Mary-Sue and Daniel have checked out from their marriage. They're not even in love at the beginning of the game.

Bella's a Romance sim and the PSP game says that she was never in love with Mortimer. Maybe she just up and left?

Good fiction is that which makes the reader or audience believe that it is real. It's called 'suspension of belief" and for a while you lose track of time, where you are and that fiction is just reality suspended time.
It happens with books, movies, plays and games. Anything that makes one think there is another arena of action that they can watch and believe in.
So I go into my version of Medieval England and fashion lives of computer generated pixels that came from my imagination. That doesn't mean they're not real in one sense, of acting in their own media. I only give them characteristics, they give themselves meaning.
I remember one episode of SNG where Sherlock Holmes' arch enemy, Dr. Moriarty and his girlfriend were captured into a miniature holodeck to 'live out their lives' to keep them from creating more dangerous mischief. Given that all of the show, and the basis of Sherlock Holmes was fiction, it was totally believable and it was very entertaining.
Fiction is supposed to entertain and engage you, no matter what form it takes.

If only they hadn't asked the computer to generate a Holmes adversary to rival Data. Definitely one of my favorite episodes.

I've often thought that Sims 2 is our version of a Holodeck, which keeps us entertained with fictional characters. Lord knows, you can recreate the entire cast of SNG and actually play them as holodeck people.

It's the closest thing to the series.

The sims will of course only act as they are coded to act, but because I don't know and can't predict what little piece of coding would rule in what situation, I will interpret their seemingly random autonomous behaviour as an expression of their unique wants, of their personality. I suspect this is what most of us mean when we insist the sims have a personality of their own and I think this is what ultimately has made the game enjoyable to me!

This tendency of ours to interpret the sims behaviour as meaningful and an expression of their personality may seem like a silly and childish thing, but I think it's one of the most imortant human traits we have - I studied children's language development one term at uni and one thing that stuck with me is how much of any human development hangs on the interpretation we make of sometimes random behaviour. If parents didn't have the same kind of imagination a simmer does, it would be nearly impossible for a child to develop normal communication patterns.

Also, that there are so many pieces of coding in the Sims 2 that influence reactions, it does mean that there are millions (probably) of different combinations.
Aspiration - 7, plus 42 possible combos
Personality points - 11 options (0 to 10) for 5 different categories
Attractions, interests, hobbies, memories, etc
This is why your Dina and my Dina are not the same.

Plus personal playstyle affects matters. What I like to call the "training mechanism," whatever bit of code (probably in SWAFs) changes the probabilities of rolling wants/fears and apparently even of performing certain actions autonomously, reacts to player choices, but since it deals in probabilities, not in a straightforward manner. Different playstyles affect how the randomizer behaves. Different mods, different computer environments, different player habits, even time available for play at a sitting - they all have their effect. It's complex enough to invoke chaos theory, and the player is processing what happens in the game using the same mental toolbox that has served us for millenia in negotiating our social world,

The thing most of us don't really grasp is that none of us interacts at any meaningful level with reality. We interact with our perception of reality, and most of the time that works well enough and we don't have to think about it, but sometimes you have to detach. I once saw an archeopteryx in Jackson Square in New Orleans. I was tired and overstimulated, I have poor eyesight, nobody else noticed it, so it probably was a blue jay. I know this; but I still saw an archeopteryx, even though I know it wasn't there. If I had really seen an archeopteryx, that would be a revolutionary discovery, but I don't go around behaving as if I made a revolutionary discovery or expect anyone to believe that archopteryxes are not extinct or that fairies can masquerade as them or whatever. Similarly, I don't get mad at or punish my sims for frustrating me or for behaving badly or rolling/not rolling wants according to my desires and expectations, because I know they aren't really conscious beings and are innocent; but the game would be no fun for me if I couldn't see them as autonomous and at least as conscious as I am (which isn't always much!) and give them credit for the surprises and sweetness and drama they throw at me. I shouldn't have to say, every time I speak about them as if they are real people, that I know better. I assume everyone here takes it for granted that I do, and that they do, too.

