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The New Guy in Town

Sul sul!

Today I was prepared to post a detailed description about Desiderata Valley and other less popular neighborhoods from all four games. Inspiration struck, and I could only think about one sim: Bob Newbie.

Bob is the very first sim who players meet in The Sims. The tutorial introduces Bob as a slovenly man with the need to find a job and woo his wife, Betty, who is not in love with him at the start of the game. Bob was the very first sim created in Neighborhood 1, and thus, the very first sim, aside from sims that may have been created for testing. A common misconception is to name Mortimer Goth as the first sim, likely because he was the first sim created in Pleasantview for The Sims 2.

He and Betty were designed as foils. He was presented as the lazy, slob of a husband, while she was the typical ‘50s era housewife. Interestingly, however, Betty and Bob both have four active points. Like many sims, they are written to be a way that is not always supported through their personality traits, such as Dina Caliente the (supposed) gold-digger with a heart of gold. These designs were not used in the console games, though characters by the same names appear.

Both Betty and Bob seem to be absent from The Sims 2, but this is not the case. They are present in the family trees of their daughter, Brandi Broke, and her sons, though they are deceased. Bob’s personality is more similar to his characterization in The Sims, as he is a Libra with only two active points. Similarly, Betty is a scorpio with eight active points. This goes to show the detail that went into accurately reflecting returning characters, aside from their ambiguous ages. For example, Bob and Betty are deceased from old age while Mortimer Goth is still alive with several days left, but they were the same age in the original game.

In The Sims 3, both Bob and Betty return as teenagers living in Riverview. They are only best friends at the start of the game. Bob is characterized as a good yet aimless kid, with the Bookworm, Slob, Artistic, and Good traits. Betty is a musically talented teen who feels pressured by her mother to turn music into her career. Her traits are Artistic, Good, Virtuoso, and Unflirty. Interestingly, this is the first time that either Bob’s parents or Betty’s appear alive and playable in game.

Surprisingly, Betty and Bob are absent in The Sims 4, leaving the Goths as the only family to appear in some form in each game. Simmers have made connections between the Newbies and a new family created for The Sims 4, the Pancakes. Bob Pancakes is somewhat similar in characterization to the original, overweight Bob Newbie, and he possesses the slob trait. Eliza Pancakes is less similar to Betty Newbie; their names are both nicknames for Elizabeth, but while Betty was a housewife, Eliza was a career woman. Additionally, the game implies Eliza and Bob have a negative relationship, with one of the trailers of the game showing Eliza nagging Bob. It is more likely that they are meant to be a modernization of the classic characters than their alternate universe counterparts.

What are some of your favorite Bob Newbie moments? Was he the first sim you played like so many others? Or do you prefer the Pancakes? While we’re at it, weigh in yourselves: do you think the Pancakes are meant to be the TS4 equivalent of the Newbies or is it a reach? How does all of this factor in with the reappearance of Dustin Broke in The Sims 4: Get Famous?

Are there any other characters you’d like to hear more about? If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

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Jumanji Part Three? From Production to Purgatory

Sul sul!

A few months ago, I received an ask to write more about the rumors of a film based on The Sims franchise. Unfortunately, there is little to cover on this topic, aside from the fact that a movie was at one point planned.

The movie was announced by 20th Century Fox over a decade ago on May 25th, 2007, with former Sims Studio head Rod Humble stating that the root of The Sims and its film would be “what it's like to have infinite power and how do you deal with it.” The basic description according to The Sims Wiki involved an original lead character, Andie, living amongst popular The Sims 2 characters such as Don Lothario and the Goth family in Pleasantview and ultimately discovering that they were trapped in the game. I could not find any news sources to confirm this as the actual plot of the presumably abandoned film.

What I did find was an interview with one of the film’s producers, John Davis, from September of 2008. Davis described the film as having a similarity to the 1980s classic Weird Science, including having characters migrating from the game into the real world and potentially vice versa. With teenage protagonists, it would be an “Amblin-esque, really fun, adventure movie.” Naturally, Davis was tight-lipped about the plot of the movie aside from the fact that there would be a nemesis who would get ahold of the game and set up “an incredible obstacle course.”

Interestingly, this premise would likely abandon the actual storyline in The Sims 2 despite Pleasantview being the most likely setting. Such a decision would likely have come about as a result of the public perceiving The Sims games as aimless and without a plot. Whether or not this strategy would appeal to the average audience at the expense of long term fans of the games seemed to be a chance worth taking for the studio.

Davis’ interview is the most recent news that I have found with information from any representatives of EA or 20th Century Fox, so it is safe to assume that the movie was cancelled behind closed doors given that the projected release date of the film was 2012. Given the resurgence of movies about or based on video games as of late, there may be a revived interest in The Sims as a movie or television production in the near future.

What would you want out of a live action adaptation of The Sims? Comedy? Sci Fi? Romance? What characters would you have an interest in seeing? Would you rather the plot of the games be explored or rather have the writers go with something more original? Feel free to reblog and share your thoughts. If there’s interest, I’d be more than willing to write a follow up featuring your ideas and thoughts from the community on the topic.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

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Doppelgangers or Impostors?

Sul sul!

As promised, Plumbob Post is back this week, starting with a hot topic that occurred during the hiatus: The Sims 4: Get Famous. This most recent expansion pack featured the controversial return of two of Pleasantview’s most beloved sims: Dirk Dreamer and Dustin Broke.

In The Sims 2, both characters were male teenage fortune sims with single parents who were dating one of the Pleasant twins. Aside from their dark blue eyes and the first letters of their first names, that’s where the similarities stop. Dirk is presented as an only child whose motivation for success comes from a need to make his dead mother proud, while Dustin is presented as an oldest of almost three who works nights as a criminal to support his family.

These characterizations were somewhat altered in The Sims 4: Get Famous. Dirk Dreamer is a young adult in the Tech Guru career living in Del Sol Valley. His traits include bookworm, clumsy, quick learner, and genius, and he has the Computer Whiz aspiration. Dirk’s personality is not dissimilar to his characterization in The Sims 2, with both canon versions of Dirk being portrayed as studious and as possessing logic skill.

Alternatively, Dirk’s backstory is completely missing in The Sims 4: Get Famous, as his mother and father are not present nor are they mention. Additionally, Dirk has a lighter skin tone when compared to his original appearance, a common mistake made by EA when recreating characters from The Sims 2 for The Sims 4. Worth noting is that his hair and eyes are also a different color.

Dustin Broke from The Sims 4: Get Famous is arguably less accurate when it comes to personality. Like Dirk, he is a young adult living in Del Sol Valley, and his entire family from The Sims 2 is absent. Instead of being part of the Criminal career, he is in the Business career path, with the Fabulously Wealthy aspiration. While that seems like it could be a natural progression for Dustin career-wise, his traits and physical appearance are less similar to his original incarnation.

His original personality had him being a bit on the sloppy side, which likely inspired the creators of The Sims 4: Get Famous to give him the lazy trait. His other traits, geek, hot-headed, and business savvy, are rather disparate and seem to be only loosely based on a stereotype of a delinquent teen than on the Dustin players are familiar with. Dustin also looks different in this iteration; instead of being fit, he is overweight, his eyes are green instead of blue, and his skin is darker.

Dirk and Dustin’s ages also present yet another dilemma. While The Sims 4 is in an alternate universe from the rest of the games in The Sims franchise, it shares many of its characters. However, many of these sims are given revised names, ages, and appearances. This has led to inconsistencies such as Cassandra Goth being a teenager in The Sims 4, while the child of her love interest in The Sims 2, Darren Dreamer, is a young adult. Additionally, Dirk and Dustin’s ages are the same or close to the same as many sims who are older than them in Pleasantview, such as Don Lothario and the Caliente twins.

While many fans of The Sims 2 wanted to see their favorite characters return in The Sims 4, many were disappointed by the reappearances of Dirk and Dustin, especially since other characters such as their families and their girlfriends were not reintroduced with them. Were you? Are there other characters you’d like to see in The Sims 4? Should EA quit while they’re ahead when it comes to these fan favorites?

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

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And So This Is Christmas...

Sul sul!

You may have noticed that it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a lot of upheavals in the past few months, but thankfully, all of that is settling down with the new year.

Never mind that because I come bearing news: starting with Wednesday January 9th, Plumbob Post will return to having updates twice a week. I have a lot of fun stuff lined up for my followers, including both my usual posts, new resource pages, and hopefully more interviews. I know Tumblr is a bit of a mess right now, so I’m also working on creating a Wordpress blog as a back up so that I can follow the community wherever it goes.

Onto the fun stuff! As I’m sure you’re aware, Christmas was a week ago, so the topic of the day shall be the holiday season as it relates to The Sims franchise. In a previous post, I discussed the gameplay mechanics and history of seasons, which lead me to briefly mention Snowflake Day, officially titled as such in The Sims 3: Seasons.

