, you aren't allowed to get rid of them you have to wait until they move out after their hibernation is over, then all you can do is attempt to stop them getting in again!

I have bats in my loft space over the bathroom and I love to stand outside on a summer evening and watch them. They are just such amazing little critters.

Said great tabby idiot is currently trying to tell me that I should be fussing her and is rolling on the keyboard...bloody cats!  ;)

oo I like bats. I used to go on rescue missions every year where I worked. There would be dozens and dozens of baby bats lying about in the parking garage, it was sad. Many of the little critters were only days or hours old.

After some research and data gathering we finally figured out what was killing/making them sick. Being in the south, we have a bit of a mosquito problem, and where I worked it was right next to a bayou, thus every year maintenance crews would come spraying for mosquitoes. The crew would spray the mosquitoes so the mosquitoes wouldn't be able to reproduce, then the mother bats would eat them and even though the poison wasn't enough to make the adult bats sick, it was enough to pass through the mothers' milk and into the baby bats who clung for life on their moms underbelly.

So the baby bats were being poisoned and would become too weak to hold on to the mothers in flight, thus all the baby bats lying about the garage. My boss and I would go out early in the morning and pick up all the ones that looked viable, many were furless and about the size of my pinkie. Then I would take them all in to the wildlife refuge where the bat ladies would take care of them. Generally only about 20% made it. I was bringing in upwards of 10 a day most days in the early season. There wasn't much we could do about it, the maintenance crews weren't about to stop spraying for mosquitoes and the city certainly wasn't going to make them.

Would be better, though, if they just used a poison that would kill the mosquitoes outright, then the bats would look elsewhere for food.

Even better to encourage more bats to the area so they'd eat all the mosquitoes!   Sounds to me like the natural balance in the area has gone wrong.

Something was off because the bat season kept coming too early in the year, around April and May which is when the crews sprayed for anticipation of the summer mosquito season. Typically the bat season should start late may and into the summer months, but our bats where reproducing in the spring.

Global Warming?  Maybe the bats need to go on the pill until summer!

Yup. On both counts.

Poor bats. They are fast becoming endangered due to us. That's the problem with being an evolutionary specialist as you fit too neatly into your ecological niche. I mean, look at Homo Sapiens, the best generalist around who can manipulate any environment to suit themselves.

Along with rats and cockroaches!  Does that also make us vermin?

Heh  ;D You said it, and I think it's a valid if somewhat harsh point.

yes we are vermins haha. i've always favored animals to humans

Well, we're the only species I know of which is capable of wiping out whole groups of its own kind!

And of any other kind, indiscriminately and with as little regard as possible to the consequences. With the help of some ill-gotten money we can make certain the developing nations stay down and cheap and they can provide all the labour we need to live our materialistic "just add water lives". The ecosystem can just go hang too, because what do a few bugs, plants and animals matterwhen sacrificed to the great god Greed...  :P

Oops, ranting there a little bit. Sorry. Well, no I'm not.

You're probably preaching to the converted, but what the heck!  We all need a place to let off a bit of steam!

I didn't get the patch but I use admire to build up friendships all the time and have never had a problem with jealousy over it. Of course, I have tons of hacks and mods, but I don't have any that touch jealousy as I find that too unrealistic.

I don't kill non-biting bugs, except earwigs... then again, I don't live in a place where roaches are common.

Earwigs can actually give a very nasty bite!

ewww, really?

I knew there was a reason I hated them so much.

Oh yes, but they don't crawl into ears. Not unless you lie on the ground outside in damp leaf litter regularly...  ;)

Other eco rant due to severe pissy mood. Sigh. Too much info caused rage and frustration.  :-[