Elders: Stars, Supporting Cast, or Resource?

Elders: Stars, Supporting Cast, or Resource?

How many out there actually play with your elder sims? If you do, are they front and center to your play (swinging seniors) or in the background (dotting grandparents?)

I like to play legacy families (although I don't always follow the official Legacy Challenge rules) and tend to concentrate my attention heavily on the latest generation. Babies and toddlers are well pampered, children are intensively trained with their parents "career reward" objects (kids pick up skill points on these at a phenom rate), teenagers polish up their skill points for college scholarships and build townie friendships for later in life. By the time they are out of Sim U. and in the workforce they are inches away from being self-actualized (lifetime asperation met) and can spend their energies on the kids.

As for the seniors, since they are perma-platinum and (usually) have topped out in logic, I have them find a nice quiet corner in back of the lot and meditate. Sorta like puttin' them in "the home". They are happy but out of the way, you have free access to loot their (by now) massive asperation point bank account, and they are great for emergency babysitting or door answering. Their mear stoic physical presense on the lot lets you make a quick skip into town or have "latchkey kids" without that nosey social worker's interference. When grandma and grandpa are near death I have them teleport to the family crypt (kept above ground without connecting stairs to avoid unwanted hauntings) and meditate until the clock runs out. One interesting thing I've found is that if they die while levitating their urns will tend to levitate also. It is funny to see a mausoleum full of floating urns.

I know I may be missing out on a lot by not playing them, but being a micro-manager I just don't have the time, energy or attention span to deal with more than a few active sims at a time. Am I being cruel by "putting them in the home"? How do you deal with elder sims?

 

I decided that retirement for more than one elder in a household was not a good thing, so while one retired elder is OK to have around and be available for answering the phone, cooking meals, reading to the kids, even teaching a baby to walk, talk, and potty train, I kept the other(s) in their jobs. If the stay-at-home elder still has room to learn skills I have kept them busy with that as well. I never thought about the meditation thing. Nor about an elevated mausoleum with no stairs. I just got so exasperated with the accumulation of meddlesome ghosts keeping family members up all night that I got rid of the tombstones altogether. When the Nightlife patch comes out I hope it fixes the cemetery problem so that I can move gravestones there and allow family members to visit.

Also, elders can adopt children. One of mine did. There's a younger women in the household but it's the elder that the adopted child sees as Mom and runs to hug when she gets home from work.

Of course, elders can still woohoo and flirt and fall in love and, now with Nightlife, crave dates and pokerplaying and hustling pool. I'm thinking that Nightlife may add a lot to the 'elder' years. I've been considering the idea of an apartment building of some kind Downtown just for those elders who need to leave home to allow more room for a growing family. Getting a bunch of them together for group outtings might be fun.

I have been resisting the urge to see elders as a nuisance or, at best, a babysitter. After all, I'm over 50 and will not spend the rest of my days meditating in the corner .

 

I think that's probably part of it, your own age. At first I didn't want to play elders, but that was because I created some characters as elders, which left them without a lot of options, career wise or otherwise.

Since I've started allowing some sims with actual skills and good jobs to become elders, it's a different story. I have one elder who has adopted two children after raising three of his own. His wife left him, he was bored in his big old house, so now he has two very nice children to look after. He'll probably die before his daughter goes to college, but that's OK. He just needs to hold on until she becomes a teen: may have to resort to the green stuff even though he's not an "immortal track" sim. I have sims that have the green stuff and sims that don't.

I've also done May-December weddings. Elders don't lose their appeal as they get older, and in fact I've had some pretty sexy seniors.

So, to answer your question, so far they've been supporting cast, only because I don't allow some of my sims to age. Too attached! But some elders have become stars in spite of me ... it all depends.

 

My elder Sims tend to be like supporting cast. They cause trouble for some Sims, and their eventual death is a source of fear for other family members.

 

I never used to play with the elders until recently. For me they are supporting cast, though I have one, Vladimir Von Hunts, who is more like star to me. He was married to Foxglove, then sometime after they'd completed their family and got a couple of the kids through Uni he got caught cheating with Cameron Wolfsbane, whom he then moved in with. They've had two kids together and he's a great dad, though I have to keep reminding myself he's not their grandad!

 

My elders sometimes are the stars, but they're mainly supporting actors that are always with their children...with the exception of the Lockhart sisters and their spouses and the Curious brothers and their spouses...they established roots in their own homes and their kids and grandkids would sometimes stay for a while and then move on. Mainly I'm trying to get them to die so that I have room for the third and fourth generations in my neighborhood. Thank God for Downtown lots. So far Pascal has died at Platnum and he brought Vidcund's wife with him by scaring her to death. Joy. -_-

The majority of the time my elders want grandbabies and relatives to get married and such. Useless wants imo, since a lot of their kids are already married and their grandkids are young adults and younger. And also the wants aren't fulfilled most of the time when the moments do happen.

 

I always try to include an elder when I start a family... and then give them a motherlode cheat... because after all they must have made some dough before they moved here... Also they are the ones who really are "family" sims.

 

I tend to have my elders play a supporting role in a family. I did create a lady sim who lived in the cottage at the end of the rainbow in Pleasantville all on her own. She spent her time painting, doing a part time job and visiting all the male elders and having relationships with them. When she died she didn't leave any simoleans to anybody because her elder manfriends had all gone on ahead of her. What I found a bit disturbing was when one of my sims decided to move in to her house it was as she had left it - bed unmade dirty dishes on the table etc. Reminded me of when we were house hunting and an estate gave us the key to look at an "empty" house unaccompanied. The bedding was still on the bed and a half eaten jam tart on a plate next to the bed!!!!