Though the holiday wasn’t named before that installment, the first references to winter festivities came about in The Sims: Livin’ Large, in which Santa Claus was featured as an NPC. Santa will appear if a plate of cookies is left near a Christmas tree and a fireplace. Sims cannot interact with him, but he will leave a present for every sim in the household, though only one will contain an actual gift.

Santa reappears as “Santa Klaus” in The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack and later The Sims 2: Happy Holiday Stuff, a more inclusive pack containing items and NPCs related to Christmas as well as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Years Eve. Santa serves a similar function in this game, leaving presents if there are Santa cookies and a Christmas tree on the lot. This Santa can be interacted with, but he will not appear in the relationship panel, and adding him to a household will cause corruption. 

Similarly, a new character called Father Time will appear if a sim throws a New Year’s Bash. Like Santa, he cannot be added to a household, but he can be interacted with. He will arrive at the party around 23:00 and start using noise makers around midnight, after which, he will transform into Toddler New Year.

In The Sims 3: Seasons, Snowflake Day is given a name, but Santa is notably absent. Sims will receive a day off from work and possibly a holiday bonus. Players can instruct their sims to throw a gift-giving party over the phone. Each sim will automatically receive presents, and they will all gather round to open them in a random order.

Snowflake Day is retitled Winterfest in The Sims 4: Seasons, and it involves decorating, opening gifts, partaking in a grand meal, and receiving a visit from Father Winter, this installment’s equivalent of Santa Claus. Father Winter will appear the fireplace and add gifts to the pile, and he can be added to a household like any other townie or NPC. Interestingly, sims can also fight with Father Winter to steal his presents.

New Year’s Eve is also a returning holiday in The Sims 4: Seasons. Sims will decorate, make resolutions, and count down to the start of the new year. There is no Father Time or Toddler New Year in this game or the previous installment in the series.

I wish all of my followers a happy New Year, and I hope you enjoyed your holiday celebrations.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for an upcoming post next week as I discuss new beginnings for characters from The Sims 2 returning to The Sims 4.

Dag dag!

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In Too Deep

Sul sul!

As you’ve probably noticed, my posts have been less frequent as of late. I recently moved and started a new job in real life, which limits my ability to have a regular posting schedule for the time being. That being said, Plumbob Post is not going anywhere; I’m still following all of you, writing interviews, and building my resource pages. Between work and life and blogging, I’ve found myself in too deep, which means that posting twice a week is just not a possibility.

I’m not leaving you empty handed, though. This post’s topic is about a family that also finds themselves in too deep, sometimes literally, in The Sims 2: the Brokes. (Okay, I’m sorry for that joke.)

The Brokes were, as mentioned, introduced in The Sims 2, with struggling widow Brandi, rebellious teen Dustin, and toddler Beau. Brandi recently lost her husband in a “mysterious pool ladder accident,” a reference to a fan favorite method of killing off sims in the original game. Many fans take this easter egg and run with it, creating stories of how Skip was murdered.

This was furthered fueled as fans began to realize that the game had two different Skip Broke character files, one of which is labelled as Dustin and Beau’s father and the other of which was in all of Brandi’s memories. Some simmers take this as some kind of “evil twin” story, but given the doubles of Darleen Dreamer, Michael Bachelor, and Nervous Subject, it’s most likely an error by the game’s creators. Interestingly, in a vanilla game, Brandi’s memories will show that Skip died before Beau was born, which is contradicted by a picture in the family album showing Brandi going into labor.

The “surprise” of playing the Broke family come in the first couple of hours of gameplay: Brandi is pregnant, another reason why Beau had to have been born before Skip died. The baby will always be a boy, and he will have the same facial structure and genetics as Brandi. The reason for this is that Skip has an unlinked character file, so when the game rolls the genetic dice, the only accessible genetics are those of Brandi. The same will apply if she has twins: they will be male Brandi clones.

Aside from some of the quirky glitches associated with their family, the Brokes have a sad story. Brandi is a young widow and soon to be mother of three with no job to support her sons. Dustin is an angsty teen with bad grades and a job in the criminal career, but his biography states that he wants someone to tell him what to do, hinting that he misses his father’s guidance and shedding light on his involvement with local burglar Gordon King. This leaves Dustin as the only source of income for the entire family. Beau is more or less a clean slate; he is a toddler who has not learned any of his skills and his biography suggests that he will “beat the genetic odds.” As such, many players such as @simgaroop and @strangetomato have created distinct and memorable interpretations of the character.

Casual players may have missed a key detail about the Brokes: their lineage. Anyone who’s played The Sims remembers Bob Newbie and his wife Betty, the very first sims that we are introduced to in the tutorial. For most fans, their absence from The Sims 2 would have been notable, but they weren’t absent at all. Betty and Bob were already deceased at the start of the game, but they were present in the family trees of their daughter, Brandi, and her sons.

The Brokes are a surprisingly tragic family mixed into a rather lighthearted game, though given the story of the Goths, the Grunts, and Olive Specter, the argument could be made that The Sims 2 is much darker and more complex than it seems.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

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Come So Far (Got So Far To Go)

Sul sul!

Happy Pride Month! In its honor, I will be answering an ask that I have had sitting in my box for a couple of months concerning LGBT representation in the series over the years. Anon, don’t worry- I haven’t forgotten about you.

The history of LGBT representation in The Sims is not as straightforward as it may seem. In the original game, gender preference is not a feature, meaning that all sims behave as bisexual in game. As a result, same sex relationships are possible, but such couples cannot get married, though they are able to move in together and adopt children.

In The Sim 2, some progress is made; same sex couples are allowed to enter into committed relationships, and the very first premade LGBT characters are introduced. Marriage is not available to same sex couples. Instead, they can enter into joined unions, which are likely based off of the civil unions that were legal only in some US states at the time of the game’s release. The joined unions as presented in the game are understandably controversial, and the wants for entering a joined union yield 3,000 less aspiration points than those for getting married. There are several mods out there that enable marriage for same sex couples.

As for LGBT premades, none of the storylines expressly indicate a sim’s gender preference as anything other than straight, but there are several notable characters whose in game preferences are gay or bisexual. In the base game, sims such as Kent Capp and Nervous Subject have a preference indicating that they are gay, while Circe Beaker, Titania Summerdream, and Ariel Capp all start off as bisexual. Additionally, there is a sim, Jason Cleveland of Belladonna Cove, in Apartment Life who has a preference for males, and many others who players speculate are gay, such as roommates Max Flexor and Mitch Indie from The Sims 2: University.

Marriage equality was introduced into the series in The Sims 3, where sims of any gender can date, propose to, and marry any sim they want. These couples can adopt children, just as they could in the first two games, or if The Sims 3: Into the Future is installed, they can genetically engineer their biological child. Additionally, if story progression is enabled, the game will generate same sex couples, though some players have noted that these relationships are less common.

As far as premade LGBT sims go, The Sims 3 made bigger leaps when it came to representation. In the base game, the only character who is implied to be gay is Gobias Koffi, a parody of Tobias Funke from Arrested Development. Notably, his inspiration, Tobias, is the subject of a recurring joke about not being able to recognize the double entendres he states; as such, it is debatable what the creators of the game intended with Gobias.

Jesper Sandstrom and Viktor Valquist, the first gay couple, appear in Aurora Skies, though yet again, it is not stated that they are an item, and their relationship level is at the best friend level. The two live with Viktor’s adoptive daughter, Linn, whose last name is a combination of theirs: Valstrom. Linn’s name and the fact that she is adopted paired with the pose that Jesper and Viktor use, which is normally reserved for couples, all lend weight to them being a couple. Still, the first official LGBT couple in The Sims series was not Brent and Brant; Audrey and Dylan Shear of Roaring Heights have that distinction. The happy couple lives with their adoptive son, Charlie.

The Sims 4 has made the largest changes when it comes to inclusion. At the time of release, there were few changes in same sex relationships, but as of Patch 34, The Sims 4 made history. This update removed all gendered restrictions on clothing, hairstyles, and accessories, allowed simmers to set whether a sim could get pregnant or impregnate other sims, and enabled players to change the body types of each sim to masculine or feminine regardless of gender. For the first time, the game enabled LGBT players to make sims who were true to themselves.

With the release of The Sims 4: Pets, the Shear family was no longer the only household to feature an officially same sex couple; newlyweds Brent and Brant Hecking, along with their canine friend Rosie, reside in Brindleton Bay. The Heckings are an important step in the right direction on Maxis’ part. Previously, LGBT characters were hidden, hinted at, and, in Gobias’s case, used as comedic relief, but The Sims 4: Pets not only introduced Brent and Brant as a normal couple but also used them in their advertising campaign.

