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Legacy Challenge Scorecard Update

With the release of the new careers patch, adding the Athletic and Business careers, i have updated the Legacy Challenge Scorecard to reflect these new careers as well as add the teen careers.  The teen careers were mistakenly omitted from the original version of the scorecard.

In addition to this, I have also uploaded both a spreadsheet and a template version of the scorecard.   The advantage of using the template version is that if you add it as a custom template, you can simply create a new Excel spreadsheet and select “Sims 4 Legacy Challenge Scorecard” as the type of sheet.   Functionally, the template is identical to the spreadsheet version of the scorecard.

Download the Template Version Here

Download the Spreadsheet Version Here

Legacy Challenge Scorecard Update was originally published on Sims Guy Steve

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The Sims 4 Legacy Challenge Scorecard

While the mod is currently on hold, I put together a scorecard this past weekend to make keeping track of your Legacy Challenge score a little easier.  The scorecard is in the form of an Excel 2013 spreadsheet.   I have done some testing, and it appears to work when imported into Google Docs as well, so you do not need to own Microsoft Excel to make use of it.

The scorecard also includes an easy to use generator for those using a “Random” heir law.  To use it, you simply enter a list of up to 6 possible heirs, and the generator will choose one as your heir.  In agreement with the official rules, any time a name is added or removed from the list, a new heir is generated.  Since both “parents” need to be part of the household when the potential heir is born or adopted, and the maximum household size is 8, there should never be case where there are more than six potential heirs in your pool.  The generator won’t include any heirs after the first blank line in the list, so it is important that there be no empty entries in the middle of the list.  The most effective way to remove an entry that is in the middle of the list is to move the last entry up to replace it.

  Much of the remainder of the scorecard consists of checklists which will help you keep track of the objectives in the various categories and automatically calculate your score for you as you mark them completed.  Each score category has it’s own tab to keep clutter to a minimum and make it easier to quickly find the information you are using.   Where helpful, instructions, explanations, and excerpts from the official rules are included in text boxes near the information in question.

The latest version of the scorecard is available for download here. If you notice any errors or have any comments or suggestions, please let me know here or on twitter.

The Sims 4 Legacy Challenge Scorecard was originally published on Sims Guy Steve

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Possible Legacy Challenge Mod

  Last week, I tossed out the idea to Pinstar about a mod to help players engaged in the Legacy Challenge with keeping score.   Since that time, I have been doing what I can to learn my way around Python as well as the specifics involved in creating a mod for The Sims 4.   I’ve done plenty of programming and scripting in the past, but never delved into Python or making mods for The Sims.

The primary function I am going to initially attempt to have the mod perform is score keeping.  Having the mod take care of the scorekeeping leaves the legacy players to sit back and have fun playing without having to worry about keeping track of all the score-affecting stuff on paper or a spreadsheet.

Breaking the concept of the mod down into smaller chunks, there are really 3 major milestones to reach to see the mod become a reality.   The first is to come up with a stand alone app which will never see the light of day beyond my own system.  This is going to merely allow me to verify that it accepts information, handles that information properly, and is able to reliably store and recover that information.  Nothing big, and nothing fancy.

The next step is to have it be able to do these same things as a mod.  This early version will be the first version anyone (other than myself) has even the smallest hope of actually seeing.  It will still be a bit cumbersome, relying on console commands to tell it what is happening.   The goal here is to have something inside the game that I can give to a very small number of hand-picked people to make sure it’s calculating things correctly.

The final hurdle will be to fully automate the process, adding the proper hooks and triggers to allow the mod to know what score-affecting events are taking place without being told.  At the moment, I am not certain what the best method of approaching this is going to be.   While there are modders madly tearing through the Maxis Python scripts data mining them, there is very little understood at this point about how to hook into events in the game.  Even the simple process of adding custom notification messages has yet to be achieved.  Most of the script modifications have involved either disabling things such as the musical emotion stingers, or unlocking things such as buy mode items or debug commands.

As for features beyond scorekeeping, I considered a few other functions the mod may be able to assist with.  One of these things was rule enforcement and another was a web-based scoreboard.  I decided against both of these things, for essentially the same reason.  The Legacy Challenge has always been a personal challenge, as such rule interpretation has always been widely up to those engaged in the challenge.  Some people choose to interpret the rules a little more loosely than others based on unique situations.  An example of this I saw myself recently was a Twitch streamer who was letting her viewers submit Sims to populate the town and use as potential mates.  It was a fun way to keep her viewers engaged.  I wouldn’t want my mod to limit things like this.   By the same token, I fear that a scoreboard would quickly turn it from a personal challenge into a competition.  That’s not what the Legacy Challenge is.

