#having the time of my life playing the sims | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xx-j4nu5-c4t5-xx · 2 days

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"An ideal Sims game would have Sims 2's gameplay mechanics, Sims 3's open world, and Sims 4's graphics!"

I absolutely despise this take, and I want to explain why. This is a very long rant and it is full of piss and vinegar directed at everything in the Sims 4. I'm gonna try to keep everything kinda professional as much as I can but I can't guarantee an unbiased opinion.

If you'll let me talk your ears off for a moment, I'd like to explain, from my own experience as an artist and a casual player, my issues with the art style and direction of The Sims 4 compared to The Sims 2. (I'm not really going to comment on 3 because I've never played it.)

I want to start off by explaining the difference between better graphics and higher resolution. The Sims 4 absolutely blows Sims 2 out of the water when it comes to textures and polygon counts on sims, no contest. But I'd argue that the graphics themselves... aren't better. They're worse, even, so much fucking worse. The biggest problems come from the stylization and the animations, in my opinion, so I'll explain what I mean.

Have you ever felt like the Sims in 4 just look... weird? Not quirky, not kinda strange, but off. Distressing. Uncanny. Whatever the fuck the kids call it nowadays. When you strip away the packs and the CC and the shaders, the sims in the base game look bad. They're very close to being human; they walk like us, talk like us, have families like us, but they don't look like us, not exactly. There's always something off about them, no matter how close you try to get. Proportions will be a bit off, or your eyelashes will be like three polygons for some fucking reason, and the jig is up. The illusion is gone.

This is one of the instances where a higher resolution and more detailed models and meshes work against you. You aren't making believe. You are beyond the point of pretending that the pixelated shapes are real clothes and bodies and faces, because at this point, they're close enough that you don't need to. There's no gap to bridge. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're lifelike, at least, not enough to be completely human. In some ways, they're still tethered to being cartoony and plasticky and fake. Just enough to frighten you. Enough to put you off. They're not using it to their advantage anymore, and instead, it's holding them back.

When the Sims 2 came out in 2004, the developers knew that they weren't going to make a perfectly accurate life simulator. They physically couldn't render every wrinkle in the face or fold in the clothing. In some animations, things clip strangely or the facial expressions are sort of janky or there's just some form of roughness around the edges. But that's okay; your brain doesn't need a perfectly accurate representation this time. That's not what you're here for, anyway.

The Sims 4 is basically Icarus-ing itself into disaster. The entire game sacrifices style for complete realism, a goal that was unachievable ten years ago, and is unachievable now.

The Sims 2 never thought of itself as a completely realistic life sim, though. It has cartoony, low poly meshes and exaggerated proportions and wild, raunchy storylines that would never occur in real life. BECAUSE IT ISN'T REAL LIFE. And it isn't like real life, not because it's failing to be, but because it doesn't want to be!

The Sims 4 is not ever going to completely replicate human looks or interactions or dynamics. And if it's trying to, it's doing a shit job of it. That shouldn't be the goal in the first place. If I wanted to watch a lonely college student talk to himself in the mirror to try and get better at interacting with people, I'd close the computer and go look at myself. It somehow highlights the most mundane parts of life without any of the whimsy and goofiness that the earlier installments had. It takes itself too fucking seriously for its own good, and it's killing both the gameplay and the art style.

The other point I'd like to bring up is the animation. The Sims 4 allows for much more customization of both sim and environments, but at the cost of dynamic animations. How many times is that grab animation reused? How many times is the same set of animations used for sims with wildly different personalities? Your sims barely feel alive with how little they express themselves.

Now, look, I'm a digital artist. I've dabbled in animation, but only briefly, and only in 2D. I've got no clue how 3D animation works, much less how it worked 20 years ago, but I can see the passion in every single animation in the Sims 2. The more niche interactions allowed for more expressive animations than in 4. They could afford to have a distinct animation for mean sims throwing the football extra hard to be assholes, rather than every sim using the same generic football-throwing animation to save time and money. I get where they're coming from. I get the idea. But in one move, you've both made the art style stiffer and less expressive, and you've made the personalities of the sims seem meaningless. Everyone acts the same, regardless of what their moodlets or their traits say. It's hollow. It's stifled. It's a waste of potential.

But for what Sims 2 lacks in polygons, it makes up for in smaller animated details. Quality over quantity. The sims have hair physics, they open the door before they get in the car, they take utensils out of the counters when they cook, they jump on the couch and the cushions smush under their weight. When they dance, the weight is realistic, and when they smile, it tugs at every one of the few dozen shapes that make up their faces. The sims are lively. They dance and sing and love and hate just like humans, and rather than being some strange attempt at mimicry, it's almost a tribute. They were made with love. You can tell that they were drawn up and rigged and animated by a bunch of people working together, studying each other and making faces in the mirror for reference and watching their kids and neighbors and dogs and hands for reference. The sims are not human, and not trying to be, but they're taking the most human parts of us and making them their own.

