Yeah, I noticed that Pescado is having fun with haikus in lots of threads.  It really made me crack up, and my request for all support to come in haiku form was in jest.  Although I actually do like your idea of answering stupid BBS questions in haiku.  It would do wonders for the MATY reputation, I imagine.  People would be even more afraid of us (as in, "What is up with those people and their weird poems?  I asked four questions there and all I got were haiku answers...I don't think I'm going back there")

When playing catch mean sims will sometimes try to peg the other sim with the ball, but I don't think they lose any relationship.  It's pretty funny to watch.

I was kidding....

That's right, and I'd better not see this in any other forums either or I'm never telling any of you my ideas ever again and I'll have a big tantrum.


Playing!  I hate building and decorating.  I am also missing the previously mentioned gene that allows for decoration and pretty handwriting.  Creating sims is fun though.

I always play walls down although once they are rich enough I'll buy some of the items that they absolutely MUST HAVE RIGHT NOW OMG!11!!! including paintings.  If they don't roll a want for a deco item then they don't get any.  I am interested in the interactions, the story telling, the "personality" of each sim, and the genetics more than anything else.

I love the genetic aspect, that is one of the most fun parts, although sometimes I get bored and drop a family or a hood to create some more interesting sims.

I do tend to make lots of hoods although I play only one or two at a time.  When I get sick of the hood I'm playing I'll usually just dump it and start fresh.  I do build all of my own lots typically because most Maxis homes suck for playability and I loved the downtown lots but so many of them are stupid seasons disasters waiting to happen.  I guess it didn't occur to them when they were building bernard's botanical dining that one day there might be lightning hitting those trees poking out through the giant hole in the roof...Plus it's annoying when non playables are constantly doing the it's raining indoors action.

I love the relationships, but for the most part I let the sims and ACR decide who they will be with.  Sometimes I will plan two sims to marry even if they have no bolts or one is a family sim and one is a romance sim just to mess things up a bit and make it more interesting.  I also enjoy the skilling and climbing of the corporate ladder though.  The way I play each sim tends to depend on their asp and inclinations that they have shown me.  A sims aspiration is determined by personality and family more than anything else (a really outgoing sim will usually be popularity or romance) but sometimes I will mix it up for variety.  I guess it just seems more real to me that most sims will aspire to do what their personality indicates but with some deviation from that rule.  It can be really interesting to play an incredibly shy, serious, mean romance sim or a really lazy, messy family sim.  I like mean sims as pleasure in particular because I think that mean and self-absorbed go together well.

Lately I have been going to a lot more community lots because I've figured out how to build really small, efficient, playable lots that don't take quite as long to load.

Desert in the middle of nowhere.  Always.

I never did before, but after downloading Dewshine's Enayla's One Series I absolutely had to create an alien hood.  I haven't actually started really playing it yet because I generated a townie pool and none of them used the decustomized skins, so I blew up the hood and did it again and the second time they all generated s1-s4 skins (I am really mad) so I am going to blow it up again and make all of my townies in CAS.  But I am really looking forward to my first themed hood.  The idea alone brought me out of a simpotence streak that began when I realized that I hated every sim in my other custom hood.

Depends on the family.  My snotty stuck up rich families are less likely to get a pet, and if they do a single cat is the limit, typically I only let them have one child as well.  I almost never play with dogs because I don't like them IRL, but they do have some really cute toddler interactions that I love.

I usually have aliens in my regular hood, I've always loved green skinned simmies.  To be honest I've never bothered with any of the other creatures, but once my new freaky hood is up and running I plan to have several of each.

Harder is better.  I have most of the director's cut, I think I only took out three or four hacks (traditional marriage, no fraternization...I forget what else I took out).  I like harder jobs a lot!  I also have ACR, insim (although I pretty much just use it as a second opinion for ACR's preg scanner since I had a few probems with ACR's day after pill not working and ACR thinking it worked...Hmm, now that I think about it that's a pretty large file for a second opinion).  I use the kitten killer because I like my teens to have consequences if they are going to be having sex, and it can create a really interesting and unexpected storyline.  I love when something one of my sims does totally throws off my plans and then I have to shuffle to cope with the unanticipated.  Although easier on me is better too, macrotastics and similar allow me to do repetitive things in fewer clicks which I like.  Macro-clean is the best sims invention ever because I no longer have to search my entire house for that one last dirty plate that the sim left in the upstairs bedroom for some weird reason.

