More Awesome Than You!

There is a new survey on the "official" Sims 2 BBS which ask us a lot of questions about what we like and did not like about nightlife, the problems we have and more.

Well I am fulfilling it right now and find it interesting, it is nothing like I saw before except for future expansion packs and this time, they add a questions about if we are interested in pets....

I just wanted to advise you of this so you can fulfill it before it is gone for good...

I spotted it too and filled it in.  :D

I think I was too kind to them though.

I was not kind at all lol so we balance... I mention the idea for me of the business ep is not interesting at all.

Now they ask the pet question, I did not select it since I am not interested in pets at all, I have 3 cats which keeps me busy enough in real life  :P

I was happy to see we can say what we like, don't like and what problems we have with Nightlife in that survey.

anyhow I will stop here since there is many questions and I don't remember them all, it is way late and I should be in bed.   ::)

I was nicer than I would have been if they'd given me a space for general comments at the end, as I was expecting. I'm still very mad about the holiday thing - $15 for next to nothing and if the "sitting on the lap" animation is in there and I end up buying it just for that (so toddlers can sit on people's laps - even if anyone but Santa is from the modders) I'm going to be even more mad.

But there wasn't anywhere to say that.

On one page of the very NL based survey, it said something like, "how satisfied are you with the new majors and careers"

*Are* there new majors and careers in NL? I haven't played the Uni area since I got NL... but I'd really like it if there were.

Oh god......Unleashed was my most disliked expansion pack!!! I love animals don't get me wrong, I'd have umpteen cats if I could, but I live in a unit (apartment).

What I get the shits about is that the Sims 2 is THE SIMS 2......be original creators, for god's sake...don't keep feeding us variations of the Sims 1 expansion packs!!! It's getting real ols real fast!!!
 I don't mind the idea of a 'have your own business' expansion pack...that appeals to me. At least that's sort of original, but still 'smacks' of making magic as far as I'm concerned  ::)

Well that was fast. Damned thing is full already.

As for pets, while it's fairly low on the list of expansions I want, so many people whine for it and will buy it that I'm absolutely certain they will make it at some point. I think they'll hold off until it seems like people are burnt out on the game and then release it.  ::)

Personally though, if I want pets I'll go play Nintendogs.

I'm a vet and I just LOVE dogs (and they love me back because of that - I have countless stories of aggresive, stray dogs going into hugs and kisses mode when they see me!). But Unleashed made me think of many, many freaky and painful ways of disposing them goddamn creatures! So no thanks, no future EP with pets for me!

Interesting survey, looks like I got in there just in time.

New majors?  Hm.  Y'know, I saw that, didn't think about it. 

I love cats, have 15 at the moment. If cats are in the game, I hope they're kickable ala flamingos and gnomes.  I'd never do that in real life tho.  For what it's worth, there is already some code in the game pertaining to dogs and cats.  Obviously nothing for it to work on yet.

I do love the idea of a business EP. Unlike Makin' Magic you will be running a shop where people will come to buy things.  And you will have to manage employees.  When I got Making' Magic the main Sim family I played never had a "real" job again.

New majors!??? 

That's too freaky.  I figured they were talking about Uni at the time.  Now I'm not so sure.  "So, do you *really* play this game, or are you just blowing smoke up our skirts?  o Y  o N  o None of the above"

Hook

Personally I quite like the pets, but I'd rather they were extra on a lot and not one of the 8.  what I'd really like to see, though, is a sims 2 version of the gnome-maker, the bottling thingy, and the veggie gardens etc from Unleashed, so family sims who don't want to work can earn loads money at home without always painting pictures and writing novels - which gets terribly boring!  Besides which, the gnome maker and the bottler both increase other skills.

I enjoyed the juice press the most myself.

Be aware that you can make a metric assload of money performing on instruments for tips.  I had a brand new neighborhood and a brand new CAS created young adult to to college there, and no hacks whatsoever who graduated with exactly §110,000.  She invited professors and cheerleaders to a custom community lot with 4 instruments and simply managed the band.  Some of the NPC's started out with high creativity, and others got there by skill gains when she called to "invite Sim to community lot."

Hook

Well, I ban NPCs!

Monique's computer over at MTS2 has some additional work at home options. Like writing articles for magazines and such. Takes 3 hours. A lot faster than writing a novel. I actually just got her computer yesterday myself but it's pretty nifty and has a lot of features.

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=64137 (for those that don't already know)

Hopefully, the next expansion will have some work at home options as well as those you have to go downtown for.

This money was mostly made on a community lot.  The dormies weren't able to skill up on the instruments, and while I could invite NPC's to come play and get tips from the dormies, it never amounted to much.  But a typical visit to the community lot would generate over §2,000.

Hook

Well, I do do that when I want sims to gain body skill points, I send them to the gym with a friend, and they both act as personal trainers, then my current sim gets both lots of cash!  I have a couple of computer in the guym, so while they're there I get them to do their term papers too (needless to say, I have flamingos!)

