Post by Rie (CSF) on Oct 3, 2015 18:02:30 GMT -6
It's that time again! While I still wait for EA to officially add in story progression to the Sims 4, I have another project in mind.
I have often read about the Apocalypse Challenge, originally created for the Sims 2, but now versions have been adapted for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, but I'll be focusing on Sims 2, since that iswhat I have been obsessively playing for the past few weeks. I also bookmarked a ridiculous amount of grunge and distressed walls and floors and have found Vampire: Bloodlines conversions that are also grungy so you bet your ass I want to use them.
The basic idea of the challenge is that you start with a completely blank town, and your sims are largely restricted to what they can build, buy, what jobs they can do, even what actions they can take. But as they top careers, restrictions are slowly lifted and you are allowed to upgrade community lots, houses, buy better things in the home, etc.
To make it far more interesting, I'd be using a mod that makes the batch of miscellaneous townie sims I'll be generating upon world creation and turning into zombies actually seek out sims and try to attack them. Once a successful attack takes place, sims will be sick for a number of days and then die, resurrecting as a zombie themselves. Once the sim dies, I will not resurrect them (unless a sim tops the Paranormal career and uses the Resurrect-o-Nomitron), and they will join the townie zombie hoard roaming the town.
So you have a better idea of the rules, I'll link the ones I shall be following here. As you can see, progression does indeed depend largely on topping careers.
What I want from you guys is to give me characters, whether its your RP characters or new ones, to populate this town. I'll be using a slightly modified ruleset in that I won't be leaving it up to one single family and having only their offspring and relatives be the ones who are able to unlock things, but a sim can still only do one thing in their lifetime toward the progression of the town as the rules state.
Tell me their name, gender, what they look like (as much detail as possible or a picture), and what goal you'd want them to shoot for in the unlocking process. Understand that since I have to do these in tiers, if you choose something that is farther along, the sim will probably only be tending a garden or generally helping around the house until their time comes to contribute to the unlocking process. Also include if you would ever want them to have a spouse or at least a lover in the future, as I will probably add them in to households as civilization advances forward and it seems more feasible to have more people around.
I also want input on whether you would want aging to be turned off or on for this, because originally I was just going to turn it off and keep it off until the challenge was complete, because the adult life stage in vanilla Sims 2 is very short and I am unsure if I want to add in an aging mod or not. That and I wasn't sure if people would continue to have interest once their sim died of old age.
OVERVIEW OF CHALLENGE UNDER THE CUT
In creation in the Sims 2, sims have personalities you can choose from based on choosing a zodiac sign, but you can customize it by taking points from one trait pool and putting them into another. There are a total of 25 points spread out among the personality traits, and you can have as many or as little in each of them as you want. The way it works in Sims 2, for those who have never played it, or needed a refresher, is on a scale.
Sloppy <--> Neat
Shy <--> Outgoing
Lazy <--> Active
Serious <--> Playful
Grouchy <--> Nice
Let's say you put a point into the Sloppy - Neat scale. Since you only have one point in it, your sim would be leaning toward the Sloppy side of the scale. The more points you put in to a trait, the more your sim leans toward the right side of that scale, but if they only have a few points leaning toward it, say two or three, they will still be more Sloppy than Neat, or Grouchy than Nice.
Children and Teenagers can be encouraged to be more Neat, Outgoing, Active, etc. Or you can even encourage 'bad' personality traits such as being Grouchy, Sloppy, etc.
There is also a matter of Aspirations. There are basically a personality atttribute that determines a Sim's Wants and Fears, but also can determine part of their personality in general. I'll list them in brief below.
Family
Want to have children, grandchildren, and for those children to excel in life. It's also common to see them roll pet wants throughout their life even if they already own one.
Fortune
Want to earn money, gain promotions, marry rich Sims, and put their income towards new household items. They really only want friends if they become romantically interested in another sim or it's related to a promotion requirement. They fear being robbed, or having things taken by the Repo-man, missing their carpool and being demoted. It's also common for them to roll wants to start their own business if Open For Business is installed (which it is~!)
Knowledge
Want to gain skill points, and max out those skills. They may even want to experience things other sims fear, like seeing ghosts, alien abduction or changing into another life state (vampire, werewolf, plantsim, etc.) They are also the only Sims that will gain a positive memory of becoming a zombie, being abducted by aliens and seeing a ghost. Sometimes they will even roll wants to be saved from Death himself or defeating the Grim Reaper when he comes to take another Sim.
Popularity
Most of all, they want to accumulate friends and best friends. Parties are also craved. But they also tend to want to win fights against any enemies they have made.
