Assigning hobbies to sims

Ever since I found out how sims get their One True Hobby, I've hated it. The way it's done basically means that all of your sims of one particular hobby will have similar personalities. That makes sense for some hobbies - sims who are into Fitness or Sports should probably also be active, for instance. But why, for example, do Arts & Crafts sims have to be nice? Why do Nature sims have to be playful? A lot of the criteria EA came up with just seems really arbitrary to me.

So I started randomising my sims' OTHs at birth. I was satisfied with that for a while, but after I had been using Starr's careers criteria for a while (which is partly based on interests), I thought I might try tying interests and hobbies together. This was a good while ago now but it's only recently that I decided to fine tune my system.

I'm going to start by showing which interests I assign to which hobbies. Then I'll show you a couple of examples of exactly what I do with that information to decide on hobbies for my sims, using a couple of Sullivan babies as guinea pigs. Babies are sort of blank slates anyway and I'm not yet wedded to the idea of any one particular hobby for them.

Anyway, so on with the interests!

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Lot tour: Emma, Jessica and Lauren's place

This lot serves two purposes - a contribution to the N99 challenge for May/June, which is decorating with moodboards and, more importantly, a place for these girls to live now that they're out on their own. I used a Coastal Bohemian moodboard for inspiration. Very loosely interpreted in places, as is always the case when I use any sort of theme in my decorating.

The girls live in this apartment block, built by Starr. Emma's sister Sophie lives in the same block, though that will change once she marries Oliver.

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You say it's your birthday, January 2043

It's time for another new round here in Sullivan, so of course, we are starting off with January birthdays!

First up is Alex Moretti...

...and Curtis Clarke. Both boys will turn 4 this year and are beginning pre-school. 

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Round 35 Summary

Whew, yet another round down! Here's the run-down:

Births: 6 (Gemma Ashton, Matias Miguel, Zoe Benton, Elisa Hamilton, Mason Novak, Eliza Benton)

Deaths: 1 (Adam Gottlieb)

Engagements: 3 (Oliver Gentry and Sophie Gottlieb, Sam and Julia Whitney, Noah Gottlieb and Brigit Hewitt)

Marriages: 4 (Nathan and Rebecca Collins, Edward and Lucy Lachance, Amar and Adrienne Hamilton, Sam and Julia Whitney)

Break-ups: 4 (Eddie Gentry and Lauren Carmody, Brendan Lachance and Georgina Nott, Matthew Lane and Aurora Moretti, Xavier Moretti and Ashlee Baena)

Graduations: Mitchell Carmody, Eddie Gentry, Tim Lane, Emma Gottlieb, Jessica Royce-Nihill, Louisa Gentry

New residents: Daniel Halmi, Brigit Hewitt

Total population: 71 male, 76 female

Babies: 4
Toddlers: 4
Children: 24
Teens: 12
Adults: 79
Elders: 23

Notes:

• The gender ratio is way more out of whack if you break it down by age group, as poor Ruby is more than aware of. ;)
• Hopefully, Brigit's profile will be up by the time this post is but if not, I've just been lazy/busy - it's not broken!

Memory lane

Round 35: December 2042 (Summer)

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Gottlieb 1 household profile

Adam Gottlieb is 87, Athena is 82, Amelia is 53, Wade is 52 and Michael is 11. 

(Linnea is 82, Joanna is 47, Sophie is 29, Oliver is 26, Noah is 24, Brigit is 23, Emma is 22 and Levi and Will are 10)

Narrated by Wade Gottlieb

My sister Joanna hates entertaining, so the big Christmas dos have traditionally fallen to us. We've done them just about every year since we got married. 

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The Liebster Award - Maisie's questions

Please read Tuesday's post for a brief explanation of the Liebster award to see my list of nominees and questions and my responses to Shannon's questions and Wednesday's post for my response to Emma's questions.

1. What is your favorite part of your sims & your neighborhood?

Well, my goal with Sullivan was to create a cohesive hood, where the families were close like a lot of real families (I can't tell you how often family relationships would drop to zero in my old hoods - cannot imagine playing that way now!). So I think that's my favourite thing about my hood. Looking at my sims and being able to think "oh, that's so-and-so's cousin and that's what's-his-face's grandmother" and have those relationships actually mean something. That is really fun to me.

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The Liebster Award - Emma's questions

Please read Tuesday's post for a brief explanation of the Liebster award to see my list of nominees and questions.

Emma's questions:

1. What do you find most gratifying about sharing your Sims’ stories?

Knowing that other people are interested in what I'm doing my little hood really encourages me to improve it. The biggest example is decorating - blogging is why I learnt to decorate properly. I was so embarrassed to post pictures of my terribly decorated lots before, so I started making an effort with it, so no one would be looking down their nose at it (hopefully)!

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The Liebster Award

Wow, so over the past week or so, I have been nominated for a Liebster Award by three other fantastic bloggers - Shannon at Simdale Valley Post, Emma at Around Aleaton and Maisie at Millwood. Thank you so much to all of you!

It's a pay-it-forward sort of thing, so nominees are supposed to nominate others in turn. These are the rules.

1. Put the award on your blog
2. Thank the blogger who nominated you
3. Nominate 5 to 11 other blogs
4. Answer the 11 questions that were asked
5. Then ask the people you nominate, 11 questions.

Let's get started!

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The moon

Round 35: November 2042 (Spring)

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Lane 2 household profile

Luc Lane is 49, Asha is 45, Ruby is 15, Marcus is 13 and Felix is 11.

Narrated by Ruby Lane

It’s normally Dad who goes away on tour but Mum recently got the opportunity to do the same and she jumped on it.

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Lot tour: Oliver and Sophie's future home

Another lot tour for you all! For the past couple of weeks on YouTube, I've seen some TS4ers taking part in the 10 minute build challenge. I didn't see any reason I couldn't try it in TS2, so I thought I'd give it a go.

This house wasn't decorated specifically for Sophie and Oliver. I just started decorating based on that couch in the living room and it ended up looking like a good fit for Sophie and Oliver. I'll probably make a couple of changes (the musical instruments from the bedroom will probably go, for instance) but it works for them pretty well as is.

Anyway, so on with the pics!

I set my timer for 10 minutes and this is what I'd done when it started beeping...

Not a whole lot! I'd done the shell but no furniture or deco at all and I didn't even get time to add interior doors. So I set the timer again to see how long it took me to decorate the rest of the house. 

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