 

Elders? What elders? By the time my original sims are old enough to become elders I always have to start over!? (sigh)

When I was doing the Legacy Challenge, I enjoyed playing with my elders. After all, I had raised them from babies, and so I was emotionally attatched. One in particular that I remember was a knowledge sim, and so I worked with her on maxing out her skills and teaching her grandchildren how to walk and talk. She loved walking around the house in her nightgown and painting. I kept thinking I'd find her a red hat, but I never did.

 

Kristal, let me know if you still want that red hat. I can make one for you.

My elder with the two adopted children just adopted a new baby. My plan is for him to die and leave the middle child to raise her little brother while she's a teenager. With the help of a nanny, of course.

Yes, I know, I'm evil ...

I don't want to send anyone to college before I get NL, so I'm running out of playable families! All the kids are really close to becoming adults, and I don't want anyone missing out on college.

My computer upgrade parts are due on Monday, according to the latest. Yay!

 

Yes, yes, yes, I want the red hat! I have some Sims who will soon become elders that I think would love it.

Yay to getting your computer upgraded! I have felt so sorry for you, missing out on all the NL fun. It's really made it a different game.

 

Hey, Kristal!

I've never done this before, so let me know if it comes through OK. Here's the package file and a sneak preview.

The dress in the pic is by HappyMoonBelly from Parsimonious.

The hat is by me. I made it for all ages. Again, let me know if it works.

 

yes yes Yes.... downloaded ready to be absorbed... think I already have a purple dress. thankyou dear

 

Very nice! I've downloaded it, now can't wait to see how it looks in-game. I'll take a snapshot and let you know.

 

You're very welcome! It was fun.

Today I made some new walls because I wanted a house with "fall themed" wall colors and there weren't any colors I liked. I'll post a picture if the house turns out the way I want.

 

All of the above, depending on the situation. While it's true there's often little left for them to do, occasionally an opportunity pops up for them to do something really important (that isn't dying), and they're always useful to have around, especially with Power Idle handling the babysitting for me so I don't have to pause every 10 seconds.

 

I've got the hat too. Thanks!!

As for elders, I moved an elder couple Downtown. (Picture of the apartment building attached.) Things were ho hum and quiet until Sadie got home from work. She got a call from a friend asking if she wanted to go out for the evening. She said "Sure!" Left her husband behind entertaining another friend at chess. The taxi stopped by to pick her up and she was given the opportunity to choose where to go. I picked the bowling alley since I'd not seen it yet.

Wow, Sadie was part of a group! This group outting was entirely spontaneous because I'd not had her set up a group of any kind yet or ask anyone out. The bowling alley was great fun and very crowded, partly because of Sadie's group of 8 (which included her friend's 2 children) and partly because of a lot of other neighborhood people. Eventually, when Sadie became exhausted she went out to call a cab and the whole group came home with her! But she had to say goodbye to everyone and get to bed. Too bad. Could have been a fun party until late into the night.

 

So, do apartment buildings work like dorms? Is there still a maximum of 8, and do you have to play everyone? Or do they fill up with NPCs?

I cannot wait! My upgrade parts are arriving today and I hope to have my game up and running by the weekend. Lots of details to square away first, like checking every lot in both 'hoods to make sure that there are no visitors.

I was going to get a headstart but I've found that with a 600 MhZ temporary chip my game has started acting wonky. For example, I moved my bin families to houses, just in case, and now nearly everyone wants to be a Professional Party Guest. Doesn't matter if they're knowledge, family, whatever. And houses I packaged and tried to download refuse to show up in the lot bin. I have some really nice ones I wanted to reuse ...

Other small things, like a new nanny glitch, made me decide that waiting might be smart. I'm hoping my new chip, RAM and motherboard solve this problem. If not, I'll have to start yet another new neighborhood. :(

 

Actually, I built that apartment building on a residential lot. It was expensive, so the first couple to move in needed a lot of simoleans. That was Mitch and Sadie Enriquez. After that they can either invite good friends to move in or from the neighborhood screen (as I did with Kiara and Drake Hogan) I can just add people to the household.

In other words, 8 is the max and there are no NPCs because it's just a fancy residential lot.

I've looked around Downtown some but I haven't found any condos or apartments already in the game. Am I missing something? Are they supposed to be there?

My plan is to keep the building always occupied, moving elders in as needed to keep it full. Hopefully, there will be a patch coming soon to handle the gravestones/urns that accumulate so I can move them to the cemetery. I took a foursome out to one of the clubs and it was great fun. There are pictures in my last "letter" entry to Dear Emmy. Go see the Llama DJ.

 

I don't know if there are supposed to be apartment buildings or not but I think they'd be pretty easy to make using dorm code ... at least given my limited knowledge of programming.

I'm so bummed. I can barely play, even after emptying my lots bin. I find the game boring now that I know I could be receiving roses or having my garbage cans kicked over, falling in love and driving my own cars, seeing the neighbor's houses ... Sigh.

I have to wait until next week! I can't stand it.

Plus, I may have hosed my game somehow, so I may need to reinstall the whole thing and start all over again ... we'll see what happens once I get my new motherboard. I may need to reinstall anyway, depending on how the upgrade goes.

I'm prepared to lose my sims and start over. Now that I know what I know, If I have to do that I'm starting with one sim, in college and having my sims marry or have babies with NPCs. Much, much easier.