Monday 4 October 2004

Pic of the day: Not quite pulling his weight, perhaps, but still somewhat useful.

Elderly Sims

In Sims2 people go through six distinct life phases: Baby, toddler, school kid, teen, adult and elder. From the way I read about the elders before playing, they sounded like resource persons. They receive a pension but can also take light work. They can care for grandchildren and are "the best teachers in the game". I suppose this applies to such tasks as teaching toddlers to walk, and helping school kids with homework. Perhaps even encouraging personality traits. (I haven't seen any menu choice to directly teach a skill, although that's what I expected.)

The "best teacher" thing makes sense in a world without the Flynn effect. The reason elderly people are so stupid is not that the brain deteriorates with age (except for Alzheimers, which is more common than once believed). No, they were born stupid and then grew up in an age of primitive education. Those who were smart then, still are; but so are most people these days. A person who scored 120 (the tentative lower limit for genius) during WWI would score like 85 (very mildly retarded) on today's much harder tests. I kid you not. Of course, almost all people who took IQ tests during WWI are dead now.

Sims2 takes place in a world where progress ended in 2004. After two generations the jobs are still the same, the clothes and furniture you can buy are still the same. And the kids are no smarter than their grandparents (indeed, everyone has the same IQ). So it makes sense that life experience matters.

***

What you should probably not do, however, is what I did (on a different machine from the Vrimoen saga). I created a family with a married couple, their toddler daughter and her grandfather. (Yes, you have to set up family relations during family creation, otherwise they will be just a bunch of strangers living together.)

First, finding a house with room for 4 was tough. No matter how large your family, you still only have the same §20,000. I managed to squeeze them into the two-story townhouse. It had just enough space, although having a couple guests over really pushes it to the limits. It is also priced so that you can just barely afford the necessary furniture if you buy the cheapest. You can always upgrade later as the money keeps trickling in. For instance there is the pension, always a good thing. People getting paid for staying at home, could it be better? Yeah, it could have been true.

There is still no sign of a pension. The mailman brings only bills as usual, and there is no other mysterious cash inflow either. Perhaps this would be different if I had retired a Sim with a long work history. I haven't got around to that yet. Raising a large family is slow going, with frequent use of the pause key and no use of the 2 key, much less 3. It is rare enough that all the Vrimoens are asleep at the same time. Anyway, testing this is my next project, but I have to fight my tendency toward large families.

The fact remains, if you create an elder from scratch, he has no pension and can only take low-income jobs. He also has no skills, which even toddlers begin to accumulate during the natural life cycle. And while a grandfather does care about his family, it is certainly not the only thing on his mind. Currently the two first wishes of "Seinior" (this pun only makes sense in New Norwegian) are "Fall in love" and "Flirt". Hello? Perhaps this is the American way of being elderly, but ... You are 55, and more importantly, you've been down this road before. You don't need to start a family - you have one right here, literally screaming for your attention!

In all fairness, there is some respect paid to the fact of having descendants: The third wish, a big 8000 point one, is "Have grandchildren". Again ... You already have that, just look at your family tree. I am not sure it would be a good idea to have more right now, when there is barely room and time to keep everyone fed and reasonably rested and occasionally clean.

To add insult to injury, the grandchild in question doesn't particularly want grandparental attention. She won't say no to being picked up, fed, potty trained and put to bed as needed. But the wish list still consists mostly of the classics: "Be snuggled by [mom]", "Be read to by [dad]", "Be tickled by [mom]". These events give aspiration points. Interactions with grandparents (and grandchildren) rarely ever give any such bonus. (Although learning -- to walk, talk and use potty -- show up without any qualifier for person. But if a parent completes it, they may also get a bonus. Check wish list first.)

In conclusion: Don't bother to create "elder" Sims from scratch. But if you already have Sims that have lived a long and content-rich life, by all means let them make their last years useful to their descendants and society at large. Isn't that what one should aim for in any world?