Premades and Precepts

How should Sims look? As I’ve said before I’m not heavy on the use of  custom content overload. But I’m also totally not original, and will just randomise most of the time. It’s trickier to roll for style, though.

What should dictate style? I’ve started thinking about these things, TS3-wise:

• Traits - obvious things, like an evil Sim will wear black, or an outdoorsy sim will wear shorts and skimpy clothes to soak up that sun. Slobs won’t really care what they look like, etc.
• Interests - rather more abstract. I actually looked at Interests for inspiration in TS2 quite often.
• Fashionable friends - Sims will copy the style of their best friends if they are popular. (Here’s my hoping that Sims 3 socialising will be more clique-y like real life, so we can have real social groups. It was always a bit more detached in TS2)

One thing I started to randomize in TS2 was baldness and glasses. A nice touch of realism. Basically at each male Sim’s age transition (or when I get around to playing them) I would roll for baldness. The older they are, the more likely they are to go bald. Same for glasses.

The fun part is deciding how they will cope with their baldness. Some might shave their heads. Others may wear hats. Some might choose the combover! Again, this is based on their pre-existing fashion tendencies and what I think would suit them. Similarly for glasses, choosing the type of glasses they wear is based on their personality and fashion ‘set’.

The  appearance of TS3 Sims seems to be a mildly controversial topic. I actually think they look kind of weird now. Especially the children. But I can see why they changed their aesthetic – it makes it easier to make Sims resembling real-life people. Particularly, the fact that you can make Sims with wider heads makes up for their “Sims of the Corn” appearance.

I think it’s partially because we haven’t seen them moving very much. TS2 Sims always had an undercurrent of activity and excitement which was only really obvious when you saw them flailing about. I know I always look awkward when frozen in pictures.

EA wants  to monetize custom content through the TS3 Store/stuff packs/expansion packs/special advertising tie-ins. Can’t blame them for milking it, they’re a corporation, and at least they’re entitled to profit from it. Doesn’t bother me too much.

The thing is, most online writers and story tellers revel in hoarding CC. I’m not saying that’s bad, but I like sticking to the vanilla stuff, and excessive custom content often puts me off.

Mainly it’s the aesthetics. I’m happy enough with making Sims look consistent with the ‘EA look’. Much CC ‘clashes’ with the vanilla content, making things too realistic, perfect or attractive. Shiny skins (I HATE SHINIES WITH A PASSION) and prom-queen/anime-vixen hairs are the prime example of this. Making everybody look beautiful doesn’t appeal to me. Probably because I’m a guy.

Which brings me to my next point. 90% of CC caters for young, hot females. A long while ago I tried to find a non-grey elder female hair (you know, dyed) and brought up nothing. OK, there’s probably an appropriate hair out there now, but I’m illustrating a point. It just doesn’t seem fair to the guys, who get stuck with boring vanilla outfits and hairstyles next to their glamorous female companions.

To a point, in my world EVERYBODY MUST BE EQUALLY BORING.