Okay, so people want “something for elders to do” and an elder’s pack. I’m still of the opinion that elders can do everything YA+ can do and it’s believable, but I thought I’d put my mind to what I’d...
"DaWaterRat;d-971710" wrote: I present my ideas for an elder's pack, focusing on a Community Center venue lot type.
I like this idea!
When building it, the suggested items would include card tables; easels; chess tables; flower arranging tables (if you have seasons); yoga mats, including instructor mats (if you have spa day); a new shorter easel type that allows for a dining or desk chair to be slotted to it, but only allows small or medium paintings; a puzzle table that increases logic (and recycles the small and medium painting images for the puzzles); and a Tai Chi mat (allowing a small gain to fitness while helping reduce weight slightly – and with no chance of overexertion.
This sounds pretty good.
With this pack, your elder sims could take classes similar to DU’s “Attend a skill class” option, but cheaper. However, the skill gain would be significantly less. Instead the elder’s fun and social bars would be filled (baring a chance card ruining the evening). Younger sims could take the classes, but they’d be more expensive (elders are on reduced income, after all) and they wouldn’t get as great an increase to fun and social (though still some. Could also add a chance of some bored, tense, or embarrassed moodlets from the class being too slow, elders asking nosy questions, etc. Ideally there would be an option for "parent and tot" classes for one adult and a toddler as well that would raise one of the toddler's skills, but I'm trying to focus on elders here.)
I'm really liking these ideas.
The other thing this pack would add would be weekend trips to places, where the elder sim would come back with some souvenirs of a place (sweatshirts, hats, pictures, and/or clutter.) If you have vacation world packs installed, those worlds would be included as options (maybe Sulani as well, but that’s not designed as a vacation world.) These trips would be rabbit holes, more or less getting the elder sim out of the house for a couple of days while the player could then focus on other sims in the household. There would be a new set of interactions available, such as “Enjoy the sights” (raises fun) and “make friends” (raises social) while your elder was away on their trip. These trips would be cheaper than renting a mid-sized vacation house for a day and they’d be elder only.
In ts3 there was a chance of your adult+ sims winning a rabbit hole night away, your suggestion is similar. It's a good idea.
But the key thing that makes a Community Center a Community Center is the Multi-Purpose room. This would be a 10x10 (or 8x12, but it has to be large) block that would have to be placed next to a wall where it could generate a double door. For programming reasons, the door probably would have to be in a set location, either the middle or end of the wall, and changed with swatches for the room.
Now, this seems like a huge dead space, and yeah, it is. Most of the time. On most days, the Multipurpose room would serve as another way to “attend a class” Click on the door, choose the class from the interaction wheel, and the sim is in a rabbit hole for an hour or two.
However, one or two nights a week, the room would be accessible. Because it would be a social event night. On those nights, the room would generate kiosks, items and tables similar to the campus events and city festivals, except that you’d have Bingo night, maybe Casino night (not sure if that’s something they can include in a teen game) Club night, where it’s basically a nightclub venue but with big band music… or similar events that would rotate through.
I'm not too sure about this part of the idea. Perhaps it might be better if the room spawns all the activities and classes, in a similar way to how the festivals and food vendors spawn. There could be a player controlled element to it, similar to how holidays can be controlled. The room could have 3 slots per day, morning, afternoon, and evening. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings might be classes, Thursday might be bingo night, Friday night might be card and board games night, and Saturday could be the Saturday night social, with partnered dancing, whether it be a swaying shuffle, a saucy tango, or an energetic swing
As for CAS assets – female hair would mostly be short or updos, male hair would include a couple of different balding patterns, and maybe something wispy and mostly bald – not sure how well that would work in maxis style. Clothing would be modest, and suited to an elder’s body type. I personally would prefer mostly somewhat timeless looks, but there’s some room for the 50’s grandpa (and grandma) stereotypical clothing in there. Oh, and liver spots would be a thing we could add.
I have loads of ideas for the styles of clothing I'd like to see for elders