Nightlife: UGLY!

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, I showed you the cool, so I guess it would be extremely out of character if I failed to hilight the BAD news.

First, you'll note that there's a HUGE element of obsessive-compulsive behavior involving several of the new objects outright.

Observe the following:


Some nice, OCD dancing. Notice that no less than *6* of the normally allowed 8 visiting sims is dancing here. This is NOT a healthy pattern of behavior. All are plumbobless, so they're likely functioning autonomously.


Notice the obsessive-compulsive bowling. Notice also that you can see the bottoms of the skill meters, one of which appears as a sim bowls. This suggests that they're popping skillmeters and gaining skills. Meaning that either skill-gaining is allowed downtown, or this unhealthy behavior is actually occuring at RESIDENTIAL lot! The fact that it seems to be skill-building is good, but it's still not healthy that so many sims are doing it at once, particularly on a residential lot, as is likely the case!


Notice the obsessive-compulsion of the karaoke machine. This is not healthy either. Anyone up for a game of Myshuno?


Here you will notice several sims that seem to be doing nothing except cheering at a dance sphere! Does this mean that anytime somebody uses the damn thing, everyone's queue gets wiped so they can cheer at it? Fun, eh?


Look how ungodly many sims are visible in this shot! The lag must be absolutely AWFUL! And the number of NPCs involved! Good gravy, that's 9 extra sims right there! (3 of each type!)


This car is not stopping. Neither are any of the other cars shown. What does this mean, you think? A bug, perhaps, that cars do not stop to release their occupants and simply run off the end of the lot, leaving you to curse and swear at the lack of brakes?

And this is what lies ahead of you read between the lines of their new demo clip. Be afraid, people. Be very afraid.

[dizzy]

My main concern is whether bowling is scripted (like the play pool in Uni). I want them to *actually* play, dang it!

[J. M. Pescado]

My main concern is whether bowling is scripted (like the play pool in Uni). I want them to *actually* play, dang it!

What kind of silly question is that? Of COURSE it's scripted. The TS2 engine is fundamentally incapable of doing anything other than rendering a series of canned animations. In order for them to ACTUALLY bowl, or play pool, you'd need a full-fledged physics engine. TS2 doesn't have this. The bowling is obviously thus a series of canned animations.

[dizzy]

Hehe. Pool, I can understand. It's a static environment. Bowling, on the other hand is perfect for set-up and throw-away anims that you choose at random. Add in scoring, and it's perfect.

If they don't do it that way, I'll just have to *force* it to be that way (assuming I actually do get it some day).

[J. M. Pescado]

Hehe. Pool, I can understand. It's a static environment. Bowling, on the other hand is perfect for set-up and throw-away anims that you choose at random. Add in scoring, and it's perfect.

Well, you'd still have to pick from a series of random two-shot bowls. And handle what happens if a player Xes out the interaction after the first shot. Otherwise it'll become uninterruptable. Won't THAT be fun? Nothing like a non-interruptable OCD for visitors to fixate on.

[dizzy]

My goodness. Bowling as one, long, uninterruptible interaction over the course of two bowls (assuming you don't strike, of course) would be quite unplayable. I sure hope they don't do it like that.

Real life bowling is very flexible and good bowling alley managers can even be persuaded to reset the alley should something go wrong (like your pin setter screws up and dishes up 9 pins instead of the normal 10).

[J. M. Pescado]

My goodness. Bowling as one, long, uninterruptible interaction over the course of two bowls (assuming you don't strike, of course) would be quite unplayable. I sure hope they don't do it like that.

Heh, well, I strike fairly consistently, but I'm not liked much in bowling arenas due to my habit of taking a lightweight ball and hurling it like a shotput as my bowl. If the ball manages to come to ground before impact, it's liable to put an impressive ding in the floor.

Real life bowling is very flexible and good bowling alley managers can even be persuaded to reset the alley should something go wrong (like your pin setter screws up and dishes up 9 pins instead of the normal 10).

Wait, that's a bad thing? That means you get a free point already.

[Ardin Topani]

Heh, well, I strike fairly consistently, but I'm not liked much in bowling arenas due to my habit of taking a lightweight ball and hurling it like a shotput as my bowl. If the ball manages to come to ground before impact, it's liable to put an impressive ding in the floor.

Good lord, you bowl like my best friend. Except she would get the heaviest ball and shotput with it. It would make a very, very large crack on the alleyway and then (hopefully) make it down to the end of the alley with minimal bouncing.

I have no idea why we never got thrown out. *Everyone* would stop and stare at us so it wasn't like no one noticed.

