More Awesome Than You!

Once again I ran into why I don't like parties in TS2.  My Sim threw a wedding party, and initially it went badly.  Ex-wife and new fiancee got into a slapping fest and the party quickly reached "real dud."  I managed to salvage that by luring both of them into a Kicky Bag game with my Sim, which meant that they started gaining relationship points with each other, and pretty soon it was up to "not bad."  I then ran the wedding... and when the animation was over, the party status was "disaster."

Based on what?  I don't think anyone left, there was food out, entertainment, and no fighting over the bathroom.  So what happened?  There's no way to know.

 - Gus

Parties are scored by the amount of relationship points gained.  I have had roof-raisers with little to no entertaining objects, just having the sims do relationship-building activities, especially the higher level ones if they are available.  If you are having a wedding or birthday party, and the event does not occur within a certain period of time, like if the timer is about an hour away from expiring, the party controller will drop the score way down.  If you can't get it back up before the timer runs out, then you're stuck with that rating.  I alway save right before my parties because I've had problems in the past with stuck parties and such.  So just like with the headmaster, I save right before I have my sims send out the invites.

If a wedding party does not have a wedding fairly early, approximately slightly before the final hour, the scoremeter will dive to "disaster" for having a wedding party with no wedding.

This is purely cosmetic, however: If you complete the required wedding scenario in time (give time for the gathering and cutscene, don't cut it too close!"), and note that at least one arch-wedding may be a requirement, the party will reclaim its score.

The same applies to Birthday Parties (requires at least one cake, although everyone will get credit as long as at least one cake was used by somebody).

Yeah, I recently had a "Disaster" birthday party because it was too close to 6 pm so the kid transitioned without the cake. I've learned to get the special event out of the way first. 

This doesn't effect the score, but I never put out champagne before the couple gets married anymore. Everyone gets way too busy toasting the bride and groom to notice the ceremony taking place.

I have a rule about parties: they have to be started not before 1 PM, and this - after checking that all the appliances work right, the bathrooms are clean, the trash was taken out, and the bills are payed.

After 1 PM you have more possibilities to run into a "disaster" party, because if you start at 1 PM sim time, the party is over after 6 PM (5 sims hours), and at 6 PM the kids have to go home (Night Life).

Second - you MAY NOT invite to your party RIVALS of any kind, certainly not ex-wife or ex-husband, or some lover of yours or your spouse. Any expression of hostility in your party decreases the rate points.

As Rainbow said, parties are scored by the amount of the relationship points. For instance - if some townie passes by, you have to send your sim to greet him, and try to befriend them - mostly by telling jokes (joke, joke,joke); don't try to chat, because you don't know if they have mutual interests. This action adds a lot of points to your party. I never let any townie that passes by to continue his way out.

Third, do you know that in Night Life you get more aspiration and influence points when you DON'T throw a wedding party (8000/5000), than when you throw a wedding party (5000/2500)?
This way you are leaded by the simulator NOT to throw so many parties - and that is a relief...:).

 

Actaully, the kids and teens don't go home 'til the parties over if they're invited with the 'throw party' function.

I always have wedding parties for my sims whether they want them or not because *I* want them.  The autosocializer is great for parties.  I'll pick two sims that either aren't friends yet or have a low relationship and set them on Macro Socialize.   Then I use Macro Socialize friends for the others, usually the one who threw the party, because they invited all their family and closest friends.  As JM has mentioned before, having high dance skill so your sims can use "Bust A Move" is a great help for making friends because you get about 8 points STR per interaction.  While I set up some sims doing this, I can pay more attention to other guests, taking pictures, setting up poses, fulfilling wants, etc.  I try to get the main event out of the way as soon as possible.  I also use the Mind Control Mirror to make sure all of the guests are queued to "Watch" the wedding, not punching each other, playing the piano, etc.  At the end of the wedding, I try to make sure the bride and groom are not busy and they have a free path to the road because if their path is blocked, they won't get into the limo. 

In the case of birthday parties, I have had the experience of the party ending in a disaster because I didn't send the sim to the cake fast enough and they transitioned when the clock hit 6 pm.  Even though I had them set up to blow out the candles at 5:30, they stood there waiting while everyone took their time wandering over to watch, and it was too late.  So if I am going to throw a birthday party that will go past 6 pm, I will add a day to their age so they won't grow up too soon.  I have to wait until after 6 pm then for the blow out candles action to become available, but I don't mind that.  I always like to wait until everyone comes home from school and work if they are working that day.

