2014 Tournament General Rules Workbench

[Metropolis Man]

As the title of the thread states this is a workbench — i.e. your ideas and feedback are most welcome. Nothing is set in stone. However, time is of the essence and I will be posting January's two rulesets on Sunday. So, I would really like the General Rules covering all events to be hammered out by then. Pay particular attention to the Edit Town section and the list of bans. Those are the most important things. Everything else is pretty much self explanatory and obvious.

Thanks, folks.

2014 Sims 3 Challenge Tournament Overview

Welcome to the 2014 Sims 3 Challenge Tournament! The 16-event Tournament runs from January 1st to August 31st (anyone can jump in the Tournament at any time throughout the year). Two events will kick off the season on January 1st — one Minor event (ending on the 15th) and one Major event (ending the last day of the month). Two more events will start on February 1st and the same cycle continues through the year. Here is a link to the official 2013 Sims 3 Tournament Events Calendar. Rule sets will always be posted 2 weeks before starting dates.

The 2014 Tournament Champion will be the player at the top of the World Ranking at the close of the Tournament Finale at the end of August and will receive either two Sims 3 expansions or a complimentary copy of Sims 4 (courtesy of Carl) as well as a 2014 Sims 3 Tournament Championship Plaque (courtesy of Metro). An Amazon.com gift card will be awarded to the runner-up (courtesy of Pam).

General Challenge Rules

Players are responsible for knowing and following the General Challenge Rules. The rules below apply to all 2014 Tournament events (Dynasty challenges are not Tournament events). There will be exceptions and you will be informed of those exceptions in individual rule sets.

Ready to Participate in the Tournament?
Awesome! Just pick an event that is currently open (live events have a thumbs up topic icon) and dive in.

Practicing for a Challenge
Practicing before a challenge officially goes live is fine, but once you create your scoring file, that’s it—you have one attempt and cannot create a 2nd scoring file. You may never use any mods while practicing for an event. All mods or programs/utilities that allow you to look at code to gain information must never be used once you begin practicing for a challenge.

Starting Dates/Closing Dates
All challenges begin on the 1st of a month and close on either the 15th or the last day of the month. These dates are noted in purple at the bottom of a rule set. Playing your scoring file before the starting date or after the closing date is not allowed. The only time reference you need to remember is your local time/date. You must submit scores in the individual challenge thread before the closing date has come and gone in your local time zone. Scores submitted after the closing date will not be accepted.

Creating Your Scoring Game File
You must always play your challenge file under the most current EA patch — this applies to before creating your file as well as the duration of the event. Do not log in while playing a Tournament challenge file.

All challenges begin in a fresh, virgin, completely unaltered town.
Unless the individual rule set states otherwise, you are free to create your challenge file in Sunset Valley or any neighborhood that came with an official expansion. The forum's own Union Cove and EA's Riverview are also okay to use for challenges. No other worlds are allowed. You play the entirety of a challenge in one neighborhood and do not move to another one. You may only use the Edit Town screen before you enter Live mode and start to play your Sim(s) for the first time. You may only use the Edit Town screen for the following reasons:

• Empty residential lots may have their designation changed to a community lot to allow placement of missing EA or Union Cove lots, either from the lot library or saved from an unaltered EA town or Union Cove. You are also free to bulldoze completely empty lots to place new empty lots of adequate size with the Edit World Tool.
• Only a single copy of a particular building may be added (i.e. one Waylon’s Haunt can be added, not two). You cannot alter these lots in any way with one exception, if your town is missing skill books you are free to add a Book Corral or Pennigway Bookshelf. World Adventures, University Life, and Into the Future specific buildings cannot be added to your home town.
• If the neighborhood you choose has no empty lots on which to build a home or place a community lot (i.e. Bridgeport), you are free to tear down existing empty homes or auto placed community lots.
• If an auto placed community lot occupies the space where you want to build a home, you are allowed to bulldoze the lot and set the lot type to residential.
You are allowed to move auto placed community lots to more appropriate sized smaller lots (i.e. Bridgeport's 30 X 40 fire station or Sunset Valley's 30 X 40 Consignment Shop to a 20 X 30 lot).
• If you simply do not want an auto placed community lot you are allowed to bulldoze it.

