More Awesome Than You!

Just thought I'd post for those who wanna know. :P
The 3 new Pets-related Lifetime Wants:

Family Aspiration
Raise 20 Puppies or Kittens
This one seems like it's not so bad. Litters can come out in 1-4 from breeding, or more efficiently, you can adopt (mass adopt, even) pups/kits from any phone. After a brief 3 day childhood, the cute little buggers become adults and you can ship them off to the Pet Adoption Agency / give them away / sell them to neighbors / kill them and move on to the next set of pests.

Popularity Aspiration
Have 20 Simultaneous Pet Best Friends
This one looks like it's a potentially bloody task to complete, seeing as stray pets are marginally fewer in number (initially, I have no idea what the cap is or if there is a cap) than townies, so you might have to create animal families / wait forever for the game to spawn them (-- that is, have a pet in the family so that pet walkbys will force the game to spawn some) / take advantage of a sim going for the Raise 20 Puppies or Kittens one.

Wealth Aspiration
Have 6 Pets Reach the Top Career Level
This isn't so hard after you get past the idea of the rigors of taking care and training 6 pets. Commands aren't so hard to learn, and if your pet is a Genius, your family isn't dirt poor so your sim has free time and/or your sim has some charisma, they're quite easy.

The popularity aspiration doesn't appeal to me, 20 simultaneous pet best friends?  Can you imagine what the friendship panel is going to be like?

I don't even know what. I can imagine that one would be horrific, seeing as it might be a bit hard to phone a pet.

Haha, too funny. A sim wants to be a crazy cat lady.

Actually, I'm going to try one of those stick a million sims on your lot hack and see if I can make a crazy cat lady. ;)

Lol JM, you have a point there.  Perhaps you train them to speak and use the phone?

I had a sim brefriend a stray last night.  It wasn't too difficult, but this stray have been an exception.  The sim went right for the belly rub and the dog was more than happy to accept. 

I would hate to have twenty strays wandering around my house, though. 

The Leader of the Pack came and befriended my Sim in free will while I eat lunch in front of the computer. Said Leader also summons another wolf, or at least another showed up. A stray cat also wanders by at the same exact time and is greeted by me/my man. It turns out, wolves are hostile to other pets. My man's dog and three cats slip into the mess. All hell breaks loose.

 :D  :D  :D

Actually, this was the first thing I thought about with the new expansion. I figured I'd mess around in a throw-away neighborhood while waiting for hacks to be updated and the "cat lady" was the first lot I planned to make.   :D  :D  :D

I am so going for the 20 pet best friends.  Crazy lady who is overrun by animals in her house, that's who I'm making!

At the risk of seeming incredibly stupid: Are the wolves the ones with glowing eyes? They seem very tame, so I wasn't sure if they were wolves or just dogs with glowsticks where their eyes should be.  ;)

EDIT: added smiley

What about the career in Pet Care? According to the 3rd training paper, there is a new career were your sim can work as a pet walker, trainer, veterinarian, etc.
Also, it says you sim can run a Pet Clinic were as the town veterinarian your sim can diagnose the pets, treat them, etc.

That´s not for the PC version of the game.

Oh  >:(.

I'm sure someone will make a custom career that is identical to the console/ds? version. They just won't get to WORK at the care center like in the DS version.

Heh. I wonder if there are any new deaths. Like death by cats or something. :P Go my pretties! Kill! Kill!

Also, Pescado, I hope you have plans to update the LTW Variety Hack and include personality/interest related stuff. So that an interest in animals actually has some affect.

And I assume it is safe to say that Maxis EA did not fix the Uni career related LTWs either right? I hope Squinge can update that soon. Stupid crappity Maxis EA. :P

It seems like creating the Aspiration and LTW system was a retarded double edged sword. The Aspiration system seemed like a neat idea, but apparently some people hated it so much they had to create the LTW system to enable people to lock down aspiration and free them of that dependency. But then... the way the LTW system was programmed is so shitty and a pain in the ass, that it seems they will never expand upon it. In essence, preventing them from ever creating any new careers and the related LTWs because they don't want to have to go through all the trouble of adding them because they are lazy. That must be the case, because if they managed to add new ones, how hard would it have been to just add back the Uni career related ones, considering the fact that a modder was able to do it. Bleh. Crappity bastards. Anyhew... I'll probably head off to Best Buy soon and pick up a copy sometime tonight.

