More Awesome Than You!

I don't have the game yet, might not be able to play for a bit, since computer is lacking an rather essential component : electricity.

So I'd like to hear what are your first impressions.  Are you liking it so far?

Half the world hasn't got it yet!  Don't be so isolationist! ;D

I figured if I didn't have it, I could at least hear about it :)

True!  But we have to get it before we can tell you about it!  And so far I haven't had an email from Amazon telling me it's on it's way, although they have informed me that some books I ordered a few days ago have been posted.

Well, I should have it by the time I get home.  I'm excited to play it, and I bet I'll be really tired at work tomorrow.  ;)

Will you even get to bed, I wonder?

Nope.  I already told my boss and co-worker that I will be tired tomorrow because I am staying up all night to play my new game.   ;D

It's starting to drive me insane, although I'm not sure if that's just because the Sims are acting stupid now I don't have any hacks making them behave. Step away from the baby, sir! Do not feed the baby! There are customers queueing and they are ANGRY NOW. Agh!

Best thing is the option to make the employees wear uniforms. I made some weird creations. ;D
Worst thing is that this addon needs more explanations than the addons before and the smallnual does not give them. >:(

Yeah the uniform thing will be nice.

I have quite a bit of updating to do. I have tons of houses/lots that were supposed to be businesses but couldn't be truly run as one.

My whorehouse and gay bath house especially.

I agree. I was so lost and my business suck. You can make them wear any custom clothings for uniforms. And I love that idea.
good for whatever business (sleazy or straight) you wanna run.
Oh, I love it that any custom objects can be placed in shops for selling but despite my "basic sell", haven't managed to sell a single cc yet... :P

I was actually (horror of horrors) contemplating the prima guide when I was lost playing the game earlier. but then I thought heck, i didn't have a godamn guide for doom3, gta and civ4...so no guide for me! :( I will figure it out by myself, volia.

but I won't mind if someone out ther got the guide and start typing from page 1 here  ;D

You can get a few pages from the BBS as a free sample download.

Efficacy trumps elitisim for me, so I've been prowling the BBS for the past few days. Folks on the BBS have pretty much typed out all pertinent information from the guide. Some very useful info there.

I'm not getting OFB until the phone hack gets updated.

I'm still not over the trauma of  being without it when NL came out.

It's going to be good to be reminded of what the game is without any hacks.  I've been playing with them so long, I've forgotten.  Nothing like loosing something to appreciate it.

I played for about an hour last night and it took me almost as long to try and get my head around how it all gels and comes together!
Not having hacks is going to suck I know but I spent most of my playing time getting the business and it's stock together for my sim and schmoozing the customers etc.

Choosing uniforms is pretty good as is the god-like power of 'lording it' over your employees.

I decided to let my sim buy a pre built lot and wow...they're all pretty pricey, so it really eats into family funds!! (not that it's a bad thing sometimes  ;D )

So all in all, I'm impressed so far and can't wait till quittin' time so I can go home and play some more!  :)

My first impression is so far, so good, although I'm aware that there's supposedly one killer bug out there (disappearing businesses!) that I hope Maxis will address ASAP. Game seems to run as smoothly or possibly even more smoothly than pre-EP.

So far all I've done is a home-based art business for an Elder sim who otherwise has little else to do. Actually it's a hoot. The fourth day of business she finally started selling more when she added easels to the mix. Customers were lined up ready to be rung up - but her fun had bottomed out so she wouldn't even ring up her customers!!!! She was going to make a lot of money that day and lost it all because she couldn't motivate herself to use the register! Hah! I think she needs to hire an employee so she can do some more painting and keep her fun and social up...

I hate the BBS. I might go blind if I go there but for my sims, I shall endure that place. Can you give us the links? If i get desperate enough, i will visit it.

Come to think of it, i havent registered my game yet cos i hate maxis too much ...

I feel you there and am dreading it, but god help me I'm going to install the damned thing soon anyhow. Hopefully I can retain my sanity.

What really pisses me off is Maxis never takes a god damned second to try and figure out what 'features' players don't like and nuke them. I've never heard a single person say they like the way the phone works without any hacks.

Motoki !!!! Welcome back! I missed ya  :).

P.S. You got me hooked on the Moviesgame for 2 months

Hey!  Motoki!  It's great to see you!  I've been wondering how you were!

Hey Motoki! Great to see you! ;D

I have to say I was completely surprised by the addition of both a twins cheat and a twins food. Maybe if we fill the BBS with posts about the phone like people did with twins Maxis might listen and change it. Then again maybe not but it wouldn't hurt trying.

What's the twins food?

But if they put everything right, there'd be no need for MATY!

Warning! Do not read any further if you have high hopes.


First impression. Blahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Pillow fights punch you punch me red hands stupid stupid stupid. Not one customer even looked at merchandise but they socialized a lot with one another clicked on them a million times didnt see anything to try and talk anybody into buying anything. So first impression not as good as it was with nightlife. I never even went to bed  that first night. Actually thought I would never sleep again and laughed untill I thought I would pee my pants. I am going to put hacks in will update and maybe I will like it more once I get control over the stupidity. Oh one question. Was a taxi supposed to drop Nina and Dina off at their new residence? Is this new or has it always happened? Oops guess that is 2 I have a new graphics card so I see more loads better and did you know there are actually waves by the neighborhood water Wow what a difference.

The new twins food is supposed to be cheesecake. Why they chose that I have no idea. Eating it allegedly increases the chance of twins happening. I don't know how, perhaps it triggers the "forcetwins" cheat?

Well, there were rumours about mac and cheese, so maybe that's where they got the idea....

Thanks,  so our Sims will now be able to have cheesecake for desert? That's nice. I wonder if it'll be plain cheesecake or with the fruit on top.Can you tell I wish I had  some cheescake ? ;D

Anyhoo, Anything else  on the new food choices and any more new cheats?

I think my custom food are not working I shld take them out. Boy, i wish i can cook custom food and sell them. that would be cool.

Or how about cheesecake with chocolate sauce drizzled on the top? :) I love cheesecake!

The other new food is a berry pie. There are a two other cheats with OFB, courtesy of some kind simmers on the BBS (there are some there!) who have the guide and shared with us. Besides the "forcetwins" cheat, there is also "AddneigbortoFamilycheat" to add a sim to your household and "Plumbbob toggle" to make the the overhead plumb bob invisible.

Well, that one (the AddNeighbour) one, will solve my problem with the elders I'm introducing to the Wasteland!

Apparently the Cheesecake is to be eaten by the sim before trying for baby.  This increases their chances of having twins.

Before? How strange. I wonder how long the sim will have to woohoo before the possible "cheesecake effect" could wear off.

It's not that strange when you consider that Twins are decided at birth  ;)

According to the Guide there's also a twins cheat:  Forcetwins

This seems highly speculative. I wouldn't go recommending this until it has been thoroughly examined.

I thought the pregnancy modifier was what caused twins.  In that case, all that Maxis have done is to make it possible to add this to a sim's data ourselves.

Yum that sounds good. I'd love cheesecake too .

Wow those new cheats sound good. Looks like Maxis has been paying at least some attention to the community and creating cheats that the modders have already created for us. So I guess those cheats are for the wusses that won't use any hacks in their game.

