SQUARE POOPS FOR WOMRATS OR GTFO

It does seem extremely likely that the biting is simply random and that's sort of frustrating given that, once you learn the various alchemies of mood and personality, sim-humans can be quite predictable in their responses to social interactions (hence this thread!). On the other hand, perhaps the game is leading us to the uncomfortable but profound insight that we humans have greatly inflated our "mastery" of the natural world, and must remain humble in our dealings with even the smallest and seemingly weakest of creatures. Or maybe that's bollocks I made up, but hey, The Author Is Dead and I can make whatever meaning I wanna of this rich text.

P.S. to non-sickos, yes, wombats have square poop (well, CUBIC poop, I suppose, but yeah) https://www.science.org/content/art...-bottom-mystery

They're also not rodents, and look more like a little bear than a rodent:



And they're not so small. 😆

Plus they're stinky, like koalas! 🤭

And their name does not come from wom-bat. It's an Australian Aboriginal name for the animal -- it doesn't have an English root. That's why I said that "womrat" is silly to someone from coming from Australia. 😝😅

They can poop square poops all they like! 😂



On a more serious note, you got me interested: I will have a look at the object in the code, do some testing in-game, and let you know what I find out -- if it is random and to what extent.

I am not certain that the sims' social behaviour can be predicted so certainly either, however. There is a layer of programming that is indeed predictable, but the development team added another layer to that later that makes the sims' behaviour depend on other factors as well, such as personality, and yes, a momentary random factor as well.

The aim of the simulation with the design has been to make the game so that you can control the sims/characters to a certain extent, but not to the level where you can always tell what they are about to do. In fact the simulation specifically aims to break that, and make the sims act in unpredictable ways at times. Because people are unpredictable, life is unpredictable. Surprises happen.

So while I think you can probably predict with about an 80-90% accuracy what will happen in a particular social situation if you account for the simulation programming and the sims' personality profiles, I think you'll find there will still be moments when they surprise you.

During the development process, there was mention how the developers themselves -- who programmed these interactions and knew the logic inside-out -- added an additional layer later to the sims' behaviour that makes their behaviour unpredictable at times, and that this allowed the developers to feel that the sims are "alive" as well. You can achieve this by introducing a small random chance factor into the equation. Chaos theory.



Or as Dr. Ian Malcolm put it in Jurassic Park: "Life finds a way." You can program all the genetics, but there is an element of surprise that will catch you off-guard.

It's not that the sims are lacking the random chance factor, it's that the hamster is lacking the complexity of the sims' deeper motive system. But you'll find the same thing true in life. People are a lot more complicated in their motives than animals are. Our thought-world adds an additional layer on top to our natural motives.

So I would still argue that this is the most realistic simulation given the game's world, and its people-focus in terms of its gameplay.

To give you an example in-game, I had an unexpected social scenario with my sims in Downtown that resulted in a game-breaking bug:

My sim went to the toilet, but his date also needed to go to the toilet, and the only other toilet in the bathroom of the restaurant was occupied by a Townie (or perhaps the cleaning lady). They didn't go at the same time, they went a slight delay from each other. When my sim finished his business, and tried to exit the toilet cubicle, he found himself at an impass:

His date stood on the other side of the door, waiting for him to finish, and not letting him exit the cubicle.

Normally there is a preference system that prioritises the move command for the other sim to get out the way of the sim trying to exit, but for whatever reason, the other sim, the date, was not listening to this command. It considered their own need more important, and it would not budge -- it stood its ground.

This resulted in a scenario where both my sims were just standing there, blocking each other, and neither would give way to the other (in effect).

It broke the gameplay, because there was no way for me to exit Downtown, and save the progress with the date.

This was a strange occurrance, but it illustrates what I mean. The sims' behaviour is not always predictable. Sometimes they will choose to do something unexpected -- put a priority on something you didn't foresee or expect. This goes hand in hand with chaos theory.

