No "buts" necessary with me. I agree with you. Generally speaking when someone starts talking "force" and "control" that's where I check out. There's exceptions to ever rule, like I'm okay with forcing thieves to stop stealing, or controlling the movement of killers to confined spaces. But forcing people to tell lies, forcing people to live their lives the way you choose to live yours, forcing people into hiding for challenging the status quo or espousing different -- though equally valid -- opinions... No thanks. 2+2 will NEVER equal 5, and the Emperor is stark naked for everybody to see, whether people want to admit it or not! Unfortunately, we're at times too worried about hurting other people's feelings that we don't insist on being honest. That's never good.

Nobody advocates hurting other people's feelings... just recognizing that it is impossible to appease everybody. And not everybody who disagrees with you is your enemy, out to destroy you. We can disagree without hate. That should be an achievable goal!


-gE
>=)

Hacks & CC & Forum User Names that you'd like to see and Buttons you'd like to see no more!

Back on topic.
I would love to see more things like doing support. Like the refurishable pc on simswardrobe or the car that came with free time.

Yes. Back on topic. How about a mod that lets you use the stretch skeleton cheat in bodyshop as a permanent height change while making sims in bodyshop??
I know you can use it in CAS but it's not permanent and i use SimPE to make height changes permanent. But bodyshop would be fun to make short or tall sims in and have them permanent in-game.

Yes it would! I have lots of taller or shorter sims in my neighbourhood, it would be nice to be able to make them in CAS with varying height. And to make height genetic so that I don't have to manually change offspring heights in SimPE.

I was thinking more on the topic of the extended crime career... the mechanics from FT exist to create "secret" lots, that have a membership requirement. So i was thinking, this could probably be used to create a Speakeasy or a Gangster Hideout. It would be secret, and members only. The game could draw only others in the criminal career track. I wonder if it could be tweaked to allow their significant others, or maybe some members from another career that might be associated with the Mob Underworld.

I wonder if the game's mechanics can be exploited like that, to create different types of private professional guilds, restricted to sims accordingly. Maybe a Chamber of Commerce, for OFB Business Owners, and stuff like that... There's really all kinds of possibilities!


-gE
>=)

I'm sorry for derailing the thread, and I too would like to see it back on topic. In truth this discussion would have been better in the Random Thoughts thread, but I posted in this thread because Disagree Button was already being discussed in this thread. I saw it as a "matter arising" in this thread. Before moving on however I feel I have to try to answer one question that has been asked:

No, of course I don't know for certain why they left. He/she deleted their one and only post on the forum, and since he/she was the OP, that deleted the whole thread. They also deleted the bit of their profile that said what EPs they had. (I think it was just base game and Nightlife.) Novak joined MTS on 18th October. They started off a new thread with a very inoffensive three line post. In the next few hours they got at least five positive replies. They also got a lot of positive button clicks. When I looked the Love button had been clicked eleven times. So, all in all, I'd say the community (or at least most us) was making an effort to welcome Novak to our forum. And there was that one Disagree. It stuck out like a sore thumb, because it was so inappropriate. It was Novak's very first post on their very first day in the forum, and they had said nothing that any reasonable person could disagree with. That was the trigger for my outburst in my last post. The only explanation I could think of for that Disagree was to bully a newbie in the forum. I have sometimes noticed a certain intolerance of newbies when they make mistakes (and it doesn't do us any credit), but, as far as I could see, Novak hadn't made any mistake, and there was no reason at all for the Disagree. Now Charmful posted in another thread (which has been removed -- and probably a good thing too) that it is possible in some mobile devices to accidentally click on Disagree when trying to scroll down. If this is indeed what happened, then I apologise for my outburst. There might indeed be some merit in requiring users to confirm a Disagree to stop anyone giving offence by mistake. In any case by 2:24 a.m. on the 19th of October Novak had deleted the thread and part of their profile. Of course I don't know why, but that Disagree seems a likely explanation. Novak has not been back, so he/she has not read my PM. I think I'll try again, with an email this time, suggesting that the Disagree might be a mistake, reminding them how strongly other members had welcomed them, and inviting them to come back. From the little we saw in that one now-deleted post, Novak seemed to have the potential to be an interesting contributor to our discussions.