If you are unsure what lots are auto placed and if you have permission to change them, then PM them team with questions.

Options > General Settings > uncheck the Enable Interactive Loading Screens box
Options > Game Options: Freewill = High; Enable Story Progression and Enable Aging need to be checked. Sim Lifespan = Normal (leave plumbob sliders at default setting including Pet sliders). Seasons, Population Controls, Lunar Cycle and Memories are all up to a player’s personal preference, but need to be chosen once and not changed again for the duration of the challenge.

Household Size: Individual Challenge rule sets will specify how many Sims/Pets you create and their starting life stage.

3rd Party Custom Content and Modifications
3rd party Custom Content that alters appearance such as skin tone or hairstyles, etc., can be used at the player's own risk. Modifications (mods) are patches that alter some core component of game play and are never allowed. Programs and utilities that allow you to see the game code such as ILSpy are also never allowed. Remember, no mods or code utilities can be used during practice.

Sim Game Selector 3.0 is a helpful utility available from Mod the Sims that tells the launcher what expansions to load (when planning strategy for a given event you may decide certain expansions would do you more harm than good) and is approved for the Tournament. It is not a mod and does not change your game in any way.

Cheats and Banned Content
You are only allowed to open the cheats panel for two things: a stuck Sim or a stuck object.

ResetSim Firstname Lastname. You may only use this cheat in the event of a stuck Sim. This cheat is case sensitive, so make sure to type your Sim’s name correctly).
Moveobjects. You may only use this cheat for a stuck object.

The following content is banned in all 2014 Tournament events:

**Asking another Sim to be your roommate.
**Moodlet Manager.
**Motive Mobile.
**Quantum Power Suit.
**Jetpack.
**Brian Enhancing Machine.
**Midas Touch Elixir.
**Group Science Project.
**Transfiguration.
**Relationship Transmorgrifier.
**Sim Finder app.
**Into the Future Lottery.
**All Store Content (if you do have any Store Content you'll need to either play challenges via their own game folder as outlined here or filter out the content in CAS and Buy Mode.

Exiting without saving to avoid a mistake or an unfortunate occurrence (i.e. burglar or fire) is cheating. Restarting from an earlier save is also cheating. In the event your challenge file is plagued by a game-breaking bug, then PM the team with specifics. We will then make a decision as to restarting from a previous save or simply allowing a complete restart.

Strategy Discussion
Do not discuss any strategy pertaining to a given event once that event’s rule set is posted. Casually or accidentally breaking this rule carries a warning and a possible event DQ. Discussing strategy after being warned is grounds for being tossed from the entire Tournament. We need to have as level a playing field as possible and giving others tips and hints is simply not allowed once rule sets are up and an event is live. After an event closes you are free to discuss strategy for that event.

The Honor System
The 2014 Tournament is all about friendly competition and having fun. The Tournament attracts players of all abilities and competitiveness from casual first-timers to seasoned high-caliber veterans. We all want to have a good time no matter what we’re seeking to get out of the Tournament. Allowing everyone to have a good time means we all need to play honestly — no cheating and no exploits. If you discover an exploit then you must PM the team (Metro, ratchie, Nutella, and Blackrosea) so we can quickly edit a ruleset. If it's discovered that you have intentionally cheated in any way, then you will be banned from the forum on the spot. We have a zero tolerance policy for cheating.

List of Exploits that are not allowed to be used:
♦ Selling items in buy/build mode, hitting the undo button and reselling them.
♦ Reselling an item again because the game placed it on the floor or did not remove it from inventory while the game was paused.
♦ Using the festival ticket glitch to gain extra tickets. This particular trick is when you place festival tickets inside a cabinet/chest and it doubles the amount you have at the time. The LTR to gain more festival tickets is still allowed unless otherwise stated in a challenge ruleset.

