Social Seniors Pack idea
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 want in this hypothetical elder’s pack. For the most part, this is based on the actual activities and such posted in my town’s monthly magazine as things for seniors to do in our community.
So I present my ideas for an elder's pack, focusing on a Community Center venue lot type. Now, I have no idea how feasible this is. Also it recycles a lot of existing gameplay, but I don’t really care that much. It’s also complicated enough that it would probably be a game pack.
On the Community center lot, Elders would gain social significantly faster, and fun faster as well. (An argument can be made that teens would loose fun faster, but let's not play into stereotypes more than we have to.) 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. The animations could be new, or if there’s not enough budget for that, the defensive moves from the Sparing animation could be re-purposed and played at a slower rate.)
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.)
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.
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.
With Seasons installed, it could also generate event rooms for certain holidays (not quite sure how… maybe based on a specific tradition being included, such as decoration or grand meal) that would allow many of the traditions to be filled. Or at least Grand meal and anything requiring a TV or being social.
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.
So I present my ideas for an elder's pack, focusing on a Community Center venue lot type. Now, I have no idea how feasible this is. Also it recycles a lot of existing gameplay, but I don’t really care that much. It’s also complicated enough that it would probably be a game pack.
On the Community center lot, Elders would gain social significantly faster, and fun faster as well. (An argument can be made that teens would loose fun faster, but let's not play into stereotypes more than we have to.) 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. The animations could be new, or if there’s not enough budget for that, the defensive moves from the Sparing animation could be re-purposed and played at a slower rate.)
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.)
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.
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.
With Seasons installed, it could also generate event rooms for certain holidays (not quite sure how… maybe based on a specific tradition being included, such as decoration or grand meal) that would allow many of the traditions to be filled. Or at least Grand meal and anything requiring a TV or being social.
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.
