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baratronThe reason why Richard was commenting on the sexuality of my sims was that I've been working on my first Sims 2 story.
Thanks to some advice from someone on a Sims site, I've completely redone Chapter 1 - I've added 36 more photos and a whole load more plot. There is now delicious, chewy angst! I think the entire plot is a bit teenage girly, but it is a college story, so maybe that's acceptable. Constructive criticism welcome, though you don't need to tell me that all the outside shots are a bit dark. Believe me, I know! I spent ages fiddling with the lighting, trying to adjust it for each shot to light up the sims' faces while keeping the lights themselves out of shot. As it is, I think there are a few continuity errors - but you can probably ignore them? My new rule is "Never have a party outside in the dark". But the house these sims lived in at college wasn't big enough for the party to just be inside, and I didn't want to have to reshoot the entire story in another house. (In retrospect, it would've been easier if I had. Oh well).
A sneak preview of Chapter 2 is here. See if you can guess what's going to happen. All the photos are done (I think), I just need to string them into order and write some text to go round them.
These photos are entirely done within The Sims 2 - no Photoshop or similar programs have been used. Just the Sims 2 cameraman mode :) There's a lot of flexibility in it once you hit TAB - you can move the shot forward & backwards & left & right using the cursor keys, up & down with Q and E (whose stupid idea was it to use Q? HOW many times have I accidentally quit the game now?!), and zoom in and out with + and -. Practice can get you some amazing screenshots.
However, not all these photographs are genuine gameplay shots. I've used the advice of experienced storytellers and made liberal use of the boolprop Testing Cheats (built into the game as a programmers' tool), a hacked object called Merola's Mind Control Mirror that lets you control non-family members for a short time, and Paul's Reaction Tester to set up certain facial expressions. Even then, there's a certain amount of luck to getting 3 or 4 sims to all be doing what they're supposed to be doing at the same time.
The story itself is nowhere near perfect. I've run through that party scene more than 10 times to try to get the best shots (Poor Mitch had to faint 6 times before I'd got a complete set of pictures!). Actually, the photos you see here aren't necessarily the best individual shots, but they're the most coherent set. I could've put in better photos if I didn't care about continuity, but I do :) I'm really annoyed that I missed Max & Peyton's kiss - you can tell this by my comment on photo 17. What happened was that I took a lovely shot of them kissing with Mitch running across ready to slap, then managed to delete it with the stupid trashcan thing in TS2 that doesn't delete the right photos half the time. Argh. Having done it 10 times already, my actors and I were all too frustrated to try that any more.
I also managed to delete a beautiful shot of Mitch playing the guitar behind his back that was just perfect. Nothing to do with the story, but it was a great shot - he was looking at me and pouting so prettily, and I managed to get the camera angle just right and zoom all the way in. All you spiky-haired-boy-lovers would've drooled - I know I did. But then the stupid trashcan deleted it, and I hadn't yet copied all these photos over to my backup Storytelling folder. Gah. Have to try to set that up again, except it won't be the same...
Seriously, if you notice any continuity errors or if there're any bits that could've been said better, tell me. I have Max speaking in American phrasing because his college jock clothing says that to me - so there's a "gotten" in there! (It just seemed natural for him to be to saying "gotten" rather than "got" the first time, although I managed to suppress it the second time - should I change that?). Mitch I'm unsure about - I don't think he's any nationality in particular. Payton speaks in British slang, hence his use of "snog", which is very English. My sims don't live in the real world, so they don't "come" from a particular country - and even if they did, there's no reason they have to come from the same country?
Hmm, well - bed now.
Thanks to some advice from someone on a Sims site, I've completely redone Chapter 1 - I've added 36 more photos and a whole load more plot. There is now delicious, chewy angst! I think the entire plot is a bit teenage girly, but it is a college story, so maybe that's acceptable. Constructive criticism welcome, though you don't need to tell me that all the outside shots are a bit dark. Believe me, I know! I spent ages fiddling with the lighting, trying to adjust it for each shot to light up the sims' faces while keeping the lights themselves out of shot. As it is, I think there are a few continuity errors - but you can probably ignore them? My new rule is "Never have a party outside in the dark". But the house these sims lived in at college wasn't big enough for the party to just be inside, and I didn't want to have to reshoot the entire story in another house. (In retrospect, it would've been easier if I had. Oh well).
A sneak preview of Chapter 2 is here. See if you can guess what's going to happen. All the photos are done (I think), I just need to string them into order and write some text to go round them.
These photos are entirely done within The Sims 2 - no Photoshop or similar programs have been used. Just the Sims 2 cameraman mode :) There's a lot of flexibility in it once you hit TAB - you can move the shot forward & backwards & left & right using the cursor keys, up & down with Q and E (whose stupid idea was it to use Q? HOW many times have I accidentally quit the game now?!), and zoom in and out with + and -. Practice can get you some amazing screenshots.
