Sim 3 Ideas
Obviously, I'm in no position to be calling the shots in EA; but honest to goodness I've got some good ideas that I think would make The Sims 3 a blast.
dateline= Wrote:1 -- Seamless Aging: My vision of seamless aging is that, rather than have it be "9 more days until child becomes a teen!" It happens at its own pace, based on genetics, and everyday (or every other day) a Sim becomes a little bit older and there are hints to what age a Sim is based on behavior patterns, physical features, and events: I'll take it from the top -- or in this case, the bottom.
I just had my first Sim baby, kudos to me. Right now it's a little bundle of pixels and all it can do is cry and go to the bathroom. I take care of it like this for a few days in game until it's grown a little and I get an event such as "Baby has said his first word: <insert word here>" and later on "Baby is trying to walk" and there's a little pop up window showing where the event is taking place in the home. Rather than have the learning process be 100% active, it is more along the lines of 25% active, 75% passive. Through social interactions it's vocabulary grows and it becomes a more fluent speaker -- this is the case for talking. This continues throughout the entirety of its lifespan. I will address this further in Point 2. For walking, it is 40% active, 60% passive. You have to show them how to walk and also keep them in range of other people who are walking, so they can take it all in. Same goes with potty training, although that might have to be more purely active.
Now my Sim baby is more of a Sim Toddler, as can be assumed by his size and his attempts to walk... as well as his very aggressive demeanor despite 9 nice points. This carries on for a while until one day in the mail I get a notice saying my child Sim should give consideration to enrolling in school. Unlike most Sim games where attending to school is absolutely mandatory, I can deny my Sim and education, and therefore ensure it is unable to grow up as successfully as it can be (THERE'S A LESSON IN THAT!). When you are enrolled though, attendance becomes mandatory unless a parent calls in to the school telling them the child is sick, in which case it is wavered. There is also further ideas with schools, which I will present in Point Four.
A few more days have passed and I have blessed my child with a very fruitful youth. He has learned how to ride a bike giving him a chance to explore out on his own. I've taught him how to swim, giving him a stronger base for athletic well being. And he's been doing phenomenally well in school. However he starts getting a bit more aggressive, and so is his facial blemishes. I can assume at this point he is starting the woeful trail of being a teenager. I also get a notification that my son should start preparing for High School (again, point 4). In his teenage years I will have to instruct him on the 'Birds and the Bees', How to Drive a Car, How to Shave, and so on. Eventually he mellows out, and soon he's an adult Sim all his own who's off to a job (or college if they have that in the initial game).
2 -- Skills and Memory Revamp
First off, skills aren't the usual pick up a book and viola, genius! Skills are totally revamped and made far more 3 dimensional. Furthermore, as skills can be learned, so too can they be forgotten. Skills open up the ability to new activities, and new activities if done repetitively stick and become memorized. Memories too can be forgotten, based on how significant they were and based on age. This process can be slowed by various means.
Skills are broken up accordingly:
Reading -- Raised through reading, the internet, and watching educational television. Higher reading skill allows you to better follow written instructions and enjoy a good book. This opens up the door to cooking new recipes, repairing things, and cleaning up like there's no tomorrow. So truly, the cooking, mechanical, and cleaning skills are done away with. Instead they are replaced with cookbooks, manuals, and books on cleaning. By reading these books you can pick out recepies, repair and/or cleaning instructions, read through it, and based on how good a reader you are either cook that fillet mignon or set the house ablaze.
Verbal -- Raised through reading, talking to the mirror like an imbecile, and being around intelligent Sims. The Verbal skill is similar to charisma, except it affects your Sims very language: The Higher the Verbal Skill, the more articulate their speech. So therefore, if a Sim with a very high verbal rating were to approach a dumbfounded Sim, the latter would go cross eyed and red question marks would flare out of his plumbob. The Verbal Skill also gives Sims an edge in their political aspirations (as seen in Point 4), and can improve their ability to sing as well.
Memorization -- Spinned off the logic skill, the memorization skill is increased through playing chess, word games, reading, suduko, and more of the like. Memorization not only allows you to better check that king, but allows you to better recall events in your own Sims life.
Expression -- Overhauled off the Creativity skill, Expression is one of the most diverse of all; it covers creativity, but unlike before where high creativity meant you could do just about everything, it is broken up into Visual (drawing, painting), Plastic (ceramics, 3D), Music (instruments and singing), Writing, Computer Graphics, and Film. They are all linked in that each one affects the other, and adds flavor to their works (similar to Point 3). If you are high in skill with Visual Arts you can create the usual still life; but if you are high in Music Skill AND Visual Arts, your artwork will tend to feature more musical themes. If you have a high film skill and a high writing skill, you also could unlock the ability to write screenplays. They're all interwoven, and interconnected.