P.S. no offence to the wusses folks here who refuse to use hacks  ;D

I can't think of anyone here who refuses to use hacks - that's what this site is for!  Although, I know people have different favourites and whatnot.

Someone quoted it from the Prima Guide, so yeah, I'd agree with you on this JM  :)

Folks over on the BBS are reporting that this is the "tip" they receive from EA for registering their game-

Looking to add some twins to your family? The medical powers of Cheesecake might
be for you. Have a slice before you 'Try for Baby' and you may be surprised with
the results!

Testing would definitely be in order.

Simple question here, how many cd's there is to install and is it still running smooth on older pc.

Nightlife runs fine on my computer but I worry a lot about OFB.

There's only one CD, MissDoh. My machine's new so I can't help with how it's running on older PCs...

There should be only one.

Anyone else catch the real 80s songs in Simlish? LOL I was looking at the songs and thinking 'I don't remember putting these mp3s in there.' and then I listened to them.  ;D

Ooh, that will make LK's day.

I have a better impression than I did at first. Once you get rid of the pillow fights, punch you and red hands you actually have a little control over them. testing cheats enabled true offers some new stuff including cycling through lifetime wants. That was a plus. There is a badge cheat using the sim modder also if ya like fast forward.  Can add want slots and fear slots using the sim modder. Seems maxis has been checking out the hacks on the boards.

Good grief I nearly fell off my chair in fright when that nanny popped up on my screen again after all this time!  Hi Motoki :)

My tip was:

Looking for a bit of an edge over your competition? Be sure to impress the
Reporter whenever they come around to your shop. If you manage to raise their
customer loyalty enough, they'll write you a good review in the local papers,
boosting customer inflow and willingness to buy! Just watch for visitors taking
copious notes...

Meh, if I were in charge of tips, I'd put in tips like "Never pet a burning dog."

I see a future hack!

I think the real burning question has yet to be asked.

Can sims indeed woohoo with a robot?

The pre-release info from Maxis said yes.
Anyone with the game actually do the deed?

They won't be doing it in MY game!  I don't care if they spawn an LTW to woohoo with 20 different robots - tough!

I already had a mad scientist with a robot spouse in my game, using special skintones. This just makes it better.

The idiot robot from ts1 is playabole now. You buy him and when you turn him on he becomes a reverse vampire with a robot skin. Basicly recharge him in the sun outside and let him power down at night.

And they added all kinds of perverse sex games with him. "Tune up" is one of the flirt actions.

And the expansion of furries in this EP is obscene.

Whats next? Will the family pack include tentacle rape monsters?

One thing I think they could and should do - in the loading screen where you have the enable/disable options, they should give you the ability to disable any of the wierder stuff in the game with a password to unlock it again.

I feel that the businesses are over complicated. OR maybe I just need more time. And the hats! Why do we have three PAGES of hats? Other than making some hideous outfits for employees, they're pretty useless. The non-hat hairs are great though! :D
Conclusion: Businesses are not for all sims.

Sounds like OFB is not for all simmers too!

FINGERS IN EARS!

How is tune up perverse? I mean, I think it makes sense, for a robot. Maybe the robot should get social points from repairing things. It could develop a relationship with the trash compactor.

I'm just not quite sure if I'd be playing the business aspect of it often. I may make one or two business sims. Sometime.

How is tune up perverse? Do I really have to make a crankcase ventelation, or oil and lube, or injector, or fluids check, or plugs or anything else joke?

And your idea is just sick. The actual game just involves shoving large screwdrivers where they don't belong as a flirt, but woo hoo with a trash compactor? A dryer in spin cycle maybe, but a trash compactor? WTF?

Obviously you've never seen the movie Inner Space.  One of the evil guys in that had some nifty interchangeable hands, being a robot I'm sure Servo is far more capable - and he won't run out of steam either! :D

My computer is pretty ancient (according to the specs I shouldn't be able to play), and it ran about as well as Nightlife.  I haven't tried running it with all my custom content - that's tonight's project.  But I had in all my custom clothing, hair, and recolors, and I thought it was a little bit faster.

Well, I've just had an email from amazon uk that my game is on its way!  Now it's up to the Post office!

*shudder* you actually trust Royal Mail?!

Hey, I ordered sims2 from amazon on a sunday evening (not a pre-order, about a week after it came out) and just ordinary 2nd class post.  It arrived on the Tuesday!  Amazon only told me they'd sent it on the Monday afternoon!

Thanks Kattybiz.  Though I am not planning on getting it, if most people here say that it would be a shame not to have it and that I am missing a lot of new fun things I might reconcider.  But I will definitely wait until it is cheaper.

I received a christmas card from my boyfriend's family in the UK....yesterday

Played for a couple hours last night with the home flower shop lady. So far its challenging with lots of new things to learn, yeah! (ok, so I'm a knowledge sim!)
I hired 3 employees, they all earned badges and I had to give them raises. The business is up to level 3 and got a good review, but I'm having trouble making flowers fast enough and keep losing money. So of course I resorted to kaching and sliding needs bars!
Looks like the "rewards" deal is going to be the key, as soon as I figure it out, I picked one that gives better wholesale prices so that should help with the profits....I'll find out tonight!

Good to see ya back Motoki!

Question one - was it clearly addressed?

Question two - did they post it after the last posting date for wherever you live?

Question three - how do you know it was in this country that it got delayed?

Sorry, but to my knowledge, nothing I've ever sent for via the post office has gone astray, and I must have had about two dozen parcels at various times from amazon!  They even sent a couple of CDs to my niece in New York which arrived in about two days!

Does it get cheaper?  I've never seen an EP get cheaper, at least not where I live.

Me niether, though I think sims 1 stuff is now about half price.....but it would be a long wait!

I know, I think I can get Sims1 stuff for about $30 for the whole set now!

So, if one waits until they are a third of the way through Sims3 holographic, maybe Sims2 will be cheaper too! ;D

I will answer it and YES sims can woohoo with the robot and woohooing is a bit different all the way around unless of course it is my new graphics cards but I highly doubt it is that. I dont know what I like more the new game or the new card but I am leaning towards the new card.

Only way I've seen one get cheaper is when it shows up at Costco.  I was surprised - when I bought mine yesterday at Target I got a $5 gift card.  Not much, but it's something!  ;D

Actually woohoo with robots is different sims woohoo is the same.

All I can say is I'm finally glad that OFB requires:

a) time and patience
b) a little bit of thinking, and
c) some capital, in some cases, substantial capital.

With Uni, after the first try or so,  there is practically no effort required to get a Sim graduated Summa Cum Laude. Likewise getting Dream Dates in NL. And after a generation or two the money starts to pile up with no use, outside of getting a few bowling alleys (or in my case, pictures of bowling alleys) :)

But after playing around with two businesses yesterday, it's a different ballgame.  Using the Energizer and Elixir may actually make sense with OFB.

So far, I love it.

And is it just my imagination, or did they tweak certain things like the acceptance of socials and the performing of certain tasks a little bit? My Romance Sim who has always been able to woo even those with negative chemistry, was having difficulty making progress with a certain Sim yesterday. And another Sim refused to clean the toilet when his social was down near bottom. I don't remember that happening previously, although I could be wrong.

