More Awesome Than You!

I only recently started playing with the businesses in OFB simply because I couldn't manage to run one until I found an employee refresh mod.  According to the Prima guide just send them on break so they can take care of their needs but oh no, not these sims!  I send them on break and they go work out or something else really stupid until they become completely useless but that is another story.

I have noticed that restaurants in Downtown (unowned by any of my sims) barely function now.  The Sims obsessively eat - over and over again.  Maybe because of that new "hidden" shopping need and that is the only thing to buy.   I don't know but you can't even talk to them because they are either in line to be seated, already seated or standing up to go be seated again.   

I also get weird messages sometimes.  For example - I had someone on a date at that 50s Diner thingy.  The date ended early so she could "go take care of some things" (I know she had to pee but she just wouldn't go do it, why do they start out with bladder so low now when it used to just be only hunger, fun and social?  I constantly have guests leaving now becaue they are too stupid to go to the bathroom.)  Anyway, shortly after she left I get a message from a downtownie that my sim didn't even know saying he was going to take off.  Ummm, what do I care if he takes off??

The only mods I have are most of Pescado's Director's cut, a handful from Simlogical and Twojeffs.  I do have a few other objects (an employee refresh sign and  Monique's computer) but these were not even on the lot.

I am just wondering if anyone else is seeing any of this or if I have something loaded that could be affecting it?

I actually bought the 50s diner in my game and it's been a lot of fun. I must admit to only having visited it once with a sim who wasn't the owner. It was really hectic because I technically only have one employee although the whole family helps out. But when I visited it only the owner and the employee manager were there so between the 2 of them they had to be host, server and cook.  :o

I didn't really notice much weirdness but I only played for that one date.

I can say that having other family members to help run the business really works well. And servos make great cooks. If you have an employee you can promote to manager they're not so bad since you can control them and take care of their needs. And you can have more than one manager too.

I noticed a couple of those messages as well when one of my sims was visiting downtown; sims that my sim didn't even know would leave the lot with that message "I have to go take care of some things"...I thought it was very strange too, like what did I or my sim care?
The other thing I've noticed (or maybe it's my imagination) all of my sims' needs decay a lot quicker since I installed OFB, particularly bladder and hygiene, it's very annoying. Anyone else notice this?

I've noticed the eating thing downtown - Sims will eat a meal, then immediately queue-up to eat again, yet I've checked their stats and in many cases, they weren't even hungry the first time!  I'm going into lots and finding my own Sims totally fat because of this, so I've taken to deleting them now when I see them attempting to eat if they clearly don't need to, or cheating and pushing their hunger bars down.  Poor old JMP hates fat people in my game, although for some reason he hasn't lost a lightning bolt with his wife since she started sneaking around Downtown stuffing her face and turnng herself into a fat lump - I don't think he's noticed yet because she went off to work as soon as it 'registered'.

This is something that really bugs me, incidentally.  Sims will change their fitness status when they're out & about, either turning fat through aforesaid overeating, or becoming fit due to working-out, yet they still go around with the wrong one.  I've had fit Sims who've become fat and vice versa, but as far as the turn-on situation is concerned, they're the opposite.  I would have thought with so much emphasis being placed on physical appearance in the game, once their fitness status changed it would automatically be altered, otherwise non-playables always remain the same in terms of what they're seen as by other Sims.  I'd love a mod to sort that out.

I just can't take my sims to visit restaurants owned by other sims, when they are family-run, with no outside employees.  When my sims go there as visitors, there's only the owner sim there all by himself, acting as host.  No cook or server since they are family members.  So my sims can't eat.  They jump out of their chairs as soon as they are seated.

This really is a bummer, since I was really looking forward to visiting there and seeing the family at work running their diner.

KellyQ - It is good to hear I am not the only one.  And YES.  I thought it was my imagination about the needs decay but it had to have changed.  I know the default "reset" sim needs now have low bladder like I mentioned which I thought might be part of it but at least on community lots need decay seems faster.  I am not sure on home lots because I micromanage everything they do most of the time :)  Hygiene has always bugged me anyway (who needs a shower 3 times a day??).  I used to have a mod that slowed it but I haven't checked since OFB to see if it is compatible.

And I don't know if it worked this way before but I will have a sim completely green to go to his community lot business and when he gets there he has reset to the defaults again.