You could never have a game with the Sims 4's graphics and the Sims 2's gameplay. The gameplay and graphics are inexorably connected, and the Sims 2 just has so much glorious detail baked into it, that you could never really make it work underneath the limitations of the later games. The developers of 2 knew what their limits were, and they worked tirelessly to make the game as full and complex as they could within those limits. The developers for the Sims 4 just did not have those guidelines, and thus, the drive to bend the rules was no longer there. They didn't go wild in rebellion because they were never told they couldn't in the first place. They spent the entire time chasing a goal they couldn't meet, and lost sight of what made the series fun to begin with.

It wasn't the realism you came for; you had realism already surrounding you. It was the caricature of it that made it interesting.

#sims 2 #sims 4 #rambling #please hear me out here #if I hear this one more time i'll explode #please #the problem is so deeply ingrained that it corrupts all it touches like an oil spill #you cant separate the graphics from the gameplay #please guys #THIS is why the sims 4 feels hollow #IT IS #IN EVERY WAY IT COULD BE #every advancement it claims to make only digs its grave further #GUYS PLEASE #CAN ANYONE HEAR ME #does this count as an essay #it felt like an essay #it's 5am

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tau1tvec · 2 days

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Reminiscing about the first time I played The Sims 3, and it was kinda bittersweet actually?

I’d given The Sims 2 a good three years of my life ( four if you count my stint on the console version ), either way quite the commitment at a time when most games I played were one and done experiences. So I was understandably a bit reluctant to move onto another installment, although still mostly excited to check it out since the gaming industry at the time was pretty active and exciting, and trying new things was actually fun.

So I waved my TS2 family goodbye, it was a single recently divorced mom, who left her husband bc he cheated on her with his coworker, which I should’ve figured would happen considering when they met, and began dating, I found out shortly after that he was already engaged, and the woman he was engaged to was the woman that kept knocking over their trash can.

This definitely convinced me TS3 was going to have some pretty big shoes to fill, but it was base game TS3 vs TS2 with all its packs, so I gave it some grace. I made my first sim, she was a rlly cute thanks to a Peggyzone hair I downloaded off of the booty I think ( if it was even up atp, I was about a year into its release ) anyway. She lived in one of those modern beach houses in Sunset Valley, and the first sim she met was Cycl0n3 Sw0rd at the bistro, and he would not leave her alone, in a very creeper way.

Luckily she met someone else about a week in. Some guy in a muscle shirt, real cute for a pudding sim surprisingly. They hit it off, got pretty close to going steady, until one day at the park, they kissed and another woman approached him angry as hell…

Turns out they were engaged.

Still playing The Sims 3 to this day.

Anyway, what’s y’all’s favorite “first time playing The Sims 3” memory? 😂

#the sims 3 #ts3

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simblymia · 2 days

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Hi! And welcome to my new TS4 simblr! My name is Mia, I'm 31 years old and I'm from Copenhagen, Denmark! I have been part of the TS3 Equestrian Community for 10+ years (mostly lurking, but also participated in some shows over the last couple of years), and are still happily playing The Sims 3 (when my game wants to cooperate, you know - Sims 🤭) - you might now my TS3-simblr @thedanishsim 💗 I have recently started to play The Sims 4 and wanted to separate my TS3 gameplay from my new TS4 gameplay, which is the reason for me to make this new simblr! And since this is a sideblog, I'm only able to like and follow with my main account (thedanishsim) I love to decorate, build and make sims - still trying to get the hang of how TS4 is actually working, hehe. Oh, and I love to do stories! For this new simblr, I want to take you guys along on my journey with my new household The Summers, and my main character Flora. I hope to be able to post bits and pieces from Flora's (and her family's) life. I hope you will follow along on my journey! And please feel free to send me a message at any time! ❤️ I would be eternally grateful if you would consider reblogging this post! Please be aware that I am currently WCIF-unfriendly - this is simply because I have no clue about what I actually have in my game at this moment (I'm still working on a good way to organize my mods folder). I might open the WCIF-section at some point though.

#simblyMia #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #ts4 simblr #simblr #new simblr

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simmerianne93 · 1 day

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[Simmerianne93]Portrait_poses_11

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Hello everyone!!! How are you today???!!!