However, not all these photographs are genuine gameplay shots. I've used the advice of experienced storytellers and made liberal use of the boolprop Testing Cheats (built into the game as a programmers' tool), a hacked object called Merola's Mind Control Mirror that lets you control non-family members for a short time, and Paul's Reaction Tester to set up certain facial expressions. Even then, there's a certain amount of luck to getting 3 or 4 sims to all be doing what they're supposed to be doing at the same time.
The story itself is nowhere near perfect. I've run through that party scene more than 10 times to try to get the best shots (Poor Mitch had to faint 6 times before I'd got a complete set of pictures!). Actually, the photos you see here aren't necessarily the best individual shots, but they're the most coherent set. I could've put in better photos if I didn't care about continuity, but I do :) I'm really annoyed that I missed Max & Peyton's kiss - you can tell this by my comment on photo 17. What happened was that I took a lovely shot of them kissing with Mitch running across ready to slap, then managed to delete it with the stupid trashcan thing in TS2 that doesn't delete the right photos half the time. Argh. Having done it 10 times already, my actors and I were all too frustrated to try that any more.
I also managed to delete a beautiful shot of Mitch playing the guitar behind his back that was just perfect. Nothing to do with the story, but it was a great shot - he was looking at me and pouting so prettily, and I managed to get the camera angle just right and zoom all the way in. All you spiky-haired-boy-lovers would've drooled - I know I did. But then the stupid trashcan deleted it, and I hadn't yet copied all these photos over to my backup Storytelling folder. Gah. Have to try to set that up again, except it won't be the same...
Seriously, if you notice any continuity errors or if there're any bits that could've been said better, tell me. I have Max speaking in American phrasing because his college jock clothing says that to me - so there's a "gotten" in there! (It just seemed natural for him to be to saying "gotten" rather than "got" the first time, although I managed to suppress it the second time - should I change that?). Mitch I'm unsure about - I don't think he's any nationality in particular. Payton speaks in British slang, hence his use of "snog", which is very English. My sims don't live in the real world, so they don't "come" from a particular country - and even if they did, there's no reason they have to come from the same country?
Hmm, well - bed now.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 09:15 am (UTC)also you probably want to decide on peyton or payton as a spelling rather than using both of them ;-)
but: heart-warming tale. and cute boys snogging ;-)
-m-
no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 09:47 pm (UTC)Part 1: General moans about The Sims 2 University
OK, I love the Sims 2 University expansion pack. But there is much to dislike about the 3 universities portrayed in Sims 2 University, starting with the sheer Americanism of it (fraternities & sororities, cheerleaders, annoying college mascots in costumes, grades where 4.0 is the maximum - what's wrong with the universal A, B, C, D, E system?). I know that Maxis is based in the US and its programmers would be most familiar with the American system, but I was surprised how utterly American it was. If I didn't already have friends who have attended university in the US, I would have had no clue what a "4.0" grade was supposed to mean.
For some reason, they chose to have 11 majors. The choice of subjects is woefully lacking: Art, Drama, Literature, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Political Science, Economics, Mathematics, Physics and Biology. No Engineering, no Medicine, no Modern Languages, no Geography, no Archeology, no... I am particularly confused by the fact they have Philosophy, Psychology, History and Political Science and Economics - I don't think Political Science is needed at all. And naming the two science track subjects "Biology" and "Physics" is offensive to me as a chemist, not least of all because the Sims 1 contained a chemistry set which was one of the best items in the game! - I'd have called them "Life Sciences" and "Physical Sciences". Or even "Science" and "Engineering". Huh. (It is, btw, obvious to me that someone reasonably high-up at Maxis was a biochemist in a past life, because the jokes in the class names are hilarious.)
Anyway, the reason I say 11 majors makes no sense is that each of the majors in University is supposed to be matched to a particular career path in the main game. So, as you noticed, someone who studied Physics should probably go on to become a Scientist. However, there are 10 careers in the original game plus 4 new careers in the expansion pack. So, rather than matching each major to one career, they "matched" them to three. Achieving a high grade in the degree is supposed to bump the sim up the career ladder in any of the "matched" careers. In practice, this doesn't really work too well.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 09:48 pm (UTC)The main issue is the skill system in Sims 2. The 7 skills are: Cooking, Mechanical, Charisma, Logic, Body, Creativity and Cleaning. They are all learned skills and any sim can in theory max out any of the skills. However, some sim personalities find it easier to learn some skills than others, e.g. very Outgoing sims learn Charisma more easily than very Shy sims. (The difference is like a 10% boost or decrease in rate, not something that would be too annoying in gameplay).
What they have done with the 11 majors is to make it so that your sim requires a moderate skill level in 4 out of the 7 skills for each major. But, in the real world, almost all academic subjects require Logic and/or Creativity, while practical subjects like creative arts & lab sciences also require Mechanical and/or Body. Cooking & Cleaning are virtually irrelevant, and Charisma is important only at the high levels, when you're applying for funding or speaking at conferences. To me, it would make sense just to work on the skills that are actually relevant to the career in real life - so a Physicist would need high Logic (8 or 9), high Mechanical (7 or 8), and moderate Creativity (3 or 4). An Artist would need high Creativity (8 or 9), high Mechanical (7 or 8), and moderate Body (3 or 4).