But I really would like a gnome-maker - they were such fun, with gnomes all over the place!  But I'd like it to be easier to sell them, so that you could select it when they start gnome-making!

I guess the reason why the business ep do not attrack me as much as it should is simply because me and my boyfriend are running a small business so, since I play to have fun and forget about real life you can understand that it would do no magic here for me.

Just out of curiousity, how many of you here speak French? (raise hand)

Moi, je leve la main!  Mais j'ai oublie beaucoup!

Well that is pretty impressive for someone that have forgotten, I simply ask because my monther's tongue is French and sometimes I get frustrated writting in English because my vocabulary is limited compare to French.

I've run a small business before, and I'm really looking forward to a business EP.  I just hope it's got enough depth to be really interesting.

The good part is, you can have your "me-Sim" actually doing things similar to what you do in real life.

I don't speak French, but I eat French foods:  French bread, french fries, french toast, etc. :)

Hook

Hey Motoki, are you sure the survey is full? I just filled it out fine right now... unless they lied to me...  :-\

<.<

>.>

o.O"

Paranoid much? Anyways... so yeah, I thought the survey was kinda interesting as well. And I wasn't very nice myself. I wasn't exactly rude per se, but I was very blunt about not liking "the bugs introduced by Nightlife and the pre-existing and unresolved bugs from University and the base game of the Sims 2" was pretty much how I worded it. :P In that section where they asked you which things you liked, you didn't like, and how Nightlife could be improved... well, I was having issues with the survey itself. Sometimes it wouldn't load properly after hitting the next button. So, I since I was afraid that might happen, I typed everything up, and then copied it to notepad before submitting just in case... and it's funny because I wrote tons more for the things I didn't like and how I thought it should be improved. :P


Anyways, in hindsight, I forgot to mention other stuff, which now eludes me. Just more stuff I wanted to complain about. Probably about wanting new majors and new careers and LTWs. That really bugs me that, at least with the Sims 1 EPs, there were usually always new careers, and I really wanted to have that again with Nightlife. I was hoping they'd add more careers and more majors. I definately think there should be way to add more careers, and there should be some that require a Uni degree, and some that don't. And it seems backassward that some of that jobs that don't require them should, and vice-versa. You need a degree to be an Icon but you don't for a Doctor? :P In my not so humble opinion, they should "fix" that with a patch, and make certain jobs require degrees like in real life.  ::)

Oh, now I remember. I think I wanted to gripe and complain about needing/wanting more interactions for children and teens, and perhaps even babies and toddlers? But more importantly, children and teens, because they need more stuff to do. I guess its great that teens can do almost the same kinda stuff that adults can do, for the most part. I'd also like to see children do more interesting stuff, because they seem limited in what you can do with them, and they tend to be boring to play. Aside from using them as live-in maids and basically pre-teen skill-building for those oh so easy to get scholarships, they're mostly useless. :P

Oh, and the other thing I wanted to complain about was just how ridiculously, ludcriously, insanely, retardedly uber easy it is for sims to be furious with each other, like all the frucking time now. It is just totally insane and over the top. Now... I haven't really played extensively enough to know how the furious thing works, but from what I've "heard" or read thus far, it seems that, like jealousy, sims can break out into fury over the smallest slight now.  ::) I don't know if the game differentiates between degrees of fury, like are sims more furious over cheating versus being messy? In other words, if a sim gets furious over cheating, does that last longer or is more permanent or relationship damaging than if a sim is just really anally neat and pissed off that their spouse is an uber sloppy pig?

Thus far, I've only play tested the Caliente house with only alien abduction related hacks (twojeffs', my own tweak of almecho's, and the spaceship carpool bugfix I made for myself), and in that house alone, after proposing and marrying Mortimer Goth into the household, and then commandeering Don Lothario with the boolprop "make selectable" cheat, leaving the sims on their own, things eventually always fall apart. In any of the various combinations, someone is always catching someone else cheating. Either Dina or Nina flirts with Don, and Mortimer sees, or Don flirts with Nina or Dina, and the other sister sees, and anyways, whatever the combination, all hell breaks loose and its just downhill from there. From that point on, the household breaks into a fight like almost every hour on the hour. It was hella funny at first, and it still kinda is funny, but well, it is just super uber annoying. And having to try and apologize every hour on the hour is also super ridiculous. Just getting sims back down to a 0 instead of a negative relationship takes too long. And even then, the sims are still 1/3 to 3/4 furious with the other. And then the fact that apologizing still works somewhat backasswards adds even more to my OWN fury. >:( Anyways, I really wish I had mentioned this. I mean, its great now that sims can Actually make enemies and/or rivals. But the breaking out into fights ALL the frickin' time is just totally out of control. There has to be some kind of moderation. Sims constantly want to poke each other or slap each other or attack each other all the time!!! It's really ridiculous. I mean, I'm all up for fights and fighting between friends and temporarily being upset with each other. But if the fury thing is a blanket thing, and the relationships always drops so negatively, then it really is totally imbalanced.