The Sims series has come a long way on the path of inclusion, something that fans of the series have been clamoring for since the first game was released. Hopefully, the positive reaction to Brent and Brant as well as the changes of Patch 34 will inspire both the creators of The Sims and the developers of other games to better represent the LGBT community. After, 48.2% of simmers are a part of it.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images. My apologies for the lack of a cut and links- Tumblr on my laptop is not working, so I had to post on mobile. I will update the post when I can.*

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Seasons Of... Love?

Sul sul!

As I’ve been teasing for a while, the topic of today’s post is seasons. I had originally intended to release this prior to seeing the announcement of The Sims 4: Seasons. For those of you who haven’t seen it:

Let’s take a brief look at the Seasons in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 as well as things to look forward to in The Sims 4: Seasons.

Seasons, as we have come to know them, were introduced in The Sims 2:Seasons, alongside weather, though weather itself made its first appearance in The Urbz: Sims in the City. The seasons included in the expansion pack are Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Each of these seasons had a unique effect on gameplay. For example, sims build friendly relationships faster in Summer, acquire skill points more rapidly in Autumn, receive a bonus in family interactions in Winter, and gain a boost in romantic socials in Spring.

Additionally, weather varies according to season, with rain being more common in  Spring and snow being more common in Winter. Another fun feature added in the expansion pack is outerwear-sims can snuggle up in their parkas, too. The most notable contribution to the game is a new lifestate: the PlantSim. The PlantSim can be described as a hybrid, and they are created when an adult or elder sim overuses pesticides while gardening,or when a PlantSim spores a Plantbaby. There is one premade PlantSim residing in Riverblossom Hills, the neighborhood that shipped with The Sims 2:Seasons.

Seasons return in The Sims 3: Seasons, with the same four as before, Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer. PlantSims also return with a big makeover, but they appear in The Sims 3: University Life,while Aliens were instead  reintroduced in The Sims 3:Seasons. Several additions were made with the addition of holidays such as Leisure Day, Spooky Day, Love Day, and Snowflake Day as well as several festivals corresponding with the holidays. Many new items and locations such as Jack-O-Lanterns, Kissing Booths, and Haunted Houses were also added.

Worth noting is that The Sims 3: Seasons allows players to adjust settings for both weather and seasons. Each season will last seven days by default, and they can be set to range anywhere from three days to twenty eight days. Different types of weather can be deactivated, and the temperature can be set in either fahrenheit or celsius.

As for The Sims 4: Seasons, full details on the games are still under wraps until its release on June 22nd. According to the description of the expansion pack, simmers can expect a few familiar features such as holidays, seasonal activities, and weather, of course. A new career in gardening will be available, and sims will regain the ability to create floral arrangements, a feature first introduced in The Sims 2: Open For Business. Many players speculate that seasons will be portrayed differently in each world, similar to how Riverblossom Hills has different seasons by default in The Sims 2: Seasons.

What are you most looking forward to in The Sims 4: Seasons?

I would also like to wish a very happy birthday to the wonderful @meetmetotheriver.

 If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

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Coming of Age

Sul sul!

The topic of this post is the life spans of sims in various installments in The Sims series.

You may be thinking “Didn’t she just write that her next post would be about seasons?” The answer is yes, I did. That was written before the announcement of The Sims 4: Seasons, so it needed to be updated accordingly. The reason that aging is today’s subject of choice instead of seasons is that yesterday was my birthday, and a themed post seemed appropriate.

Onto the fun stuff, aging is such a vital component of gameplay in The Sims franchise that it is hard to imagine that the original game did not feature aging as simmers have come to imagine it. There were only three life stages: baby, child, and adult. Sim babies are either adopted via a random phone call or “born” after their parents kiss several times, arriving immediately in a shower of petals.

In 72 game hours, the baby will become a child, and they will remain a child for the rest of gameplay,unless the Age of Instant potion from The Sims: Makin Magic as they do not age. The same extends to adults in The Sims because there is no elder stage. This means that sims such as Gunther and Cornelia Goth who appear to be elders are actually adults, providing truly open ended gameplay with the same families.

When The Sims 2 was in development, one of the biggest changes was the addition of fully-fledged life stages as well as family ties. Babies were still able to be adopted, but the addition of proper woohoo allowed for pregnancy to be added to the game. After roughly three days of pregnancy, the baby will arrive, and though they are not selectable, they are actual sims as opposed to objects tethered to their cribs. The baby life stage lasts around three days, after which the baby grows into a toddler.

Toddlers are an interesting addition to the game; they are able to be taught skills such as walking, talking, and potty training that are unique to their age group. Provided that their aspiration meter remains green, the toddler will grow up well into a child after four days. If their aspiration is in the red, then they will receive a negative memory of aging up; this happens for each subsequent age transition. Children have more freedom than toddlers, attending school, making friends outside of their families, and after eight days, growing into teenagers.

Teenagers gain the ability to fall in love and fight with each other, as well as to get part time jobs. If the player has The Sims 2: University installed, then an additional life stage between teen and adult is added: young adult. Young adults are the only sims allowed to attend university, and failing or dropping out of college will cause a sim to age into their adult stage and return to the main neighborhood.

Adults get married, woohoo, climb the career ladder, have nooboos, and age into elders after twenty nine days. Elders have a variable age span, with half of it being randomized and the other half being based on the sim’s aspiration meter. Elders can do almost everything that adults can, except that they can only take part time jobs and female elders cannot get pregnant. If The Sims 2: Nightlife is installed, vampire sims will not age after their transformation except for teen sims who attend college.

In The Sims 3, life stages are much the same except that young adults are separated into their own stage separate from being in college. Interestingly, The Sims 3 offers different lifespan options: short (25 days), medium (50 days), normal (90 days), long (190 days), and epic (960 days). Additionally, the story progression feature enables an entire neighborhood to age at once; this means that sims who are not a part of the active household will also age.

If expansion packs are installed, some of the supernatural life states will have a multiplier added to their life span. For example, the vampire lifespan will be five times longer than the player’s setting. If the player has installed either Patch 22 or The Sims 3: Generations, the length of each individual life stage can be adjusted.

The Sims 4 initially had six life stages: baby, child, teen, young adult, adult, and elder. At the time of its release, players were outraged over the lack of toddlers, and it would not be until the release of Patch 46 in January of 2017 that they would make their adorable return. Like in The Sims 3, story progression will age the entire neighborhood at the same time, with the odd exception of pregnant sims, who do not age at all.

Each of the spin offs have their own aging systems ranging from stuck in limbo to life’s so short, so I won’t go into detail on each of them. I hope you enjoyed reading this article; I almost did not post it out of shyness.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: Aside from the pictures of Don, Cassandra, Bella and Alexander from The Sims 2, these are not my images.*

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What Time Is It? Summer Time!

Sul sul!

I offer my sincerest apologies for the High School Musical reference. This week, for a lot of us, marks the start of summer. This season can mean different things for different people, but it is often called “summer vacation.”

In my spring break oriented post, I discussed the mechanic of vacationing across all four main games in The Sims franchise. For summer break, I decided to zero in on the permanent vacationers themselves, the Traveller family.

Introduced in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, the Travellers routinely annoy simmers through inserting themselves into the family bin of every neighborhood they launch. Joking aside, the mechanics of their appearance in every neighborhood is easy to explain. Unlike the Goths of Pleasantview or the Smiths of Strangetown, the Travellers are linked to the vacation subhood instead of a main neighborhood. This means that in a vanilla game, the Travellers will appear in every neighborhood opened after installing Bon Voyage.

So who are the Travellers? They are a nuclear family consisting of married couple, Trisha and Trent, and their child daughter, Tina. The storyline of the Traveller family is that Trent decided to quit his job in law enforcement to travel the world with his family. According to her bio, Trisha has some reservations about the wisdom of such a decision, but she is excited to have the opportunity to educate Tina through travel.

Aside from the brief storyline mentioned above, there’s not much canon to the Travellers. Their family trees only display each other, and their memories are a reflection of the Maxis description of the family. As a result, they have a polarizing effect on players; some enjoy the lack of story and insist that gameplay characterizes them enough, while others put in empty stealth hoods and pretend they do not exist.

Each member of the family is unique in their own way. Trisha’s defining characteristic in her bio seems to be that she is a loving mother, while in game, her aspiration is popularity not family. Additionally, her lifetime want is to be a celebrity chef, characterizing her as someone with ambitions beyond the bounds of her storyline. This does not make her any less of a mother; it just means that she is more than a mother.

Trent is, unsurprisingly, a knowledge sim who is described as “never afraid to go out into the world and get what he wants,” despite having only six outgoing points. Interestingly, his lifetime wish is to become a criminal mastermind, which some players take as a hint as to why he quit his job in law enforcement in the first place. If The Sims 2: Nightlife is installed, Trent and Trisha will not have strong chemistry with each other, which, given the information provided by Cyjon, is a result of their conflicting aspirations, incompatible zodiac signs, and slightly different personalities. As such, it is not uncommon for players to split the couple.

