graysonkp

[graysonkp]

I don’t get why people insist on monetizing Sims stuff. I get it, I’m struggling myself, but making Sims CC is not and never can be a job. You can take donations. You can take commissions. You can make YouTube videos when you show off your mods or gameplay. But this isn’t a job. It can’t be a job. That’s just not how this community is, because you’re not the only one struggling. If you need to spend your time making money, do that, but don’t make things worse for the community by trying to monetize unmontizable content. The internet isn’t an infinite cash cow, it’s a way to communicate.

A quick-ish guide to the culture of The Sims 2 modding community.

Are you new to The Sims 2 community? Are you coming from more modern games, either in The Sims franchise itself or other contemporary games? Are you excited to start your #brand and become a #simfluencer and post your #earlyaccesscontent to support your #sidehustle?

Have a seat, then! Let's chat.

Hello, friend! My name's Pooklet. I've been playing since 2004 and creating since 2007. I'm by no means an expert in most forms of content creation itself, but I've been around since the heyday of The Sims 2, I've watched how community opinions have shifted (or not) since practically the beginning, and I'm hoping to give you a basic outline of the community culture that you can expect to encounter as a newcomer.

A very brief history of Sims 2 content monetization:

People have been trying to monetize content since there has been content to monetize, all the way back in the days of The Sims 1. We tend to call them "pay creators" and their websites "paysites." Some big names in this arena include The Sims Resource (their free-with-ads model is a relatively recent development, which is why you will find people to this day calling them T$R), PeggySims, Newsea, and many others that you can find on this handy website:

Paysites Must Be Destroyed

Now, if you have a glance at that website, you might be saying to yourself:

"But, that's illegal! I own the copyright to my custom content!"

Alas, no! Due to the wording of the End User License Agreement for The Sims 2, no custom content creator owns their creations for this game (or The Sims 1, or 3, or 4, for that matter, but we're talking about 2 right now). It all belongs to EA at the end of the day, and by installing and playing the game, you have agreed to these terms. Which means you have no individual, protected copyright, and it is perfectly legal for someone to download your paywalled content and then reupload it for free for others to enjoy. And they will!

Furthermore,

You are not making anything alone.

Everything from modding resources, to tutorials, to the mods required to fix disastrous glitches in the game code and make it playable at all, to the third party programs used to make any and all custom content, such as SimPE—all of these have been provided to you for free by other creators, many of whom have a usage policy that asks that people not use their freely-provided tools to make a profit. Although no one can be forced to follow a creator's policy, it is generally considered good manners to not try to make a profit off of someone else's free work. And if you are using these tools to make paywalled content, that's exactly what you're doing.

Pay creators have been ignoring these policies since the beginning of time, and so free creators likewise ignore their policies against sharing their paywalled content. Pay creators have also tried lots of different ways to keep their content exclusive, everything from trying to track leaks with slightly altered files to actively filling their content with malicious code. It has never worked.

Free creators have always found a way around these barriers. In fact, it's taken as something of a challenge to undermine monetization efforts. As you can see from Paysites Must Be Destroyed, there are entire teams of players devoted to reuploading paywalled content for free.

A culture of sharing.

The Sims 2 is something of a time capsule. At 20 years old, it predates a lot of the hyper-capitalist hustle culture that has infested every creative hobby. It is from a time when monetization was an outlier rather than the norm, and a much maligned outlier at that. This attitude has persisted for 20 years. Believe me when I say, you won't be the combo breaker. Especially now, given that The Sims 2 is not the most contemporary in the series and the community has shrunk considerably, down to the people who have either been here for a very long time, or newcomers that understand the community culture.

Also, it's just kind of not a great idea in general to try to make money off of a 20-year-old game with a pretty small community?

Like, I get that The Sims 4 is really saturated with pay creators and it's hard to get a foot in the door. I get that you might look at The Sims 2 and think that the small pond will give you room to be a big fish. It won't. You might get a handful of people willing to pay for your content, but at least one of those people will be resharing it for free.

Paywalls vs. optional donations.

Okay, so hopefully you now understand why people don't like it when you put content behind a paywall. But what about those Ko-fi and Paypal donation links you sometimes see at the bottom of people's downloads? Why is that okay, but a locked Patreon tier isn't? Well, because they're voluntary. No one is obligated to pay for that content to be able to download and use it. It's just a way for someone who does have a little extra cash to basically "tip" a creator whose content they like. You have no way of knowing whether the person who posts those links is actually receiving any donations. And that's kind of the point. Whether or not they receive any donations, they are still sharing their content, because they enjoy the hobby of making and sharing content.

"I can't make a living off of that!"

No, you can't. Because that's not what we do here. That is not part of our community culture for all the above reasons. If you want to make a reliable income off of your hobby, you're going to need to get a different hobby. Try Second Life! That is a community that actively encourages monetization. The Sims 4 allows for "early access" monetization. There's options out there for you, if what you want is to make a profit off of your creations for a game.

"Fine, what about monetized link forwarding services?"

Link forwarding services historically have malicious trackers or viruses embedded. People will also strip those and provide direct links to each other. Or they just won't download your content.

"What if I want to make YouTube videos of someone else's written tutorials and I enable ad revenue on them?"

