New Blog with Lyndsay Pearson

[Cassie]

Greetings , Simmers! You may remember me from The Sims 2 Expansion chats and posts. I now work on The Sims 3, and today I'm going to tell you all about Wishes and Lifetime Happiness in The Sims 3.



Wishes are a new system in The Sims 3 that provides you with a wide selection of requests that keep your Sims happy as well as working towards some neat short- and long-term goals and rewards. You can choose to promise to help your Sims with a wish or you can throw it away.  Satisfying a promised wish gives your Sim Lifetime Happiness Points and a feeling of fulfillment! What good are those you might ask? You'll be able to use these Lifetime Happiness points to buy Achievement Traits for your Sims, and fulfillment keeps their mood up! The Achievement Traits are sort of like the traits Ben told you about before, but they’re extra advantages you can purchase and unlock. They range from time saving (Steel Bladder: who doesn't like the idea of never having to pee?), economically wise (Haggler: all your shopping is cheaper), or even more extreme traits (Mid-Life Crisis: change what were permanent traits into better, worse, or just different ones for a change of pace!). There are more than 20 Achievement Traits to pick from!



Now that’s the quick overview of progression. Here’s my Wish gameplay style!

When I play with wishes, I look at them as the things my Sim thinks about doing or thinks about working towards that I'm helping her to achieve. Wishes are little (or large) goals that my Sim encounters as she goes about her day. She may wake up and wish to “make waffles” because her favorite food is waffles. Later, when she's at work, she might wish to “get promoted” or “improve a skill”. After work she can visit the park and get a wish to “meet somebody” since she’s friendly or “go to the art gallery” because she’s artistic. All throughout the day she will get these wishes and I decide if I want to help her to achieve those things or if I want her to pursue something else. It’s a fun system to play with. If I’m busy, I can choose a smaller wish to work on and feel like I helped her out. If I’m in for a long, marathon Simming session, I’ll focus on helping her become a “Master Chef”—something more time consuming, but ultimately more rewarding.



We’ve looked back on our experience with Wants from The Sims 2, and think that you’ll find the Wish gameplay feels really different and better than Wants. You’re now free to pick or ignore your Sims’ wishes without fear of some sort of mental breakdown. Instead you really get to focus on telling the story and making decisions; your Sim just makes suggestions along the way. If you promise that you’ll help your Sim get married, then decide to throw that wish away, your Sim will be a little sad (who wouldn’t be!) but otherwise it’s really all up to you.



Wishes come from anywhere and everywhere, based on your Sims’ traits, her job, her skills, her friends or coworkers, where she is in town, or what she might be doing. It makes the wishes feel very dynamic and interesting. Long-term wishes really give you something to strive for and focus on, a goal and purpose for your Sim. I think you’ll really enjoy seeing the wishes you will come across by playing a Shy, Artistic Sim or an Evil, Insane, Genius Sim. It’s a different experience every time!



Thanks for reading and happy Simming!



- Lyndsay

You can also read it on the official site here.

I haven't read it yet, going to do it now...

[sims3luva22]

Good looking out Cassie, (karma hehe) I think I'm going to make another forum based on wishes and what we'd want our sims wishes to be. Or what we guess they will be depending on what traits we choose. I'm really interested in knowing what kooky things we simmers may want for our sims' wishes.  {lol}

I just now read it. I actually enjoyed it more then Rod Humble's new blog.

She pretty much spoke in detail about what a few of us were so confused about. Wishes and Promises do sound very promising and exciting.

Just think, Jane, your freshly made sim decides to want to view the park. If you promise to take her, she not only starts off on the right foot by feeling fullfilled for the time being once she gets there, she also has the chance to gain more wishes by meeting new people on her way, or while at the park.

She could meet Ryan, who you instantly want to make her future bf. Eventually spending time with him will peak her interests depending on where you want to take it, she could want to marry him. You promise her, and boom! another wish fullfilled where its been said big things like marriage create bigger moodlets.  {clap}

This game is going to rock!

