More Awesome Than You!

http://www.insightexpress.com/s/Sims98308?ABC
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The expansion pack ideas are...

New feature ideas...

You also will probably have to lie about your age if you're over 24.  Both kellin and I tried, and got a "thank you" and bumped out until I changed computers and tried 18-24 instead.

That is cold hard discrimination!

Those two sound the best, I think. Hurrah for castles and castaways?

This makes sense..they only live 100 days.. every 3 generations you can have xmas...

These would be interesting if there was some ability to actually create with them..rather than just fire off a few premade options..

uhm... can't we do that already?

I missed the survey, but it sounds much like the previous one. I'd like the season's.....but if they were only letting the teens answer I guess we will get pets  :( So it will be another ep I'm not interested in  :(
The hospital and mystery ideas were new, I think they have possibility. Mind you with the success I have figuring out crime shows Jack the Ripper will be running around SimCity for quite some time!

I don't think the mystery idea would work very good, what happens when you solve it?  :P

I'd never solve the mystery, if my success at figuring out OFB is any guide  :D

Hey! I'm a teen and not that interested in pets. :'( Sounds like more pointless tasks and skills to earn and moods to manage to me.

I like the history idea, maybe 19th century stuff will be introduced if they do that one? :D

We figure that it wasn't that only the teens were allowed to answer, but that by the time I saw it, all the other stay-at-home moms/domestic goddesses  ;) had already fulfilled their quota for the 25-34 crowd, but the kids and college-age weren't home from school yet.  I didn't think to try older.

What gets me is that the idiot teens WILL pick, besides the pets (which we're going to get anyway, I don't know why they bother putting it on the survey, they know it's the most popular) the "Enjoy the best years of your Sims' youth! Dive into the world of your Sims' kids from birthdays, playground antics, and slumber parties to building tree-houses and forts, sports practice, and prom night. Forge special lifetime friendships with the new kids in the neighborhood." Those things might be fun as part of an EP or as an SP, but a whole EP devoted just to that? I might play it a week before I was sick of it.

And please God, I hope no one picked this one: "There's a new hospital in the neighborhood and your Sims are keeping the neighborhood happy and healthy. Choose a medical specialty including medicine, physical therapy, surgeon, or psychiatry and tend to other Sims who are ill. Heal the patients and determine how the relationships between the doctors, nurses, and patients unfold. The actions your Sims choose may affect the health and happiness of the whole neighborhood!" That has the potential to be even more tedious than Uni.

I'm not too crazy about the mystery one, either. If I want an adventure game, I'll play an adventure game (okay, I'll have to dig out the old ones, since they don't really make good adventure games anymore) . And since that one was asked about, all on its own (like the ideas for NL and OFB were, in previous surveys) and THEN mentioned again with the others, it's practically a done deal.
 ::)

I really hope pets is next, though, so all the whining and demands will stop.

Maybe Maxis' should just put ALL of these things in a new EP. ;) Would make quite an interesting one.

I'd love mystery - if it was set-up right, like a scenario editor or creator or whatlike that would give us the ability to make little scenarios for each other like Motoki was kinda looking for, but not too complicated (most of these on games like Neverwinter Nights are too complex for me.)

Not that I trust Maxis to set things up correctly.

Goodness, does anyone besides me think it's obvious they've got weather somewhat worked out? How many of those had some weather-related dealeo?

 ;D Now that I have a computer that will be able to handle it, I'll be happy to see weather put back in. I always did think it was a cool idea. At the least, give me my freaking snow terrain!!! But when they do come out with weather, be prepared for the screams when the sheeple see the new system requirements.  ;) Just in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, when it starts to rain, the FPS take a major hit, even on my machine.

I agree 100%! Its not that i'm against the pets idea, it may even be interesting, but now every 5 seconds there is a thread that says MAXIS PLZ PUT PATS IN TEH GME1!1!!! I RILLY WANT P3TS IN TEH GMA!!!!11!1!1!1!!

I thought the tropical island one sounded really cool, but after I told them which packs I had bought, it just said "thanks for taking this survey"

Oh well

You obviously didn't lie about your age like I did  ;)

About half of those ideas don't sound much like the sims to me anymore, and seem like they'd be better suited for an entirely different game. Of those that still sound plausible to me, the Outdoors, Pets, and Kids expansion ideas sound good. The rest of them, meh. Anyhow, I'm betting we'll probably find out more after E3. :)

I got the same thing >:(

Well, I tried it again after clearing out my cookies, and it worked- maybe I clicked the wrong thing, by accident?

I checked 25-34...and I took the whole survey...I think it had more to do with what games and eps you said that you had

Yeah I had to delete my cookies and make sure I didn't click on any Sims 1 expansion packs.   ::)

I cleared my cookies but it still didn't work but then i had sims 1 packs ticked as well

I'm glad they're booting people off who click on the TS1 eps.  Hopefully that indicates that they are trying not to repeat ep ideas.  I see too many "bring back Superstar" or "Unleashed 2" ideas floating around.

I took the survey.  I voted for the Mystery one.  That one sounded really cool.

I had to clear my cookies and not tick any Sim 1 stuff to get it to work too.

Some of the ideas just sound painful.

No I don't want my sims going back in time.  Objects are good for people who want to play that way, but I would not purchase a whole EP based around it.

I like the idea of seasons (although the eternal sunshine and clear nights are nice) but don't really want a Vacation type EP

The hospital thing is the most retarded thing I've ever heard of for an EP..wonder where they pulled that idea from.
As is the mystery deal...

I think the sim's youth idea is geared towards the people who have bitched and moaned that children are especially useless and that the teen years are boring.  I can't comment too much on that b/c I have been one of those people.  But a whole EP...I can't really see it  happening.

Sadly I had to click pets on one of my three choices b/c some of the others suck so bad.

 

I'm seriously bored right now so my thoughts on the other stuff:

Yearly calendar--Umm someone explain to me how that would work?
Create your own holiday--  ::)
Frisbee-- Okay that could be kind of cute
Weather & Seasons-- Well since you taunted us with it before..sure why not
Croquet-- Any activity sounds good to me
Casinos-- Could be cool
Pool toys-- Nah I'm good.  My sims rarely get pools anyways, take up too much room & they don't use them
Celebs-- Is this a superstar type deal, or just random celebrity NPC's roaming the neighborhood?  Celeb NPC=lame
Zoos, amusement parks-- Could be alright..I'd have to think more on that
Concert lighting & stages--- Depends on what the point would be
Health & Sickness-- EP 4:  Your Sims Get Cancer and Die!  hmmmmm
Natural disasters-- Destruction and devastation for sims is always welcomed
Prom parties-- What, another lame party type to throw only the teens arrive in formal wear?
Skating,ect-- Again I'm open to other sim activities
Cooking materials-- I guess the stove and fridge isn't good enough
Casino stuff--- Could be cool
Apartments-- I like the idea but if it was just a glorified dorm type situation just kill me now
Gardening-- Yes, I want this
Snowball Fights & Fishing-- Activities are good
Create your own furnishings-- From a selected amount of crap already made!  Yay!
Movie Theater-- Watch your sims watch movies..more fun as always.  Could be okay for OFB players to run though
Camping-- Umm that's okay..no vacation type crap for me
Sports-- Neutral
Hotels-- They're possible now in a way
Going shopping--  Am I missing something?  Can't they shop now?  What was the point of OFB?
Pets--  I think by now we know how everybody feels about that, one way or another.

Okay I'm done lol

Well at least we had them and have an opinion as to whether they truly sucked or not!

I don't think it has anything to do with the TS1 eps sucking or not.  For me, at least, and for Maxis, I would hope, it's about exploring new possibilities and avenues with the game that were never available in TS1.    If their not allowing people who select the old TS1 games is any indication of their trying to weed out any TS1 bias when choosing what ep people want in the survey, then I'm all for that. 

I didn't like all of the ideas they put out but at least they were, for the most part, breakaways from any of the original TS1 eps.

Well if people are lying about whether they had Sims 1 ep's then its not really an unbiased vote is it?

Even though I had all the TS1 expansions I still don't want re-makes of them (well, with the exception that Nightlife is very similar to Hot Date and I really, really wanted something like that, but that's about as far as that goes).