Well, if I wait a year yes it will be cheaper lol.  Seriously, if I can save 5$ on purchase of it I will... I see no rush so far in getting this one, but I can of course change my mind I am sometimes and impulsive buyer with Sims 2 stuff.

On the other end, I did not purchase Sims 1 Superstar at 1st, took more than a year before I did.

I caught myself singing along last night then thought "Wait... what?"  I didn't know there'd be new Simlish music haha.

On a slightly different note it seems that one of the bouquets has hidden powers..
http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=f2a1081b7696ba61a84f34f0dc6a47cb&directoryID=103&startRow=1&openItemID=item.103,item.41,item.23

This is what I like about this EP, too.

I agree. I'm really looking forward to this one. The other games got very boring after just a few days. My first group of simmies - 6 of them! - all graduated suma cum laude the first time I played UNI, and I got dream dates the very first time I played NL. To me, that's just boring. I love the openendedness of the game, but when it has as much challenge as 1st grade arithmetic, it gets pretty dull.

On top of that, about 80% of the sims I play regularly are in the business career. Now they actually have something to be a business person in. Finally some diversification in the types of businesses. And I'm hoping this'll make elders more fun. As of yet, I've only had one sim die of old age. And I bought the game when it first came out! Now that they have something to do - the Oldies are opening a flower shop, for example - maybe I'll actually get to playing some of them.

I'll actually get to play some of my adults who have their skills maxed out and their lifetime want fullfilled. They are becoming interesting again, since managing a business is easier but not too easy with them.

Disappearing businesses?? Omg..... Does anyone have anymore news on this?

Wonderful; and I preordered it, and Amazon says they ain't shipping it until 3/5 at the earliest.  If I didn't have such a good gift certificate there, I wouldn't have bothered with them. >:(

I dont know about disappearing businesses but I have a woman stuck on a business lot. I tell her to go home she goes and I stay so it needs some work.

I am liking it so far (missing hacks like crazy though lol)
It's a bit challenging.  I'll be entertained with this I think way longer than I was with Uni for sure and even NL.
However I'm worried that I will now be compelled to make all my sims have businesses (a little OCD there ;) )

My loading times are now INSANE with OFB installed. I'm not sure why it is taking 2x as long now. I'm in the sloooooow process of trying to clean up my downloads folder.  Don't plan to go on any download sprees for quite a while. 

With no custom content, as I played last night, the loading times were normal.  If they are insane tonight with custom content, I'll be sad (and seriously doing a cull).

Geez, lighten up! I think you are putting waaay too much thought into this!

I'm in no hurry to get this one.  I probably will, but not for awhile.  The business thing doesn't interest me, but some of the things you get with this EP do.  Like elevators, Servo, workbenches.

Do the workbenches increase mechanical like they did on TS1?

And hey, Motoki!  Good to see your nanny avatar on here again!  I was just wondering the other day how you were doing and if you'd show up around here anytime soon!

I like the fact that this EP is waaaay more challenging than any previous one.

I played for a few hours and I got one business up to Rank 1, which took quite a while. I'm wondering if it's a combination of the sim I'm playing, the business that he's in and his employees which is making it harder to progress to the next level?

I'm planning to open another business with a sim who's maxed out skill-wise and match the interests with the type of business and perhaps that will make a difference to the successful progression of higher rankings  :)

I'm definitely liking that it seems to be a little bit more challenging.  I can't wait to have some time to really play it.  :)

.com or .co.uk?  The UK one is shipping on precisely the day I was originally told they would.  As I think I mentioned then, it may be that Maxis have made a bigger effort to get the EP shipped abroad on time this time around!

This is definately going to be a challenging game.  Since 11 a.m. CST, I have run two maxis made busenesses into the ground.   ;D

LOL Rhodaloo.  :D  I decided to play around with it last night with the Goths. I moved them into a new house (their house is just not playable) and then I started mashing buttons blindly.  I managed to get a couple of bouquests and robots made, but then I got bored with them.  I'll give it a real go later and take my time with it.  After all, I do have 6 months, right?

I said "it's my dream come true", because I like management games. I took the bakery lady (Ms. Jacquet) to buy a tiny cafe community lot (with a $70,000 loan). I can't say the shop is taking off, but they sold some stuff, including cakes and fruit baskets. I hired Shirley Baker as an employee, because she looks pretty with a CC hair, I think, but she came to work with a bold head.  Oh-oh, hair has a problem, I said to myself. I then hired BlueSoup because I gave her a CC hair, and she came WITH her hair, so that is fine.

Simmiecal, if you read this, can you help me to locate this Shirley Baker, I couldn't find her anywhere in any of the houses in the MATYville (the painful version). Is she a townie?

Another problem is, this bold Shirley Baker refuses to come to work. So I thought maybe I should raise her salary a bit, but I can't get such an option through phone or computer!  I can click on an employee, like BlueSoup to raise the wages (which I did), but I can't if she doesn't even come to the shop. And I can't find a "fire" option though phone or computer either, only if the employee is on the lot. But BlueSoup is really a good help. Thanks, BlueSoup,  ;D And I don't pay if the employee doens't show up to work, just the seemingly constant pop-up messages saying "I don't want to come to work" are annoying.

Also I don't know how the game generate the employee pool when you call to hire. I got 5 or 6 choices, with their skills/badges shown, they are not the owner's friends or even acquintances, they include both residents and townies from several hoods (main, downtown, and Bluewater), and some of them currently have a job. (After you hire them, they quit their job and work in your shop.)

One thing I'm concerned is the depth of the shoppers' pocket. Since they put their purchases in their inventory, and when you play them, you can keep them or sell them back, we can assume that the game keeps track of their funds, which is really a good thing. But does that mean we have to play all the customers, including townies, periodically so that we can restore their funds so they can continue to buy stuff from our shops?

sanmonroe... you're a little obsessed with sex.  Just a little.

and Ella... having relationships with inanimate objects is bad for the game.  I'm sure it'd be good story-wise, but there's a reason my sims don't get remote controllable cars!

Shirley Baker was actually Brynne at one point.  :D I had loaded her into the game and then she posted a new and shiny version of herself. She hadn't interacted with any sims yet, so I changed her name, hair and clothes. Since she was orignially "Brynne" when you mouse over her household, I believe it still says "Bayfield" as the household name. I also think she was living in the Simburbia section along the waters edge. I think I also put her in the show business career. Do you have a picture of Shirley with the hair you're looking for? I've zipped up the MATYville big enchilada so I can't jump into the hood to check it out, but I might recognize the hair.

Does OFB actually feature loans, or is this something else (an Inge shrub or a plain cheat)?

 - Gus

I said "dream come true" also.  I really like this new aspect of the game, although I haven't figured everything out yet.

Lion asked about the Townies and having to replenish their funds....they have a limitless amount of funds so there's no need to be concerned about their spending.  

Playable Sims, from what I've read, will only spend according to what money they have and they keep only 3 items they purchase...with the oldest purchase dropping out of their inventory, if they continue spending autonomously.