For myself I have not called for the removal of the Disagree button. It is certainly better than the Dislike button found in many locations. We really shouldn't need it removed, at least not on the TS2 forum. We are almost all adults and elders here. And any teens who are here are (IMAO) showing themselves to be people of exceptional discretion and maturity in choosing to play TS2 rather than one of the newer trendier iterations of the game. We ought to be able to treat each other with consideration and respect, without need for enforcement by site rules or mods. And by and large we are a friendly and welcoming community. Let's keep it up!

i hope that my reply which quoted you directly wasn't received in an accusatory way. You are always so kind to everybody who posts, and i've never known you to type a harsh word, over many years of sharing your contributions with MTS. My intention was to point out that I admired your compassion. I thought about sending this in a PM, to avoid derailing the topic again, but in the end, i decided that you deserved a little public praise and acknowledgement for your always pleasant demeanor.


-gE
>=)

Eh, one of the reasons why I like the MTS forum so much is that, because it's older, it's a little more laid back and so things can get a little off topic now and then. Personally, I don't think we always need a new thread for a conversation and, depending on what's being talked about, you can get more feedback by posting in a place that people usually frequent. As long as things don't get "derailed" too often, I think it's okay.

But back to the secret lot idea. Funnily enough, I'm trying to incorporate similar ideas in my building! I'm going to have a secret mob hideout in an abandoned factory, and am thinking about putting secret witch spaces in the downtown library and in Sim Bowl Lanes. For the last two, the buildings came out bigger than I expected and I had all this extra interior space, so I figured why not make it a secret space for some type of occult sim group? Only thing is, secret usually implies no windows and idk if I like that.

Anywho--I think this can be done already with some mods. I believe the Visitor Controller has settings for careers and Midge/Radium updated & tweaked the check for Inge's colored keys. Plus Chris Hatch has some spawners that can summon npcs to a lot. But Business Owner is interesting, though. Not sure if there is already a flag for that. I think what would probably be best is if someone was willing to do another big update to the Visitor Controller to add traits. If you can filter sims on the lot by trait, with the ability for downloaders to add more, that'd be a real game changer. You'd have so much flexibility. So that's what I'd like to see.

You make me blush! Sometimes I fear I treat my Sims better than I treat real people. I think I try to see the best in people though. I hope I didn't receive your post the wrong way. You were right of course: I didn't know why Novak had deleted their post; I just thought that that Disagree was the most likely reason. Of course it's irrational to be upset at one Disagree, when you've got eleven Loves and lots of supportive posts. But, rather like our Sims, real people aren't always rational. And, if someone is very upset by a single Disagree, when everyone else is supportive, it would suggest they were in a bad place to begin with. So I feel supportive towards them, because I like to think of myself as someone who is on the side of the underdog. (I recall once posting in support of you when I thought people were being unfair to you -- though I can't remember what it was about.)

My last post was meant to be conciliatory, whereas my post on 19th October was something of an angry outburst. But my conciliatory post got two Disagrees, while my angry post got only one. So you never know!

No, I'm not going to up and leave the community because I got two Disagrees. I wouldn't leave if I got twenty two -- this community has been far too supportive to me for that. I feel at home here. I do feel the TS2 forum on MTS is a much more welcoming place than the big wide internet out there. This forum is the very first place where, protected by an avatar and a user name as I am, I have dared to come out as gay. I do appreciate how good people are to me here.

I do think the Disagree button is a bit different to the other buttons in that it's much more likely to upset people than a Love or an Agree. You never know though: I've seen two Sims, very nice Sims at that, actually fighting each other, because one of them didn't like being admired! There's nowt so queer as folks -- and Sims!

Now can we get this thread back on track? I'm afraid I've really got nothing to say myself about the Criminal career: I prefer my Sims to be nice to each other and not become criminals!

If y'all think I've used too many emoticons in this post, you may Disagree!!

Indeed, you did. =) And you also sent me a personal message. It made a difference.

Getting back to the Hacks & CC, i thought up an idea yesterday for a Door Dash career. It would probably be a good University job, but it could be used elsewhere. And the mechanics mostly exist in-game already. Your sim would get a phone call (or maybe have to check the computer). When the order(s) came through, your sim would have to deliver the food. This would be accomplished through the "get alarm installed" function -- though it wouldn't be called that. Your sim would have to get in the car and drive off-lot for a preset amount of time. When getting the alarm installed the game will subtract §250. But by using a negative simoleon amount, you should be able to generate a positive income (ie. - -§250). So in this instance, your sim would drive off the lot to deliver the food, return in an hour or so, and the househould would gain income.