Did move_objects on not work?

@EphemeralToast, I haven't looked at the design documents and done my own research yet, so this is just from hearsay from people who have been researching this, but from what I understand, from a development perspective, the game has a three-layer system when it comes to social interactions for sims:

1. The first layer is the core needs of the sims, working on a design based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This layer also incorporates a simple anti-spam filter when it comes to social interactions -- preventing the player from repeating the same action consecutively and reaching the same positive result, just because the sim's needs in the hierarchy dictate so.

2. The second layer contains the sim's personality profile, their interests/likes, and their romantic and personal preferences (based on past player actions). Two sims can be completely incompatible with each other for a friendship or romantic relationship on this layer. Contrary to popular belief, a crossed out speech bubble does not mean that the sim is not enjoying the conversation with the other sim. If both sims dislike the topic being discussed, they can actually have a positive social experience with each other. The crossed out topic symbolises a negative viewpoint on that topic. So unless you're getting relationship deductions (minuses) and awkward pauses at the end of the conversation, your sims may actually be bonding dissing a certain topic.

3. The third layer is the "chaos theory" layer -- a small random chance that plays a part in the decisions sims will make. This layer was incorporated exactly for the reason to make the sims more unpredictable. On this layer, sims will sometimes refuse to perform an action simply because they have decided they don't want to -- that they want to do something else instead that gets them the same reward. This gives the sims autonomy over their own choices. They can't override the player's direct commands, but they can choose to fulfill them their own way.

The first layer exerts the strongest influence, then the second layer, and lastly the third.

This means that, for example, if all of your sim's needs are met, and they only have a social need to fill, and they are talking to a 100% compatible other sim in terms of their personality profile and interests, there is still a chance that the conversation will go sourly -- that the sim will not want to talk to that person, or that they will choose incompatible topics when they talk with that person. Topics that are very uncharacteristic of them, and that they normally don't talk about.

The chance for the social interaction going awry decreases with each layer going up, but at the end of the day, even if all the conditions are met perfectly, it can still result in an unsuccessful social interaction. This adds that human, organic element -- human thinking/complexity, unpredictability. It makes the sims feel alive -- capable of making their own personal decisions, and mistakes.

AFAIK you can't use the move_objects cheat in live Downtown mode. But even if I did so, it would not have helped -- except maybe lifting the sim out of there and putting them somewhere else on the field.

But that isn't the point. The date gameplay session went sour on this rare occasion -- big deal. The point is that sims have a random chance factor, an autonomy over what they choose to do in any given situation. They don't always follow the needs hierarchy, their personality profile and likes. They're strongly influenced by them, but that's not the same thing as being tied to it. Sometimes, on the odd occasion, they will choose to prioritise or do something different than we expect -- perhaps something completely uncharacteristic of them. And this was programmed into them deliberately, I believe -- based on what I have been hearing and have witnessed in-game.

So it is a live simulation, and a simulation of life.

Actually, "a sim tried to commit murder via toilet" is about the least surprising thing I've heard all day

I do agree that despite being predictable in certain ways, sims are not completely deterministic in their actions, and that keeps the game fresh.

That was really the aim when they programmed the simulation.

In the first iteration of the game, the sims were entirely autonomous, and did everything they needed to do to keep their needs in check. They did this so well, that the player had no reason to intervene. Player interaction actually made things worse, not better.

So to make it into a game, the developers had to add an element of randomness (chaos) to the sims' behaviour, and make them more flawed, essentially. Because no-one in real life is that perfect.

Then, later, they applied this randomness factor to social interactions and conversations in the game as well, along with the personality-based decision-making layer.

This created a simulated environment where you can sort of tell what the sim may do next, but you can never be certain -- making the sims feel human/alive and the game fresh, as you say.

The famous Gay kiss at the E3 convention that drew attention to the game in the media was the result of this three-layered system, where the programmer could not foresee/expect this scenario. In the course of a few minutes, two sims found their perfect match, fell deeply in love, and began kissing passionately. All on their own!



