That was my experience as well.  I didn't pull the MTBF figure of 6 hours completely out of my ass.

 - Gus

When I was in school, they didn't let us eat lunch in class.  Even if we had skipped breakfast that morning, and thus in Sims terms were "halfway to starvation."

 - Gus

I'm assuming they will still grow old and die, though.

Uh-oh.

Of course, it's vaguely worded enough that it's not clear what changed.  Maybe raw apples and watermelons still work, but cooked food doesn't.  Maybe Cobbler and Pancakes still work.  French Toast and Eggs Machiavelli were traps for players who didn't know the rules.

Testing must ensue.

Parthenogenesis was always such a stupid idea that this fix is obvious.

 - Gus

"I learned how to make PB & J sandwiches today!  I are awesome cook!"

 - Gus

Not exactly.  While most sims have a minimum relationship level before they can Friendly Hug, and Friendies do not, they can't do Friendly Hug right off the bat.  They have to raise the "friendly" level of that specific conversation through repeated "Friendly" topics until it opens up.

I've yet to play a Schmoozer sim, but the Friendlies roll "Praise" wants all the time.  Which is why I'm wondering where it's hidden in the tree for non-Schmoozer sims.

It's apparent that certain options open up once a Sim knows the target has a specific trait.  I.e. a Sim can "Applaud Vegetarianism" once he knows the target is Vegetarian.

It's entirely possible that "Boast" is only available right after a skill increase, much like Announce Promotion requires a recent promotion.  Which is annoying, since my level-10 cook was rolling "Boast about cooking" wants ever time he cooked a Perfect meal, which was all the time.

 - Gus

"Boast about..." - gardening, cooking, athletics.  Maybe more.  I've seen it, I know it exists, but it never seems to be available when a Sim actually wants to do this.  The reaction seems to be negative almost always, though I suspect Easily Impressed Sims like it.

"Praise" - I'm pretty sure this is a Friendly Sim only action, and probably one that requires that you be deeper in the Friendly tree.  Much the way "Friendly Hug" won't show up until you've been chatting for a while.  I don't recall ever seeing it, though.

The corresponding wishes come up often enough, but it's so unclear how you fulfill them that I've taken to deleting them as I see them.

 - Gus

Superior Equipment
Food made with top-of-the line equipment just has that superior flavor!
(From Fancy Fridge)

 - Gus

I just got the level-10 fridge reward, and I noticed almost right away that whoever programmed the moodlet screwed it up.

It's fairly clear from the description of the moodlet that the fridge is supposed to make food taste better.  It's supposed to give a short-lived +30 mood buff for eating food that was stored in the fridge, much like the cheapest fridge often gives the -10 "Tastes Like Fridge" moodlet.

That is not how it works, however.  Instead, the fridge has an aura.  Anyone in the same room with the fridge, including babies and toddlers, will get a 3 hour +30 moodlet just for being around it.  When it expires, it automatically renews if you're still near the fridge.  This is really apparent if you have a house design that does not partition the kitchen from the primary living area.

 - Gus

From a design point of view, I understand the reasoning.  Death is a fairly catastrophic outcome, particularly for something that is going to happen every time you light a fireplace that hasn't been fireproofed.  A long delay in which your Sims can't do anything useful is a penalty with far less significant long-term consequences.

I can appreciate that, even if I don't care for how accidental death is nearly impossible in TS3.  Deliberate death by fire, drowning, electrocution or other means, sure, but true accidental death is nearly unknown.  I'm surprised that Motoki managed it, but I didn't bother with fireplaces myself until recently because I find them a waste of space and money in real life.

I might feel differently if resurrection weren't so readily available.  Granted, true resurrection through Ambrosia requires significant effort, but the playable ghost opportunity comes up all the time.

 - Gus

Oh, sure, the bonus warmth moodlet is nice enough.  But I've completely given up on using them until you can upgrade them to Fireproof, because they seem to have a Mean Time Between Failures of about 6 hours.  Light a cozy little fire to cheer up your party guests and there's a virtually 100% chance the fireplace will disrupt the party with a house fire.

This is worse than those damned cleaning robots in Open For Business.

 - Gus

"The debate is still raging" my arse.  I've run 20+ gender-determinations and never had a problem, and there's no way it's restricted a single trimester / day.  I've always spaced my 4 servings of fruit over 2-3 days.  Not once have I fed them all at once.

You're referring to this:
Before they start to show, not after as you suggested.  Which is definitely false, since I've almost always started sex-determination when the bump shows in the 2nd trimester, which is when the Sims roll the gender preferences for spawn.

My guess?  There's a Heisenberg effect.  That is, performing the doctor gender-check forces the game to decide baby gender then, rather than at birth.  Next time I have a doctor in the family, I'll test this.

 - Gus

Let me clarify.  These were the pre-generated, colored ghosts that come with the neighborhood.  The ones who who have gravestones in the graveyard before you start playing.