Little Tina takes after both of her parents, with her bio referencing her having friends back in SimCity and her sharing her father’s zodiac sign, Gemini. Since she is still a child, Tina does not yet have an aspiration or a lifetime wish, though many player see her as a knowledge sim due to her interest in travel and exploration.

Also worth noting is that the Travellers have inconsistent DNA. Trisha has dark blue eyes while her genetics are for light blue eyes. Trent has light blue eyes, but his genetics are for grey eyes. Tina inherited her mother’s light blue eyes, but in game, they are green. As a result, there is a common misconception that her eye color would not be possible given her parent’s appearances. In reality, their eye color genetics match hers; they just aren’t visible. Alternately, their facial structure differs enough to where it is evident that Tina was not created using the pacifier tool and thus, is not a blend of her parents anyway.

The Travellers are joined in the family bin by the Ramaswamis, the Ottomai, the Picasos, Julian Cooke, the Goodies, the Newsons, Cyd Roseland, the Critturs, and the Gavigans, depending on which expansion packs a player has installed. Each of these characters have their own story, some original and some less so, though they are often times left in purgatory as the rest of the neighborhood ages around them. If there’s enough interest, there may be a series which follows each of these families.

Want to hear more about The Sims 2 or would you rather hear about the other games in the series? As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned as I discuss the mechanics of seasons as featured in expansion packs for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

[plumbobpost]

Fan(fic) Friday: Spotlight on Peni Griffin

Sul sul!

Today, I have a special treat for you guys. I had the chance to ask the very delightful @penig a few questions about Widespot and The Sims in general. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her work, she has created two widely popular hoods for The Sims 2: Land Grant University and the aforementioned Widespot. It’s longer than usual, and Peni expressed the concern that it would needed to be edited down, but in all honesty, her responses were such a wealth of information, deleting any of it seemed wrong.

I’ll stop teasing you, and let Peni speak for herself:

What inspired you to create Widespot?

“I’m always in story creation mode. This has been a large part of the appeal of The Sims 2 for me, as it allows me to tell a particular kind of story that I will never, ever be able to write for publication,  and have always wanted to: the story of a community in which we see every character as the hero of her own story, and how all the stories intertwine (often without the protagonists recognizing it) and affect each other as they all go about their business.” 

“At the time I started Widespot, I was in a situation in which my normal professional outlets were not available to me. You will excuse me from going into detail on the subject, which can be summed up as Health Crap. For our purposes, the important thing was that I needed a project, I couldn’t work on a book, I had been thinking for some time about the potential of my favorite game as a storytelling medium, and enough discussion of the matter had been generated over at MTS that I found/was directed to the late lamented Mootilda’s thread on creating a clean, safe, populated neighborhood for sharing.  ( http://modthesims.info/t/455403)”

“I actually went into some detail about the process on my writing blog at the time.”

( https://penigriffin.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-you-want-to-share.html )

Did you take inspiration from the Maxis neighborhoods?

“To a certain extent, yes. I decided that what I wanted to create was a neighborhood that would feel and play as if it had shipped with the game, but with less mess. No dead people without full character data, no memories that outright contradict each other, no hints in the bios that can’t be fully explored in the game.”

In your neighborhood, you included different story elements for each family that interconnect. What is your process in developing this story?

“Somewhere around here, I have the notebook in which I first started working it out, but I’d have to dig to find it. I remember starting with the admonition to myself to keep it simple, as your first attempt at publishing in a medium should be simple - you have enough to do mastering the new medium without trying to make something complicated with it. I knew my genre was soap opera, and though I’ve never been much of a soap watcher, my mother and husband are, so that set my parameters. I listed the tools at my disposal - the five base game aspirations, the jealousy mechanics, and the generational play. The question I asked myself at the start of the process was: “How do I create the most Drama for the least amount of effort?”

“Probably the notion of having five aspiration-themed households came almost at once, possibly as I started making name lists. I wanted to give elders a big role, because I had noticed that a lot of people thought elders were “boring,” and I knew they were wrong! I’ve always felt that Maxis missed a big trick by not having a Scheming Matriarch in Pleasantview. I wanted to shake up some stereotypes and have sims who didn’t obviously “belong” in their aspirations - shy Romance sims, outgoing Knowledge sims, lazy Fortune sims. I wanted all the households intimately connected to each other, which meant that for simplicity’s sake the story (story being defined as “person with a problem”) should center around one particular event that triggered events in all the households, a cascade of consequence. At which point I wrote down “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife,” and decided that the wealthy Mann family coming to town with a highly marriageable son and a Dark Secret was a good place to start.”

“That turned out not to be the trigger, but you have to start somewhere.”

Aside from your official captions, how did you set out to convey plot to those who play Widespot?

“I tried to take pictures of enough key moments that the players could inspect the albums for clues. By playing out the development I had ensured that some important information already existed in the memories and relationship panels, but I also went in and inserted memories that seemed to me significant. I had specific meanings in mind when I gave Mary memories of potty-training her younger siblings that extend all the way back to teenhood and manipulated some of her relationship scores with the testing cheats, but I wanted the players to be free to interpret those memories and relationships according to their own ideas, so I tried to background my own opinions as much as possible.”

“The plot, after all, is the players’ job, not mine!”

As far as literal world building goes, how did you factor in your characters’ surroundings to both their plotlines and their characterization?

“The smallness of the town, necessitated by the decision to keep things as simple as possible, gave me the starting point and the town’s name - it’s just a wide spot in the road, hardly a town at all. Rural areas have a certain vibe; certain types of people grow up there, and certain kinds of people wind up there, so this was on my mind as I designed the characters, built their homes, and decided what order they should be created in CAS and moved in.  Each house has a history, not all of which is necessarily made explicit to the player, and some of which really, really made me long for something more than BG Maxis content! But I think most people get that the Land cabin was built piecemeal over time, that a lot of Skye’s house was DIY, that the Beech house is Daytona’s house and the rest of her family just lives there, etc. Skye only got educational toys for his kids, but the Lands have a teddy and a dollhouse as well. The Mann’s house is the only one with a fence, and Rich ensures his privacy with stained glass windows in certain rooms. He also has that ominous closet full of aspiration rewards. (I hate that I couldn’t get him a counterfeiting machine - he clearly needs one.)”

“Some details were dictated by the game mechanics. Penny needed a double bed to get pregnant in, but there’s no particular reason for one to exist on her lot; so the heck with it, everybody in that house gets a double bed and I don’t even try to explain it. The lowest-numbered playable in the hood is always the telescope slapper, so I had to create the Mann family first in order for the guy with the Dark Secret to be the one who was incensed at the possibility of being spied on. But who would beard Rich in his own den when he, Lana, or Junior used the telescope in the daytime? That would be the local cop, wouldn’t it? This is why the Land house (with the nubile Land daughters) is right behind the Mann house and the Mann telescope is pointed straight at it. I also used the house to train the Manns - especially Junior - into wanting to buy things by furnishing it minimally to start with, and then adding items as wants were rolled for expensive artwork, games, etc.”

“When I gave characters their starting skill points, I assigned them partly at random, partly according to the implied backstory and role, and partly according to what would be possible in the game. If logic or a random roll indicated that someone in a household had a skill, I made sure that suitable skilling items existed in that household. Woody has an easel because it’s a solitary tool for gaining creativity points; the other families have the more sociable piano.  Neither family is much concerned about the impression they make on the outside world, so they are not oversupplied with mirrors, unlike the other families, where Charisma matters.”

“This all works back and forth; the character or situation requires something in the setting, and then I realize that having this thing here means that I also need this and that means I should improve the relationship between these two characters, or whatever. My first and best playtester insisted to me that Goldie needed a teddy bear, and made a good case for it based on Goldie’s characterization, both in the bios and as played; and she was right, so I added it almost at the last minute. (Which is why, so often, the first thing Rhett does it pick it up and try to talk to someone through it.)”

“One thing that I was aware of during development, but am a little reluctant to discuss, is the possible implications for the setting of the racial makeup of the neighborhood. At the time I was born, in the state where I was born, the Land and Beech marriages would have been illegal; and I had that in mind when I mentioned familial disapproval in the Land bios. Some people pick that up and run with it, most people ignore it. Most people look at the Hart’s Spanish-style house and decide (despite the name) that the family has a Mediterranean or Mexican background, but others have decided that Valentine is black/white biracial and all the Spanish influence comes from Angel. I have no desire to dictate anybody’s interpretation or play style, but I do want to enable as many interpretations and play styles as possible, and this variety is an indication of success to me.”

In a lot of ways, fans have come to regard Widespot as highly as they regard the original three Maxis neighborhoods. Did you envision the neighborhood being this popular?