Personally, I still think that's a dick move. I love video tutorials, I'm a very visual learner myself, and although you might feel entitled to compensation for reciting the steps of someone else's tutorial into a microphone and then editing and uploading the video, you're still monetizing someone else's freely-provided content. I would consider this an 'ask permission' scenario, one in which you tell the person, explicitly, that you will be making ad revenue off their work. If they're fine with that, then you're good! (For the record, I'm not fine with that.)

edit: more of of my thoughts on monetized youtube videos over here.

"What if—"

Look, no one can stop you from trying to monetize your content, or worse, someone else's content. But you will have the exact same arc as every pay creator who came before you: your efforts will be undermined at every turn, your reception in the greater community will be chilly at best, and it will become a battle between you and the folks resharing free reuploads of your content until any fun you initially had making content is gone.

"The steady erosion of every known social safety net beneath the crippling weight of end-stage, line-goes-up capitalism and the yawning abyss of poverty over which I am dangling has imbued me with such anxiety that I cannot engage with a hobby that precludes monetization. I am exhausted. I know no other way."

I get it, friend! I have lived in poverty all my life. I do not begrudge the impulse to find a way to make passive income off of your every waking moment. Increasingly, it seems like that is the only way to survive! Unfortunately, you will not be able to do that with this specific community. We know that we have something special here, having resisted monetization's encroach for so long, which makes us fight all the more viciously to maintain it. You are entitled to try to find ways to supplement your income, just not here. Personally, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

Bonus Round: Remember, That's Not Just Yours!

I said it earlier, but I want to reiterate: you are not making any TS2 CC alone. You are making it with tools, resources, knowledge and code that people have provided on the condition that they not be used for pay content.

To use myself as an example, "my" hair textures are a blend of resources provided by other creators. Namely, Nouk's original hair texture was edited by Vintage D, which I then further edited over the years, using parts by the creators Ephemera and Helga. It would be extremely shit of me to say "well, I think that the time that I put into my edit is worth money, so I'm charging for it" when the edits that I made would not exist without the work of those people. And it continues on down the line with edits that other people have made of my texture blends and color actions, and the content they make with them.

(If you see someone charging for these, btw, lemme know. I'd love to have a talk with them.)

In closing,

The knowledge base, the resources, the coding required to make any and all working content for The Sims 2 has been compiled for 20 years. Please understand, I'm not trying to denigrate anyone's creativity when I say: you cannot bring anything wholly "new" to TS2 CC-making, something that uses no one else's resources or programs, something you can point to and say "no one helped me with that. I did it all on my own. It is my property." Nor should you aspire to! The fun of The Sims 2 community is to share and share alike, to credit each other for our contributions, to hype each other up and iterate on shared works and resources. We've been doing it for 20 years, and hopefully we'll be doing it for many more! Wanting to be a #simfluencer is utterly antithetical to the community culture. No one is influencing anyone else. You need to leave that shit at the door if you want to be invited in.

TL;DR:

Don't show up to the commie circle-jerk trying to charge for handjobs. We're already giving them to each other for free, and nothing about your wrist technique is special enough to justify the cost.

[graysonkp]

oh fine ig I’ll do this

Last song: Bandito - Twenty One Pilots

Last movie: Thunderbolts*

Last series: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Last book: Elementary math online textbook (lmao I don’t read books)

im not gonna tag anyone lol rb if you want ig

mutual tag game!!

last song played: ice cream - red velvet

last movie watched: thirteen

last series watched: devious maids

last book read: the havoc of choice - wanjiru koinange

this really tells my personality huh

tag list: @winnie1emon @ghostscarface @belovedenzo @yuunarii-arii @leeny-leens @nottsangel and absolutely anyone who wants to join!

[graysonkp]

I really wish that everyone who makes CC would test their stuff on dark skintones. I see so much stuff that I can't use on sims with dark skin because it has a little white edge to it that doesn't show clearly when used on light skinned sims.

It's not just a Body Shop thing either, and this is a fairly recent (last couple of years) piece of CC. This is still a problem.

If you recognize this top, please don't mention the creator. I'm not posting this to shame anyone, but to raise awareness. I've found white edges like this on clothes and makeup from a whole bunch of creators. Some of my older stuff probably does this too. I don't remember exactly when I started intentionally testing and previewing my CC on sims with various skintones, but I believe it should be a common practice.

[graysonkp]

Next you’re gonna tell me you ported all the expansions. This is awesome work, even if I’m not a Mac player.

SimPE for Mac

Yeah, I have not been posting lately because I am spending 8 to 12 hours a day, every day, working on a Mac version of SimPE. I made Xcode cough up a lung trying to use it on SimPE. SimPE is just too big and too complex. I am now programming on VS Code, which is far more robust, and has a far pickier compiler, so I spent days fixing all of the new compiler errors to get back to a working core. Right now it opens a package file and extracts the contents. It identifies the file types. Thanks, Quaxi, for creating the xml file listing all 100+ file types the Sims 2 uses! Next up is getting it to display the actual filenames. My ancient programming skills from 20+ years ago are slowly resurrecting. It is slow going. I will be going at this for months. I may never reach full SimPE functionality, but if I can get recoloring and Sims editing to work it will be better than the nothing that Mac users currently have. The bad news is that I am building for MacOS 12 and later, so older Macs may not run it.

Wish me well in this endeavor!

[graysonkp]

Two Updates

First, after messing around in my game, I noticed that there was actually a conflict between equal genetics and creaturefixes. As long as creaturefixes loaded after the original equal genetics, everything would work fine, but that wasn't true for my version. So I've updated my mod, which you can find on Simblr.cc! And here's two SFS links if that site goes down for a second (you need both!)

