"Joyful Retirement" EP concept - Elders, mid adults and adults focused!

"Mak27;d-1000189" wrote:

Mid adults as new life stage (BG update)

Memories system (BG update)

Hotels and casinos, including magicians and acrobats careers for entertainment

Crafting hobbies and skills: sewing, pottery and glassblowing

Junk car for restoration (classic and modern)

Old fashoned butter churner

Newspaper delivery return

Nursery home lot type

New drinks (iced tea)

Nectar making skill

Wedding anniversary (silver and gold)

New harvestables and new vertical planters

Functional water heaters

Swimming pool cleaning gameplay

More swimming pool stuff interactions, including rounded building (BG update)

Retirement party

Tango dancing and new radio station (also BG update)

More hottubs

CRT TVs and classy audio systems

Walking sticks for CAS

Enhanced familiar tree with second degree relatives (BG update)

Return of career reward items (like in TS2)

Utilities and garage decorative stuff

Air and deep fryer (while aging, kitchen oil could be danguerous for elder Sims, but fries are fries)

Pool tables (if isn't a thing until then)

Record player and collection


Edit: thanks for all your kidness about this concept. Elders deserves better in both, real life in Sims!

I love all your ideas except for the deep fryer being dangerous for elders. There are already enough ways to kill elders…. Lol. But I would love to have more kitchen appliances over all.

"cyncie;c-18124136" wrote:
I love your title!

I agree we definitely need to beef up the elder life stage, and I appreciate that you’ve avoided the stereotypes of walkers, wheelchairs, and hearing aids. Too many elder pack suggestions focus on the health issues, but many retirees are just as active as their kids are. I’d rather see the game emphasize a positive aspect of aging. For the retired people I know, travel, family, hobbies/learning and personal enrichment are the primary interests.

I really like the hobbies you’ve listed. I would also add learning an instrument and ballroom dancing. Scrapbooking tied to a memory system might be cool. I love the retirement party idea!

I think I would avoid nursing homes in game, mostly because they are still very negatively stereotyped (and I say that as someone who works in elder care). Instead, I would go with senior community centers where they can engage in social activities, have a community garden, have classes in any number of things, play games (cards, checkers, chess, trivia), and have parties and events.

Additional grandparent interactions would be nice. Grandkids are tops. So are pets.

Casinos, cruises, RVing, and world travel would be appropriate. So would concerts, theater, craft shows and volunteering.

Anyway, thanks for taking a positive approach to an elder refresh. I hope we do get something like this, eventually.

I love your ideas too. How about a new lot trait for elders being drawn to a lot just like the teen one. There actually should be a trait for each age group being drawn to lots and some combinations. Those would be very useful for making different toes of special lots.

"cyncie;c-18125981" wrote:

"ignominiusrex;c-18125940" wrote:
A good idea, but maybehave some real retirees vet it, because I'm not there yet, but have found out that things I never saw coming, become troublesome when very common things like carpal tunnel, rotatorcuff issues, and arthritis set in. Churning butter would be right there with tennis and fencing, for aggravating these issues, and tango is dramatic and fun but those deep movements are very challenging to anyone with back or knee issues which is most everyone by middle age.

Would love to hear what the retirees on the forums suggest?

Read my posts. I’ve been mostly retired for two years. I just did a 5 hour music rehearsal and have a concert tomorrow. Retired people are still pretty active for years before feebleness sets in. I know people who have done all of the things I listed. Yes, health issues have to be managed, but you don’t just suddenly go from working full time to a wheelchair. There’s a nice, active in between.

True. You and your parents must have what all of us would aspire to or wish for, being relatively healthy into our 70s, free of serious medical problems.

My grandmothers died in their 70s but weren't well for many years prior, and my father was very unwell before his early death, and my mother did in fact go from working fulltime to a wheelchair, due to a degenerative disease, in midlife, and was increasingly unwell until her death in her early 70s. None of them were the image of healthy aging at all, I'm sorry to say. My aunt didn't make it past her 60s, and was very unwell for many years prior to her death. They all had ancestors who lived to be nearly 100, too. But perhaps if we were working a farm our whole Iives, eating nothing processed, rising at dawn and sleeping soon after dark, maybe we could be, if not as healthy as people born before potent man-made endocrine disruptors became ubiquitous, at least a good deal healthier than otherwise.

I still hope to try ? what I can to affect my own outcome now, for whatever good it might do.