“I beat my “expectations” about the reception of any particular work to death years ago. While I was building Widespot, I told myself that if the only person who liked it was Aegagropilon (my first playtester), that would be good enough and anybody else’s approval would be gravy. Well, Aegagropilon loved it; and I’ve lapped up quite a bit of gravy since then. I don’t have much of a grasp of how popular it actually is, and that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that I know some people are playing it, and enjoying it, and using it in different ways. How many there are, and how it stacks up next to the many other (and in some cases far more sophisticated) fan made hoods out there, is out of my hands. I’m better off not dwelling on that.”

How did Widespot evolve after you started? Were there any massive deviations from your original plan?

“Development was an alternating process of playing (including building, character design, and actual play) and working things out on paper in illegible notes, which is always how I work. I haven’t properly thought anything till I’ve written it down, but I’m a “pantser” rather than a “plotter” - i.e. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants when creating. Too much planning kills the story for me. So once all the preliminary work had been set up, and the broad strokes of the storyline determined, the rest was done directly in the game, with a little help from the testing cheats, Tombstone of Life and Death, and so on.”

“I knew I needed to wind up with a baby for every adult woman, but I didn’t always know who specifically would be the father of each baby until I saw how characters interacted. I knew one of the households would have a ghost, but for awhile I thought it might be Lana. I assumed Candy would have two lovers but I thought one of them would be Hamilton until she informed me otherwise. As mentioned earlier, I thought the Manns would be the central, triggering household rather than the Harts. I had no plans for the teens or children at all, and they took care of their own storylines”.

On a different note, what was your inspiration for the dynamic between the Harts and the rest of Widespot’s inhabitants? How did you develop the idea for these entanglements?

“As a family of Romance sims, their job was to wreak havoc. And boy, howdy, did they! But only after I realized Angel had to be the town ghost. The family ran much too smoothly when she was in charge - she and Valentine constantly smooching it up, Rhett being Mama’s boy, Candy being Goldie’s social support. Kill Angel, and everybody falls apart and starts making bad decisions. I designed Valentine as a Dirty Old Man; but he refused to be only that. I designed Rhett as a heartless jerk, and he can be that - but he’s also the only one of the immature Mama’s boys in the hood who has lost his Mama. I designed Candy as a golddigger, and yeah, she is - but she also made friends with Daytona and Goldie without any prompting from me, and she put herself in the middle of what turned out to be the hardest knot to untie in the whole hood, the Mann Triangle.”

“And Goldie - well, Goldie was a darling who autonomously put the rest of her family ahead of herself repeatedly, could never finish her homework, and never once brought anyone home from school or came home with anyone else.”

“TL;DR: I didn’t develop the Harts. They did.”

You’ve been very active on both Mod the Sims and Tumblr for a while now. How has The Sims community evolved since you first got involved? Why do you think there is still such a strong following of the series?

“It’s hard for me to speak to how it’s evolved, since I was never part of the Age of LJ and only started playing Sims 2 since after Sims 3 was already out. Also, having been on the fringes of a lot of subcultures in my life, I have become adept at keeping away from the stuff that stresses me out. So I’ve never hung out at SimSecret. I block tags on tumblr. I avoid anything smacking of edition wars, don’t allow anonymous communication, and back out of controversies as fast as I can - with an apology if necessary, because face it, everybody’s a jerk on the internet sometimes, and the most you can hope for is to not be one any more often than you can help.”

“So I have no idea how the Sims community as a whole is going on, and I only have a limited knowledge of the portion of the Sims 2 fandom that hangs around specifically at MTS and attracts my attention on Tumblr (often by tagging Widespot). Within this limited sphere, I have noticed a few changes. I used to see it assumed as common consensus that all Maxis premades were “ugly” and that “ugly” is a bad thing; moreover, that certain sims - Goopy Gilscarbo and Sandy Bruty in particular - are more “ugly” than most and are to be avoided at all costs. Now people are shipping Goopy and Sandy (that’s largely @holleyberry’s doing, I believe) and embracing the cartooniness of sims with enthusiasm.”

“On older websites I often see “realistic” (i.e., modeled on airbrushed photos in fashion magazines) sims that, as far as I can tell, are identical to each other and to the ones on the other old websites they link to. With current websites, however, I can not only tell the sims from each other, I can tell Person A’s versions of the premades from Person B’s at a glance. This is especially marked on tumblr, where I often know who originally posted the pics I’m looking at regardless of the attached avatar.”

“And there has been such a flowering of creativity in so many directions in the last eight years it’s overwhelming, though I don’t know how that compares to the days before I started participating. I like to think of Widespot as the vanguard of a Golden Age of hood-sharing. Nobody moans about the lack of clean fan made neighborhoods anymore; they’re agonizing over whether to play Europa or Widespot or Emerald Heights or Polgannon. And suddenly people are making new face sliders. Neighborhood deco lights up at night now. There’s mods for parking on the street, taking toddlers and pets on vacation, hunting, foraging, beekeeping, on and on and on.”

“I think the main difference between now and eight years ago is, that people were defensive about still playing Sims 2, and a general air of playing a “dying game” hung over us all. Now we are joyous and defiant and declaring that Our Game is the Best and Will Never Die.”

“Or maybe that’s just the people I self-select to see. How would I know?”

As a writer by trade, did you find many similarities between creating Widespot and writing a novel?

“My experience has always been that there’s an underlying unity among all kinds of creation, and in particular that storytelling is storytelling, whether it’s the language of text, sound, line and color, or whatever. My writing habits and skills translated seamlessly into the medium of the game. The chief difference, once you factor out technical matters, is that in most forms of storytelling, you need to provide a discrete unit of Story and give the reader the pleasures of closure and narrative structure, pruning out everything that disrupts that weakens the sense of completeness.”

“When making a sims neighborhood, though, you need to be as open-ended as possible, and you need to discern the optimum moment to turn the hood over to the player, while it’s still bristling with plot hooks and unresolved situations. You don’t need, as I did, to deliberately choose the moment at which a bunch of hard choices must be made immediately; but you need to put the player into a situation in which the choices he makes will matter and shape how the neighborhood develops from that point.”

You often play neighborhoods like Pleasantview and Strangetown. Do you prefer playing your own sims or those created by Maxis?

“That’s like asking if I prefer to read Diana Wynne Jones or Megan Whelan Turner. (And if you aren’t familiar with those authors, boy do you have some great reading ahead of you!) The answer is “both.” I enjoy playing characters I’m engaged with, regardless of who made them. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Vidcund and want to play Strangetown; sometimes I want to reconnect with the sims in Drama Acres, my personal custom neighborhood; sometimes I want to play with some of my own plot hooks from Widespot. It’s all good.”

If you had to pick between Widespot and Land Grant University, which would you choose?

“I’d attach LGU to Widespot and play them both. I don’t do either/or choices.”

(She just defeated the Kobayashi Maru.)

Do you intend on creating more neighborhoods?

“I actually have three on hand right now: a downtown called Bigg City (an empty version of which is available on SFS  http://simfileshare.net/download/207580/ ); a Seasons/Pets neighborhood I call Knotthole County; and an AL neighborhood called Port Cochere. The populated Bigg City got real complicated, real fast and when Health Crap is in a certain state I can’t work on it. Knotthole County is almost completely built but got interrupted while I was designing the characters; and Port Cochere is an SC4 map and a bunch of illegible notes. And at the moment I can’t work on any of them because I need two disk drives in order to use AGS, and one of them has gone wonky. However, I should be able to replace that soon, and then - well, maybe I’ll finally get that last week of work done on Bigg City. Or maybe I’ll decide (again) that if I’m organized enough to work on that, I should seize the moment and get queries out instead.”

Your content is themed around The Sims 2; have you played other titles in the series?, If so, which installment in The Sims is your favorite to play? For storytelling? For building? For creating sims?

“I’m a late adopter by nature. I started with the original The Sims and played it till I felt I didn’t have anything more to discover in it, at which time I started looking into the Sims 2, assuming that I’d eventually plumb its depths, too, and move on to Sims 3 about the time Sims 4 came along. Then I discovered that Sims 2’s depths are unplumbable, and that it was the perfect vehicle for that all-community storytelling I’d always longed to do.”

“The more I learn about the later iterations, the more certain I am that I will never play them. I’m sure they’re fun in their own ways, and I certainly don’t look down on anyone who chooses to play them; but I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the lack of a storytelling tool, and most of all, the mechanics and structure of the game don’t enable my style of neighborhood play. The Sims series consists of four distinct games with four distinct sets of strengths and weaknesses; and the first two are the only ones I feel any call to play.”

Lastly, why do you still continue to play The Sims? Do you feel that the games provide a positive creative outlet?

“It still gives me pleasure. And I still have Health Crap and need projects, and have a computer that will play it. The Sims 2 is as much a part of my life as reading and playing tabletop RPGs and board games with my friends. So why would I stop?”