Second update, I'm free from MTS! My uploads are no longer available there. That site has problem after problem, and I'm absolutely done. I recommend, for your own sake, you do the same, but I won't be mad if you decide to continue uploading. I won't upload there again. @applewatersugar showed me that I could so I'm following their lead. No more MTS.

[graysonkp]

Rewrote the randomization section to account for new rules.

My Rotational Sims 2 Gameplay Rules

“Another set of rotational Sims 2 gameplay rules? Haven’t I seen a thousand of these?” To that I say yes… but actually no. The ones I’ve read are all wildly different, and mine aren’t an exception. This post was created for people who want inspiration for their rotational gameplay, not as a set by step guide for people who have never played rotationally.

I play rotationally, which means I play every family in a neighborhood for a set amount of time and I don’t use the Story Progression mod by @lazyduchess. Every mod necessary for my rules to function will be linked.

Setting up

I create two notes pages with similar titles, the templates are available on my Discord server (whenever I decide to open that up). The first one is the neighborhood name, listing all families and everything else on that page. The second one is called “Neighborhood: Sim Attributes” and lists the attributes that I track for my Sims. I track sexualities, gender, whether they need glasses or not, whether they need hearing assistance, and their committed relationships. Here’s an example:

55. Brandi (Bunny) Broke - (txf) s h |Isa Contender|

This is Brandi Broke. The name in parentheses is the Sim’s chosen name which will be used later on in their life. Usually for trans Sims. The Sim’s dead name is removed once the Sim starts using their chosen name. The rest represents what I’ve described above (including the dash). The reason the gender is (txf) is so I remember which binary gender to set the Sim as for limitation purposes, as Sims cannot be a neutral gender. I don’t want every nonbinary Sim to use their birth sex as their “forced gender” so I note it here.

Once I’ve set up my notes, I must place these objects on a lot:

FFS Lot Debugger (often referred to as the “batbox”, I’m aware that there are different versions that look less gaudy, I don’t care)

SimBlender

ACR Adjuster

Lot Sync Timer

If I’m in a house with a foundation I also place these objects in the foundation so I don’t constantly have to buy and sell these objects:

Eyelash adder

Wrinkles adder

Spots and freckles adder

Every Sim has their traits and favorite color randomized by @fwaysims’ random trait generator, and I use random.org to randomize secondary aspiration for every Sim. I use all their points. Then everyone gets a makeover via the Gussy Up mod as Sims might not look great in my defaults and I like to dress Sims in their favorite colors. I set their preferred amount of children via ACR and put Sims on birth control if they meet the criteria listed later.

Keeping track

The first notes page listed earlier lists which family I’m currently playing, and how many days are left. Rounds in every neighborhood last 4 days, and I don’t bother synchronizing days of the week or seasons. It might be why so many people seem to think that the Pleasant twins are younger than their boyfriends when in game they’re older. If two families have the same last name (which happens often) I’ll discriminate them based on the “head” of the family. Usually the answer is obvious, and I don’t choose based on gender standards. You may notice I avoid giving certain genders roles in all of my rules because I honestly think it’s stupid.

I use @peanuttysims’ custom lifespan. I would’ve made my own, but his is honestly perfect so I won’t change it. I age Sims when they hit 6pm, only exceptions being babies, who I age up as soon as I get the notification. I hardly throw parties but sometimes I do throw them.

Population

Couples are limited on how many children they get. Family Sims have a limit of three, Romance and Pleasure Sims have a limit of one, and everyone else’s limit is two. If the Sim is in a committed relationship, the number is averaged and rounded up. If a Sim has a baby or at least one toddler who cannot walk, the Sim who would get pregnant goes on birth control via ACR, even as a Family Sim. The birth control is not perfect, so it works for me. If a Sim has children from a previous relationship and gets into a new one, the amount of children they may have together is dependent on how many children they have left. If Sim A is a Family Sim with two children and Sim B is a Family Sim with five children, the average is 1/2. I would let them have one child and be done.

Risky WooHoo is set via ACR to 10%. Couples won’t try for baby without a wedding ring with exceptions. If I don’t feel like marrying certain Sims for whatever reason, they can conceive without marriage since I don’t take marriage too seriously.

I use the extended family mod by @paradoxcase, so stuff like Victor Aspir x Natasha Una never happens. I avoid townies but I’m not opposed to adding them sometimes.

I use Triplets & Quads and set the odds to 10% twins 5% triplets and 1% quadruplets. What I get first is what I get, there is absolutely no exiting without saving. If I don’t like something, I have to learn to love it, or painstakingly reverse it, instead of getting a free time travel card. Being able to reverse every problem that comes my way genuinely isn’t fun and makes for boring and repetitive stories with no stakes, so it’s strictly banned. I give myself some leeway if the game crashes though. That rarely happens.

I also use a naming system that goes straight down the alphabet, no letters skipped. Twins/triplets/quads get names with the same first letter because I’m cheesy like that. I mostly google search names and I give a few ethnic names if they fit the family (i.e. giving a Japanese Sim’s child a Japanese name). Sometimes I use American names since not every family wants to give their children names from their culture. I avoid the “kreativ” names because I don’t think they’re funny and they’re just annoying to look at.