Anyways, that's all been complained about already. As far as the survey stuff and new EP related questions and what not, I'm also not very interested in the Open for Business thing. I mean, on the one hand, at least it is a bit new in a sense. It looks like something that was promised at least something that should have been in the Sims Online. I never played that, so I can't say one way or another whether that was good or bad. *shrugs* And although I did have Makin' Magic, I never even really played it all that much. I bought all those EPs, and the last one I really enjoyed was Superstar. Then my computer crashed, and I although I reinstalled everything, I sorta just lost interest. I started to play Makin' Magic after creating a Tara and Willow couple to play with. But by then, Sims 2 was coming out around the corner, and then when I got that, I totally abandoned the Sims 1. :P

Now Open for Business is kind of cool still, in that it might be cool to run your own business and "build an empire" or whatever. And that funny bit about hiring and firing employees, trying to please customers, catching slackers and workers who steal from you?!?!? :P Maxis really has a weird sense of humour. All of it sounds cute, and it is kinda neat to sort of have this notion that you can build your own Microsoftic conglomeratesque evil "empire" or at least that's what it made it seem like from the description. Regardless, I don't think that will really hold my attention. Especially since I'm not into the building aspect of the game as I am more interested in the social interactions. The building part: making houses, buying and arranging furinture, and decoratig, while it can be fun at times to be creative, it is mostly a chore for me, because once again, I don't feel like I have talent or an "eye for design" as it were. So if anything, I feel like all my houses are ugly square boxes. :P And although you are given "free reign" to be as creative as you like, that really is a lie, because it almost seems that creativity is inversely proportional to proper functionality :P. If you go to all this trouble, having to use cheats and whatever, just to build a nice looking house, something will be wrong with the design, in that some "flaw" will prevent your sims from being able to enter rooms properly (diagonal doors anyone?) or use furniture proper (island kitchens/bars anyone?) and things that you expect to work a certain way won't and things that look nice, well they look nice, but they just aren't "efficiently" positioned for optimum utilization by your sims. So in the long run, all that time and energy spent on being creative gets wasted when you realize that you have to move something into some ugly, awkward looking position just so that sims have proper access.  ::) So... with that in mind, I don't think I'd like the idea of having to build my own stores and what not. I'll probably have to stick to and/or download any pre-fab/pre-made houses/buildings.

And for other EPs? Well... things that I'd like to see, I really wish we coulda picked more than 5 choices for that, but my top 5 were, in no particular order:

1) health and sickness - Anything to add more realism, and plus sims are like always healthy, and recover fairly quickly or at least fairly easily from being sick. I suppose that's fair in a sense, since the lifespan of a sim is pretty short anyways, so one or two sicknesses is actually comparable to real life, if you look at it that way. But still, I'd actually like to see the possibility of random deaths, like due to an MI or like actually being sick over time.

2) weather and seasons - Again more realism, and I just find it disturbing that it is constantly sunny and warm all year round for my sims. What I really love about Animal Crossing is that they have weather and seasons, albeit, a bit simplified, but it exists nontheless. It seems that they should be able to do something similar with that for the Sims 2. I know it's a bit difficult since sim time doesn't really have a sense of months or years, and it just has like a magical infinitum of weeks. But still, it would be nice to see rain or snow. On the other hand... I can just imagine what all kinds of bugs this might introduce... maybe I should rethink this. :P

3) Zoos and amusement parks and whatever else they mentioned - Again more reaslism and more reasons for my sims to leave their boring houses. :P It was either this or Going on Vaction/Holiday with your sims. I chose this because the Vacation idea was already done, and I'm assuming/hoping this would just eventually get implemented later anyways. I don't remember/know how Vacation worked in the original sims, even though I had it, I hardly ever played that EP. But I would like Vacations to actually require sims to build up some vacation time. And then, sims could go on vacation, with their family (if their spouses have vacation too) and while they are away, their vacation days get used up and they get paid for it, just as if they had opted to stay home and use a vacation day.

