Here's a genuine thread (I can hear a certain person shouting "FINALLY!" /cough Gardeviola /cough )

So Olive Specter's relationship with Buzz Grunt is at a quite low level, yet each time I call Buzz Grunt to come over, he gladly obliges: how can that be? I thought enemies always refuse invitations to come over.

Is this just a coincidence, or something more?

Its because his ex-wife died on her lot.

I don't know if its normal but it could be that EA/Maxis set it up that way and have a script in to make it so.

According to the base game Prima Guide, the minimum relationship for a guaranteed yes is Daily 20 and Lifetime 5.

Not sure about the death of his wife having anything to do with it.
Olive & Buzz being programmed that way would be the more likely reason.


There is at least one way to test it::
1. Create a household of at least 2 sims (Adult/Elder) in Create-A-Family.
2. Move them into a house and buy them a phone (if there is not one already).
3. Cause them to become Enemies.
4. Move one of them out.
5. Save and return to neighborhood.
6. Move the sim into a different lot and buy it a phone (if there is not one already).
7. Save; returning to neighborhood is optional.
8. Have either use phone to invite the other.

I think it's because he really doesn't quite understand what his ex-wife was doing there..but he's strangely attracted to Olive. She's quite the neighborhood gossip material. Nobody really knows if she killed all of those people (including his ex-wife) but there's a very good chance they weren't all suicides or accidents. Olive is quite obsessed with death.

So he's curious as to why she's so weird, and what is her connection to the Curious brothers?

I've never gotten into the Strangetown thing, but I can dig it.

There's also the possible plot thread of the player having Buzz be Olive's next late husband... which would complicate the whole Ripp/Ophelia/Johnny triangle and lead to the General and the brothers Grunt discovering Lyla's grave. (And drama if the very scary ghost of Lyla sees her former husband "cheating" on her with the widow Specter!)

Probably Maxis giving a hint that they intend Buzz to be the next person to die on Olive's lot.

If you go with the "Buzz is the military overseer of Strangetown" story, there's also the option that he is trying to investigate the murders. He doesn't know that Lyla is one of the victims as well, but several people died on the Specter lot or were last seen there before they went missing.

Or maybe Buzz is just a really nice guy who wants to help out the aging widow. She only has her niece to take care of her, and that girl is friends with Ripp, so she must be useless and/or a delinquent. Someone needs to help out the poor woman with her groceries or her flowers, and the SimCity military is on the task!

You're going to have to do that a good number of times to establish that it is a thing. A sim accepting just once would blow the theory up. I don't know how this particular thing works but EAxis had a liking for percentage rolls.

This thread makes me wanna play Strangetown again. Maybe Buzz will be her next victim?

It is definitely a scripted event, as it does not work in Tarlia's cleaned up Strangetown.

@AmandieLove how about "The Beginning of Strangetown" where you get to write the story from the start. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=522185

@AmandieLove I might have downloaded some guns from Paladin's Palace... and had Olive mow down Tank with an assault rifle. So now the Grunts are orphans. On the plus side, they all have scholarships if they choose to go to La Fiesta Tech!

Thanks for the reminder. I just grabbed it. OT, I hope you are feeling MUCH better. I've had a bit of a setback with my hand. The bad thing is that it's my sims hand!

COOL! Maybe then it won't feel like I am conflicting as much with my other Maxis AU, Acorn Bend!

The scripted events don't work with clean templates?

They do in the main hoods, but something about changing them to subhoods destroys the scripts. So if you want an Uberhood in which Vidcund is guaranteed to be abducted, you have to make Strangetown the base hood, and then you can't be sure that Mary Sue will get fired over in Pleasantview.

Oh that makes sense, since I remember trying it in a subhood Strangetown and it didn't work, so I just thought the entire script was borked in the clean Strangetown.

Oh! Is Mary Sue supposed to get fired? I suppose so that she'll come home and find Daniel in bed with Kaylynn. That would put her in a wonderful mood!?

Well she never got fired in my stand-alone Tarlia's Pleasantview. That might of course be because I ignored a Chance card that came up for her. I'd like to say that that was just because I habitually ignore Chance cards, which I do. But I have to admit that on this occasion it was more than that. In truth I was actively colluding with Daniel and Kaylynn to make sure they didn't get caught. I even used the SetHour cheat to give them extra time in bed together.

Oh dear! I suppose I'd better get back to Veronaville and ask the Rev. Anderson to hear my confession.

Yes, Andrew, if you don't ignore the chance card, your guess will inevitably be wrong, Mary Sue will be fired, and if you've allowed Daniel to go ahead with the project of woohooing with Kaylynn, she will catch him. I'm shocked that you acceded to Daniel's base desires, frankly.

If you ignore the chance card, or don't let Daniel proceed, the script is aborted. All the base game hoods have scripts like that - avoidable, but inevitable if you follow the scripted prompts and the obvious course of action.

Some of them are only avoidable if you play other households first and change the situation in a household drastically. I think the only way to prevent the roaches from generating and sending Nervous into aspiration failure is to either move him out, or to play other households first, in such a way as to give Nervous enough aspiration points in the bank to offset the fear of bugs.

I've been told that if you let Olive invite Buzz and lure him into the death room there's a creepy scenario that plays out, but I haven't played it, myself.

It worked in mine and I use her cleaned up templates? Unless it's just random with the relationship being that low? All the scripted events have taken place in my Strangetown using Tarlia's clean template. Vidcund's abduction and all.

Edit: Never mind, Peni explained

Like what? This is sad, but I've never tried that with those two; I'd always try to repair the relationship between Olive and Ophelia. Is it more than his boys just growing up basically orphaned and attempting to keep Buck out of social services? I don't want to restart Strangetown to find out.

Apparently she is very clearly waiting for Grim...as I said, I haven't seen it. Scripted events only happen on individual lots; there is no script for what happens if Tank, Ripp, and Buck are orphaned and the local army base loses its commander.

This is the first time I have read this and will now go put in a brand new Strangetown and see what happens.



ADD: Ok I went and tried this out and nothing happens anywhere on her lot after inviting over Buzz.

They both try to talk to each other but fail and then they start to prank each other untill Olive had to go to sleep.

I tried in every room of the house starting with the one off the kitchen and making my way out side to the graveyard but nothing other than normal game behavior happened.

Oh well another myth debunked.

No, you have to trap him in the deathroom - that little room with nothing in it - and let him die. And as his death approaches Olive begins to behave in creepy ways, apparently anxious to see Grim. Just having him over doesn't do it.

Ok Peni I will go try it now be back soon.


ADD:
Back again after playing this out in both a Base Game and a full game and still it is debunked, nothing out of the ordinary happens.