More Awesome Than You!

Just a few new features of Nightlife that I like:

1) Tombstones and urns are now labeled with the dead Sim's full name, not just the first name.

2) When a Sim serves a group meal, you can click on the serving platter to call the whole family to eat.

3) When a Sim misses the car pool, it doesn't count as missing work until near the end of their working hours.  So there is plenty of time to call a nanny if you need to.  (No need to stay home from work with the baby because the psycho-nanny didn't show up on time....)

4) This may be my imagination, but I think the colors seem brighter than before.  Anybody else notice this?  (I have a Radeon 9600XT video card.)

Karen

Have you actually gotten that to work? When I tried, the guests just went about their business sitting in the hot tub or playing kicky bag etc.

Yes, it works.  I've only tried it twice so far (only just got the game this evening) but it did put the Eat icon in the queue for all family members, and they all stopped what they were doing more or less immediately and came to eat. 

Karen

Soaking in the hot tub, playing kicky bag, and doing research are three of a handful of interactions that I can't ever seem to stop Sims from doing. Once they've engaged in the activity, almost nothing short of woohooing with the mailman can get them to stop.

Personal electronics are in the inventory. Cellphones, Mp3 Players, and Decahedrons.  This means  that if you want to stock up your family with them (which you'll probably have to do, because the game seems to be a bit inconsitent in who keeps therir stuff after upgrade), only one Sim has to go to the community lot to buy the stuff for everybody.

Can your sim go in to work late even if they miss the carpool?  It always bugged me that if they missed the carpool, they missed an entire day's work.  I suppose they would need to have a car to do this.  I don't have Nightlife yet, but the other day, my Captain Hero was in the bathroom showering and had the carpool icon in her queue, and when she was done, she flew off to work even though it was 10:30 ("carpool" comes at 9:00, and work hours for Captain Hero start at 10:00).  I've never seen this.  She got paid for the entire day and there weren't any problems.  I have JM's Captain Hero fix, so I don't know if this affected this or not.

If they own a car, they can drive to work late and still get a full day's pay!

That's cool.  I forgot to ask, can a family own more than one car?

Apparently as many as there are family members

And you have the room for ;). Those driveways take up a lot of space and are oriented for the left side of the lot. In some cases I had to do major construction and demolition on a house to get one to fit.

How big of a space do you need, and is it on the left side of the house as you are facing it from the street?

Cool. Thanks Karen. It was nice to read about some of the good things in NL rather than all the scary buggy stuff... But I'm still too scared to install it myself! :D

The new pre-made houses in the lots bin and in the downtown area are kinda nice.  Especially that big $88k house, think it was called "House of Fallen Trees" or something.  Three stories and an insanely deep basement with two coffins at the bottom.

Unfortuantly that lot is just too huge for my meager amout of RAM to keep up with.

So with the driveways, you build them yourself or does the block have one already and you build around it?

You'll have to build them yourself on pre-NL lots.  Though they're quite huge and combursome.  Pretty much every lot I've built up to now will need lots of re-construction to accomodate one.

On another note, being the big Techno music geek that I am, I'm digging all of the re-mixed music in the game.

I have to say that the Classical music station has become my new favourite - previously was College Rock.

I can just let the classical music cycle over and over and barely notice, as opposed to 'Not this one AGAIN'

I tried to build a driveway but it wouldn't work, even though it fit with a square to spare between it and the house.  Virtually none of my houses have room so I am going to have to move everybody out, I think.  I just wish they could be built at the side of the house, but although there is a road there, they can't.  I suppose it's because the cars aren't capable of turning corners - no doubt we will have to wait for TS3 for that.  I doubt my Sims will have more than one car per family, two at most, because it would mean playing the largest lots all the time and I don't want to do that.  I haven't tried parking one in front of the other, or one in the garage and one on the driveway, but somehow I doubt it will work  

I've also noticed that the game doesn't seem to remember who has electronic stuff.  Most of my Sims are asking to buy them when they already have them.  It has also lost every single graduate Sim's diploma so far.  