Even so, I would like the option of taking my sims on a vacation but as was mentioned that's practically doable right now.  The only thing that's missing is some kind of amusement park.  (Oh!  Just had a thought!  Maybe I'll turn Bluewater Village [or whatever it's called] into a Vacation spot! LOL

I'm just glad I read this thread first because I did get to fill out the survey and tell them exactly what I think about the OFB mascot costumes.  ::)

Okay--here's my take on the feature-by-feature:

Create your own holiday--  
Frisbee-- Why?  So we can have yet another invisible object to find and unstick?
Weather & Seasons-- NO!  I love it that when I'm freezing in the winter I can turn on my game and have a bright, sunny day and it never looks HOT there when it's over 100F here!
Croquet-- Could be fun
Casinos-- Boring
Pool toys-- *yawns*  My sims don't get pools, either, usually.
Celebs-- Remember Drew Carey? *pukes*
Zoos, amusement parks-- Yes! I voted on this!
Concert lighting & stages--- And these would be for?
Health & Sickness-- No thank you.  I like healthy sims.
Natural disasters-- Again, no thanks.  My sims can create enough of their own disasters.
Prom parties-- What skandelouslala said
Skating,ect-- This could be okay
Cooking materials-- I'm thinking something similar to what was in MM here--sims actually had to buy the ingredients in order to cook certain foods.  Of course this involved a special oven, but it was a lot more interesting than grabbing ready-prep stuff out of the fridge.
Casino stuff--- See Casinos, above.
Apartments-- Um-hmm.  What skandelouslala said.
Gardening-- Emphatic YES! here, as long as it actually works!  I'd also like to see sims gain body skills and a bit of fun from gardening.
Snowball Fights & Fishing-- Fishing=good, snowball fights would have to be dependent on the weather and I don't want weather.
Create your own furnishings-- What skandelouslala said because I can't see how you could create something with a new mesh on a workbench.
Movie Theater-- Could be interesting.
Camping-- Oh yeah!
Sports-- I don't do sports--and neither do my sims.
Hotels-- This I could enjoy (don't shoot me but I actually liked Vacation).
Going shopping--  What skandelouslala said
Pets--  Ditto

I managed to get the survey to come up and do it, but I totally forgot to mention the stupid costumes.

On the open questions:

I think The Sims 2 Open For Business could be improved by…
Beta-testing the game more.  Not pushing to meet the 6-month "deadline" so that more bugs can be found and fixed BEFORE the release.  ;D

Clearly, their lack of respect for the elderly is exactly why they continue to fall short. I am offended by this move and resolve not to purchase any more of their products.

LOL

I think it's more likely that they were concerned about the younger simmers finding OFB so 'difficult', and want to be sure the next EP will be extra easy *cough*boring*cough* so they can win back their adoration.  That's my theory anyway.  What do you think?

Time for some Trepie-tastic opinions.


Wow.  Just think of all the new ways your sim can die by time traveling.  Being accused of being a witch.  Getting put in a guillotine.  Dieing of a super rare disease only members of the Royal family get because of generations of inbreeding.  Getting eaten by a velociraptor.  The possibilities are limitless!



Weather?  Its about damn time.


I guess they decided to throw in other useless parties because Sports Party was felling lonely.


I foresee skimpy nurse outfits.  Yes I do.


A CSI style element.  That's interesting.  But I get the sinking feeling that it'll be something like "ZOMG where did Bella go?!?!?!!!!!1111one"


New kids in the neighborhood?  You mean there's more townies to bloat my Characters folder?  Yay!


Kill me.  Now.


This sounds like that show Survivor.  I hate Survivor.



As for the rest of this crap...



Yearly calendar - You can mark the day your sim was born and when they died all in the same year!

Create your own holiday - St. Trepie day.  What celebrations will take place on this day is yet to be determined though.

Frisbee - Something to go along with the stuck invisible kicky bag.  But if the sim can miss and gets hit in the head that would be funny.

Weather & Seasons - THUNDER and LIGHTNING!!!

Croquet - Something to go along with the stuck invisible kicky bag and frisbee.

Casinos - More stupidly easy ways to make money.  Awesome.

Pool toys - Got to have something to do when your ladder gets deleted.

Celebs - OMG can I have your autograph?!?!

Zoos, amusement parks - Translation:  More poorly planned community lots.

Concert lighting & stages - Do I get to make a band and have groopies?

Health & Sickness - Don't these wussy sims get sick enough as it is?

Natural disasters - Now we're talking!

Prom parties - I never went to my prom...   :'(

Skating,ect - Do they get to fall off the skate board and bust their nads on the stair railing?

Cooking materials - = More ways to start fires.

Casino stuff - One of these days Motherlode is going to become completely useless.

Apartments - Old sqeaky beds + Woohoo = Your neighbors beating on the walls.

Gardening - This I like.

Snowball Fights & Fishing - If your body skill isn't high enough you get pulled into the water and DROWN.

Create your own furnishings - Because Lord know everyone can make them look better than Maxis can.

Movie Theater - See Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/09/27).

Camping - The few times I did this in real life I hated it.

Sports - Depends.  Will it be like Hockey where lots of fights break out?

Hotels - Meh.  Better alternative to camping.

Going shopping - Way to add something NEW to the game.

Pets - I mean it.  Kill me.  Please.



And that's all I have to say about that.

Well, I can see you're a glass half full kinda guy  :P

I'm not getting too worried or 'excited' over the survey. I'll wait until more solid info on the next EP will come out. 

Seriously, they are probably half way or more through EP 4 already so any ideas are unlikely to be implemented until EP 5

Yes! This is what bugs me about this survey.  I know they started the next EP weeks (months, even) before OFB was finished.  That's how it's done.  It always bugged me (at my old job) when I was still rushing to test the latest version of our software (pre-release... unlike TS2) and the techs were already bugging me to test the NEXT one!  Ugh. 

So, we'll get what they give us, right?  ...or not   :P

The hospital thing sounds like ER: The Game.  Which I already own.  Which I haven't played in a while because I kept thinking about Sims.  :P  It's a great game, I just didn't like the navigation.  I think I was used to how it is in TS2.  I played Theme Hospital a long time ago, and I loved it.  But I had to quit playing it because of a serious bug.  It was an older-style game.  I don't know how the hospital would be implemented in the Sims, but I don't have much faith in Maxis because I've seen the way they implement things in the past.  This sounds fine as a separate game, but I don't think it would fit in well with the current game.  It depends on how it is implemented.  I know one thing for sure:  There will be bugs.  You can bet on that.

maybe the current townies will have life cycles?  that would be kind of nice.

ROFL! looks like how i type when i'm trying to eat or something while i'm typing-lolol!

More likely they think the loyal users are already hooked and will probably buy whatever crap they throw out anyway. It seems to have worked so far, look at FFS.  Now they are more interested in luring newer customers into buying expansions and want to know what it will take to get the most people to part with their money.
 I find it insulting (but not at all surprising) that they apparently don't give a crap about the opinions of long time customers. >:(

One of the questions was asking about buying EP's (specifically OFB) and why we purchased it.  One of the options was "I purchase all EP's"  ::)

Stupid thing is full and I would really have liked to answer that.  I just KNOW it's going to be pets and I just don't want them.  I am so bored with OFB I haven't played more than a few hours in the last week.  I would have gone for the mystery one and the hospital one (been asking for something medical on every forum I've been to for ages!).  The going back in time one might be OK, but otherwise they all sound totally uninspiring and thoroughly uninteresting.

So, they're just not revealing it right away are they?  Too busy making SP1 I suppose.

This is the best idea in my opinion.  They could do quite a bit with this, but I doubt this will be the next one and will be more closer to the end and fused with a Magic Expansion.  It sounds like you'll need OFB to enjoy this one though.

Vacation anyone?  I thought it was better than Unleashed though.  Anyway, I know we complain about not having weather but after seeing Simslice's Weather Machine...  We're not missing much.

Isn't this just a different version of the previous idea?

This idea sounds like an expansion of OFB, and would probably require it if you were to actually sell your services to citizens.  I did like Theme Hospital, but I'm guessing that this'll be nothing like it.

All that's missing here is "Scenario Creator."  If that was there, then this might be worth getting.

Why did people have to buy the FFP?  Now they're going to give us more crap for a lifestage that only lasts 8 days.  Seriously, are they expecting us to play the game with aging on?

