Elder Sims
Is there any chance the behavior of elder Sims could be changed? Pretty much they are always popping at the joint and seem to be showing signs of dementia. I mean, if they are in their last Sims days...
Forum Discussion
unseenlarks,
Ah, understood. (Regarding your personal story.) I think I got passionate about the gardening because now that the person I've based my elder Sim off of is an elder by age standard, I get to help in the grunt work of her gardening. Give me the hedge clippers... I get to hack all the unwanted tree limbs (and there are a lot of trees) and prune all the plants that have grown quite tall, gather them all up and pile them. Stepping in stray animal *, getting dirt and fallen tree debris shower all over me and gaining "battle scars" from the thorny suckers are the perks. Relocating heavy potted plants when the weather changes is a blast, too. The thorns always get me then. Eh, the things you do for those one loves. :}
Yeah, I can definitely see canes and walkers being for anyone, but I only put in ideas on a limited level since the Sims is fairly limited despite the great progress it has made over the years. Ah, AI... so dang complex. Until then, however... if there were at least canes and walkers available, those who have the time could likely make mods that make them available to all Sims that are big enough to use the set size for a cane or walker. I would have also thrown in a wheelchair suggestion as I have seen a decent amount of Simmers request mods for that or at the very least a set up with chairs converted to look like wheelchairs so they can make snapshots of their Sims as their characters should be.
I guess I just see the Sims elders as a bit flat because as mentioned in previous posts, I spent a good amount of time with RL elders... I even live in a retirement town. Elders can be cool as heck, especially when they have stories to tell.
That kill elder, thing... I wasn't implying you wished to, I just know there are Simmers who like to off their Sims or NPCs in the game for kicks.
'Sorry if the dementia comment has made you uncomfortable. It is a fairly common term for me, since a late relative of mine actually had it... and then there is a friend who had a late relative who had Alzheimer's. Thus, the action I speak of seeing being present in all the Sim Elders action loops whether they are part of my Sims Family or just a NPC... I find that pretty insulting. When I see the action, it just takes me back to my family member who had dementia. It just feels like a huge stereotype of all elders having weaker, forgetful minds because they are old. Here is the action: at 1:57 and 2:24 They do that often when there is no one around as though they are talking to thin air.
I dunno, maybe I am just somehow "lucky" and my Sims keep winding up in places where they are near an elder Sim and that animation decides to take action. I mean, the last game I played with one of my Sim families, they went on a romantic date so one could propose to the other and as I was working on getting them in a romantic mood, the elderly bartender gets off shift and right as she is outside the bar she does that. There is no one near, she looks around lost, asks some sort of confused question to thin air, sighs and plops into a wilted position. WTF?
hi @Player_jp5s5eav,
i can understand that, and agree gardening is... well, *exercise*! 🙂
you're right about the game's limitations. i talked about this with someone else, although it wasn't so complex. it was about the curly hair and how i was annoyed there was none like it before. this person said the developers are able to create more and better content as they learn along the way... i argued, "if modders can do it, why can't a dedicated professional team do it?" 😉
you know... i want a wheelchair too. *and* a white cane and a hearing aid. also: bandages, casts, arm slings, burn and scar marks... the works. i've also been told injuries or obvious "disabilities" are too "dark" for a game that is supposedly made for... teenagers.
so i agree that elders are more than what you told me you see in-game. i do want all of the things you mentioned. i'd want to see them do more stuff. while i love that my one of my Sims meets a close friend (who happens to be an elder) at the pub every day, i'm pretty sure he wants to do more than that. (there's also the question... why does my Sim go to the pub every day?)
in my story, they sit at the park together to share snacks and feed birds. it's not an "elder" thing to me; in fact, my adult Sim does it on her own when she's in the grassy... area behind her house. did i mention my story was detailed? and BTW... this "old man" sure has a few cool stories to tell my Sim! (this is them: https://www.instagram.com/p/BfZVnPknFAC/)
he used to be less active and cheerful, though, until his daughter (who worked in a different town) moved back to live with him. 🙂
anyway... i didn't think you were saying to me, "you elder-killer!" just wanted to mention that i'm not one! 🙂
it's not that dementia itself makes me uncomfortable. just using the term loosely. i've heard lots of people just... you know... make comments about it as if it's some kind of joke? like... saying, "huh-huh, does person X have dementia? they're *so* forgetful!" as in... for anybody, young or older, who forgot to buy... IDK, one item off of their shopping list? kind of... making light of it.
so i strongly agree with what you said about the behaviour you see in your elders in-game as being insulting/a stereotype. i'm sorry i'm so bad at explaining what i mean. ☹️
aw... that stinks about your elderly bartender just looking lost... one of mine does the neat fire trick when mixing drinks. i wish *you*'d seen that happening too. ☹️
and another one, who's actually my favourite, is the one who died after woo-hooing 3 times. i know i used that happening as a description, but i left out that i quit without saving; i mean, to hell with that Sim-day's progress.
and the phrase i used, "i assume he didn't have the "active" trait? or did he?" was kind of a *wink-nudge* thing.