4) Walk in the neighborhood and visit other houses - Again more reaslism (always with the realism :P) and I just want to be able to visit neighbors and family members. They already have it so that you can see those other houses, which is a step in the right direction. And since you can invite visitors over, why can't you go over to their house and act as a "visitor" yourself? I think it should be sort of like visiting a community lot, in that all other sims are non-controllable and things wouldn't save when you leave their house and go back home. So just like on a comm lot, you can't go into buy mode and change anything, and when you leave, its not like anything should be saved for that comm lot. In this way, when you visi a neighbor or family member(s)' house, it wouldn't affect that house's lot/game. So it's not like when you go there, you would find the house/lot in the state that it was saved in. Rather, you would go there, and depending on what time/day it is, the members of that lot would either be home or away at work/school. The game would only allow you to visit if a valid member of the household would be home, that way you couldn't just be a visitor at a house that the sims are supposed to be away at work or school for the time frame that you are playing with the current household. And, when you are visiting a lot, you are the only sim that is selectable/playable, and the other sims act as uncontrollable sims, just like on a comm lot. You can then ask a sim on that lot if you can spend the night, for sleep overs or nightcaps ;) otherwise, if it gets too late, you will get a message where a sim says, "It's getting late, thanks for stopping by, but I think I'm going to head to bed now. Goodnight." Or something like that, and then a taxi automatically comes for you, and you are forced to leave, or your sim is forced to get into their car and drive home. Your playable sim should be able to leave any time before then, either by driving home in their car, or calling a taxi via their cell phone, or the only option on the present lot's house phone. If the house is ghetto and doesn't have a phone, then you'll have to wait until night time before the game automatically sends you home. :P Maybe, to keep from starving, you could still order delivery, or you could Ask to? or Influence a sim to cook dinner.

5) I chose Other and filled in with two things:

a. go to school or highschool for children or teens. Again I just want more interactions for them so that they are more interesting to play. I would be neat to have teens go to school/class, and you could interact with other students or teachers. You could have after school activities, such as clubs, sports, or academic teams. You could hang out with friends, have cafeteria food fights, go to school events (games, debates, dances, the prom). And for children, again just something else to do other than be boring. :P

b. big apartments - It would be neat to actually have apartment buildings and have multiple sims and apartmenties :P living in a big building. I like Inge's idea of apartments and having ownable doors and what not. I think that would be really cool and be more realistic, especially for living in the Downtown area. Something similar to the dormies of Uni, but sims would have whole apartments or floors or whatever, rather than just one tiny room.

While the idea of pets and animals is nice, it's not a priority for me. And although the idea of like bonus fun packs or whatever they were called, I can't frickin remember right now :P but the packs like the forthcoming Holiday pack, although they are nice. I can foresee it being a mess for those who don't want to buy all these new flavor mini-paks or whatever. Especially when people start modding or making recolours of them and you don't have them all. 75 items only for 20 bucks?!?! In my not so humble opinion, I would feel that the EPs themselves should be 20$ each. Ok... maybe 30 at most. The mere fact that it is required to have the base game in the first place to play them, I feel that 40 bucks for each new EP is a bit much. And 20$ for only minor expansions seems way too pricey as well. If it was 15, I think that's slightly better, but 10$ is probably most certainly way too cheap and just wishful thinking. :P I definately would love to see better fashion: better clothes And hairstyles. I mean come on, despite the number of selections, the variety is extremely Lacking, AND the choices you have to begin with are pretty much ALL crappy. :P So, it's not like you really have a "choice" anyways. You basically end up with picking between like 3-5 hairstyles or clothes, and everything else is just totally fugly.  ::)

Well, that's alls I gots to bitch about for now. I think I'm gonna take a short cat nap before I have to get up and meet my friend for lunch. :P

Ste

PS. Oooh, ooh! Je parle francais aussi, mais j'ai oublie beaucoup de ma vocabulaire. Je comprends tout. Il est tres difficile quand tu ne te souviens pas les mots corrects. Je voudrais pratiquer, mais je n'ai quelqu'un avec quoi je peut faire ca. ;) Mon mari, il est francais (il est ne au Morac), mais il arretais parler francais quand il avais ver 5 ans. Alors, nous ne pouvions pas parler francais bien avec nous memes. Donc, je vais avoir un petit dormi parceque j'ai sommeil un peu. A toute a l'heure. ;)

I swear that damned thing was telling me it was full.  >:( I'm going back to check again. Maybe it just doesn't like me.

*edit: It's still saying it's full for me. The BBS must not like me and the feeling is quite mutual.  :P

Anyway, I think the next episode could be fun. There's a lot of ways they could go about it, like maybe growing fruits and vegetables to run a produce shop or flowers for a flower shop. I bet they'll be stuff they can do at home too. At least I hope so.

It the area where it asks how they could improve it, I wrote that they need people to actually play the game and not just test it in debug mode. Having a furious sim kick over a garbage can or a tired sim falling asleep in their food or having the whole family socialize while eating is fun the first one or two times it happens. If you actually play the game (and not just test that the animations are working correctly) you will see how annoying it is to pick up a trash can 5-6 times in a sim day, how frustrating it is to get a pregnant sim near hunger desperation to eat when she keeps falling asleep in her food, and how pointless it is to have a family meal when it takes 3-4 sim hours for them to finish while all their other needs keep dropping.

I also said that they really need to improve their commincations between the company and their customers. I personally wouldn't be as bothered by bugs if there was some honest communication (other than - "you must have a hack" or "reinstall") and more timely release of patches. As long as you feel that the company is LISTENING and responding, you are much more tolerant of bugs. Yes - it is a business, so there will be limited time in testing and not every conceivable configuration and playing style will be tested: that's why it's so important to listen to your customers. Yes, they must receive a ton of "bug" reports from people that don't know where their on/off button is on their computer, but when there are several respected modders out there that have addressed the problem, it is really ANNOYING for them to keep repeating "we haven't heard of that problem". Just looking at the mod code should give them an idea of where they should look in order to correct the problems.

