I'm not super vocal when it comes to commenting but do share my game progress regularly at one particular message board, (been there over 2 years now).
At these other forums I'm basically your average, run-of-the-mill lurker.
I read way more than I comment and there was a post that got me thinking the other day about how playing and sharing our Sims has evolved into something a lot more,..well,...involved than it used to be.
It used to be a Simmer would play their hoods, snap a few pix, dream up a story and share it with other Simmers. Pretty basic stuff.
But just like anything else, the story-telling and pix taking began getting more and more creative and/or different as more and more gamers began to share. It's human nature to want to to show off our creative projects and for many, sharing fueled that inner fire to be the absolute best!
If you have been following my blog at all you know that this is a subject I've been contemplating to great length. But it was the post I read the other day from a gamer that inspired me to write more about it today. Basically this person was saying how she had a great idea for a Sim story-line but in order for her to transform it from an idea into a reality, one that she would feel good about sharing with her Sim peers, she would have to devote a LOT of time to hunting down and then downloading the CC for the story, create the perfect Sims to be in the story, put together the ideal surrounding for the story, then pose all of her Sims perfectly for the story, take the perfect pix and THEN take those pix into photo shop to make sure they're even more perfect and then of course she would have to make the time to write the perfect story. Whew!
Made me perfectly exhausted just reading about everything she'd have to do in order to share a story and it did her too - she decided to not even do it.
I had to scratch my head with that one.
When did sharing our Sim stories turn into such a complicated creative process? If this Simmer has a wonderful story brewing in her head why doesn't she just go in her hood and make it happen?
Well, I actually know the answer to that and the reason she would opt to not create the story is because if it's not presented to others in the Sim standard that she's set for herself then she'd rather not do it at all. I can understand that. It's like the shoddy Sim pix that I got off my old computer. If suddenly, (God forbid), the computer I use now began pumping out crappy pix like my old one did, I wouldn't want to share my stories, not with crummy pix like those. So I've set a Sim standard for myself as well, (as simplistic as it is).
I love checking out the creative genius that is shared at the TS2 forums -
the stories are unique and the pix that go along with the stories are outstanding. I find myself wanting to share too but then recoil at the thought. My pix aren't perfectly posed. They aren't perfectly photo-shopped. I fear that my creativity will be considered "old school" and not celebrated like all the other stories that are offered. And there's a small part of me that doesn't want everyone to know that I'm still Simming the old way.
Ridiculous isn't it?
But what goes beyond my ridiculousness of being afraid of sharing is that a Simmer would NOT create a story because of the standards she/he sets in their creative process.
Our Sims are not complicated.
They are simple, (and I don't mean simple-minded), friendship driven, no mess, no fuss pixelated beings that wouldn't have the time, patience or inclination to allow their creativity to reach such an extreme hoity-toity level. Their charm is unfettered, basic and most of all, non-judgmental.
I think if they were able to spring out of their hoods, stand at our backs and see what a tasking event we've turned telling their stories into, they'd pitch one of their infamous, "Something's in my way and I can't get by!" fits.
Cause that's exactly what we're doing, (some of us anyway). We're letting our fear of not measuring up, to either our own standard or someone else's, get in the way of doing what we enjoy - bringing to life Sim stories!!
Can we get back to the Sim Basics?
Or have we advanced to such a level that our Sims aren't even Sims anymore.
We overlay, air-brush and pose them to a point they no longer have free-will to be the heart and soul of who they are or who they want to be. To take away a Sim's free-will is about as cruel as taking away a child's imagination.
Do we want Sims or images of Sims?
I don't know about you but I want my Sims!
I want them in living out loud, basic, without overlays, unbrushed, unposed and as goofy as ever!!