“The game is a positive creative outlet - it has nothing to do with my feelings on the subject. One of the most rewarding things about having made Widespot and LGU is seeing people use them as springboards for developing and experimenting with their own creative capacities. Also, a lot of simmers are deliberately using the game to control or relieve some condition or other. Depression, OCD, chronic pain from which they need distraction - I’m not the only one with Health Crap, and I am honored whenever anyone uses something I made to  deal with theirs.”

“They could have done these things without me, of course - but they didn’t. They used something I made for their own benefit, and I can feel good about that.”

Any parting comments, teasers, spoilers, public service announcements, etc.?

“One of the core concepts by which I live my life is that creativity is the quality that defines humanity best, and that it is the birthright of every single one of us. But we’ve been educated to think that it’s something special and separate, accessible only to certain special “talented” people; and brainwashed to think that personal creativity that can’t be monetized is a trivial use of time. On the contrary, creativity is to a large extent what time is for. Whether it’s a book, or a game, or a prom dress, the process of making is fulfilling and enriching, and sharing what we make is nourishing to us and to those we share with. So whatever your medium is, whatever resources are available to you, whatever ideas are quickening in your brain and hands - go for it.”

“It is not a silly waste of time.”

To those of you who haven’t played Widespot, go check it out; you won’t regret it. Thanks again to Peni Griffin for allowing me to pick her brain, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I certainly found a new favorite word in “pantser.”

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts!

Dag dag!

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Pleasantly Unpleasant: The Women of the Pleasant Family

Sul sul!

Plumbob Post is back yet again, and today’s topic of choice is the Pleasant family. More specifically, this article will give a brief overview of the Pleasant women as well as the often controversial Kaylynn Langerak. Despite being part of one of the most popular families in the series, the female Pleasants are often considered divisive within the fandom. Starting from the very beginning, here’s a look at the notable female members of the Pleasant-Oldie-Burb clan:

1. Diane Pleasant

Despite being the OG matriarch of the Pleasant Family, there’s unfortunately little to say about Diane. She appears in The Sims and its console spinoff of the same name, living with her husband Jeff and their two children, Daniel and Jennifer. She is unemployed in both, and it can be assumed that she is a homemaker. Her bio suggests that her family is new to Neighborhood 1 and that could be the one to “set her family on its way up the social ladder.” Diane does not make an appearance in The Sims 2, but she can be seen in the family trees of her children and grandchildren in Pleasantview. Interestingly, while her hair was brown in The Sims, she has genetics for red hair in The Sims 2. Her son, Daniel, shares this distinction. Both of her children appear in The Sims 3, but neither Diane or her husband are referenced.

2. Jennifer Pleasant (Burb)

In The Sims, Jennifer Pleasant is an average child with dreams of soccer stardom. She and her brother have the same personality points, and Jennifer returns alongside her family in the console version of the game. At the start of The Sims 2, Jennifer can be found in the family bin as part of the Burb family. In the twenty-five year gap between The Sims and The Sims 2, Jennifer has married John Burb, another returning character, had a young daughter, Lucy, and given up her dreams of being a sports star; her brother fulfills that role instead. She does, however, start off with four body skill points as well as two creativity points. Her aspiration is fortune, though she starts off unemployed, and the Burbs are stated to have made their return to Pleasantview fairly recently, having lived in the city prior to that.

Jennifer does not return in The Sims 3 base game; however, she and John are reintroduced in Dragon Valley as engaged young adults. According to the storyline of the world, they were travelling before their wedding and got lost. This iteration of Jennifer is surprisingly consistent with previous versions of the character. She has the Vegetarian, Artistic, Athletic, Ambitious, and Friendly traits, and her lifetime wish is to, surprise surprise, become a superstar athlete. The athletic and artistic traits refer back to her skills in The Sims 2, while the ambitious trait matches her fortune aspiration. As of right now, neither Jennifer or any of her relatives have appeared in The Sims 4.

3. Tiffany Burb

Tiffany Burb is related to the Pleasant family through her son John’s marriage to Jennifer, as mentioned above. She was introduced in The Sims: Unleashed alongside husband Jeff, son Johnny, and dog Tucker as new residents of Old Town. Interestingly, she is employed as a store clerk in the fashion career track, making her one of the only mothers in the original game to not be a housewife. Additionally, her biography states that she does not share her husband’s love of nature, which could indicate that she did not wish to leave the city. Her fashion-centric character and new-in-town status somewhat mirror Jennifer’s storyline in The Sims 2. Like Diane Pleasant, Tiffany is not playable in The Sims 2, but she appears in John and her granddaughter Lucy’s family trees.

4. Mary-Sue Pleasant

Introduced in The Sims 2, Mary-Sue Pleasant is the wife of Daniel Pleasant, making her the daughter-in-law and sister-in-law of Diane and Jennifer, respectively, and the mother of teenage twins, Angela and Lilith. Her aspiration is fortune, and she starts off at level 2 of the politics career. Her biography states that she finds people “inherently good” and implies that she is kept quite busy by her job, which prevents her from pursuing her hobbies such as pottery. Her husband is involved in an extramarital affair with their maid, Kaylynn Langerak, though she is unaware of this at the start of the game. On the first day the Pleasant household is played, Daniel will have the day off of work, and Mary-Sue will receive a chance card. Unless the chance card is ignored, Mary-Sue will either be demoted or fired from her job, causing her to return home early and potentially catch her cheating husband.

Mary-Sue, as depicted in The Sims 2, is a divisive character. Many players pit her and Kaylynn against each other or try to justify Daniel’s actions by stating that she was ignoring him in favor of her work. Alternate takes on the character, such as Skell’s, suggest that since Mary-Sue is low on the career ladder and Daniel is higher up, it is likely that she was a homemaker in the early years of her marriage, putting Daniel’s career ahead of her own. When she returned from work, she had to focus on herself more, and Daniel could not cope with the change. This more positive interpretation of the Mary-Sue is supported by her characterization as friendly, provided by her bio. Either way, Mary-Sue is most definitely not a Mary Sue, cue the eyeroll.

Mary-Sue and Daniel return in The Sims 3 as a young married couple in Sunlit Tides. Her lifetime wish is to be a chess legend, while her traits are Perfectionist, Workaholic, Hopeless Romantic, Over-Emotional, and Charismatic. The Workaholic and Perfectionist traits complement her fortune aspiration in The Sims 2, and the Hopeless Romantic trait seems to provide an explanation for how she and Daniel fell for each other in the first place. She is unemployed with handiness and cooking skills; this is odd considering that she only has creativity, logic, cleaning, and cleaning skills in The Sims 2, which takes place later in time. Mary-Sue does not appear nor is she referenced in The Sims 4, despite her best friend Cassandra Goth returning.

5. Lilith Pleasant

Appearing only in The Sims 2, Lilith Pleasant is the younger of Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant’s twins, as indicated by her parents’ memories. Her aspiration is popularity, and if FreeTime is installed, her one true hobby will be sports. Lilith is depicted as a stereotypical gothic teenager, and she is dating another Pleasantview teen, Dirk Dreamer. She has low relationships with every member of her family, and it is not uncommon for her to run away from home. The cause for her low relationships with her parents and sister are stated in her bio to stem from Lilith having it harder than her sister. This assertion is supported by Lilith’s memories; she does not remember learning her toddler skills, her personality has been altered, and both of her grow up memories are negative. Her grade will start out as a D, further characterizing her as troubled.

It is common for players to take sides in the Pleasant family. Some players see Lilith as a victim of neglect as a result of her memories as well as an image from the Pleasant family album which shows her isolated from Angela’s birthday party. These players on occasion vilify Angela as being part of the problem, citing the fact that she has a computer in her room as some form of favoritism. Others claim that Angela is also an innocent victim of her parents’ mistreatment of her sister. Alternatively, some simmers characterize Lilith as a moody and rebellious teen who was never mistreated; she is simply experiencing growing pains. Each of these interpretations are valid.

6. Angela Pleasant

Angela Pleasant is the older of Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant’s twins, as indicated by her parents’ memories. Her aspiration is popularity, and if FreeTime is installed, her one true hobby will be nature. Angela is dating Dustin Broke, a teen employed in the criminal career who her father is enemies with. She has a low relationships with her sister, Lilith, and the two often fight upon first loading the household. Her low relationship with her sister, as mentioned above, stemming from Lilith’s belief that Angela had it easier. While Lilith does not have positive memories of growing up or any memories of learning toddler skills, Angela does. Her starting grade is a B.

Angela is perhaps as divisive as her mother. Most players sympathized with Lilith, at least when the game was originally released, and as a result, Angela was vilified. Her critics often considered her spoiled, despite there being no evidence to support that. Others have stated that dating Dustin is an act of rebellion, though the two recall being friends since childhood and share the nature hobby. Angela is stated to be “patient and dutiful,” both of which are positive qualities and in an endearing twist, she “dreams of being a fishing boat captain.” Given the details provided by Maxis about Angela, there are no strong hints that she is anything other than a kind, respectful teenager, but as are all characters, she is open to interpretation.

