Oh right, the copious amounts of pee. I'm mostly just in plain denial about that. Free Time or not. Therefore this failed to shatter my world, I guess.


AL is still too buggy for my taste, even in modded form (i.e. too much work to make it work). Plus I couldn't care less for the magic stuff. I'll give you the built features and clothing options, though.

I will just repost what I answered to an lj-friend's inquiry about Sims 2 and its EPs ...

A short assessment of the EPs as far as game-play goes:

University: So boring it hurts.
Nightlife: One of the best add-ons I would call it essential.
Open for Business: Thought I would hate it. It's one of my favorites now.
Pets: In one word: Unnecessary.
Seasons: Not of much use either, but you get an annoying penguine to chat with your snowmen.
Bon Voyage: Much like University a game of it's own. Very hard to implement in normal game play.
Free Time: Almost forgot about it. Has some interesting new game features but nothing world-shattering.
Apartment Life: The bugginess it kills us.

So IMO the OP already has the bestest EPs installed (also the crappiest with University). As for the more recent EPs, I would go with Seasons and Free Time before Apartment Life (better/alternatively Mansions & Garden) and Pets, nevermind Bon Voyage. But like others already said this is all really, really subjective.

Here is my utterly lame entry for this month.

http://www.ireneks.de/upload/matychallenges/MATYJAN09.rar

Done with all SPs and EPs. There is a  'Custom' and a 'Clean' file in the rar.  The Custom version contains Numenor's Limo, Targa's Supafride, some custom plants and Squinge's autonomous minigolf thingy. It's also probably better you have all the store and story-stuff objects if you go for it. The Clean version should hopefully be official Sims 2 Eaxis crap only. You should get the lots for cheap (less than half than what they're worth ~ 50.000/70.000) because of the real estate market bubble I used Inge's StayThingsShrub for testing. The ground floor is a pool/party area and the first floor is the living area, suitable for DINKs or a rich old couple. I didn't feel like doing much with the garden.

Front:




Back:


Floorplans:




Pool/Party Floor




Bathroom with massage bench/Dining-Living-Area:

Force an error on the Sim(s) in debug mode and the 'zzzz' will be gone.

Very cool little program rufio, thanks for making it. 

I guess it's not possible to make the ages import "custom compatible"? Since I use an agecon override of 3-6-6-44 insted of 3-7-14-29 the life stages are all wonky. For example my adult Sims with 31 days left until elder are shown as teens with two days left until adult.

Other than that I have no complains and will go play around with it some more now.

Okay, mystery solved. Gwill had the right nose. You must have a counter island on the hotel lot for the host and waiter to be spawned. At least if you also have a bar on the lot. 

PS: Inge you were right too. If there is no bar/counter islands on the lot the podium has to be in the same room as the dinner tables. 

Yes Inge, everything works as it should except for the podium. It's like it can't detect the other restaurant items despite them being on the lot.

Could this be the result of an objects.package corruption?

When I make a hotel with a restaurant the result always looks like this:



Everything works fine except the restaurant podium sports the "under construction" sign, no host is spawned, and no waiter. The cook cooks lonely at his stove. What am I missing?

I've done this with a clean game of course. I've got the podium and the special stove which should be enough, shouldn't it? Trying to activate the podium in debug mode just drops out of queue.

PS: Eaxis' hotel restaurants work fine.

I added a rar to my post for those who have problems with the sims2packs.

I hadn't thought of communal kitchens either, until I saw Paladin's tini-tiny flop-house. Well, it's not like the totally empty communal areas of Eaxis premade apartments will give you any ideas. 

Oh dear god, fway. Can't. Stop. Laughing. That's WTF material for sure.

Wow. Thanks for the nice feedback jim and jesslla. I wasn't sure the yellow would go over so well. It's an unusual favorite color to have, but it always was and will be mine.

I didn't even do it on purpose, but if there is one thing that drives me insane, it's Eaxis walls and floors (I pretty much hate them all and with custom walls and floors it's not much better) and not matching (kitchen) appliances. Aaargh. That almost just leaves you with the K&B and IKEA stuff, wich comes in some interesting colors indeed.

I hope everything works as advertised.

Meh. I tried to keep the platforms first, but that was just too ugly. There is a residential and an apartments (2 units) version for download. Was built on an unleveld lot though. All EPs and SPs neccessary.

http://www.ireneks.de/upload/matychallenges/Curious Apartments.sims2pack
http://www.ireneks.de/upload/matychallenges/Curious Residential.sims2pack
http://www.ireneks.de/upload/matychallenges/Maty October Challenge.rar
Click right and save to your hard drive. Use Clean Installer if you don't want/have already Targa's SupaFridge.



Entrance area: Kitchen, hall with elevator to upper deck, workshop.


If you use the kitchen as communal with apartments, note that there must be a fride in the apartment units too - I put
Targa's SupaFridge in the nurseries for that reason - or your Sims will refuse to cook there, or barbecue on the upper deck.
And lock their apartment door, or they will run back up/down and eat on their couch. Stupid fuckers.