The calling to a meal works fine in my game.  I like that addition, too.  It will save me loads of messing about making visitors selectable so I can get them off the musical instruments and to the table before they drop dead of starvation.

While playing one of my existing couples to see what the new interactions was like I had them slow dance.  Then the option came up to "Lower Hands".  I almost fell over cracking up.

Anyone take a look at a Pleasure assper's Lifetime want yet?  I've only seen one.  It was "Have 50 First Dates".  These guys may be worse than the Romancers...

I had to laugh how elder Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant's turn offs just happened to suit eachother - Mary Sue hates facial hair and Daniel despises grey hair.

So Mary-Sue will do the 'Romance Sim Attraction/swoon' when Daniel walks by, then start gagging at his beard!

They still have 'chemistry', though. :D

The only Lifetime want I've seen for a Pleasure sim (I've only made one, so far) has been Become Celebrity Chef - totally doable.

I've just noticed all of the new empty lot sizes.  What the heck are you supposed to do with a 3x1 lot?  o_O

Wasn't that the name of an Adam Sandler movie, with Drew Barrymore??
And Sean Astin doing the titty-dance?  :o

Actually it does work. The car behind that is blocked teleports. ;)


TwoJeffs has a buyable rewards collection at Variousimmers and MTS2 that lets you access and place a diploma. Whichever sim is selected when you go into the collection and place the diploma will be the owner of the diploma so you can get them all back this way. It's also handy when moving if you forget to grab it and put it back in your inventory.

A few questions:

1) Can career awards be placed into inventory? A dumb question, yes, but I am curious.

2) With CAS Sims, are their turn-ons/offs decided altomatically, or does something pop up that allows you to pick said turn-ons/offs? I assume they're chosen by what zodiac sign your Sim has.

There's a tab to choose the turn-ons and offs at the same point where you pick aspiration :)

Pre-existing sims have their turn-ons/offs randomly generated, but these can be changed with the Renu-U portachug potion.

Is this something you buy or is it an aspiration reward...or what?

Every pre-existing sim gets one on starting NL :)  ... not to mention a visit from the gypsy matchmaker regardless of their situation!  (My first NL annoyance)

For anyone that's still interested in exactly how big these driveways are, I've just reset my Pleasentview and went to Don Lothario's lot.  From the left edge of his house (when looking at it from the road) to the edge of the actual lot was just enough space to squeeze one in.

And after selling those two palm trees that were in the way, he had just enough money to buy the little Hatchback.  Or as this one shall be called:  Don's Pimpmobile.   ;D



EDIT:  One last note.  The college timer for YA's seems to freeze when you go on dates or visit any community lots outside of campus.  IE: community lots in Downtown or the home neighborhood.  Really useful.  I was worried that the timer would keep going before this.

Someone posted at VS that you can actually put genetics and skins in subfolders with Nightlife.
For me, that alone would just about make it worth it's price.

Good to know, Trepie.  That was one of the things I was worried about.  No sense sending your YAs to a community lot if the timer keeps ticking away.

Haha, I've had that as Popularity too.

I really like the way they get angry with each other, far more realistic.  I have one couple, Heather Huffington (now Heather Extrateens) and her husband.  They are SO opposite - he has 9 in Neat, she has 1, he has 3 in Playful, she has 9 I think ... anyway, everytime she has a shower he gets really angry because he has to clean-up after her.  He went down into the 60s with her in daily & lifetime when she was pregnant, she was so lazy.  Afterwards, he started sweet-talking her and built it up again.  The only 'fault' I have with it is that it only happens the once.  Earlier today, she managed to soak the floor of two bathrooms, but he only complained about the first one.  Either that, or it only works with the communal showers.

Downtown I also noticed that Jackson Ruben was arguing like mad with a townie.  I have no idea what the problem was, but when I made him selectable he was -100/-100 with him.  Then one of my elderly Sims almost whacked the head-hoochie vampire because he kept following him around trying to talk to him (Count Wayne Gallagher - can't get over that name).  These new interactions are actually great fun!