--green

That's funny  ;D! I checked "Bayfield" household in the Simhatton of downtown area, there is only one person there, which is current/updated Brynne. I didn't enter the house. And I don't believe there is another Beyfield household. Anyway I will try to have a picture of her taken.

sorry, no, it's motherlode in the work

Where Brynne is living - follow that row of houses along the water up towards the island, I think that's where I moved Shirley.

Thanks for the info. Maybe JM will limit their funds like he did with the tipping.

Thanks for keeping her, because she is pretty, and I like pretty girls. But I have to get her hair back first,  ;D

Maybe if she already has a job, that's why she won't come to work?

Darn, I was hoping to laden my Sim with a crushing burder of debt.

 - Gus

 ;D Maybe... but seriously, in the game, when you hire them, it says she quit her job to work for you. And BlueSoup had a job and quit her job too. All she said is you don't pay me enough for me to work for you, but the game doesn't allow me tele-raise her salary, at least I didn't figure out a way from last night's play.

And now I start to wonder what will happen if I play the employee, will they be "unemployed"? If I find a job for them, will they quit the shop job, I guess so... :( But I also hope they can hold two jobs.  ;D

Monique's computer let you take loans and charge you interest. I will use that once it is updated. Inge's morgage shrubs are too easy on the sims. I keep buying those $1000 shrubs, and they look like free money.

Oh, make me a superstar, baby!

Well, Lion, I'm glad to hear I'm working out well for you.  ;D  Keep those raises coming!

And Brynne's current hairstyle is available at MTS2, search for Seomi.  It's really pretty and Brynne is gorgeous with it on. I tried it on a couple of other Sims, but I think it's a look that sorta belongs to Brynne for me now, much like the updo she first had.

Somehow, Anna Nicole Smith came into mind... :o "Trimspa, baby!"

Indeed, because this lady has no real friends, and I think you need some relationship score to hire somebody, she was rejected by a punk girl.  >:(
And here comes BlueSoup to the rescue.

Well, I would like to, but after I raised your salary a notch, it says "overpaid", and the next notch says "very overpaid", so I just settled at the "overpaid", sorry.

Well after visiting MATY and reading that some people have OFB I rang my local EB and they said yep, its in. Geez!! Why don't I have it then! So, this was at 4.30pm so I just packed up my office and left. I sped to the mall, parked in a 5minute zone and bought my game just before closing time. I then raced home, put 'Finding Nemo' on the dvd player for toddler and installed my game. I took out my downloads folder first and I am slowly introducing it back in.

I love it.

At first I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. OFB? Who cares?

But, I really really like it.

I normally take all the good looking townies and move them into one lot. That way I can control their clothes, skills etc. So I took a random one from there, made her buy the clothing depot in downtown, bought Merola's mirror and my townie has been there ever since, operating 24/7.

It so much fun! Took me while to get the hang of it but slowly my clothes shop is being converted to a furniture/home decor store. I have one room just dedicated to mirrors. Bizarre but yet excellent.

So, after 24hrs of owning the game, I am a happy customer.

Link?  I never know where this mod or that mod is unless it's hosted here, or someone explicitly mentions that it's at MTS2 or some other specific site.

 - Gus

Loans are for wussies. Just you wait until we have the Ethiopian E-Mail Business Challenge.

There's some truth to that.  I just kind of like the idea of the debt burden.  The idea of a new Uni graduate buying a $20,000 house and then struggling to meet his interest payments on $17,000 or so of debt sounds like it might be interesting.

 - Gus

Since I am a total wussie and like to be able to test stuff out, I created Elena Galaxie and motherloded her.  She was supposed to be a punk rock beautician, but after making Oberon Summerdream weep three times over botched make-overs, she went into flowers.

The Good:  So far the game is interesting, the storybook collection is ridiculously pretty (but, as per usual, is only half-hearted.  Tons of floors/walls, but hardly any furnishings) and there's a new premade home that is adorable. I really like a few of the new girl hairs.  My compluter is also handling everything beautifully.  The only downloads I have in are my skins, eyes and hair but so far it's doing better than Nightlife did when I first installed that and played CC free.

The Bad: Running a business is not so self-explanatory.  I'm all for a challenge, but this seems to be a lot of typical Maxis wierdness.  

I also can't get sims to play kicky bag anywhere.  Not so bad, but two sims were on a date and the want to play kicky-bag was hogging a slot all night.

The Ugly:  Frumpy ass women's clothing.  Seriously, besides the sundresses, all of the clothes are shapeless and/or fugly.

Verdict:  So far, more of a game than Nightlife but less tedious and more rewarding than University.  

I finally saw a new LTW in my Fortune Sim, which was to own 5 top-level businesses.  Anyone see any others?

Haven't had long enough to play it Bluesoup. Its Friday here so I might plan a VERY late night.

From what I saw tonight.

Get a servo and use that to learn how to run your business. (or use vampires I guess, but with a servo or two you can do it without empployees).

With so few needs to meet you can keep your shop open for large amounts of time and learn how to interact etc.

With just a single sim the game so far is pretty hard.

 There is a new Build Mode cheat

   Wall Placement Restrictions Removed

 It says normally only one object can be hung on a segment of wall regardless of height..    In other words, even if an already placed item and another item won't overlap at all, you can't place them both on the same
segment.      The Wall Placement Cheat enables you to hang several items on a single wall segment.

  

Yeah apparently you just have to hold down crtl-alt while you place items, no cheat code to enter.

I love building as everyone around here knows, and I am trying to think of a useful decorating reason for that cheat...give me time, I will come up with one...*thinks*

A new LTW?! A new LTW!?!?! *jumps up and down*

Haven't seen any new ones because I've been playing.... a Grilled Cheese Sim, who has a community lot business selling... grilled cheese sandwiches. It's been an interesting adventure.

Unfortunately, he doesn't get his wants to serve grilled cheese satisfied by the "Make" or "Make Many" interaction.

So it's alright to have new LTWs for OFB, but not for Uni?  where's the logic in that?

It's on MTS2 - try here -
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=64137

4esf have separate headboards for the beds that go on the walls.  So you can do a mix and match.  Now you can put a picture over the headboard I guess.

We-ell, we DID have new LTW's for Uni. We didn't have LTW's before Uni.

A brilliant concept, but I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of new objects.   Yeh, there is a fair amount of new things but I would have expected more considering it's a whole new direction, and there was such high expectations for it (from me anyhow)....To harsh you think?  OH, and then we come to the mens clothes.  This is my main gripe with Maxis; most of the mens clothes are DORKY.  And they are still DORKY!   And it sucks that they haven't realised this, unless this is how THEY dress.  And that somehow makes it okay!? 
P.S. I did say most, not all. At least some of the stuff isn't tucked in now!). ;D

Well, these are the people who gave us mens clothes with socks and sandals in the base game!

.com.  I preordered it about a week before release date, and it originally said it would ship on the release date.  Now it's flagged as 'shipping soon', so I guess I'll get it sometime next week.

Sorry, it was late when I wrote that, I should have said for the new Uni careers!


Maybe next time you should order it from the UK site?  I'm expecting my game to arrive tomorrow - got the books today!  Now, if I'd been prepared to pay for First Class delivery, I might have got it today too, but I doubt it!

