Let's Play Opening Valley Episode 2: The Pauvres Part 2 - Scandalous Lovin' | The Sims 2 Gameplay

[@IveGotAMatch]

The death metal blaring over their karaoke attempts made me laugh 😂 Interesting vibe that club was going for...

[@BellaDovah]

Hahaha that made me laugh😂 Yeah I think I need to swap out those speakers! Thanks for watching😁

[@AniBats]

What a great start to the weekend to get to cozy up in bed after work and watch the continuation of your series. I've been looking forwards to this 🥰 The dynamic of this little family unit is really sweet somehow. There's always something special about a father and daughter relationship when there's no mother in the picture that pulls at my heartstrings. I get the feeling that he's really trying, but is having terrible luck. He's not finding a job and is desperately trying to make something of himself. At the same time, he doesn't know how to approach and open up to his daughter, and ends up hurting her by not communicating. As a result, she distances herself from him and takes comfort from other men in her proximity: both her boyfriend and male friends. I get the sense that he's desperately trying to recreate what was lost by finding a new woman to fill in for her mother, perhaps by starting up a new family with a sibling. That screams desperation to me, which fits well in with his role in the intro video. All of the little random moments that the game threw at you were really funny, and your reactions were so genuine and delightful. The whole scene with them coming back from prom was brilliant. To me, it read like the daughter screaming to her dad through the bathroom door that she was home and won a prize for dancing. The dad finished up to meet her, while her bf started to get frisky. They took it to the bedroom (both probably a bit tipsy), and once the dad came out to find them, he of course heard what was going on through the thin walls and hurried back into the bathroom out of embarrassment 😂😂😂 Regarding your dilemma, my take on it would be to go with your instincts. You know me, I always go where the story leads me, but I know you play in your own way. So let me just say: at the end of the day, the point is for you to have fun. If having many romance sims takes away from your enjoyment, it's better to change it. I'd say, don't think along the lines of doing them justice: the whole point of the sims is to play your own game and tell your own story ❤ About the video flow, I have a suggestion (that's like a general good rule of thumb that I need to work on for my own videos too). Always assume that the viewer is watching on mobile. Reading tiny text and keeping up with things going on at a distance is a lot harder when watching on mobile, so a lot more explanation is needed in general. Such as saying "their relationship just dropped by a lot" or "she got a 300 simoleon prize" will help a lot with following what's going on. Another suggestion for something that I think would be great in these first episodes, to make it easier to follow who is who, would be to add a short introduction to the sims the active household meet. Not an extensive one: just one short sentence that explains where they appear in the introductory video. Like "This is the girl having her first kiss on the veranda", or "This is the girl drinking the life elixir". Or maybe showing a quick image from the video where they appear, even. I think that would be great to take advantage of: everyone who has played the game has seen that video at least once, so making that connection should help a lot with catching on to who is who. I hope that made sense 😅 Thank you so much for putting this awesome let's play together and for giving me a brilliant start to the weekend 💗 I look forward to the next one!

[@BellaDovah]

Aww Ani you are the sweetest 💖 I always look forward to your comments, they really brighten my day. I think your interpretations are spot on, I think that's exactly how Louis is and that's exactly how that happened after the Prom! I hope I get better at analysing sims and situations on the spot so I can give insightful commentary on what I think is going on like you can in your videos, for me it comes a little more slowly and in reflection afterwards. I'm glad you enjoy my reactions though haha, it is fun to watch it all unfold and analyse after too. I appreciate your advice on my dilemma, I think really I am missing a step, I want to take personality points into consideration for aspirations but I'm not sure exactly how to do that yet to fairly distribute across all personality traits and aspiration types including pleasure, so I think I need to come up with my own system for that and go from there. I also really appreciate the advice of considering mobile viewers, that's a great mantra really and its easy to keep in mind. Unfortunately I have already recorded the next episode so the improvements won't be immediate but going forward I definitely have some good improvement ideas from you and TeaAddict: change my resolution to 1080p so my UI is bigger, zoom in on the action more often, make more commentary on whats going on like the examples you gave and as well as saying what a want or interaction is in case they can't read it, and give a little more context to the characters and perhaps a screenshot of them in the cutscene so you can all start to put the pieces together of who's who and the neighbourhood dynamic. I'm really excited to see my content improve, so thank you for being a part of that. Thank you so much once again, I'm really glad you enjoyed it 💖

[@xSpiritBlossomx]

Regarding the Scientists, I honestly think it's possible to maintain the original storyline but readjust their aspirations. I think Heather being a family sim that hates children could be an interesting character arc, meaning maybe she wants a family with her boyfriend but is looking to adopt teens instead when she's older or maybe just have pets? I know that you've been able to make a hopeless romantic trait work for romance sims, so I definitely think Apollo could be a romance sim in a good relationship with his partner. I am excited to see what other organized chaos we'll see coming soon!

