The same Sim girl again. Having finished her college assignment, she was hungry and bored and could need a trip to the bathroom as well. Still, she loitered in the hallways for a little. Their free will does not always kick in immediately like ours do, but seems to be on some kind of timer. Anyway, suddenly she decided to eat, which seemed to me like a good idea. I followed her (by scrolling, genius) to the cafeteria, where she grabbed a bowl. Only then did I realize that Mr Buzzcut Redhair had also just sat down with his own meal. And yes, she casually grabbed her bowl and walked over to sit down right beside him. It is not just him, then. The amusing part is how it looked utterly coincidental. If I had not kept a close eye on her (because she is the only playable Sim on the whole university) I would totally not have found anythign remarkable about her eating with a guy.
OK, now they did it again, while I was writing. (It runs on the second screen on my table.) Except this time they grabbed their food at the exact same time, and then walked over to the nearest table. Pure coincidence. Not anything for their creator to be notice, oh no. Just getting some food. She is now absolutely stuffed, by the way.
I am not even sure this is scripted. According to Will Wright, much of the Sims behavior is emergent. They are given ranges of actions associated with needs, and objects that broadcast their ability to fulfill the needs. That's pretty much it. But things like this make me wonder. Great, now they are playing chess. At 6.45 in the morning. Hello, girl? Your social and fun meters are high. You need sleep and a bath, not playing chess with ugly guys and talking about handcuffs.
Monday, August 21st, 2006
I started a new Sims2 neighborhood for a new and more realistic legacy. Anyway, unlike what I usually do, I chose a female founder. Normally I make a male, sometimes one that looks like me, and usually with a similar personality. To create some emotional distance, I chose a female founder, and made her with a more practical personality. I did make her a knowledge Sim though, partly because she started as University, and partly because the family's name is Reading. "The Reading Legacy" sounds pretty good, eh?
Well, after a few rolls I got an innocent-looking red-haired girl who looked good when I chose the "fat" body type (which I personally think of as "sexy woman body type", the Sims are skinny even by Norwegian standards). I've played her through 3 years at Sim State University now (see previous post) and I enjoy watching her shower go about her daily life. Now there is a rather drab-looking redhaired boy there, not of my making, regular players will know him (the buzz cut and ugly nose guy). When they are passing each other, they get this cloud of pink hearts showing great chemistry between them, but none of them ever does anything romantic. The guy tends to incidentally show up where she already is, and occasionally he will ask her to play kicky bag. That's it. So she was hungry and sitting down with a plate of spaghetti when he came and wanted to play kicky bag, but she just kept eating. I could have cancelled her eating so they could play, but I did not feel like it. She was hungry after all. But the next day when she wanted to play kicky bag, he dropped his meal without a second thought. And that's when I thought: 'The next time he asks, I'm going to drop anything I'm doing.'
I have to stop identifying so strongly with my characters.
I just noticed that this was one of the topics Sims study at Sim State University, the maths students of course, during their junior year. It amused me because it is true.
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