Romance
Want to engage in casual romance, particularlysex woohoo. They are unique in that their fears are wants of most other Sims (marriage, babies, etc.) They will get negative memories from going steady, engagement and marriage but with one exception, and that is if they marry a rich Sim. They will still get a positive memory from becoming a parent, even if having a baby is a fear.
Pleasure
Want to have fun, go out, meet new Sims, and engage in romance (though not to the degree of Romance Sims.) They like to gather and hang out with friends, but don't primarily crave being their best friends, as well as dating, but without the commitment issues of Romance Sims. A few of their fears tend to revolve around being rejected for dates or general outings, having a bad date, to the more bizarre, such as becoming or even being a Vampire.
Grilled Cheese
The wants and fears of Sims with this aspiration mostly have to do with grilled cheese, though sometimes they do roll things that are unrelated. Some of the few wants they can roll that are not related to grilled cheese are purchasing kitchen appliances and learning cooking skills. But their fears, as expected, revolve around grilled cheese; burning and eating spoiled sandwiches for instance. Sims with this aspiration often have low or bad relationships with some sims, because depending on interests and personality, when they try to talk about their love of grilled cheese (and they will), sims will either show interest, politely feign interest, or outright reject them, leading to negative relationship points. They also tend to become fat relatively easily, because they will eat grilled cheese even if they are not hungry at times.
Secondary Aspirations
Sims have the opportunity to spend points they've earned on benefits when they max out their aspiration bar, but also start out with a certain number of them. There are four areas they can be spent in: motives, work, primary aspiration, and then secondary aspiration. Secondary Aspirations aren't full-blown second aspiration that you have, rather you can choose to redeem some of the benefits from the primary aspiration area that a separate aspiration would have, as well as roll wants from that aspiration in addition to your main one.
The rules state that all teenagers must choose a secondary aspiration, I'm going to basically leave it open to you if you want your characters to have one if they start the challenge as an adult.
Chemistry
List of Participating Characters
Human
1) Emily Cristoph
2) Kaiya Hirano
3) Kieran
Pet
2) Ryker (Dog) - Emily
I have often read about the Apocalypse Challenge, originally created for the Sims 2, but now versions have been adapted for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, but I'll be focusing on Sims 2, since that is
The basic idea of the challenge is that you start with a completely blank town, and your sims are largely restricted to what they can build, buy, what jobs they can do, even what actions they can take. But as they top careers, restrictions are slowly lifted and you are allowed to upgrade community lots, houses, buy better things in the home, etc.
To make it far more interesting, I'd be using a mod that makes the batch of miscellaneous townie sims I'll be generating upon world creation and turning into zombies actually seek out sims and try to attack them. Once a successful attack takes place, sims will be sick for a number of days and then die, resurrecting as a zombie themselves. Once the sim dies, I will not resurrect them (unless a sim tops the Paranormal career and uses the Resurrect-o-Nomitron), and they will join the townie zombie hoard roaming the town.
So you have a better idea of the rules, I'll link the ones I shall be following here. As you can see, progression does indeed depend largely on topping careers.
What I want from you guys is to give me characters, whether its your RP characters or new ones, to populate this town. I'll be using a slightly modified ruleset in that I won't be leaving it up to one single family and having only their offspring and relatives be the ones who are able to unlock things, but a sim can still only do one thing in their lifetime toward the progression of the town as the rules state.
Tell me their name, gender, what they look like (as much detail as possible or a picture), and what goal you'd want them to shoot for in the unlocking process. Understand that since I have to do these in tiers, if you choose something that is farther along, the sim will probably only be tending a garden or generally helping around the house until their time comes to contribute to the unlocking process. Also include if you would ever want them to have a spouse or at least a lover in the future, as I will probably add them in to households as civilization advances forward and it seems more feasible to have more people around.
I also want input on whether you would want aging to be turned off or on for this, because originally I was just going to turn it off and keep it off until the challenge was complete, because the adult life stage in vanilla Sims 2 is very short and I am unsure if I want to add in an aging mod or not. That and I wasn't sure if people would continue to have interest once their sim died of old age.