I'm 3 days late with these poses.... sorry for that... but here they are!!! Finally!!! The winner pack from the last public survey: Portrait poses with triplets!!! and as such it's a free pack for everyone to enjoy, inmediatly...

Thank you so so so so much for participate in the survey! I'll be doing another one soon, so keep an eye in my socials and here for the announce!!

I really love this pack! I know I say that a lot lately haha but I trully love this one.

Back when Growing Together went on sale, a friend of mine give it to me.... I decided to play with a sim called Pilar to test the expansion pack and she fell in love with Don Lothario. I don't hate Don, I actually love him. I read an NSB that redeemed him a few years ago and I started to love him. So I was glad that my lovely Pilar fell in love with him in this save. They woohoo and my game decided to troll me and give me for the first time a pregnancy with triplets... no traits used no on the sims, nor in the lot... It was just a game's choice.

A few days later, when the triplets were beautiful infants, Pilar and Don wished to woohoo again... I was hesitant xD (I have Mccc and WW installed, and I have a % to get a sim pregnant even with the normal woohoo interaction) and every time they were going to Woohoo, I would cancel the action, but after canceling it about 5 or 6 times, I decided to let them be haha and that was a mistake, 'cause they got pregnant again... with triplets.... yeah... no cheats, no traits... it just seems that this Don and my lovely Pilar were too fertiles... hahahaha...

Anyway, I got two triplets in a row, with just two woohoo tries... and that was when I started to think about triplet packs. Actually, that's how my "Infant_poses_01" came to life... and now you have this new posepack, inspired for that unexpected event to "complete" in a way the triplet's journal... haha kind of a "memories" posepack, triplets for all ages from infants to teen/adults.

I hope you all like them as I do, because I'm in love with the way they came out:

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What is on it?

12 groupal poses:

4 poses for 5 sims (2 adults and 3 infants; 2 adults and 3 toddlers; 2 adults and 3 kids; and 5 teens/aduts)

4 poses for 4 sims (1 adult and 3 infants; 1 adult and 3 toddlers; 1 adult and 3 kids; and 4 teens/adults)

4 poses for 3 sims (3 infants; 3 toddlers; 3 kids; and 3 teens/adults)

--- What do you need?

Andrew poses player.

Teleport any sim by Scumbumbo or Mccc by deaderpool.

"Rustic stool" chair from "Jungled Adventure" Gamepack (tho it can be use with some other "stools" from the game like the one from "For rent" Expansionpack)

"The hipster hugger" sofa from Basegame (or any 3sits-sofa, tho it can glitch a little bit depending on wich sofa you choose)

A double bed.

Invisible infant mat replacement by mcrudd (OPTIONAL)

Instructions in the original post.

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TOU

Do not claim my creations as your own.

Do not re-upload or modify my creations.

Do not make money of my creations.

Do not include my creations in Mods folders to download.

Please follow my Term Of Use.

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Download it now here — [FREE FOR EVERYONE]

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If you want to support me: Patreon | Ko-fi

All my poses overview: Pinterest | Wix | Tumblr

More in-game preview pics of all my poses: Instagram

My socials: Twitter | BlueSky | Instagram | Tumblr

Lives and videos: Youtube

——————

I really hope you like them and I will say in advance: Thank you so much for using them.

@ts4-poses

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kenniiblogss · 7 months

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vampiresss!!!

made more vampires (and made the lost boy Cassidy a brother named Carigon.)

making them little stories so they have something instead of just suddenly existing. vamp family is next! (they are a big one, they have mom, dad, auntie and her wife and 2 sets of twins)

#having the time of my life playing the sims #if you can tell #kenniisims ◇#kenniiblogs★♡

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buglaur · 2 years

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tutorial contents:

1 ‣ gshade & photoshop actions 2 ‣ template or cropping & colouring 3 ‣ notifs & pop-ups

okay hi! i have a really old editing tutorial from back in january that i've been linking people to, but it's pretty outdated by now. i also keep getting anons asking about the same things, which is fine, but i always have to go searching for the post explaining it, so having it all in one place will be a lot more convenient lol

i use a ☠ copy of photoshop cc 2017 to edit my screenshots, however the majority of everything i'm doing also works on photopea

photopea is an online version of photoshop that's 100% free and works very well! i can't recommend it enough, it's fantastic

first things first, you're going to need some screenshots to edit. for the sake of this tutorial i'll be working with this one of raffy:

in all honesty, gshade will do most of the work for you. of course it's not needed, but i definitely don't think i could live without it! in this screenshot i used sunset n' vinyl by nesurii

when opening the screenshot, the first thing i do is run it through 2 photoshop actions:

butter action by early-grape

smooth sharp (no topaz) by poolbrop

to add actions in photoshop go:

windows > actions > the 4 lines at the upper right corner of the newly opened window > load actions > your downloads folder > open up the .atn files!