Tons and tons of skins (Enayla, trill, cardassian, and default replacements as well as a few skintones between the defaults to make more realistic looking offspring).  A fair amount of custom hair, but I'm always looking for more.  LOTS of eyes.  A handfull of objects and a few wall and floor coverings.  I think the largest one group of CC I have is clothes.  For years I didn't use any CC clothes but in the last few months I can't seem to download enough of it. And I'm still not happy.  I NEEEEED moar clothes!  ::goes off to download stuff::  Oh, and a growing collection of accessories.  I've gotten really into earings lately.


I create eyes sometimes, and I was working on some fantasy skins until I found Enayla's beautiful jewel encrusted wonders and I realized that I would never create anything half as pretty so I burninated my embarassments.  I don't share them because you would all mock me.  Similarly I doubt you will ever see a screen shot with any of my creations in them either.  I is shy dammit!

By the way, your responses to this thread should look like mine in length and content.  Or I'll throw another tantrum. 

No instant loves is a life saver!
Morriganrane, I have always felt that the romance sims are exactly that in and out of love type.  The ones who want the fairy tale romance with their one true love are family sims.  Once they get a crush they typically just want romantic interactions with that one, once they fall in love they typically want to get engaged.  Mine also pretty consistantly roll wants involving their spouse that range from talking to kissing/woohoo.  That seems to cover the true romance type of sim pretty well for me.

Ok, thank you everyone for your help!  It just seemed so strange that only those three sims had relationships and only with each other.  Sadorandom again, I guess.
And Pes, I thoroughly enjoyed your poem.  Is it possible for you to permanently craft all of your responses to game problems in haiku form?

Ok, so I started up a brand new custom hood last night, generated some townies, and built my simmies a house.  I played them for less than one sim day and I was paying careful attention to who came on the lot because I was hoping some of them would use my newly decustomized skins.  This morning I went into simPE to check out all of the townies to see if ANY of them used my custom skins (stupid sadorandom!) and I noticed that three townies had friendships in the 60/30 range.  A woman, a man, and a child.  The man did come onto my sims lot during play but the woman and the child did not so I don't see how any of them could even know each other.  None of my other townies show relationships with each other or even know each other yet (which is what I expected).  I was wondering if this was normal or if my new hood is already borked. 

There's another keg from SimSlice available in booty:  http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/booty/simslice/objects/
I enjoy this keg but some people have had some bad experiences with this, apparently.  I think I've heard people saying they saw their sims trying to flirt with siblings/parents/etc when drunk.  I haven't seen this but I really only use the keg in lots with singles as I don't think a keg is really something that sims with children would keep around the house.

I also would enjoy a permanent make fun of bad stories thread. 

An absolutely gripping read.  I knew this was going to keep me on the edge of my seat.  This one seemed like it was trying to be boring.
A Perfect Fate was just amazing.  I mean, it's like the "author" went out of the way to make the dialouge sound fake.  How could the writer not have noticed that *no one talks that way*?  At first I thought it must be written by someone who doesn't speak English as their first language, but then I noticed they were from the US.  Dammit!  We already have more than enough going on right now to make us look stupid, why are these people making it worse?!

I am obsessed with Orwell, particularly 1984.  You made me giggle very loudly. 
Oh bother, now I have to find some horrific story in order to get away with this previously low content post.
(Runs to the exchange...20 seconds later)
Ok, this one is pretty bad.  The tag line for the story is "She almost married a man who raped a sixteen year old girl".  The "author" is kind enough to let us know that some of her characters are from other stories she has written, but (thank goodness) s/he assures us that we don't need to have read that story to follow this one.  Basically the main character meets a man through the gypsy, immediately woohoos him and OMG! now she's pregnant.  Then she tells him and he asks her to marry him, horray!  But then he steals some of her food and she tells him she will kill him so he throws food at her.  The best part is the amazing plot twist when (under the alter as they are about to get married) he tells her that he raped a 16 year old girl last year.  Oh, and by the way, she has twins  (suprise suprise). 
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=168207&searchPage=exch&search=1&asset_type=story&key=rape&order=UPDATE_DATE+desc&nrows=5&storyCat=&locality=&country=&view=new&hideFramework=&languageCode=