This sounds almost like Unleashed except for the fact that there's nothing else than pets in it.  The only reason I installed Unleashed was the addition of 30 lots, otherwise I was just kind of "Meh." about it.  I'll just fire up Azureus when this comes out.

I want my sims to live life pillaging trade ships, not stranded on a desert island.  This might go with the first idea, but meh.  The only thing this has going for it is the design new furnishings part.  Are they going to give us an automated tool are do we still have to use SimPE?

As for the other ideas...
Yearly calendar
I guess, but the sync would be off.  Sims only live 1/3 of a year without the elixer though, so that has to be taken into account.
Create your own holiday
Again, Sync issues.  Maybe with a "Scenario Creator."
Frisbee
Shouldn't this have been added in University?      
Weather and Seasons
They're not all that they are cut out to be.  I've tried the thing that Homeslice made.
Croquet
Sounds like more of an object to put in an expansion than a separate idea.
Casinos
We might already be able to make this with OFB.
Pool toys
How'd this get in here?      
Celebrities
Uh, Superstar?  People hated that.
Water parks, zoos, amusement parks
I'll just play RCT3, thanks.  Speaking of which, I never played that game more than an hour.   
Concert lighting and stages
Let's see, how about a better default lighting system first?  I'm using a hack right now.
Health and sickness – doctors and nurses making house calls
I really don't see how Maxis can make something good out of this.
Natural Disasters
I'd rather play Simcity 4.  Seriously, I don't feel like rebuilding everyone's house.
Prom parties
Can't we already do this?      
Skating, snowboarding, skiing
As long as they're integrated in the game, and not like Vacation objects.
Cooking materials, food items
I guess, this is the only thing that TS2 PC doesn't have that is in a console version.
Slot Machines, Roulette, Craps tables
This goes with Casinos.
Apartments
Just update the CAS, and you won't have to do that.  What about Myne doors from Uni?
Gardening, growing food
Possibly the only good thing from Unleashed that didn't add lots to your game.
Snowball fight
Vacation?
Fishing
Maybe if they fleshed it out, but meh.
Furniture workbench (create your own furnishings)
OFB?  Seriously, they're not going to include a meshing tool with TS2 so what's the point?
Movie Theatre
It's possible with what we have in the game already or with downloads.
Camping
Vacation?
Sports and other active events
Uh, no.  There's an entire branch of EA dedicated to this.
Hotels
Why didn't we get this in OFB
Going shopping
The Base game added this.  OFB allowed you to own a store.  How could you expand this any more?
Pets
The only bad feature of Unleashed is that it had pets.

I'd personally wish they'd move on to TS3, but that won't happen for a long time.  Then again, Spore's coming out soon and could be considered TS3.

I think by yearly calendar they just mean cyclical time.  I wouldn't take it too literally, they obviously can't go by our concept of years because they don't mean that long.  They're probabyl are just talking about implementing time in a cycle, which would incorporate seasons and holidays nicely.

I think it'd be a nice idea.  I was actually a fan of most the ideas on the survey, save for vacation and time travel.  :-\

What would be nice is the ability to blot out the sun and plunge the neighborhood into eternal darkness.

You mean, it's not possible to make a hack for that?

Hmm, you might be onto something there, Mr. Paper...  pillaging trade ships... I could finally have my Jack and Will, and make them kiss.   :P

Well, if one day of a sim's life is roughly a year, then you could start your day celebrating New Years, have the fourth of July at lunch, Halloween and Thanksgiving at supper, then celebrate Christmas before going to bed.  ::)

I see so much potential in all of these options, but I'm sure whatever they implement is going to fall really short of our expectations.  :-\

and then the patch they send out to fix it won't work either.

I kinda wish they would do a Sims 1/Animal Crossing thing:

In Sims1 with the magic pack one of the things to do was get items from random sims in order to receive an ingredient for potions.. in animal crossing you do chores for your neighbors and get back furniture, wallpaper, a carpet, a shirt or money.

I would love it if EA designed some _really_ nice sets (furniture, walls, carpet and clothes) that you could only get by 1) dating 2) job reward 3) trading and 4) business promo give-away.

I get bored with the game because there are too few actual goals.. basically getting enough money, going to college and filling skill bars..  easily accomplished by a second gen sim.  I don't really count woohoo or dates.. those are just bonuses  :D


This would also give me incentive to actually interact with the NPCs beyond killing them  ;D

FYI, I just tried the link to the survey and got a "Sorry, the survey is full." message.  So I guess it's over...

I would like it if they could build their own furniture, even if it is only the stuff that they already gave us in the game. It would have been really nice as a part of OFB.

Am I the only one who liked the kids expansion idea? I normally cheat to make childhood last longer anyway, and I think it would be nice if they could have a prom party. In fact, any excuse to make all of the visitors dress in formal wear is fine by me.

I must admit that I am not that fond of a kids expansion, mostly because I think toddler, child and teenager takes too long in my gamme...

But then again, we all play in different ways.

I agree; I usually end up aging them up when I get tired of them.  Those ages are pretty useless and need to be more involved.

I wasn't able to get into the survey, either. Honestly, though, I do want pets. As much as you folks don't want it. Let me illuminate a few things regarding this. Firstly, I'm not a teenager, I'm in my thirties. Secondly, everyone expects that a pet expansion will be Unleashed all over again. Not going to happen.

A business is not going to repeat the same exact thing if they can improve and upgrade things with a new engine. This is just common sense, folks.  Truly, I think a lot of you reflecting over the bad of Unleashed are not giving programmers some credit. Look at how far this game has come from the old game. Look at what they've improved. I have faith in Maxis that they'll improve the engine and make it something enjoyable. Sue me, that I do.

Another thought: You have the choice to A. Not buy the expansion. Noone is forcing you to buy something you don't want. I'm not jazzed about the notion of Vacation but I'm willing to keep an open mind that they'll make improvements from the old and if they add weather, then heck yeah that'll be some interesting interactions. If it's not something that appeals to me once it makes the announcements (Which I'm sure it will, I have a strong feeling) then I won't buy it. Simple as that. If others want it, good on them. This game's about our own personal choices and gamestyle play anyways. B. You do not have to have pets if you don't want them. They made ways from Maxis, themselves, in the old game to keep pets off your lots, completely. I'd not even be surprised if TJ makes an addition to visitor controller to ban pets from lots if they become 'annoying.'

Please, just get over the whole 'OOooh pets r teh sux0r! ' thing. Really. There are a great many people who do want it and they will cater to what will bring them money. If you don't want it, don't buy it but don't bag on the rest of us or bag on Maxis for wanting to provide it for those of us who do. Food for thought.

I for one, want the weather implemented, I do want pets, I even would like some more interactions with the kids. I'm in the minority, for two of the three of those. But apparently not to Maxis.

I treat everything with the same level of skepticism. Although I did like the free-answer question, "What do you think could improve the game", to which I answered, "Me".

Lol, Pescado :D

Actually I was able to complete the survey, even giving my age of over 12. :P  They did ask why I didn't want to buy anymore Expansions and I said :because you do not beta test them thoroughly!! :(

I think it could work IF they give us tools to create our own stories and upload them. Custom content is one thing that has always kept the game going when it gets dull so I see no reason why this would be an exception.

I've always wanted some sort of defined stories with the game personally. Maybe it's because I come from playing RPGs. ;) The game has a skeleton of story but doesn't follow up. I know you are supposed to decide for yourself and make your own stories, but there's some things you just can't follow up on like the whole Bella thing, unless you cheat or use the resurrect-o-nomitron heh, but technically she wasn't supposed to be dead according to the story.

Anyway, I've always thought it would be nice if we could make our own story scenarios and share them.

I'm left wondering how many people suggested something like this - I gave the answer of "employ JM Pescado" with some further elaboration about the need to actually play test before release.

The fact that I could not take the survey if I admitted to owning any sims 1 products left a very bitter taste in my mouth, though. 

Well, about the expansions improving TS2...  They butchered the dating part of TS1:HD with TS2:NL.  They'll probably do the exact same thing with pets, and I personally didn't like the pests pets all that much.  The Careers that came with the thing weren't as good as LL's.

Oh, and I'm done buying expansions until they make it worth paying $35 for.  Heck, I only had to pay $30 for TS1 expansions and you got a lot more content.  I always was looking forward to what new crap Maxis would come up with, but now there's nothing.  The fact that OFB only came with 1 disk really made me angry, which is why I didn't buy it.

