The Sims 2/Aspirations

In The Sims 2, aspirations are the main source of wants. This article reviews each aspiration, their wants and their fears. For clarity, mechanics introduced in expansion packs will not be covered in this article. Note that most of these wants are not restricted to each aspiration, they can be experienced by all aspirations.

Grow Up Aspiration
Grow Up is the only aspiration that toddlers and children have. Because they are different age groups, their wants and fears are different. Toddlers have some very basic wants. The main scoring wants are learn to talk, learn to walk and to be pottytrained. Once these wants are fulfilled, they experience wants to gain skill points and socialize with family members. Their fears involve family problems as well as some personality related fears. Below are the Grow Up monikers for the toddler age.
 * Bottom Red- Rotten Rugrat
 * Top Red- Hectic Handful
 * Bottom Green- Diaper-Filler
 * Top Green- Little Wonder
 * Gold- Precocious Pre-Schooler
 * Platinum- Miracle Mite

Children have some more complex wants. Their main scoring want is to learn to study and to get an A+. Some children want to get into private school. Other wants involve becoming friends with everyone they meet, winning games and socializing with family members. Their fears involve getting a D, losing games and losing friends. Other fears involve personality related fears. Shy sims fear parties and serious sims fear seeing ghosts. Below are the aspiration monikers for the child age.
 * Bottom Red- Neglected Nightmare
 * Top Red- Bothersome Brat
 * Bottom Green- Typical Tyke
 * Top Green- Gifted Kid
 * Gold- Wonder Boy/Girl
 * Platinum- Child Prodigy

Family Aspiration
Family sims want to set up families of their own. If you've read the Wants and Fears article, then you'll know that some wants follow a preset path. The path they follow is like so. After these wants, they follow a certain loop in that they may repeat themselves. Finally a sim that's raised many children will gain the want to have 10 children. Other wants that family sims main gain involve learning cooking and cleaning skills and socialize with family members. They also enjoy romantic socials with there lovers and want to encourage personality in there children. Family sims fear family members rejecting socials as well as the social worker arriving. Their other fears are having romantic socials rejected and being left at the alter. They also fear growing up without being married. When family aspiration starts to go down, their wants start to get more desperate. Finally, if a family sims aspiration hits rock bottom, they may start to pull out a flour sack with a smiley face on it and cuddle it.
 * 1) Meet Sim
 * 2) Fall in love with sim
 * 3) Go Steady/Become Engaged
 * 4) Get Married
 * 5) Have a Baby
 * 1) Teach to Walk
 * 2) Teach to Talk
 * 3) Potty train
 * 4) Child grows up well
 * 5) Teach to study
 * 6) Get sim into private school

These are the aspiration monikers for the family aspiration

Fortune Aspiration
Fortune sims want money and success in careers. They have two clear want paths. These wants start to repeat until the want to reach the top of the career. Their other want path involves the earning of money. When the wants after earning $5000 are fulfilled, they earn a memory for it. Their other high scoring wants are to marry a rich sim, sell a great novel and sell a masterpiece. Finally, when promotions are gained, fortune sims want increasingly expensive objects for their house even if they're unnecessary. Careers that fortune sims want are the Athletic, Business, Criminal and Medical careers. If you’re creating a fortune sim and are unsure about personality, adjust it to gain the necessary skills quicker.
 * 1) Get a job
 * 2) Earn skills needed for promotion
 * 3) Gain friends needed for promotion
 * 4) Get a promotion
 * 1) Earn some money
 * 2) Earn $100
 * 3) Earn $1000
 * 4) Earn $5000
 * 5) Earn $10000
 * 6) Earn $25000
 * 7) Earn $50000
 * 8) Earn $100000

Fortune sims fear the repo man and burglars above most things. They also fear job-related misfortunes such as demotions and getting fired. If they get demoted, then they start to want to quit the job. Finally, they also fear selling bad paintings and novels.

When fortune sims experience low aspiration, their wants become more desperate until they break down. When aspiration hits rock bottom, they start to beg for money.

Below are fortune aspiration monikers.

Knowledge Aspiration
Fortune sims follow one clear want path. After that, these wants repeat for a different skill. In fact, gaining a skill point in any level will reinitiate these wants regardless of whether they’ve wanted it before. Finally, maximizing several skills will set up a new want: to maximize all skills.
 * 1) Gain skill point
 * 2) Gain skill point second level
 * 3) Gain skill point third level
 * 4) Gain skill point fourth level
 * 5) Gain skill point fifth level
 * 6) Gain skill point sixth level
 * 7) Gain skill point seventh level
 * 8) Gain skill point eight level
 * 9) Gain skill point ninth level
 * 10) Maximize skill

Their other wants are to do with the paranormal. They want to see ghosts, get abducted by aliens and be saved from death. Their preferred careers are the science and medical careers. As well, they want objects to help them gain skills, telescopes and bookshelves.

They fear, above all things, losing skill points. If you’re creating a knowledge sim, set playful at 0. Because serious helps logic further, it lets you set two other personalities at 10 allowing you to gain three skills quicker.

When they break down, their wants become more desperate and impossible. Eventually, they break down and start to talk with a ball wearing a mortar board.

Below are the monikers for the knowledge aspiration

Popularity Aspiration
Popularity sims follow a set want path for every sim they meet. Once they make their first best friend, the wants start again for every sim they meet. They also set up a new want path. Another frequent want is to have great parties. Not surprisingly, they fear bad parties. If they have enemies, they want to win fights with them. Teen sims want to sneak out with other sims. Other wants involve friendly socials around other sims and winning games. They also want bartenders at their parties. Popularity sims prefer the Politics, Military and Athletic careers.
 * 1) Make friends with sim.
 * 2) Make best friends with sim.
 * 1) Make 2 best friends
 * 2) Make 3 best friends
 * 3) Make 5 best friends
 * 4) Make 10 best friends
 * 5) Make 30 best friends

Their fears invlove being rejected for friendly socials and having bad parties. They fear bladder faliures, making enemies and deaths of friends and seeing the social bunny.

When popularity sims break down, they start to talk with a paper cup with a face drawn on.

If your creating a popularity sim, it makes sense to make them outgoing. Outgoing sims also gain charisma skill faster which is a key skill in several careers.

Below are the monikers for the popularity aspiration.

Romance Aspiration
Romance sims prefer lovers like popularity sims prefer friends. They in fact follow three separate want paths. These wants are particularly hard because of cheating and jealously. The other want paths involve doing WooHoo and making out with increasingly higher numbers with sims.
 * 1) Gain lover
 * 2) Gain 2 lovers
 * 3) Gain 3 lovers
 * 4) Gain 5 lovers
 * 5) Gain 10 lovers
 * 6) Gain 30 lovers

Their other wants have to do with amour and romantic interactions. They want hot tubs, fireplaces and double beds. They also want to get fit. They want to advance in the slacker career.

Not surprisingly, their fears involve being rejected for romantic socials. They also fear, above most things, commitment. They fear everything that family sims want, which makes them bad partners for them.

When romance sims break down, they start to talk to a paper plate on a mop.

Below are the aspiration monikers for romance sims.