@coriel_muroz Exactly, perhaps the expansions and some clumsy fixes by Maxis did not leave the game at its full potential... (Luckily we have mods to fix it though). With so many possible combinations, and the fact that the game has a good base, the sims are definitely different from each other.

There's one thing that I started to do months ago that I really love doing and that is choosing turn ons/offs based on a Sims interests. I have default turn ons/offs by MidgeTheTree and they're wonderful. Basically, I look at a Sims interests and the two highest ones they have (preferably 10 points) becomes their turn ons and their lowest interest becomes their turn off. For example: A Sim with 10 interest points in Paranormal will be turned on by Supernatural sims, a Sim with low interest in school will be turned on by Uneducated sims, a Sim with a high interest in toys will be turned on by mechanical Sims etc. If the Sim hasn't got any low or high points, they typically get something like facial hair, a hair color, makeup etc. I seldom use the "Stink" one as a turn on unless a Sim is lazy/sloppy, most of the time it is a turn off. I'm really enjoying the variety of chemistry and turn ons/offs. I haven't yet decided what turn on/off would fit for the Crime interest because Logical is tied to the Sci-Fi interest, so a Sim with high crime & low sci-fi interests cancel out the possibility of this turn on/off. The same happens with high interest in weather but low interest in environment, that cancels out the "Outdoorsy" turn on/off but I can replace Environment with the "Good at Cleaning" turn on/off so that's not much of a problem.

Sorry for babbling on. I'm really happy with what I have done, it really made my gameplay a lot more interesting. If anyone is familiar with the default turn ons/offs by MidgeTheTree and has ideas what I could use for the Crime interest, let me know! :D

I'm sure that's true, but they can still take you completely by surprise. When Julian Moltke flirted with Jack Gill (a very promiscuous gay teen) outside Gill Cuthbert's house, towards the end of last year, you could have knocked me down with a feather. That's Julian, Andrew's long term boyfriend, and latterly his husband. At the time I had been playing Julian for nine years, and I thought I knew him well: solid, considerate, dependable, reliable, faithful Julian. Julian has a couple of idiosyncrasies, mainly in my head: an aversion to textiles touching his skin, and a tendency towards pedantry (I mean anyone who can win a city-wide spelling bee must be a bit of a pedant), but I didn't think he had it in him to flirt with another boy, other than Andrew. If anything I'd have thought it would be Andrew who might go astray like that. Andrew has a strong sense of right and wrong, but he can be very impulsive, and his mum has brought him up to believe he'll always be forgiven, no matter what he does. (And his mum, whom he admires greatly, has never set much store by fidelity.) When I spoke to Julian about it afterwards (of course I talk to my Sims!!!), he was surprisingly defiant about it. He said all he did was stroke Jack's rather beautiful face on the cheek, and I was making a fuss about nothing. "It's not as if we smooched or made out or anything." I tried to deal with it by deleting the Crush and Love flags, the "Fell in Love" memories, and Julian's memory of cheating on Andrew. But quite clearly, even with the flags and memories deleted, the feelings persist: Julian now has wants to give Jack a back-rub and to go steady with Jack, and a fear of being rejected for going steady with Jack. Oh, and he also has a fear of breaking up with Andrew.

I began to get concerned for Andrew lest he had somehow learned what Julian was up to. I thought he might be upset. I needn't have worried. Far from moping over what Julian was doing with Jack Gill, Andrew has developed a crush on Jack himself! I've checked with Jack, and the crush is mutual. How that's happened I have no idea. Why, after all these years of fidelity to each other, have my boys simultaneously developed romantic feelings towards the same boy? All those years they were telling me they only had eyes for each other, and I believed them. I thought something like this might happen when they get to university and meet new people. But that it should happen now when they're still teens, and with a boy they've both been best friends with for years . . .

