Object Crafting: Do we really have the time?

[angelyne]

At any rate, if any of you REALLY want to cheat, Monique has a buyable servo over at MTS2. I'm passing on it though. It just feels a little too cheatish for me. I'd rather just set up stores from my sims who can make them and have the others who can't go there.

I like the way you think  Motoki!.  I do use her computer though, even though it drives me bonkers because of a bug that randomly speeds up my sims.  (even if they don't use the computer.  Just having it in the house is enough).  I used it to get the startup cash necessary to start a business.  This is a kind of reverse cheat.  It's making the game harder

One thing that hasn't been mentionned in the thread is you could hire a employee with the badge you need.  While browsing for employees yesterday, I saw one with a gold badge in robotics.  Should have hired him, then I'd have a robot cashier.  My teenaged daughter has gone off to college and I had the shopkeeper's totally unskillled husband fill in for her.  Ouch.  Lost lots of customer loyalty that day.

[Marvelleaux]

One thing that hasn't been mentionned in the thread is you could hire a employee with the badge you need.  While browsing for employees yesterday, I saw one with a gold badge in robotics.  Should have hired him, then I'd have a robot cashier.  My teenaged daughter has gone off to college and I had the shopkeeper's totally unskillled husband fill in for her.  Ouch.  Lost lots of customer loyalty that day.

That's what I've started doing, hiring towines to do the tedious work really fast that does not require socialization of other sims.  The first business I've built is both profitable and popular.  It's an art gallery filled with costum art made by Darren Dreamer (I had him working his butt off in "still-life" and "portrait" heaven before OFB came out and kept finished pieces in inventory) and it is run by Darren Dreamer and his wife (forget her name).  Darren is all about sales and his wife socializes people.  His hired help inlclude Dirk (who is a supburb salesman), Meadow Thayer who alternatly tidy's up and restocks some of the really expensive purchased art, and Brandon Lillard on cash machine.  I think I could do better than Brandon though, I hired the townies at the same time because I didn't realize that sims available-for-hire changes on a day-to-day basis.  I'm gonna keep checking the want adds and get some more appealing crew 

So, does JM actually have OFB or did I just have a super-realistic dream??

[PlayLives]

I'm pondering making it so playable sims won't show up as customers to stores

Yes, please do this. I don't want my sims buying useless things or getting messed over by the incompetent beauticians at the salon in Bluewater. I sent one of my sims there and the chopped her hair into a mess. I wanted to send her to another playable sim's salon but I can't do that.

[Motoki]

Marvelleaux: You probably already know this but you can also hire sims in person. You do need to have a bit of a relationship with them (at least 20 daily IIRC) and you'll get a chance to see what badges they have before you make the final decision whether or not to hire them so if they don't have any badges you want you can change your mind and cancel out of hiring them without penalty.

It is a bit tedious to do this, but if you have relationships with most of your customers and need a worker with a certain skill it may be faster than waiting days for the right employee to show up over the phone.

[angelyne]

So, does JM actually have OFB or did I just have a super-realistic dream??

Well if he doesn't have OFB he's having a incredibly super-realistic dream, because he's been talking about OFB quite a great deal.  So unless he finally snapped, I'd bet my copy of OFB that he has the expansion

[ZephyrZodiac]

Dang it, that's yet another option I just don't get, even when the relationship is 100/100!

[sanmonroe]

So, does JM actually have OFB or did I just have a super-realistic dream??

I would guess he is, um... "previewing" the game using the power of teh intewebs and pirates.

[angelyne]

Dang it, that's yet another option I just don't get, even when the relationship is 100/100!

ZZ I am highly doubtful that you could be missing a bunch of options.  My bet is that a) either you are  looking in the wrong place, or b) you have hacks that conflict.  Have you tried running the game in a totally hack free environement?  And if you did, have you tried creating a new The Sims 2 set of folders as a test to be 100% sure that's it's not some hack hiding somewhere?

[Marvelleaux]

I would guess he is, um... "previewing" the game using the power of teh intewebs and pirates.
[/quote]

Oh yeah 


Motoki:  yes, I've hired in person before but I must have done it before I knew you could see what talent badges a sim has.  I've been "hiring by phone" because I could see them there.  Thanks for the reminder!

[ZephyrZodiac]

Dang it, that's yet another option I just don't get, even when the relationship is 100/100!

ZZ I am highly doubtful that you could be missing a bunch of options.  My bet is that a) either you are  looking in the wrong place, or b) you have hacks that conflict.  Have you tried running the game in a totally hack free environement?  And if you did, have you tried creating a new The Sims 2 set of folders as a test to be 100% sure that's it's not some hack hiding somewhere?

Well, it may be a hack conflict, although I've been careful.  However, I had the same problem when I first installed Uni (and no hacks at all then) as I couldn't get the college options to appear - so I'm not convinced it's a hack, just as likely a faulty install.