Thanks.  I downloaded it, but I'm kind of peeved that it doesn't charge enough interest on the loans.  6% per week?  I want crushing interest, like 6% per day.  After all, a "day" is kind of like a "year," and 6% APR is cheap for a loan.  I'll give it a shot sometime, but I have a nagging suspicion that it won't give me the feeling I want of broke college graduates living off of their credit cards.

For that matter, how is is that the bank stays in business, loaning out money at 6% per week but returning 12% per week on deposits?  Fortunately I'll never making a deposit into a savings account with this thing, since I don't need my game to be any easier.

 - Gus

Maybe Maxian wishful thinking?  They can't have it in Real Life, so they pretend with the sims?

I was playing the flower shop girl(knowledge).  What the heck are you suppose to do?  She is lazy and a bit sloppy so her needs go down fast.  She wants to learn which fill up her wants and her LTW is to be a mad scientist.  Which EP am I suppose to play? You can't work full-time run a business and have a social life.  She doesn't have enough money to hire an employee.  I got her business to a 5 and got a good review but not without cheats.  How are you suppose to have them have a full life without cheats?  I do like this EP--now I know what to do with the Montys.  But having a single girl with no skills and really no desire to run a business--have a business?? Is stupid.  I wanted to play the new characters as written but--I give up.  I hate puddle mongers and wish them to be sim binned if they don't have some modification.  So I shall play happily with my hacks.  I love hacks!!!

That's a hack is it not?  Not Maxian


I don't have the EP yet, so keep that in mind but this seems pretty close to real life to me.  A  lazy  unmotivated bookworm would not do well running a flower arrangement shop all on her own.  Heck she probably wouldn't do well as an employee less alone as an owner.

Motherlode isn't a hack - it's a Maxian cheat!

While the EP installed fine last night, I wound up waiting 20 minutes for a two-person family on a small lot in Pleasantview to load.  No go, which was quite perplexing given I had defragged the drive and jumped through all the hoops prior to attempting to install.

Decided to bring back my downloads folder, defrag again, and enable custom content.  And delete the groups.cache file.  This time it worked.

I continue to marvel at the genius - and stupidity  -of  Maxis.  Why in the hell do we need three pages of stupid hats/head coverings and three new-but-very-crappy hairstyles for women?    Am almost afraid to peek into the clothing racks if that's the best they can do and I wish there was a way to dump that garbage out of the program and my hard drive (is there??).

I did notice that it appears that the same bottle of SmartMilk can be fed to a toddler; but it was too late last night to give it a try.

More exploration later tonight..

I'm actually quite fond of the medium wave hair. Reminds me of Marilyn Monroe or Greta Garbo. Very old-Hollywood glamour. Of course, it could also pass for suburban housewife. It has this vague ambiguousness that could go either way. I think w/ some retexturing it can really be a winner.

I like the new wavy hair and the side-parted, face-obscuring short do, which looks quite striking on the right sim.  The new men's hair is completely sucky, though. 

  Oh lol.  I thought you were talking about the way Monique's computer gives you a high interest rate for money invested and a low one for money borrowed.  Quite the contrary to RL!

Did anyone actually confirm the magical abilities of crafted Snapdragon flowers? Look here (http://"http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=f2a1081b7696ba61a84f34f0dc6a47cb&directoryID=103&startRow=1&openItemID=item.103,item.41,item.23") for the original post. Yeah, I know it's from the BBS, but it's still interesting.

 I can't confirm for sure, but my Prima Guide says

 Crafted flowers are decorative objects just like any other plant you'd find in the Buy mode catalogue; their sole function is to raise the environment score.   The higher the required talent badge level and the higher the materials cost, the greater the effect.    If the crafting fails however, it will do the opposite.

 The snapdragon bouquet requires the craft badge level of gold to make.  If sims view this bouquet, they will receive a boost to all of their needs.    If the bouquet is "broken", the viewing sims gets a reduction in ALL needs and a nasty odour.

Angelyne - that too, I guess, but mainly the whole concept of something for nothing that is inherent in Motherlode!  I admit I do occasionally Kaching - but mostly if I've had to move a family out of a corrupted lot.  I have also occasionally used motherlode - but if it wasn't available, then I couldn't, and I'm damned if I'm going to sit there and Kaching 50 times!

And now you can move a family member out, and in again straight away, bringing with them 20,000 simoleons!  You don't even have to move them to another lot first so you can invite them over and ask them to move in!

Actually, when people complain about using hacks to cheat, it rather makes me laugh, the whole game is based on a series of cheats!  The Maxis characters were created with cheats!  They used cheats to build houses.  they.....

I would move in a wealth sim or buy a servo and let them run the business and her be a mad scientist.  If she doesn't have enough money for an employee I would try the wealth sim - if they have the aspiration to earn $100 000 you can really do anything with that.

I'm not having much luck with my computer at the moment as it keeps crashing.  I'm averaging about 30 min - 1hr before I have to restart the **** thing so although I have peeked at OFB, I haven't been able to play it, but if I could I would do the above.

My sympathy - do you know why it keeps crashing?  And is it going to be expensive to fix?  I do hope not!

With no CC my loading times were fast and normal as well (30 seconds or so)  I got all my CC now pruned down (yeah like being back to 8,000 files is "normal" lol but it's better than 10 or 11k I suppose) I'm about to see what loading times are like.  Cleaned out everything I wasn't using or hadn't used that much.  Figure I won't download anything for a while and then go back and prune away some more.

I began a new neighborhood, (My kids stole the existing ones), and I don't have a thing on there, besides the already there trees and  forestry, but it is ridiculously slow and choppy...Not so with the lots though, so thats a good thing.   I still have all my CC and hacks in place, and loading time is no different, and gameplay is normal.  (Touch wood). ;D
Other than that, I'm so determined not to mess up this neighborhood, I'm starting from Uni and  working my way up so I haven't even got to the owning a business thing yet! ::)

It has been looked at and re looked at all last week and I'll keep taking it in until it gets fixed  :P.  No idea what is causing it - I've got all my drivers up to date, its defragged, exceeds OFB requirements, has no viruses & has good ventilation...

It seems to have problems when it has to do more than one thing at once or if I run the sims.  Oddly it will play the video at the start with no problems and then crashes at the next bit or when it tries to load a neighbourhood.

I am however at this board more than usual and 'playing the sims' vicariously through other members at the moment :D

Thanks for the kind thought.

The minute I will have a videocard that works well I will be able to give you a report....  ::)

*sigh*  :'(

I think she was halfway through her adult life too wasn't she?  I just got her a job in the science career, worked on her skills to get her aspiration up and points towards the elixir and worked her towards the LTW.  Now she's there with higher skills I suppose she can think about her shop.  I did try running the shop in the beginning, but realised that she would be dead of old age before I could do much with her.

It definitely works in my game. I was wondering why my florist was doing so well -- She had four snapdragons up for sale, keeping her and her customers in excellent moods. After I read that the snapdragons were responsible, I made sure to put a couple in the crafting room and one in the bedroom. They don't even have to view them. Just keep one or two in the room and it will take care of every motive except energy, as long as they're at good levels to start with. My sim hasn't ventured toward her fridge in days. She subsists entirely on snapdragon fumes. It's the best thing ever.

