People can have physical flaws, I think it could add to gameplay and add more realism if sims can have such things too. Nothing serious of course, its a sims game after all.

Here's some physical flaws that could be present:

-Poor vision.
This sim requires glasses. They have trouble reading things, watching tv and with some other things that call on their eyesight. Contact lenses could also be bought, but these could cost money while glasses could just be put on at a mirror. Sunglasses could also count, presumably being adjusted to their eyesight.

-Bad hearing.
These sims will often ask sims to repeat what they are saying in conversation, or are hearing different things. It can provide some comic relief, and it can be fixed by buying your sim a hearing aid. It can be expensive though so its an investment.

-Weak knee.
This sim will have a bit of trouble walking, and can't go jogging or do anything else that requires them to be active with their knee. This sim needs to walk with a cane.
It could pretty much be reserved for elders, but the gameplay could be used for injured younger sims on a temporary basis.
At a hospital, an operation could fix the weak knee as well.

-Baldness.
Baldness could emerge for middle aged and elder sims, limiting their choice of hairstyles. They can however opt to wear a hairpiece or wig, but it may fall off during some activities and cause some embarassment.
At the hospital they can also get hair implants, but this could be expensive.

-Overweight.
While it can be a serious issue, it shouldnt be made a heavy subject, pardon the pun.
Overweight sims should tire faster from physical activities, and shouldnt be able to do some things that clearly wouldnt be possible with their physique. Like doing tricks on a skateboard.
I'm not talking about fat sims, but overweight sims. The kind that have that weight slider maxed out in sims 3.


I really think that physical flaws like this can really offer new dillemas in sims their lives. But since all of it can be fixed though at a cost, its nothing too serious so fits with the theme. It simply another thing to make them come more alive, and more distinct from each other.
It also adds something that costs money but is optional. A good moneysink.

There are glasses and bald hairstyles in CAS. Not sure how they would improve gameplay though if they somehow affected gameplay instead of being just decorative elements.

I wouldn't want that. I play sims to get away from all of my aliments not see pixels with them as well. You can make sims fat, bald and wear glasses already.

When sims get old they should have bad hearing and weak knees.
I imagine the old Maxis team could do something so funny about these "flaws". We may see the elders keep repeating "what? what?" when talking to teens.
Hahaha. So funny.

But for overweight, don't we already have them in TS3?

yeah but it doesn't really have any effect on the game, it's just cosmetic.

That sounds interesting in my opinion, but I'm not sure how those ideas could come true.
By the way, I have bad legs and don't wear a cane :D

As I said, if you dont like the features, all of it could be fixed. its the sims after all. Just saying it might add a bit more immersion.

Sims actually needing glasses instead of being decorative. The poor sight could be done in a fun way, like a sim greeting someone and you'd see the face of a different sim in their text bubble, they'd think its someone else.
Seeing how they could get any kind of glasses to fix this, or wear contacts which wouldnt even be seen, the entire handicap could be remedied.

It's true that bad legs dont always need a cane, just figured it might be nice to see fragile old sims with a cane.

Just by being overweight or a little fat, that does not do much but being Obese (or morbidly Obese) has many negative health effects and lowers athletic ability significantly.

I heard somewhere about adding a new age level between adult and elder (called either Mature Adult or Middle-Aged). This should be when physical flaws start becoming more apparent including visible signs such as wrinkles, greying hair, different posture, and age spots. Somewhere between the extremes of adult and elder. Mature Adults should still have the option of dyed hair, special creams, and makeup to make them look more like regular Adults but that should require a daily 5-30 sim minute "freshening up" on a vanity. Being obese as an adult is partially reversible but being obese as a mature adult or elder would be much more difficult and might lead to disability if they don't exercise or get into better shape.


--Ocram

I think the idea of having humorous interactions based upon ailments such as those would be a great idea if they were completely optional and the player could choose which ones he/she wants in the game.

I personally have horrible hearing, which isn't very fun especially because I'm pretty young so I guess people are more likely to get mad than think "Oh this is a person who can't help it." I still think sims should still have varying degrees of bad hearing, from the kind where you can hear most of the time, some of the time, to the kind where you can't hear at all. There should definitely be a difference between them. Same with eyesight. Some glasses just can't work with some sims, so they will need the perfect kind of glasses.
Also, there should be physical birth defects that don't affect too much, like toe thumbs (short thumbs that are wide on the top with short and wide thumbnails), which I have, by the way.

How would this enhance gameplay again? This is completely cosmetic, unless having bad hearing means that they sometimes don't "hear" your commands... Also where does balding fit in at all? Sims don't even grow their hair yet, nevermind lose it.

On the weight issue, perhaps a sort of metabolism system? Just something simple, some sims can clean out the fridge and never exercise and stay the same weight, vs others who have exercise constantly to lose weight, and everything in between. You could choose it in CAS and have it be passed as genetics to their children.