My Pleasure assper's Lifetime want was to "Have 50 Dream Dates".

Yes, but supposedly you can't put hacks in subdirectories anymore, or so I've heard. I haven't tried because I ended up yanking of mine. :(

Ancient Sim: re sims getting angrier now. LOL I know! Those sims do NOT play anymore. I've seen so many fights now since nightlife and even when they don't fight if they are pissed at someone they just seeth with anger and give them the evilest dirty looks I have ever seen! ;)

Motoki I don't know if that is true or not.  I have all my hacks that I am using in a subfolder in my downloads folder.  They seem to be working just fine.   I like to put them in a folder of their own because then I know exactly where they are.    I know you can put other things in subfolders in the Downloads, why not your hack files?   What I need to find out is whether we can now put subfolders in our SavedSims
folder.     This would make my folders so much neater.


The hacks I have in my game are Insem Dest Uv version
 Merolas energizer painting and Merola's mindcontrol mirror
 Inges bottomless bottle and crammyboys nocensor

Someone just posted in Crammyboy's nocensor thread that it worked in a sub of Downloads.

For me, everything is working fine.  I put in all my downloads.  So far, the hacks seem OK, the custom content, too but none of the skins or genetics show up.  I don't have anything in subfolders so I don't know what the problem is.  Anyone else had this problem.

Another really cool thing about this game is if you overstuff your lot, the extra sims go in a second column next to the original, instead of being bumped offscreen.

I noticed that at least one of the downtown lots in Pleasantview comes equipped with showers.  I think it was the spa/health club type lot.  Of course you can always add your own, but it's nice that somebody at Maxis realized there has to be a way to deal with low hygiene downtown, short of sponge-bathing in the sink..... 

Karen

Yes, I love that house as well and all of the new houses.  I really like that idea that you can live downtown also.

Doesn't work for me at all.  Tried it with Nina Caliente.  Everyone just kept doing what they were doing.  No one came to the table.   :(

An aside... be careful of the initial invites downtown.  You never know who's going to show up in the group.  Nina received my first call to go downtown from Don Lothario.  I had her accept because it was the first time I had a sim go downtown.  Well, 7 sims in total were in the cab when it arrived at the restaurant - Don, Nina, Dina, Cassandra, Angela and Lilith Pleasant, and Alexander Goth.  All Maxis created Sims that I've played.  It was a disaster!  Nina kissed Don immediately upon exiting the cab, which made Dina furious.  Also, Cassandra and Dina have the Don in common.  Cassandra followed Dina around the lot all evening slapping her.  Nothing stopped it!  And unfortunately, it's all saved.  Now Dina keeps stopping by Nina's house and kicking over the trash or stealing her newspaper!  I have so much relationship clean up to do...

Yes, but supposedly you can't put hacks in subdirectories anymore, or so I've heard. I haven't tried because I ended up yanking of mine. :(

Don't worry Motoki. Hacks still work in subfolders. It seems everything works in them now (hallelujah!), at least everything I've got in my game.

Oh, and here I thought I was going senile. There seems to be more detail and somewhat better color handling. Maybe you're not imagining things :P

I think the lighting is better, too, and colors more vibrant. Could be related to the new "dynamic lighting." The only glitch I have as far as lighting goes is that some lamps with separate shades don't use the "lit" texture when they're turned on. It's hit and miss...some shades light up, others don't, even within the same style lamp, and they all worked fine before NL. But they cast light properly, so I'm not going to sweat it.

My favorite new feature is Slow Dance. The way the dancers look at each other is soooo sweet...and their movements are damn near erotic. BUT TASTEFUL.  ::)

bet ya love the 'head on shoulder'   :-*  that one is cute

I'm a fan of "Lower Hands" myself.   ;D

The EP is buggy as all heck, as we all know, but there is one major thing that I've found that I do like--the box.  It's designed in such a way that I can keep all my discs and registration codes in the one box, and not have to worry about where they all ended up.  (It's heck having an ex bf who steals them because he has a computer and I don't--I just steal his on the weekends.)    I just wish Maxis would put out DVD editions like they did with the base game, so there would be fewer discs to look after, but I remember reading somewhere that people thought they'd be able to put them into their DVD players and play the game that way...  Idiot masses...