If a child loses their parent(s), they must be raised by someone. Instead of going into the adoption pool, they go to their most able bodied relative. I’d rather hand a child to their childless aunt and her wife rather than their college student father, for example. If no such relative is available, they will go to a loving family and be adopted. The family must have two close adults, have no more than two children (or one child if someone is pregnant), have no children unable to walk, and pass my “vibe check”. I ran over a hundred families through this system and got nine eligible.

Wants

I don’t really play wants based anymore, if I’m following wants it’s because I either need some direction or I’m attempting to boost their aspiration meter. I use a wantstree replacer that makes baby wants more common. I also rarely lock wants.

I use 50 New LTWs by @lamare-sims. I often reroll lifetime wants for premades. I don’t usually complete them, though.

Randomization

Lots of Simmers have big complex calculators that make lots of decisions for them, but I don’t use any calculators (except for my phone’s calculator to determine reasonable age gaps). I know my own brain will come up with repetitive stuff, but a calculator will probably do the exact same thing. I instead randomize basically everything. Aspirations, sexuality, gender, glasses, hearing assistance, careers to an extent, traits, favorite color, result of the therapist, they’re all randomized using the one and only random.org. The rules are as follows:

Aspiration

1 - Pleasure

2 - Fortune

3 - Knowledge

4 - Romance

5 - Family

6 - Popularity

This is just the standard aspiration wheel counted clockwise. No cheese to be seen. That’s for Natasha Una only. I downloaded a mod that randomizes it for me but if I make a CAS Sim I’ll use this.

Sexuality

Randomized at birth for the sake of connivence.

1-15 - Gay

16-30 - Bisexual

31-100 - Straight

This is determined by a Sim’s real gender, not their sex. If a trans woman Sim rolls gay, she’s attracted to women. I set these via ACR.

Gender

The age where Sims discover their gender is randomized alongside whether they are trans like so (Sims who roll trans at an early age won’t have later ages rolled, this is determined at birth because I can’t remember to do that).

Children

1-5 - Transgender

6-100 - Cisgender

Teens

1-10 - Transgender

11-100 - Cisgender

Adults

1-10 - Transgender

11-100 - Cisgender

Elders

1-5 - Transgender

6-100 - Cisgender

If a Sim rolls trans they get another roll:

1-30 - Nonbinary

31-100 - Binary gender (opposite of birth sex)

Then I use vibes to determine whether a Sim is a “feminine enby” or a “masculine enby”. That determines who is attracted to them and who they’re attracted to (unless they were already bi). It’s a limitation of the game since it exclusively works with men and women. Not every enby is treated as their birth sex. For example, Brandi Broke is going to be a feminine enby (dresses effeminate, Sims attracted to women are attracted to them) but Ophelia Nigmos is a masculine enby (dresses somewhat masculine, Sims attracted to men are attracted to them). I tend to be pretty versatile when it comes to gender expression with enbies. Instead of linking a single mod, I’ll link a video by Creusa Sims that links all the trans mods you might need.

Glasses

Everyone is rolled for glasses at each life stage. Determined at birth because I can’t remember to randomize at birthday. Premades aren’t rolled for glasses their current and previous ages. I’m aware it’s hereditary in real life but I don’t really care. If a Sim rolls glasses at any point, they’re not randomized again and wear glasses for the rest of their lives.

Toddlers

1-5 - Needs glasses

6-100 - Doesn’t wear glasses

Children

1-5 - Needs glasses

6-100 - Doesn’t wear glasses

Teens

1-5 - Needs glasses

6-100 - Doesn’t wear glasses

Adults

1-5 - Needs glasses

6-100 - Doesn’t wear glasses

Elders

1-5 - Needs glasses

6-100 - Doesn’t wear glasses

Sunglasses are treated as separate.

Hearing assistance

1-5 - Needs hearing aid(s)

6-100 - Needs no assistance

If they roll the 1-5, they get another roll:

1 - Left ear hearing aid

2 - Right ear hearing aid

3 - Two hearing aids

I use these cc hearing aids by @deedee-sims and @episims.

Identical siblings

If a Sim has same-sex twins, I’ll randomize whether they’re identical like this:

1 - Identical

2-3 - Fraternal

Same-sex triplets I will randomize both siblings like this. Johnny was the first child. I randomize Jacob to see if he’s identical to Johnny. He rolls 1 so he is. Then I randomize Jimmy to see if he’s identical to Johnny. He rolls 3 so he isn’t. This translates to quads.

Credit for the identical siblings idea goes to @rudhira, she made up the whole copy genetics and face data thing.

Therapist

If the Sim gets a visit from the therapist, something bad is about to happen. You can’t just hit rock bottom and not do something stupid. Well, you can, but most of the time you don’t. Here’s the rolls:

1-10 - Commit murder

11-20 - Die by suicide

21-30 - Quit job/drop out of uni

31-40 - Break up with partner (If single, try for baby with a married Sim, if that’s not possible, roll again)

41-50 - Anxiety (extra fear slot) If they already have anxiety roll again

51-60 - Change aspiration

61-70 - Dye hair

71-80 - Binge spend formula is 1-20 x §1000

81-90 - Binge drink ten times and cheat fatness

91-100 - Get better without any consequences

The 1-20 in the spend thing is a randomizer from 1-20. The method of death doesn’t matter for the deadly ones, only the result. I don’t usually go for methods that might kill multiple Sims though. As much as I love killing Sims, I do get attached to them. Credit for this idea goes to @smallcatwoman.