[Cassie]

Hehe, thanks.

I just read it too, it was my favourite blog so far I think, but, I'm a little disappointed too. I think they should be giving us more than that. Considering we have to wait a month for that small scroll of relatively already known information is a bit sad. We didn't even get a couple of new screenshots, which I hoped we would. At this rate, we're going to be totally clueless about TS3 by February. Can't work out whether that's a good thing or not.

[sims3luva22]

(12-09-2008 06:39 PM)Cassie link Wrote:Hehe, thanks.

I just read it too, it was my favourite blog so far I think, but, I'm a little disappointed too. I think they should be giving us more than that. Considering we have to wait a month for that small scroll of relatively already known information is a bit sad. We didn't even get a couple of new screenshots, which I hoped we would. At this rate, we're going to be totally clueless about TS3 by February. Can't work out whether that's a good thing or not.

I totally understand your pain Cass, we ALL want new updates but this is a huge corperation we are talking about, they've been releasing games for years, certainly we aren't going to be getting what we want all of the time, these people are professionals lol. In due time is all I can say.

I know they are working hard on it to make it appear near perfect for us and I'm really excited to see the outcome. Just remember, 4 more months is comming up (after holloween hehe) and I know holloween will fly by because a lot of people are looking forward to it. 4 months isn't very long at ALL compared to how it was for us in March when we barely got by on any info at all! we were so starved for updates that we would ofter repeat posts lol, can you BELEIVE that was SIX months ago? Doesn't feel like it huh?

When they post blogs, I really don't expect new screenshots. Usually when someone blogs it's just based around their thoughts etc. though they are publishing words that fans are certainly reading and looking forward to. I realize that when we do get new screenshots, they either come in massive spurts, or one or two which is then followed by massive spurts of a ton of screenshots. Just like those arnie ones taken at the convention which was soon followed by an actual behind the scenes vid!

I try to pop in every once in a while to see updates, but I find that when you are quite busy (like myself) time flies by and you don't even realize or have time to think about the game. I'm kind of nuetral at the moment. I think the most ill be excited is when I place the game inside of an actual computer lol. And maybe the day before.

Back to the subject at hand...... I liked the blog, it let me fantasize a bit on what kind of things our sims can be focused on. I mean, how amazing is it to have a sim that actually seems like they are alive and breathing like us? It may be a little creapy to some because we are used to the wants and fears, asperations, and the same thought bubbles popping over our sims' heads.

Now, we will be able to unlock more about them throughout their lives. We as humans experience thoughts, and different things on our way to class, home, we worry about things as well. This wishes application is really going to bring them to life. They will want things, fear things,worry about things at home, neighbors, etc. And the thing that I'm most excited about is being able to let them have that wish, or not. To say no sim, I know you like that Andy character, but I want you to focus more on getting that promotion. You can even promise her Andy, but accomplish it in YOUR time because it won't go anywhere until you either decide to have her marry someone else, or he gets married etc.

The way I would keep that promise is to have her date Andy, but have her focus more on her promotion. She then can keep him at bay (ward off any other simmers who want em hehe) and still marry him if you want to keep that promise.

I can think of soooo many other ways that wishes could effect our sims. Keep your head up Cass, I promise you that one of these days we will get another update that just blows our little minds, this is just the halfway mark, we've barely touched the surface

[Tangy_Tangerine]

To cassie: I agree about the info being the same. Im glad someone posted that. I thought it was just me. and somthing was wrong with my mind. I was reading the new article interview. and i was thinking..well i read that before, but by a different person...how is that new. *sigh* im hungry for somthing NEW..forreal new.

{clap} to sim3luva22..I read all of it. on the 5th para.....where you posted alive and breathing like us. I started to think... do the sims breath in and out. Ive played the sims 2 for a while now. And i didnt think to notice that. *crazy*