If EA releases another party pack what would it have to have for you to buy it?

[Sagana]

I don't understand why any of the creators do that, but it's especially bad with floors and walls. The environment scores go up with more expensive stuff, so if my sims have enough money, I never buy cheap walls and floors - which means a lot of really good stuff rarely gets used.

I have similar problems with beds, couches, counters and tables/chairs, etc. that give too much and are too cheap... they're ok if the sims aren't very well off (tho kind of cheating...) but nearly useless if you actually have enough money.

[Dark Trepie]

I'll stick with just buying the expansions myself.  I don't see any point in buying a booster pack who's entire contents will be spamed all over the exchange and other sites within a week.  Like the SUPER UBER EXCLUSIVE HOT ROD for example.

[AllenABQ]

I don't understand why any of the creators do that, but it's especially bad with floors and walls. The environment scores go up with more expensive stuff, so if my sims have enough money, I never buy cheap walls and floors - which means a lot of really good stuff rarely gets used.

I have similar problems with beds, couches, counters and tables/chairs, etc. that give too much and are too cheap... they're ok if the sims aren't very well off (tho kind of cheating...) but nearly useless if you actually have enough money.

I think part of the problem has to do with the environment score not being all that useful in the game.  Sure it plunges if you have dirty dishes laying around or an alarm clock going off, but in an otherwise clean home using cheap decor, environment doesn't suffer THAT badly.  So people don't notice much of a difference between using a cheap wall/floor or an expensive one.

It is worse when they do this with objects.  Like I recently discovered that one of the iron-post double beds I've downloaded is priced slightly less than the low-end economy wood frame double bed, but it gives 10 comfort and 10 energy.  C'mon!!!

[Oddysey]

I'm much younger than a lot of the people on this site, and I'm constantly annoyed by the fact that very little of what's in either the teen sections or the adult sections is stuff that I'd actually wear. I haven't worn a shirt that exposed my belly button since, oh, seventh grade. Years ago. And that was for about two months, too, the period when I wore makeup. Since then, it's been t-shirts, jackets, and jeans. Boot cut gap jeans, levis--real jeans, not that "ah hah! we'll cut random holes in it and charge $200!" crap. There really aren't any decent t-shirts for women, the kind that have actually sleeves and aren't all clingy. T-shirts should be loose, damnit! "Baby doll" t-shirts are an abomination.

And the guy stuff . . . sigh. Some of it I like. Some of it . . . eh. That's actually what convinced me to make the handful of outfits that I've done myself. Lack of decent t-shirts. If Maxis published a "t-shirt" booster pack, I might even consider buying it. What I'd really like is a "geek" pack. Probably has a better chance of being a booster pack than a full blown expansion. Actual jeans, cargo pants, t-shirts, decent glasses (ugh! double ugh! all my sims wear the same two pairs . . .) more computers, more stuff to do with computers, science fiction themed clothes and objects. I'd pay money for that. Not "Holiday" though. I repeat: My sims are being godless communists! Nyet on the Holidaying!

[skandelouslala]

 I can't respond to everything I want to in this thread..but  I am reading  along nodding.

REally nodding at the fact that men need more variety in their clothing.  And hair.

I don't know if I could put my trust in Maxis for fixing that problem though.  So far they haven't shown much potential for creating things for men .  Some of the outfits that came with the base game are somewhat decent...I still prefer the decent clothing I've downloaded for men though.

 Please don't get me started on the hairstyles lol

All my male sims pratically have the same hairstyles b/c any new ones are just seriously lacking.

The ones that came with NL make me want to gag.  A big mass of hair stuck across a sims face?  No thanks.  The womens aren't much better either but at least I can always download (and do) loads of womens hair styles. 

[Brynne]

  A big mass of hair stuck across a sims face?  No thanks. 

LOL Nice way of describing it. Most of my male sims wear baseball caps. Avoids the hair issue, pretty much. But it's ridiculous how many caps are in my game!