One feature that I am sort of toying with in my head is integrating the trait generation process into the game.  I have sort of worked on a little bit of this concept, but like the rest of the mod, nothing will be released without a final okay from Pinstar.  He is the creator of the challenge.  My goal is not to change anything about the spirit, the rules, or how the Challenge works, or establish a new variation of the challenge, it’s merely to try to assist Pinstar and the Legacy Challenge participants to make reduce the manual overhead of the challenge–nothing more than that.

  Possible Legacy Challenge Mod was originally published on Sims Guy Steve

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Could Story Progression Become A Reality in The Sims 4

For the past several days Sim Gurus Grant and Graham have both been holding daily hour-long Q&A sessions in separate forum threads on the official Sims 4 forums.  Grant has been having a morning session from 9am-10am PDT, while Graham has been holding his own afternoon session during a one hour window falling between 2pm and 4pm PDT in a separate thread.

Understand that Grant, Graham, nor any other Sim Guru is able to discuss any future unannounced content.   Nonetheless, both threads have had questions regarding the possibility of adding story progression to The Sims 4.   In both cases, the responses have been promising and strongly suggest that we may, indeed, be seeing some form of story progression.

First, was this comment from Grant during the morning session on Monday, Sept 8th:

We have some form of story progression. The engine does allow for it. Please note specifically what features you’d like. Story Progression is VERY contentious and means different things to different people. This is on us for being vague about it for years. So, YOU can all help us by telling us specifically want you want. Don’t say “we want story progression,” but instead say: We want new Sims to move in We want Sims to die

Etc.

By the way, in TS4, the neighborhood will age and new Sims will move in. There IS some story progression.

Then, there was this comment from Graham two days later during the afternoon session:

Story progression can provide some great world fiction to help things move along and give you a lot of interesting neighbors and seeing how things change organically over time.

We’ve been chatting about it internally as well and thinking about what exactly story progression is and how it would apply best to The Sims 4 if it were to be added. Obviously there were some great mods for The Sims 3 that took that entire system really in-depth as well, and point towards some of the cool possibilities it brings. I don’t know what will happen right now, but it’s something we’re thinking about.

While neither of these comments should be viewed as proof that story progression is definitely going to become a reality (or what it will entail if it does), they do indicate that the idea has not been dismissed.   Assuming the team has learned from the past, any form of story progression will likely be optional, most likely with the same on/off options we currently see with aging (Current Family, Previously Played Families, or All Others).

For those of us who miss the idea of story progression, let’s keep our fingers crossed that this becomes a reality and that they are able to deliver a solid and colorful story progression system for The Sims 4.

Could Story Progression Become A Reality in The Sims 4 was originally published on Sims Guy Steve

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Taking the Challenge

Okay, so I have decided to kick off my blog, as well as my first real attempt at ongoing Sims 4 gameplay, by accepting my first ever legacy challenge.   While I played The Sims 2 back when it was the latest and greatest incarnation of The Sims, I never discovered the fun of The Legacy Challenge.

After discovering the challenge while watching a Sims 3 stream on Twitch, I decided to try my hand at in The Sims 3.  Unfortunately repeated technical issues and lack of game stability made my attempts futile.  For added fun and challenge, as well as an attempt to possibly avoid some of the issues, I even made a short lived attempt at running a Sims 3 legacy challenge in a completely vanilla game.  No expansions.  No stuff packs.  No custom content with the exception of the Overwatch mod to keep things running smoothly.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  I was never able to make it past the second generation without things going haywire.

So after playing around with The Sims 4 for about a week since its launch, I decided a few days ago that it was finally time for me to step up and accept the challenge.  Let’s hope my current luck with things remaining stable in this new version of The Sims 4 continues to hold.   While each new patch addresses initial issues in the launch, it also holds the potential to introduce new ones, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Laying Down the Law

Before I could begin my journey, I first needed to establish three laws which would collectively define how succession would work within my legacy.  SInce this is my very first time attempting to complete the legacy challenge, I didn’t want to paint myself into a corner and fail miserably after the very first generation because I had no heir.