- Gus

This is false.  You can eat the fruits (either type) any time during the pregnancy, from conception right up to delivery.  If it were the first trimester only, several of my gender-determination attempts would have failed.  The usual ways people fail at this are to not eat enough (you need 4 servings of fruit to guarantee a gender) or to eat things which contain the wrong fruit but which don't advertise it (Stu Surprise, French Toast, Eggs Machiavelli).

Pancakes and cobbler always contain fruit, but they say which fruit in the name (i.e. Apple Pancakes or Watermelon Pancakes).

 - Gus

I was looking at the graveyard, just prior to sending a Sim to visit it.  I wanted to see if a particular ghost was up and about.  She was... but she was "going home."  She and 2 other ghosts left the graveyard, summoned beater cars, and drove away.  She drove to a residential lot, got out of the car, and then vanished.

Apparently the dead own cars.  These were all Maxis pre-generated ghosts, not ghosts of Sims who died in game, but they appear to have home lots anyway.

 - Gus

I don't suppose her name was Soon-Yi...?

 - Gus

I'm slightly curious how a toddler manages to grow up badly.  I pay pretty much the minimum attention to them, only training them as the parents roll the relevant wants, dealing with them when they hit "warning" for food, social, or diapers, and otherwise just letting them do whatever they like.  Yet they all grow up well, and I always get the Trait-choosing dialog.  Getting "grow up well" has been so easy I've assumed you had to deliberately stunt them to get "grow up badly."

- Gus

This is good to know as well.  So there's no point in trying to make a Sim happier if it won't bring the mood over 100, but there definitely is a point once you can push it that high.  Since you also start to accumulate Lifetime Points once you're over 100, this is just another reason to shoot for that mark.

Couch Potato may be one of the most powerful traits out there, since it's pretty easy to get +40 mood from comfort if you're a potato.

 - Gus

Designers are, by and large, stupid and innumerate.  I speak from first hand experience.  Even ones who are famous seem to have no grasp at all of basic concepts like this, unless they come from a programming background.  Which almost none of them do, particularly the underling assistant designers who are almost always recruited out of QA.

I'd lay very long odds indeed that the idiot in question saw the 2.0, thought it meant +200%, and then changed it to 0.5 thinking it meant +50%.  And then never tested the change.  Besides being innumerate, the concept of testing fixes tends to escape them as well.

Programmers make hideous mistakes as well, usually out of laziness.  Like creating a fixed-size array to track objects which do not have a defined upper limit on the number than can appear on a map.  But they're far less likely to make this particular kind of mistake.

 - Gus

I'm curious how mood effects skill gains, if at all.  Sure the games says high mood improves skill gains, but we know EAxis lies.

Possible answers:
1. Not at all.
2. In a granular way.  I.e. being in the "elated" zone gives a bonus, but anything less does not.
3. In a formulaic way, so every point of mood counts.

 - Gus

It's almost certainly an internal communication problem.  The programmer who implemented this detail and the designer who altered the XML thought the variable meant different things.  This is common in game development.

 - Gus

All sims get a host of extra Funny options if the humor level of the conversation is high enough.  Just as there are levels to Romantic and Friendly, there are Funny actions that open up only if you've done enough Funny actions without doing anything else in between.

The issue is that most Sims can't get the Funny level up without boring their target until they get Amusing Greet from Charisma.


Yeah, I have no intention of ever creating a Sim with that trait.  Difficulty is all very well, but deliberate queue-stomping isn't challenging, it's bloody annoying.

 - Gus

Ah.  I missed the phone interaction, since I pretty much never use the phone for anything but inviting Sims into the home lot.  It's useful that you can have Scotty beam you up.  If you're going to use the teleporter at all, that is, since I still regard it as a huge cheat.  I'm not a big fan of things that remove challenge from the game, though I'm still using more mundane lifetime rewards like "fast learner," "opportunistic," and "multitasker."

 - Gus

I've completed testing.  Bikes simply suck.

Also, I fooled around with the teleporter, which I avoided previously as a cheat.  I'm not sure what you mean about "phone delays," since in my tests Sims simply walked into the teleporter and reached their destination directly.

Using the "teleport to..." interaction on the teleporter is a bad idea.  You can get a lot more precision by moving the camera where you want, clicking on the ground, and selecting "teleport here."  This puts you at the front door of the shop instead of the back.  I sent late kids to school that way a few times after getting them cleaned and fed, choosing the spot right in front of the school doors.  It's also handy (if you care to use the object at all) for teleporting right next to a target Sim on a remote lot, for questy-type things which require that you talk to a specific Sim.

 - Gus

I've never seen that one.  Have baby, have boy, have girl, have baby with spouse, but no first baby.  And as I said, they never roll any of them until I've primed the pump.

I almost always keep one slot free for short-term, immediate gratification wishes.  Losing a few points seems like a fair trade for the 6 hour "fulfilled" buff you can get for doing something trivial like making the bed.  +15 at least, and often +25 or more if you get a string of easy wishes like hugs, kisses, etc.

 - Gus

I've simply never seen it come up until I force them to start spawning.  I'm on generation 7, so there must be something I'm doing systematically which makes it unlikely.

 - Gus