New Romance

After installing Seasons, you’ll discover that love is most certainly in the air. This expansion makes several changes and adjustments to how romance works in your narratives, starting with a revamped attraction system. In addition, there are new objects related to romance, such as love letters and mistletoe, that offer additional opportunities for advancing matters of the heart. And if you fancy the world of online dating, your Sims may now also partake in such endeavors.

New Attraction System

Seasons seeks to simplify and quantify how romance works between Sims through a new attraction system. Now, this is not a player-facing system that runs numbers and shows you just exactly who your Sim is attracted to and why. However, it does help the game system determine smart matches based on a host of factors, such as traits, careers, skills, and more. This system then assigns bonuses based on logical factors, such as two Sims with the same horoscope sign will receive a bonus when engaging in romantic socializing.

When you are playing with an active teen or older Sim, every Sim they meet is instantly assigned a random attraction score that can be either positive or negative. At this point, the existing strategies for building a romance are still very much in play.

You cannot immediately engage another Sim in a love affair. You must establish a Friendship first via positive socials with the proper commodities. So, first turn a Stranger into an Acquaintance and then start boosting that Acquaintance into a Friend-related LTR through positive, friendly socials.

Now, established Friendships have the potential to tip into amorous relationships by using socials with the amorous commodity in order to elicit love-related STCs, such as Flirty, Seductive, or Hot. Sounds technical, doesn’t it? Well, think about it this way: You wouldn’t try just any old line if you really wanted to advance a relationship, would you? No, you’d try to steer the conversation toward romance through specific approaches. In The Sims 3, these approaches are the socials with the amorous commodity.

While all of this is happening, that score is being used to determine whether or to you will get bonuses that encourage success or minuses that discourage romance. Your Sim has a set of modifiers that can nudge their own score with other Sims higher:

Career: Having a career is a bonus. Earning promotions boosts that bonus.
Skill: Learning skills offers bonus. The more you develop these skills, the more bonuses your score receives.
Wealth: The more Simoleons in your household account, the more bonuses.
Celebrity Status: If you have Late Night installed, you know the celebrity system. Becoming a celebrity is a bonus and the more famous you are, the higher your bonus.
Unique type: Being a special type of Sim, such as a vampire, werewolf, fairy, ghost, or more is a bonus.
Astrological Sign: If two Sims have compatible signs, that counts as bonus.
Traits: As you know, many traits have benefits and shortcomings that are just inherent. For example, while a lot of Sims may not like Criminals, an Evil Sim will see a Criminal career as a bonus. However, Good Sims will see the Criminal career as a serious detriment.

Now, as mentioned, the numbers behind these are not forward-facing. But that’s not what’s important about this new attraction system. What this does is use both the personality and life experiences of a Sim to affect how attractive they are to other Sims as well as how attractive a Sim is to them. There are no tricks in this bonus system. The trait example of Good Sims not getting an attraction bonus when socializing with Criminals or Evil Sims is just basic logic.

However, there is an audio cue that lets you know if your Sim finds another Sim especially attractive! And as a visual cue, your Sim will receive the Attractive Company moodlet.

When this happens, romantic socials are much more likely to be successful. LTR between Sims who are attracted to each other in this new system is increased by an extra amount.

If another Sim finds your active Sim attractive under this new system, there is a chance your Sim will receive gifts or love letters in the mail. (More on love letters in a moment.) Sims who are attracted to you are also likely to call more often and ask for a date. You may reject the date, of course, but this cools the other Sim to you. It will be a little while before they call again. After several rejections, they will stop calling, no matter how many attraction bonuses exist between you.

Love Letters

Love letters are new romantic gestures in Seasons. Only teens and older can send and receive love letters. To send a love letter to another Sim, click on the mailbox and choose the Send Love Letter interaction. At this point, select the recipient of the letter from a list of Sims your active Sim knows outside of your household and within acceptable age ranges.

Once selected, the Sim finds a table and drafts the love letter. After finishing up and sending it off, the Sim waits for a reply. (You don’t have to actually stand at the mailbox and wait.) If the recipient of the love letter accepts, which is based on LTR and the attraction system, you get a huge LTR increase. If the letter is rejected, there’s an LTR hit. Regardless of acceptance or rejection, your Sim will receive a letter back after a period of time.

You can also receive love letters from admirers. You may get a love letter in response to an accepted love letter or a spontaneous love letter. The spontaneous love letters are generated if you have a high attraction state or a romantic LTR with the other Sim. The chance of receiving a spontaneous love letter goes up during the spring season—and especially on the spring holiday.

If another Sim other than the recipient sees the love letter, that raises the visibility of the romance, a system that was put into place with the arrival of Late Night.

Mistletoe

Look, we all know the ultimate goal when somebody pins mistletoe to the ceiling or in a doorway, and that holds true in Seasons. As long as there is nothing beneath it, you can place mistletoe on a ceiling and (hopefully) set up some romantic encounters for your Sims.