7. Coral Oldie

Coral Oldie is the mother of Mary-Sue Pleasant. She only appears in The Sims 2, alongside her husband Herb. Interestingly, Mary-Sue is adopted, making her one of few base game sims with that distinction. Coral is a family sim, the “picture of maternal perfection.” She is unemployed and according to her memories, has never had a job, instead being a stay at home mother and wife. Despite her and her husband having a reasonably positive relationship, her biography ominously questions the price she paid for raising a successful daughter; the meaning of this statement is unclear. It could be in reference to Mary-Sue’s marital troubles or to marital troubles between Herb and Coral. The meaning is left open to the player, though Herb’s bio further clouds the intention of the game’s creators by referring to him as a “reasonably reliable husband.”

8. Lucy Burb

Lucy Burb is the child daughter of Jennifer and John Burb. She has a “knack for getting into trouble,” hinting that she will take after her teenage cousins. As she is a child, there is very little information on her, and she is not directly involved in the storyline of the neighborhood. Lucy is, however, a fan favorite character, and she is often paired romantically with Alexander Goth, another Pleasantview child, by players.

9. Last but certainly not least, Kaylynn Langerak

Kaylynn Langerak is not a Pleasant by relation or by marriage, but she is forever tied to the family as a result of her involvement with Daniel Pleasant. Interestingly, despite being involved with a married man, Daniel, and an engaged man, Don, Kaylynn is a family sim. Furthermore, she is a shy sim, with only one outgoing point. These qualities create an interesting mismatch between Kaylynn and the stereotypical other woman. It is possible that she was created to be a joke around the common soap opera trope of male characters carrying on extramarital affairs with their maids. As mentioned above, it is possible for her and Daniel to be caught by Mary-Sue depending on their choice about her chance card.

Kaylynn is yet another character who is a common source of debate amongst The Sims community. Though her personality is not consistent with a home wrecker, many were quick to assign her that title in the early days of the game. More recently, it has become common for players to sympathize with Kaylynn and make her a playable character, often having her dump both Don and Daniel. Sometimes, players even marry her and Mary-Sue in an interesting twist. Either way, Kaylynn is a complex character, with room for players to interpret her in a variety of ways.

While she does not appear in The Sims 4, Kaylynn is a playable character in The Sims 3. She is depicted as a child, residing with her father Dustin, her mother Iliana, her aunt Zelda Mae, and her teen brother Parker. She has two traits: neat and perfectionist, both of which align with her future as a maid. She is also said to enjoy painting in her free time. Kaylynn is at the center of the largest inconsistency between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. In the former, she is at the start of her adult life stage, while she is an older child in The Sims 3, which takes place fifty years before. This inconsistency is made more apparent by the fact that Mortimer Goth, an elder in The Sims 2, is younger than Kaylynn in The Sims 3. This timeline discrepancy has led to many fan theories involving the elixir of life or in Skell’s case, two Kaylynns.

   The Pleasant family is an interesting and diverse group with a variety of personalities within it. As a result, they remain popular amongst fans of The Sims and its sequels.

Do you want to hear more about the Pleasants? Or perhaps about the Langeraks?  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

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The Sims Community Census in a Nutshell

Sul sul!

As promised, here are the results of the survey that I put out for all of my followers. Please take these findings with a grain of salt; my following does not encompass everyone who plays The Sims. As such, it is possible that the results could be inaccurate to some degree.

Warning: the following post is very text-heavy.

The first question asked participants which games in The Sims series they currently play. The Sims two boasted a solid 83.7%, while The Sims 3 and 4 are each played by 34.2% and 35.6%, respectively. The next highest percentage is that of The Sims Medieval: 11.9%. The original game is tied with The Sims: Castaway Stories at 6.9%. Alternately, 4.5% of participants consider themselves lurkers, and several other games, including The Sims Bustin’ Out and MySims, rank at 0.5% each.

As for which title is the reigning favorite, The Sims 2 took the lead at 83.6%, with The Sims 3 following behind at 12.4%. The Sims 4 had a surprising 4%, while The Sims received no votes at all.

With regard to Simblr posting habits, the vast majority of simmers concentrate on one of these three areas: custom content (31.2%), gameplay (47.7%), and reblogs (40.2). In addition to those that post custom content, sims and lots weigh in at 27.6% and 21.1% each, while a sizable 30.7% of simmers post stories. Factoring in the 36.7% of participants who consider themselves lurkers and the assorted other simmers who post headcanons, tutorials, or other content, The Sims community on Tumblr is very diverse in what it has to offer a player. To those lurkers: don’t be shy; we don’t bite.

The content that most simmers follow other blogs to see is storytelling, with 87% of participants listing that as their main interest. In a very close second, 86.5% simmers voted that they follow blogs that post custom content. Many players, many being 77.5% also choose to follow other players who post gameplay or information related to the history and or storylines related to the game.

Out of the participants, 75.9% have a specifically The Sims-themed blog. Of those individuals, 46.5% run one blog, 21.2% run two, and 32.3% run three or more, though only 24.% of those users run more than one The Sims-themed blog.

Outside of Tumblr, there were several recurring sites that simmers use to connect with each other and to find content and stories. The most recurring answer was, of course, Mod the Sims, with Garden of Shadows being mentioned almost as frequently. LiveJournal also remains a long term favorite, with several participants directly mentioning Strange Tomato and Skell’s stories. Other favorites include: Leefish, Plumbob Keep, Discord, Reddit, Simscave, and other sites, most of which are considered “dead” or inactive.

When it comes to gameplay, most simmers prefer a more challenging game with a mix of free will and micromanaging, and the general consensus is that “whatever is going to happen is going to happen” in gameplay as opposed to playing based on wants or with a story in mind. As for which kinds of sims are most played, 20.4% of players prefer EAxis premades, 31.3% prefer their own sims, and 48.3% enjoy playing both. The most entertaining answer was by far related to simmers’ favorite mods; almost every single answer had a very familiar acronym: ACR.

For those of you looking to branch out, current trends in challenges include: the legacy challenge (no surprise there), the build a city challenge (BaCC), the apocalypse challenge, the asylum challenge, and the 100 baby challenge among others. When it comes to style of custom content, Maxis Match reigns supreme at 63.2%, with semi-realistic coming in second at 31.8% and realistic at 5%. Those of you who enjoy watching gameplay as much as playing the game might take interest in some of the popular YouTubers among fans of The Sims: Dan and Phil Games, The Sim Supply, Deligracy, Matt Shea, The Jessa Channel, Lazy Game Reviews, Chrillsims 3, Rooster Teeth, and Mara, though it is worth noting that one individual pointed out the unfortunate lack of proper closed captioning on some of these videos.

Now for the non-game related bit: demographics! Over half of the players who participated in the census were females, and the largest age range of players was in the 18-24 demographic. The LGBTQ+ community is well-represented amongst simmers with a whopping 48.2% identifying as part of the community and 32.8% considering themselves allies. Additionally, there are simmers all over the world, with most residing in the US or Europe and some as far as the Middle East, Asia, and South Africa. The Sims Community is indeed a diverse group.

Just for fun, I included a question asking players why they enjoy The Sims. The most overwhelming answer was simply because it is fun and provides an escape. Other common answers elaborate on how the game provides an outlet for creativity, referred to as a “creativity toilet” by one user, and allows players to create their own characters and storylines. Many also stated that the game is nostalgic, with one eloquent simmer stating “It captured my heart as a child and refused to let go.”

I hope you found these results interesting. If so, please let me know. I am open to writing more surveys in the future, provided there’s interest. Thank you again to everyone who participated and to those of you over at the Maxis Shenanigans Discord server for your feedback on the questions.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

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Of Goths and Graveyards, Part Two: Gothic Lolita

Sul sul!

The Goths are the most iconic family in The Sims series, and they extend far beyond the original trio of Mortimer, Bella, and Cassandra. Continuing from my previous examination of the extended Goth family, today’s topic of choice is the mystery of Lolita Goth.

Originally introduced in The Sims 3, Lolita is a ghost in Sunset Valley, residing in the Goth Family graveyard. She is a young adult whose tombstone indicates that she died of electrocution. Despite haunting the Goth family and sharing their last name, Lolita is not listed on their family tree, and she has no relations to any of the family members.

Additionally, Lolita does not share many similarities with the Goth family. Her hair is light brown, whereas Mortimer and Gunther, the only living Goths by direct relation, have black and red hair, respectively. Also worth noting, most members of the Goth family have either the grumpy or gloomy traits, but Lolita possesses neither. All things considered, it’s not likely that she is a close relative of the Goths.