Ste

An excellent idea. I'm glad I thought of it.

Heh. While you're busy thinking up such brilliant ideas, any chance you could also tune down the Own 5 Businesses wants. Maybe based on Aspiration as well, if it isn't already, but also tweak interest related requirements, perhaps with Money, Work, and whatever else you may deem relevent in all your wisdom and awesomeness. :D

Ste

PS. Turns out Best Buy around here and NYC did not get OMFGPETZ!!!!!!!1111oneone yet. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I got there.  :'( So... I guess I will have to wait 'til tomorrow hopefully, if not the by the end of the week. ::)

I've always had better luck finding EPs on release at Gamestops and the like than at these major all-in-one megacenters. Best buys/circuit cities/etc. have had them as late as a week in, but Gamestops and EB Gameses usually have them the first day...at most a day or two after.

True. I could have easily bought the game on Tuesday at some other place, but I wanted to use my Best Buy Rewards Zone card thingie, so I can get points and what not. Plus, Best Buy has a dealie where, if you buy any advertised PC game from this weeks flyer, you get a 10$ gift card you can use on a future purchase. So... that's almost like getting it for 20$ now. Plus, I get my points. :P

Ste

Yes, Best Buy sucks monkey balls when it comes to getting things on time. Not only are their release dates two to three days later than everyone else's, but they don't even get those on time!

Best Buy decided, when I bought OfB, to give me $10 off it.I just scanned my Rewards Zone card and I got $10 off. Ste is did they have it this way a couple of months ago? Is this because it was in the add? I have wondered why the heck I just randomly got $10 off since I got it.

For OFB, IIRC, Best Buy had it on sale. I'm not sure when... but I think the first week of release, it was actually on sale for $25. I could be wrong. I don't remember exactly. I think that originally, the EPs were like 39.99 no? But now they have all dropped in price to 29.99. Best Buy will somewhat randomly discount their prices, probably due to excess inventory or as an incentive to hawk other related items. Most items, especially CDs and DVDs are discounted the first week of release. Then, months later, they maybe heavily discounted with those 2 for 15$/3 for 20$ type dealies.

Software gets discounted too. I've seen WoW heavily discounted, as well as OFB back down to 25$. I was kind ticked cuz I bought my copy from the EA Store just so's I could use a coupon I got from them via email and get the pre-order stuff. But now, I think I will be slightly less uptight about things. Heh. ;) Pre-ordering is just a sneaky way for them to get more money out of you anyways. I bet that Pets will probably go on sale in a couple of weeks. But I'm just too impatient. However, the deal that they have this week is, for any PC game that you buy, advertised in this weeks flyer, you get a $10 Gift Card. This is different than an instante 10$ discount. Instead, you will get a gift card which you can use the next time you go to Best Buy. They won't take 10$ off right away. But... it has the same effect pretty much. But this is only if you are a rewards zone member.

Best Buy may suck monkey balls when it comes to getting things on time, but it has only taught me to be more patient. Lol. For the most part, CDs and DVDs have pretty much always been on time, and almost have always been in stock. The few rare times that things sold out when I didn't expect it, they still got a second shipment later that week. Also, that only happened the first few times, and I think later, they must have increased their intial shipments, because now I always see a huge excess of CDs and DVDs during the first release week. Especially when it comes to the more popular titles. The delays seem to be more with the video game stuff. They often get there stuff on Wed or Thurs instead. This week Bully comes out, and I'm tempted to buy it. I'm also tempted to buy Brain Age, which is on sale for 15$. Big Brain Academy is much better, it's a lot more challenging, but 15$ is pretty cheap. Also, the limited edition Dalmation version of Nintedogs is on sale too. I think all games made by that company (Touch Generation) are on sale. So if you have a Nintendo DS, I highly recommend getting Big Brain Academy. I already have it myself, and it is an equally fun and frustrating game. It really does make you use yer brain, lol. But it is totally addicting. I was tempted to get the Nintendogs game... but I was kind of meh. I already have Animal Crossing, I wasn't really that into the whole Tamogotchi fad, and it seems unnecessary since I'm getting ZOMGPETZ!!!!1111oneoneone :P Oh, don't bother with the Club House Games, I've read that it sucks.

