Toddlers can still gain charisma from the rhyme after learning it, by singing the rhyme to themselves, though I found the process of doing this manually - queuing up rhyme after rhyme - fairly tedious. (They also gain music enthusiasm - I kept at it long enough to get the toddler membership to the music lot, then let him have the rabbit)

And pictures on the drawing table can be grabbed and stuck on the wall, like paintings from the easel. I'm stashing them in the toddler responsible's inventory for now.

This isn't really 'new' - Maxis claiming custom content as their own, at least. (As for using third party tools ... well, you'd think they'd have the 'real' tools.) I read somewhere that a bunch of the clothes in Livin' Large were pretty much swiped from other people. (Whether those other people had a say in it or not, I don't know...) But there were hardly any credits attached, none that I could see.

I remember the C&C site, they were awesome. I went on a bit of a binge there, when I got Unleashed. They had so much cool stuff. (Heh. The 'interesting toilet' still cracks me up. "An object totally designed to meet Bob Newbie's taste! Our most sincere apologies!") C&C Enterprises.

For the alien eye the Sim must be already using the alien skin tone. The alien eye is in with the other eyes then, because the alien eye is actually more an absence of eye - the black eyes are painted on the skintone. I think it's a dark brown, the CAS eye 'thumbnail' I mean. It looks similar to the other Maxis eye thumbnails, which confused me at first.

I made a replacement Pollination Tech, some time ago though. I followed a tutorial like the one Gwill linked to. I've had several aliens born since with my new replacement, and it's awesome. One toddler shows promise towards becoming a future pollination technician. I've been thinking about having several Pollination replacements that I switch every generation or so, just to keep things from getting too 'inbred', though making pollination technicians from alien spawn seems more likely to have the opposite effect.

My current pollination tech's facial structure was taken from Starr Goth, offspring of Cassandra Goth and my previous pollination tech. When I lost that PT's replacement file, I made a new one from Starr.


What I'd love is a way to change the PT's hair colour to blond. The majority of my sims have black hair, brown and red competing equally for second - though most of the redheads are townies - but very few are blond. (Plus, I like the green/yellow combination.) Although, last I checked, the pollination technician didn't exactly have easily editable DNA like regular sims.

I think she wants him to live to a ripe old age -- but not too old. She clearly wants to be young enough to enjoy the inheritance.

Restarting hasn't worked for me, but it's been random whether or not I'll be hit with the "insert original" message. My first assumption was that it was because I was connected to the internet at the time - for the first few times, unplugging the network cable 'fixed' it. The third time I hadn't played in days, and I usually turn my computer off at night, so it was definitely the first time running it since restarting. I got the message, unplugged the cable, and got the message again. Well, that was it, I'd ruled the internet connection not responsible, and I was fed up. I went and found a no-CD crack. Ran on the first attempt. And the second. No lag other than what I'd expect for a large lot with 10 sims, and a low end computer. I haven't yet had much chance to see if it will continue to run as smoothly, but it's looking good so far.

Mostly, I create sims, in a very general sense, and play families spawned from those sims. My houses tend towards the minimalist, more a graphics concern than anything else. Walls down, all graphics set to the lowest setting, my focus tends more towards the 'plot' than the special effects, so to speak. Though there's not very much plot either, actually... I don't have many downloads, and most of the ones I do have are hacks, not clothes or objects.

The genetic aspect -- well, I'll admit, this version of the sims has held my interest for a lot longer than the first one. I routinely start various genetic 'experiments', though I jump around so much that I don't think I've even hit a second generation anywhere yet... (Also, I had an anti-aging hack in, which I have recently removed) Various experiments have included: Don Lothario + Woohoo = Baby. Don Lothario + 20 Woohoo LTW = 20 Babies... I made a couple in CAS, generated a child with a 'double jointed nose', and kept it - intending to breed from him later on, to see how long the nose sticks around. Another experiment is to see how many children one couple can have before they reach elder - begun shortly after I removed the anti-aging hack. I think at this point my best bet for seeing things through to another generation is to go for China rule. I'm not quite there yet, though. Closest I've come to multi-generational has been Don's family, some of his earlier kids have married/joined now, he has one baby grandchild and two more on the way.

I start new hoods for new experiments, things I don't want to subject my main hoods to. Like overpopulating with one generation of siblings. Obviously I can't always do that (Don Lothario, for instance) but I try. I also go through and delete hoods I haven't visited in a while, just to keep the scrolling through to a minimum.