This emotional tale of teen pregnancy features a stripper mom (who previous to this story was a pregnant teen who's husband tried to kill her, but don't worry now he's in jail).  This one just wins for the line "Sadly, all i could do was a fill-out-send-in pregnancy tester. I filled it out, and mailed it in."  What planet is this person living on?  I mean....just WTF?!  Oh yeah, she also experienced "severe child birth". 
http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=160652&searchPage=exch&search=1&asset_type=story&key=pregnant+teen&order=UPDATE_DATE+desc&nrows=5&storyCat=&locality=&country=&view=new&hideFramework=&languageCode=

I read the comments in the hijab thread and found a few links there, thought I'd post them, but I can't vouch for what any of it looks like in game.

This one is billed as modest clothes for your sim, they aren't religious but they are definitely modest.  There are only a few downloads here:  http://shokoladnyj.narod.ru/

This one has tons of mostly period specific clothing (some of the Roman stuff and almost all of the Victorian and middle ages type stuff are conceiling. The santa lucia dress and the accolade dress look sort of religious to me, but I know nothing about religion so that is based entirely on my own set of mental stereotypes:  http://www.modthesims2.com/creator/alexasrosa

I found this one by searching MTS2 for "modest":  http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=235807
The last one requires a mesh so I followed the link to that creator's area.  Turns out the creator was the person who made the better looking hijab akatonbo mentioned, but she also has *tons* of modest clothes, saris, and shalwar kameezs (es?) as well as some other ethnic clothes, here's a direct link to her profile: http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=10452

I hope that at least some of this is helpful! 

I just spent hours decustomizing CC thanks to this thread.  I went through almost 200 files and I have a lot of work left to do.  I hate you all.
Also, it's usually so hard to find normal looking clothes for men, but fanseelamb at MTS2 has some great stuff, including the untucked stuff (if you like the untucked shirts you can still use them with normal Maxis pants, but the pants won't look normal with Maxis tops).  And the sheer amount of downloads she has virtually guarentees you'll find at least *something* you like:  http://www.modthesims2.com/member/fanseelamb

I don't think that the personalities usually make a noticable difference in skilling.  That is not to say that I don't believe that there is a difference, I do.  I just don't usually pay attention to them when they are skillinating because it frees me to do something more interesting with another sim.  I have never had any difficulty getting a sim to max all skills, but if I bother or not will depend on what their individual story is.

I agree about the frog prince.  That's the version of the story that I'm showing to my children one day instead of the shitty happily ever after with a guy who's only feature is being hot and rich (which is enough and women should be grateful for that much!)  What is really funny is that I have been doing the same thing with the stars! 

This might already be something you use but it sounds like relevant wages might help with the cheap mexican labor plan (if you don't already have it).

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,3821.0.html

Actually I tried them in game just now and they aren't just deco.  They also aren't animated fully.  They kind of move from square to square in a weird blip-y way.  But the best thing ever is the "say hello" to the chicken animation that the sim does.  It's a little chicken dance thing and it's pretty cute.  But overall I'd say that they suck.
The beer keg available in the parent directory (objects) is pretty funny though.  I had a visitor try to propose to the owner of my brothel which I enjoyed.  Good thing she said no!

http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/booty/simslice/objects/animals/

Ducks, swans, and OMFGpiggies!!!11!  And other cute aminals that you can love, cherish, and then eat.

What?!  I don't think it was terribly well put together.  1. Either choose a dress mesh for the female that doesn't make for such incredibly bad one sim going through the other effect or change them to naked (or shoot it from a perspective that doesn't show the male actually going through the skirt!).  2.  Editing problem, when she runs out angry near the end she's pregnant again for a few frames.  3. This doesn't really fit the category but it's still stupid, what's with the underwater shrubs?  Was the creator just *that* excited about moveobjects on?  Just because you can put something in the bottom of a pond doesn't mean that it looks good there.
Although I did think the smustle scene with just the mom and the son was kind of adorable.  But that's partially because the smustle is adorable.