OVERVIEW OF CHALLENGE UNDER THE CUT
Basics - Safety, Shelter and Food [Restriction Level 1]
1) Top the Culinary Career
2) Top the Medical Career
3) Top the Military Career
4) Top the pet Security Career
Rebuilding Society [Restriction Level 2]
1) Top the Architecture Career
2) Top the Business Career
3) Top the Education Career
4) Top the Intelligence Career
5) Top the Journalism Career
6) Top the Law Career
7) Top the Law Enforcement Career
8) Top the Criminal Career
9) Top the Natural Science Career
10) Top the Oceanography Career
11) Top the Politics Career
12) Top the Science Career
13) Top the pet Service Career
Reviving Culture [Restriction Level 3]
1) Top the Artist Career
2) Top the Adventure Career
3) Top the Athletic Career
4) Top the Dance Career
5) Top the Entertainment Career
6) Top the Gamer Career
7) Top the Music Career
8) Top the Paranormal Career
9) Top the Slacker Career
10) Top the Show Business Career
11) Top the pet Showbiz Career
In summary, we're going to need 22 sims and 2 pets (I already have one pet in mind to take the pet Security career, and I have three sims. Whether these sims are all your characters, or only some of them are and the rest are the offspring of the characters birthed during play, that is what I'd like your opinion on.
While these are all numbered, they do not have to be completed in that order, they just all have to be completed in that tier before the next one can be reached. Once the third tier is cleared, civilization is restored, and no restrictions will be in place any longer. I can then continue to play the neighborhood, turn aging on (if it was off before) and let the sims live their lives and continue to document it, or I can just play it by myself and not document it; again, another thing you'll have to tell me. I might post pictures anyway even if there is no real interest expressed if the challenged in completed though and I continue playing.
1) Top the Culinary Career
2) Top the Medical Career
3) Top the Military Career
4) Top the pet Security Career
Rebuilding Society [Restriction Level 2]
1) Top the Architecture Career
2) Top the Business Career
3) Top the Education Career
4) Top the Intelligence Career
5) Top the Journalism Career
6) Top the Law Career
7) Top the Law Enforcement Career
8) Top the Criminal Career
9) Top the Natural Science Career
10) Top the Oceanography Career
11) Top the Politics Career
12) Top the Science Career
13) Top the pet Service Career
Reviving Culture [Restriction Level 3]
1) Top the Artist Career
2) Top the Adventure Career
3) Top the Athletic Career
4) Top the Dance Career
5) Top the Entertainment Career
6) Top the Gamer Career
7) Top the Music Career
8) Top the Paranormal Career
9) Top the Slacker Career
10) Top the Show Business Career
11) Top the pet Showbiz Career
In summary, we're going to need 22 sims and 2 pets (I already have one pet in mind to take the pet Security career, and I have three sims. Whether these sims are all your characters, or only some of them are and the rest are the offspring of the characters birthed during play, that is what I'd like your opinion on.
While these are all numbered, they do not have to be completed in that order, they just all have to be completed in that tier before the next one can be reached. Once the third tier is cleared, civilization is restored, and no restrictions will be in place any longer. I can then continue to play the neighborhood, turn aging on (if it was off before) and let the sims live their lives and continue to document it, or I can just play it by myself and not document it; again, another thing you'll have to tell me. I might post pictures anyway even if there is no real interest expressed if the challenged in completed though and I continue playing.
Character Creation
In creation in the Sims 2, sims have personalities you can choose from based on choosing a zodiac sign, but you can customize it by taking points from one trait pool and putting them into another. There are a total of 25 points spread out among the personality traits, and you can have as many or as little in each of them as you want. The way it works in Sims 2, for those who have never played it, or needed a refresher, is on a scale.
Sloppy <--> Neat
Shy <--> Outgoing
Lazy <--> Active
Serious <--> Playful
Grouchy <--> Nice
Let's say you put a point into the Sloppy - Neat scale. Since you only have one point in it, your sim would be leaning toward the Sloppy side of the scale. The more points you put in to a trait, the more your sim leans toward the right side of that scale, but if they only have a few points leaning toward it, say two or three, they will still be more Sloppy than Neat, or Grouchy than Nice.
Children and Teenagers can be encouraged to be more Neat, Outgoing, Active, etc. Or you can even encourage 'bad' personality traits such as being Grouchy, Sloppy, etc.
Aspirations
There is also a matter of Aspirations. There are basically a personality atttribute that determines a Sim's Wants and Fears, but also can determine part of their personality in general. I'll list them in brief below.
Family
Want to have children, grandchildren, and for those children to excel in life. It's also common to see them roll pet wants throughout their life even if they already own one.
Fortune
Want to earn money, gain promotions, marry rich Sims, and put their income towards new household items. They really only want friends if they become romantically interested in another sim or it's related to a promotion requirement. They fear being robbed, or having things taken by the Repo-man, missing their carpool and being demoted. It's also common for them to roll wants to start their own business if Open For Business is installed (which it is~!)
Knowledge
Want to gain skill points, and max out those skills. They may even want to experience things other sims fear, like seeing ghosts, alien abduction or changing into another life state (vampire, werewolf, plantsim, etc.) They are also the only Sims that will gain a positive memory of becoming a zombie, being abducted by aliens and seeing a ghost. Sometimes they will even roll wants to be saved from Death himself or defeating the Grim Reaper when he comes to take another Sim.