At the time, the sims also determined their own romantic/sexual orientation. Later this was given into the hands of the player (flirting options). The sims were prohibited from initiating the first flirt, a romantic relationship, on their own. Because too much autonomy for the sims meant that the player didn't have enough control over what was happening. So they needed to find a balance where the player has enough control, but the sims can also make their autonomous choices/decisions in a lifelike fashion.

@EphemeralToast, there was a design document at Maxis at the time that Patrick J. Barrett III used to program the social interactions in The Sims. I wonder if this document still exists out there on the web somewhere. It's likely that it would, given the controversy surrounding the E3 reveal. Since the kiss took place unexpected even to the programmer, I'm guessing that by this time they had the whole system mapped out, all three layers.

Studying that document may reveal more about how the social interactions system works than any guesswork, any process of trial and error.

@LUCPIX, you've researched the development of the game and you know more about the time preserved history of The Sims than any of us. Do you know if this document still exists somewhere? Have you come across it, by any chance?

Back to the hamster -- it's definitely not completely random. The bite is influenced by a number of factors:

1. How playful your sim's personality is.



2. How dirty the cage is (how little you cared for the hamster). Confirmed: the illness is only created if the cage is dirty beyond a certain level.



3. A chance factor, or outside influenced variable (with a value of 102, 103, 105, and 106). I imagine this is the chaos component.



So the hamster is actually subject to the same three-layer social interaction system, in essence:

1. Are the hamster's needs fulfilled?

2. What is your handling sim's personality? (Given that the hamster has no personality stats given to it in the game.)

3. The chaos factor (giving the hamster free will).

Except that the order may be swapped here, in programming: first the personality of your sim (if your sim if "playful", if they are good with animals), then the needs of the hamster (how clean the cage is, how well it's been fed), and finally the chance factor (the hamster's free choice/will).

It's most definitely carefully designed and layered programming, as you can see. It's not simply a random function.

So you're more likely to get bit by the hamster if your sim is not good with animals (has a low "playful" stat in their personality profile), and if the hamster has not been well cared for. But you may occasionally get nipped by the hamster if they happen to be in a bad mood, too -- for no discernable reason. 😉

However, the bite has no consequence, unless your hamster's home/enclosure is very dirty.

It also seems that the illness has an effect not only on the sims, but also on the hamster as well (the hamster may die from it, too).

So moral of the story: look after your pets, kids! Keep their living environment clean, and them well nourished. 🙂 You're responsible for a life. That's what it comes down to. 🤭

That's really interesting, I would not have guessed the sim's Playful stat enters into it. The Pleasant kids that I tested with have an identical personality so I wouldn't have seen it there.

Also, further proof that Maxis thinks guinea pigs and hamsters are the same thing (Or perhaps of your proposal that it was changed sometime in development? )


Man, this game is so grim... pets and children just dropping dead with no social worker or animal services in sight! Frankly I'm glad they changed this, but it is definitely in keeping with the "more game-like" quality of the first game. If you do a bad job, bad things happen

Hey, what program are you using that gives you such lovely pictures of what's going on? I use IFF Pencil 2, which only gives me dense lines of hard-to-read code. I'd love to use whatever you're using!

The more Sims 1 code I look at, the more impressed I am at just how MUCH they put into this game.

Oh, yes, I think it must have been changed sometime during development, because half of the resources in the GuineaPig.far file have "hamster" in the name, like Hamster_EatingXA.

It's Codex:
https://web.archive.org/web/2009081...es.com/k200406/
https://beyondsims.com/games/sims-1/downloads/

Thanks so much, @simsample; you're always so helpful!

Yup, it's Codex. I got it from BeyondSims. 👍 It's still not the best -- the original developers at Maxis had something even nicer in Edith, believe it or not -- but it gets the job done in giving you a better visual outlook of the SimAntics programming. Codex is an attempted recreation of Edith's design -- lacking all the features of Edith. (But still impressive as a programming feat.)



