More Awesome Than You!

I'm contemplating getting Apartment Life, but a bit concerned about the witch familiars. I don't have Pets installed as part of my expansion set up (and would really rather not, the constant barking at night is only one of the things that drives me mad).

Would this cause problems with the witch familiars? Or is everything needed to get those included in AL?

According to EAxis specification, you'll have familiars only if Pets is installed, otherwise no familiars at all. So, no issues, apart of the usual EAxis' potential borkitude, I mean.

Oh thanks, that really put me at ease ;)

My sims dogs don't bark at night, plus you can teach them not to howl etc.  One of the things I do hate about Pets though, is that the speed won't automatically switch to Fast when the sims are in bed.  The animals have to be asleep too.

I've got to quite like the pet noise around the 'hood. It's better than the music anyway.

Pet noise adds verisimilitude.  Reminds me of where I lived when I was a 12; there were always dogs barking at night there too, and the occasional time-challenged rooster crowing at 3:30am.  No roosters crowing in TS2, it seems.

Heck, there are always dogs barking at night where I live in the middle of the city. Just as much as in the Sims. I live in a very dog-friendly subhood...even some of the midrises allow dogs. Of course, my simmies don't have to deal with hearing ambulances (I live by a bunch of nursing homes/55+ homes) and public transportation at all hours. Brats.

Almost any sort of noise or light will keep me from falling asleep at night. My first apartment was right behind a row of houses, and every house owner had at least one dog. These dogs would bark constantly all night long, which wasn't too bad during the summer/winter when I kept my windows closed. However, this apartment complex had the type of heating/cooling system that required being shutdown and switched over from heating to cooling and vice versa.

They would normally shut the A/C off about mid-September and turn the heat on in late-October. Then they'd turn off the heat in mid-May and the A/C on in mid-June. So for about three months out of the year I had to keep my windows open at night, and most nights I wouldn't be able to fall asleep until after two am because of the damn dogs.

I was so happy when I moved into my next apartment. Not only did they not shut down the heating system for the entire complex twice a year, but I was no where near barking dogs!

I really don't have any trouble sleeping with noise outside. Grew up near the airport, then moved across town to a house about a block from the train tracks. Trains also nearby during boarding school and Uni. Now I live in a packed city in an area that has ambulances, taxis and buses zooming by all night. If I don't have background noise, it's nearly impossible to fall asleep. Lights on or off doesn't fuss me either way.

The aircon in our flat is strictly window units, and our building has no heating at all. Not that we'd need it more than, say, a month out of the year, but some of those nights get fricking freezing, if only because the cinderblock/concrete walls are fiendishly efficient at trapping the cold air, somehow managing to make it actually colder inside than out.

I usually praise the cats for yowling and running around crazily in a catnip induced frenzy. Hey, it makes me laff...

Don't like that music and TV wake up the pets though...it offers up the dilemma of do I unlock the bedroom doors to critters who's deepest desire is to make kindling of my expensive beds, or worse yet..give the dagblamed varmints their own room :o

I don't see why people consider it BAD to not be able to sleep. If you can't sleep, isn't that a GOOD thing?

I love to sleep. When I am left alone, I can sleep 12 hours easily.

I like how the cats go into a psychotic depression if you don't replace their catnip...lol

Ability vs. Need. Not needing to sleep? Fantastic. But being knackered and unable to achieve needed rest leaves one less alert and therefore more vulnerable to ninja attack. Which is a bad thing.

My hometown has a lot of railroads running through it. The house I grew up in was literally 'on the wrong side of the tracks', it was impossible to go to town without crossing the tracks at least once. I can deal with trains, cars, and ambulances. There's something about dogs barking, tv, radio, and snoring that makes it difficult for me to tune out. I discovered earplugs after finding out how bad my husband snores, and now I can't sleep without them.


I would love to be one of those people that only need a few hours of sleep a night. Sadly, if left to my own devices I can usually sleep for 10-12 hours at a time and be sleepy again 10-12 hours after I wake up.

Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. So if you start sleeping, you'll end up wanting to stay that way. So don't go to sleep.

I am one of those people needing only 2-3 hours of sleep a day. It's not always good, as the whole world lives on schedule. Then you are awakened when the rest of the world is at rest and it is an obstacle to family life because at home you must be careful not to make any noise, and can't go outside because you are not supposed to be running on the streets at 2 AM. Staying at home reading books, watching movies with a headphone or playing games on the computer everyday is boring if you don't do it because you want to but only because you have to waste time until morning.
And it is even worse when you are on vacation with friends. When they go to sleep you stay alone with absolutely nothing to do and the night is very long. I lost count of the uninteresting novels I've read and the stupid movies I've watched in my life.

That's why you stop associating with pathetic meatbags and hang out on the Internets instead. You can always tap some other country's primetime hours.

Exactly.  :D
By the way, this is how I learned the little english I know.

Yeah. That should have been added in Seasons.   :D