Well I am trying out pre-made Maxis Sims (the florist) and it is not that bad so far.  I did not play long though.

Did any of you notice that now in the family loading screen, there is an option to "rename lot".   :)+


EDIT:  This is just to funny, what is the worst thing that could happen on a 1st day opening a store, you guessed it a fire.....

Perhaps if you are handy with SimPE and know what strings to look for, you could modify the interest rates charged.  You could change it so the sims would get 12% interest charged on a loan and only 6% interest on savings. :D

Re: Monique's Computer.
If your sim is second generation or from a large family then Monique's computer comes into its own.  Combined with no 20k handout and using JM's moneyorder you can move your sim out of the family home, or from Uni with just 3 or 4k of simoleans and make them suffer.  If they've come from the family home I make them borrow atleast 10k to start out.

The joy of Monique's computer is that if you miss a payment then a whopping 10%  borrowed is added to your mailbox bill.  For my sims, that usually means finding $1000 in 3 days, on top of daily minimum payments of atleast $100.  You cannot save while you are in debt using her computer.

If you are using JM's no 20k handout, your sim gets a percentage of the cash available in the account.  I make my sim parents bank their accumulated cash and earn interest, so that the youngsters only get a small percentage when they move out.  The wealthiest family had 3million plus, so I banked most of it and left 18k in the kitty.  But using JM's no 20k handout meant that this had to be split between 6 family members.  That sim moved out with 3k and had to borrow a further $15k, before moving out and have it sent on by postal order when he was in the lot bin.  No sponging off rich parents in my game. 

I love the challenge that this adds to the game.  May my sims never be wealthy...unless they've worked their pixelated socks off.  :D

I don't believe in loans, and I don't see the point of storing 3 million in wasted funds like that, but I have found no-20K to be hilarious on  MATY college graduates from CAS, which move onto their tiny 3x1 lots with a whopping $150 to spare. :P

The point of storing the cash is so that you have your families ready to buy all those holidays, makeovers and pets in the forthcoming EPs and Add ons.  What you must not allow your sims to do is have the parents do all the hard work and let the children reap the benefit for free.  Let's face it, before (I don't know if you still can) any sim could wed a uni undergrad and get 2million in their kitty.  So much for studying to graduate and/or working your way up the corporate ladder.  Without a challenge of some kind, what's the point in playing?  For some people it's building houses, for lucky you, JM, you it's detangling and making sense of Maxian logic, but for me, its playing the game and laughing at what the sims do.

I thought that was a bug Jase discovered where sims could hit the "jackpot" when marrying or asking sims to move in across sub-neighborhoods?  I'm not sure of the details, but I've never had it happen to me.  Someone here had it happen a while back though, and posted a pic.  Jase has a fix on his forum for it at http://mysite.verizon.net/aestudios/sims2/index.htm.  It really doesn't make sense for a sim to get millions of dollars just for marrying or moving in a sim who hasn't even graduated yet. 

Yes, this bug has been around since the original game first came out.  I got hit by this one barely a month after TS2 first came out, after I moved an occupied lot from Veronaville to Pleasantview (this was way before anybody knew moving families across neighborhoods was a Very Bad Thing).  Don Lothario married one of my game-born Sims and ended up bringing in over 3.3 million simoleons.  So, it definitely can happen.

Karen

Yeah, I know Jase has had a 'Lottery' fix for months now, but I chose not to use it.  It really is a lottery: some undergrads come with just $5000 while others, mainly those who were playable and had lived in a greek house, came with millions.  I think that one of the Nightlife patches fixed this so that you couldn't move out playable undergrads anyway.

I haven't played it for long, so this is definitely first impressions.  Maybe this will change with time.

So far, I'm really not liking it much.  There's just so much that's done wrong.

First, there's the legacy problem of time and community lots.  The fact that no time passes at all was irritating but minor in the base game.  In University it wasn't a huge problem because the final exam meter continued to count down.  Then in Nightlife it got to be a serious problem because of how much you could accomplish on a date in zero real time.

Now in Open For Business, you go to work... and come back in 20 minutes exhausted and hungry.  Disregarding degenerate playstyles like heavy use of the Energizer at work and the like, a Community Lot job rapidly puts your Sim completely out of whack with the rest of the Sims on your lot.  Because it consumes no real time, you can have several "work days" every day if your bed is decent.  Can you imagine what the game would be like if regular career tracks worked like that?

OK, so you can ignore the community lot stupidity by running all businesses out of your home.  I'm thinking that the next time I try this, I may buy an large residential lot and create two buildings, the business and the home.

Restocking.  Restocking is stupidly implemented.  You can eliminate restocking entirely just by manually deleting the "out of stock" items and buying new ones.  Or in the case of crafted items, moving them out of your inventory.  This isn't something I want to do, because it's tedious, but it's dumb that it's so easily circumvented.  There should be a reason for the player to order restocking actions beyond avoiding player makework.

Crafting is clumsy.  If you "Make One" of an item, or break off to do something else, the item sits on the workbench and has to be manually placed in your inventory so it can be restocked.  At which point, it's actually less work to cheat and avoid restocking by placing it on the shelf.  Every time you start making items, you have to go through the "custom" dialog, instead of say, choosing "change toy robot type" from a dialog.

There's no help text with the badges saying which skill is relevant.  What genius at Maxis thought that hiding this information was a good idea?  Motoki has posted the, but really this is basic information that should be in the game.

A lot of things about the expansion smell of "Let's hide basic information about how to play, so the difficulty in learning the rules will mask how easy it is to master."  Like the fact that I hired a saleswoman who rapidly worked her way up to a Gold sales badge, but who was still pissing off the customers.  Err, why?

What's the deal with breaks, for that matter?  The obvious thing is to send and employee off on a break when their mood starts lagging.  But sometimes they just don't come back, and don't seem to improve on break.  So you're paying an employee to watch TV for hours.  I'm not even sure breaks are necessary at this point, because I haven't seen any adverse affects to never sending them on break.

The game really needs an "employees only" door.  I sectioned off a portion of my shop with a break room, complete with a kitchen because my Sim got hungry well before the day was over.  So my customers wander in there and make food for themselves.  I'm not running a venue, but I need recreational areas for my Sim and his employees.

Of the perks, the only line that seems to have any value at all is the "reduce wholesale cost" line.  Maybe I'm missing something, but the other items all seem to be a waste of time.

I get the impression that once I do figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, running a business will be dull and repetitive.

I need to give it more time, obviously, but those are my first impressions.

 - Gus

Gus, dude, thats an intense, angry post.

Hehe...just like in RL actually  :D

Can you think of a better way to implement restock? I am glad I don't ahve to pause and replace items every time they sell. Hire a 15$ an hour sim to do the job for you once you hit rank 5 or 6 and can't easily do everything solo.


Yeah, and the fact that if you even think about pressing a button it changes the name, then it s new item for stocking purposes. Thats what pisses me off.


Great for marketing and their relationship with prima. thats why they do it. Sucks for players, but when has EA cared if they are making a profit?