Yup, they definitely took the simulation part of it seriously. 💪 Which is no surprise, given Will's passion for lifelike simulation. 😎

The first Sims game really is a great, fun, true-to-life simulation/strategy game. Easy to pick up and play, but with a lot of depth. The only other thing I can compare it to is Transport Tycoon. Fun, simplified, and caricaturised, but very close to real life. I like the true-to-life and challenging aspects of it the most. That's why I wasn't able to move on to the later expansion packs and the later games.



😀❤️ It just makes sense, given the design of the object. The only thing I don't understand is why they switched it to guinea pig. Hamsters can be quite large, too (about that size):



I'm guessing it had more to do with the illness concept than the size of the animal.

But yes, they're not guinea pigs, they're really hamsters. 🤭 🥰

In fact, we could just rename the object back to hamster and lose nothing. 😝😄

From an interview with Will from the press kit CD for The Sims in 2000:

"Well, I'd always been fascinated with architecture. It turns out that architecture has a lot in common with city planning. A lot of the same issues happen at a micro scale -- most people don't even perceive it. So your typical house actually has traffic patterns, it has land use, and a lot of things that a city does -- a lot of the same dynamics. But it's something that you experience every day, and you're very intimate with, and so it almost disappears, and becomes invisible to you. So I wanted to do a game about architecture, showing all the strategic forethought that goes into building a house.

From that, as I delved into it, I started realising that a major component of that had to be the people that would live in the house, that would actually be the test -- they would score the house for you. So the project actually grew in scope quite a bit. It started out as an architectural game, but the majority of the work ended up being simulating the people within the house, and what drove their needs and desires -- as well as furnishing the house, and the relationships between the people."

"There is this balance of time that you have to attain in the game between your work, your family, maintaining the household -- and it's a very tricky balance, but it's actually the same balance that people are working with every day in their real lives. So that's what interested me about the strategic possibilities. In our every day life there is so much strategy going on that we are totally not even seeing. It's just invisible to us. So that's why I wanted to make this game -- so that people would think a little bit more about how in essence their real life is a real-time strategy game. And they're playing it all the time."

~ Will Wright

This gives you a sense of the design direction with the original game, and the programming approach that followed it. It's a video game, built to entertain, but it's a deep video game. Can't get much deeper than this.

Yeah I can see hamsterbite in the screenshots! Bah!

To the many Maxis employees who are no doubt reading this right now (crickets chirping), here is how to tell the difference, from a perfectly objective observer:

HAMSTERS:
* smol (usually)
* mostly nocturnal, annoyingly loud at night, sleepy and grumpy during daytime
* run on wheels
* basically just eat and poop
* stinky, bitey

CAVIES:
* less smol, delightful chonk shape
* mostly diurnal
* run on large open structures
* perfect angels
* do the washing-up, file your taxes
* ok yes they also poop quite a bit

I'm still waiting for SimCavy, Will! Don't let me down!

Preach!! We need to create a capybara pet for the game, too!! Zen!! 🙏😇



I'm gonna need to make your wish come true one day. 🤭

We don't need Maxis. We're a community, and have all the tools we need. 😉

(I've actually started a classic collection of animals/pets for the game. So far I have dogs, chickens, kiwis, pheasants, sheep, reindeer, and pigs. Still looking for cats -- I know they were around back in the day, I remember them. 🤔)

We can totally make it happen. 😊 Both capybaras and real guinea pigs in-game. 🙌

What I wrote here has turned into a bit of an essay, but bear with me... 😅 (I just wanted to point this out, because I feel it's very important to understanding how video games work, and what makes a quality video game. And it relates to the design of the game, and all relationships in it -- player to character as well.)