The date thing too - in the past all my dates were dream dates.  It was just too easy since your needs get refreshed each level you reach but now almost all my dates end early so that they can "go take care of some things".  I guess I always assumed they were getting the same refresh my sim was but if they did they don't anymore or they are starting the date much lower in needs than before.

For some reason, OFB changed the default state of all Sims.  Newly created Sims start with their bladder motive half depleted.  This happens as soon as you move a Sim onto a lot, as well, or move one in. 

I think they screwed up their code (big shock) and just never noticed (another big shock).

You have to hire employees. Even if you never call them in or just always send them home when you play the lot, they will come and work autonomously when you visit the lot. Make sure you hire at least 2 sims other than the owner. One should have good cooking skill and the other decent body skill

Well I also had the "I'm Taking off now, goodbye" message from totally unknown sims, as they were leaving the lot. Who cares! I've got a sim on a date, doesn't know anybody else, very little time left and these annoying messages pop up constantly. Stoo-pid townies.

I never send my employees on break, and it works fine. If they've got a need to fulfill, they go do it automatically, and then they go right back to work.

Do you have any hacks in your game? If so, which ones? My employees don't do a darn thing unless they are told to go on break so either you have a mod I want or I have a mod I might need to take out.

Mine never take a break autonomously, either.  Even when they do, they're obviously not refreshing the relevant parts because they stay yellow even when they go back to work.  I also found out that telling them to go back to work is a bad idea with low relationship - I had Trepie tell Kaylynn to get back to selling stuff and she went berserk, even though I'd bumped-up all her stats to full green with the Please Yourself plant.  She just went straight back onto the bubble-blower, even though she didn't need any fun.  The second time he told her to go back she did, but not after launching in at him again.  I only employed her in the first place because she was 1 badge short of 5 and he needed a manager.  She owns the Petite Cafe, but of course that means she was unemployed!

I shall continue to use the PYP plant until JMP's mod for breaks is done, because the way it works in the game is totally useless.  They never satisfy the needs they need to satisfy.

I have tons of hacks in my game - 180 or so files at last count, I believe - so I wouldn't know if it was a specific hack causing it. But even in my test neighborhood w/ no hacks, my employees work fine. I do, however, use Inge's autonomous shop sign, which opens and closes the store at set times. When I'm playing, I can't keep track of the time, and this works great in preventing overwork in both employees and playables. By the time the store closes, the employees are just about exhausted, w/ bright red mood bars.

I have noticed the same thing and it is VERY aggrivating.  I had a popularity sim go to a bar on a community lot that I built.  It had pool tables, instruments, darts, and other standard bar things.  But no one did anything but eat.  The counter was full, the 4 small tables were taken - all in all about 15 sims just eating and eating.  I took my sim there to meet some people to fulfill wants, but she could not talk to anyone because they were all eating. 

Same here with the eating on the downtown lots, it's awful. Total ruined the downtown for me.  What a waste hopefully this will be addressed in the second patch for OFB.  It seems like ever new ep  messes up the way I play my community lots.  After nighlife  I couldn't keep no  more than nine sims on the community lots at one time.

Even servers refuse to wash dirty plates on owned lots...

 :'(

There goes another shop idea.

Macrotastical Breaking is already apparently working. The early testers will probably start reporting in on it soon.

Has anyone experienced increased peeing with the new EP? Yesterday, I had 2 of my sims go out to dinner at a nice restaurant. Halfway through, I get Dina, who's an adult sim, peeing herself in the middle of the restaurant. Oh well...I continue...and then about 2 minutes another PIP and this time its the old Ms. Jacquet from Bluewater. It seems to be limited to playables it seems. And out of all the people I want peeing on themselves, playables aren't the ones.

Can you fix this any JM?

This has to do with the fact that the restaurant dining sequence has no escape valve, and furthermore, sims now enter the lot with extremely low bladder....and then chug glass after glass of water, often ignored by the server.

Since there's practically no way to break them out of it, and the servers often forget they exist, they sit there chugging glasses of water one after the other until they piss themselves.

Not certain how this can be addressed at the moment. Other than perhaps making them NOT enter lots already close to bladder desperation.

I've noticed the "Half bladder at reset" too and its getting annoying.  And my downtown restaurants are also acting strangely.  I had a sim on a date at Crypt O' Night yesterday and noticed there was about 5 townies gathered around the podium.  And the NPC host just kept going to each of them and greeting them, but never seating them.  Heck, some of the downtown restaurants don't have an NPC cook.  Yet the food still appears after the server takes the order.