My main focus with sims is fulfilling their LTWs, though I like to have each sim either run at least one business, or have business reward skills passed on by another. Reaching the tops of careers is always fun, though since the education career I haven't been very motivated to try for any of the other rewards. Maybe the paranormal one here, or the adventurer/journalist ones there, the occasional cowplant for fun, but the skilling ones don't quite seem as important anymore. When it comes to interactions with other sims, there's not generally much going on within the household. Parents teach their toddlers the toddler skills, teach their children to study, etc. But mostly social comes from phone calls.

The only community lots I visit are ones that are owned and run as businesses, and then only as the business owner. More of a 'takes too long to load' problem there. I'd love to be able to exploit the lack of time passing while there, I just don't have the patience to go anywhere if I don't have to.

I like to play the farming part, that hasn't changed since Unleashed (I was so disappointed that it wasn't included with Pets... In Unleashed, pets had something to /do/, not crappy jobs to unlock weird coat colours) so I suppose there's rural in that. And I don't exactly play the ultra modern, or anything. But my sims still have all the modern conveniences - flushing toilets, fully stocked kitchens, big screen TVs, expensive computers, sports cars, you know, the basics. I don't think that really fits under city, country, or suburban... They're sims, they live wherever it is that sims live.

I'm not really big on themes exactly, or pets. (Though invariably someone ends up adopting Bonkers...) But I do like the alien abductions and alien babies. Vampires, well, they can be fun. Especially when the 'designated telescope shover' is a vampire. That was hilarious. "You looked at my house, in the day, while I was in my coffin, in my windowless basement, where you could not possibly see me! I must come over and shove you, with complete disregard for my own safety! Oh, but look, the sun! I must flee!" (complete with the standard 'the sun, I must flee' message) Zombies, not so much... I have a couple of werewolves. (And played a pre-Seasons lot the other day with a crazy amount of trees... THAT was fun when Autumn rolled around) I wouldn't mind more, don't think I ever got a 'natural' werewolf transformation (or vampire, for that matter...) but things are fine the way they are. Plantsims are pretty neat, though I had to cut back on that, as I couldn't tell them apart any more.

I would say, hack-wise, I like to make my game simpler. And less stupid. Mostly the less stupid. I have a lot of MATY hacks. A fair few of Inge's. And, yes, insim. (Though not inteen) and I've already mentioned my lack of custom content. Though I am quite fond of much of Mermaid Cove. Especially the subtle make-up, and hints of lipstick. I don't create anything, but am in awe of those who do.

Huh. I just went over and took another look - I hadn't checked since my game crashed, and that was a few days ago now - the download has been updated with a 'fixed' version. Awesome. (Hopefully!)

...

Finally! MTS2 didn't want to let me download them. But I have them now. Woo!

Hate to drag this back on topic, sort of, but I'm having a bit of a problem with the linked downloads. I went ahead and got the ones I have expansions for, and so on. But the game completely locked up on me twice, no crash, no errors (I run with debug mode on), just frozen - both when a female sim tried to spin into her career outfit. (Science career, research assistant, I believe...) The first time, she was pregnant, but hadn't bumped yet, and the carpool had just arrived. The second time she was not pregnant, as I hadn't saved recently enough, and I sent her to the dresser to change right after getting the job, though she had the same problem. Game froze, like it was busy, only nothing happened.

I have taken them out now, because I don't have the patience to figure out which are career meshes and which aren't. It may be a hack conflict, as I didn't see much when I looked through the MTS2 thread, but still...

If it helps any, I was using the thing with the Seasons version of Squinge's hack - which was put in specifically for this set of meshes, an 'adult clothes for elders' hack, and a 'Maxis clothes as outerwear' hack, as well as a 'buyable work/NPC clothes' hack, which I took out before the second time, and still had the same problem.

On the subject of teachers, for woodwork I had Mr. Carpenter and my brother had Mr. Pine. The school only had two woodworks teachers.


However, earlier, I'd gone to school with a guy whose surname was Kerr. Not a bad name by itself, there are Kerrs in my family tree.

But his first name was Wayne.

When I got my kitten, a year ago, I also bought him a scratching post thing (that very much resembles the kitty condo, actually) with things hanging from it, and all the cats would do was scratch the post and bat at the hanging things.

That is, until we wanted to take one to the vet just last morning. Searched for him for quite some time, looking in his usual spots, fearing he'd snuck out to try and get something to eat (having been denied food since 10pm, as he was going in for a bit of an operation) ... Finally found him in the hut part at the base of his scratching post thing. And he did not want to leave.

Cats.

