@hugbug993: Oh, you mean there's more sexual orientations besides...? Oh.
Heehee, boob shine. But boobs do need to be realistic. I would like a crotch slider as well cause not everybody is a Ken doll...
Again, I'm not a skill kid, don't like skills-I think TS4 made me hate skills because you HAVE to level them up in order to advance in a career (same with TS1. I don't remember the others as well). I know it's sort of realistic but...that's why you guys are here.

@101ita: Would you like something like Cities Skylines/Sims mix? Like, you could play mayor for a while (change taxes, do whatever) and go back to playing your family?

@mixa97sr: That's cool! I don't get it...I mean I get it but I don't..it's like build/buy mode...I need rest. But that's cool.

@Graveyard Snowflake: How many sexual orientations are there? There's bi, lesbian, gay, trans, and straight I am more familiar with, and I think hugbug brought up pan...would bestiality be one too? Never-mind...
I can write down you name suggestion(s).

@gdayars: I can write down all of your suggestions.

Okay, I don't know if I'll reply to everyone in the future, but since we have a small group, it's okay. All name suggestions will be written down, and in 48 hours, I will link a poll so you guys can vote on the name...So Monday a poll will be up since it's after midnight for me. I hope straw poll still exists..how do I use that...? After that, no more name suggestions (i'm using this word too much). We would have voted and have been done with the name. The next focus will be on...let's do the citizens, and go into great detail on what we want to see with them.

I will be writing down ideas for this game, I have already started. If there are other threads you would like to direct me to, go ahead and link them. I've already gotten yours, hugbug. Once ideas (another word I'm using too much) begin to repeat themselves, then i'll make a new thread where we can vote on and talk about what we want for No Name Game <---that is not a suggestion.

I don't know what else to say...I'm hungry, tired and my cat wants to eat a poisonous plant.

Heterosexual, homosexual, hetero/homoflexible (you're attracted to one gender, but some aspects of the other genders appeal), bisexual, pansexual (like bisexual, but rejecting the notion of a gender binary), skoliosexual (only attracted to people outside the gender binary), asexual (no sexual attraction), and demisexual (only feeling attraction to people you know well).

Transsexual is not a sexual orientation, it is a gender orientation. The gender orientations are cissexual (your innate sense of gender matches your body), transsexual (your gender matches the other gender binary), genderfluid (you drift between genders and can literally switch at any time), genderqueer (identifying mostly with your body's sex, but placed a little to the side) neutrois (no gender), transmasculine/transfeminine (feeling comfortable presenting as the opposite gender as your assigned sex but not actually being one), third gender (presenting as an entirely new gender), and I believe there is a range between male and female that I can't remember the name of.

Sorry if I missed or misrepresented any orientations.



TS2, you have to. In TS3, it's different. Your work performance is based on a number of factors - skills, mood, relationships with coworkers or the boss, career-specific stuff (like performing concerts, reading medical journals, your team's performance in games, campaign funds, etc.). These work on a scale, so you're given a skill range. If you're at the bottom of the range, it'll mildly hold you back. If you're in the middle, it's neutral toward your job progress. If you are at the high end, it gives you a boost. If you're outside the range, it's either really holding you back or really boosting you. In a few careers, it should technically be possible to get to the top level with only one skill point. There's also one career - Business - where you don't even have any skill requirements, just sucking up to the coworkers and attending meetings, and the part-time jobs are pretty easy to do with no skills.
Plus, in most of them, you can level up the skills by picking a different job tone. It slows down your promotion progress, but you don't have to sit there and force the sims to level up.




Also could have meant picking an economy before you go into or create a neighborhood. Like, say, you want to create a medieval neighborhood. Then there's one person in charge of the neighborhood - the monarch - and minor nobility who collect taxes from different parts and send money to the monarch. The rest of the people are peasants and receive little money for their work, and are restricted to manual labor, or something like that.

Actually, this sounds like a good idea. Before you go into a neighborhood, there's a separate screen. You can add presets like governmental structure, tax levels, technology levels, design aesthetics, etc.

Maybe they could be called Cims? Like how Cities Skylines unofficially calls the people.

Last night as I tried to sleep, I came up with a new idea for how the info in the interface could be organized to be more concise and intuitive. Basically, the wants/needs/fears/moodlets stuff would all be combine into the same area via icons that grow/shrink/change colour to indicate their priority.

It's a bit hard to explain without a graphical representation. I'll try to draw one up later if I have time. Why am I writing this post now? Just to remind myself to do it.