My parties always turn Disaster right after the wedding/birthday, and then after a few seconds go up to Roof Raiser or whatever. The weird thing is, I've never had one turn Disaster before the event, always immediately after. Maybe I just have great timing...

Luckily, my Sims never ask for birthday parties and haven't done since I had the base game (I think they did then, but I'm not sure).  I hate parties in real life, so I avoid them in the game as much as possible.  The only Sims I have asking for parties are YA's (asking for anything but graduation parties, they never ask for those) and elders who want birthday parties after they've aged (unfortunately, JM's mod for this doesn't work anymore, at least not for me).  I do hold a few wedding parties and I've finally got the hang of what makes them work, although it helps NOT to have the bride die of 'flu under the wedding arch ... (that one was still a roof-raiser, though, on account of how she dropped dead a split second after the box came up).

We can throw birthday parties before 6pm?? I never knew that, how do I do it? I only get the option to throw a birthday party at 6, any earlier and it's only Sport or House parties.

Hosting birthday parties for babies is still kind of tricky for me. Did one just yesterday, exited without saving because the baby wouldn't do the age transitioning (checked with the mind control mirror and of course, bladder so low it was about to soil the nappy), there was only about an hour left on the timer (baby was sleeping before that) with everybody cheering for the past 30min or so and 'Good time' plummeted to 'Disaster'. I'm still figuring out how to use the 'eye in the sky' to good effect :-\.

You can throw a party before 6 pm if it's the day they are going to transition.  They will show 1 day left, and at 6 pm, they will age a day, showing 0 days.  That's when it gets tricky.  Sometimes I just procrastinate too long throwing the party, and I'll slip in there and add another day and have them throw the party at 6 pm.

I usually don't bother with birthday parties for babies.  If their parents keep having trouble growing them up, or if I just want to go ahead and grow them up early, I use the baby controller to Grow up Baby.

Hmm, I'll make sure to check more often when it's the day they are to grow up, I have another baby in another family. I bother with parties for babies because I figured, well, sims only grow up that many times, and any old enough to aquire any skills are usually busy doing just that - they can party when they go to college, or they've secured every available scholarships, whichever comes first :P.

I used the Grow up baby option in the eye in the sky once, but I had to cancel out the cake icon with the 'Birthday!' queue first, and the party score still never recovered. I thought maybe it doesn't count if they didn't grow up with the cake?

No, growing up with the controller or any other method other than the cake doesn't count for scoring the party.

I don't do birthday parties anymore--they just got too much to keep up with.

I threw one hum-dinger of a wedding this evening, though!  The bride's whole family was there, including their spouses and most potential spouses (I did forget one!).

Hmmm.  I'm trying to remember now.  There was Rob, Regina, George, LeAnn, James (forgot James' girlfriend), Wally and his ex-vampire girlfriend, Countess Jan (have to remember to change her name!), Cara-Berri, and Cassie!  Oh yeah!  A neighbor guy came by the house to greet them so he joined in on the fun, too.  Anyone hungry age omelettes and mainly they all sat or stood around socializing.

I don't understand your reasoning.  How can you get aspiration points for NOT fulfilling a want?  That makes no sense.

In this particular case, my Sim had both "Marry Janey" and "Throw Wedding Party" locked.  As an aside, I do rather like the "get engaged to X" and "get married to X" wants vice the generic "get married" want; it makes the desire personal.

 - Gus

If you lock them onto the cake shortly before 1800, they will transition via cake just fine since the cake will not be aborted for the regular age transition. This can be tricky and it is advised that you save before attempting this, but I always do this when I decide to have a party to keep the day.

I had a odd situtation. Don't know which of my hacks are causing this ( not that I care  ::))

Whether the party is a good or bad one, the sims always register the party as a roaring sucess and they will be happy for the rest of the day. I am happy to have sims who are delusional  :D

Everything above "Snoozer" is great. Some parties may visibly display as "disaster" due to some required condition not being met until the very last moment, after which the display is not quick enough to reupdate so the party ends looking like a disaster, but isn't.

I always thought that everything below "good time" is considered a bad party. That used to happen to me but it didn't happen anymore.
 
Now everything is "have a great party" even if its below Snoozer. But I will try  to have a bad party again and see if it happens.