I prefer the 'fall asleep in your food' manoeuver.  :P

Here is a new one,I think is cool. you can pay off some one to leave you alone.
I was playing Strangetown, Vidcund was at Loki's house and he kept fighting with Loki I finally click on Vidcund to ask him to leave. I saw and new option that said pay Sims off $50, so I click on it, Loki when over handed him the $50 and a message came up, "Alright I leave you alone".

Yep, I've noticed this too.


I like it too. Although, before NL I always used Call Over to get visitors off the musical instruments and into the kitchen/dining area... that always worked just fine for me. Of course, it still takes the visitor a little bit to decide to eat once they're there, and if they're really not hungry they might wander off and do something else, so being able to call them directly to the meal is nice. It's slightly inconvenient though, that in order to use that feature, you have to cancel the serving action out of the cooking sim's queue before they grab their own plate and sit down to eat. Might be one for the patch: make it so a sim serving food doesn't grab their own plate and start eating, or have them put a plate for themselves on the table with the rest, and not eat until directed to.

It makes a bit of sense now to have Sims want to buy electronics more than once, since you can now remove them from the inventory so another Sim can pick them up.
I now let one Sim buy the stuff for the entire family.

I tried that, but it didn't work for me.  I took a cell phone out of my Sim's inventory and it sat on the ground, useless.  No other Sim was able to drag it into their inventory.

I usually buy electronic gadgets at home, using twojeffs' hacked money tree, rather than in the community lots or downtown.  Maybe that has something to do with it?

Karen

LMAO!!

HHHHHHEEEEeeee111111PPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!11111111oneoneoneoneone

mY sIz d0nT pLa iN dA dVd!!!!!!!!!11111111oneoneoneoneoneon

oH N tHY r sPeEk1Ng fReNcH 0r s0MtH1n

They can't put it in their inventory directly for some reason, but they can click on it and use it to call someone if you place it on the ground (for some strange reason, they can't when you put it on a table though, it must be a floor or ground outside :p) after they have finished the call they will pocket it and it will be in their inventory.

I kind of assumed that once their are enough cell phones to cover everyone in the household who is able to use one that those wants would stop, but as I got rid of all my cells and only buy the wall phone to make a call then immediately sell it back (no phonehack :( ) I haven't been able to confirm this.

I think sims are obsesses with cell phones in Nightlife.
I was playing in a Greek house the other day, I had a new member move in, and every time she comes back from class or final she wants to buy a cell phone and she already has 4 in her inventory. I tried selling them and getting new ones, that works as far of getting her wants taking care of, but as soon as she leave the lot, when she come back to the lot she rolls the want to buy cell phone. This want doesn't go away either it stay there until I buy her a new one over and over again. I tried taking them out and placing the phones on tables and she would pick one up to use it and then pocket it, but the wants for cell phones still rolls up. I had her buy at least 8 cell phones and still the want comes up. Everyone else on the lot has a cell phone, so no one else needs one.
This is very annoying feature if was purposely programmed into the game!

I noticed that plumbobs look more... shiney. :o
Is it me or are sims more expressive at the dinner table now? They seem to chat more and their faces look more emotional ???

I kind of miss the silly little dancing they used to do to the stereo, I wish they made the dancing downtown separate to the dancing with the stereo at home...

Yeah, they definately do more at the table. Lots more chatting and gestures. Their social seems to go up more too, though maybe that's just my imagination. And they can still do both dances at home, it's just random which one they'll do.

Jen

It also means they take a lot longer to eat.  Pain the butt when that date timer's ticking down!

In other news, dancing solo (or is it the smustle - alone) now seems to give a social boost as well as fun.  And plumbobs go from green to yellow awfully quickly, despite needs being very high.