All of my dates are ending early too, unless they're both playable.  Usually they'll take off with the toilet thought bubble over their heads.  Its still easy enough to get most of them up to Dream Date before it happens though.

I've only had one playable sim have an accident so far.  Dustin Broke pissed himself at Midnight Flows when he got up from the table he was dinning at.  (and got the memory for it as well).  I'm pretty sure he didn't eat anything either.  As the server forgot he existed like JMP said.

I guess I should have been more clear. These were not the 2 playables on the date that were peeing themselves. These were unplayable playables that were generated on the lot. Needless to say, I was quite p-ssed when my nice date kept getting interrupted by the peeing PIPs.

I've also experienced the leaving b/c of low bladder on my dates. One of my teenaged couples still had 1:30 min left, almost at "Dream Date", and right in the middle of it the date leaves b/c of bladder issues. WTF? I was quite p-ssed w/ that.

A fix is currently in testing so that visitors will begin at maxed bladder and hygiene instead of quickly leaving because they need to pee and yet won't go and do so.

I'd noticed that - you move a family into a lot and the first thing you have to do is queue them up for the bathroom before they all get desperate at once.  V annoying!

I'm having this really irritating problem, I can't touch the dirty dishes on the community lots. The servers ignore them, the owner sim can't clean em up(no command) and my restaurant is getting dirty.

Could this be a conflicting hack?

Yes it's Inge's no plate clearing hack. You'll need to get rid of it.

Thanks for the advice but I'm afraid I don't have that hack.

This sucks.

Are you absolutely certain? Search all your downloads for a file called ijNoCommunityPlateClearing.package and if that doesn't turn anything up scan all your downloads with Clean Installer and look for an MD5 code of BA1C502159FB46ADC08F70195B1D2FFE

This is the only known hack I'm aware of to cause this behavior and even if you don't recall getting this hack yourself, it could have snuck in with a lot download. If that's the case and you used the Maxis installed, the file name would have gotten scrambled up so you will have to look for the MD5 (sort of a digital fingerprint for a file) in Clean Installer.

Looked it up clean installer and found the hack. It so just happens that I renamed it. *slaps forhead*

A lesson to learn indeed.

Thanks Motoki :D

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=143951

Maybe this will help this problem if anyone wants to try (I have dl'ed but not played with it yet).  Just saw it today at MTS2.

Sintrinity I was just about to post about this.  I requested that mod since Sims were driving me crazy just wanting to eat and nothing else, was hard talking to them on downtown lots.

I also suggest people download eddie expressoriglarge mod which will make the expresso cart 50% less attractive to Sims, another thing they attracted too like bees with honey.  This one works great.  I have not try podium one yet but will install today.

I just noticed the "as requested by MissDoh".  I was too excited to get it in my game when I saw the title.  I am in your debt for asking for this!  Maybe I can actually go downtown and talk to other sims again!

Sintrinity you owe me nothing lol..  Eddie is the one to thank for making it.  I simply requested a fix for something that was driving me mad, I cannot make great things like that.

Hmmm.  I hadn't read this before now.  Is the problem with the new OFB podium?  I've taken sims to quite a few restaurants since OFB that have the NL podium and haven't had problems so was wondering.

I think I did have one sim that ended up having a date ended early because he wasn't paying attention to her needs or some such.  From then on I just make sure my sim heads to the restroom early on in the community lot, and their dates have been following.

I like to stick Merola's mind control mirror on those lots (although I don't have it on all of them) because that way I can check on the date's motive bars to see what's happening.  Okay, I know it's a cheat, but I want my simmies to have a good time!  ;D

Regina, I started from fresh when I got OFB (meaning I reinstall and did a fresh start) and on downtown lots the Sims will simply rush to the podium and ignore everything else that is fun around them.  They don't even play dartboard or run to the karaoke machine like they use too!  :'(  Since all Sims line-up at the podium you cannot interact with them.

With Eddie'S fix, it is better, but still there is a lot of Sims going to the podium but after they ate once, they will do something else so can actually interact with them and some will completely ignore the podium and will rater play bowling!  ;D

Is fix for the expresso cart that are place on community lots works great too.