Popularity
Most of all, they want to accumulate friends and best friends. Parties are also craved. But they also tend to want to win fights against any enemies they have made.
Romance
Want to engage in casual romance, particularly
Pleasure
Want to have fun, go out, meet new Sims, and engage in romance (though not to the degree of Romance Sims.) They like to gather and hang out with friends, but don't primarily crave being their best friends, as well as dating, but without the commitment issues of Romance Sims. A few of their fears tend to revolve around being rejected for dates or general outings, having a bad date, to the more bizarre, such as becoming or even being a Vampire.
Grilled Cheese
The wants and fears of Sims with this aspiration mostly have to do with grilled cheese, though sometimes they do roll things that are unrelated. Some of the few wants they can roll that are not related to grilled cheese are purchasing kitchen appliances and learning cooking skills. But their fears, as expected, revolve around grilled cheese; burning and eating spoiled sandwiches for instance. Sims with this aspiration often have low or bad relationships with some sims, because depending on interests and personality, when they try to talk about their love of grilled cheese (and they will), sims will either show interest, politely feign interest, or outright reject them, leading to negative relationship points. They also tend to become fat relatively easily, because they will eat grilled cheese even if they are not hungry at times.
Secondary Aspirations
Sims have the opportunity to spend points they've earned on benefits when they max out their aspiration bar, but also start out with a certain number of them. There are four areas they can be spent in: motives, work, primary aspiration, and then secondary aspiration. Secondary Aspirations aren't full-blown second aspiration that you have, rather you can choose to redeem some of the benefits from the primary aspiration area that a separate aspiration would have, as well as roll wants from that aspiration in addition to your main one.
The rules state that all teenagers must choose a secondary aspiration, I'm going to basically leave it open to you if you want your characters to have one if they start the challenge as an adult.
Chemistry
These (Turn Ons and Turn Offs) are basically designed to make relationships easier or harder to achieve. All sims come with a potion called the ReNuYu Porta-Chug upon creation, including townies (to my knowledge, as the wiki may be out of date), that can change their Turn Ons and Turn Offs once. CAS created sims can have theirs of course manually set, so this would only be used if the player later wanted to change them for some reason. Witches with magic level 7 can also brew this in their cauldrons, which is one of the only other ways in the game, other than using the ReNuYuSenso Orb, to change Turn Ons/Offs.
All existing Turn Ons/Offs are as follows:
Hair
Black, Blond, Brown, Red, Grey, Custom*1, Facial Hair
Clothing
Swimwear, Underwear, Formalwear
Acessories
Glasses, Hats, Jewelry
Makeup
Makeup, Full Face Makeup
Fitness
Fat, Fit
Smell
Cologne, Stink
Life State
Vampirism, Lycanthropy, Plantsimism, Zombiism, Robots
Good at Skill*2
Cooking, Cleaning, Creativity, Body, Logic, Charisma, Mechanical
Employment
Unemployed, Hard Worker*3
*1 - Essentially means that they are attracted to sims wearing hair that is modded.
*2 - Comes into effect when the level of that skill is higher than 5.0, even if it has not reached level 6.
*3 - Comes into effect once they are level 6 or higher in their career.
Other Influences
If a genie lamp is ever obtained, a sim can wish for beauty, which gives them a +100 attraction score for all relationships they have with others.
Romance aspiration sims can get the Massive Attraction benefit, which gives them +40.
All existing Turn Ons/Offs are as follows:
Hair
Black, Blond, Brown, Red, Grey, Custom*1, Facial Hair
Clothing
Swimwear, Underwear, Formalwear
Acessories
Glasses, Hats, Jewelry
Makeup
Makeup, Full Face Makeup
Fitness
Fat, Fit
Smell
Cologne, Stink
Life State
Vampirism, Lycanthropy, Plantsimism, Zombiism, Robots
Good at Skill*2
Cooking, Cleaning, Creativity, Body, Logic, Charisma, Mechanical
Employment
Unemployed, Hard Worker*3
*1 - Essentially means that they are attracted to sims wearing hair that is modded.
*2 - Comes into effect when the level of that skill is higher than 5.0, even if it has not reached level 6.
*3 - Comes into effect once they are level 6 or higher in their career.
Other Influences
If a genie lamp is ever obtained, a sim can wish for beauty, which gives them a +100 attraction score for all relationships they have with others.
Romance aspiration sims can get the Massive Attraction benefit, which gives them +40.
List of Participating Characters
Human
1) Emily Cristoph
2) Kaiya Hirano
3) Kieran
Pet
2) Ryker (Dog) - Emily