But they haven't done that. Presumably to try to make sure that the different majors "feel" different to the players, they've picked a somewhat arbitrary collection of skill points that the sims must achieve in order to maximise the academic potential bar so that their performance in class & term papers counts for something. (Does that make sense? I could show you what I mean on the screen in about 5 minutes of gameplay, but it sounds horrendously complicated in print). Thus, to graduate with a high grade in Physics, you need Mechanical 5, Logic 4, Cleaning 4 and Creativity 3 (Yeah, right!). As they've forced the Cooking and Cleaning skills in, and picked a daft number of subjects, then the actual match-up of majors to careers is, unsurprisingly, also a bit daft.
So, Drama major (which Mitch did) matches best to Show Business, and also to Politics and Athletics. A job came up in Show Business on the first day, so I put him in that obvious career. Physics major (which Max did) matches best to Science, and also to Medicine and the Paranormal. The reason why he ended up in Medicine was basically because of a combination of a) There weren't any Science jobs on the first day they moved in, b) I'm utterly sick of the Science career track because one of the other Maxis premade families, the Curious family, has 3 guys who are all Scientists (http://pics.livejournal.com/baratron/pic/00027tt1/g9), and the job titles are entirely unchanged from Sims 1, and most of my Sims 1 sims were Scientists! and c) I didn't think Max was the sort of person who'd enjoy Paranormal. He's a bit too level-headed to deal with the woo-woo, and I'm planning to put another student, who interestingly enough grew up in a household with an extensive graveyard & lots of ghosts, through the Physics major & then into the Paranormal career.
In further proof of Maxis' total misunderstanding, I present the fact that Mathematics major matches best to Natural Scientist (a Biology career if ever I saw one), and then to Science and Life Of Crime. Uh-huh. Not Politics or Business, then? No wonder governments have trouble making their numbers add up!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 10:39 pm (UTC)The 14 careers in TS2+TS2U are: Artist, Athletics, Business, Criminal, Culinary, Law Enforcement, Medicine, Military, Natural Science, Paranormal, Politics, Science, Show Business and Slacker.
These can be compared to the careers from The Sims 1:
Athletics, Business, Criminal, Entertainment, Law Enforcement, Medicine, Military, Politics, Science and X-Treme (stuntman) were in the basic game. The Livin' Large/Livin' It Up expansion pack added Hacker, Journalist,Musician, Paranormal and Slacker. Unleashed added Animal Care, Culinary, Circus, Fashion and Education. Obviously, to get Animal Care, you need to have animals in the game, or it doesn't make sense (I guess that'll be the 15th TS2 career?). The Education career was probably the most stupid one yet - you started as a kindergarten teacher and worked your way up to head of university. Um, yeah!
What I'd have done if I was writing The Sims 2 University would be to make sure that each career path in the game has a possible major or two in University, without overly loading some of the subjects. It seems only too obvious to me that 14 careers means 14 majors. A quick run-through gives me:
Artist <-- Art, Drama
Athletics <-- Sports Science
Business <-- Economics
Criminal <-- Psychology, Economics
Culinary <-- Food Technology/Nutrition, Art
Law Enforcement <-- Law?/History, Sports Science
Medicine <-- Medicine! or Life Sciences
Military <-- Sports Science, Psychology, History
Natural Science <-- Biology/Life Sciences
Paranormal <-- Psychology
Politics <-- Political Science/History, Philosophy, Drama
Science <-- Biology, Physics
Show Business <-- Drama
Slacker <-- Philosophy
Already, some of the subjects are looking overloaded - Psychology's in danger of becoming the uber-degree and boosting 5 or 6 careers, while Sports Science has become pretty much essential. I'd have realised that Natural Science was redundant as a career path when you already have Science and Medicine, and changed the 14th career to something entirely different. The obvious missing career from the list in TS1 is Journalist - that would take up the Literature major that they already wanted to include.
If I wanted to sit here all night, I could tweak the 14 majors so that each subject led directly into 1 career and indirectly into 2 more; and so that each career had a choice of 3 possible majors leading into it. A bit of time and a spreadsheet would sort out something that Maxis just didn't bother with.
Meh.
I should just rename Payton to something completely different. He's one of the precreated Townie sims with a stupid name, which is why I can't spell it. Almost all of my current sims are sims that came with the game, because I have to sort out their lives before I can make my own pixel people (yes, I'm weird - but I can't stand seeing sims suffering!), and for technical reasons to do with extreme bugginess and game corruption occuring when your Neighbourhood has too many sims in it, I'm trying to "use up" the existing sims before making lots of new ones. Interestingly, other Sims 2 players like to discuss "What YOU did with Characters X, Y and Z"... which has proven my belief that Pascal Curious & Nervous Subject more-or-less autonomously become partners, as some players who have admitted they don't generally have gay sims in their game have found them getting together. Some people have tried to make them straight & partnered them with women, but found they don't have much interest in their wives! I think they protest too much :)