One of the more interesting things that Will said about the design of The Sims is what he called "failure states". In order for the game to be compelling, the player's actions needed to have real consequences, so that they will feel that their choices truly matter in-game. If you want to make an immersive game, you don't just reward your players and give them safety nets when they mess up. The game needs to have a certain gravity to it, too, to keep it rooted in its own player objectives and reality. And he said that these failure states needed to be impactful enough that the player takes note of them and is moved by them.

This is why your sims can die in a house fire if you don't equip your home with a smoke alarm, perish from starvation if they don't have money to buy food, or die of illness if their hygiene is low and they're not living in sufficiently sanitary conditions. Why your pet can die in-game. And why the animations for all of these failure states are actually designed to be grim and jarring -- why they feel all too real, making the characters feel real in the process, too.

An animal protection agency or a child protection agency rushing in to save the day is a deus ex machina in this scenario. A safety net that defeats the purpose of the game and reduces the gravity of your actions as a player, and the satisfaction in the reward when you avoid these failure states and actually succeed in the game. (Not to mention that it would be unrealistic, because even in real life this sort of help usually comes late. Better late than never, but late nonetheless.)

Old video games knew about good video game design -- that was their focus. And the first Sims game is no exception to this. The purpose of the game is to keep your sims alive and happy. So it follows that the opposite, these failure states, should stand in stark contrast to being peaceful and rewarding. Moving/compelling/noteworthy yes, rewarding no.

You learn the limits and nature of this new world as a player first by exploring these failure states. They make the world feel true, and they teach you the gameplay.

One of my most profound memories of playing The Sims as a child was when after the happiest day of his life my sim caught an unexpected terminal illness. Not only he died, but also his pet hamster, after him. At the time it deeply saddened and shocked me. But what it also did was two things: immersed me in the game's world, made the game have real depth, on par with life, and taught me an important lesson about keeping the balance in the game and in life.

The reason that my sim got severely ill and died from his illness was that he had way-overworked himself the weeks prior -- working non-stop, paying hardly any attention to his own needs or the needs of his beloved hamster, and hardly sleeping any. Even as a child, I got the intuitive gist of this. He didn't take good enough care of himself and his hamster.

Then his fiancee moved into his home, now empty (where they were meant to live happily together, and they were planning a future together).

It was a deeply sad and moving experience, but something I'll never forget, and something that taught me something valuable about both the game's gameplay, and about life.

This is how you create a compelling video game -- when players can have deeply moving emotional experiences like this, that actually teach them something about themselves, and life.

If a social worker would have swooped in from nowhere then to save my sim's hamster and my sim, I would never have learned a lesson, my choices in the game would have felt less significant, and the game would not have captured my imagination. It is exactly because the outcome was so emotionally impactful that I still remember it to this day, that I have a deep appreciation for the game's gameplay, and that I learned something valuable about life from this experience.

This is why the first game is "hard" and "grim". (It's also a lot of fun. 🙃) And it's why there's no beating the balanced gameplay in the first game -- why there is a deep quality to it that the later games lack.

In the first game, your choices and actions really do matter, and the characters feel alive. (And it accomplishes this real feeling with far less resources and assets/graphics than the later games.)

[I've uploaded the video files from the Press Kit CD interview with Will here -- worth a listen: https://archive.org/details/ques1

(The portion of the interview where Will talks about these "failure states" is "ques5.mov".)]

In Will's own life, the concept of The Sims was born when his own home burned down.

Wow, mind blown! An interview with Will about game design while he was working on The Sims, before the release of the game:

https://archive.org/details/Will_Wr...tion/WILL3B.avi

Guess what he's talking about! 😂 Layers and chaos theory. 🤭

Seems like we're on the right track. 😉

Found it!! 🎉✅

Here you go, @EphemeralToast:

https://web.archive.org/web/2022013...-DonsReview.pdf

I couldn't find anything mentioning the actual layers of the social interaction programming in it, but it does go into a lot of detail about interests, and how romantic relationships work in the game.