[kim]

The TS2 engine is fundamentally incapable of doing anything other than rendering a series of canned animations. In order for them to ACTUALLY bowl, or play pool, you'd need a full-fledged physics engine. TS2 doesn't have this. The bowling is obviously thus a series of canned animations.

cool, you've recognized what i'm waiting on.  have you started working on it, or should i now begin hinting, nagging, trying to recruit your team, such like?
(i know, huge project, not likely in my brief remaining lifetime, still i dream it for the little children, and for their children.)
but, think about the possibilities of karaoke and bowling together!

[jrd]

Some of those scenes are obviously staged.
As for the cars, Hot Date for TS1 had non-stopping cars which drove by the community lots, to give the illusion of Downtown being actually downtown somewhere.

I'll hold judgement (and curses) until I've had Nightlife installed.

[dizzy]

I'm starting to wonder how much work they put into the cars. It's possible that they made the ownable car a new NPC type that can locomote around (like the RC car does already). That might contribute to a goodly number of potential bugs in NL.

[bluecatvon]

I'm not having high hopes for it. I rarely even leave my lots haha, so why bother going downtown?

[J. M. Pescado]

Good lord, you bowl like my best friend. Except she would get the heaviest ball and shotput with it. It would make a very, very large crack on the alleyway and then (hopefully) make it down to the end of the alley with minimal bouncing.

Yes, but a lighter ball lets you get a higher velocity on it, which translates to greater kinetic energy. I tended to get a lot of strikes like this. That, or I'd miss target entirely and fail to register.

And I know perfectly well why I was never thrown out: Being more heavily armed than everyone else put together has that effect.

[Renatus]

Oh, gah. Linedancing. *shudder*   

[J. M. Pescado]

Oh, gah. Linedancing. *shudder*   

I don't even know what that means. Do I want to?

[Tina G]

LMAO! Line dancing is when a group of people all get together on the dance floor and dance, in sync. Don't know about these days, but it used to be a real popular fad in Country/Western type clubs.

[Renatus]

I don't even know what that means. Do I want to?

It looks like the sims in the first picture are line dancing.
Tina explained what it is, but not the true horror of it. I was subjected to it in middle school and 12 years later I still start screaming at the sound of "Achy Breaky Heart."  People today still do it to Village People songs and the Macarena. It's still bloody awful.

[gali]

The line dancing is a remain of the 60th, before the Twist, and before the Shake. It's a group dance, and allows many single bar visitors, who couldn't invite a partner to dance, to enjoy themselves when they were alone. I danced these dances a lot - no need of partner....

[Renatus]

Bah! Dancing does not require a partner, only a sense of rhythm! (Now if the people at the local nightclubs would kindly clue into that last bit...) Linedancing is the spawn of evil.

[J. M. Pescado]

I still don't get it. Then again, I don't really comprehend dancing at all, and the only reason that I even pay any attention to it is because of Bust-A-Move's more mathematical benefits.

Although now all the game needs, with those flashy light-up floors, is electric boots that emit an obnoxiously loud hum and overload the breakers.

[gali]

Renatus, in the 60th you was FORCED to dance with a partner. It was a shame to dance solo.... All the dances were for couples only - swing, rock, tango, etc.

You are right - nowadays you don't need a partner to dance. You can join a couple of Shake dancers, or dance alone - and it is most natural - I am glad it is....

[J. M. Pescado]

The only kind of dancing I'm familiar with is the kind that involves having an automatic weapon fired at your feet.

[gali]

That's the Classic Russian Dance....

I was very good in Kozachock - "kalinaka maia, saduyagoda kalinka maia"...

[Oddysey]

I don't think that's a "natural" game behavoir. I would guess that they staged the dancing and the bowling because they think it looks cool when a lot of people are doing it at once. It's fairly easy to manipulate the game like that, but I doubt that if they played that for more than a few minutes all the sims would actually keep doing that. They'd wander off and do a bunch of random useless stuff individually, and have to be herded back to the activity in question.

If that's not the case, I'm going to shoot whoever's responsible. Multiple times. Maybe some machine gun linedancing will drive it into the programmers brains why this is a bad thing.

[Ardin Topani]

Yes, but a lighter ball lets you get a higher velocity on it, which translates to greater kinetic energy. I tended to get a lot of strikes like this. That, or I'd miss target entirely and fail to register.

I think she was going for the big noise more than a big score.

And I know perfectly well why I was never thrown out: Being more heavily armed than everyone else put together has that effect.

I never thought about it that way. Hmm. That must have been why we got to stay, too.