[Dark Trepie]

I'm also not crazy about the new female hairstyle that looks like a big braided bow on the back of the head. I don't think I've ever seen anything even remotely resembling that in real life

Yes that would be the accompanying and equally impractical hairstyle for the post-modern anime ninja tramp outfit I mentioned above lol.

I agree that there's way too high of a percentage of custom content that's hoochie stuff too. There are a few rare times where I may want a particular sim to look all hooched up, but I don't want a town of Barbie sluts thank you.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about this "little" outfit would you?   



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[Bangelnuts]

And the guy stuff . . . sigh. Some of it I like. Some of it . . . eh. That's actually what convinced me to make the handful of outfits that I've done myself. Lack of decent t-shirts. If Maxis published a "t-shirt" booster pack, I might even consider buying it. What I'd really like is a "geek" pack. Probably has a better chance of being a booster pack than a full blown expansion. Actual jeans, cargo pants, t-shirts, decent glasses (ugh! double ugh! all my sims wear the same two pairs . . .) more computers, more stuff to do with computers, science fiction themed clothes and objects. I'd pay money for that. Not "Holiday" though. I repeat: My sims are being godless communists! Nyet on the Holidaying!

the elder stuff is the worst in the game. blah and shapeless as for female clothes good one are easily found male clothing is a bit harder to find .I search around various sites and download  all the clothes my sims wear and the slimmest pickings are pajamas for all ages .undies for seniors and any other clothing for elders. I have yet to figure out why maxis makes all of the pajamas's high waters. I would buy a pack that had decent clothing  for elders

[lauraglenn]

The whole concept of expansion and booster packs makes me angry because I'm paying for things that could've or should've been in the base game, and more often than not, the additional content doesn't justify the price. I don't like the way the Sims, in particular, has a new expansion every 6 months, whether the previous ones are riddled with bugs or not, and now they're throwing together some Christmas rubbish and trying to sell it to me for $20?

My feelings exactly.  I am still pissed because we're supposed to pay for this booster.  I feel that with all of the bugs, and the very long wait for a patch, this holiday pack should be downloadable for free to those of us who already have the base game.  Don't know if I'll ever get over being pissed off at EA for this.  Someone please say, "Laura, let it go!"

remember before nightlife alot of us were asking for realistic visits with other sims ie take your children/toddlers/babies with you ,walk to the neighbors house etc... the only thing we got was cars  and dates  I also remeber people asking for more interactions with children,toddlers and babies  ie mom sits down to feed the baby. and more items for children and toddlers  to do or play with

I agree.  I would go for more interactions with toddlers/children, more objects for those age groups, and is it to much to ask for children to interact with toddlers?  I would pay for a pack/expansion that added those things.  I will not purchase this holiday pack.

[Sagana]

Sure it plunges if you have dirty dishes laying around or an alarm clock going off, but in an otherwise clean home using cheap decor, environment doesn't suffer THAT badly.

I suppose I'm a little power-gameish. The higher the score is to start with, the longer it takes to go down when they go to work/school, and the easier time (yeah, outside is more important, but if it starts all the way up, it helps). Also I'm sometimes replacing Maxis or custom walls/floors and I don't like to go cheaper than what was there already. I have some in my download files that don't cost anything... they're handy for building, but... Oh and I can't stand bugs in RL so it's very unlikely there's going to be a house with greenstuff and buzzing noises anywhere in my game. Any yes, I have that exact bed, and it irritates me too - and there's not even a way more expensive one as good

You wouldn't happen to be talking about this "little" outfit would you?

ROFLMAO

[Regina]

Woah!  I was thinking I might be in the minority when it comes to hating those clothing styles.  I guess not!

And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't like all my walls and floors costing $1.  I like my sims to have something they can look forward to as they earn more money.  In TS1 I was always re-pricing the walls and floors I downloaded using WallCat.  I'd do the same thing with my TS2 walls and floors I've downloaded if only HomeCrafter would work with TS2/NL without Uni.  Of course never mind the fact that HomeCrafter is so stupid that 'edit' doesn't edit the file but actually deletes it and creates a completely new one.