A couple things could happen here. Either a sim could receive a fixed amount, or... what i'd prefer to see happen is that a sim would have a set amount of time to leave the lot and deliver. A sim could wait for more orders to come in, thus delivering several meals before the deadline expires, and increasing the income. Delivering 5 meals on 1 trip would be more economical than delivering 1 meal. Also, perhaps the game could handle having the meal delivery value deteriorate... Leaving the lot in <30 min would lead to a higher pay value than leaving >30 min. And >60 min would lead to angry customers, little or no pay, and negative ratings (the way the OFB system does customer stars, perhaps?). Thus, you could deliver in 30 min or less and max the value of one delivery or you could wait til you had 3 or 4 orders, which may cost you the >30 bonus, but would still net more money and not harm your rating. But if you waited too long, you may go over the time frame to get a good review and wind up with less than base pay. Also, there's no guarantee that more orders would necessarily come through. Could the game be used to make certain designated mealtimes more likely to generate more orders? A base chance of orders could be modified by things like customer rating and time of day.

To keep this from being abused, where your sim could be filthy filthy rich, the delivery value would probably be in the double digits, something inline with the cost of a meal at a restaurant. Pizza delivery costs §40 and Chinese food costs §30 in the game. Most items ordered at a restaurant range from §8-§25 per serving. Considering the restaurant needs to make money, i would think that a base rate for each delivery order should be somewhere in the §30 range. This would mean that if you can collect 5 orders, a delivery run would net §150. Repeat that several times a day and you can make a decent wage.

But let's use the §30 base pay. If you deliver it fast, perhaps it's base * 1.3 (a 30% tip). If you deliver in a standard time, it's base * 1 (no bonus). If your delivery is slow, perhaps it's base * 0.8 (80% pay). And maybe the time could be set as <20 min = bonus; 21-39 min = standard; 40-60 = slow; >60 = angry customer /no pay. Those could be tweaked if they weren't effective. This would mean getting 1 delivery with bonus pay would be §39. But if you get 2 standard time deliveries, it's still a 1-hour trip and you've made §60. If you timed it right, you may hit one with a bonus and one with standard pay, resulting in §69 for the trip. I know the numbers can make your eyes glaze over, so i won't continue with mathematical examples.

This would probably keep better inline with other university jobs, which, I think, only usually generate §10-§15 per half hour. The challenge with being a university job is that you would have to manage your hours around your class schedule. You'd need to make sure you were home in time to go to classes and exams. you'd also still need to manage to have enough time to study and skill. And perhaps, to make a little bit more of a challenge, delivery times could have variables. A standard delivery may be 1 hour +/- a random traffic score. Each added order could be +X minutes to the base time. It's going to take longer to drop off 5 orders than just 1 order, whether there's traffic or not! [As an aside, perhaps it would be fun for a sim to unlock a reward item -- a GPS -- that would make delays less likely, as your sim could no longer get lost or have trouble finding the right address!] When applied to University, having to work around the limited time constraints would make it more of a challenge, and less cheaty. I'd think that you would need some kind of on/off toggle -- like an OFB sign -- that lets customers know when you're accepting orders and when you're not. Your sim would obviously want to turn off the ordering when they were at class, so that their customer rating doesn't suffer because they are not delivering in a timely manner when they know they will be unavailable. But that should be doable, you would think.

The good thing is, these mechanics would not be LIMITED to University jobs. A teen could have the job, after school. An elder could make a decent supplementary income doing this job. And an adult could add a supplemental income to their regular day job hours. Or if they chose, this could be a full-time job that would be capable of generating a life-sustaining wage.

Thoughts?


-gE
>=)

You know what, I'd like to see a mod that gives a chance for the cheerleader to be a guy. We have some nice male cheerleader outfit conversions now, and the llama, cow, and streaker can already be either gender, so why not the cheerleader, too? (At least I think the llama can be a girl anyway.)

And then I'd like one that increases the chance of the head witch to be a guy. Apparently there's some small chance already, because occasionally when I make a head witch playable, a male one gets generated to take her place, causing me to freak out for a bit before remembering that yeah, it's ok. Oh, and maybe instead of four evil/good witches, with one adult and elder for each side, there's 2 good, 2 evil, and 2 neutral, with a 50/50 chance to be either gender or age?

(grinevilly, I'll have to sit down and digest your driver mod idea later. On the one hand I'm like, that sounds complicated just for deliveries, but on the other, I'm like, no, there is a taxi driver mod by PCSims, so sims probably could earn random amounts of money while off screen in a car...)

I would like to see an environmental sound mod. What I mean by that is if your sims are in a room, when they talk or make noises, the reverb is set for a room reverb sound, and for outdoors, a little more of a wider reverb to simulate sounds being outdoors. And for tunnels, large open rooms and outdoor mountainous areas, a deep wide slightly echo-ish reverb to simulate being in those areas. That would be a mod that would add more realism to the game and make it that much more immersive.

Has anyone done a mod to stop sims inhaling deeply when they stop by your mailbox on walkbys? If not, then that's what I want a mod to do!

