Make Teenagers Great Again!

"pinedasgal;898432" wrote:
Today my teen sims were discussing neighborhood property values because they didn't have much else to do. Yawn, TS4 teens are essentially the same as adults, but with homework. So I started jotting down concepts of what could make them more youthful, lively and enjoyable. These are just a few of my silly whims-- I'm here because I would love to hear your opinions and fun ideas for teens too!

New Activities:

• Cheerleading
  
• Rock band
  
• Skateboarding
  
• A sport team (Soccer? Or maybe a new sport made by Sims)
  
• Simblr social network. Post thoughts/photo/recent event/relationship/achieved whims to Simblr
  
• Video game console
  

New Events:

• Prom
  
• Sleepover party
  
• Science fair project
  
• Standardized tests (for chance of scholarship)
  

New Interactions:

• Learn to cook with parents
  
• Learn to drive with parents (yes in a car, no snark intended)
  
• "Tell-off parents" to blow off steam when tense
  
• Ask parents for permission to stay out late (answer depends on parent's mood and if teen has completed homework)
  
• Sneak out (with a random chance of getting caught)
  
• Receive random "Where are you?/Who are you with texts?" from parents with option to lie
  
• Hook-up (a more intense make-out, TS2 snog style ;) )
  

New Popularity System:
A subtle 3-tier ranking (nothing over-the-top like TS3's celebrity system or social groups). Some sims want popularity through whims.

• +2 Popular (Popularity gains a positive moodlet and an increase in invitations to hang out.)
  
• +1 Semi-popular (there has to be a better name for this lol)
  
• 0 No ranking (base, hidden)
  
• -1 Invisible (negative popularity from no friends, may have negative moodlet depending on sim's traits/aspirations)
  

Sims become more popular by

• having popular friends, or A LOT of friends
  
• being in a popular GT club
  
• being involved in cheerleading/a sport/ a band
  
• maxing a skill
  
• Simblr posts earning a lot of likes
  
• by some random, obscure event
  
• attending more parties
  

New Relationships:

• Have crushes. Sims should get nervous, blush, etc around crush
  
• Have role model (an adult sim whom the teen admires, teens has chance of receiving the role-model's traits)
  

Hormones:

• Acne
  
• Mood swings
  
• Random whims to do rebellious activities
  
• Braces
  

Tweaks:

• Teens (and child sims) go to school wearing a backpack
  
• "Make friends" at school increases relationships, not just meeting new sims
  
• "Make friends" will not meet child sims at school
  
• Remove discuss property values chat
  
• Rename first Mess Around to "Experiment"
  
• Remove climax-like animation at the end of Mess Around to make it a tad more PG (this probably doesn't bother anyone else, but the thought that my 13-year-old sis's selfsim could be shaking the bed gives me a headache lol)
  
• Return of the curfew ((with a random chance of getting caught, chance starts low and increases throughout night)
  

Ideally, if we had pre-teens some of these would go into this but I don't want to ask for too much considering toddlers=shooting for the moon.

I wanna hear from you though! help me add to the list :D :D :D

Awesome ideas!! Adding more after-school activities that are common for Teens would be great for building after-school clubs. (I already have some but it would be great to have more Teen-y activities to put in these clubs.) Also a big HEAR, HEAR to crushes! I miss that from TS2. It would be neat if they added a relationship type "First Love" too, something that a Sim will always carry with them even if they end up breaking up. Loving the role model suggestion too. Acne and braces would be great!! Now I can't believe they don't have braces.

I'm also a HUGE fan of stopping them meeting Child Sims at school and have them actually build relationships - like in TS3 when you could either make friends or hang out with friends, I believe, and they wouldn't give you the "talk with friends" option until you had already met some people. I don't like how they're lumped together in TS4 - and if you don't have mods, those school relationships are relationship culling fodder since they don't build while you're at school. I mean, I always figure when my Teen meets a Child at school that they're mentoring them or doing one of those things where high schoolers go and help out a reading class in elementary school or something, but it would waste less time if they just skipped to meeting Teens.

Does anyone else feel like Teens are the hardest age group for your Sims to meet? I find it so hard to get my Teens to meet other Teens. Clubs has helped with that, but having more Teen-only activities would go a long way to helping with this.