Other stuff

Sometimes I pull out random.org whenever I’m feeling indecisive. That’s been less common lately. Stuff such as traits and favorite color use mods to be randomized. If there’s something you think I randomize, you can always ask. Sorry for the lack of anon asks, there’s a lot of harassment in this community.

Random events

I don’t handle random events, that’s all up to the game. More dangerous fires, death by childbirth, miscarriages, those all keep me on my toes and keeps the population down. I also have an STD mod and a version of Disease Mod that makes it brutal as all hell. If you DM me I will give it to you but it is not for most players. ACR risky woohoo is at 10% and I use quiet pregnancy so I experience a whole lot of anxiety regarding woohoo. I don’t use same-sex pregnancy but I do use RCC for trans Sims and aliens so gay pregnancy and whatnot is totally possible.

Resurrection

If a Sim dies, they’re dead. No second chances. Unless a Sim has access to a revival method (which are very hard to come by). The Sim can’t choose who gets resurrected, though. It’s - you guessed it - randomized. I have a running list of every dead Sim, and if someone decides to resurrect someone, it’s a random number from that list. No ancestors. And there’s another randomization below:

1-10 - Zombie

11-20 - Ghost

21-30 - Vampire

31-100 - Regular

So a Sim might be rooming with the rotting corpse of a divorced bisexual man because he missed his dead daughter. That’s life!

College

This is a doozy. As if everything else wasn’t. College lasts 4 years, and 8 in-game days, which makes college days half a year instead of a whole year. I use semester changes by Cyjon. When teens turn 18, they can either age into adults (I’ve disabled the uneducated memory) or go to college, determined by if they have a college want before aging up. This is one of the few wants I lock, but only when the Sim is 17. College represents ages 18-21, as that’s the ages I went to college. I depend on wants to decide which major they go in and even though I find the philosophy joke funny I use a mod that chooses a major for Sims if they never choose one by @picknmixsims.

Now for the hard to explain part, I “stagger” college. Say a teenager turns 18 on the first day of the round and decides to go to college. I send them to college via the phone and play their original family until the round is over. Then when I get to college, I’ll play the household they’re going to join for a day, and then I add the Sim. I play for three more days, and then the round is over. If a Sim goes on academic probation then I count it as “repeating the year”. Sims can spend up to 8 years in college. I actively make Sims build skills, and use wants to determine whether they actually do schoolwork. I don’t care if Sims flunk. I handle YA pregnancy with RCC.

Supernaturals

I use a multi PT mod I made myself as well as a thousand other mods to make them “spicier” from this video. I don’t usually go out of my way to make Sims supernaturals, but I love playing them. The Summerdreams are fairies, and I want to figure out how to incorporate mermaids and werewolves since I’ve disabled wolves. I don’t use slow aging mods but vampires still don’t age (unless they’re under 18). In my opinion, vampires are so difficult to keep alive even with my mods that their immortality doesn’t save them from having shorter lives than everyone else. Also, I use a bunch of supernatural defaults that are combinations of other creators’ work so you can DM me if you want them. My defaults are Tamo 3t2 eyes and Lilith’s Honey Honey skin.

And that’s the end, I hope it wasn’t too disorganized. I hope this inspires creative ideas in your gameplay rules and I’m always evolving my own to fit the evolving needs of my Sims. Fun fact: this was originally inspired by PleasantSims’ gameplay rules and now they’re completely unrecognizable… that’s how much the way I play has evolved since I was 15! Also no I didn’t steal the format from @marticoresims why would I do that

[graysonkp]

don’t use anygamestarter trust me bro

[graysonkp]

hi ts2 community!

i'm Lisa, i love sims, cats and poetry, and… i genuinely have no idea what i'm doing, haha. going to be honest straight away, i've mostly been a lurker on here, giving out reblogs and likes and the occasional comment so i've never actually made a 'proper' post like this. (my main blog is @poeticallydifferent in case you recognize that username to have given you a lil like here and there.) but recently i started dabbling in defaulting and thought i might as well post my defaults so i can at least contribute something to this wonderful community. i do hope to branch out in the future and make other stuff than just defaults, but i think i need to learn how to crawl before i start running, haha. anyhow, a warm welcome to my lil sims 2 corner and thank you for stopping by! ₊˚⊹˙⟡♡

[graysonkp]

:-(

[graysonkp]

👀

Energy Gain Determined by Aspiration Level

I hate how cheaper beds give less energy than more expensive ones, so I've used the same energy gain for any bed mod by Marhis for the longest time. But recently, I've started to feel like it's too cheaty. It makes my sims always sleep like logs!

So I came up with a solution that adds variation for all beds alike.

This mod entirely ties the energy gain to the sim's aspiration level. The lower the level is, the slower the energy bar will fill and vice versa; sims with their aspiration level well on the green side or above likely wake up refreshed.

Makes sense to me that happy sims sleep better than those close to the aspiration failure! The scale of the energy gain is about the same as between the cheapest and the most expensive maxis bed, so it's still well balanced too.

Just like Marhis' mod, this mod also makes children gain energy at a slower rate than older sims, to prevent them from waking up too early. Their aspiration level still affects the energy gain but the effect is smaller.

Download (SFS) (alternate)

Conflicts with the same energy gain for any bed mod and likely with any other mods that override the energy gain rate.