It said it was full for me as well, Motoki. Anyone have a list of what it asked? I am curious (and disappointed that I can't fill it out). :-\




edited: because "fill" actually has two l's

HEALTH & SICKNESS?  They actually listened to me!!!  I've been asking for this on every board I can for a while now.  I've also asked them to include a middle-age life span with it.  Oh, I do hope this comes out.  As for the survey, I presume I've missed it, which is a pain in the proverbials because I wanted to report on the Uni bugs they haven't fixed.

If it was not already suggested, try deleting your cookies in your internet browser it might let you fill the survey after that.

Just tried that now. Doesn't work. For you guys getting the survey do you have Firefox or Netscape? Because I am using IE.

Motoki, I'm using Firefox and the survey gave me the 'full' message too. Cleared my cookies and everthing.  :(

I was able to take the survey and I use IE.

Well looks like they took the link down off the site. I don't know what it's problem is with me, but I had been trying to take it since 4:30AM PST and there's been several people who managed to take it after me.

I would like them to improve the visitors to the community lots.

I do not want to see children or teens on a community lot during school hours, nor anyone there when they should be at work. Do not want to see children on the lot at 2am without parents (or even with)

If I send a Romance Sim out while his children are at school and his wife is at work, they should NOT show up on the lot until it's done. If the game can recognize they are unavailable when I phone, why can't it do the same for community lots?

You have a good point.  What also bothers me is the fact that Sims can call to mention the friendship is going low, you hang-up try to call them right away and you get a message they are at work, WTF!

I would like more plain clothes meshes. They nearly all seem to have odd bows, cut-outs or other lumps and bumps that limit the design options.

I like the idea of extra packs that only have new objects.  The main reason I bought the expansion packs was for new objects, clothes and building options, I didn't particularly want influence, young adults, zombies, chemistry, furious sims or vampires.  It would be perfect for me if I could get the new objects without changing the gameplay of the original game.

Missdoh, I can read French fairly well, but I'd have to reply in English.

Oh my god!!! Syberspunk! That's incredible! its unbelivable the amount of character you can put in a single post. hahahaha, all of your posts are gigantic!! everytime I see your name in a thread i just have to go in. I try to guess the size of it.  :D hehehe...

hey you know, what I like about NL?
1 - inventories (bugs aside)
2 - neighborhood view
3 - group managment. it got much easier to throw a party and not having your guests going away from the room where the party really is happening.
4 - vampires introduce a different style of play.

all the bugs aside, the main thing i didn't like is:
Game is becoming challenge-free because its becoming so easy. There is nothing in the game that is hard to get. ReNoYu orb is less than 7,000! Also with university it got easier too, with the more wants slots.
I like these new features. however the new features are not bringing any new challenges to the game, only making it easier to accomplish the existing ones.

to improve:
the game needs a more features that are not easily accessed and that presents the player with chioces to make that will each lead to different possibilities. choices that will unlock new things but will lock others
What i mean is that we can easily make all our sims have every object, every carrer reward, every asp reward, experience almost everything, rendering the game boring quickly.
reaching certain degree on a carrear, will unlock a reward. however it is just too easy get it, and after that, the same sim can easily reach the top of another carrear and unlock the other reward, and the go to another carrear... etc.
I think the game would be much more interesting with GRADUAL unlockable features, and more difficult ones

For example:
After a sim becomes captain hero, it could have some special tasks for him to do and if he managed to, then new behaviors or interactions or objects, would be avaiable to him, but only while he is captain hero. then if he retires as Captain hero it could have some features unlocked for him. However if that sim chooses to quit the job he would loose acess to those features. Then if he gets another job in a different carrear and reach the top of that one, there will be different tasks, different rewards.

I added my general comments under the 'What didn't you like about Nightlife' and 'How could have we improved Nightlife' -- or whatever those ‘in your own words' boxes were called.  I had a feeling that that there wouldn't be any general comments at the end as market research companies don't generally want general comments just a confirmation of what they found out in their last market research. One of my comments was to stop using market research so much for development as I do think that it kills any original or innovative ideas from ever being done and just produces the same games but with "bigger tits and bigger explosions"... but then this is EA.

I took that survey... and you know, I left feeling that Maxis must be brain-damaged.  Every stinkin' time they come up with a "Which of the folloiwing games do you own?" question they ALWAYS include The Sims 2 on the list.  Well... duh...