I really like how my popularity sim is always getting calls to go out. Someone will ring and say that their friend had a really fun time with you and I'd like to get to know you as well, want to go downtown? That sort of thing. My sim loves it! Makes uni life alot more exciting. Plus I like the fact that when you plan to pair off some sims like we always do, you can ask her opinion of him. Thumbs down and I look for another mate for her. Seems wrong to change her likes.

Plus like how you can scope the room and you get to see how other sims view you. Plus I love the gifts and letters etc left after a date.

I wish that when they drink at the bar that they actually get pissed.

Plus I love being able to go out in a group. My uni girls can have a night out and flirt etc with the guys who check them out. Cool! Wonder how long it will take before I'm bored with it.....but for now, I'm lovin it!

I like how cars ignore any cars that are blocking them in the driveway. In one household I had 6 adults, with 6 jobs, so I needed 6 cars. When I was trying to get alarms installed in all of them I had a huge strategy plan for getting two cars done at a time so that they wouldn't be blocked by others cars and cause a problem. Then I found out that cars just magically skip past any blocking them. Makes it much easier to navigate :)

One weird bug I had was I was playing a family of an elder couple and their daughter and son in law. I had the elder couple kiss, and all of a sudden the elder man because FURIOUS with his daughter. Um, why? All she was doing was feeding the fish! I still don't know why that happened.

I really like the cars. My only complaint is at night time, the car turns it lights on before the sim is in it. Doesn't happen with the NPC's cars at nightime. The car headlights only come on when they get in.

Like the hate thoughts with fire too, but I feel that I may tire of this soon.

Hey, whats with the timer thingy on a sims face icon in the friends list? My popularity sim sometimes has a 'friend' in her list and it has a mesh type picture over her face which slowly clears away like the hands on a clock? Am i making sense?? I have a bad headache today. Shouldn't even be on the computer.

It's telling you how much time you left before a LFBVFS falls on you.  ;)
If it is a green (or is it blue?) mesh it is a "contact." I haven't interacted with one yet but from what I heard all your interactions with the person get a bonus, as well as the contact being considered as a friend before the timer ends.

I got a contact in my game; a friend of a date that went really well.

Can't recall the colour. I think it was greyish??? But the outline of their icon may have been green.

A "contact"? Never heard of them. Didn't read it in the little book that came with the game either. How do you know this?

Is it only popularity sims that keep getting calls from people who have heard that they rock? Or are other sims getting them too?

I had game tips on - for the first time ever.

About the calls I've no clue because I ignore it most of the time.   :)

That would be a contact. Sims get them from good dates. All sims can have contacts.

i am geting a little annoyed with the fact that sims seem to get crushes soo much easier now and they seem to flirt automonously more and I've had two cow mascots that have caused my sims to become furious with their boyfriends because the cow mascot flirted.

Funny you should say that about the flirts as I have only played for a few days and yep, flirts left, right and centre. It has always been my wish so I had better not complain.

Those bloody cows did that even before the expansion. As for the proper procedure upon encountering one, utter destruction is the only way.  ;)

Have you tried 2Jeffs cowhead? It is one of the funniest hacks I have ever seen and it works wonders with getting revenge on the cow mascot.

Don't you mean udder destruction?  :D

C'mon people, it's a game. You see them, you ask them to leave.

I play a romance sim he went on a date after he came back he rolled a want to get engaged to her (his date). I think maybe they might of change the engagement and marriage wants and memory somewhat for the romance Sims.
Has any one else notice this?

I had a romance sim want to get engaged to another and at the same time, their fear was to get engaged to said sim. :P

Me, too!

I love the fact that the kids can karaoke and participate in the smustle. They're more fun to play now that they can do things other than play red hands. The adults seem to have different reactions towards the kids when they're talking, now , too. I had an adult male sit at the kiddie table with his 2 little nieces and nephew, and his facial expressions when they talked were more realistic. Like how you would really react to a child chatting. It's cute.

And the Grilled Cheese aspiration is hilarious! It's funny when they first come out of that machine and have to immediately make a platter of grilled cheese sandwiches. And the reactions to the "Talk... about grilled cheese" from the other sims are really funny.