The amount of disks that came with each expansion of TS1 are as follows.  TS1-1 TS1:LL-1 TS1:HP-1 TS1:HD-1 TS1:V-1(Could have been 2) TS1:UL-2 TS1:SS-2 TS1:MM-2 plus a TS2 video disk.  The amount of disks that came with each TS1 expansion are as follows. TS2- 4 CDs or 1 DVD plus bonus DVD TS2:Uni-2 TS2:NL-2 TS2:Holiday-1 TS2:OFB-1 TS2:FFP-1.  Though, most of you probably already knew these numbers.

I think they think if you own Sims1 stuff you're already hooked and will buy anything, even though that is SO not the case with me because I haven't bought either of the stuff packs OR OFB because they didn't appeal. And then after that, when I found out all the wacky things that were going on with them (especially with regards to copy protection and such) it made me want to buy new Sims things even LESS.

But I would really like something where my sims could grow crops. That would be cool. I'd buy that expansion. And if pets were done right I suspect I'd really like them, but I have no faith in EA/Maxis anymore.

Animals + gardening/farming + weather = yes! 

I didn't mind pets in Unleashed, but they seemed pretty useless.  The strays were especially useless because you couldn't do anything with them...I wouldn't have minded adopting them.   :D  If Maxis could figure out how to make the pets so that they're not useless additions and take up household space, I wouldn't mind them. 

I made the mistake of having a custom neighborhood take place in the middle of nowhere...farmland...and I have no way of showing that it is farmland except for the neighborhood decor.  Otherwise it's just urban houses with urban commodities in the middle of farmland and an alien crashsite.   ::)  If I had gardening/farming, that would make this neighborhood fit what I had in mind.  Weather would also be neat in terms of videos/pictures and to make it seem more realistic. 

I agree!  I dont play RPGs, or any other game for that matter save for this one, but I'm always wanted more structure in the game.  The whole "Where's Bella?" saga, the rivalry in Veronaville and the Roswell-esque theme of Strangetown would actually had been interesting (and I probably wouldn't have deleted them) if they had actually done something with it.  I like that the Sims is open to individual interpretation but there's a difference between being open-ended and not being given enough to work with. 

I'm really looking forward the mystery idea, if it's chosen, which I hope it is.  It's an idea I've never thought of before and would add a whole new spin on playing the game and telling stories.  I think the Mystery ep was the most original idea out of all of them.  Will Wright had suggested something like this a while ago but it didn't get much positive feedback from the fans. 

I must be a huge geek because I really liked the pets in Unleashed. If they put pets in TS2, only with more options, I'd be thrilled. Add gardening and I'm all over it. One of my favorite Unleashed families to play was the old lady and her 4 cats. She had pets and gardening, I was a happy camper.

Then again, I do play a lot of Harvest Moon.

However, even more than pets, I want a magic expansion. I loved the "Magictown" neighborhood, with it's dirt roads and spooky lots. I loved making nectar, making honey and besswax, growing grapes and berries. I loved making spells!

Everyone seems to bash every idea Maxis comes up with for expansion packs, so here's my question: what exactly is it you guys want in the next expansion pack? And no cop-out answers like "no bugs" or "for it to work out of the box", because we ALL want that :P

Hrmmm....it's actually an interesting question: What do you want in an EP?

I want pets and more stuff for my Sims to do at home.  I am not one of those OMGZ PETZ!!11!!! people, but I think if done well, it would be a nice add-on.  I don't really like going to community lots, so I would like it if there was a lot more to do at home so I didn't have to send them anywhere.  A farm would be great.  I would love to see more careers - they haven't updated those in forever, and OFB doesn't count. 

I would love to see just more stuff in general added to the packs; nicer clothes, hairstyles, furniture, decor objects, etc.

I think the concept of the neighbourhood "whodunit" is an interesting one, but it would have to be done properly.  I also like the idea of a "Lost on a desert island" type-deal.  There were a few ideas they mentioned in their survey that I didn't think sucked.

Magic never really appealed to me, but by that point I had been playing TS1 non-stop for about 2 months and didn't really "play."  I only built houses, tore them down and rebuilt more houses.  So I didn't get a lot of most of the EP's.

Well it is a cop-out and all, but the truth is I'm really wary of anything from Maxis right now. I'm disappointed by bugs in the patches and bugs in what was supposed to be little object packs. It's one thing to have a buggy EP and another to have a buggy patch. And I guess part of it is that I love OFB, am nowhere near bored yet, so I'm too happy with my game to mess it up.

Mostly what I'd like now are game engine fixes and expansions. Careers and Uni majors, more ways to specialize for shops (foods and clothes and for it to work right to have specialized restaurants and stores), the interface for nightclubs and bed & breakfasts and the like to work well, the ability to walk next door :p, stuff for kids so you could take toddlers for walks and have play parties and parks, but not a whole EP of that, same with hotels/vacation-type stuff. I can do almost anything, so I'd really like it all to be smoother and work better in a whole bunch of ways and I'm not expecting to get that.

But to answer the question, I'd love a scenario creator so if that's what they do with the mystery thing, it'd be great. I'd like farming - I enjoyed that in Sims 1 and several of the others sound fun.

As to weather, I tend to think that it would just be really annoying and slow the game down. Currently the only time my game really slows down is on med/large lots when the day/night change occurs -- I dread to think what it would be like if it started raining.

What I'd really like in terms of gameplay expansion is some sort of antisocial delinquency aspiration where the sim always wants to pick fights or quit his job or cheat on his spouse, or whatever. It would really spice gameplay up to have a few of those floating around. Also, although I hated[ vacations in TS1 I think they could be much better in TS2 if done right (like if you can only stay as long as you have vacation days or days off of work, or if it's a weekend for the kids, or whatever).


Ahahha, that was my favorite Unleashed family! Crazy old catlady family! I really liked her house too, I don't know what it was about it but it was one of my faves.


HECK YES. Top on my list of things I'd like in an expansion pack are a Medieval castle theme, a Roman theme, and more Maxis hairstyles (which I feel almost always look better than custom hairs, even if some of them are so fugly it hurts). Those would be cool. But they'd have to have a lot of stuff, very much unlike this so-called "nautical theme" from FFS.

If done right, I would love a mystery expansion pack, although it would probably be more Scooby Doo than C.S.I.   

I would love the sort of furnishing/wall options we had with the Sims 1.  Mostly, I miss the "spooky" items/decor/clothing and skill building items that came with Makin' Magic as well as the French Quarter stuff from Unleashed.  Then there's the different party theme type collections that came with House Party that could be used for homes, hotels and businesses. 

I would like for there to be more careers, but also for those careers to have more of an impact on a sim's life.  Like a doctor would have other sims asking him/her health questions, or people would be edgy around a Mad Scientist.  For a Mystery pack, they could beef up the careers of Paranormal and Natural Scientist- they could get bonuses for using their craft to help solve the mysteries. Things like that would make the careers more vital to the game without resorting to "follow your sims to the office!"

What do I want?  I'll second everything in Blue's post.  I would like pets, since I enjoy playing myself and my friends in the game, and we all have pets in RL, so it would be nice to include them in the game.  However, I do hope they're done better than in Sims1.  Farming would be good too, although Echo's and SimAddict99's objects are filling that need quite nicely!

Mostly, I'd like new careers and new LTW's.  Oh, and more stuff to do at home would be nice...I have a really low-end computer, so I almost never send my sims to community lots because the load times are too long.  Since I'll probably buy an EP before I upgrade the computer, more home stuff would be great.

Oh, and for Maxis to actually TEST the thing would be nice too, but that's a given.

Ok, i kinda like pets ( I know bad me) but they have to be done correctly ya know..

Health and sickness: could be cool, random diseases and heart attacks and stuff, everyone living til old age in my 'hood gets old and i don't have the heart to kill them myself.

Gardening...totally, i would love to have farms!! including the animals, and growing your own food and stuff, that would be great.