On the "following five features" page, one of my options was Other: Genies.  I've been wanting them since the game came out, virtually.  Of course, the sheeple want werewolves... *rolls eyes*

LOL I love how they have to shove some new weirdo type of sim species in every addon. I could sort of see the vampires going with Nightlife, but what the hell do zombies have to do with going to college? I'm sure with the next expansion pack we'll have werewolf entrepreneurs.  ::)

I think the weirdo types are kinda cute really - mostly because I don't find it difficult to ignore anything I don't want (I played with aliens a tiny bit but not much and totally ignored zombies). I guess vampires are harder to try and then make go away, 'least other people seem to be getting vampires everywhere, but I haven't had that in my game. I only ever saw the countess (dunno why), turned some sims into vampires, changed 'em back and see the countess out now and then, but nobody is trying to bite my sims at least. Course I'm very controlling... <control-freak here>

Werewolves should come with pets, and personally I don't want that anytime soon. Unleashed was so bad for me, I quit playing sims1. If they do a pet expansion, it needs to be much better'n that. I love NL tho and I was scared, as I had trouble with Hot Date too. IMO, the *best* thing about NL is they managed to make it fun to go downtown without lagging the game so bad it wasn't worth playing. I hafta give 'em kudos for that. I'm rather looking forward to business - at home business stuff is my favorite idea and I always want more (off to look up that computer, I don't have it yet :) Thanks!)

Ahh, those are great points that I didn't even think of. And as for the date thing, what lot do you mean? Do you mean on community lots? So like you are making your sim cheat on his wife? Hehe.  ;D How evil! But, you know what? You could also think of it this way... maybe your kids and your wife are playing hooky from school or work. :P So... there's that risk factor you take with cheating. You never know if your kids or wife might catch you. Now for adults, I think it would be ok. But for kids, I think it would be funny if you catch them on a community lot or whatever, during school hours. If you're the parent, you should be able to "Bust" them for playin hooky and "Lecture" them. Now that would be cool and more realistic.  :D



Haha, I get that a lot. :P It's funny because it's either a blessing or a curse. People either find my posts interesting and entertaining, or far too long, drawn out, rambly, and annoying. I just have the "gift of gab" and a painful habit of being overly verbose when it comes to posting/typing. I tend to also leave very looooooooooooonng voice mails. My friends hate/love me for that as well.  ;) And I also have weekly email updates to my students, who totally hate/love me for that too. Lol. You win some, you lose some.


And as for the survey... well I saw this thread, and I immediately went there and was able to do the survey fine. I was like in the middle of doing it, and this was well after Motoki had posted that it was full. *shrugs* I'm using IE on my laptop. It did have intermitten spasms, where I would click the button for the Next Question, and it didn't load. I would just close my browser and it re-open a new one, and it loaded back to the page I was on. Is it possible that you are on some big network (like a school network) which I suppose would broadcast a general LAN/WAN IP. And therefore, perhaps if one person took the survey on your campus (if you go to school), then the site thinks that it was already taken? I'm just grasping for straws. :P

Oh and back to linolino's post, I agree that things are not as challenging. You know what might be neat: Age Specific Wants or Lifetime Wants or Aspiration Rewards. What I mean by this, is that things you might only be able to achieve during a certain age, and would never be able to again once you get past that age. Sorta of like, you know, the things you want to do before you're 30. Babies already have something like that, where they want to learn how to walk, talk, and be potty trained. Wouldn't it be neat if there were sort of age specific LTWs? It might spice things up. If you don't manage to achieve an LTW, maybe it rerolls your LTW that are related to the current Age. I can't think of a good example right now tho...

I'm sure some of you might have played Sims Bustin' Out? I thought it was pretty cool that specific sims from different households had specific socials. And you had to unlock these by doing certain tasks and you eventually "learned" that social from the sim in that household. It was pretty cool. Kind of like how only SS members have that secret society handshake. It might be a neat way to make sims more individually distinct. I like that Capt. Hero idea.

And I also love the funny weird thing NPCs and monster/supernatural sim types that they add. I actually would want Werewolves too. But then I'm a HUGE Buffy fan as well, so I'd also want Witches/Magic back in the game too. :P Maybe then I could actually make a whole Buffy set. Hehehe.  ;D

As for the zombies... well maybe it's a stretch, but have you seen Shaun of the Dead? You know how it parodies life in general and how you might feel/seem like a zombie. Well school can feel that way too. Just goin through the motions, gettin up to go to class all the time, partying (well so I've heard :P), studying, homework, taking your final exams, wash, rinse, repeat the next semester. Often times, you literally feel brain dead too. :P I thought it was kind of a cute analogy and was kind of perfect for University. But I don't know, maybe I'm just over thinking things and it was a odd coincidence that only I find amusingly witty.  :-\

Oooh... and I suppose Werewolves would make sense with a Pets expansion. Hrm... I guess that might be something to look forward to, at least for me. Now what could they add along with Open for Business? Frankenstein? Bill Gates? Those are both quite unnaturally monsterous. I don't know what else supernatural would be related to Business. :P


Ste

I'm not in college. I'm in an apartment on a small commercial ISP (nothing well known that like AOL or anything like that). I can't think of why in the world it wouldn't let me in but I swear that it wouldn't and I kept trying too.