I wish someone would mod the Life Skills so they mean more than they currently do. Like the parenting skill would make teaching your toddler to talk etc would be quicker, and the level of influence when 'encouraging' older kids would be far greater. To be fair someone has done this but it's part of a collection of tweaks including breastfeeding which is making it unusable in my game.

The Fire Safety skill could maybe mean they burn food less often, as they'd be more vigilant? And the Anger management might mean they're less prone to tantruming with a red mood. Maybe it could unlock the meditation action no matter what their personality and skills are, and mediating could increase their mood a little?

Actually, ... https://modthesims.info/d/327040/no...in-the-sun.html :D

Those are some interesting ideas! Good parenting skills making 'encouraging' kids more effective would've been great! Maybe fire safety could help them 'stay calm(er)' when a fire breaks out, so they don't put the fire extinguisher away to panic. Maybe it could give a sim who catches himself on fire the ability to try to save himself... Jump in the pool, or the bathtub/shower, or even stop-drop-and-roll. And meditation for anger management sounds perfect!

I like your ideas a lot!


-gE
>=)

LOL Yup I have that mod. They had the basking in the sun in when they put out the mansions and gardens EP. it was annoying.

OMG they are BASKING?

Thank you for the link @Lili975 , I seem to have modded out all of the other M&G idles but for that one I was searching for 'breathe' and 'sniff'. I would never have thought of bask!

I too am one of those people who modded out all of those automatic gestures, the M&G ones, the hobby super annoying ones, the romance sim swoon, the "food smells delicious", and so on, I don't even know how many there were. They're all great and cute (well no, smell flowers is stupid ).... the first thirty times or so. Then I want to throw my laptop against the wall.

Not to mention some of them take forever to finish (playing with the science puzzle ball, ...) and can make your commands drop out of queue because "the sim I told you to greet is long gone now, but I'm glad you enjoyed pretending to take an air-picture with your hands for the twelfth time today"

And sims have much more space to express their unique personalities when they are truly left to their free will, instead of having it all destroyed by the gestures, and the ADHD (®Pescado) nonsense (open book, put book down, read book, put book down, pick it up again, put it back down...........), which, at the end of the day, really take an enormous part of their time.

I'd like to see more things done with the GLS Royal Jacket mesh (and the completer set). The sash is ridiculous unless you're actually royalty, but the shape would be very good as a general-purpose dress uniform base. I use the 4t2 military uniform to fill that gap, but recently realized how nice the tunic mesh is for the GLS outfit when you look past the trimmings. The boots are a bit odd unless you actually want the calvary/motorcycle boots look -- but that too is appropriate for some uniform styles. I guess I'm starting to get an appreciation for meshes, because some of the odd ones from odd stuff packs (GLS, H&M, even HHS once you can get them to show up in game) are very nice.

I like this forum having a disagree button. One of the things 2020 taught me is that if there's not a dislike/disagree/downvote/thumbs-down button, there will be a lot more fights than if there is -- because without that button, the only way to express displeasure with something is to say it in a comment, which adds fuel to the fire. That also increases engagement, so certain types of content creators deliberately create very disagreeable content (extremely stupid false-equivalency questions seem to be a favourite) in order to gain algorithmic "popularity" from all the complaining comments so that their stuff shows up more on whatever the main index page is. Depending on how the algorithm works, posting complaints on disagreeable content can also lead to users seeing more of it show up, which doesn't improve the average civility level either! It's not such an issue on an old-style BBS like MTS is, but it's still better to stay on the safe side and have the equivalent of a Paddington Bear long, hard, silent stare.

Charity made nice version with ordinary trousers and shoes. Adult/YA/Elder version here. Teen version here.

In my case I think the sash is not inappropriate, as it's for the Tsar of All the Russias (Nicholas II) and a teen version for the Tsarevich. Mischief Managed is about to upload the Romanov family, and Her Esteemed Grace, Juliette Capp, Grand Duchess of Veronaville is going to give them sanctuary in Veronaville. Only problem -- the Tsar might be disappointed at only getting two medals to wear. A hundred and two would be more like it!

You mean, like this?

Oh! I'm quite impressed by the Tsar's modesty. I thought he'd have worn far more medals than that.

He was a very shy, modest person who would have preferred to be a private country gentleman rather than the absolute ruler of the largest nation on Earth. I would not have wanted to be in his shoes, but the problem is that through his inaction and his tendency to listen to bad advisors he often made life worse for his subjects.
I'd encourage everyone to read or watch documentaries about the last czar of Russia and his wife, they were very interesting (and very flawed) people who were in the worst possible position they could have been in.