[@BellaDovah]

That's a really interesting and good idea, thank you for bringing it forward! Its definitely something to consider, love your interpretation.

[@tracyracy]

You're so pretty ❤️ also, i love your style of playing because it gives me ideas on how i want to play. I'm new to the sims 2, I exclusively play the sims 3 and have never tried any other game but i downloaded the sims 2 from osab's installer some months ago, played in pleasantview with some families and stopped because it was a bit overwhelming and new. But i want to pick it up again and I'm learning so much about how to use the mods I've already downloaded, plus i think i want to play rotationally in veronaville. So, thanks

[@BellaDovah]

@@tracyracy aw thank you so much🥰 That’s great to hear! Glad my videos can be helpful! Hope you have a fun time getting into The Sims 2💚

[@JeffiePlays]

I loved this! Your breakdowns throughout about the script errors, running out of time for menus and the "That's gonna weave a tangled web" sent me!! 😂 Everytime I watch these I consider changing to the same UI. Excited for the next part!!

[@BellaDovah]

Hahaha aww glad you enjoyed! It means a lot because I can literally imagine you laughing in my head🥰 It actually took me a while to try the clean UI, I was worried it was going to take away the classic feel of the Sims 2 but it really doesn’t, its like you still get that from the clicking sound effects and icons and stuff, its just gives a slightly updated feel and is a lot nicer to look at and easier to read imo

[@JeffiePlays]

@@BellaDovah I was fully cackling haha so I'm glad!! One day we will be able to cackle together over a cocktail 💜 Thats what puts me off too! Maybe I will try it cause it can be hard to read xx

[@BellaDovah]

@@JeffiePlays that sounds lovely🥰 Yeah let me know what you think if you give it a go! You can always change back. I think the author that worked on the black version now also has green, pink and blue version in the works too that you can download

[@plyplay665]

Hi Belldovah! I hope this doesn’t find you too late. I saw your post on Reddit about this let’s play and got very excited about the Opening Valley let’s play (and have similar feelings to you about the random apartment townies)… BUT the reason I am commenting is to explain MY personal reasoning for using the mod that changes the time the Sims wake up in the morning… I think this mod makes alarm clocks finally important for the game. Sims are able to set their alarm clocks for school, work, and/or the morning. So if you have a lazy sim or whatever, they will need an alarm clock to wake them up in the morning. Otherwise they’ll sleep in late. In my opinion it is unrealistic that all sims wake up at 6am naturally, and this mod fixes this with the caveat that alarm clocks can override it! Hope this makes sense to you and I look forward to your next let’s play!

[@BellaDovah]

Hey! Of course its not too late! I'm always happy to receive comments on any of my videos :) I really like your way of thinking about that stay in bed mod. I actually decided to keep it in my game already, because I do like the varied wake up times and therefore varied bedtimes making things a bit more realistic and interesting. But your comment has me thinking of a little game rule I could perhaps integrate, since I use Simlogical's Alarm Clock which provides more advanced alarm setting options, I could make it so that if they do not have full energy, I don't force them up, so this means if they haven't set an alarm clock, they will miss work if they aren't fully rested! I think that could be fun. Sometimes I still will probably force them up earlier if their energy meter is full but they could do with the time to work on other needs so it doesn't really take anything away from doing that. I really love hearing about the ways other simmers play so I really appreciate your insight on that. Thank you :)

[@MxEickley]

Personally I thought you were entertaining, I don't know why but I just love watching let's plays getting in the mind of different people who play my favorite game, Sims 2, just seeing how they play gives me ideas of how I want to play or I may not want to play and letting me see all these mods and just the own story lines, personally I like the idea of making that one scientist with the aliens Ace, as an asexual it's wonderful to see myself and the things I enjoy. If you want to about change what the Creator of the neighborhood did maybe you should come up with a way to bypass it and the game that when they sense all I have them get enough aspiration points to get the aspiration reward machine to change aspirations. I personally use this model object to use aspiration points to restore my Nervous Subjects genetic personality.