I do wish that Sim cats would use the condo more. I seem to recall that being the only bedding I gave them in Unleashed, and they used it (I don't recall them sleeping on the floor and getting in the way, anyway) -- sometimes I like to give Sims more than one cat (I like the way cats interact with each other, friendly or otherwise) and I'd prefer to just buy one condo, instead of multiple pet beds. I do have, and use, those one-tile pet beds, but still...

This is kind of random, but the 2 and the 6 should be swapped. The opposite sides of a D6 always add up to 7. (All of my D6s follow this rule, at least...)

Really, you don't.

During one song, the cat made noises... As if he was in pain.

I'm confused... Nothing to do with Celebrations, but why do we get the US version? I would've thought we'd get the UK version. If that's the case, why are there even separate versions for UK and US? It can't be because of the difference in language, as we tend to follow the UK in that department.

Lately, I've only been using the Triplets and Quads mod (non-random version) to change twins to singles, if I feel like there are too many sims in the house already. I play without any 8 sim limits, but lately I've never had more than three or four to a house. (Ever since my failed Don Lothario Woohoo=Baby experiment. He did meet his Woohoo LTW though, and had two sets of twins...)

Found here at Mod the Sims 2. (Quote above is from post #6 in that thread)

For lower video cards, edit it into the 'Low' settings -- this is something I've had to do, because for some crazy-stupid reason my computer stretches 800x600 out until it is wider than my monitor. But that was the only resolution the game would let me use.

Teen to 35 - increase deaths.

I play with aging slowed down, I basically turn it off completely until I feel like growing the younger sims up. (Usually when they've maxed all available skills, or have enough for scholarships, or I'm just plain sick of looking at them) I try to keep everyone around the same age level, but this means my adults/elders are around forever. I rarely have an old age death, I'm still playing Mortimer Goth and Olive Specter. 

More deaths would be interesting. But, I'm too cautious a player to initiate them. I keep their motives up, so motive-related deaths are generally harmless. I send them inside when their temperature gauge gets to either the extreme low or extreme high, and have them warm up or cool down as quickly as possible. I stick smoke alarms in the kitchen, in whatever room I've stuck the fireplace, and on the outside walls - just in case. (Though lightning fires inevitably get put out by the rain, which is neat) And only recently have I started playing with free will on. (I'll turn it off when I need them to do something specific, but 90% of the time I leave it on)

It was. The clone 'disappeared' when it left the lot, I think. I vaguely remember that being somehow buggy, one time the clone of one of my other Sims wound up with the surname 'Newbie', as if it lived in that household... Any actions it performed to affect the relationship with other Sims seemed to affect your Sim's relationship with those same Sims.

I liked the 'Monster' potion on that. I'd lock them in a room with only easels, and they'd go nuts painting. But don't let them near anything breakable, or it'd all wind up broken!

What else was there? Love potion... Invisibility... Mood boost... (I forgot the others... Google to the rescue!) Mood drop. Reverse personality (How could I forget the fun I had with that? Making a no-personality Sim and maxing them on that.) And the one that cured sickness.

I was so excited to see the Science career reward, but it turned out not to be the same. I miss the Sims 1 version.

So it won't break my game, or anything? Alright then. Glad I don't have to stop hiring gardeners.

Here's a question, can NPCs become PlantSims? I noticed my gardener spraying my plants... Should I fire and stop hiring gardeners, or can they spray without consequence?

Also, can Servos become PlantSims, and is this a BadThing?

Of four spawned Plantsims, I've gotten: Rose's daughter. Rose's husband's daughter. (Made him a plantsim too) And then those daughters had a daughter and a son respectively. So I think gender is as random as any birth.

PlantSims can breed like normal sims, if you want to go that route. I gave her another plant kid, another girl, and in the end I just stuck make-up on both her daughters, different on each. (Rose stays 'natural' in my game) I also only have Rose in the 'Plantsim' outfit, to help tell them apart. If you don't want them to be too un-plantlike, I think there are some green eyeshadows and green lipstick, for makeup...

I may have to try that...

Is there any post anywhere that has the weather machine's likelihood for failure, and/or failure outcome(s)?
I've been sending green (I *think* they were green, never really paid much attention) Sims to use it, with no adverse affect. May just be luck, with the random thing.

I could think of a few Sims who wouldn't mind adopting a plantsim. Family/Knowledge couples most likely. Or non-Family couples who want to skip the whole childhood/teen/college bit. Point was, I couldn't see a drawback.

I just thought it interesting that elder plantsims can still reproduce.