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Invisible friend concerns

I think I've read some issues with the invisible friend. My heir baby was gifted one. The grandmother picked it up from the mailbox and it appeared in the heir's inventory. When dad put the baby to bed, the invisible friend showed up in the crib.

What are things I should be aware of regarding this friend? Bugs? Issues? Problems? Good things?

Comments

  • suzsessuzses Posts: 2,433 Member
    IFs are kind of a love 'em or hate 'em kind of thing. I belong in the second category. The only problems I personally have had with them is how to get rid of them without causing other game problems. Other than that, I've heard people complain about them getting in the way, following their sim to the bathroom, that kind of thing. Toddlers start playing with them, which is kind of cute initially, but then, the IFs start to grow and develop, so they're moving around and stuff, and the bigger they get, the creepier they become IMO. One cool thing about them is they can be turned real with a potion your sim child can make with the chemistry table.

    The Carl's guide to IFs: https://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/generations/imaginaryfriend.php
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  • nickibitswardnickibitsward Posts: 3,115 Member
    edited July 2018
    I only just starting letting my toddlers grow up with their Imaginary Friends. I have a bunch of kids now that have IF's that I am not planning on turning real. They are kind of creepy but different. I haven't gotten any past the child stage yet, I usually play with aging off. Haven't noticed any problems with them.
    Post edited by nickibitsward on
  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    Thanks for the link @suzses. I read through it and didn't see any major problems mentioned.

    * Do IF's count in the household limit?
    * Can they go away eventually (such as a RL child's imaginary friend usually goes away)?

    Side note: I thought it was a tad bit creepy that it showed up in the infants crib. However I do love being surprised by things while playing.
  • suzsessuzses Posts: 2,433 Member
    Good question about household limit, and I don't know the answer.

    As for going away, I know they don't go away if they haven't "grown up." They'll stay in a sim's inventory forever, but the sim stops taking them out to play with them by the time they're teens. The only ones I ever allowed to develop, I also turned real, and I only ever did that in one household years ago, so those obviously didn't go away. I moved them out of the house eventually.

    I know @Charlottesmom has some experience with them. Maybe she'll come by with some helpful info.
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  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited July 2018
    IFs do not add to the household size while they are still in doll form and only the child can interact with them. They do if an attempt is made to convert them to real, then they would become a real sim like any other except with an interesting history and an unusual occult state. So there would have to be room in the household to withstand the conversion; mods of course can help that if the built-in cap of 8 sims per household is too limiting.

    By the way, the "I" in IF stands for Imaginary, not Invisible. ;)
    Post edited by igazor on
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  • nickibitswardnickibitsward Posts: 3,115 Member
    edited July 2018
    igazor wrote: »
    IFs do not add to the household size while they are still in doll form and only the child can interact with them. They do if an attempt is made to convert them to real, then they would become a real sim like any other except with an interesting history and an unusual occult state. So there would have to be room in the household to withstand the conversion; mods of course can help that if the built-in cap of 8 sims per household is too limiting.

    By the way, the "I" in IF stands for Imaginary, not Invisible. ;)

    My bad! I know they are "imaginary", slip of the fingers!
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    edited July 2018
    @igazor I have mods that allow me to have more than 8 sims in a household and I tried to turn an IF real in a household with more than 8 sims in it and it failed each time. Then I took her and her owner to a different house with no others in the household and it worked first attempt.

    After each failure the sim got the potion back again so she didn't have to keep making or obtaining new potions. This was a couple of years ago though so if the mod has changed since then it might work now.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    @Karritz - The mod that is supposed to unlock IF conversions on full households is NRaas Mover. Not everyone has that one. Many years ago it was switched to Mover from a mod we can't mention, which was intended to help prevent confusion rather than add to it.

    But regardless, splitting the household apart before the conversion and then putting it back together again works too.
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  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    Thanks @igazor. I have that mod and several others that all work together to made the process work. Such as Portrait Panel - not sure of the whole list and what each one does. I still couldn't transform the IF into a real sim until I moved her out to a smaller household.
  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    Note: I see that this conversation got moved to the Expansion Pack section of the forums. I got the entire set with all EPs all at the same time. I have absolutely no idea where I should post issues as i don't know what EP they belong to. So thanks to the mod that moved it for me!
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    edited July 2018
    Rhiannon58 wrote: »
    Note: I see that this conversation got moved to the Expansion Pack section of the forums. I got the entire set with all EPs all at the same time. I have absolutely no idea where I should post issues as i don't know what EP they belong to. So thanks to the mod that moved it for me!

    I think they came with Generations.

    Threads from General Discussion often get buried in some other part of the forums and they then die a fast death or someone tracks them down and continues to post. I generally don't bother with them once they've been moved though. It's something we have no control over.
  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    The forums are hard to search because it pulls everything from all the games. If we had the ability to search within just the TS3 forums for instance, I know I wouldn't be making as many new posts because I could easily find the answer to what I was searching for. In this case, I searched but found very little relevant info. Lots of people use "IF" as an abbreviation and I'm sure you can imagine what you'd come up with if you searched for THAT (no pun intended). *laughs*
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    Rhiannon58 wrote: »
    The forums are hard to search because it pulls everything from all the games. If we had the ability to search within just the TS3 forums for instance, I know I wouldn't be making as many new posts because I could easily find the answer to what I was searching for. In this case, I searched but found very little relevant info. Lots of people use "IF" as an abbreviation and I'm sure you can imagine what you'd come up with if you searched for THAT (no pun intended). *laughs*
    If you click the Go button next to the search bar, you should see the options for Advanced Searches. One of the fields is Category, and is a pull-down of all of the forum boards. You should be able to restrict your searches to the TS3 section, being sure to include sub-categories, by doing searches that way.
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  • Rhiannon58Rhiannon58 Posts: 806 Member
    I just discovered one pain with imaginary friends. They can get in the way of things like the fridge. When my sim with the IF went to bed, I put Mrs. Muir back in her inventory. Hopefully that will put that little experiment to rest. It was different and cute though.
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