Rainbow, do you know if a Sim on the phone, relationship-building with another sim, counts toward the party score? I had a sim befriending someone this way during my last party the whole time, and I was wondering if the autoyakking was helping with the score.

Yes. Yes it does.

I wasn't sure about that.  I had wondered about it once or twice but never tried it to see.  Thanks for answering that question for us, JM. ;D

Other scenarios may also be affected by off-lot conversers: For instance, the Greek house scenario, if one of the Greek house members is on the phone, will instantly end and possibly be uncompleteable if you hang up the phone, disintegrating the off-lot Greek house member, which the scenario interprets as one of the members leaving.

I also find that lots of toasts helps the score - as long as you have plenty of bathrooms!

Very important comment, ZZ!

each party I put 5-6 stalls outside + the bathrooms I have, and none of the sims get accidents. This adds very much to the success of the party.

Just have to watch those neat sims, or they'll dispose of the bottle before the toasts are all done -plus you can't sell it back then!

Be careful who you invite, I suggest three neutral guests.
Do the cake/wedding thing early.
Use the aspiration eyeglasses to boost a few relationships.
Have food, but don't worry too much about it.  A gelatin dessert will do fine.
Send any bad apples home, you can invite another over to compensate.
Keep the traffic in the bathrooms flowing, I suggest using arches instead of doors.
Keep it social with a hot tub.

Avoid:  fights, ghost scares, bladder failures, rejected interactions, host going to bed during party

My most successful weddings have always been when the guests were either close friends or family members.  (And well known to everyone in the house, except maybe kids!)

Yea, same here. I only usually invite family and best friends to parties. This works well, as everyone gets on well, and there are usually no fights or bad things happening to decrease the party score.

I find I usually have to make sure my Sim's hygiene is maxed because if it's down to the halfway mark, they make a beeline for the showers/tubs in the midst of a party. Ignoring guests for a soak in the bubble bath is apparently not considered bad etiquette. 

I've noticed recently that more guests are doing it - especially at Uni!

That's why the hot tub is a hit.  Nobody likes stinky guests anyway.

Yes, but this is in spite of the hot tub!  I must admit, it's after I've had my sims smustle to get the party going!

I usually make sure my sims' hygiene is full before a graduation or wedding party because I hate it when they go take a shower and change back into their every day clothes and I want them still in their graduation/wedding gown.

Well, at least if they are in their ordinary clothes when they graduate, they don't wear that awful suit!

What awful suit?

Oh, I've had loads graduate and wear a really horrible suit, although since NL they seem to get more NL stuff!

But there again - Georgia has just moved into a ramshackle cabin on the outskirts of town, and she was wearing the NL gown with the sleeves and the big skirt!  Looked so out of place!

It doesn't matter if they are wearing the graduation gown or their regular clothes when they graduate, because they still get random adult clothes.  I have seen all kinds of stuff, from not bad to absolutely horrendous.  Luckily I have JM's clothing mod global that kicks in so I can get them some decent clothes before they head home.  I have Motoki's elder clothing mod with the NPC clothes, and one girl got the maid's uniform, and another time a guy got the Santa Claus suit!  I may take the NPC mod out since it's really for people who do recolors of them. 

I've had a few interesting parties lately.  I had a vampire throw a wedding party, and his enemy Joe Carr shows up uninvited.  I've seen this a few other times as well.  Only seems to happen when sims are furious with each other. 

Anyway, I made the vampire "Bleh!!!" and Joe and he wet his pants.  Then for a while everyone kept gossiping about Joe having an accident at a party.  Fun times.

Back to the drawing board again for me obviously.... 
I've never managed to recover a party that nosedived for this reason!  I thought it was actually designed to be impossible and I've given up even trying. 
I've also had a birthday party for twins that bombed - I thought one cake wasn't enough.  I don't try that any more
I've also had people leave and fall asleep at a party that was still a roof raiser or good time. 
Of course I'm playing base game only so maybe the rules are different.  There are certainly fewer interactions to try.  I'll have to relearn it all with OFB I guess.

Leaving, people falling asleep, people pissing themselves, none of these affect the party score.

Only the following things will kill your party score:
1. Failing to have the required event within the early portion of the party: Instant disaster (may invisibly recover if required event still manages to occur within time, but the ticker won't update fast enough to show).
2. Everyone leaves. Party immediately tanks. One person leaving won't do this, but if everyone leaves, you lose
3. Massive --relations (-rel is a penalty to the party score).