if you're using photopea, as far as i'm aware you can't use photoshop actions, but i've found that 'filter > stylize > oil paint' and 'filter > sharpen > smart sharpen' have a very similar effect when using the right settings. try these:

i like these two actions because they smooth everything out nicely, but keep it sharp at the same time! i always run butter before i run smooth sharp, however butter may leave you with 2 layers. make sure to merge these layers before running smooth sharp to achieve the full effect.

here's a before and after (of the photoshop action):

from here you can move on to step 2

before anything else i want to share the template that i use to make editing a lot faster. you don't need to use it but it's definitely made things a lot easier for me! it's a .psd file and will work perfectly in photopea

download (simfileshare)

if you're using the template you can skip right on to the next section, as it's already cropped to the right size and has the colouring folder included. just drag your screenshot into it and resize to fit the height.

if you're not using it, crop your edited screenshot to:

1707 width x 1280 height

then adjust the colours to your liking. it always varies slightly depending on the picture but my regular process for each screenshot would be:

up the saturation by 8%

up the lightness by 3%

up the contrast by 12%

all of this can be done by looking in the 'images > adjustments' tab

you should end up with something similar to this!

if you want to add a moodlet or social interaction or anything similar, it's all the same process. what you'll need is a screenshot of it straight from the game. i just press the 'c' key to capture them! i'll be working with these two:

for the blue notification i'm going to select it using the box select tool. try to get it as exact as possible. one you have it selected

for photoshop users:

click on the 'select and mask...' option located at the top

adjust the global refinements at the side as follows:

smooth: 70 feather: 0.0px contrast: 50% shift edge: 0%

for photopea users:

go to select > modify > smooth

set it to 15

select 'ok' and press 'ctrl + c' to copy it, then 'ctrl + v' to paste it into your screenshot. adjust the size and position and you should end up with something like this:

next you want to add the transparent border around the notification. if you're using my editing template, right click on the reference notif in the layers tab and select 'copy layer style' (photopea > 'layer style > copy'). from there you can paste that layer style onto your own notif through the layers tab.

if you're not using the template, here's how to set it up on photoshop:

right click your notification layer and select 'blending options'

under styles, tick the checkboxes for stroke and drop shadow

input these settings:

on photopea, it should be more or less the same. repeat the exact same process with the social menu option, but instead of selecting it with the box select tool, use the magic select tool. in the end you should end out with this!

from here you're finished! thanks for reading! go to file and export as png

if you've got questions never hesitate to ask, just make sure to read the faq in my pinned. i might edit this post soon to include the gen intro traits and aspirations bit, but this is all for now. hope it helps, my editing process post has been in need of a revamp for a very long time. i haven't proof-read this so apologies for any mistakes!

#ts4 #sims 4 #ts4 tutorial #5 anons in my inbox asking the same question after not reading my faq #this ones for you #3 anons in my inbox asking about cas pics #ones coming for you soon #okay maybe not soon but sometime #all my free time has been eaten up #i signed up for extra saturday morning classes and not having a lie in is sucking the life out of me lmao #when i'm busy i just wanna play video games and when i get the chance #to play games i just wanna sleep #its a vicious cycle #i'm currently playing resident evil biohazard tho #enjoying it very very much #i've only got 2 and 3 left to play and i've played every mainstream re game 💪💪#it was a very fun journey! i played them all within this year #long post

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valenthario · 10 months

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#txt #playing a lepacy & i couldnt WAIT to start gen 2 #im soooooooooooooo. ive replayed this pack over and over and over and over and over again #and im never bored i just love it sm #in egypt rn exploring the pyramids having the time of my life #who needs vacation when you have the sims 3 world adventures

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warmsol · 1 year

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do you crave to be home playing with your sims while you’re out or are you normal

#ugh i’ve been out all day 😭#i had to sit through a two and a half hour marvel movie (actual hell) (for me)#it was my husbands work thing and it was free as the whole company went and then we had lunch after and omg bro #i can’t socialize for the rest of the week actually. i’m tired. overly stimulated as heck.#being a naturally quiet and shy person with anxiety is hard when you’re surrounded by outgoing extroverts for hours lol #anyway. i’m in the car going home now. i just want to work on my sims story 🫠#it’s just hard choosing to be out on a weekend when it’s where most my free time is lmao like. huh i could be playing sims rn #oh being an adult and having hobbies and a social life and work is hard

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star-ocean-peahen · 30 days

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i am. so tired.