so this one, he's the main love interest of another one of my Sims... yeahhh. i love him. not only because he's a super cool/trendy character (guess what, *he* exists in my story, too!) but because he's the one who pays the most attention to my... ahem, less than perfect Sim. 😉 and BTW, he didn't die after i restarted the game and (of course) had the woo-hoo triad going on again. (this is them: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeJy_NCHA3j/)
...and i see what you mean about the video's animations, too. so yes. after that, i am with you, 100%, in wanting elder Sims to truly be cool as heck! i mean... we both know RL ones already are. =)
i can understand that, and agree gardening is... well, *exercise*! 🙂
you're right about the game's limitations. i talked about this with someone else, although it wasn't so complex. it was about the curly hair and how i was annoyed there was none like it before. this person said the developers are able to create more and better content as they learn along the way... i argued, "if modders can do it, why can't a dedicated professional team do it?" 😉
you know... i want a wheelchair too. *and* a white cane and a hearing aid. also: bandages, casts, arm slings, burn and scar marks... the works. i've also been told injuries or obvious "disabilities" are too "dark" for a game that is supposedly made for... teenagers.
so i agree that elders are more than what you told me you see in-game. i do want all of the things you mentioned. i'd want to see them do more stuff. while i love that my one of my Sims meets a close friend (who happens to be an elder) at the pub every day, i'm pretty sure he wants to do more than that. (there's also the question... why does my Sim go to the pub every day?)
in my story, they sit at the park together to share snacks and feed birds. it's not an "elder" thing to me; in fact, my adult Sim does it on her own when she's in the grassy... area behind her house. did i mention my story was detailed? and BTW... this "old man" sure has a few cool stories to tell my Sim! (this is them: https://www.instagram.com/p/BfZVnPknFAC/)
he used to be less active and cheerful, though, until his daughter (who worked in a different town) moved back to live with him. 🙂
anyway... i didn't think you were saying to me, "you elder-killer!" just wanted to mention that i'm not one! 🙂
it's not that dementia itself makes me uncomfortable. just using the term loosely. i've heard lots of people just... you know... make comments about it as if it's some kind of joke? like... saying, "huh-huh, does person X have dementia? they're *so* forgetful!" as in... for anybody, young or older, who forgot to buy... IDK, one item off of their shopping list? kind of... making light of it.
so i strongly agree with what you said about the behaviour you see in your elders in-game as being insulting/a stereotype. i'm sorry i'm so bad at explaining what i mean. ☹️
aw... that stinks about your elderly bartender just looking lost... one of mine does the neat fire trick when mixing drinks. i wish *you*'d seen that happening too. ☹️
and another one, who's actually my favourite, is the one who died after woo-hooing 3 times. i know i used that happening as a description, but i left out that i quit without saving; i mean, to hell with that Sim-day's progress.
and the phrase i used, "i assume he didn't have the "active" trait? or did he?" was kind of a *wink-nudge* thing.
so this one, he's the main love interest of another one of my Sims... yeahhh. i love him. not only because he's a super cool/trendy character (guess what, *he* exists in my story, too!) but because he's the one who pays the most attention to my... ahem, less than perfect Sim. 😉 and BTW, he didn't die after i restarted the game and (of course) had the woo-hoo triad going on again. (this is them: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeJy_NCHA3j/)
...and i see what you mean about the video's animations, too. so yes. after that, i am with you, 100%, in wanting elder Sims to truly be cool as heck! i mean... we both know RL ones already are. =)
Not all simmers agreed with your thoughts in this conversation(since there were plenty of simmers in the past that felt/thought that the elder sims were simply to young looking and acting and wanted a more gradual aging process) maybe a alternative is to have various amounts of healty and unhealthy lifestyle choices affecting the amount of various gradual aging process after affects/by products given to the elder sims.
Huh... 'never saw this post under this before until now. Anyway, yeah, I get that. The world is full of diversity. That is why I wanted to know if the creators would ever consider giving the Elders a bit more diversity and tweak things so that they could still do things Adult Sims do, but at a more moderate pace that wouldn't send them into the red zone and possible death if they did something "strenuous" again too soon afterward. Thus, the main thing I mentioned was Active Sims. If my active elder wants to exercise, they should be able to. Thus, I wondered if things could be tweaked to add more options to them. Rather than running and winding up in pain, give an option for elder Sims to be able to power walk or just walk when they want to exercise.
Then the other thing was the idle animations. While they were truthful, they were also too stereotypical and a bit insulting. I wondered if they could be given different ones and if so, maybe those could go with different traits only elder Sims could have. At least that way I wouldn't constantly see elder Sims look like their back went out and hear a loud crack in the process or appear suddenly lost, shrug their lower arms out and ask, "Sequioa?" to thin air. (I saw what you did there in Growing Together, EA!)
So, when you say previous Simmers wanted alternatives and a more gradual aging process... that was sort of what I was saying in my posts, but along with that to "flesh them out more" with elder only traits. (I'm glad Growing Together does that some.)
