Sim Interactions

Sim interactions come in two types - self-interactions, and those that you use with another person.

You start the game with a basic selection of over 70 interactions, and you can earn extra interactions through gaining skill points and friends.

When you click on a sim - either yours or someone else's - you will get a variety of options in the form of a pie menu. Some menu items may have sub-menus available. Standard interactions are in blue, and those that have been earned appear in pink.

Until you have earned them, pink interactions will not appear, and if you lose the requirements for gaining that interaction (such as if your skill level drops, or you lose the requisite number of friends, etc.), you will also lose that interaction. As you gain new interactions, a pop-up message will appear informing you of your new interaction. Interactions are used for a variety of purposes within Sims Online - perhaps to express yourself, to build a friendship, just for fun, or simply to show someone that you care.

Self and Other interactions

As you may expect, 'self' interactions are activated by clicking on yourself and choosing from the pie menu, and 'other' interactions are activated by clicking on another player.

For most interactions, when interacting with another player, a "Yes/No" icon consisting of happy (accept) and sad (reject) faces appears on the top left of the other player's screen. The other player must choose to accept or reject your offered interaction. By rolling the mouse pointer over the thumbnail of the face of the person offering, you will be able to see which interaction they are offering, and respond appropriately. In the same way, if another sim interacts with yours, the "Yes/No" icon will appear on your screen.

If neither option is chosen after approximately 10 seconds, the interaction will time out and a small negative social will be applied. Many 'other' interactions have an animation for both accept and reject. "Give Gift" for example (pictured right), when accepted produces a small gift box which you give to the other player, worth §20. If rejected, the recipient grabs the box, throws it to the floor, and squashes it. I won't give away all the secrets with interactions... experiment and see what happens - some of the results can be quite humorous! Throughout the following charts, interactions shown below in blue are 'self interactions', and those shown in black are interactions with others.

A newborn sim with no skills and no friends still has a wide variety of interactions available, as listed below:

* - These interactions do not require acceptance or rejection by the other player. They occur immediately when selected.

The following interactions are gained when your sim obtains the relevant number of skill points in each of the following skills. As you gain more skill points in that particular skill, new interactions are added - you do not lose those below in that skill. For more information on locking skill points, see here. Where no interaction is shown, there is currently nothing allocated to that skill point.

There are also a number of interactions that are unlocked when you gain the required amount in two skills.

Various other 'two skill' combinations are used for crafting items. Further information on crafting may be found here.

There are also a variety of interactions that may be gained through obtaining friends.

There are also a number of interactions available with cats and dogs.

If your sim has died, perhaps through an unfortunate robot factory accident, electrocution, or simply neglect, there are several special interactions available to you only while your sim is dead.

Further information on sim death can be found here.

As well as affecting your relationship, many 'other' interactions also have an effect on your sim's needs. The motive change is seen by the receiver of the action, not the giver. Social motive increase/decrease depends on the interaction.

You will see either one or two plus or minus symbols over the heads of the sims representing change to friendship score while the interaction is happening, with of course two being a greater gain/loss than one. The interaction shown to the right is "Bench Press", where I receive a +3 fun boost simply by my friend interacting with me, as well as a boost to our 'social' relationship. Below is a chart showing the various interactions and their motive change.

One of my favorite fun pastimes with interactions is synchronized dancing. For this, you will need pairs of sims to participate.

Firstly, designate who is to be the leader. The leader should inform all participants of the starting interaction (this is often an 'other' dance), and count down so that all teams start at virtually the same time.

Next, the leader should shout out a series of 'self' interactions, which each participant should select for their own sim in the order given.

As your timing in pairs has been coordinated exactly once you finish your 'other' dance, your sims will then continue through the rest of the queued moves in almost perfect synchronization. This can go on virtually forever, as long as people keep queuing up things in the same order. You could perhaps run line dancing classes, or form a cheerleading squad for your favorite Simball team - or just do it 'because you can'.

The most I have personally seen this work with was a group of 8 sims - why not see if you can beat this, and post your pictures in the Stratics Pictures and Screenshots forum for all to see?

Text and pictures by ajdown@jp