Congrats on making a good and addictive game, i thoroughly enjoyed playing it however i think there was a missed oppurtunity with the lack of how looks can play in a game like this.
I think Attractiveness should be implemented into the game, you should be able to alter the slider along with your other IQ, Culture, Happiness and confidence traits at the start. It could serve as a positive and a negative in life, such as a barrier into modelling and other beauty dependant careers. Attractiveness attribute should also affect people skills and maybe how many girls are attracted to you or want to be your friend. There could also be beauty treatments like plastic surgery or botox in order to improve or make them last longer as you get older. I think this attractiveness attribute will tie in nicely with the plastic surgeon career.
People might also be willing to cut you some breaks in life if your a hot girl/guy. With all the upsides and downsides that beauty brings I think it would add a whole new dynamic to the game. I guess looks could be considered under the umbrella of confidence but your looks don’t fluctuate as much in a short period of time. Plus i think you could be an average looking guy and still be as confident. So you dont absolutely need to be a hot model to have all the ladies wanting to be your friend.
Would it also be possible to have scenarios you encounter at work, kinda like in sims when your character encounters an X or Y problem and if you chose the right course of action then you are rewarded through promotion or monetary gains. I really enjoyed that aspect of the game in sims as it gave you more control over your character at work, although i thought it was a little limited, perhaps this game can expand on it.
This is something I thought about, but didnt put in. Is it a popular request? I guess some people would like it, others might consider it shallow. Would it bother anyone to have this in the game?
My one problem with this would be attractiveness to who? and by what definition?
We all have different tastes and consider different things attractive so how can you put a number or scale on it?
You could relate it to the media image of whats attractive, but then skinny, plastic Paris Hilton a-likes really look ugly to me, and that seems to be the media’s ideal image of whats attractive.
Oh and the work thing would be cool, every once in a while get a dilema like in Democracy that relates to your job.
Would make the job thing much more enjoyable than just getting the same screen every day.
Maybe, just maybe, you could link the attractiveness quotient to the IQ… Let’s face it, intelligent people aren’t as concerned with looks as thickies are.
I do like the idea of work questions - it would make it extra fun.
Haha i think thats a stereotype, I’ve met a few beauties that have had brains also, perfect package huh? I think Looks is a big part of life, thats how we fixate to people we would like to know more. IQ, Confidence, Happiness and Culture are all part of the pie of life also.
Whilst it can be argued that Looks in this sort of game could be shallow, I think it reflects real life quite well, maybe thats the real crux of the situation here, in a real world bombarded by shallowness why would we introduce it into the game world? I think that in a game world other attributes like happiness and confidence can balance out the looks attribute so you don’t need to be a supermodel to be successful at life. I don’t want looks to take over the game because thats not how it is in real life however i just want it to be recognised at least. Plus I’d say the game was heavily biased towards being an academic with all the studying and work you have to do, i think a little shallowness would do it good haha.
You have jobs in the game like bodyguard that requires muscles, acting careers that only require people to be under a certain weight? Why not go all the way and put looks down because thats the big piece of the pie in that industry. for the average person, matter how much muscle you get your never going to be in a movie because of it.
As for beauty in the eye of the beholder, yeah thats true to an extent but i am talking about recognising beauty rather than your attractiveness to that person, say paris hilton. I am not attracted to her one bit yet probably because of how she behaves, but i think shes at least above average in looks, she had a good plastic surgeon to thank for that . If you met a person who was better looking than others on a desert island, would you not seek to be with her based on first sight attraction? Sure she might turn out to be an utter B*tch but you won’t know that until you spend time with her.
I don’t mean to put more work on your plate cliffski, perhaps a modder can insert this attribute into the game. I think the looks attribute can introduce another variable into the game which will work well with the existing framework. It can further flesh out careers that require looks like the acting/media industry mentioned above, or launch a modelling career. Also affecting social relationships.
Encountering situations at work or even in life, would be great because it introduces a little free will in controlling your character. For example your going on a date with your girlfriend and comming back from the theatre you spot some a thug attacking an old woman in an alleyway, do you a) pretend you didn’t see anything and walk by (the outcome might be that your girlfriend intervenes and scares off the thug leaving you red faced and she no longer wants to be with you), or b) run to try and scare off the thug (of course if you choose b you will need the necessary self defence skills or emough muscle tone to defeat this thug, if you get beaten up in the process of helping then your girlfriend might admire you more for trying).
See, this is my point. I agree she is unattractive because of her actions, but also her looks to me are rather plain, not my definition of beauty at all.
So a question, would attractiveness as a game characteristic be based purely upon looks or upon how people percieve you based upon a combination of looks, actions, bearing and even social class??
I get what your saying raven, i think other sim games just deal with the looks aspect by itself which is kinda two dimensional, however it would be good if this game takes into account a host of other things when it comes to dating. That the dating requirement isn’t as simple as meeting up regulary to have drinks or goto the cinema, but rather have it operate like an employer looking for a candidate, if the person your dating deems themself to be better than you, you might have to satisfy their criteria to be their mate such as having a certain amount of looks, personality, money, a car of your own etc. On the other hand if you find someone who is on par with you or below you on the desirability scale, you might settle for her so you don’t need to keep your attributes as high to please them.
To answer your question yes you might find Paris hilton rather plain compared to me but im not in your game world. Your playing by yourself and the game itself is an illusion that decides that your in game character is attracted to a certain person in game such as mindy or sherri. I am not there as a third person to disagree that sherri looks like a horse and mindy looks like a turtle. The game decides which person you come in contact with and you chose who you want to be with. It just is what it is in the game world, there needs to be absolutes or else there won’t be a game.
Paris hilton was a bad example to use but say a beautiful woman like elle macpherson, cindy crawford, scarlet johanson, devon aoki or whomever the majority of us can commonly agree over. I mean how do these women rise to the top in the media to be our most desirable females(debatable)? Of course not everyone will agree that they were the most beautiful but they must have had the majority consensus of people otherwise they wouldnt be up there. Or they had the right personality to influence people in power to put them where they are now. This point is kinda moot in game however because as i said your playing character in a singleplayer game.
You misunderstand me - I meant that intelligent people don’t tend to be as concerned with good looks as those with lesser intellects when choosing a mate. Myself, I look for a man who looks intelligent, and looks are, indeed, in the eye of the beholder. Many so called ‘hunky’ actors look desperately ugly to me because they are obviously as thick as two short planks.
Mind you, from what I’ve learned, people look different to me than to normal people, so maybe I can’t really comment. Bloody telepathy.
The easy thing to do would be to just make some arbitrary decision on what makes someone attractive, and add items to buy or activities to do that improve your attractiveness. I’d rather the game be more subtle. Its an area I’d like to expand on. Maybe your attractiveness to someone can be linked to the compatibility of your interests? udos skirts over the issue of YOUR interests, but they can be inferred. Maybe a personality match can happen. High confidence potential mates would be attracted to you if your confidence is high etc etc.
Theres a lot of possible ways to approach that whole area.
Plus theres the possibilities of affairs, cheating, marriage, one-night stands etc…
. If you met a person who was better looking than others on a desert island, would you not seek to be with her based on first sight attraction? Sure she might turn out to be an utter B*tch but you won’t know that until you spend time with her.