Submitting Scores
When you have finished all the requirements for a given event submit your final score right in the individual challenge thread and the team will update the leaderboard with your information. Remember not to comment on how you approached the event with specifics until the event is closed.

***********

We hope the 2014 Sims 3 Challenge Tournament adds new and exciting dimensions to your playing, and most importantly, we hope everyone has a great time. This is going to be the final Sims 3 Challenge Tournament season, so let’s make it the best one ever!

See you on the leaderboard — Metro, ratchie, Nutella, and Blackrosea.

[Trip]

**Brian Enhancing Machine.

Because it's a shame if we enhance our inner Brian.

In all seriousness, it's a good-looking ruleset. As for the ruling on autoplaced community lots, I'm still a little confused, though. Does the new rule allow us to bulldoze ones we don't want, or is it only to move them to a more suitable place?

[Shirin]

I'd like clarification on something that's always confused me re gifting.

I assume that sending gifts is banned, because, well, you know you're not supposed to. What about receiving gifts, do we get notification popups that there's one in the mail? I ask because I have a couple of friends who play Sims and are not part of this community, and I don't recall getting any notification about accepting gifts until after the mail is checked and the gift is auto-accepted.

In the event that receiving is also banned, what do you want us to do with received gifts (assuming I'm not a complete doofus and missed something)?

[MarianT]

With regard to Shirin's question, perhaps it would be easier to say that players should not be logged in while playing. It's not likely that we'll be simporting as part of a challenge, and receiving gifts is also problematic (i.e., what if someone gives you a Midas Touch elixir?). Also, one might inadvertently give away one's strategy while chatting with other players.

With regard to reselling an item that was placed on the ground, it might be helpful to remind people that the moveobjects on cheat will get rid of it without adding extra money.

[Metropolis Man]

As for the ruling on autoplaced community lots, I'm still a little confused, though. Does the new rule allow us to bulldoze ones we don't want, or is it only to move them to a more suitable place?

So, for example, you simply do not want the consignment store in Sunset Valley and want to make it go bye bye before starting your file?

With regard to Shirin's question, perhaps it would be easier to say that players should not be logged in while playing. It's not likely that we'll be simporting as part of a challenge, and receiving gifts is also problematic (i.e., what if someone gives you a Midas Touch elixir?). Also, one might inadvertently give away one's strategy while chatting with other players.

Good idea, MarianT. I'll just drop the gifting ban and mention that players cannot log in.

[Trip]

So, for example, you simply do not want the consignment store in Sunset Valley and want to make it go bye bye before starting your file?

Yep. Do the new rules allow for that?

[Metropolis Man]

Yep. Do the new rules allow for that?

Well, unfortunately the rules as of 1:33 PM do not. But, the rules at 1:34 PM will! It's your lucky day!

[Nutella]

Trip, you won the lottery!  That reminds me of something, the lottery from into the future xpac, do we want to leave that?

[Metropolis Man]

Trip, you won the lottery!  That reminds me of something, the lottery from into the future xpac, do we want to leave that?

Oops…Blackrosea mentioned to me to maybe ban that and I forgot. What's everyone else think? Ban lotto in the General Rules?

[MarianT]

I was also wondering about the dream pod bed from ITF. With the right dreams you can change traits temporarily.

Also, there is a way to exploit the new loading screens to get more happiness points if you don't mind starting a game, quitting after 5 minutes or so, starting again, quitting again, etc. It would drive me crazy to do that, but I can see someone doing it. That said, I would suggest that it only be banned when the method of scoring involves happiness points.

Regarding the lottery -- you could ban looking up the winning numbers in Oasis Landing.

[Seabody]

Also, there is a way to exploit the new loading screens to get more happiness points if you don't mind starting a game, quitting after 5 minutes or so, starting again, quitting again, etc. It would drive me crazy to do that, but I can see someone doing it. That said, I would suggest that it only be banned when the method of scoring involves happiness points.

