Interesting blog post by Ray Mazza: Designing Character Traits in The Sims 3

I.. don't know? In the end, it would probably have been some kind of flavor trait that you look at once and then forget about. Colorblindness is something that has some influence on using the game's interface in many different ways, but I cannot think of any meaningful application within the context of gameplay itself (except maybe for painters). I don't think sims "see" color. Not even their favorite color has any gameplay implications. It's just a talking point.

And the shader itself would probably not be very useful for myself. If, by chance, they pick the same flavor of color "blindness" I have, I wouldn't notice a difference with or without that shader. If they pick any of the other flavors, it just looks weird. Most people would probably switch it off quickly.

Which means I can see why that feature was axed. Then again, they have stuff like "Never Nude", which means it wouldn't be too far out of place.

Very interesting. I would have loved to have a colorblind trait. My sister is colorblind and I never understand what she is seeing when she describes her favorite color as a color I know she can't see. She loves purple, but she sees gray or blue. So if she could ever see color, would she actually like purple? I don't know.

I honestly love seeing the world through my sims eyes. I love when sim kids talk to their imaginary friends and only they can see them. I love how in TS4 they see special effects when playing with toys that no one else can see. So yeah, I would have loved something like this just because it would have made the sim more endearing and unique in the world.

"Turjan;c-17311391" wrote:
I.. don't know? In the end, it would probably have been some kind of flavor trait that you look at once and then forget about. Colorblindness is something that has some influence on using the game's interface in many different ways, but I cannot think of any meaningful application within the context of gameplay itself (except maybe for painters). I don't think sims "see" color. Not even their favorite color has any gameplay implications. It's just a talking point.

And the shader itself would probably not be very useful for myself. If, by chance, they pick the same flavor of color "blindness" I have, I wouldn't notice a difference with or without that shader. If they pick any of the other flavors, it just looks weird. Most people would probably switch it off quickly.

Which means I can see why that feature was axed. Then again, they have stuff like "Never Nude", which means it wouldn't be too far out of place.

Me neither. As I understand it, it was meant as a way to let players with normal color vision get a glimpse of what it would be like to be "colorblind". That, I guess, is the "educational" aspect he's talking about. The sims themselves probably wouldn't notice any difference anyway. But I have noticed that they love to talk about their favorite color in the Get-to-know interaction.

Yeah, I know, the NN trait is kind of funny, but the only time it has any impact on the gameplay, that I've seen, is when they take a bath or shower, and, unlike other sims, switch to bathing suit. But there are in fact 2 types of showers from the Store where everybody act the same as the sims that suffer from the Never Nude trait, Keep Me Clean Outdoor Shower and It's Not Gross Public Shower Station.

"thebriamon;c-17311399" wrote:
That was really interesting, thanks for sharing!

"meerkattime;c-17311666" wrote:
That was an interesting read. I would have never guessed that athletic and great kisser make it to the top 4 traits :o .

"Mstybl95;c-17313631" wrote:
Very interesting. I would have loved to have a colorblind trait. My sister is colorblind and I never understand what she is seeing when she describes her favorite color as a color I know she can't see. She loves purple, but she sees gray or blue. So if she could ever see color, would she actually like purple? I don't know.

I honestly love seeing the world through my sims eyes. I love when sim kids talk to their imaginary friends and only they can see them. I love how in TS4 they see special effects when playing with toys that no one else can see. So yeah, I would have loved something like this just because it would have made the sim more endearing and unique in the world.

Yes, I think it's interesting to know more about how TS3 was made, the technicalities and what goes on in the game behind the scenes, why the developers chose to do it like this and not that etc.

The people at Carl's seemed to think it was worth reading too, but unlike me they found it when it was new and fresh.

@thebriamon - Your welcome :)

@meerkattime - Athletic I can understand since I give that trait to a lot of my sims, both males and females, but Great kisser doesn't make much difference that I have noticed. Maybe those who pick it just think it sounds nice and cool, who knows?

@Mstybl95 - Your sister is pretty unusual then, since the overwhelming majority of people with color vision deficiency are males. It's inherited via the X-chromosome, and females have 2 of those, so if one of them has the defect gene the one without it takes over and compensates for it.

"SuzyCue72;c-17315334" wrote:
...Athletic I can understand since I give that trait to a lot of my sims, both males and females, but Great kisser doesn't make much difference that I have noticed. Maybe those who pick it just think it sounds nice and cool, who knows?
...

Great kisser gives a positive moodlet of +15 for 3 hours to the kisser and the kissee. I usually have my great kissers kiss their partner in the morning before work and at night before bed. It is a useful trait for players who emphasize the happiness of their sims via moodlets without any annoying side effects.