I tried to explain the UI... It's basically build/buy UI:



You can see that there are some new features and improvements... Like:

- Move objects is not cheat anymore, but actual build/buy option
- Free Placement is an option too, but it works with everything... walls, floors, windows, doors, stairs, fencing, pillars...
- Top View is back as an option, but you can still tilt your camera all the way up
- Toggle Ceiling is back too, but this time it's visible from all angles once it's turned on (this exist for better photos of interior).
- Edit Style and Create Object are new features (actually, they are the same feature)... I have unfinished version of it's UI in my notebook.
- Your sim's wallet can get into red, -3,000 $ is maximum (or minimum, whatever).
-There is a God mode with "Create a Household", "Edit Town" and "Disasters" sections.

Okay, so here's a crude mockup of my interface idea. Basically, the peop's face is in the middle and the want/need icons sort of orbit around it. The icons on the top half of the circle represent things the peop WANTS or NEEDS to do, while the icons on the bottom half represent things the peop would rather not do, or is afraid of.



So in this case, the most important thing for him to do right now is socialize (indicated by the largest icon, in the top center). He's also thinking about eating, going to the bathroom and sleeping, but these are a lower priority - their icons are smaller, and darker, and the bed/sleep icon is barely visible, suggesting it's a really low priority now. Needs that are really low priority will not be visible at all.

On the bottom half of the circle, we can see what he's afraid of, respectively: having someone angry with him, getting a broken heart, and also not making it to the bathroom in time.

Now after he's had a chance to socialize and it's a bit later in the day, his priorities have changed.



The need to go to the bathroom is now front and center, and the fear of not making it to the bathroom is also much greater. The need to socialize is lower as well, and the related fears are also weaker: the icons are smaller and darker.

The beauty of this system is it gives you a ton of information in a concise manner. Unlike in The Sims where the need/want stuff is spread out so much, here we have all that info consolidated into a relatively compact form. It's also super versatile, as we can work in icons of different colours/sizes and even place them around the wheel in a way that reflects their importance. The icons on the wheel can also serve as buttons, so you can click on them to auto-resolve whatever issue the character has. Finally, the background behind the character portrait can also reflect his mood: in this case it's a light sunny orange colour, suggesting he's fairly happy.

One of the downsides of this system, however, is it takes up a lot of room on the screen because it's a circle. However, we could alleviate that somewhat by switching it to a more oval shape instead of a perfect circle (since this is just a mockup I stretched it in a way that's distorted, but that needn't be the case in the actual game):

@ Glic2003

oooh, an interesting system, and a powerfull one. I'd like to create a GUI for it.

@Glic2003, I tend to get easily distracted by things like that (as in I can't read a web page with animated ads on it, can't listen to music while I read, can't read in the same room with a TV on, etc.) but I think that's something even I could get used to. I think your idea is brilliant.

@mixa97sr, yeah, I think putting things like "move objects" and what-not on the main build/buy menu is a great idea. I really think as many "cheats" as possible should just be considered regular features of the game, like if someone wants to add to or take money from their Sim's account or what have you. There could just be a button in the build/buy area to do it.

In earlier Sims games a lot of houses were built with the CFE cheat. I was just thinking about that and wondering, why should it be necessary to do that kind of thing just to add a ground-level garage to a house on a foundation or some such? It shouldn't. That made me think about how the road tool in Cities: Skylines works. There are little buttons to click for what you're wanting, like a button for straight roads, a button for curved roads, etc. Why not just have multiple features for building walls and such with buttons to toggle. Want a full-height wall? Click button #1. Want a half-wall? Click button #2. Of course I've not played TS4 but at least in the earlier games there always seemed like a whole lot of unnecessary clicking going on.

@simmythesim, sadly we can't go taking someone else's little people's name, even if it is Colossal Order. Now if they decided to build a people simulator, then yeah, they'd be Cims. :lovestruc

@awesomechick979 Not quite like Cities:Skylines. Sounds silly but I don't want to be the mayor, I think of myself as more like an "overseer"... Sort of like in Sims Medieval. But I'd love to have adjustments for the economy, taxes and so on. They could be done via the Cim that is a mayor/monarch/supreme leader or whatever they're called depending on your game.

The examples in @hugbug993's post, they're what I had in mind. It would be nice to have those things because a lot of people are into themed games and it would make it a lot easier to make the world you want your Cims to live in. I've played an apocalypse, medieval and now a futuristic space themed game. Would be nice to pick the options when you create your neighbourhood, indeed. And maybe have some in game adjustments you could have via the current leader Cim, like, would they be a good leader (low taxes) or a greedy tyrant (high taxes)?

@101ita: agreed, at least as far as themed neighborhoods go. I had a space thing going on in TS2 and it required 100% custom content, including the texture for the neighborhood land as well as as much neighborhood deco as I could scrounge up to do it correctly. I even had a separate instance of my game just for it.

The whole idea behind the purpose of collecting taxes, etc. just confuses me unless said tax money could be used for improving the town or some such.

Well, tax collection for improving town Is pretty smart, if you are playing in story mode (not in sandbox). That way, you could have a sense of town that's progressing and changing over the course of time.