Physical -- Much needed overhaul of the body skill and your Sims own physique. Body skill is no longer lift some weights and viola, IRON MAN! Instead, your Sims body, like the human body, is an intricate machine consisting of muscle groups: Chest, Shoulder, Back, Abs, Quads, Hamstrings, Gleuts, Biceps, Triceps, Neck, Shins, and Calves. By doing specific workouts, you increase the size and capacity of that muscle, allowing your Sim to perform greater feats of strength, endurance, and/or agility (and they look gorgeous as well!) On the flip side, by being lazy and fat, your Sim grows limitlessly large in these given fitness regions, and their health declines rapidly. It is also split up into aspects of endurance, agility, and strength. So doing more endurance based workouts will raise the endurance of those muscles, while doing more agility based workouts will do more agility stuff, and so on.
Basic -- These are the basic skills your Sims perform that are simply a matter of use it or lose it, they cover most things from (but not limited to):
- Being Able how to Fish
- Driving A Car
- Riding A Bike
- Walking
- Using the Toilet
Like other skills, they are memory based. By doing something repetitively it sticks and you can perform that one action at will, should you not use it for an extended time however, you will ultimately lose it and have to rebuild the ability (especially if your Memorization Skill is low.)
3 -- Educational Revamp
When your child goes to school, it isn't simply A is good F is bad. The schools are divided into different subjects, the initial ones being: Science, Writing, Social Studies, Art, Health, Reading, Math. By doing the assigned homework for each and doing a bit of extra stuff as well (raising some of the points see in Point 2), for the first part of your child's education they will excel. When High School comes around though, things drastically change. You will have to construct a schedule for your Sim based on their average performance throughout the years. Sims with higher grades in the given courses will have more classes open to them. (e.g. If I'm all As in Art, I can go onto an Advanced Studio Art class; If I'm all As in Math I can go onto Calculus; all As in Math AND Science and Advanced Physics becomes available) On the flip side, poor grades will restrict options available to me, and possibly open up lower level remedial classes.
Furthermore, you are able to go with your Sim to school (if you have a school building constructed, designated by an item such as a "Clocktower of Doom") On school property, time is slowed by 1/3. Things progress as they usually would visually, but the timer is decelerated so at maximum speed only a minute passes for each second. This absolves the issue of there not being enough time for school to take place. Each class therefore would take the equivalent of 2 hours and 20 minutes in game to fulfill, and thus a whole day of school with 8 periods comes to 17 hours and 30 minutes in game... which is 17 minutes and 30 seconds in real life. The choice to do so is purely optional though.
4 -- More Player Driven Town
This topic is a rather broad one, at the core levels it's the ability to determine where roads are lain, the ability to better determine the exact geography, and the ability to draw out the parameters of a lot as opposed to the current preset designs. In essence, it brings in SimCity aspects to the game.
On another note, this point also brings up the possibility of jobs not being established by the game itself but by the player. It basically takes what Open of Business brought and puts it on steroids. Instead of having the Medical Career and attaining certain skills in order to reach the next level via promotion, instead everything is run by Sims. If you want to get a job, rather than get a job as a Test Subject you go down to a local store that says "Now Hiring" and you fill out a job application and depending on the boss you'll get the job. Not only is it just a vertical relationship of business and employee, but businesses as well interact with one another in a sort of ecology. Someone may open a manufacturing plan and produce cars which are sold to the local dealer, the dealer sells the car which gets into an accident and is sent to the local repair shop. So there is an influx of money from place to place. The computer breaks down careers still, but it's in a far more fluid system. It's divided into: Teaching, Enterprise, Medical, and Civil Services. Two stand alone "Careers" are Mayor, and Crime.
With teaching you go down to a local school (if you have one built), you apply for the job, do an interview, and get said job a majority of the time (this is true with all of them). You go to your place of work and build up approval ratings from the teachers and students. The higher the approval rating, the more you get paid via raises. Eventually though it caps off, before this happens though you can choose to apply for an elevated position (for Education that would be Assistant Principal). And upon being accepted for the position, based on credentials, number of friends, and skill, your approval rating meter is reset. It is sometimes better for a Sim to remain in his current position rather than get promoted, if they're unprepared for the tasks of the new job it can make their lives miserable and as thus cripple their approval rating and put them in line for firing (as opposed to demotion, once you go up, you're up).
Enterprise is the usual Open for Business-esque affair. Medical is being a doctor, chiropractor, etc. Civil Service is a Fire Fighter, Police Officer, Mailmen/women, and Social Workers.