I was at work with msn for dial up (yay getting DSL next week!) connection when I tried the to get onto the survey first thing this morning and I kept getting the survey is full message as well. Maybe the BBS just hates us, Motoki. ;)

I filled it out last night.

After seeing how in depth some of you went on the little "essays" lol I feel like I barely wrote a thing.

I looked at it more as this is about NL..not the base game or Uni that they want feedback on...b/c if it was Uni..oh poor scores and bitchfests all around lol

 Nightlife has been good to me though..no bugs yet...even before the patch. With Nightlife anyways.  Uni..completely different story..had it not  been for the modders the game would have been unplayable months ago w/o constant reinstalls.

While feeling out the survey I had an urge to go find a megaphone and maxis...ea games or whoever is responsible for that idea and scream that I didn't care about the silly little booster packs or whatever they're called.  And yes it's true I am HIGHLY UNLIKELY to fork over $19.99  for one of those things.

SnootySims has a list of the questions here (http://www.snootysims.com/survey4.php) for those who missed it.

Filled it out . . . either right when or before this post showed up. I mainly marked "more weirdness!" and "less bugfests!" wherever I could. Gave them what, in my mind, are very good suggestions. Robots, more aliens, mutants, useful computers, roleplaying games. (Although I would rather fear a "roleplaying table," now that I see the compulsiveness that Maxis tends to give those sorts of objects.) I was so happy when I heard that OB may include robots. Whee! Craftable robots! And maybe androids? Now that would be cool.

I found the question about "do you want your clothes to be more cooler or less cooler" [sic] amusing.

Je parle un peu du français. Je puis livre meilleur que je écrire, et je écrire meilleur que je parle. Je suis pas mal en général, mais je ne pratique pas autant que je voudrais. (Je regrette si le grammaire est mal. Je ne sais pas comment le dire exactement.)

I laughed for a good 5 minutes at that question. What the hell does that mean anyway? Some of those multiple choice questions really needed an additional text box so I could add comments like "I find legwarmers and jelly bracelets and Jams to be cool, FYI". I spent most of my dislikes paragraph bitching about how the Pleasure Sims are just like Romance Sims except they get paid in flowers and fountains to sleep with the neighborhood (unless I'm doing things all wrong, I can't score a dream date without woohooing at least once). I guess I was expecting something more out of Pleasure Sims and not just Romance with a different name. Nightlife is by far my favorite EP of either Sims game, which kinda amuses me since I really disliked Hot Date, but the whole dating/Pleasure scene really bugs me. I may be the odd (wo)man out on that one, though.

Moi et bien comme c'est ma langue maternelle je suis "fluent". Effectivement tu as quelques erreurs de grammaire mais j'arrive tres bien a te comprendre.  C'est tellement rare que j'ai l'occasion de discuter en francais avec des bbser's que j'en suis toute émue  :P  N'importe quand que tu as envies de le pratiquer, je suis la pour toi.

I am really happy that I can speak 2 different language, my voculabary is not that bad but my grammar is poor in English but I speak English all the time at work so I have the chance to pratice it often.  Anyhow, you do not seem to have problem understanding me so I guess I am not that bad, as long as you don't compare my English to some BBSers on the "official" bbs I am ok.  ;D

Oh yes!!!! A middle age life span is a must!!! I hate the fact that it's not one of the life stages. Your sim goes from looking young to looking old in one transition....it's ridiculous  >:(

I have posted this 'want' on a few forums.....hopefully Maxis has taken notice of what myself and many others have been whining about for a while now  :)

Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaah... that question on coolness was absurd.  Another clear sign of Maxis' brain-damage.   ::)

Is it me, or am I the only person who actually wants the genie lamp to make a comeback?  I mean, if the genie NPCs were fully interactable ala the service workers, it'd be a riot!   ;D

Yes! Genie lamps! And the chemistry set, too. Only maybe expanded. Ooh, I'd buy OB if it came with a chemistry set. I'd even play Mortimer Goth then. I got him one in Sims1. Seemed appropriate.

And the voodoo doll. :D That object was loads of fun. I can tell when my oldest daughter is playing TS1 in her room when she starts to laugh hysterically. She gets the biggest kick out of using it to torture other sims.

I just had a couple of evil thoughts for Mrs. Crumplebottom and the idea of a chemistry set for TS2. What if we could put one of the chemistry set's potions in the inventory, then when going downtown the sim would have the option to "slip into drink" for any simdrinking at the bar. Make her pass out on the floor or go completely goofy. Or get arrested for partaking of a "controlled substance". I'm so evil. :P

The thing I liked about unleashed apart from the fact that it fixed build mode bug, wasn't the pets, but the gardening.  In fact I liked all the things you could have your sims do to be self supporting without having to go to work.  There's no challenge in sending them to work and once you've got to the top of the career, what next - start over on another career - same old....  Sitting waiting for them to come home again is tedious too....