And if you WANT your party to bomb out, try capturing a passing townie and sticking him in the roof-space or the basement!

"2. Everyone leaves. Party immediately tanks. One person leaving won't do this, but if everyone leaves, you lose"  [JMP]

I had once this experience, at the Grunt house.

As Tank and Buzz are popularity sims, they always wanted a party, when they didn't know what to wish. I decided to throw a party by Tank, without any cause - just a party.

I had all the equipment written in the manual, but it didn't help, and suddenly all the guests left. I got a "disaster" rate, and had to exit without saving. From then on, I threw parties only if I had a good cause, such as wedding, or age transition.

Ah, I see...Tank's party tanked eh?

Tank has a problem with friends!  Ripp is more popular, maybe you should have let him throw the party!

ZZ, when I decided to throw a party by Tank, he had already 15 Family Friends (it was in the Basic TS2, without the EPs). I befriended even Tank and Johnny, who were enemies. Besides, Tank wanted to throw the party, to get aspiration points - Ripp wanted only to flirt and make out (romance sim) - wasn't interested in parties.

DrBeast, I like your observation, lol - "Tank's party tanked"...:). For my great frustration it did...:).

Well, maybe if Dad was around, that would account for the problem!  He's definitely a party pooper!

I've been wanting to say this ever since I saw your avatar gali:
Here in Greece, when someone/something is VERY cute, we say "you could drink him/her from the glass" (yah, I know it sounds pretty weird translated, but so do most regional sayings when translated to another language, right?). Ever heard it and taken it literally?  ;D

For your surprise, I have heared it - we were neighbours once, I am a Bulgarian, and the Bulgarians have the same slogan, word by word...:).

Another way to guarantee a truly bad party score is to have a family member die during the party. 

A couple of days ago, I had a Sim transitioning to elder.  I knew her husband was nearing the end, but had lost track of exactly what day he would die.  I threw a party, invited her whole extended family.  Just as she was blowing out her candles and becoming an elder, the Grim Reaper and his hula girls showed up. 

I guess that raises a question, you can't plead to save someone dieing of old age, can you?  Anyway, the party nosedived from Roof Raiser to Real Dud, and stayed there.

I actually really like throwing parties in the Sims, and do it often just for fun (and to satisfy their wants). I love watching them schmooze and smustle. Having a disaster party is just one of those things that occasionally happen, and personally I'd not exit the game for that reason alone, I think my Sims have their ups and downs and negative memories are just part of the spice of the Sims.

On the other hand my policy to always save, no matter what happens. And just a couple days ago, I lost an entire family that way (including my beloved Alexander Goth). I actually posted about it on the BBS here (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.23,item.43,root.1,item.61,item.41&threadID=83d66ef9e0cb9ee1d221e87ac546ed7c&directoryID=2&startRow=1#ad0b46cbfe77f6afbe60e669dc9c2515) (and got a number of sympathy benes.  ::) )   But the show must go on.

You can't, but you can resurrect him

Nope, death from old age is it, the end.  You can, as gali said, resurrect them later, if you have the means.

And of course, you can't have aging off during the party if you want your sim to transition naturally!  (But, if you'd known it was going to happen, you could have used the cheat to make him an adult again!)

Or drink some Elixir, but you did say you had lost track of how old he was...so I'm sure you already know these things. :)

He was a former master vampire, and I was really tired of seeing him walk around all the time with his arm in front of his face.  I wasn't sorry to lose him.  But the timing could have been better.

If he wasn't at least in gold, though, you'd only hasten the end!  So maybe you should have got him to drink the stuff BEFORE the party!  (Then it could have been a Wake!)

Well, the problem is that age transitions happen at 6 pm, and so any sim scheduled to die will do so during the party if you are having one for another sim who is also transitioning on the same day.  You can delay the transition only if you are paying attention and cancel the age transition icon from their queue before they actually start to transition.

Unfortuanately, he was perma-platinum.  I changed him to be a fortune Sim after curing his vampirism, and his lifetime want was to earn $100,000.  Thanks to 2 chance cards he managed to hit that goal on the day he transitioned to elder.  Even by that time I was hoping he'd transition in green or red to keep his life as short as possible.  On the plus side, I'd been trying out TwoJeffs age duration hack at the time, so even transitioning in platinum he only lived another 10 days or so.