The hills have eyes one was hysterical.  I liked the part with Bill.  Although I still think the winner for most complete incoherence is the weird murder one with the left nostril.  That one made my brain bleed the most so far.

Fix workstate has nothing to do with toddlers.  It is intended to repair the hit that a sim takes for missing work when the game resets due to a hack, EP, or patch install.  Did the father teach the toddler when the normal skilling began?  I know absolutely nothing and am totally non-awesome, but maybe something is messed up with the mother.

Parsimonious is the place that clothes my alien brothel girls.    I don't think I've seen Nouk mentioned yet.  I absolutely adore her hair styles (and they come properly binned) but her clothes are lovely too.  I couldn't live without her actually normal looking athletic wear.  There are 5 other creators on the site and what you like will be a matter of taste obviously.  Some of the other creators use pay meshes, but that's what booty is for.

I run the HCDU every so often (although I almost always know everything in my download's folder, what it effects, who made it, and what it does) and I keep my hacks seperate from my CC, but there is one thing that I do that no one else mentioned (maybe it's secretly bad and I didn't know about it).  When I unzip my new hack into my Amods folder in my downloads folder I also rename the RTFM or readme so that it has the same name except obviously .txt or .rtf.  That way if I do forget what a hack does I have the read me right next to it in the folder.  I prefer to keep my hacks loose in the Amods folder rather than seperating them by creator which I know sounds insane but I make sure that I have the creator's name and website url in the readme.  For CC items/hair/etc I sort by type and creator (Hair/InSim/Corrine for example) and include recolors made by other people in the same folder as the original creator of the mesh (with a readme titled the same with the creator of both the mesh and the recolor's URL just in case I have a problem with it).  The hack sorting method might sound disorganized but it works for me.  The only thing that I didn't think of is potential slowing of load times.  The game probably has to look in those readme files even though it doesn't actually use them in any way.  Still, I'd prefer longer load times because of a recent mishap.  I couldn't figure out why one of my hacks wasn't working all of the sudden so I opened up my downloads folder and had a look.  Within a minute I noticed one of my hacks had a readme but no .package file.  I must have deleted it the other day when I noticed that I had unintentionally put some clothing meshes into my hacks folder instead of my clothing folder and then thinking about it I decided they were ugly anyway so I deleted them instead of moving them.

The only want related hacks I have are awesome ones.  I have JM's life time want variety and woohoo lifetime want fix.  I also have the romance mod and the ACR but I don't think those impact wants.  Oh and the fight club (I know that makes fighting more desirable, but I'm not sure if it actually makes them roll fight related wants).  I try to keep a pretty close eye on my downloads folder, and the mods subfolder is only 21.3 MB.  I will admit to having a few non-awesome hacks, but those are standalone objects that shouldn't impact any globals.  Oh, and the kitten killer and insim, but those are pretty well tested with the awesome hacks that I have, so I doubt that they are the problem.

So I was using the townie tree earlier today to make a few new townies because I wanted my older hood to have at least *some* non-playables with my latest CC.  But I got an error that said something about wants being outside of the array.  I hit cancel, got the error again, hit reset and tried to make another townie.  Same error and once more.  So I exited without saving because I didn't want any borked townies running around.  But I don't know what I might have done to mess this up, last time I added new townies everything went fine.  Here are the logs.

I agree.  I wish that some of my sims had gender confusion or a desire to cross dress.  It would make my hood more interesting and diverse.  Would it be a VBT to attempt this manually by changing the "treat as" to female for a male in SimPE?

You need to delete that hood and try making a clean hood again.  The first time I tried I did it wrong, too.  I didn't read it carefully enough the first time and I skipped a step, when I reread it and tried again everything worked perfectly and I now have a hood with 30 townies, one of each type of NPC, four downtownies, and two grand vamps in addition to my playables.  Read the directions carefully.  Notownieregen and antiredundency work, there is clear evidence of this from the many users of this site (including me).  Perhaps the tuturial you are using isn't clear, I used this one:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=2e6c484c75aa0a6de1e7fbb0a27191ca&topic=5861.0

By the way, Jordi, I am your personal fan girl.