Ste

Now I can't decide to get Pets at Best Buy for the $10 gift card or buy it from Electronic Boutique with trade in money form trading in my GC ($50 in store credit!). I guess I have to decide if I should get more RAM or buy a Wii when it comes out.

On the Nintendogs, I really hated that game. Don't get me wrong I tried to like it, but it got on my nerves. First off the only way to train them is to say the command into the mic, cool feature but you look stupid and feel weird yelling into a video game, especially if you are around other people. Another thing with the training is it takes so long do it, it is very repetitive. Playing with the puppy is fun but there is only so many times you can rub little pixels with a stick.

Bully does sound like a fun game doesn't it? It also comes packed with extra controversy! Tasty!

I am quite mad because the only reason that I have to get it from a store is that my stupid debit card takes money a good deal of money off the card if there is still any on there at the end of a month and I left money on there thinking that EA would take the money off right away. Well even I didn't get pets I still got the code for the bandit cat.

Lol. Thanks for the quick mini review. Enough to convince me not to get the game. I'm just one of those weak suckers for a sale. :P
But yeah, altho it seems like it might be cute, it doesn't sound all that fun. But maybe I'll give Brain Age a go. It also has some dumb mic bits that make you feel stupid, and some reading bits which I've read are kinda lame, but the other stuff is supposed to be still good.

Yeh, I recommend getting it at Best Buy, just cuz u'd get points that will add up to getting yer reward certificates, plus you can always use the 10$ gift card if you're like me and go to Best Buy almost weekly. ::) With the trade in, I would wait until you find a Wii game that you like. Most console video games are rarely discounted, with possibly the exception of sequels/prequels or games that are somehow related to a new release. Best Buy sometimes does this thing where, if you buy a new game, you can get a somewhat older related game for 5$. That's a pretty insane deal. But yeah, for me, I would buy a Wii from Best Buy, just cuz that's 250 rewardzone points. :P Heh. Whereas if you are trading in your old GC for only $50, you wouldn't use it all on ZOMGPETZ!!!!1111oneoneone, but if you saved it for later, a Wii game will most likely cost at least $50. XBOX360 games seem to be at least $60 or more.

Yes. I am a freak when it comes to trying to hunt down bargains and what not when it comes to video games, cds, and dvds. :P I even have an Amazon member account, which also does a point/reward system too. And yeah, I know that they're like those shopping market cards that track your info and whatever, but I can easily delete or throw out junk mail, and I actually don't mind some of the ads that I get sent to me. I mean, I'm gonna get junk mail regardless, so why not let it be custom tailored junk mail. :D

Ste

If babies can chat on the computer and phone why can't pets?

The lack of thumbs probably  ;D

Have 20 Simultaneous Pet Best Friends

I have visions of my sims hanging out at the Pooch Park every day so Fido can sniff butts and throwing parties to invite all the neighborhood animals (Can they eat from the buffet, or will they raid the fridge?).  Is there any chance of seeing a "Litterbox Uses You" mod, or will my sims have to rent Porta-Pans?

   This has got me curious, is it 'Have your Pet have 20 Simultaneous Best Friends' or 'Have 20 Simultaneous Best Friends of Pets' ?   The way the LTW is being phrased, could make it either way.

Its the sim, the pets dont have wants - at least not ones that are logged or that I can find.

I'm actually having quite a hard time finding it in NYC myself. Odd for a city you can find everything else in . . .

The sim who has the LTW wants to be best friends with 20 pets. Stupid crazy cat lady.

The subject of this thread freaked me out a little. I thought the Pets, themselves, had lifetime wants.

Would be kind of funny seeing a pet in aspiration failure, though...

The Gamestop I go to is usually the first to get any new releases.  And its usually around lunch time the day after the release.  I had to hang around the mall for a couple of hours waiting for the UPS guy to get his lazy fatass there to deliver the shipment.   >:(

I've had to do this for the last few games I've tried to buy as soon as possible.  Guess I just need to remind myself to wait a day and a half to get new games.

Also, Gamestop/EB has this deal where you can get 20% off the strategy guide when you buy them with the game.  This is the first guide I ever got for TS2 simply because this was the first time I ever got an expansion at Gamestop.