I think the in-game styles is what spurns a lot of people who maybe otherwise wouldn't into making their own clothes.  I know it did me.  If the game included styles I like I'd never take the time to do it.  I've been lucky to find a few websites with awesome elder clothing and make some of my own.  I don't generally visit sites that stick to women's fashions.  There's already too many of those available.  My game uses every life stage, not just adults.

I wonder if maybe part of the reason they go for the slut look in so many of those clothes is because that in reality sex sells.

Oh, I noticed someone else said something about the hip-hugging jeans and short tops.  It's always amazed me in the past how many young women I've seen in town wearing styles like this that are constantly trying to pull down their shirts as they walk down the store aisles.  I keep thinking, 'you know, if you don't really feel comfortable in those clothes then get some gumption and say phooey to the fashion industry and wear what does feel comfortable!'

I'm a sweats and t-shirt kinda person myself.  In fact, I spent some time a few days ago re-vamping that 'slob' jammie set that came with NL so I can make a half-dozen or so re-colors for those days when my sims just don't feel like dressing up.  Of course they're all getting categorized for everyday wear, sleepwear and activewear, so it tends to look like they're sleeping in the same clothes they wore all day! LOL

Yesterday I made re-colors of the one male adult shirt that does come down over pants.  My problem with the originals is that stripe across the chest, just not my taste, so I made something like four or five of those.  I call them 'my hubby's favorite shirts' because that's what he always wears.  Then I took and re-colored the plain light-green guy sweater a few times, too.  When it's chilly you'd never catch hubby without a sweater.

Oh!  And is it just me or does something look very wrong when a shirttail hangs down below a coat or jacket?  Maybe it's just my old-fashioned thinking, but guys dressed like this look like they didn't finish dressing! 

[Motoki]

The $1 floors and walls annoys the hell out of me. As do ballgowns in the swimwear category and swimsuits in formal.  I really don't care for it when custom furniture is dirt cheap and more effecient than the most expensive Maxis stuff either. Like some bed that costs 100 simoleans and does 8 energy, 8 comfort and 8 environment. 

If I want to cheat, there's motherlode and the multipainting and a slew of other things I can do to cheat, I really don't need to cheat with my buy or build mode stuff and no I don't think it's an advantage to have custom outfits available in all categories. 

I agree about the elders being neglected and their pajamas being non-existant. Recently I just went through all my custom clothes with the SimPE file scanner and set all my adult stuff to be available for elders too. It does give them the adult body when they are wearing them but I can't stand that elder body anyway so that's a good thing in my book and now they have a whole lot more choices.

[AllenABQ]

Recently I just went through all my custom clothes with the SimPE file scanner and set all my adult stuff to be available for elders too. It does give them the adult body then they are wearing them but I can't stand that elder body anyway so that's a good thing in my book and now they have a whole lot more choices.

How do you do this? Or if you don't want to explain it in this thread can you point to a link that explains the process?

[Bangelnuts]

Recently I just went through all my custom clothes with the SimPE file scanner and set all my adult stuff to be available for elders too. It does give them the adult body then they are wearing them but I can't stand that elder body anyway so that's a good thing in my book and now they have a whole lot more choices.

How do you do this? Or if you don't want to explain it in this thread can you point to a link that explains the process?

I was wondering the same thing

[Motoki]

Open SimPE, go to Tools, then Scan Folders. It should bring up the folder scanner window. In the bottom left, uncheck all the boxes except the clothing scanner. Then go to the top and either hit scan if all your clothes are in your downloads folder, or grab the drop down and browse to whichever directory you have your clothes in. If you have a lot files, it helps to move all your clothes in a subdirectory and just scan that otherwise SimPE will have to sift through ALL your files to find the clothes.