Karen

Nothing would be wrong with pets, however they really need to take into consideration what has been said in other threads.  I'd also like to see more aspirations and turns ons/offs.  That pleasure aspiration didn't really do much for the series.  A "vacation" neighborhood wouldn't be bad, as I'd like more businesses for the sims to own.  And as for natural disasters, if there isn't one that uttterly destroy my sim's  home to point where they'd wished that house insurance existed, maxis can forget it.   :P

Well, not really an expansion idea, but one I think they could make tons of money with and make us non-awesome users very happy, if it's feasible.
 I think they need a "Create and Organize" type of add-on. I would dearly love to see an idiot proof  simple program that would let you customize clothing, furniture, walls and floors, etc INGAME and let you see what it would look like in CAS or on a lot. Having to make something in body shop or homecrafter, import to the game and then wait to load the game up seems kind of inefficient.
 Also a better way to make and organize collections , INGAME. If I want to make a theme I want to be able to put in clothing , hair, furniture, the whole bit, and be able to subfolder it..
 I also wish that deleting ingame would simply put those items in a folder somewhere rather than completely deleting them from your computer. Surely I am not the only one to have deleted something ingame and then realized that oh no... that  awful green puke color couch I didn't ever use was the mesh file :P And of course being able to delete maxis stuff that you never ever use (most of the clothing!) would be great too.
 

Considering the enthusiasm at Maxis for natural disasters with simcity, I am a bit fearful to see it come to the sims. It would be neat, but if it is like the other game, too frequent to be realistic- and more of an annoyance.

That having been said, can you imagine them getting hit by a TORNADO?

Can you just imagine the annoyance of disasters you can't actually properly defend against like in real life?

I'd love to see natural disasters, and just weather in general. It provides plenty of new ways to kill of my Sims (I'm deranged, I know). As far of destruction goes, I think there should be home owner's insurance available. If you buy insurance, then after a disaster scenario is over, the insurance company will arrive and repair your house to its pre-storm state.

The thing is, for most of the expansions of the original Sims, they also came with updated versions of the files for previous eps (since the files had to be udpated to accomadate the new features of the EP). Otherwise they really could have fit on one disc. It wasn't until the last couple I think that Maxis discovered they could simply patch the old files, they didn't have to include entire copies of the old files.

This is actually how I got a couple of the eps (Vacation and House Party). I simply extracted them from the disc of a later expansion. Took some fiddling with the registry to prevent them from disappearing.

Heh. Or find excuses for why they won't pay for it.

"Sure, your home was hit by a hurricane, but since it was blown to splinters by wind instead of water, you are on you own. Have fun living on the lawn."

I know that there is weather coding in the game, Carrigon uses it for a lot of the weather packages she uses. I think Maxis is planning on using the weather in a future ep.. the question is this: Are we all going to have to upgrade our computers to run the next ep or will weather take out our graphic cards anyway? Rain is a bit scarey on my screen and I have a GeForce FX 5500. It dents the land and takes a while to stop. Sometimes, it wont stop. And the Lightning storms are fun... just don't leave a Sim out in them.

Well, it's been sorta weird but I've noticed my game gets better with each EP, not worse.  Weather will probably be the one to kill it though.  As nice as it would be to have the option, I hope it's something that can be not used if we don't want to.

It would be nice if you could have some parts of it or have it sometimes... as in, say you want seasons but don't want animated rain/snow etc. There could still be flowers at some times and snow on the ground at others or the like, skipping the inbetweens and animations. Or if you want it to rain/snow/whatever (perhaps for a snow festival or to rain out a parade or something) just this once, you could call it, but it won't happen automatically unless you set it that way.

If you see what I mean...

Expansion Request List
-Fully Fleshed Scenario editor.  I just don't want an afterthought here, I want it to be at least as feature packed as WC3's Map Editor and if it doesn't contain a lot of features give it a script system such as Ruby or Python.  Heck, Civilization 4 is made mostly with Python.  It's sad to see a game that isn't about customization is ahead of a game that is ALL about customization on this aspect.
-Piracy.  I really want my sims to sail the seas and pillage trade ships for some reason.  It'd be a good way to use those useless water tiles, and with the Neighborhood view with NL I know that it's possible to change the background as they're sailing.  I guess they could add P2P networks also but it's not that exciting really.
-Restructured Wants system.  I know there's wants I never get because my sims are obsessed with their current want trees.  Also, what's up with LTWs?  Are they ever going to update them?
-Getting rid of Attenuation.  The current AI system follows Attenuation, a crusty old system from TS1 that tells a sim to use an object that Maxis thinks gives the most entertainment.  This is why sims bogart swings so often.  What should it be replaced with then?  Like a "Governor" in the Civilization Games, Free Will is run by what you have told them before.  Want them to be addicted to TV?  Have them constantly watch it.  Want them to skill constantly?  Start them off skilling a lot then they'll continue.   If this transferred to other houses too it'd give them distinct personalities.  Situational Awareness would demand too much from your CPU, and people already have problems with running the game quickly.
-More Careers that are unconditional.  Seriously, I don't want to send a Sim to University just because I want them to be an actor.  Wait, does that even make any sense?

That's it for now.

WORD. If they did the first two things, the game would be SO much more fun.

Yah, I'd be all for that.  I especially like the idea of a "governor".  That would make my simming all the less annoying.

And aside from the Natural Science career, all the Uni careers are b.s.  Any idiot or scam artist could do them.  I'd also like to see University available to adults and elders.  They shouldn't have to go to the Uni campus but they should be allowed to get their degree in some way.

don't bother trying anymore, It's full - got a message before I even got to the survey!

The "Governor" in Civilization isn't really that deep. They don't "do what you have told them to do before" in any real sense, it's just that they tend to mindlessly repeat your last orders to build tanks, artillery, and mechinfs, and so you think this appears to be some kind of intelligence because you wind up with a useful number of tanks, artillery, and mech infantry.

As for making them addicted to something, in order to properly model the addiction to it, they have to benefit more from doing their chosen activity than normal sims do! So a sim that is addicted to TV should have a REASON why he's addicted to TV, because he'd actually derive more benefit from it than from another action, or another sim doing the same thing.

Of course, this means my neighborhood will rapidly fill up with compulsive flamingo and gnome kickers that keep doing it even when visiting. Which is cool. I can't imagine getting MORE benefit from kicking stuff, though. That's pretty godlike already.

I don't so much mind "conditional careers" as I do conditional careers with arbitrary conditions that make no sense, like how you have to go to college to be an artist, but don't need to do this to be a doctor. Wuh?

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense to me either.  Some artists do go to art school, but it's not like having to go to med school for 8 years like most doctors I know.  But I guess Maxis' reasoning for this is that Uni didn't exist when they put out TS2 which included the original Medical career, and they had to think up some cool new careers for your grads to work for when they put out Uni.   ::)

I really hate that the Uni careers don't make sense. I wondered how they were going to handle not having had drs go to school previously, but it never ocurred to me they'd just *ignore* it :p

bah.

As a whole; a theme for an entire expansion pack: Sim Religion.

Now, I'm not talking about real-world religions, which could be trouble. I'm talking about things Sims would believe in:
Player Determinism vs Free Will
Nirvana vs Forever-Trapped-In-Characters-Folder-Hell
Attenuation vs Repetition
That kind of thing.

Impact it could have on the game:
We can chose PC Sims beliefs
Beliefs effect attractiveness/compatibility/relationships
Certain beliefs give you days off
Non-UNI-Related religious career track
Religious NPCs
Any other ideas?...

Now, my wish-list items for any EP:
Death Phone: Call up Grimmy. Pay him money. Kill anybody on the lot/any way you want.
Seasons; not necessarily weather.
Werellama counterpart for Vampire.

Just some stuff floating around in my head.  :)

Everytime I try to take the survey I get this:   Sorry, but the survey is full. Hopefully, we'll catch you next time!

I guess I try back later and hopefully with get to take the survey, I'm all for the weather (they promised this A long time ago and never delivered on it).

The survey *is* full now.