"SheriSim57;c-18126042" wrote:

"Mak27;d-1000189" wrote:

Mid adults as new life stage (BG update)

Memories system (BG update)

Hotels and casinos, including magicians and acrobats careers for entertainment

Crafting hobbies and skills: sewing, pottery and glassblowing

Junk car for restoration (classic and modern)

Old fashoned butter churner

Newspaper delivery return

Nursery home lot type

New drinks (iced tea)

Nectar making skill

Wedding anniversary (silver and gold)

New harvestables and new vertical planters

Functional water heaters

Swimming pool cleaning gameplay

More swimming pool stuff interactions, including rounded building (BG update)

Retirement party

Tango dancing and new radio station (also BG update)

More hottubs

CRT TVs and classy audio systems

Walking sticks for CAS

Enhanced familiar tree with second degree relatives (BG update)

Return of career reward items (like in TS2)

Utilities and garage decorative stuff

Air and deep fryer (while aging, kitchen oil could be danguerous for elder Sims, but fries are fries)

Pool tables (if isn't a thing until then)

Record player and collection


Edit: thanks for all your kidness about this concept. Elders deserves better in both, real life in Sims!

I love all your ideas except for the deep fryer being dangerous for elders. There are already enough ways to kill elders…. Lol. But I would love to have more kitchen appliances over all.

That's why I've added an air fryer, for elder sims.

"ignominiusrex;c-18126838" wrote:

"cyncie;c-18125981" wrote:

"ignominiusrex;c-18125940" wrote:
A good idea, but maybehave some real retirees vet it, because I'm not there yet, but have found out that things I never saw coming, become troublesome when very common things like carpal tunnel, rotatorcuff issues, and arthritis set in. Churning butter would be right there with tennis and fencing, for aggravating these issues, and tango is dramatic and fun but those deep movements are very challenging to anyone with back or knee issues which is most everyone by middle age.

Would love to hear what the retirees on the forums suggest?

Read my posts. I’ve been mostly retired for two years. I just did a 5 hour music rehearsal and have a concert tomorrow. Retired people are still pretty active for years before feebleness sets in. I know people who have done all of the things I listed. Yes, health issues have to be managed, but you don’t just suddenly go from working full time to a wheelchair. There’s a nice, active in between.

True. You and your parents must have what all of us would aspire to or wish for, being relatively healthy into our 70s, free of serious medical problems.

My grandmothers died in their 70s but weren't well for many years prior, and my father was very unwell before his early death, and my mother did in fact go from working fulltime to a wheelchair, due to a degenerative disease, in midlife, and was increasingly unwell until her death in her early 70s. None of them were the image of healthy aging at all, I'm sorry to say. My aunt didn't make it past her 60s, and was very unwell for many years prior to her death. They all had ancestors who lived to be nearly 100, too. But perhaps if we were working a farm our whole Iives, eating nothing processed, rising at dawn and sleeping soon after dark, maybe we could be, if not as healthy as people born before potent man-made endocrine disruptors became ubiquitous, at least a good deal healthier than otherwise.

I still hope to try ? what I can to affect my own outcome now, for whatever good it might do.

I’m sorry you lost so many family members so young. My father actually is not still living, having died young of a heart attack. That predisposition toward heart disease runs in his side of my family, so I’ve been battling high cholesterol since my 20’s. I also have an autoimmune disorder, so I’ve never been the strong, physically active type. Of course, heath problems are a factor as we get older, and our unhealthy modern lifestyle isn’t helping. But, a retirement pack that focuses on the stereotypical old geezer in a wheelchair isn’t encouraging us to live our senior years to their fullest, either. So many approach the last part of the journey as “just waiting to die.” I’d rather focus on graceful and active aging in the sims, and, as much as possible, in my real life, as well.

So, we all agree that elders deserves more love in real life and in The Sims 4?

I'm glad this concept can make you think about how we need to care our elder, their feelings and how we could see thems in the future, and also, a nice concept for TS4.

With High School confirmed, elders deserves a proper pack.

I think the elder pack is fully feasible. They can complement the pension system.

I agree with this, and think we should expand to more than just walking sticks. Elders (and other, younger people IRL and Sims) use wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, hearing aids, really thick glasses, etc.

I'm not opening the door on invisible disabilities that requires much more sensitivity and care, but solely these mobility and functional devices that so many people, people of all ages, use and have expressed they would love to see represented in-game.

Because for most of us with disabilities, the ideal world is not a world where our disability is gone, but where it's accommodated and accepted.