Better Books Please?
I would really appreciate if there were some updates/revamps of books in the game, ideally put in as a patch, but if it were expanded to be part of a new pack I guess that would be fine too. Some elements that I find myself often wishing for are:
1: Having bookshelves come empty in buy mode, and then being able to stock those shelves, also in buy mode. This would make it so much easier to build proper libraries and other public lots, and also make household bookshelves more personalized right away. It's so frustrating to go visit a library in world and (aside from special exceptions like in Willow Creek), see they all have the exact same books my sim has at home that came with their bookshelf. I want to be able to set up a university library, a research library, a children's library, each with its own unique set of books, all from build/buy mode.
2: Bookworms "analyzing" books should build a skill, if not always, at least when they analyze skill books, and the emotional effect of emotion books should be more potent for them. There could also be a positive moodlet when surrounded by bookshelves, like in a library, to make the trait a little more tangible.
3: Children reading, and especially reading with adults, should build skill. Toddlers build imagination when reading or being read to, but right now, there's nothing for children. It's especially frustrating since that means that the "read with an adult for 2 hours" task in the Whiz Kid aspiration is basically the ONLY task of any childhood aspiration that does NOTHING to build any skill. So, I propose that, first off, children should have difficulty reading more books at first and get frustrated (the way sims reading advanced skill books do) until they get their mental skill up; and second, reading age and skill appropriate books would build either mental or creativity skill depending on what book it is, and build both mental and creativity OR build the skill faster when being read to by an adult. These effects could be more pronounced for bookworm children, or just make it so they never become frustrated no matter what they read, or something like that.
4: Sims should be able to keep a copy of their books when they sell them to a publisher. I think maybe it's made this way so they can't 'republish them, but maybe there could be an update that would allow for putting out "new editions" of already published books, which would require time to re-edit and have a chance of being more or less successful than the original run, all while keeping a base copy of the work (kind of like with song licensing, or when making a copy of a painting, but different lol). Could maybe even add a chance card where the publisher contacts our sim and asks for a popular bestseller they wrote to be prepared for a new edition or something. But, regardless, on a basic level it's weird that the sims can't at least keep a copy of their own book, for sentiments sake if nothing else.
6: Kind of related to #4, but would also be nice if published books became available for purchase by other sims in the game. Could even only be for a limited time, before requiring a "2nd edition" to be available again. But it would just be nice to, in rotational play, be able to see the books written by one household show up in the world elsewhere as well.
5: Please give an "off-the-grid" option for writing, just some way of writing a book that isn't a computer. An old-fashioned typewriter maybe, which would let you do writing things without electricity, but not any of the online social networking or video gaming (I think there may actually be a mod for this, tho I haven't tried it yet myself, so maybe just pay that cc creator for their work and put it in the base game please and thank you). There needs to be an option for our non-techie writers, and it's getting annoying that all my writers end up with the "techie" lifestyle just cause they're at the computer writing books all the time.
And finally, 7: Add a book genre category to the likes and dislikes, with appropriate moodlet/fun building effects. Right now, there really isn't much reason to even HAVE all the different genres of books in the game, aside form flavor, so sims being able to, say, like fantasy but dislike romance or something could really add some fun effects and consequences to the whole concept (I know there's PLENTY of categories that should be added to likes/dislikes, but this post is about books, so I'm keeping the focus there lol).
I'm sure there's more things that could be said/added on this topic, but really, if ANY of the things mentioned here were added to the game, it would be super great as far as I'm concerned. I'm a real life bookworm myself, and I've been wanting a boost to how books are handled in game basically since I started playing, so I hope the game developers will at least take some of these suggestions into consideration. Thank you.
1: Having bookshelves come empty in buy mode, and then being able to stock those shelves, also in buy mode. This would make it so much easier to build proper libraries and other public lots, and also make household bookshelves more personalized right away. It's so frustrating to go visit a library in world and (aside from special exceptions like in Willow Creek), see they all have the exact same books my sim has at home that came with their bookshelf. I want to be able to set up a university library, a research library, a children's library, each with its own unique set of books, all from build/buy mode.
2: Bookworms "analyzing" books should build a skill, if not always, at least when they analyze skill books, and the emotional effect of emotion books should be more potent for them. There could also be a positive moodlet when surrounded by bookshelves, like in a library, to make the trait a little more tangible.
3: Children reading, and especially reading with adults, should build skill. Toddlers build imagination when reading or being read to, but right now, there's nothing for children. It's especially frustrating since that means that the "read with an adult for 2 hours" task in the Whiz Kid aspiration is basically the ONLY task of any childhood aspiration that does NOTHING to build any skill. So, I propose that, first off, children should have difficulty reading more books at first and get frustrated (the way sims reading advanced skill books do) until they get their mental skill up; and second, reading age and skill appropriate books would build either mental or creativity skill depending on what book it is, and build both mental and creativity OR build the skill faster when being read to by an adult. These effects could be more pronounced for bookworm children, or just make it so they never become frustrated no matter what they read, or something like that.
4: Sims should be able to keep a copy of their books when they sell them to a publisher. I think maybe it's made this way so they can't 'republish them, but maybe there could be an update that would allow for putting out "new editions" of already published books, which would require time to re-edit and have a chance of being more or less successful than the original run, all while keeping a base copy of the work (kind of like with song licensing, or when making a copy of a painting, but different lol). Could maybe even add a chance card where the publisher contacts our sim and asks for a popular bestseller they wrote to be prepared for a new edition or something. But, regardless, on a basic level it's weird that the sims can't at least keep a copy of their own book, for sentiments sake if nothing else.
6: Kind of related to #4, but would also be nice if published books became available for purchase by other sims in the game. Could even only be for a limited time, before requiring a "2nd edition" to be available again. But it would just be nice to, in rotational play, be able to see the books written by one household show up in the world elsewhere as well.
5: Please give an "off-the-grid" option for writing, just some way of writing a book that isn't a computer. An old-fashioned typewriter maybe, which would let you do writing things without electricity, but not any of the online social networking or video gaming (I think there may actually be a mod for this, tho I haven't tried it yet myself, so maybe just pay that cc creator for their work and put it in the base game please and thank you). There needs to be an option for our non-techie writers, and it's getting annoying that all my writers end up with the "techie" lifestyle just cause they're at the computer writing books all the time.
And finally, 7: Add a book genre category to the likes and dislikes, with appropriate moodlet/fun building effects. Right now, there really isn't much reason to even HAVE all the different genres of books in the game, aside form flavor, so sims being able to, say, like fantasy but dislike romance or something could really add some fun effects and consequences to the whole concept (I know there's PLENTY of categories that should be added to likes/dislikes, but this post is about books, so I'm keeping the focus there lol).
I'm sure there's more things that could be said/added on this topic, but really, if ANY of the things mentioned here were added to the game, it would be super great as far as I'm concerned. I'm a real life bookworm myself, and I've been wanting a boost to how books are handled in game basically since I started playing, so I hope the game developers will at least take some of these suggestions into consideration. Thank you.