The "collecting taxes" thing I would use as a budget for building community lots, but I've played a lot of BACCs.

I brought up taxes because that was the function of nobility in real life. The monarch divided the kingdom up into duchies, further into earldoms, then counties, and then baronies. Each noble oversaw their land, made sure it was producing enough to cover the area's taxes, dealt with complaints, and did all the other administrative duties.

Improving the town with the taxes? Sure, since that would produce more money in the long run. They could also keep what was left over, pay bribes, buy more land, or anything else. Being part of the administration system could be its own little mini-game, like in 7 Grand Steps.

And the leadership should be able to change, too. Could be a bloody revolution or through democracy, or knocking the infrastructure out from under the current government, or whatnot. Or a family could marry their way in.

Maybe it could be used to fund some community lots or work lots (for example put more money into the police station makes them more efficient at catching criminals)? Or if your Cim is greedy they could keep a high percentage to themselves? The leader's salary could come from taxes, and the rest goes to public services. Or one could set their games without taxes, because they'e not interested in it without any penalty... Point is, lots of options is what I'd like, so people like me can have a very customisable world and people who don't care about all of this can turn it off.

Honestly I'm not 100% clear on it either except for a few ideas but I always liked the idea of making my game a bit more realistic, especially with a medieval theme where you need the Lord to collect from the citizens. There's a lot one could do with economic options. Go as utopic or dystopic as one would like... Do a hybrid economy for a futuristic "utopia" themed game, where Cims only need money for luxuries but their basic needs are met... Or an apocalypse where the economy is terrible and making money is hard. Or something similar to where you live in real life, to make a realistic game.

The way I see economy system working is... you are a mayor, god, watcher or whatever... Sims are paying taxes for water, electricity, garbage and land. Sims that are working as electricians, plumbers or "garbage cleaners" (because I forgot how's it said in english), they get a part of money from those taxes. The rest part goes to your editing funds, so you can change and improve your town. Pretty nice, but the game then has to store and calculate how much each sim got, how much each sim gave and how much is left for you. That sounds a bit messy.

Probably the easiest way to solve the storing problem is to just give the plumbers, electricians, and whatnot a salary, instead of making them work by commission. Plus, that depends on the system. A mayor would only pay for civic services in municipal services, like paying for road cleaning, sewer maintenance, and so on. The owner of each house is the one who hires that house's plumbing and electrics. If you rent the house, the person you rent from is responsible for getting everything fixed.

@Glic2003

I like the idea. Is there a way we could expand it to include a wishes system? Like adding the desire to get married, the desire to learn a new skill, etc.
If you made it a quad, that might work. For instance, the left half is the bodily needs (hunger, bladder, possibly injuries?) and bodily fears (like being afraid of peeing yourself) and the right half is the more abstract wants and fears, like marriage and learning skills, and getting in a hot tub.

Yeah, that was totally what I intended: all of the wishes would show up on the "wheel" along with the other needs, and similarly, they would be ordered or scaled based on their importance. So if a Sim really wanted to get married, that might pop up as the largest icon in the center, etc.

Okay, so I'm not replying to every post today, but I've read each and every one. Seriously, why didn't EA come up with these concepts? Anyways, ideas will be added to the list I've created of what people want in a life sim.

Also, I have made another list of names suggestions:

1.Peapolz
2.Peapods
3.Peops
4.Citizens
5.Civilians
6.The A.I.'s
7. Pixels
8. Pixel Dolls
9. Pixelators
10. Pixel Peoples
11. Virtual Avatar
12. Cims (I think this is already taken and copyrighted. Correct me if I'm wrong?)

Did I miss any name suggestions? Did I misspell any? Are there more? Please let me know. I think later one throughout the day or later on tomorrow I will give out what I want as well. Brace yourselves, it will be insane!

And here goes the Live mode UI:



Basically, one want is emotional want, one is trait want and one is based on the situation your sim is in. Wants and fears have priorities, based on how strong the emotion, or how good/bad the situation is.

There is one Trait based need too (Jock - Excercise, Nerd - Gaming, Ambitious - Fulfillment, Party Animal - Parties, Evil - Misery, ...). This need is filled based on how often you do trait based interactions with your sim.

There can be maximum of 12 moodlets, 4 active and 8 inactive.
If all of your your sim's needs are low, and there are still stronger emotional moodlets affecting your sim, needs will be of no effect on the overall mood and emotion, so no more "Uncomfortable" or "Happy" emotion for eternity.

There can be up to 10 sims in one household. I haven't added another option list, but I could, you know, for pets.

Positions your sim is in can be:

-Relaxing (on bed, floor, sofa)
-Sitting (in chair, floor, counter, stairs, table, pool, fountain)
-Sleeping (in bed, on sofa, in chair, on floor)

And if you are worried about aspiration, It's binded together with the main trait (you know, a first thing that comes to mind when you see the person). One of the wants will always be connected to the main trait.