Best Buy pissed me off that day too.  They didn't have the game either, but they had the strategy guide.  What sense does that make?   ::)  And when I checked at Target they had a display saying that it wouldn't be on their shelves untill the 19th.

Is it asking too much to get the game the day its released?

I thought so, too, Brynne.  It makes slightly more sense knowing that it's the sim's LTW.  I wonder if the wolves count as "pet friends"?

Pets is the second Sims 2 product (the first was Glamour) that I've ended up buying at Target because  Best Buy didn't have it the day their advertising said it would be available.  Both times the clerks at Best Buy said they'd have it the next day, but I wasn't going back to Best Buy when I could get it up the street.

Can I suggest that this is not an LTW any lazy, introverted sim is going to want?  If they haven't got bags of energy and hate constant streams of passing sims, this is a really hard LTW!  It's much, much harder than a career want.

*shrug* If you want it release day, shell out the extra $10 for overnight shipping from EB/Gamestop. Otherwise, you're probably going to have to wait. This release was further complicated, though, because there was bad weather of some type in Kentucky which delayed them from getting off the ground for a few hours. So some of their stores would have had it ready to go on release day, if they felt like unpacking boxes, but this time around, that seemed to happen even more rarely.  You can also get the guide online for 20% off with a code, and you don't even need to buy it with the game.

I pre-ordered mine and paid for 2-day ground delivery, but I still got my copy on the release date. This is the first time that's happened, and I must say I was very impressed.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that my copy came from the EB Games online shop.

I moved Don Lothario to the cabin by the water tower, rebuilt it slighty, he grew some hair and a beard and now he is the crazy jilted (ok jilter) lover turned animal lover and adopting all the strays and befriending all the wolves....:P

In fact it's even easier : like with the own 5 top business, you can have one pet repetively climb up career ladder to grant the lifetime want...
What I'd like to know (if someone tested this out) is how this work in household with more than one sim ? do every pet of the house count toward the lifetime want or only the master/mine ones ??
For the moment I tested this in a household with one sim and 3 pets...

ETA : but my sim did not receive a memory of fullfilling her lifetime wants.... she is permaplat though.

Well, it's not a hard LTW, and can actually require considerably less than 5 businesses. I've had a normal business, which I wasn't trying to exploit this on, fluctuate from level 10 to level 9 and back again purely from normal random activity, and spew forth 5 or 6 "top level business" wants, each of which counts towards the "5". So in practice, it can be as few as one. :P But yeah, doesn't seem like something for slackers. Noted.

Any chance you'd consider actually making these type of things, like memory count dependent LTWs, like Actually challenging, the way they are supposedly meant to be in the first place? Like having Woohoo with 20 different sims actually required Different sims rather than having some counted twice due to some buggy reason. I've read that ppl have done that LTW because certain woohoo interactions generate multiple types of woohoo, like very first woohoo, first woohoo with, and the normal woohoo memory or whatever. Is there any easy way to mark it so a business reaching the top only counts once? :P

I mean yeah sure it's great that you can exploit these loop holes or what not, but wouldn't fixin this sort of make the game a bit more realistic and fall in line with your whole "harder" hacks theme? :D

Ste

The truth is, adding LTWs is very easy. You need a want table, a memory, check tree, and trigger point checks. The problem is, doing some of this requires modifying core files. They're not HARD modifications, trivial for those who can make official changes, but they simply won't do them, preferring to leave things unfinished. Third-party modifications of said files is a risky business because only one attempt to modify the file may be used at a time, and the only way to combine changes it manual merging.

I've been following this thread, and was wondering where to find the new LTW hack, once it's been completed.  I'm working on trying to figure out where everything is here, but it's a bigger forum than I'm used to.  Please forgive my noobness.

Looks like nobody has answered you for 2 days, so I'll take a stab.  For JM's stuff, you can find individual hacks here http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7.0.html
and the Director's Cut (all necessary hacks in one file) here http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8.0.html

For TJ's hacks, go to the "Not a Good Commando Name" section.

The only sim I have who has made this LTW, made it with one business thanks to the incompetent hairdresser he hired as prospective  manager.  Actually the problem is, running a business is hard for us.  With career wants, we send them off to work meeting the requirements, they do all the work and come back exhausted without us having to get involved!