To make use of the mistletoe, click on it and choose Ask for Kiss. This brings up a Sim selector. Family members and Sims with low/negative LTRs will not appear in the selector. When the requested Sim wanders over to the mistletoe, your Sim will point up to the sprig and indicate a desire for a smooch. At this point, the LTR between the Sims determines the success or failure of the request, but the presence of the mistletoe does slightly increase the chance of success.

A successful kiss beneath the mistletoe results in both an LTR bump and the satisfying of the Social need. Plus, you get to see a special sprinkling of festive dust to signify that this was no ordinary kiss. But wait—there’s more! Both Sims receive the Kissed Under Mistletoe moodlet.

Asking for a kiss under the mistletoe does not count as a first kiss if it is indeed the first kiss between a pair of Sims. The First Kiss moodlet is not awarded.

Online Dating

On this side of the screen, we recognize that online dating has forever altered the way courtship works. Well, now online dating has come to The Sims 3! This is an excellent system for meeting potential matches without heading out into the city and strolling through the park or museum, hoping against hope that somebody strikes your fancy (or the other way around). But shopping for a mate like you might a piece of furniture is not without risk, nor is it without excitement. A little tug on an online profile can turn into a first date. And before too many seasons have passed, can turn into a marriage with children.

Making Profiles

Now, your Sim may sit down to the computer and draft an online dating profile, which allows them to perhaps go on blind dates with other Sims in town. Online dating is not without its excitements and wrinkles, but a lot of how it plays out depends on how honest you decide to be when creating a profile.

Yes, you can fib on your profile.

On a computer, choose the Online Dating interaction and then choose to create a profile. At this point, a profile is generated that includes:

Sim portrait
Astrological sign
Traits
Favorites
Body type

However, you now have the option to change your traits, body type, and favorites. You can even pick out traits that are 100 percent contradictory to your real traits, For example, a Lazy Sim can alter their profile to show that they are Ambitious. Once you are happy with your profile, save it. (You are free to modify or delete the profile at any point.)

You may also choose to browse profiles at the computer, as long as you have created a profile of your own. When doing so, you may sort through a handful of profiles for each gender. Profiles contain the same categories of information as your own. If you see a profile that piques your interest, feel free to send a message, which indicates interest.

Other Sims who use online dating may also send you messages in return. Check for messages every so often to see if you get a nibble. Messages are either accept/reject. If the reply is a rejection, that’s that. But if the other Sim accepts your message and shows interest, then there is an opportunity to chat. This also places the Sim in your Relationship panel, so you may call them as well as chat via a computer.

First Date

So, you met somebody through online dating? Take it to the next level and either ask them out on a date or agree to a date. Meet at the agreed-upon spot. Hopefully, everything is cool and you have the time of your life.

But if you lied on your profile, you may be called out on it. Now, one little fudged fact isn’t going to derail an entire date. But if you have significantly fibbed about your body type or multiple traits, your date is likely to reject you right at the top of the date. The other Sim will tell you exactly why they are bailing and then leave. As you might imagine, this results in an LTR hit.

So, while it can be an adventure to create an alternative persona in an online dating profile, it’s not without risk... or consequence.

Still, online dating is an excellent way to meet more Sims around the city. Even if you never go out on a date, you are still adding Sims to your Relationship panel. And with the new attraction system, you have clearer paths to developing romances should you agree to dates and both Sims are indeed who they said they were online.

Anniversaries

In life, we mark the passing of time through anniversaries, such as a wedding anniversary. In Seasons, Sims now keep track of important life events via anniversaries. There are two types of anniversaries in Seasons: wedding and work.

Every game year, on the day of a Sim’s wedding, a message pops up noting the occasion. The spouses receive the Anniversary Time moodlet, which causes a mood boost. In addition, for the duration of this moodlet, the frequency of romantic socials rises, as does the acceptance of these socials and gestures. Should two Sims break up and divorce, anniversaries are no longer noted.

Seasons keeps tabs on the first day of a new career. When your Sim reports to work on the day they started a job, a message notes the anniversary. It shows how many years they have worked at that career. (Like the ceasing of wedding anniversaries upon divorce, leaving a job either through termination or retirement will halt work anniversaries.)

When you report to work on the anniversary (or the next work day, should the anniversary fall on an “off” day), you receive a Simoleon bonus. On certain work milestones, Sims receive a special gift. These gifts may be placed on the home lot and contribute to the environmental bonus of a room:

3 years: Plaque
5 years: Pocket watch
7 years: Statue

Sims may use a View interaction on these items for a reminder of the anniversary noted, such as clicking on the pocket watch to see that it was the fifth anniversary present for the current career.

Whether it’s a wedding anniversary or a work anniversary, Seasons keeps track of the particular day of the season when the life event occurs. However, if you choose to shorten a season, or remove it from the calendar completely, mid-way through a narrative, the game tracks the anniversary to the next date in the following season. For example, if you enrolled in the Business career on the third day of fall and later removed fall, the anniversary would be celebrated on the first day of winter.

If two Sims were married prior to the installation of Seasons, the anniversary is not celebrated. Work anniversaries are not tracked either if the career was started prior to installing Seasons.