I've never set much store by lightning bolts, since I think "chemistry" really only has to do with initial sexual attraction (infatuation if you like) and has very little to do with what's needed for a lifetime relationship, which, despite their youth, is what Andrew and Julian have always told me their relationship was about. However, for what it's worth Andrew and Julian have two bolts. (This may increase to three when they are in swimwear or undies, since they both find that sort of near nudity a turn-on.) Julian and Jack have one bolt, and Andrew and Jack have none. Andrew and Julian seem to value their relationship. They re both at 100/100 with each other. There was certainly no lack of passion in the welcome Julian gave Andrew at Viola Monty's house in Stratford Street yesterday when he invited Andrew to join him there. . .
They both seem to want to keep their relationship, but they want to have a relationship with Jack too. I really don't know what to do with them. I only know I really care about them. A few weeks ago, with Andrew selected, but the game paused, I was going through the options with the Sim Manipulator. When I came to the option "Turn Jealousy off for this Sim" (or something like that), I said to Andrew, "Would you like that?" I'm sure he winked at me!!

Pedantic note on pronunciation of proper names for non-English speakers: Jack Gill's surname is pronounced with a hard "G" as in "Golf", but Gill Cuthbert's Christian name is pronounced with a soft "G" like the "G" in "Gentleman". More like an English "J" in fact. In contrast, since he is of German extraction, the "J" in Julian's name is pronounced like an English "Y". As one of my school teachers (a Latin teacher actually) used to say, "Anglish as she is spoke!"

They're teens. They're bound to experiment. And surprises are one of the things that keeps things fresh.

@AndrewGloria I smell a throuple forming!

I've started writing up the scripted events for my Pleasantview EPic Challenge starting with the arrival of my first couple and with the events of the first few years.

As a creator I always love to see my statistics on a day when someone obviously found and decided they really liked my creations for the first time and went through downloading and thanking almost all of them- my count for yesterday was like 10x what I'd see most days!

It sometimes seems to me that Sims with shiny skin and long miserable faces are called "realistic". Well, my skin is definitely matt, and I think I've got a short dumpy face (a bit like an older version of Andrew). Does this mean I'm unrealistic?

It is funny when you're trying out old poseboxes at random and the posed sims start doing their free will actions anyway. Recently, I had two sims try to play a waterballoon fight while they were sliding through posebox-imposed dance routines.

It's funny when I direct my sims to take bathes in their outdoor tubs when I still haven't got the house built and somebody walks by without taking any notice in my Modded game.I used to have sims give shocked reactions to nudity though I got that Modded out as being unrealitic in my historical games.It would be out of place for my Pleasantview Epic Challenge to have sims reacting to nakid emmitters just from a sim taking a bath on their own home lot in an outdoor bathtub.

I love when I get a new idea and do just a quick proof-of-concept lot to test it out, and it works so well that I'm actually able to just start building directly from what was ostensibly a 'test' lot!

It is so surprising when a very old iteration of a neighborhood (7 years) actually works when you plop it down into your newest game! This just shows that EA made this game for the long haul durability, not just for a few months. I bet it sure outlasts Sims 3 and 4 for replay!

I found out yesterday on Tumblr about Knut Futa. Why have I never seen this discussed?

Who is Knut Futa, and why should we be discussing him?

Birds are really boring. I tried them out the other day and was shocked at how few interaction they had. I was expecting them to at least be able to fly around the house on their own.

He's one of the most corrupted Strangetown sims, one of Olive's victims. Much of his character data is missing and he has a lot of outdated code. He's become one of those sims people like to resurrect and torture:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sims2/comments/p0d05i


They can; leave the cage door open and they will fly sooner or later.

Oh good. I was really disappointed they couldn't.

Custom birds usually lack the NPC component that allows them to fly around, which is
iirc Chris Hatch was working on an universal NPC that could handle them, but idk what came of it.