Taking the Romance out of Dancing and Food Fights

Well, hold on a second. I'm not objecting to the dance in general. Because yes, you are right, it *is* quite common and proper for the father of the bride to dance with his daughter. But the slow dance isn't the appropriate *style* of dance. Something like a waltz or a quickstep, yes. But not a slow-dance, because that reeks too much like a romantic interaction. But since there are very few - if any - reasonable alternatives, I think maybe the only way to get a dance in, *is* to mod the slow-dance.

And do not worry yourself too much with wasting any of my time, dear. It's *my* time to waste, and I don't mind wasting it in an attempt to help someone else It'll just take some time, is all.

And yes, I *will* look into getting the romantic effect out of the slapstick that is called "food fight". Because really, that *is* disgusting... What's the next step? Have woohoo with anyone that empties a trash can on you?

The classic dance causes jealousy as far as I know. I dont think you can even DO the classic dance with sims that are part of the family.

The couple on the top right of the pic below are classic dancing - NOT Slow dancing



I chose the classic dance for that pic as the anims looked more 40's

The slow dance animation before the 'dance closer' part would be more accurate for a father-daughter dance. Holding hands with the other hand at upper back, shoulder or the waist. (forget how it starts out) I haven't seen the classic dance, that would work too.

You might actually be right, @Duine. And only after "dance closer" the really inappropriate options come available. So if I merely disable the "dance closer" part for non-romantic situations, I would be done!

@leefish, that is exactly what I had in mind as appropriate for a father-daughter dance at her wedding. But if that isn't available for family either, then what the hell did those small-minded idiots at Maxis ever think was appropriate for family? Only "Dance together", "Smustle" and having kids ruin your shoes by "dancing on your toes"?

But kids dancing on parents feet is cute, @BoilingOil And yes, as usual, Maxis has dropped the ball on family dancing. Is anyone surprised? lol

Quote:The slow dance animation before the 'dance closer' part would be more accurate for a father-daughter dance.

Ya! that's exactly what i meant! The 'dance closer' part is too creepy for a father-daughter dance. You can't engage any of the romantic options until you've successfully initiated the 'dance closer' feature. The image Leefish posted of the 'classic dance' looks like it'd be appropriate, too. You can't slow-dance with family, either. But until you 'dance closer', I don't see it as being weird. Jealousy, I'm sure, would have to be altered.

Quote:You might actually be right, @Duine. And only after "dance closer" the really inappropriate options come available. So if I merely disable the "dance closer" part for non-romantic situations, I would be done!

Yeah!! That would be perfect! If it could do a family check... IF YES -- disallow 'dance closer'. IF NO -- continue as normal ...that'd be perfect!! The only thing that would complicate it is the JEALOUSY portion. Family? IF YES -- no jealousy. IF NO -- SLAP THE LIVING $^&#@(! OUT OF THE SOB! hahha... That might not be so easy.

Thinking about it realistically... if you see your partner 'classic dancing with somebody else... whether or not you get jealously enraged might depend on whether or not they were being deceptive. For example: you go down to the bar to grab a drink and find your spouse dancing with someone? JEALOUSY!! However... you buy tickets for a dance recital because your spouse is performing? Not so big a deal...

Social dancing is a thing, you know. My parents will go dancing (contra or swing), and I used to dance contra and now dance swing or salsa occasionally, and I've tried ballroom a few times. It's very bad manners at social dances like that to always dance with only one person. Most married/committed couples will dance together somewhere from a third of the time to half the time, and will dance with other people the rest of the night, with no jealousy on anyone's part. When I was a kid and my family all danced contra together, men were in particularly short supply, so my father never sat out a dance. (And my mother and I both learned to dance the man's part so we didn't have to.) I will dance with pretty much anyone, as long as they know where their hands belong, because I love to dance.

I can see why a Slow Dance, with its dance-close-and-put-your-hands-on-other-people's-butts could trigger jealousy, but I can't think of any reason why a simple Classic Dance (which would fall under the heading of a "social dance" to me) should ever trigger jealousy at all. And I don't understand why a Classic Dance should be off limits for family. I mean, Children can do it -- although that does seem to trigger romantic flags when they age up to Teen. But I've danced social dances with relatives, no creepyness included.