[@BellaDovah]

Thanks so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I'm also so glad I can give you gameplay ideas and help you discover new mods, and it makes me so happy to hear that you feel represented, I hope we can make that work for Hubert but I guess we'll see where he takes us! Thank you for your ideas, that sounds like a great system you have and definitely one to consider 😀

[@relash1345]

I was looking forwards to this video! I see the drama with the romance/family drama. It could also be a possibility that they change it through the time of gameplay. Maybe their wants will show you how they feel about that stuff more then you can see right now. It will be interesting how that turns out either way :D

[@Brain_Nerd4Life]

Yay! I was looking forward to this!

[@TeaAddict]

Hellooo lovely! I was so excited to see you had uploaded this 😁😊 I'm still watching, but one tip I'd definitely give you is to zoom in on things more in game and in editing. I just got to the part where his daughter has some type of reaction to him going out on his date? - I'm guessing? - but I couldn't see what was going on in the interaction bubble cos it's a bit teeny on my phone and I really wanted to know what it was!! You could also consider making your UI bigger for filming. That's something I should probs do as well cos I play on a higher res like you... Hmmm 😅 But also just in general while filming - it was the exact same thing for me when I started doing videos (and I still forget to do it sometimes,) but try zooming a little closer to the action of the sims so we can see their faces, their animations and interactions a little closer up 😊 when simming alone I tend to play way more "zoomed out" but for videos it's good to get up close and personal with the Sims. Okay, back to watching!! 💕

[@TeaAddict]

Okay I've finished the video now 😅 Firstly - the prom mod and parenthood mod look so cool! I'll have to check those out 😊 (does NOT need more mods but YOLO) Secondly - I also dislike having a lot of romance Sims in my hoods. At the end of the day, the game has to be fun for you. You could make your Scientists dilemma a whole storyline - like the baby is born and her heart just melts completely, she falls in love with her child and is never the same. Meanwhile Apollo is like "oh god, what is this tiny screaming blob?" And has a midlife crisis... Just ideas 😅 but also, I'm a firm believer that their personality points should be taken into consideration when choosing aspirations. I've redone the aspiration calculator to include their personality points now so that it weighs in on the decision, and I defs think that Apollo's personality points do lend themselves well to family and hers not so much. And finally - honey, KZbin LP videos are a WHOLE other thing to learn to do. You are doing great already, so be patient with yourself and you'll be a pro in no time 😊 you're quite funny to watch and I like hearing you puzzle things out for your Sims. So keep going! Okay that's it from meeee have a great day xoxo

[@BellaDovah]

Aw thank you so much for your lovely comments and feedback, I really appreciate it. I really appreciate the tips, that's great advice that I'll definitely keep in mind. I was just saying to Ani who also gave me some pointers, unfortunately I've already recorded the next episode so the changes won't be immediate but I've got some great things from you and her to work on: change my resolution to 1080p so my UI is bigger, zoom in on the action more often, make more commentary on what's going on like saying what a want or interaction or popup or something is in case people can't read it, and give a little more context to the characters and perhaps a screenshot of them in the cutscene so you can all start to put the pieces together of who's who and the neighbourhood dynamic. I'm really excited to see my content improve, so thank you for being a part of that. I'm so glad I've helped you to discover the Parenthood & Prom mods, a lot Piqiwi's mods on mod the sims are worth checking out. I really like your idea of working an aspiration change into the storyline of the scientists, I'll definitely be considering that. But you're right, personality should be a consideration when it comes to Aspiration, and I believe I did do that when I set up Veronaville but never came up with a proper system for it so sort of forgot. Can I see your redone calculator anywhere? That sounds amazing. I definitely need to think about how I want to calculate based on personality and go from there. Thank you again for the advice and kind and encouraging words. I'm glad you're enjoying watching me 💖

[@TeaAddict]

@@BellaDovah I will link you the calculator on Discord!

[@dinealone0]

I can’t wait to see more!!!

[@dramaqueen7707]

Yay,another episode again! Where did you get your defaults?

[@BellaDovah]

Sorry, which defaults do you mean? I don’t use many default replacers so can’t think which ones you might be thinking of off the top of my head. I generally put default replacements in the graphics section of my mod list: tinyurl.com/BellaDovah-Sims2-ModList

[@dramaqueen7707]

Oh,ok i will definitely check your list out!

[@sisandbroforever382]

Could you do a tutorial on how you got the sims 2 please?

[@BellaDovah]

I can’t really. I’ve always had the Sims 2. I’ve had the discs since the time they were released and I also claimed and use the Origin version when it was available but it is not anymore. There are many many tutorials out there (though perhaps not in video form) about how to acquire Sims 2 these days on abandonware sites but I’ve never even had to look into doing that. But, with a bit of perseverance, its definitely possible.

[@sisandbroforever382]

@@BellaDovah thank you