[graysonkp]

*shaking the magic 8 ball named My Followers*

[graysonkp]

same. fuck ts4 I don’t wanna see it.

im blocking the sims 4 tag im so fucking serious

[graysonkp]

i'm saying this once and only once;

if you make cc for the game (ts3, ts4, you name it) but DON'T put your creator name in the file name, it makes is nearly impossible to answer WCIF's

Now I'm not saying that I never remember where something came from, but I'm not an all knowing oracle either. If there is no name in your stuff, it's going straight into my "no name" folder in mod organizer, and let me tell you, I do NOT go in that folder voluntarily.

NAME YOUR SHIT, EVEN IF ITS A CONVERSION, EVEN IF IT'S A LOT, EVEN IF IT'S WHATEVER THE FUCK ELSE. IT"S NOT THAT HARD AND MAKES EVERYBODY'S LIVES EASIER

[graysonkp]

Apparently this application by @picknmixsims is really useful for this

What an odd thing to say...

[graysonkp]

Added adoption rules. I didn’t just add this, I just forgot. Also fixed the borked identicals math.

My Rotational Sims 2 Gameplay Rules

“Another set of rotational Sims 2 gameplay rules? Haven’t I seen a thousand of these?” To that I say yes… but actually no. The ones I’ve read are all wildly different, and mine aren’t an exception. This post was created for people who want inspiration for their rotational gameplay, not as a set by step guide for people who have never played rotationally.

I play rotationally, which means I play every family in a neighborhood for a set amount of time and I don’t use the Story Progression mod by @lazyduchess. Every mod necessary for my rules to function will be linked.

Setting up

I create two notes pages with similar titles, the templates are available on my Discord server (whenever I decide to open that up). The first one is the neighborhood name, listing all families and everything else on that page. The second one is called “Neighborhood: Sim Attributes” and lists the attributes that I track for my Sims. I track sexualities, gender, whether they need glasses or not, whether they need hearing assistance, and their committed relationships. Here’s an example:

55. Brandi (Bunny) Broke - (txf) s h |Isa Contender|

This is Brandi Broke. The name in parentheses is the Sim’s chosen name which will be used later on in their life. Usually for trans Sims. The Sim’s dead name is removed once the Sim starts using their chosen name. The rest represents what I’ve described above. The reason the gender is (txf) is so I remember which binary gender to set the Sim as for limitation purposes, as Sims cannot be a neutral gender. I don’t want every nonbinary Sim to use their birth sex as their “forced gender” so I note it here.

Once I’ve set up my notes, I must place these objects on a lot:

FFS Lot Debugger (often referred to as the “batbox”, I’m aware that there are different versions that look less gaudy, I don’t care)

SimBlender

ACR Adjuster

Lot Sync Timer

If I’m in a house with a foundation I also place these objects in the foundation so I don’t constantly have to buy and sell these objects:

Eyelash adder

Wrinkles adder

Spots and freckles adder

Every Sim has their traits and favorite color randomized by @fwaysims’ random trait generator, and I use random.org to randomize secondary aspiration for every Sim. I use all their points. Then everyone gets a makeover via the Gussy Up mod as Sims might not look great in my defaults and I like to dress Sims in their favorite colors. I set their preferred amount of children via ACR and put Sims on birth control if they meet the criteria listed later.

Keeping track

The first notes page listed earlier lists which family I’m currently playing, and how many days are left. Rounds in every neighborhood last 4 days, and I don’t bother synchronizing days of the week or seasons. It might be why so many people seem to think that the Pleasant twins are younger than their boyfriends when in game they’re older. If two families have the same last name (which happens often) I’ll discriminate them based on the “head” of the family. Usually the answer is obvious, and I don’t choose based on gender standards. You may notice I avoid giving certain genders roles in all of my rules because I honestly think it’s stupid.

I use @peanuttysims’ custom lifespan. I would’ve made my own, but his is honestly perfect so I won’t change it. I age Sims when they hit 6pm, only exceptions being babies, who I age up as soon as I get the notification. I hardly throw parties but sometimes I do throw them.

Population

Couples are limited on how many children they get. Family Sims have a limit of three, Romance and Pleasure Sims have a limit of one, and everyone else’s limit is two. If the Sim is in a committed relationship, the number is averaged and rounded up. If a Sim has a baby or at least one toddler who cannot walk, the Sim who would get pregnant goes on birth control via ACR, even as a Family Sim. The birth control is not perfect, so it works for me. If a Sim has children from a previous relationship and gets into a new one, the amount of children they may have together is dependent on how many children they have left. If Sim A is a Family Sim with two children and Sim B is a Family Sim with five children, the average is 1/2. I would let them have one child and be done.

I use the extended family mod by @paradoxcase, so stuff like Victor Aspir x Natasha Una never happens. I avoid townies but I’m not opposed to adding them sometimes.

I use Triplets & Quads and set the odds to 10% twins 5% triplets and 1% quadruplets. What I get first is what I get, there is absolutely no exiting without saving. If I don’t like something, I have to learn to love it, or painstakingly reverse it, instead of getting a free time travel card. Being able to reverse every problem that comes my way genuinely isn’t fun and makes for boring and repetitive stories with no stakes, so it’s strictly banned. I give myself some leeway if the game crashes though. That rarely happens.

I also use a naming system that goes straight down the alphabet, no letters skipped. Twins/triplets/quads get names with the same first letter because I’m cheesy like that. I mostly google search names and I give a few ethnic names if they fit the family (i.e. giving a Japanese Sim’s child a Japanese name). Sometimes I use American names since not every family wants to give their children names from their culture. I avoid the “kreativ” names because I don’t think they’re funny and they’re just annoying to look at.