...ugh need caffine.....brain no thinking right.......please ignore my above comment the result of it just caught up with me :-[ LOL

A werellama sounds like a terrific idea - I'm with that 8)

ElfPuddle's EP wishes:

1) something to end Utopia...be it weather, seasons, even animations (in which case, I need a new computer)...my sims don't need beautiful late spring/summer 24-7. What's the point in coats if it's 80 degrees F and sunny?
2) (a dead horse, but one which MUST be beaten): my favorite modders and object makers hired by Maxi to test, fix, and de-feature the EP BEFORE it comes out!
3) LTWs and other tweaks to give my sims a reason to get degrees beyond the extra wants & want locks (if you don't have uni, you won't get them...sucks to be you!)
4) gardening and laundry...and other realistic touches...see (2)
5) AN EDUCATION MAJOR AND TEACHING CAREER...you could have good/bad memories of teachers, easier/harder grades depending on your teacher/professor, better homework help at home if your parent is a teacher....and yes, you must go to uni. to get this career
6) all of the above ideas from other posters

Hail and acid rain would be fun. Sims have to stay indoors when there is hail or rain, because otherwise they get pelted to death or melt.

yes, that would be fun. I'll try to keep Sim JM out of the green hail  :D

The "Governor" isn't perfect, but it's better than what we have now.  Macros are "Governors" kind of take care of this now but requires intervention.  It's probably too late to implement the "Governor" system into TS2 this far in the cycle, but it has a slim chance of happening in TS3.  Chances are, they'll use attenuation again but add more checks.

I'd only like the religion idea if we can make new ones and they actually don't make real religions themselves.  Custom religions must be able to limit actions or allow more actions, such as Attacking random people if you follow Pescadoism or slower skill learning for Sheepism.  Religions are very weak with only a few people, and with more the religion can get more benefits or improve existing benefits.  Pescadoists would only be able to attack people slightly earlier until the religion gains power, in which eventually they would be able to attack people with 100/100 relationship.  Using Power is strictly optional, a religion could remain weak forever no matter how many people worship it.  I should probably add that people per Religion should only affect the local game, it would be a disaster online.  Magic could be worked into this expansion also.


I've hated the idea that an expansion can't be altered once it's released.  Heck, I would get a booster pack that added many LTWs or University-required Careers instead of useless objects.

Well, everything ultimately is "Attenuation", as you put it, even in real life. It's just that in real life, the values an object purports to advertise are filtered through your own experiences: A "fun" thing is advertised as being lots of fun: You try it. If it turns out to not be fun at all, your experience with is is negative, and you respond poorly to its claims in the future, depending on how smart you are: Smarter people learn more quickly that this is a bad idea, while dumb people may keep poking it at stubbornly certain that this is supposed to work, and then accuse you of cheating when you beat them anyway.

Or a base Maxis-made religion to start; with the option of creating a custom religion. The Maxis-made religion would make good opposition for any new custom one. I like that idea for a custom religion. I can see the Hamster Cult now.  :)


Similar to a Soroity/Fraternity in UNI.

You mean like the BBS Sheep Cult?

For the Maxis-made? Heh, heh, yup.  :)

I can even see a couple of attributes for it:
(1) Every townie is automatically rewritten to be a Sheep Cult member.
(2) Those townies react to any negative action like Mrs. 'C' So, gossip, bragging, or being critical of another townie gets your PC Sim a stern lecture or a smack on the head.  ;D

Or they could have nightmares or run around screaming when someone suggests using hacks!!!

I'd like to see the cult of the Llama.

Poll is up again.

http://www.insightexpress.com/s/Sims98308?ABC

Yay I was able to get in on this one AND have the right age bracket. I am glad I got to one of these before they closed. It may be a first for me. Hehe.
Ah yes I'm a newbie here but not to sims, just rarely post on boards but have been lurking here for a few days and I think I'll fit right in. :o) I do like the comments everyone says here.
I bashed OFB in all the right places. Though I did give them some happy notes, such as liking the fact that this expansion was a bit harder to figure out.. I liked the added challange!!
I have to say I HATE the idea of a mystery expansion pack. If I wanted a mystery game I'd buy another game for that. I do not want my sims to have quests and stuff. Not to fun. At least to me. Though I do think the hospital aspect sounds kind of fun cause I like torturing my sims like that.. I think it's unfair that they only get colds once in awhile! Come on let's bring on the sicknesses!
Other than that I liked the added games for them to play like volleyball, croquet, frisbee, fishing, ect. I'd like more group interactions and I think these would be fun to play!

There my 2 cents got put in now I'm a happy girl. ::grin::

Well they let me take it this time and I still put down the all the sims one games I owned and gave my correct age.  Congratulations Maxis for pulling your heads out of your butts!

Does anyone remember the basketball hoop and volleyball net from Sims 1?

And the lost soccer game.

None of the expansion ideas look terribly interesting. Weather would be nice, but I don't see how it could support an entire expansion pack. Same with the "back in time" stuff. Pets and kids together could be enough... but really, not thrilled with it if pets are yet another thing I'd have to take care of. Maybe I'm just saying that because my current Sim family just had twins though. Pets really aren't a bad idea, but the whining and screaming for them on the BBS has made me rather skeptical of them.

Honestly, after Nightlife, I'm happy with my game now. It's by far the best expansion imo, adding lots of new options that are actually fun without really forcing things on people. I'd rather Maxis just made an expansion with lots of new interactions and tons of new objects. No clothes necessary, they're just bad at making clothes and the community is great at it. But if an XP had at least 5 new objects in every single subcategory, like 2 new aspirations, a new career to go with each aspiration, and about, I dunno, 20 new interactions, I'd be all for it. They could throw the weather thing in there too. I have no hope that Maxis will do what I really want: fix elders.

Fix them how?

Elders are extremely boring.

It's not the "boring" part that primarily annoys me. It's the fact that they are built to be annoying. The women have screechy voices, they all have severe osteoperosis, their clothes are terrible. They were obviously built with an "old people suck" prejudice in mind, and it actually does make me angry.

LOL!
Sorry, just found that post funny in an odd way. I think Maxis sort of made unrealistic looking bodies to begin with, rarely do women unless they're filthy rich and can afford personal trainers and nutritionists, have washboard stomachs, same with men.

I took the survery, I didn't tick the pets expansion as the others seemed more interesting, I do like the idea of a hospital, with illnesses, malpractitioning doctors, botched operations...*stops self from throwing head back and cackling*
I'm evil, I just want more ways to torture my sims and make their lives misery. Oh, and the history theme sounds sort of interesting, although, does it mean sims from current neighbourhoods go back to a certain with a time machine? Or do they mean you actually set a neighbourhood in a certain era? The second would be more fun, for me at least.

I just took the test and I know the next or the one after that will be a pets one just because "all" the fans (the fans at the BBS) NEED pets! ... and twins and Bella! It will be pets next for the same reason that there was cheese cake in OFB.

I think that one that would show more on children would be cool because there is barly anything for kids to do. OFB added some things but not all to meny.

I personly would like middle aged sims. Then you could say elders althow just a useless could be passed as very old. They could have midlife criseses, with having weird wants and things. That would be hillarous. Am I the only one who thinks middle aged sims would be nice?

Well, I took the survey.  It seems if you say that you're "Not at all interested" in a pets expansion, they believe that you don't want another TS2 expansion.  I kind of was disappointed that there wasn't a general comments section, where we can berate them and suggest ideas that don't suck.  Well, they probably wouldn't read them anyway.

I could elaborate into a huge system for the religion concept, but I don't think any of you feel like reading all of whatever I would have typed.  Besides, Maxis doesn't have the balls to take a risk and make a religion expansion.  Heck, Civilization 4's done it and no one's complained.

Oh yes they have. Check out www.civfanatics.com for examples ::).

All religions in Civ 4 are absolutely equal, and people still do find a ton of stuff about religion in the game to gripe about. Civ 4's player base is generally much older and more experienced than that of the Sims franchise, do you really think Maxis would be insane enough to chance the firestorm of sheeple if they put religion in the game and didn't make some particular brand of Christianity "the best"? Besides, religion fits Civ 4 perfectly as the opiate of the people. I see no point or use for it in the Sims.

Ok, so they're complaining about it on a Civilization site.  Heck, they even complain about Civilization 4 there.

It's not Maxis's fault if Christianity becomes the "best" religion if they don't supply objects for it.  Don't you think TS2 would have been already off the market because of the ability to make Adult content?  However, since the meshing community would make the symbols they will take a big hit if that happens.  Maxis hasn't taken a risk since Hot Date I think, otherwise they've acted exactly like Disney.

Maybe Religion isn't such a good idea, but Pets isn't a good one either.  Most ideas revolve around object sets, which are also a matter of preference.

I would like a religious sort of expansion. Or at any rate, some sort of object that allows them to pray.

It's not just you...I always thought some type of middle age stage would be nice.   I still bugs me a bit that sim go from vibrant looking 20 year olds or something to slouched over sims who  pee themselves with nothing in between.