The Gender Law

For my gender law, I chose a patriarchy.   As a result of this decision, males will be favored over females, but a female could still become the heir if there are no valid male heirs.   Before someone accuses me of being a sexist, the primary drive for this decision was to retain the family name for all ten generations, if possible.  I was unaware at the time that the last name of a sim no longer changes after getting married and that the last name of babies can be set at the time of birth.

The Bloodline Law

I was a bit more strict with this law.  I went with the strict traditional bloodline law.  This means that adopted children will never be eligible to be an heir within my legacy.   If I am unable to produce natural offspring at any point, the legacy will end there.

The Heir Law

The final law that needed to be decided was the heir law.  This was the law that would define exactly who, among those who were not disqualified by the first two law, would become the absolute heir to the throne, so to speak.  While I considered going with a merit method here in order to ensure that the “best in litter” would be heir or with the “living will” option so I could essentially hand pick my heir by concentrating on building their relationship, I decided to go with the First Born law.

Now it was established once and for all that the first born male with a direct bloodline to the founder would become heir.

Meet Axel Davenport

The founder of my first ever legacy challenge legacy is Axel Davenport.  Axel is an aspiring gardener who loves the outdoors.   In order to further his efforts with gardening, I chose to give him the genius trait to make him more prone to entering a state of focus, which is ideal for building the gardening skill.   Being outgoing, he tends to be a friendly sort, and not as prone to through rotten vegetables from his garden at his neighbors as they walk by or gather in little groups, chatting on the sidewalk.

“I’m Not A Real Programmer, But I Play One At Work”

Okay, so it was never his dream to be a tech guru.  His genius trait does, however, make it a good fit for a profession.  My other thought was obviously to pursue a career in the culinary arts, but I figured I could save that for later since there is an aspiration which expressly calls for one to become a Master Chef.   Although the aspirations of future generations will be beyond my control, I am confident that one of my descendants will, eventually, want to be the next Gordan (or Gabrielle) Ramsey.  When that comes, Alex here should have provided a solid garden to provide them with an abundance of high quality produce, provided they take care of it.

Settling Down

Having created my founder, spent most of the paltry 1,800 simoleans the legacy challenge permits one to keep, and having found a job to help pay the bills, it was time for the hero of our story to set out to find a suitable mate.   Under the rules, he had to find someone who was merely a random townie not currently living in a house in town.   While at the library on his very first day in town, he was able to spot a good candidate rather quickly.

Her name is Desiree Regan, a family oriented bro with a bit of perfectionist thrown in.  Her aspiration is to be a body builder, which doesn’t go with any of her traits, but this is, of course, not something I am permitted to change unless she actually completes the aspiration.

Had the sports career still been an option, it would have been a good (and obvious) choice for her.   Alas, I was forced to simply pick something for her, or choose to let her stay home and rely solely on Axel’s income to support the family.  That didn’t really seem like a wise move at this point, so choose a career it was.   While I thought about an artistic pursuit which would allow her to generate additional income at home, I decided against it.  I’m not sure how much being a perfectionist would upset her in the early stages of building up her artistic skills.  In the end, I chose the one which seems to rely most on being physically fit — she took a job in the Astronaut career.

The Pitter Patter of Little Pixels

Okay, so they have jobs.  They are making a little money.  They’ve gotten married.  What’s next?   Oh yes, it’s time to expand their growing family.

Despite his expression, Axel is actually quite thrilled with the news.  He’s just confused and doesn’t quite understand why Desiree is bringing him a glass of milk in the bathroom.

It is of course, time to make some preparations though.  Move the computer from the back room to the living room, and convert that room into a nursery for the coming bundle of demonic pain.. umm… I meant joy.  Really.   I did.   I love kids.   Their little heads make great coasters, as long as you train them to stand still, and when they grow a little they can take over the unimportant tasks like mowing the lawn and cleaning the house so you can concentrate on much more important matters, like playing The Sims.

After a few days, Desiree gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Cyndy Davenport.   This name was strategically planned so I could point it out to my own girlfriend and say “Awww… See honey, I named her after you.  Isn’t that so very sweet and loving of me?   NOW can I spent a little more time on The Sims?”

This pretty much brings us up to the current point in the story of the Davenport legacy.   I will continue to post chapters in their ongoing story as it develops.

If you are interested in more information on what the legacy challenge is or what the rules are so you can start one of your own, please visit the official site for the Sims Legacy Challenge.  You can find the link here or in the links menu of this site.

Taking the Challenge was originally published on Sims Guy Steve

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