So who is Lolita? The game itself does not provide any concrete answer. Initial fan theories speculated that she was The Sims 3’s equivalent of Gunther’s sister, Frida. However, this theory was disproven when The Sims 3: Supernatural was released, featuring the return of Frida in Moonlight Falls.

Subsequently, most of the theories have shifted their focus, with the most popular two purporting that she is the  first wife of one of the Goth patriarchs. Some suggest Gunther’s father and Mortimer’s grandfather, Victor, is her former husband, while others suggest that she was Gunther’s wife prior to him marrying Cornelia.

The latter theory holds up when compared to the state of the Goth family and their house in The Sims 3. Cornelia and Gunther have a low relationship for a married couple, and their ages are relatively advanced to have a son in his child lifestage, with both of them in the latter half of adulthood. Worth noting as well is that there are few electronics in the Goth household.

With those factors taken into consideration, things fall into place. Gunther and Cornelia married later in life because he was previously married to Lolita. Their relationship was not especially high because he has not recovered from his grief. As a result of his first wife’s untimely death via electrocution, he removed all electronics from his home, which later influenced Mortimer to do the same in his homes in The Sims and The Sims 2.

Who do you think Lolita is? There is no right or wrong answer.

Would you like to hear more? Let me know! There is much, much more to be said about the extended Goth/Bachelor/Crumplebottom family. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned on Friday when I will analyze the results of The Sims Community Census.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

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Long time, No see

Sul sul!

After an unexpected hiatus due to real-life interference, Plumbob Post will be back in full force this week with more fun articles. The Sims Community Census is now closed, and I will have the results and my analysis up by Friday at the usual time. Thank you to everyone who participated!

As for the resource pages, I have a wealth of links for creators and storytellers for The Sims 2, but not as many for The Sims, The Sims 3, and The Sims 4. I am still on the lookout for more resources for those of you who play those games, so creators, don’t be shy! The resources page for The Sims 2 will be up in the next week or so.

I have one interview in progress, and I am developing the questions for another. If anyone has any suggestions of a creator or a storyteller they’d like to hear from, let me know. As per usual, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for Wednesday’s post which will be the second in a series of posts about the extended Goth family. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Dag dag!

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Of Goths And Graveyards: Yes, There Are Even More Goths

Sul sul!

Before we dive right in, I would like to thank all of my followers and everyone who has provided feedback. I am still catching up on all of the suggestions I have received for future articles. Today’s topic comes from a reader who wanted to know more about the generations before Bella and Mortimer.

The first hints of the extended Goth family are in the original game. The Goth graveyard is home to several ghosts: Bratty, Boy, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle, Cousin, Vegas, and Auntie. The identities of these sims are unknown, although many fans speculate that they characters from later games.

Interestingly, the next extended Goth family member introduced was not originally stated to be a relative of the Goths. Miss Crumplebottom, later called Agnes Crumplebottom, was introduced in The Sims: Hot Date as an obstacle to overcome for a successful date. Sister of Cornelia Goth, who I will describe in further detail below, Miss Crumplebottom is known for attacking sims who engage in romantic interactions with her purse, resulting in snarky pop-ups.

The first proper appearance of Goth family members aside from Mortimer, Bella, and Cassandra is in The Sims: Unleashed, ignoring Michael Bachelor being in the Sim Bin in the base game. Mortimer’s parents, Gunther and Cornelia Goth Sr, live in a mansion with their two cats, Hecuba and Menelaus. Gunther works as a Dean in the Education career track, while Cornelia is unemployed. Fun to note is that according to her bio, Cornelia is implied to have a good relationship with her granddaughter, Cassandra, despite not knowing her upon opening the household.

In The Sims 2, most of the blanks in the Goth family tree are filled in. Bella Goth is revealed to be Michael Bachelor’s sister, and their parents, Jocasta and Simis, appear in their family tree. Agnes Crumplebottom and Cornelia Goth are sisters and the daughters of Simon and Prudence Crumplebottom. Victor and Gretle Goth are the parents of Gunther and his sister, Frida. Of these new relatives, all of them appear in the Goth graveyard except for the Bachelors, Prudence Crumplebottom, and Frida Goth. Even so, the player is left with more questions than answers about the ancestors, their lives, and their deaths, with the only clues being Mortimer and Cassandra’s memories of a fire.

A “Mrs. Crumplebottom” appears in The Sims 2: Nightlife. This Mrs. Crumplebottom is not the same Miss Crumplebottom from Hot Date but a relative. Her exact identity is unknown; however, she is widely believed to be the widow of Robert Crumplebottom, who is mentioned in expansion packs for the first game.

Gunther and Cornelia are alive and playable in The Sims 3, where they live in Sunset Valley along with a child-aged Mortimer. Agnes also makes an appearance as a recently widowed young adult, whose husband, Erik Darling, drowned during their honeymoon. Both the Crumplebottom and Goth parents are deceased, and Frida is noticeably absent in Sunset Valley. A new family member, Lolita Goth, is introduced, though her ties to the family remain unclear, leading fans to speculate that she could have been Gunther or Victor’s first wife.

Additionally, in Sunset Valley, Simis and Jocasta Bachelor are playable for the first time in the series. Simis’s parents, Enriqueta and Milton, are included as ghosts. Despite Bella’s bio in The Sims Bustin’ Out stating that Bella is “descended from a long line of occultists, mystics and decadents,” the Bachelors are an uber normal family with a domineering paternal presence. As a result of their extremely normal depiction, storytellers, such as Skell, have hypothesized that the absurd mundanity of the Bachelors is a front.

The Frida Goth mystery is solved in The Sims 3: Supernatural. Frida, fleeing from an unwanted marriage to a Landgraab, moved in with her uncle, Samuel, and her aunt-in-law, Olivia. By the start of the game, all three of these Goths are ghosts, which also accounts for Frida’s missing gravestone in The Sims 2: it is in Moonlight Falls. There are also three sisters in Moonlight Falls with the last name Crumplebottom, though their relation to the Goths, if any, is unknown.

As for The Sims 4, only the four immediate members of the Goth family appear. Since ghosts were not available upon release, there are no urns or graves in their home. Neither Gunther and Cornelia nor Simis and Jocasta are around, and given that The Sims 4 is in an alternate timeline, it is entirely possible that the Goths have different parentage. Even so, many players have made recreations of the Goths and the Bachelors, including Michael.

Would you like to see the Bachelors and the elder Goths make their return to the series? Want to know more about this mysterious Lolita Goth? Are you a closet Cornelia fan? Want to know more about the tragic story of Agnes Crumplebottom? Let me know! There is much, much more to be said about the extended Goth family, including even more potential family members, and if there is interest, there will be at least one more detailed follow up.

Thank you to the anon who asked for more information on the Goths, and to everyone else who has written Plumbob Post. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my images.*

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Sul sul! I’ve created a survey to learn a little bit more about all of you lovely simmers out there. Most of the questions are centered on gameplay, but a few are more focused on demographics. The survey will be open until roughly April 15th, and the results will likely lead to a future article. Please take the time to fill it out and share it with others, if you can. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. I’d also like to give a special thanks to @katatty, @sinneblommen, and @meetmetotheriver for their feedback over at the Maxis Shenanigans Discord. Stay tuned for upcoming posts! Dag dag!

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Beware the Gerbit

Sul sul!

If you’ve played The Sims, you’ve likely noticed one thing: sims do not speak your language.  While it sounds like complete nonsense, the ramblings of your sims are actually spoken in a fictional language: Simlish.

(Source: onceler-vore-fanfic)

Simlish was created by Will Wright when he realized that there needed to be dialogue in SimCopter. He was initially inspired by the Navajo language, but between the struggle of finding Navajo voice actors and the concern that players would be irritated by repetition, Wright decided that a nonsense language would be better suited for The Sims. As a result, players would be able to find meanings for themselves. The goal was for the player to be able to tell what emotion the sim was feeling purely based on tone and tempo, and the sound of simlish was mostly improvised by the voice actors.

Simlish is used by sims when they speak, but the language is also heard and seen throughout each game. A notable use of simlish is in the soundtracks of the series. In the first game, simlish songs are mostly limited to original compositions, but starting with console spin off The Urbz, every installment has featured simlish covers of actual songs.

From The Black Eyed Peas to Lily Allen to Katy Perry and even My Chemical Romance,  many celebrities have lent their talents to the series. In fact, the song covers have become a staple of the more recent installments, especially The Sims 3.

Written simlish has also appeared throughout the series, though there are instances, such as the headline of the newspaper in The Sims and the entirety of The Sims Online, where actual languages were used instead. Simlish characters most closely resemble those of the cyrillic alphabet, but they aren’t an exact match. Additionally, there are several players who’ve shared their own simlish fonts on ModTheSims.

Interested in learning more about simlish? Let me know. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.

Dag dag!

*Disclaimer: These are not my videos.*