I remember a crucifex somebody made for sims1 that sims would get on their knees and pray in front of. I also remeber the volleyball net. I loved that thing because it was the one thing that kids and adults could all do together in a group and it raised fun and/ relationship scores (sorry senior moment, don't remeber exactly how it was beneficial, but at least it was good for something dangnabbit)

Nope, you're not alone. I would love middle aged sims as long as they shortened the length of the elder stage. I can't stand having and elder around for 20-25 days. If they worked it so that a middle aged sim was 10-15 days (leaning toward 10) and a elder was 5-10 (leaning toward 5), that would be perfect. Returning college students would have something more realistic to look at than elder parents, would have grandparents that could actually play with the grandkids, and wouldn't have the in-the-way-taking-forvever-to-die elders. Perfect!

Have you tried twojeffs' Age Duration Hack?

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2697.0

It does more or less what you are suggesting, except that of course the adults don't change their physical appearance.  I really like the fact that it maxes out the elder stage at something like 13 days.

Karen

One of the main points of wanting a middle age section is to change the appearance so you dont have a youthful sim all of a sudden looking decrepit.  There could be a whole new set of wants to go with a midlife crisis section as well.  And lets face it, majority of successful business owners are middle aged.

Haha! I'm with you there O-Girl! I love the idea of botched operations and bad doctors.. or just new but try to do it anyway. lol. It'd be realistic in that aspect!

And I too would like another life stage for adults.. it seems weird to go from 20 to 70 in what seems like a day. uhg!

Also I remember the basketball and volleyball in the sims 1 that's why I'm all for it in this new one cause it gave more for the kids to do with the older sims. I never liked it that kids had so little to do. It's like you just want to hurry and grow them up to a teen at least so they can DO something. That's how I feel anyway.

I too would like a middle age (being that in years if not in mind lol) Well whatever we voted for (and it wasn't pets because it seemed that Maxis idea of pets is still just cats and dogs) I think it will come with weather and/or seasons.
In the last section it was really hard to keep to just 5 options - we wanted pool toys AND the water park/zoo/theme park so we opted for the latter because pool toys might be included.  We didn't vote for the sports things because they were too dispersed - there was a general sports, frisbee, winter sports etc.  The volleyball in Sims1 was great fun even though the court took up so much of the garden and I am really surprised that no basketball hoop has found its way to the inventory - it was an excellent way of getting the kids some body points.
One thing I had to keep remembering when adding my comments was which hacks/cheats I use to make the game run smoothly and then berate them for not thinking of it

On the pets issue, I think I'll like them if, as implied in the survay, they will have a comclated set of genetics. I just think that by "creating your own unique breed" they might mean custom content or picking from a set of features. I think if they have a complacated genetic system it would be enough to support a entire expansion pack. I don't think in a pets expansion pack there will only be cats and dogs. There will probly be cats, dogs, birds, snakes, rodents perhaps... and llamas. ;D

It seems we will find out sooner than we think
http://www.snootysims.com/ (http://www.snootysims.com/)


who bets pets?

Somebody thinks FFS was successful...I guess if you only look at sales figures it was.  But I still think it's too buggy and not enough content to risk putting it on my machine. 

Well, I, for one, think the sims could do with praying animations. Then we could put this giant idol of me in the game and have your sims pray to it every morning. And when they add animals, we can throw in an extra altar where they can sacrifice goats to me, as is proper.

/me coughs.

Excuse me, I must have had a bug in my throat.

Okay, I'm up with the icon thing, but does it *have* to be goats?  It's ALWAYS goats.  What happened to being honoured with a nice, fat bull?

* rainbow slaps BlueSoup on the back. 

You ok now?

The cattle industry tends to have a great number of cows. It's not much of a sacrifice anymore.

Hee! I managed to work in a complaint about the FFP in the text box page. I said that I felt the items should be bundled with EPs. And that I had heard it was buggy and I didn't want to risk it, so my suggestion was to bug and playtest the EPs!

Damn.  Well, fine, goats, then.  Just don't expect any mummified cats.

How about guinea pigs?

It's too bad Maxis wouldn't have animal sacrifices in their pets expansion.  Since we can't use cows, I guess people are out of the question too?

If they do have a pets expansion, they better be able to have you be able to throw the pet brick.  Their implementation right now doesn't really have a point unless if that IS the pets expansion.

That's okay, I'm sure we can still make it a black box procedure, in which the animal enters the black box and meat comes out the other side.

The guinea pig was responsible for the death of Jeff Pleasant's entire family in my Sims 1 game.  :(

Forget the goats.  Sheep would be so much more appropriate.  And probably taste better.

Yes! Sheep and Sheeple sacrifices to the Icon of the Fish!

My guinea pigs are responsible for over three large garbage bags of poop.  :-X

That's what rodents *do,* besides nibble on everything.

New survey this time about the web site.
http://www.insightexpress.com/s/Sims97887

Already full.

s'ok, the answer's easy. The website is so bad, it's not worth going there to answer a survey about how bad it is.

OMFG the next eps Pets ?!
nts: maxis are mentally morons for putting a popular ep up called Pets.
NO FUCKING PETS FOR GOODNESS SAKE.

It could be okay. I am in favor of kittens.

I wish Maxis would add a religion generator.  That way we could customize a religion and name it.  If we wanted to make Catholic sims, we could set the parameters that correspond with the Catholic religion.  I personally want this soley so I can create a cult.  Think of how fun it would be to brainwash sims and swindle them out of their money.  ;D

Um, aren't your sims brainwashed already? Mine believe I'm God, and will do anything I want them to.
(Not that I'm opposed to a religion generator....must sacrifice sheep and sheeple to the Icon of the Fish!)
It's just that I worry...you'll be sending to sims to Room One-Oh-One, won't you? (2+2=5 and all that)

eta: Welcome Out of Lurkerdom!

Two plus two does equal five.  Doesn't it? ???

I think it does too! Or no was it 7? erg ok now I'm confused.

A religion thing would be ok but I doubt I'd use it often. But it could be fun once in awhile.

Gee, a lot of people here don't want a pets expansion.

Having never played the Sims1 at all (only started when Sims2 was released) I've obviously missed why people hate pets, other they take the space of a Sim, and demand a lot of looking after. Is that right?

There is a big part of me that would like to see what it would be like to have a pet in the game, it *sounds* interesting... and I haven't been bitten by what's gone on in the past to have learnt to be wary of it yet...

I wouldn't want to see an EXTRA life stage - that would totally piss me off, because I don't want to have to worry about having to get custom content (hair, clothes) for YET ANOTHER goddamn age. Unless they can use all the adult CC *BY DEFAULT*, then I don't want to know about it. Why did those idiots make the YA have to have their own clothes and hair and not just keep using the adult age custom content which is exactly the same anyway - so stupid and inefficient. And annoying. Did I mention annoying?

 I played the original Sims and my favorite two eps of all of them were Unleashed and Making magic.   I think if they think about what they are doing with The Pets it may be fun.    Unleashed also gave us more usable house lots and harvestable crops.    What will take the joy out of it for me is the very short life spans they are bound to have, and if they just include the pets into the 8 allowed family members per lot.   

Heh. Just like everything in the sims, it will be interesting the first time you try stuff, but pretty much once you've discovered all the possible things you can do with them, you'll get bored, but more likely you will be very annoyed by the compulsive, obsessive, stupid behaviour that they focus on. :P Everything's fun and funny once, but repeatedly, it quickly gets annoying. ::)

As for an extra life stage, I actually wouldn't mind having one. It will probably be fairly tough to add one though, as it will most likely force a huge overhaul in the code to take into account a completely new lifestage. With YA, at least it is pretty much confined to Uni lots. I doubt you could reasonably come up with a lot based location/theme for a satellite hood that only has middle-aged sims. Even if they did, it would probably be pretty crappy and unsatisfying.

The only good way to do it would be to create a new life stage and do the overhaul. But then again, I play my game differently than most people. I don't have tons of CC, just game mods really. It would be a pain to update content... but really, they wouldn't necessarily have to change the models too much. Maybe just age the skin some, maybe the hair, and mostly the face, but keep the bodies similar to adults. At least this way, you could enable clothing for middle-aged sims the same way you can easily enable ones for YAs and adults. I guess I don't care so much about cc because of how I play.