#i want to play the sims but i cant open it until this one mod is updated but i cant update that mod because every time i do it #deletes all the progress i make in its custom skills n stuff and i have to start all over again #and i asked the modder if theres any way to have it not do that but they havent responded #which. is fine. actual person with their own life and all.#but that means i have to either wait longer for an answer or suck it up and redo all my progress in that save #which. SUCKS.#hhhhhhhhhh #lassie vents #vent #im just. eepy.

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rox-of-iu · 5 months

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bought "immortal life" as a gift for myself and I'm immediately obsessed

it's stardew valley style farm sim but xianxia (said by someone who never played stardew or farm sims this is guesswork lol)

anyway it's early access now but it will come out as a full game in Jan 2024! and I guess there is a possibility that the price will go up once it's a full game cuz that happens sometimes so if ur interested now is your chance hah (its on sale rn for 11,19€)

#immortal life #immortal life game #chen yuanzhou #Mu Xia #wei hong #oughhh its so charming i love it #funnily enough every time i play rpg games i pause the plot to go fish or farm whenever I'm allowed but I'm not really into farm sims lol #but this one spoke to me due to obvious reasons hahha #shout out to yumehbby who mentioned this under my yi xian post some time back and its been in my wishlist on steam ever since lol #im holding all of the characters gently all of them are my beloveds #i wont go too indepth over it here cuz A. im just 10 hours in lol B. i will talk more about it in a post I want to make in the future #rec list with other wuxia games and such #anyway as you may have noticed in the drawings my squad is very broke. but especially me hfjkdhgk #why is it my job to pay for the rebuilding 😭😭😢 im just a farmboy shouldn't that be Ji Yaohuas job shes in charge of the finances???#girl i love you but where am i supposed to get 5k spirit shards i just paid 3k ur killing me #is this her punishment for my unwise financial decisions of buying hair bleach for 100 gold pieces?? im sorry pls Ji-shijie......

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the-magnus-protocol · 11 months

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Check out this weird bug I found

#tma #the magnus archive fanart #the magnus archives #digital art #look at my art boy #magnus archives #magpod #tma fanart #jon sims #jonathan sims #last time I posted this people kept tagging it as majoras mask #I am so fucking sorry but I have never played a single Zelda game in my life #weirdcore #surreal

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utilitycaster · 8 months

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Sort of a distant tangent off my post about Ashton, but I'm growing more and more suspicious of the fandom claim that there's no time for small RP moments in Campaign 3. I do think that it's been challenging to get deeper party bonding or serious conversations that aren't about the big philosophical questions they're facing, since those do take much more time; but then I think about Calamity, or Candela Obscura. I can genuinely give you at least a couple paragraphs about pretty much every relationship in the two Circles, or in the Ring of Brass. I can also point to no shortage of small moments between characters in the Mighty Nein Aeor or Vox Machina Vecna endgame episodes, which were all extremely plot-heavy and fast-paced, and D20 consistently nails character relationships in a fraction of the time.

I think it really does come down to, as Brennan Lee Mulligan always says, the character creation phase. Laying down a solid groundwork in which everyone has a detailed, rich backstory and sense of personality and relationship history (in the case of characters who knew each other prior to the start of the series) is absolutely crucial, and even in the case of characters who don't know each other before going in, a good amount of time spent in character creation ensures that it's easier for them to develop those interpersonal relationships on the fly. I know in actual play there's some degree of finding the character as you play, but there are games for which there is a very short runway, and I don't think it ever hurts to do more extensive character prep than the bare minimum. And if there are gaps, I think it also helps to go back and fill those in mid-way, away from the table - Travis clarifying Chetney's backstory being a great example that allowed the history of Chetney and Deanna to feel realized and full, despite only a few episodes.

I'll also be blunt: most of the time when people complain that there aren't moments because the plot keeps moving...they're mad about shipping. Which has always rung hollow to me. It was a common complaint in C2, that no time was taken for character relationships, despite them taking an entire half of an episode for the Beauyasha date and despite no shortage of moments for all three of the other couples (and plenty of platonic moments between friends). The issue was never a lack of time; it was that the characters they wanted to talk to each other didn't actually have the relationship in canon that the fans had dreamed up, and so, when the chips were down, they went to other people.

It takes two seconds to say something like "I hold their hand", even in the middle of plot-heavy adventuring. If someone doesn't say it, it's rarely the GM rushing them; it's the player either choosing not to do so, or not remembering to do so, and either of those is quite revealing regarding how the player feels about that relationship and where it stands in their priorities.