Depending upon how many files you have, it could take a while to scan. When it's done, the clothes should appear in a list. You can hit the button near the top that says "Ages" to sort by age and then find clothes with "Adult", "YoungAdult or Adult", "YoungAdult". You can make the clothes from teens or kids for elders too but it won't fit so just stick with adults and young adults.

Now again down in the lower left there will be several tabs above a box. Switch to the Operations tab. Now highlight the outfit you want to change in the large box with the list of clothing above and then go the small box down below and scroll down until you get to the "Clothing Scanner" section. Check off Elder in addition to Adult. You can also check off YoungAdult too if it isn't already checked off. Then hit set. The check you just did in the elder box will dissappear, but it did actually take effect and if you rescan again you should now see the Elder category listed for that outfit and the Elder box checked.

The thing is, this scanner just shows you a thumbnail of the outfits texture and the internal name of the outfit. In many cases you may not be able to easily tell which outfit is which. I just made everything I had that was Adult or Young Adult into Adult, Elder and Young Adult combined. This can be very tedious and time consuming though as you have to set each outfit one at a time and if you have tons of clothes you could be clicking hundreds of times.

Sorry if this sounds confusing, It's really not so bad once you get used to it, but SimPE has never really been known for its user friendliness.   I don't know of any really indepth tutorials showing how to do this with pictures but if I find any I'll post them.

*Edit: I remembered an old tutorial that had more manual way of doing this

http://www5.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=52437

In addition to the outfit codes she gives, outfits for both Adults and Elders is 0x00000018 while the code for making an oufit available for Adults, Elders and Young Adults is 0x00000058

This method will work but is even more manually intensive than the method I posted above when working with a lot of files because it requires opening each clothing article's package file individually.

Oh and just read the first post in that thread. You can skip the other 5 pages of brain dead chatter unless you feel like some retardo land style amusment.

*edit again: If this is all too much (and it sounds far worse than it is) you can be on the lookout for Elder outfits made by DGandy at TSR. She's got a number of them that were made this way with the Maxis Adult body clothes but set in SimPE for Elders and there's usually at least a couple of them in rotation at any given time.

[idtaminger]

I'm sorry, but I am sick to death of 99.99999999% of custom pants hanging all the way down off a sims ass (and thereby not lining up with a good portion of shirts available). And this do this for mean as well as women. I'm not 15, I know what a belt is and I know how to use it.  Sorry, all those low riders is just a pet peeve of mine.

High waists are back, you know. So what w/ Maxis' fascination w/ trends (bad in a game, which isn't as temporal as fashion - just look at the Uggs! they went out of fashion ages ago, but they're still stuck in the darn game), maybe you'll get your high waists after all.

[Zeljka]

Agree with everyone here. I would pay for:
New:

animations and interactions, particularly for kids, toddlers and babies as they seem pretty useless now
things to do, for all age groups
wants, aspirations,
aspiration rewards... my born in game Sims end up as Elders with upwards of 2-300 thousand aspiration points, but there's nothing special to do with them. There should be some hugely expensive items in there to make such a life worth it.
careers,
Anything for men, or should I say everything? And for males of all age groups. Preferably tasteful.

Reactions.
So parents can approve or disapprove when their child plays in the toilet, jumps on the bed, belches into the podium, or is caught making out with the town romeo... How about a lecture, ground, punish (go scrub the toilets or something) or something.
And why is it that when my sim caught his wife making out with another, the other just waved at him innocently while he slapped his wife senseless?
He should have either defended her, or slinked out (like the teen sneaking in at 4am) and known the guy thought less of him.
Instead, the cheated on gave his wife the boot and then spun a bunch of wants to be with her...

Also, in a home of 3 married couples, two of the wives 'got together'. Why did SimA'a husband get so offended when he caught his wife's 'fun friend' hugging her husband? "How dare you cheat on my wife with your husband?" this just shouldn't happen.