Is she nice? Or maybe grouchy and outgoing? Or maybe tired? The personality plays amajor role, its fun to watch a grouchy sim try to sell to a poor CAS sim. They have a nice little dance where the salesperson screams at the customer for being poor.



Some of their needs cannot be fixed on the comm lot. If you send them on break and their pay is not above fairly paid, they won't come back whent ehy are close to bottomng out energy for example.

Its best just to pay them one step above fairly and they will work a full shift without stopping. The risk of giving them no breaks is they will quit. If you overpay them the risk is almost nothing and they will work until they are on the brink of peeing and passing out. Then they run to the toilet and come right back to work until sent home.


Umm... In case you aren't kidding here is how to do that.

Click on the door and set the lock to only allow employees and household members..


The connections line is quite nice as well for romance and pop sims, and for customer loyalty too. The grant/funding line is great if you ahve a new sim, but an established family doesn't need 50k very badly. The influence line... meh. If you underpay your employees I guess its ok. More of a hassle really. The sales line is a good way to build up loyalty quickly. You get a star just for telling the sim where the thing they were thinking of is.


Its a lot like Uni. Except the shine is wearing off much faster. I am leaning towards saying this expansion has less replay and content than Uni. It adds some nice features, but meh.



[/quote]

I just wish I could give my sim employee a pay rise -  it's Lilith and she's worked her butt off, and got a badge for crafting, but there's no option to up her pay!  I'm seriously considering asking her to move in!  At least she'd be a bit happier than back in the Pleasant house.  (And I have no intention of playing any of the Pleasantview families until I can use SimPE to change things I don't like.........)

No, just highly critical.  I certainly have written pissed off reviews in the past, but usually it requires something really repetitive and frustrating, like a multi-jump puzzle in a platforming game where they save the nearly impossible jump for the end.  With OFB, I'm just underwhelmed by the design decisions.

 - Gus

When you place a new item for sale, it starts as an "out of stock" sign, and you must "restock" it before it goes on sale.  If you mark an existing item for sale that wasn't previously, it goes in your Sim's inventory until you stock it.  That'd eliminate the shortcut of just placing stuff on the shelf by hand.

I do appreciate the tips, though I'm not too clear on how you get personality information on an employee if they are a townie.  Skills, yes, personality, no.  I wish the game were a bit more up-front about the factors that affect selling.

No, I didn't know you could do that.  It didn't occur to me that they'd added an interaction to doors, since normally you don't click on them, ever.  I went looking for a speciality door like the bathroom door or the Myne door.

I obviously need to do some more sales manually, because I've never even seen that as a dialog option.

 - Gus

Test it out with a nice/outgoing sim. Get the first 2 ranks of sales and first 2 ranks of networking and whenever you want a star (assuming your shop is not a dumpster) just "assess... desire", it tells you what the NPC wants, click the item, select show to...Goopy, and your sim will do that.

As for telling what an NPC's traits are, the only way is to wath how they interact with the customers. You obviously got a crap one for sales. Move them to cashier or stocking. When you hire non-cas you never know what you are going to get, and pay out the ass for badges that the employee has but doesn't need.

If you have too many problems with salespeople, just do the sales yourself. It helps since you won't use the HARD SELL... option as much as those grouchy sims will.

Amazon finally delivered on Sat, so I only had a few hours to play (where do you all find the time?)
Anyway,

I have seen new wants and fears. My sim had wants to make a sale to people and gain customer loyalty points. He also had a fear that he would lose customer royalty points.

This is my 1st and only business so far and is very profitable (home business), although my sim is in the red (just started out and had shop open for a few hours). I have him selling his own paintings including a portrait of a dormie (sold for over $600) and easels. He had three customers come in (one more came after closing so he just left) and all bought two or more items and 2 of them gained customer loyalty points really quickly. He gained Rank 1 really fast. I only had the gallery open for about 2 sim hours. The back part of the art gallery is a nightclub where I will charge with the ticket machine. I think he is going to do really well.

Now for my questions (waiting for the guide - yes I need it!)

- What makes a customer gain loyalty points? I played the premade flower shop for a while and I couldn't get the lady to gain points for nothing. She would try to "sell item" to people and their green bar would drop. She would "show item" to someone and they would get a negative-star sign above their heads. People only bought one or two things but they left without gaining any loyalty. However, when I had one of my sims open an art gallery, his customers were gaining loyalty quickly with him just doing one "sale item" to them. They were buying up the stuff. What is the difference? The maxis-sim has no skill points and my sim has a lot, is that the difference?


- Can you hire household sims as employee's? If not, how do you get the option to train them to work the register or restock?

…back to reading…

Yeah, I'm leaning toward thinking that sales is something you ought to do yourself until you know all the mechanics.  Bad cashiers and bad restockers are just slow.  Bad salespeople choose the wrong interactions.

If I'm understanding it correctly, it's kind of like the social interactions.  You need a certain level of DR to succeed, modified by things like personality scores.  Basic Sell may be the "weakest" sales technique, but it's also the least risky.

 - Gus

I'm still flailing around myself, but the main ones seem to be:

- Asking "Can I help you?"  That almost always seems to get me a full star.  Apparently Sims want particular things, and they often can't find them by themselves, even if it's right in front of them.  It took me a while to recognize the "puzzled look" animation that signals this interaction is available.  You can't ask this of a sim who has already locked on an item.

- Low prices.  A particularly low price seems to give a positive loyalty reaction when they first consider an item.  Obviously you can't do this for everything, but a few cheap items can act as loss-leaders.

- A successful sales pitch.  I'm still unclear what will make a pitch succeed or fail.  My comments above are still speculation.

- A Sim actually deciding to buy an item.  The "should I buy this" progress bar has to succeed before time runs out, I think.  Sims will often buy cheap items without prodding, but expensive (>$1000) items may require a sales pitch or two. 

I think that's a failed pitch.  You may need a better DR or a better personality.  I'm still largely in the dark on this one.

If they don't want it, show item is a bad action.

I brought them into the store as part of a Casual Group "just for fun," just like going to any other community lot.  They're controllable, so you just give them orders to stock or work the register.

 - Gus

I wanted to be able to have them do this autonomously, like an employee would do when you hire them.

Can the owner perform sales on their own or do you constantly have to direct them?

You have to direct them.

I suppose you could try calling a family member and inviting them to the lot, so they're just like any other customer, but I'm guessing the "hire" interaction won't be there.  It may not even be handled correctly.

 - Gus

I don't think so. From what I played, you have to direct your owner and his/her household memebers to do things, otherwise they just go watch TV or buy coffee. But when you use a different sim to visit a community lot that the owner owned, the owner will be in the store and ask employees to do stuff, like restocking, on their own, even if you assigned that employee to do sales right before you (the owner) left the store last time you played it (which I don't like, but I didn't play too long on that store). If you assigned a household member to a job, like register or else, he/she will not be in the store when you use another sim to visit the lot, only the owner is in the store, so you better hire some employees if you plan to use other sims to visit the store.