I'd ban it outright. Too much potential to be exploited -- even if it wasn't a challenge scoring by LTHP I could use it to gain more LTHP to get Opportunistic (for a 4x4 Golden Opportunity type challenge). It'd benefit people like me more -- people who have slower loading times do actually get more LTHP off them -- I've seen people get 900 LTHP while I consistently achieve about 2,000 -- I believe that's due to my load times. I often have about 15 minutes to kill during loading.

Practicing for a Challenge
Practicing before a challenge officially goes live is fine, but once you create your scoring file, that’s it—you have one attempt and cannot create a 2nd scoring file. You may never use any mods while practicing for an event. All mods or programs/utilities that allow you to look at code to gain information must either be uninstalled or disabled once you begin practicing for a challenge.

[...]

3rd Party Custom Content and Modifications
3rd party Custom Content that alters appearance such as skin tone or hairstyles, etc., can be used at the player's own risk. Modifications (mods) are patches that alter some core component of game play and are never allowed. Programs and utilities that allow you to see the game code to gain information are also never allowed. Remember, no mods or code utilities can be used during practice.

Both of these I'd like to clarify. I hope to participate next year, and as you may have guessed, I have ILSpy on my PC which is a code utility (which is banned). Would simply not using it count as uninstalling it, or do I have to delete the binaries? With ILSpy, you have to physically delete it, not "uninstall" it, to remove it as it is never installed, only downloaded. If that makes sense.

Regarding the Lottery; ban it. There is no other legitimate way to gain Simoleans in this way (ie a small investment and large return) which means that in my opinion it should be banned as it is a definite advantage to players having ITF.

[LenaLJ]

16 events, shorter time frame, playing on normal lifespan. Ohh I am so excited.

You point out that the premium content is banned. Why not ban all store content in general. Then we are sure nothing is cheaper that original content but has better stats.

[Blackrosea]

I'd ban it outright. Too much potential to be exploited -- even if it wasn't a challenge scoring by LTHP I could use it to gain more LTHP to get Opportunistic (for a 4x4 Golden Opportunity type challenge). It'd benefit people like me more -- people who have slower loading times do actually get more LTHP off them -- I've seen people get 900 LTHP while I consistently achieve about 2,000 -- I believe that's due to my load times. I often have about 15 minutes to kill during loading.

Yes I agree that should be banned.  I never have mine turned on so we can ask people to have it turned off when playing a challenge file.

Both of these I'd like to clarify. I hope to participate next year, and as you may have guessed, I have ILSpy on my PC which is a code utility (which is banned). Would simply not using it count as uninstalling it, or do I have to delete the binaries? With ILSpy, you have to physically delete it, not "uninstall" it, to remove it as it is never installed, only downloaded. If that makes sense.

The only utility/program/mod allowed is the SimGameSelector since it does nothing to your game but select expansions you want to use for the game you are wanting to play.

[Metropolis Man]

Both of these I'd like to clarify. I hope to participate next year, and as you may have guessed, I have ILSpy on my PC which is a code utility (which is banned). Would simply not using it count as uninstalling it, or do I have to delete the binaries? With ILSpy, you have to physically delete it, not "uninstall" it, to remove it as it is never installed, only downloaded. If that makes sense.

I do not feel deleting it off your PC is required. You understand that you cannot use that utility to gain information that other not-so-tech savvy Sims 3 players would not have, correct? That's all we're getting at — if you look at code while practicing or during the challenge then you gain certain information that could save you quite a bit of time in mapping out a challenge strategy.

I edited the rules in the first post. See if that is clear enough. I even mentioned your utility by name as an example.

You point out that the premium content is banned. Why not ban all store content in general. Then we are sure nothing is cheaper that original content but has better stats.

To be honest I do not know much about store content. Is banning all store content something others are okay with? Is that a simple process when you create a file? You would just uncheck something?

[Trip]

It can be as simple as creating a Factory Reset folder, so I don't think it would be asking players too much to play without Store content.