The Debugger has an option to Toggle the LTW Bit, which means if your sim is platinum, you can just make them green again.  (And vice versa).

I have been puzzling over this...does "Greek house scenario" refer to getting/hazing pledges?

Yes, the new applicant has to serve a period when the frat members can get him to cook and clean and do their assignments etc. without having to pay influence points, at the end of which he/she becomes a full member and can move in.

If the applicant applies to join, from another house, it works differently.

Ah, thank you. I wondered if there was something I was missing, like the party/headmaster mini-games, which are often referred to as scenarios.

The scenario refers more to your sim calling a Greek house from their dorm or regular residence and asking to join.  The frat/sorority members arrive and run around the place in togas and chat with the residents, play instruments, play pool, etc.  The scenario then begins where you have a window telling you what STR level you have to build with each member before they will let you join.  You have 5-6 hours to do this.  Make sure your sim either doesn't have class or doesn't leave to go to class during the scenario, because it will end.  Though you won't have to build up the relationships as much next time.  It does help if you've already built up a relationship with some of them, because that will save you time!  You usually need 25 with one member, 15 with another and 10 with two others, or something like that.  Once you achieve this, your sim is then a full-fledged Greek member.  He or she can then use the phone to "Move to Greek House."  They leave the lot and you should find them at the Greek house.  Only I haven't used this because I've heard of problems with it.  I usually have my sims in the Greek house invite them over and ask them to move in.  You can only ask Greek members to move into a Greek house. 

The other way is as ZZ describes, where you are on the Greek lot and one of the members asks another sim to pledge.  If the relationship is high enough, they accept, and after they spend enough time on your lot, they are accepted for membership.  During this time, you can use Influence to get them to do stuff like cleaning, writing term papers, etc. for free, meaning it doesn't cost your sim Influence points.  It's not necessary to do this, though.  You may have to invite the sim over again, until they spend enough time, I think it's like 16 hours or so, at which time you'll get a message saying that so-and-so has spent enough time at your house to qualify for full membership, you'll have to spend influence points in the future to get them to do stuff for you, and you may now invite them to move into your house. 

Can you tell I've spent too much time playing this game?? :D  I've done it both ways, it just depends on what mood I'm in.  The first method is shorter but takes a little more involvement.

Thanks Rainbow - you've got more energy than me - the first way takes so much explaining and I only mentioned it in passing! ;D  (By the way, did you see my little message to you in another thread about graduation parties going wrong?  You'd mentioned using the moveout staythings shrub, which you don't need in Uni and I did wonder if that might have somehow caused a glitch).

Yeah, I saw your message, but I can't swear I used the shrub.  I'm sure I did though because other times I've moved sims out of a house in Uni, all of their things were sold just like they are in the neighborhood.  The problem occurred before I moved them out, so I don't think that would be the problem.  In fact, I moved them out because of the problem, which was solved by moving them into another house, then back to the original.  I assumed that everything was still there as it was before due to Inge's shrub.

Strange, I've moved sims from greek houses en masse because the lot wouldn't load, I've graduated the last sim in a house, I've moved sims from a cheap house to a better one, and the stuff has never been sold.  And I have NL installed (though in my present game I haven't actually loaded Downtown yet) and as far as I remember, it's never affected how Uni operates in this respect.

I've only once or twice, before the Uni patch, had a problem with students not graduating properly, too, and that was solved then with TJ's mods, although I took them out after that and never had another problem!

Hehe, I'm indeed surprised! Oh, btw, your nick actually means "cat" in ancient greek. Coincidence too?

Lol, DrBeast, pure coincidence  :D

But, you have great imagination, as all the simmers do...:).

Eh? Imagination? Why, I'm not imagining things, I observe...I think! Tell me doctor, is it serious?! Will the green manalishi with the two-pronged crown get me?!?

Lol, DrBeast, it's not an illness to be imaginative - most inventors have it; without it we couldn't have the phone, and the washing machine, and the computers...:). I think the simmers are imaginative people too, observing the game, finding solutions for their observations, sharing their own inventions (as hacks and creations). You have an imagination - you have a dream to fulfill...:).

I am honoured to belong to this society...:).

Not to mention that imagination will take you a looooong way when you're dabbling with DNA!

Uh...did I say that? Nope, I didn't! You didn't hear that from me, nonono!

Now, where did that bloody 5-legged dog go this time...?