(again, your teen sweetie, or decades old conquest should not object to your affection with the spouse)

[Brynne]

I had to have Justin break up with his teen-aged girlfriend just the other day. He gave her the old "It's not you, it's me" speech. "I've grown up and had 5 kids and you...haven't. I've been married and divorced and you...haven't. I can have sex without a special mod and you...can't. It's over. But my son would love to meet you!"

[smcnic]

Not particularly on topic, but can some of the professed hair collectors recommend a few good sites?  A fair percentage of the custom jobs I've seen have been more repulsive than the Maxis 'dos (and that says a lot, as I'm convinced many of the Maxis hairstyles were taken from bad French runway models).  Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Zeljka]

Not particularly on topic, but can some of the professed hair collectors recommend a few good sites?  A fair percentage of the custom jobs I've seen have been more repulsive than the Maxis 'dos (and that says a lot, as I'm convinced many of the Maxis hairstyles were taken from bad French runway models).  Any suggestions are appreciated.

check the where do you get your custom content thread, most of the best 'hair' sites I know of are listed there

[Brynne]

One I can think of off the top of my head (no pun intended) is anything by Neptune Suzy at TSR. She has the most beautiful hair recolors. And Dr. Pixel.

[Lynda]

How about a lecture, ground, punish (go scrub the toilets or something) or something.

Ooooh.  There's an idea.  Perhaps if a child makes his parent/elder furious, the parent would then have the option to punish/ground the child and they're unable to go to any community lot for a certain amount of time and the parent gets certain influences for free (cleaning, serving meals, gardening and the like) similar to how it works with greek house pledges.

[Kyna]

Taking this thread in another direction - what I'd like to see is a utility that will grab my Sims family trees and print them.  Perhaps an add-on like bodyshop or homecrafter.

Oh and yeah - a middle-aged lifespan would be great.  If they ever did a demographic poll of their users -  i.e. if they asked how long have you been simming & combined that with asking age of player, I think they'd find that the majority of their long-term, loyal customers are older than the average BBS user.  This is a significant section of their market they could be catering to.

Also more stuff for men.  And elders.  And a pack that enabled LTW for the Uni careers (as well as some new careers).  In my larger neighbourhoods I restrict my sims to 1 child, or 2 in rare circumstances - so many of the family LTWs are just not achievable.  More career LTW for Family sims would be nice, my neighbourhoods tend to be overrun with Captain Heroes.

I use TJ's college adjuster to randomly select aspirations for my sims.  It adds interest to the game if I don't select aspirations suited to the sim's personality.  An in-game ability to select a 'random' aspiration at teen trans and at the end of sophomore year at uni would be neat - then again, given how the in-game randomiser works for personalities, maybe I'll stick with the college adjuster.

[Zeljka]

I use TJ's college adjuster to randomly select aspirations for my sims.  It adds interest to the game if I don't select aspirations suited to the sim's personality.  An in-game ability to select a 'random' aspiration at teen trans and at the end of sophomore year at uni would be neat - then again, given how the in-game randomiser works for personalities, maybe I'll stick with the college adjuster.

I got bored of choosing perfect aspirations a while back, so I just roll dice for all my Sims. The only time I'll re-roll is if they get Popularity - blech. I imagine I'll have a lot of grill cheese sims once I install Nightlife. Anything for variety.

[idtaminger]

I use TJ's college adjuster to randomly select aspirations for my sims.  It adds interest to the game if I don't select aspirations suited to the sim's personality.  An in-game ability to select a 'random' aspiration at teen trans and at the end of sophomore year at uni would be neat - then again, given how the in-game randomiser works for personalities, maybe I'll stick with the college adjuster.

That actually sounds interesting. By TJ I assume you mean twojeffs?

But I think there just aint enough aspirations out there. There are only 5 distinct aspirations, w/ pleasure being just a mish-mash of 2 of the 5, and 5 asps spread out among 100s of sims, even if it were an even distribution, means dozens of sims w/ the same exact asp. So its kind of hard to have variety w/ that.