Ideally, in the Sims 3, there are no townies or NPCs with the exception of the Grim Reaper, RepoMen, and the Penguin. Everything is done through fellow Sims, for example: If there is a Fire and there are no Fire stations or Firemen to put it out, it burns to the ground (another cool effect I'd recommend, since I believe walls burn). If there is Crime and no Police Stations to address it, crime will reign. If you are out of food, you don't call a Deliveryman towny, you go to the store and buy it from a playable Sim's store. If you are having a kid, you don't just plop it out on the floor, you call a fellow player run Sim Doctor to attend to it, lest you want to raise the risk of the mother dying in childbirth. If you are feeling socially miserable, or your aspirations are rock bottom, you don't wait for an NPC to come along and fix things. You go to a playable social worker and have them work it out. If you don't have a post office or post office workers, repomen will come in droves and reposes everything.
In the Sims 3, I also envision the notion of Crime, Urban Decay, and Gentrification. When grades are high, people are successful and people are feeling good about themselves; crime will drop, and special effects will start appearing in the streets such as chalk hopscotch and cleaner sidewalks. On the flip side, if people are feeling unfulfilled, unsuccessful. If grades, skills, and aspirations are low, crime will rise. Sims that are feeling thusly will start turning to crime, which includes burglary, graffiti, and possibly even riots if it gets low enough. The town as a whole will become grayer and undergo both Urban and Moral Decay. Sims will board up their windows and grass will grow more wild. Things ultimately take a dark turn. (This whole process could be measured through a Town Aspiration Meter.)
The position of Mayor however, is ultimately transformed and plays a key role in keeping Urban Decay in check. Unlike other positions, upon applying for the job he must campaign. He must spread his influence from person to person, debating and campaigning until finally after three days the people go to vote and the winner gets the job. (Two people must have applied for the job in order for the race to take place; or one person must already have the job and someone else must be after it). The Mayor, much like Mayors in SimCity, enact ordinances unique for the town which are taken into account when they are billed. They can enact such things as school athletics, public events, curfews, and so forth.
5 -- Long-Distance Relationships
Instead of what would happen in the Sims 2 (I found this incredibly frustrating) whenever you move a Sim from one neighborhood to another, rather than have all ties severed, the connections remain. Sims can travel from town to town via a Taxi or some other means. If there aren't enough beds in a house to accommodate the foreign Sims they have the option of going to a hotel RUN BY YOU (although they can just as easily sleep on the couch or some hardwood flooring.)
6 -- Possible Expansion -- Athletics
Instead of a rigid career system for Athletics, it all begins with a teen Sim who, while at High School, (if they have a Junior Sports Program enacted by the Mayor) signs up for one of the designated sports. In order to be on that team, they must have a coach assigned to the sport. You are immediately on the team right away and must work to achieve athletic greatness. Depending on the sport, you'll need to work out the defined areas for that purpose. If you are in Cross-Country, then a key thing is leg and core endurance. Football demands being well rounded in all areas in all parts of the body. Soccer is aimed at lower body agility. And Tennis is aimed at upper body strength and lower body agility. (Those are the four initially available sports I can presently envision, Basketball and Lacrosse could find their way up there as well.
Through hard work, time and perseverance, your results increase. It is at this time you can start asking for endorsements from local shops who will lend you discounts and sometimes uncanny advice. During competitions determined by the Mayor, prize money is awared to the winner of each race. This is the primary source of income for an athlete.
Athletes can be likened to Student Sims in The Sims 2: University. Sims who attend athletics are granted unique opportunities such as attending meets and scrimmages with other neighborhoods (or other colleges should it carry over into a University-esque expansion pack, this is also another one of the few exceptions where townies are allowed), and also makes them in the running to receive prize money.
7. Thirst -- In this respect Sims are truly godlike, for them, drinking water is merely an option. There should be a thirst meter that is replenished by drinking fluids.
8. Harder to Cheat -- I'm not going to lie, once I discover the cheats to a game it is VERY addictive and tempting to use them. In a game such as the Sims as well, it totally puts a damper on game play. I think the following actions should be taken to make it harder to cheat. Firstly, a Special "Cheat Mode" -- Basically when you enter Ctrl + Alt + C, or whatever series of buttons it has to be, you have to first enter the serial number of the game in order to be allowed to cheat. Secondly, Cheat Enabled/Disabled Neighborhoods -- Upon creating new neighborhoods, there should be the option of allowing or disallowing cheats. Lastly, Longer Cheats-- With the exception of utility cheats to fix errors, most cheats should be of long length and hard to remember. For example "motherlode" is too short, instead a cheat such as "superllamaliciousoverlordwhogivesuntousatonofmoney", would be better.
9. Politics in the Sims -- In addition to Interests, your Sims have political stances on varying issues, which may change with time and experiences. When a Sim gets elected to the position of Mayor the available ordinances activate and deactivate in accordance to their own views, so there's no direct influence of the choices; only indirect. As far as the exact ordinances that are available, I am not entirely sure.
Well, that's the entirety of my idea. It took me 4 hours to write which is a serious indication that I need to get a hobby. :-\ But hopefully you enjoy what I've presented ;D
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