I would love to put tons of better looking clothes and recolours, but that all just seems to slow down loading times. If I could easily replace ugly maxian clothes, by say selctively deleting outfits, hairstyles, etc. I don't like or will never use, and add cc, with all of it properly, consistently binned, maybe then I would be more of a downloading fiend. As it stands, I have a modest amount of cc which I don't even use that much, simply because I don't want all my sims to look exactly alike. I force myself to use the Maxis stuff because it's in there and I really can't get rid of it. Theoretically, I suppose I could use jordi's hide all outfits and download tons of new cc, but I really don't want to go through all that effort. As ugly as default Maxis stuff is, I'll live with it. The stuff that I really can't stand are the bugs and unrealistic behaviour in the game, which is why the majority of my cc will always be game mods.

Having said that, another life stage would probably rejuvenate my interest in the game again. Plus, as many people have argued before, I think it would be better to have that middle-aged stage rather than jumping to it directly from adult to elder. Not only would it add a lot more gameplay, imho, but it would be a bit more realistic and make the transition a little less jarring. One minute, you're a healthy adult, in the prime of your life, the next you're a withering old retired almost carcass, that can't get a full nites sleep and constantly pisses yerself. ::)

Ste

PS. Since Marg posted while I was composing, this brings to mind the possibility of the number of sim files quickly increasing if pets are counted as sims, and have relatively short lifespans, if they try to implement them in a somewhat realisitic way, compared to regular sims. Also... lord knows how quickly a lot might get overloaded if pets are allowed to breed and have numerous litters... I don't remember if pets could even do this in Unleashed. I think I only went so far as to having a pet once... getting quickly bored and annoyed with it, and not bothering with it again once I had to restart my game because of reinstalling. :P I can only assume that, if they were to do Pets 'right' they would have to allow them to breed, and grow through a few stages as well, changing in size and appearance too, instead of both kittens and dogs always being just one size? Oh well, it all remains to be seen...

I'm looking forward to Pets really as I think it'll be fun to have again. I wasn't to upset with them as they kinda did their own thing. Sure you needed to play with them a bit and refill food but that was about it. I actually liked it as a virtual pet is the only kind I'd like to have anyway! Hehe a few more clicks of the mouse on making sims do more is hardly a bother for me. As I find myself board in the things they can do. Pets will add more to it all. At least thats what I feel. But I understand some of the concerns of the pets as well, though I think overall as long as they are not to needy I'll be ok with them. And I remember in Sims 1 you could breed the dogs but they couldn't do it themselves which I liked.. more control over how many pets you have. Just like you do with the sims woohooing. Unless of course you like the risky woohoo mod. And I'm sure the fantastic modders out there will come up wwith great stuff to help the pets out. So I'm not to worried about them doing them right.. I'm just worried that they'll be more bugs that show up right away.

The main problem with pets in The Sims is that they were completely uncontrollable. I mean, the only way you could interact with them was to click the ground and choose "Go here". It drove me to distraction. You'd have cats and dogs wandering around starving, desperate for the toilet and falling asleep, yet you couldn't make them eat, pee or sleep. All you could do would be to click the ground near the food bowl, litter tray/fire hydrant or pet bed, and hope they'd take the hint. And 9 times out of 10, they wouldn't.

Also, having pets show up on the main relationship panel was weird (you can't call a pet on the phone for a quick relationship boost, or invite it over).

And, for crying out loud, why did your friends bring them over as party guests? That always bugged me.

Heh, all of these things, should they actually reappear, are trivially stompinated.

This could be why we love you, JM

I believe I'm beginning to get interested in pets 'cuz JM sounds so excited to start modding it. For awhile there, I thought he might not even get any more EPs. Maybe they'll give him a challenge and keep him interested. That'd be worth 'omiGod(dess)Petz!!!!!!!'

I wonder if it would be possible to make a hack to go along with Inteen so that when a teen woohoo'ed a kitten on that lot would spontainiously die.   ;D

->chokes on his cigarette smoke

You...should...warn...us...before...posting...something...so...hilarious...!

*GASP!*

:o

Bestiality???   :-X

Err...opps.

"...so that when a teen woohoo'ed, a kitten..."

Never underestimate the power of the Comma.

 :o Indeed, Trepie, indeed! * Lythdan boggles

Bring back the basketball court!  How about a football field (either American or "real" football will suffice)?

And is it just me or do not all career tracks have LTWs associated with them?  I get criminal mastermind, mad scientist, chief of staff, hall of famer and celebrity chef but that's about all.  I want business related LTWs, like have a level 10 hair salon.

I had a new teen get a LTW of *own 5 top level businesses*

All the careers in the base game have LTWs, based on aspiration unless you use the Greater Variety and Sanity LTWs mod.

Athletic - Fortune, Popularity
Business - Fortune
Criminal - Fortune
Culinary - Romance, Popularity
Law Enforcement - Family, Popularity
Medicine - Knowledge
Military - Fortune, Popularity
Politics - Fortune, Popularity
Science - Knowledge
Slacker - Romance

That's all I can remember off the top of my head.  As far as I know, the only new LTW that was introduced in OFB was the "Own 5 top level businesses."

Ahem, mind If I make some additions to your list, Rainbow? :) (This list is also compiled without the LTW variety mod)

Athletic - Fortune, Romance
Business - Fortune
Criminal - Fortune, Knowledge
Culinary - Romance, Popularity
Law Enforcement - Family, Popularity
Medicine - Knowledge, Fortune
Military - Popularity
Politics - Popularity
Science - Knowledge
Slacker - Romance

And if you have NL:

Pleasure Sims - Slacker, Culinary.

That is fine...I was mainly talking about the base game tho...and no Uni careers have LTWs.   >:(  Fortune sims get the most Career LTWs, and Family sims only get one.  I know Family Sims are centered around family, but I hate that they only career Maxis thinks they are interested in is Law Enforcement.  :P  What about Culinary, Medicine, or Science?

The beauty of NON-career-related LTWs is that you can put them in any career you want to and still be able to fulfill their LTW.

I like LTWs that can be reached early in life, such as Max 7 skills, Make 20 best friends, Have 20 Lovers/woohoos, etc.  The ones I don't like are the ones that they stuck on Family sims, such as Graduate 3 kids from college, Reach Golden Anniversary (since I don't let my sims age to elder for a very, very long time), and marry off 6 kids.  I don't let my sims have that many kids anymore.  So for most CAS sims or sims that were born before Uni and didn't meet their LTW early in life via Max 7 skills as a Knowledge sim, Career LTWs are the quickest way to perma-plat.  Which is why I like the LTW variety mod.  :)

Maybe it was just my game, but once (only once) I had a family sim interested in the culinary track.  I was wondering why that only happened once.

Do you have the LTW Variety and Sanity hack?

Another thing I agree with other people on for expansions are the LTW and the Attraction stuff. I'd like it if sims could be attracted to certain personalities like liking someone who is not that nice or someone who is a clean freak ect. That'd be nice to get away from all look type stuff. You could have one look turn on and one personality turn on or something. Personally I'd be ok ith having no LTW they just get really annoying to me because I rarely want my sims to fulfill them. I have my own plan for them.

Well I assume you have the LTW Variety and Sanity Check hack thingamabobby. This should help out with Family sims.

Also... now with Squinge's mod (http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=11631), you can actually have all 4 Uni Career related LTWs! I know modding the core files is typically frowned upon, but out of all the mods that I have seen which use this method, I find this particular mod the most useful, if not essential. :P As far as I'm concerned, these LTWs are a huge hole left by Maxis that should have been fixed. They shouldn't have been cut in the first place, and they should have been enabled since there obviously has been a demand for them and it is obviously easy for them to do so. :P

Btw, I think the Uni Career LTWs are as follows:

Icon - Popularity
Artist - Romance
Paranormal - Knowledge
Ecological Guru - Knowledge, Popularity

I'm really happy that these have been enabled. Even though I hadn't played as much as others, I was a tad bored with the existing LTWs, and the Career LTWs just being so limited. With the exception of the career rewards, there wasn't much incentive to enter those Uni careers. It almost made Uni seem pointless in a way. And the lameass excuse of getting stuck with unfulfillable LTWs just falls short. Sometimes life sucks, then you're raped by wild boars, and then you die. :P

Ste