I used to use the athletic trait a lot but now reserve it for hard core athletes or vampires (because of a vampire mod I use). Athletic sims almost never do any random activities on their own except workout if there is a TV, radio, stereo, or workout equipment on the lot.

It's the same with several other traits such as bookworm that seem to determine what the sims will do on their own because they override the other traits.

That was really interesting, thanks for sharing!

"SuzyCue72;c-17315334" wrote:


@Mstybl95 - Your sister is pretty unusual then, since the overwhelming majority of people with color vision deficiency are males. It's inherited via the X-chromosome, and females have 2 of those, so if one of them has the defect gene the one without it takes over and compensates for it.

I think that's only for a certain type of colorblindness that it's mostly male. I don't remember her doctor ever saying she was unique or anything like that.

"SuzyCue72;c-17315334" wrote:
@Mstybl95 - Your sister is pretty unusual then, since the overwhelming majority of people with color vision deficiency are males. It's inherited via the X-chromosome, and females have 2 of those, so if one of them has the defect gene the one without it takes over and compensates for it.

It doesn't only compensate. Women with the mix of X chromosomes, one with normal color vision and one with either protanope or deuteranope vision, effectively have 4 types of cones and can distinguish a lot more colors than people with normal color vision. In that case, having the gene is an advantage. At least that's the case with the most common forms, where the third type of cone isn't just missing.

Anyway, I think that, in the game, it would just be some gimmick.

"cwaddell;c-17315538" wrote:
Great kisser gives a positive moodlet of +15 for 3 hours to the kisser and the kissee. I usually have my great kissers kiss their partner in the morning before work and at night before bed. It is a useful trait for players who emphasize the happiness of their sims via moodlets without any annoying side effects.

I used to use the athletic trait a lot but now reserve it for hard core athletes or vampires (because of a vampire mod I use). Athletic sims almost never do any random activities on their own except workout if there is a TV, radio, stereo, or workout equipment on the lot.

It's the same with several other traits such as bookworm that seem to determine what the sims will do on their own because they override the other traits.

@cwaddell - If you really want a maximized and long lasting positive moodlet I recommend giving your sim a plate of Ambrosia, it will be +75 and last a whole week! It also returns your sim to the beginning of their current age, so if you want them to age it's out of the question of course.

Yes, the athletics love to exercise in front of the TV, they do it autonomously all the time. Another trait with mostly good effects is Brave, it's always satisfying to see the sims teach the nasty burgler a well deserved lesson.

"Mstybl95;c-17315627" wrote:
I think that's only for a certain type of colorblindness that it's mostly male. I don't remember her doctor ever saying she was unique or anything like that.

@Mstybl95 - I've been reading up a bit on color vision deficency, aka CVD, and it seems that when you look at the total numbers of affected people it's mostly males:

"Who is at risk for color blindness?
Men are at much higher risk for being born with color blindness than women, who seldom have the problem. An estimated one in ten males has some form of color deficiency."

"What is colour blindness?
Colour (color) blindness (colour vision deficiency, or CVD) affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world."

By the way, Photobucket has ruined the little picture in your signature. :(

"Turjan;c-17315732" wrote:
It doesn't only compensate. Women with the mix of X chromosomes, one with normal color vision and one with either protanope or deuteranope vision, effectively have 4 types of cones and can distinguish a lot more colors than people with normal color vision. In that case, having the gene is an advantage. At least that's the case with the most common forms, where the third type of cone isn't just missing.

Anyway, I think that, in the game, it would just be some gimmick.

@Turjan - I assume you mean the so called tetrachromats, persons with extended and enhanced color vision, I didn't know about their existence until I read your post, thanks, it's always interesting to learn about something new. "Educational" as Ray Mazza calls it in his blog post.

On this page there is a sort of slideshow with pictures of little bowls with pigment powder that show how colours look if you have 1. normal vision, 2. Deuteranopia, 3. Protanopia or 4. Tritanopia. Now I'm curious which one of these variants 2-4 is it you have? Number 2 and 3 look very similar to me, I can hardly tell them apart.

@SuzyCue72 Yes, I meant tetrachromats. Regarding the slide show, none of those apply. I actually have protanomaly (see here for explanations), where you still have three cones, but the absorption maximum of the red one is shifted toward lower wavelengths, very close to the green one. The commonly used definitions simplify the field.

I don't think they would have modeled that in the game. Even the most common "color blindness", deuteranomaly (6% of males), is usually not considered.