College Progress

I'm pleased to report on a few different aspects of my College Collection Project. The first was that a few nights ago I had success with adding a college tuition! I was able to hook my code into the Payout BHAV so that every time that gets called, another $2500 tuition bill shows up in your inventory. The reason this is awesome is because it's not a BHAV that is normally in custom majors, so regardless of your major (custom or default) you will still have to pay the same tuition. I was not yet able to do an inventory check to see if that bill is still there and has not been paid before the next semester or you'd be put on Academic Probation, but I'm still working on that.

The second happy piece is that Cyjon got back to me about his Talent Badge Scholarships mod and has given me permission and a bit of guidance on adding the FT Hobbies into that system. I've lowered the required skills from 8 to 7, and lowered a few of the other scholarship payouts because the grand total has to stay below $30,000 and I was adding 10 new scholarships on top of the 12 Jfade and Cyjon put in.

The third and final bit is that I've gone through and mapped out all the inventory items that will be added to all the Maxis majors. I love that I figured out how to do that with my own major, but it is a tad trickier with the defaults. They all share the same 'Next Semester' BHAV that I put my code into, so first I'll have to add a way of making it know while major you are in to give the correct items. I'm pretty sure I have an idea for it, but I haven't tried it out yet. I tried to make sure each major was in line with the others and that there isn't one singular best major to be in. It really depends on what kind of sim you have and what kind of job they want. The items all correspond to the class titles and with the exception of Economics, I didn't change any of the orders. In Econ, I moved the counterfeiting workshop to much later because it was much cheater than the others. As I recall, after beginning your Junior year, you can't switch majors, so I tried to put all the really good stuff behind that gate. I stand corrected, they can't switch after the end of their Junior Year, so Literature and Econ just became kinda sneaky if you want to cheat. I think this set looks pretty good, I'm having a hard time deciding which set I like best, so that means that they all must be pretty good. The Physics nerds have by far the coolest toys though. ;)

College Costs

I haven't done any play testing of this yet, but I think I've got a starting point for the tuition cost. I'm thinking its going to be $2,500 a semester. That means going to college costs $20k. If I manage to get the scholarships to repeat on the beginning of Junior year, I'm going to up the cost to $5000 each instead. I'm also going to nuke the $20k handout upon graduation. That is the least realistic thing ever. I just graduated, where's my $20k? I had to move back in with my parents, and I think colleges grads should have to as well. This will also up the amount of apartments I use in my game because apartments are actually still within a college grad's budget. I wasn't planning on limiting student loans to only students, so they could take a few more out just to make sure they can land on their feet upon graduation. I am not trying to make college impossible or sucky for my sims, I just want them to know that it wasn't free, they had to work toward it, and to appreciate everything. Yes, little pixel dolls can learn that. :P

As I was going through the scholarships, I noticed that I don't think anyone has made any scholarships based on FT Hobby Interests yet, so those should definitely be included. I want to make college cost, but I do want it to be attainable.

I need to find a BHAV that gets called during the switch from semesters that I can insert all this tuition stuff into, but it should also be one that I'm not using to add in inventory items into. I want the tuition to work even with custom majors, and the inventory items will only be for the maxis ones.

College Money Matters

I was doing some more thinking about this today. I think Government Grants should work the same way that phoning for Scholarships does. The amount of money for the grants would be based on the sim's grades and some math to do with lot value and family value. Might take into consideration the number of sims living on the lot. It should also consider sims incomes. My college roommate got some grants and she was less than thrilled with how the money was allotted. I do want my sims to have college debt, but I don't need to do it in a stupid way.

I'm thinking the tuition bill needs to be placed directly into the sim's inventory when they start each new semester. They have until their final exams to pay their tuition bill. If the tuition bill object is still in their inventory when they head off to their final exam, they will be placed on academic probation for the next semester. College isn't free now! ;) I'm also considering making scholarships and grants re-applicable, or perhaps recurring for a little while. My college scholarship lasted for 12 quarters. My college tenure was actually much longer, so the last year or so I didn't have that anymore. Oh! My scholarship was dependent on community service hours. Maybe I can include some sort of community service stuff. Cash for work based on hobby skills and regular skills. Helping build a new community garden if you've got good gardening talent skills sounds like a good thing to me! Teaching kids robotics, not sure about some of the others, but I'll work on it. This project is starting to get exciting now!

The key for this though, is I have to find a realistic amount to make the semester tuition. If it's too much, no sims will be able to afford it, or ever get out from under their student loans, but if I make it too easy, then what was the point? Ooh, I do like game design. It was the one thing I really really liked when I was interning at Hasbro Games.

College Collection

So, I'm not really sure how this project is going to play itself out. Having just graduated college myself, I'm really not impressed with how our sims do college. For starters, why the hell is it free? I'm up to my eyeballs in student loans and sims have zero debt and have cash coming out of their ears. Gotta fix that. Secondly, I've come away from college with a TON of stuff. Books, supplies, paper materials, toys and projects I've designed, the list could go on all day. Sims skate through college barely collecting anything. This was one of the reasons I added inventory items to my college major. But its still not enough. I had to rent a U-Haul trailer to dig me out of my apartment of 3 years. My sims should be equally saddled with crap and cheap furniture. The third main thing that bugs me is their dorm rooms. They are terrible. At all the schools I've been to, they have uniform dorm furniture and everyone decorates their rooms. Sims (aside from the stupid uni-townies) never spend any time in their room because they suck and there is nothing to do in there. Part of this problem is because all the rooms are single. College is about roommates! Ok, with all that in mind, here's my list:

This is a laundry list of stuff that is needed. Thankfully, I don't have to make it all. I don't know how I'm going to be presenting this yet.

Tuition: college needs to cost money, and perhaps a different amount based on where you go.
Student Loans: because tuition is just too expensive! Maybe through the phone or comp?
Gov't Grants: based on lot value, family income, and number of family members.
Scholarships: add in Hobby skills and Witchcrafting.
Ask Parents for Money: phone call interaction based on how much parents love their kid, and money in the bank, and how many times they've already called.

Inventory Items for all Majors: just like my major, I want junk added to all majors for almost all classes (some just don't make sense)

Futon: foldable bed, like the Murphy.
Oversized Bean Bag chair: with cuddle interactions.
Laptops and Printers: cuz we all need them in college now.
TVs: small flat screens or larger clunky CRTs
Minifridge with a Microwave on top: and foods that use them.
Matchy matchy bland dorm furniture: IKEA gave us a bunch of nice MALM crap to use.
Supplies: Textbooks, Notebooks, Calculator, Pens, Pencils. All which immediately loose all $ value.
Fans: Box and Rotating, cancels dorm noise.
Bulletin Boards: for pics of friends
Small Bookcases and Shelves: to hold any sentimental stuff from home.
Backpacks and Messenger Bags: just to clutter the rooms.
Stuffed Llama and Cow: University Spirit!
Storage: Clear tubs and plastic crates.

Roommate Door: cuz we really need one already.

I'll be adding links as I find these things. I'm thinking about maybe making it part of the phone call when you go to college. You have to pay a certain amount, and it tells you that the car will be there at 7am, so be packed and ready. Then I'll have a pop up notification listing all the great things your college-bound kid is likely to need.