I thought Sims in business would be giving us some of these objects back like workbench, chemistry set, nectar press, veggie gardens, jam and honey making, spinning wheel etc so you could sell the things your sims made.  Maybe I got that wrong.  My fear about the business EP is that you'll get some really bad management stuff like that naff "negotiate the pay" option I remember from Theme park tycoon.  I imagine we're going to get more awful chance cards "your employee screws up, do you say never mind dear or kick his ass?" or "your customer is being unreasonable do you ... ".  (I always ignore chance cards now - too risky!)

thanks whoever for the link to the hacked computer - article writing sounds good and I've got the download now, but the hack does rather too much for me.  One thing at a time like JM hacks suits me better.

Considering Sims 2 is such a people game, I suspect personnel management will be a big factor.  I'm hoping for stuff like supply and demand, competitors (can I invite a successful competitor over for a swim?? :D ), advertising, business loans, all the good stuff.  Probably more than most people will ever want to mess with.

Hook

Oooh. Must . . . resist . . . lure . . . of . . . tycoon game!

Argh. I have a weakness for tycoon type simulations. Building stuff and making obscene amounts of virtual cash. I actually don't really like that kind of game, but I can never resist them. I sure hope though that they play up the crafting angle. Allow user input into the craftifying. Whee! Customized robots! With FLAMETHROWERS!

I suspect crafting and personnel management will be as far as it goes.

I'd like to be able to see the following "event card", similar to the ones school kids get:

"Your contrarian stance to marketing has won you an interview with the city's largest newspaper.  This was published as a full two-page spread in the Sunday editiion.  This free promotion has an advertising value of approximately §1,000,000."

And yes, I've seen this in real life.  Wasn't me, darnit. :)

Hook

On the one hand, you've now given me the stupid hope that one day there might be mutant sims and I could finally make a complete Marvel Universe neighbourhood - they'd be too different (they'd have to be if only to avoid Marvel's utterly insane business partners), so I'm set up for inevitable disappointment.  On the other hand, if they do it and are cunning enough to make it moddable so copyright violation can be added in by a non-profiting third party, I'd have to give you my sister's firstborn or a kidney or something.

Je aussi.

Oh me too, and I usually try to avoid hacks that make game play easier (and that one does in several ways), but I have to say I love this one as it also adds lots of gameplay options. I got it for work at home, but now found I can have my teen sims save up money in accounts to buy the things they want instead of taking it out of family finances, and let them keep the money they make on jobs - even save it up to take to uni with them - can give children allowances too and if I've a group that saved for something (namely a house) and are living seperately, but I want one specially to get it, I can combine their money without using familyfunds or something, and... well the banking stuff is just cool.

Also I prefer shopping at home from the computer to buying the clothes rack - something I've always done as what's the point of downloading all those clothes if it's too hard for the sims to use them? (I make them have the money to buy 'em, but I don't want to send them shopping that often) and not having to deal with the delivery guy for groceries too (same thing, they still have to buy them and put them away).

Work at home and banking does make it easier (you can earn money and up skills at the same time) but it's still what I wanted for the mother created in CAS who has 6 kids - sorry she doesn't have time for a job, but still needs to earn a bit extra. Her country dr. husband just can't quite support them all fast enough on his own.

And I loved the at home stuff from sims1 (preserves - my guy made preserves until his hands fell off, I think :) and I don't want to take a cooking job until I get the candy thing (and for some reason that isn't the same anyway - by the time they get it, they just don't need it or something.)

*Anyway* way to long, but I do love the computer - thanks again!!!!

and am looking forward to business and hoping it adds more like that. The pets from unleased - I could do without. I had trouble with Hot Date and basically couldn't play sims1 after unleashed. Eventually I gave up.

So the survey is already over?

Exactly, no wait, I think I speak it better than I write it (after reading what I tried to write) I was in french immersion until I was 12, which was about 200 years ago.
Je comprends le plupars, mais je ne connais pas toujours les mots pour ce que je veux dire. Aussi, parce que mon école enseignaient Français parisienne, mais j'habite dans une ville ou la langue est plus Québecois, mon (ma?) grammaire est terrible.
J'ai pris un cours, mais la professeure était terrible. Elle vient de Québec et sa langue maternelle était Français, mais elle ne pouvait pas nous dire les mots propres. Je souviens beaucoups, peut-être assez que je connais que je besoin beaucoups de pratique. Utiliser ou perdre? Mon italienne est la même.
Je pense que cette petit message peut te montrer ma mauvais grammaire et...spelling, even I can see that my tenses are all over the place... heh heh

how embarrassing for me... so much so that I think I also lost some ability to spell in English ;)
I really wish that I could get it back, but I have lost so much that it's mortifying to try to speak it, and yet I realize it's the only way to get it back. My nephew just started french school, maybe I will practice on him. How embarrassing can speaking bad French to a 3½ year old who's just learning it be? Until he starts correcting me.