And by not fulfilling you sim's trait need, your sim is going to get a trait related moodlet that will trigger another trait related want. So if you don't take care of your sim's character, your sim will want more concerning his character.

@Glic2003

Ok, I mashed your ideas together with mines, and I think I got something perfect!

How about aspiration type things like family, knowledge, etc. like Sims 2? Dont know what it could be called, life want maybe?

Cims is unofficially taken by Cities Skylines, so it probably doesn't . However, I don't think it's a good idea to take a name that 1. another game is using, even unofficially and 2. is really close to EA's name. EA likes to sue, and we really don't want to make audiences think of EA's recent failures in The Sims.



Well, it does look good, but it looks like The Sims. Maybe we could do something completely different, like have it on the side?

I did a very quick, very rough draft of what I was thinking.



The build/buy is on the top, because I'd like to add things while the game is running. I can pause it myself if I want to. It can be collapsed.

The person is in the upper corner, and the little boxes are the other people in the household. It's constrained by space, but other layers could be added or a dropdown menu of Peapods.

Down the side, we have information, like relationships, work/school, skills, and general information. That was intended to be a transgender symbol, but it failed.

More things could be added, but it's just to demonstrate the general shape.

@ gdayars



Yeah, that too. A sim's main trait can be family oriented so he has a family aspiration, or materialistic so he has a money aspiration, bookworm(or genius) - knowledge, flirty - romance, party animal - pleasure, foodie - grilled cheese (XD), ...

I would also like to add things that are called shortcomings; like juicer, constant WooHoo-er (I know that woohoo is the sims word, but I can't think of other name), liar, glutton, greedy (greedy and materialistic are different), depressive (this is not gloomy trait, but a much more serious one), excessively angry, computer addict, party addict, ...

Shortcomings would make for more interesting and realistic play, because there is no perfect sim no matter how well it grew up.

So, there is a;

- One main trait that decides sim's aspiration and a trait need
- Three / Four descriptive traits that make your sim's character more interesting
- One / Two shortcoming traits that describe your sim even more further

Number of descriptive/shortcoming traits is chosen by player in CAS, or by the way sim grew up.

That one trait want as well as one trait fear are randomly chosen, sometimes they are based on descriptive traits, and sometimes on a shortcoming trait.

This makes for total in-depth character experience.

If a sim does not get its want fulfilled or get his fears fulfilled for a long time, it will get a "going crazy" moodlet taht is strong enough, but not the strongest one, and once it's active, it triggers the "Mad" emotion. Because of it, your sim will go around acting like insane on occasions. This moodlet lasts for two days.

If it's continued with not fulfilling wants or fulfilling fears, sim will get a "Went crazy" moodlet that's stronger than any other, and will be in a "Mad" emotion for 3 more days. This moodlet can't go away by fulfilling the wants, but instead going to psychiatrist. If a sim does not get healed in 3 days, it will die from madness.

That's basically a more serious take on the sims 2 fears system.

@ hugbug993

The thing is that we want more options in this game, and having build/buy and live mode together on screen would make one cramped interface.
It would be nice to have it up there, but it would be a bit awkward to use it, as most of the games have their UI down.

And I already have plans for my "God" mode...

I also found very accurate emotions diagram:



It would be nice if we could mix emotions together, into different emotions.

If we had two moodlets of the one emotion value, and two more active moodlets of another emotional value, for example: anticipation and anger, sim gets "Agressive" emotion.

I fine tuned this one:







As you can see, relationships have three bars now... one for friendship, one for romance and the biggest one is for longtime relationships. I still can't decide if relationships should be shared (because of story progression) or one-sided (like in Sims 2).

And a rough sketch of "God" mode:

Both the build/buy menu and the live mode interfaces should be collapsible, so if it's cramped, the player can just collapse one.

Players can get used to the change in interface. It'd probably be better that way, actually, since the moment you see it, you'll be snapped out of any possible Sims mindset, and you'll be more likely to learn about the differences between the game and The Sims. By the time they stop thinking of it as a Sims knockoff, they'll be used to the change.

When did we ever discuss adding a "God" mode?

God mode is usually a given for a game where you play god. It can probably be a menu toggled off with a cheat or something.

Also, I'm loving everything but the EMOTION beneath the Sim. For UI purposes, it's always best to keep things simple and something can be expressed in other ways that don't need words (or even pictures), you do that. In this case, we have the Sim's face. Why not have that emotion expressed in the UI (like in TS4), and use a little color theory to express said emotion? I'M HAPPY is great and all, but calmly showing a smile is better. A frown and a color change would leave me to believe one of my needs has dipped into red and I'd check.

Also, it's fewer things to translate. XD