If a child loses their parent(s), they must be raised by someone. Instead of going into the adoption pool, they go to their most able bodied relative. I’d rather hand a child to their childless aunt and her wife rather than their college student father, for example. If no such relative is available, they will go to a loving family and be adopted. The family must have two close adults, have no more than two children (or one child if someone is pregnant), have no children unable to walk, and pass my “vibe check”. I ran over a hundred families through this system and got nine eligible.

Wants

I don’t really play wants based anymore, if I’m following wants it’s because I either need some direction or I’m attempting to boost their aspiration meter. I use a wantstree replacer that makes baby wants more common (can’t find it). I also rarely lock wants.

I use 50 New LTWs by @lamare-sims. I often reroll lifetime wants for premades. I don’t usually complete them, though.

Randomization

Lots of Simmers have big complex calculators that make lots of decisions for them, but I don’t use any calculators (except for my phone’s calculator to determine reasonable age gaps). I know my own brain will come up with repetitive stuff, but a calculator will probably do the exact same thing. I instead randomize basically everything. Aspirations, sexuality, gender, glasses, hearing assistance, careers to an extent, traits, favorite color, result of the therapist, they’re all randomized using the one and only random.org. The rules are as follows:

Aspiration

1 - Pleasure

2 - Fortune

3 - Knowledge

4 - Romance

5 - Family

6 - Popularity

This is just the standard aspiration wheel counted clockwise. No cheese to be seen. That’s for Natasha Una only. I downloaded a mod that randomizes it for me but if I make a CAS Sim I’ll use this.

Sexuality

1-15 - Gay

16-30 - Bisexual

31-100 - Straight

This is determined by a Sim’s real gender, not their sex. If a trans woman Sim rolls gay, she’s attracted to women. I set these via ACR.

Gender

1-20 - Transgender

21-100 - Cisgender

If a Sim rolls trans they get another roll:

1-30 - Nonbinary

31-100 - Binary gender (opposite of birth sex)

Then I use vibes to determine whether a Sim is a “feminine enby” or a “masculine enby”. That determines who is attracted to them and who they’re attracted to (unless they were already bi). It’s a limitation of the game since it exclusively works with men and women. Not every enby is treated as their birth sex. For example, Brandi Broke is going to be a feminine enby (dresses effeminate, Sims attracted to women are attracted to them) but Ophelia Nigmos is a masculine enby (dresses somewhat masculine, Sims attracted to men are attracted to them). I tend to be pretty versatile when it comes to gender expression with enbies. Instead of linking a single mod, I’ll link a video by Creusa Sims that links all the trans mods you might need.

Glasses

Premades aren’t rolled for glasses unless they’re toddlers. I’m aware it’s hereditary in real life but I don’t really care.

1-20 - Needs glasses

21-100 - Doesn’t wear glasses

Sunglasses are treated as separate.

Hearing assistance

1-5 - Needs hearing aid(s)

6-100 - Needs no assistance

If they roll the 1-5, they get another roll:

1 - Left ear hearing aid

2 - Right ear hearing aid

3 - Two hearing aids

I use these cc hearing aids by @deedee-sims and @episims.

Identical siblings

If a Sim has same-sex twins, I’ll randomize whether they’re identical like this:

1 - Identical

2-3 - Fraternal

Same-sex triplets I will randomize both siblings like this. Johnny was the first child. I randomize Jacob to see if he’s identical to Johnny. He rolls 1 so he is. Then I randomize Jimmy to see if he’s identical to Johnny. He rolls 3 so he isn’t. This translates to quads.

Credit for the identical siblings idea goes to @rudhira, she made up the whole copy genetics and face data thing.

Therapist

If the Sim gets a visit from the therapist, something bad is about to happen. You can’t just hit rock bottom and not do something stupid. Well, you can, but most of the time you don’t. Here’s the rolls:

1-10 - Commit murder

11-20 - Die by suicide

21-30 - Quit job/drop out of uni

31-40 - Break up with partner (If single, try for baby with a married Sim, if that’s not possible, roll again)

41-50 - Anxiety (extra fear slot) If they already have anxiety roll again

51-60 - Change aspiration

61-70 - Dye hair

71-80 - Binge spend formula is 1-20 x §1000

81-90 - Binge drink ten times and cheat fatness

91-100 - Get better without any consequences

The 1-20 in the spend thing is a randomizer from 1-20. The method of death doesn’t matter for the deadly ones, only the result. I don’t usually go for methods that might kill multiple Sims though. As much as I love killing Sims, I do get attached to them. Credit for this idea goes to @smallcatwoman.

Other stuff

Sometimes I pull out random.org whenever I’m feeling indecisive. That’s been less common lately. Stuff such as traits and favorite color use mods to be randomized. If there’s something you think I randomize, you can always ask. Sorry for the lack of anon asks, there’s a lot of harassment in this community.

Random events

I don’t handle random events, that’s all up to the game. More dangerous fires, death by childbirth, miscarriages, those all keep me on my toes and keeps the population down. I also have an STD mod and a version of Disease Mod that makes it brutal as all hell. If you DM me I will give it to you but it is not for most players. ACR risky woohoo is at 10% and I use quiet pregnancy so I experience a whole lot of anxiety regarding woohoo. I don’t use same-sex pregnancy but I do use RCC for trans Sims and aliens so gay pregnancy and whatnot is totally possible.