My biggest gripe for the store side, is bad cashier. I (the owner) assigned the register to an employee before I (the owner) went home for the day. Then I use another sim to visit that store, she bought stuff and wanted to pay, but the assigned cashier just wondered about not doing her job. My sim finally threw the shopping bags on the groud. The next time the sim (not owner) visited the store, the owner eventually worked the register. That really feels good. Maybe it is because they have low register badges (zero).

So far, I have the most fun not from running the business, but from having other sims visit the lot to see how the owner and employees do their job  ;D

(scratching head)...so if I am running a home business that has 3 playable characters and I send another sim to that lot only the owner will be there? Where will the other 2pc's be at? (I know bad grammar)
The other household members won't work in the store? (at register, etc.)

(i know i need the guide, i will hopefully have it tomorrow)

Wow Gus, what a list.  Hope it gets better for you coz' I reckon that this is the best EP yet... ;D  So much variety and different things for them to do, the other EP's were starting to get a bit stale, so I'm looking forward to what Maxis can come up with next!

Correct! I have a father and teen son to run the resturant (International something?) and only the father (the owner) is there when another sim visited. So don't exploit your family members!  ;D

according to the guide, you can't take your sims to visit a home business...

What the hell is up with that? I thought we could and I made a whorehouse but I can't take any of my sims to visit it (they can visit on their own though when I'm playing the whorehouse lot)

*sigh* well I need to redo my whorehouse anyway so maybe I'll do it the commercial lot way and have the boss hire the girls to work there (damn! now he will have to pay them)

hmmm... Will the girls need to live on another lot then his? (so he can hire them and have them be there when my sims visit the commercial lot)

*still had alot of fun*

I agree, I was also rather dissapointed about not being able to visit home businesses. I suppose there's probably some issues with going to a residential lot as a visitor though. To be honest, I've always wanted a feature where sims can visit their friends houses. Maybe someone will come up with a hack to do it.

I also agree the other episodes were getting very stale and this one added quite a bit of new gameplay. Overall it's keeping me interested and I'm really enjoying it, which is a lot more than I can say for the other 2. University was fun for a little bit, but it got old fast and now I can't even stand to play it. Thank goodness for the lot fixer's upgrade pre-uni sim. Insta-graduate.  ;D And NL was just like, uh, this is supposed to be an expansion pack? I already had restaurants of sorts going with the hack that let the cafeteria work come on community lots and the dates weren't anything special and not challenging in the least.

Oh, in OFB I just discovered the sell practice items phone option. Now I can put the elders, teens and pregnant women to work without having to open my house to have annoying townies come trapsing through it. :)

I saw this for the first time last night and couldn't figure out where the option was to make it come up again.  I'll have to check the phone options again.  Thanks!

Karen

It should be under business on on the phone IIRC.

I'm not sure if you have to actually start a home business to be able to do this or not, but if you do you can always just start one and keep it closed all the time.

I'd like that as well.  "Bustin' Out" did that for the Playstation, but it used TS1 mechanics, so I never bothered with it.  Given that they've touched on the mechanic before, I'd like to be able to visit other houses, with only my Sim or his outing under my control.

 - Gus

forgot to ask something


Why do I suddenly have pink pigs floating around my n'hood? 


I know this was mentioned jokingly in another thread but I couldn't find it *searched* and I would really like to know why they just suddenly showed up.

I saw something about hitting ahuge number of hours played triggering it.

I thought that was a big joke started by Trubble and friends.  I think that was in the thread that Blue deleted, so that's why you can't find it, Sleepycat. :)

ahhhh...didn't think I had played all that much,  maybe it's connected to the fact that I haven't had to uninstall/reinstall since installing Uni (damn stupid of Maxis to not date the damn patches!)


I couldn't believe my eyes but I remembered to take a picture!  I zipped it so I could attach it, my image host killed all its free accounts and I haven't bothered to get another one  :-X



[404'ed!]

They are part of the new neighborhood decorations, :D don't worry, you're not going mad.. ;D

I looked at the new neighborhood decorations and didn't see any pink pigs... *will look again*

Why would installing OFB add any of them to my hood anyway? usually you have to place any new neighborhood decorations yourself...

/me whistles innocently and saunters off
 ;)

I had that when the two Tricou men lived in Veronaville's main hood and the girls lived in the house of fallen trees.  They both moved in with 4 million each.  needless to say motherlode is not necessary in the future for Veronaville.  But that was topped last night when the strangest thing happened.  I have a Greek house of all wealth guys.  All of them have 10 in creativity so the only thing they  do for fun is paint.  They range from 800-1000 a painting.  Well,the greek house started out with $150,000 and the next semester I noticed that they had  about $265,000.  I'm like what is going on even with the masterpieces and dean's list--that is too much.  I also have the excercise machines from Inge that bring in money.  Well, to make it short, they are juniors and are sitting on 9,000,000 simoleons.  Their money seems to be muliplying expodentially(??).

Thats what I thought but from what i've been reading about all the bugs, I spose anythings possible.

I checked again...there aren't any floating pink pigs in the neighborhood decorations!  :-\

Sleepycat I'm sure that the pink pig is featured in one of the pre-release neighbourhood shots.  I've got them in my game, in the neighbourhood screen (two of them) and my game is a brand new install from scratch.  The most I've had it running in real time would be 12 hours, if that.  Trubble and Twain's story was based on that house... you know, the one where the cabin was where that townie...you know, not that townie but the other one lived.  It kept the BBS busy for days.  Go figure! ;D

With contributions from Posie, a lot from LK and the others... THAT thread. (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=&threadID=7990e2e74a2a3cc61474522c953787bb&directoryID=2&startRow=1#f8b9611eb2caf96aee28bda8a65fb3c2) ;) I hope that never gets deleted in some sort of BBS purge.

Moving on...

Ok thank you, It was really only bugging me because no one else seemed to know anything much about them  and I never saw them in my hood before installing OFB, although I think I remember them being mentioned ages ago on another forum (nobody knew much about them then either). They showed up right after I had loaded the game the other night, haven't seen them since but I also keep forgetting to put my altered camera file back in  ::) so maybe they are floating out of sight  :D

I was sort of aware of that story with that house, haven't actually read it though...atleast i don't think I have *laughs*

Sorry Sleepycat, I was sure I saw them in the Neighborhood decorations but once again, I was wrong.  :-\

They are not part of the neighbourhood decorations, I went mad trying to find it after seeing one floating across a hood to dissapear in the side of a hill.  I think it's some sort of thing like the Loch Ness Monster in the original Sims.  Anyone remember that?  You had to be in the neighbourhood screen for a while and not press anything for the monster to show up in the water.

You could make the Loch Ness monster in the TS1 neighborhood appear by bringing up the cheat box and typing in nessie. I wonder if there's something we can do to make the pig balloon appear.

I never knew that, I waited ages for it to appear too  :D

Try typing piggie into the cheat box.  :D

I finally got it installed last night, and my first impression is that the graphics are definitely better -- much more 3D-like than they were before.  Seems to load and run faster, too.

I thought it was my imagination.  I could swear everything looks much better than before.  The clothing, hair, everything.  Perhaps they tweaked something in this EP for certain hardware.  I've also noticed it doesn't take quite as long to load the game with the same number of CC as I had before.  It also doesn't take as long travelling between lots and saving.