The lack of purely social dances is kind of a bummer in-game for me, really.

(05-06-2015 02:52 AM)justJones Wrote:  But kids dancing on parents feet is cute, @BoilingOil And yes, as usual, Maxis has dropped the ball on family dancing. Is anyone surprised? lol

For the first couple of times, I can see how someone might find it cute. But to me, it gets old in a hurry. Maybe because, mostly, it doesn't look much like dancing to me. Kids in my game do it waaayyy too much for my taste... like go and find something to do that doesn't involve anyone older than yourself, kid!
No, that Maxis dropped the ball yet again is actually not really a surprise. What surprises me specifically, is how they manage to drop the ball even when there is no ball to drop!

(05-06-2015 03:18 AM)grinEvilly Wrote:  

Quote:You might actually be right, @Duine. And only after "dance closer" the really inappropriate options come available. So if I merely disable the "dance closer" part for non-romantic situations, I would be done!

Yeah!! That would be perfect! If it could do a family check... IF YES -- disallow 'dance closer'. IF NO -- continue as normal ...that'd be perfect!! The only thing that would complicate it is the JEALOUSY portion. Family? IF YES -- no jealousy. IF NO -- SLAP THE LIVING $^&#@(! OUT OF THE SOB! hahha... That might not be so easy.

Ah, so now you're assuming that I build this new feature INTO the existing "Slow Dance" interaction, in stead of cloning that interaction and altering the clone to suit. Perhaps this *is* possible, and it might even not be such a terrible idea, either. But that's only the part about initiating the different parts of the animation. The bit about jealousy would become horribly complicated this way.

The way that *I* thought might work, would be to *clone* the "Slow Dance", give it a new name (how about "Family Dance"??), rig it to only allow family, *DESTROY* all the intimate crap and all references to the jealousy system, and be done.

But let's keep brain storming for a bit, because as long as I haven't started yet, anything is open for discussion.

(05-06-2015 11:45 AM)esmeiolanthe Wrote:  I can see why a Slow Dance, with its dance-close-and-put-your-hands-on-other-people's-butts could trigger jealousy, but I can't think of any reason why a simple Classic Dance (which would fall under the heading of a "social dance" to me) should ever trigger jealousy at all. And I don't understand why a Classic Dance should be off limits for family. I mean, Children can do it -- although that does seem to trigger romantic flags when they age up to Teen. But I've danced social dances with relatives, no creepyness included.

You're absolutely right... I wasn't even *aware* the family is off-limits for a Classic Dance. I just assumed it would NOT be. Which, since we're dealing with EA/Maxis here, might be considered a somewhat naive and short-sighted pov. But yeah, the purely social classical dances (which I *too* enjoyed massively in my day), are very much absent in this game. I would've enjoyed some in-game ballroom dancing.

Oh, far be it for me to tell you *how* to go about accomplishing this fete! hahahaa... Whatever's easiest for you. Beggars can't be choosers! A new non-romantic social interaction would be perfectly fine in my book. Family Dance, Casual Dance, Social Dance, "Mom-said-I-have-to-dance-with-you" Dance... whatever you wanna call it. hahah.

You guys mentioned kids, and it got me thinking... I'm pretty sure teens can dance together, if I remember correctly. But kids cannot. Got me to thinking about what you were saying regarding EA/Maxis "dropping the ball". Especially when you were saying, 'find someone your own age to play with, kid!' Sims kids are really waaaaay too dependent on adult sims for their social activity. There are some kid-to-kid interactions, but in a lot of ways, sims kids don't really seem 'authentic'. They seem more like adults trapped in kids' bodies. If you've ever seen the Tom Hanks movie "BIG", it's like the board room scene, when the guy introduces the transformer that turns into a building. What's so fun about a building? ...it's like, they were right there! SO Close... but somehow, they just... didn't... get it.

Kids can Classic Dance together, but not other types of dance. However, I have seen comments online that indicate that letting kids Classic Dance increases the chance of them developing romantic attachments when they are teens. I don't know if that's causation or just correlation, though.

BO, I know just enough about modding to know that I don't know anything about it, but it sounds like cloning the interaction would be the quickest and easiest thing to do.