Resurrection

If a Sim dies, they’re dead. No second chances. Unless a Sim has access to a revival method (which are very hard to come by). The Sim can’t choose who gets resurrected, though. It’s - you guessed it - randomized. I have a running list of every dead Sim, and if someone decides to resurrect someone, it’s a random number from that list. No ancestors. And there’s another randomization below:

1-10 - Zombie

11-20 - Ghost

21-30 - Vampire

31-100 - Regular

So a Sim might be rooming with the rotting corpse of a divorced bisexual man because he missed his dead daughter. That’s life!

College

This is a doozy. As if everything else wasn’t. College lasts 4 years, and 8 in-game days, which makes college days half a year instead of a whole year. I use semester changes by Cyjon. When teens turn 18, they can either age into adults (I’ve disabled the uneducated memory) or go to college, determined by if they have a college want before aging up. This is one of the few wants I lock, but only when the Sim is 17. College represents ages 18-21, as that’s the ages I went to college. I depend on wants to decide which major they go in and even though I find the philosophy joke funny I use a mod that chooses a major for Sims if they never choose one by @picknmixsims.

Now for the hard to explain part, I “stagger” college. Say a teenager turns 18 on the first day of the round and decides to go to college. I send them to college via the phone and play their original family until the round is over. Then when I get to college, I’ll play the household they’re going to join for a day, and then I add the Sim. I play for three more days, and then the round is over. If a Sim goes on academic probation then I count it as “repeating the year”. Sims can spend up to 8 years in college. I actively make Sims build skills, and use wants to determine whether they actually do schoolwork. I don’t care if Sims flunk. I handle YA pregnancy with RCC.

Supernaturals

I use a multi PT mod I made myself as well as a thousand other mods to make them “spicier” from this video. I don’t usually go out of my way to make Sims supernaturals, but I love playing them. The Summerdreams are fairies, and I want to figure out how to incorporate mermaids and werewolves since I’ve disabled wolves. I don’t use slow aging mods but vampires still don’t age (unless they’re under 18). In my opinion, vampires are so difficult to keep alive even with my mods that their immortality doesn’t save them from having shorter lives than everyone else. Also, I use a bunch of supernatural defaults that are combinations of other creators’ work so you can DM me if you want them. My defaults are Tamo 3t2 eyes and Lilith’s Honey Honey skin.

And that’s the end, I hope it wasn’t too disorganized. I hope this inspires creative ideas in your gameplay rules and I’m always evolving my own to fit the evolving needs of my Sims. Fun fact: this was originally inspired by PleasantSims’ gameplay rules and now they’re completely unrecognizable… that’s how much the way I play has evolved since I was 15! Also no I didn’t steal the format from @marticoresims why would I do that

[graysonkp]

Twenty One Pilots tees on Platsap's Mashed Potato tee

I was yapping on Discord about what I should make when one of the moots recommended band logos. Lots of bands use words in their logos (English = gross) but not Twenty One Pilots! Anyway, you don't care, so here's the actual info.

Five recolors, meshes included. Meshes are by @platinumaspiration and @deedee-sims (find them + more recolors here and here). TU-AU (and EF). The adult male file has been enabled for teens which is not ideal but I've never touched a mesh so this is what I have. The neck doesn't line up perfectly but it's not that noticeable. Not elder enabled because the body type is too different. The TF and EF files require the AF files (yep, your boy learned how to repository!). The colors are five of TOP's eras and their logos, the Vessel era, the Blurryface era, the Trench era, the Scaled & Icy era, and the most recent Clancy era. That shirt is definitely my favorite. All shirts are enabled for Everyday, Gym, PJs, and Maternity on adults. All of them are townified.

SFS - Simblr.cc - More previews and yapping under the cut!

I wanted ideas on CC I could make that wasn't insane, and someone recommended graphic tees. I wondered what I would put on one, and then I remembered this mesh here (meshes, really). I first envisioned those impossibly skin tight shirts you saw a lot in the 2000s (at least on Sims) but I like this much more. Was quite a bit of work trying to get these logos to behave with female curvature, not so much for males. I see why Maxis prioritized giving graphics tees to the latter, but I'm not letting some chest curves scare me away! You might notice that the black tees (Vessel, Blurryface, and Trench) are different shades of black. That's not an accident, I thought they'd look better in different shades. Anyway, more previews.

You'd think it'd be easier to find elder women in an Uberhood? That's what I get for implementing a trans system alongside the deadly elders mod. Big thanks to @whattheskell for the repository tutorial even though I had no idea what I was reading at first.

[graysonkp]

I caved. I completely understand why the creator didn't want to go back in and change it, and I really don't know why I decided to, but regardless, there it is. If this really bothered you like it bothered me and you actually wanna use it, there's a partial solution. I don't know if I'll mess with parts 2 and 3. I'm definitely not touching the blue and green versions.

Sims 4 Style Headline Elements

All Parts are in one download. Inspired by @simmer-until-tender 's colorful headline elements, I've always wanted them to be in color. These are meant to go with the Speech/Thought Bubbles by @eddysims and Conversation Icon Replacements by @keoni-chan

Tumblr only allows up to 30 pics per post, so I've added just a preview of each section.

Part 1 Relationships. Choose only 1:

Part 2 Badges

Part 3 Enthusiasm

Part 4 University - I found the official green plus sign too late, so you'll have to deal.

Download at SFS

The ZIP contains All the individual packages

(Remember only 1 relationship package!)