Living room with entry into green house.


Master/communal bathroom.


Backside pond with chess table.


Pool and hottube.


First floor (apartment: ~ 2200$) with sport room and play-area-balcony


Second floor (apartment: ~ 1600$) with music room.

In the apartment version the entry arches are replaced by apartment doors and there is no entry into the bathroom from the staircase.

Upper decks with barbecue, bar, telescope(s).


Walls down.

I had the same problem. It worked after I updated my graphic card's driver.

Well then I have run out of ideas myself. Maybe a lot bin corruption?



Oh, good. Does it stomp the greeting obsession on not owned community lots too? I just played Dustin Broke's funeral - that stupid fucker set his ass on fire with the toy train of all things - and all attendees insisted on greeting each other, which I found a bit annyoing. On the other hand it makes for nice screenshots.

I have no idea about this portal stuff, but I tried Inge's flamingo and couldn't see any difference in the portals of lots where the bus comes and lots where the bus doesn't come. There are two pedestrian portals, a car start and stop portal, and a service car start and stop portal. Are there suppose to be extra portals for the bus?

Yes, I know but that's supposed to be an option and not mandatory (non playable kids won't walk to school anyway). It really seems that most of the premade apartments in the LotBin are borked in respect to recognizing kids/teens on the lots. This would fit with moonsingingfreak observation that the kids' grades aren't dropping when they don't go to school at all. No "bus is coming in an hour" dialog, no bus. The game treats the kids like jobless adults on this lots.

I think I'll try to change the lotzoning back and forth between res and apt with one of the lots and see if this can fix something.

Yes, but I take back that it's neighborhood related. After testing with my pre AL backup I would say it's lot related. On some maxis premade apartments the bus works and on others not. At first I thought it depends on the family, but then I cross-changed their places and yeah, seems lot related.  Either that or it's totally random.


I too considered briefly if it could be a clean template problem but somehow nothing does quite add up with what can be observed.

I still have no bus.

Also tried fresh apartments, different sub hoods, but no cake bus.

After further investigation it seems to be neighborhood related. In Belladonna Cove the bus works fine, in my my long played BFBVFS neighborhood not so much. If the Apartment Controller got borked beyond repair it seems to affect the whole neighborhood and is probably perrnanent. Could also be that the neighborhood is corrupted to begin with in a way that affects the Apartment Controller. Serves me right I guess.


I just thought that would be a very Eaxis thing to do and was kind off surprised when the all walked to work.  

I have the problem with the schoolbus not coming to apartment lots. At first I thought it was a hack conflict but know the bus doesn't come without any Downloads in either (very weird as I could have sworn it did at one point). Also there are no carpools for the non playable renters, but that may be by design and at least they walk to work, while the kids just hang out in the community area all day. 

No love or hate just a thundering meh from me for this expansion pack. Got my expectations up a bit too much in anticipation I think.

Do like:

The new neighborhood is indeed shiny.
Many, many pre-made apartment lots, as I'm more of an interior designer to tell the truth.
The business of playing apartment lots, although the ever elusive neighbors and their fixation on (the highest advertising item in) the community area is a bit annoying.

Do not like:

Borkage galore.

Built restrictions on apartment lots, but then, I never do what Pescado says and will just use the cheat for it in abundance. I dare my neighboorhood to explode for four years now by doing VBTs on purpose, but besides the odd corrupted character file no luck so far. 

Some people complained about their playables serving food in community areas, I have the opposite problem. When I want them to serve food (barbecue) in the community area they do so only to grab the last dish and head three floors up into their apartment insisting on eating on their couch. Canceling and directing them to another dish same thing.

Thank you. When I noticed that bork the other day, I was rolling my eyes really, really hard at Eaxis, but that didnt make the Nanny recognize the stuff either. 

cheatbox-->showheadlines off

Sure the stupid messages will still come up, but at least you won't see them anymore.

Oh, well then ... 

*slinks off, feeling very stupid*

Um, so you mean to say I'm not supposed to see any difference with the hack in game, but should rather just "feel" it?  I was afraid it was something like that.

Seriously though, where during game play would I recognize that it works. Because my teens still seem to have 15 days age duration and not eight. Would a teen that now has 9 days left in his age turn (young)adult in two days despite the age bar saying differently?

Maybe I should have tried that, but I was to lazy. 

Ew. That skeleton is nasty. My poor delicate internet sensibilities!

Okay, I'm so sorry for the necromancy (not), but think this dead thread is perfectly fitting for my issue, because well, it's about modifying Inge's age duration hack. 

The thing is: It's not working. I'm not stupid with Simpe or anything. I have modified the BCONS in Plugin view, I commit and save the file, put it in my downloads folder, fire up the game and ... nothing.

So maybe I am stupid with Simpe after all.    And if anyone awesome or not feels bored enough and maybe could look if the package I attached should work (and if it should then why the fuck doesn't it?) I would be very grateful.