What's your second and third impression of OFB?

[angelyne]

Turns out I made things very difficult for myself, without realizing it.  I picked a home based business that sells crafted items (flowers) with a CAS family with no skills and no friends  The mother runs the shop with her daughter (when she is not in school).  They both are very lazy. I literally have to stand over them with a whip.  The minute I don't have a queued interaction they are off to sit on the sofa,  to watch tv, or even to clean the frigging toilets! (she's also very neat).  It's pretty bad when a shop owner rather clean toilets than talk to her customers.

The husband is a intern and doesn't help with the business other that keeping it afloat!

And I also borrowed 15k from the bank to buy the business.  Those interest payments are not making my life easier, and I have been unable to repay the capital yet.

So far I am coping, but all of their aspirations have been very very neglected.  They are in the green....barely.  My teen is almost an adult and I'm debating whether or not to send her to college.  I'd hate to loose my unpaid labor.   I would have liked for them to have a baby, but who has the time?

So far this is sounding pretty close to real life

What I am loving so far is there is finally a use for all those townies I created.  They are my customers.  I never interacted with them much before because I hate community lots.  With OFB I can make them come to me!

My biggest annoyance so far is having to micromanage the business so much, especially the customer relations.  When I make a sims a cashier s/he stays there and minds the cash.  When I tell my sim to make flowers s/he makes them and even gets a fun boost.  When I tell them to restock they do so.  Why is it then that there isn't a sale interaction for your controlled sims as there are for your employees.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I found a new annoyance. My sims can no longer sleep in community lots despite having beds there. This must be because beds are now sellable items. I hate this.

This is the only thing that really bothers me so far.

Have you tried ChangeLotZoning to residential and then back again to community? 

[Elvie]

When you ask a Sim who owns a community business what his job is, he says he's unemployed.

Kind of annoying, considering that if you ask a Sim who's employed either at a home or community business, he'll answer "I'm an Employee".

[ZephyrZodiac]

There also shown as unemployed and told to look in the paper and find a job!  Some things have definitely not been thought through!

[angelyne]

There is a new hack over at MTS2 to fix that.  It's not a bug it's a feature

After a little more musing, here are a couple of things which bug me about the EP. 

I think it should be more integrated into the base game.  You earn badges more quickly if you have points in the relevant skill, but why won't you gain skill points as well?  Painting gives you creativity but not flower arranging?

So far I am enjoying creating business, but I have the impression that it's one of the other; either I play OFB or I play the base game.  In order words, either I build a business or do skilling/want fufillement. 

Mind you I am doing a home-based business with new sims.  Might be a different scenario with community-based business, I haven't tried that yet.  Maybe home base business are better suited for older established sims, preferably perma-plat ones. 

[PlayLives]

There is a new hack over at MTS2 to fix that

can you post a link or at least the title so I can search for it. thanks

[ZephyrZodiac]

Angelyne, I agree, it's rather ridiculous how it is so hard for sims to gain any skill points while they're trying to run a home business.  The trouble is, unless you cheat, CAS sims and new families just don't have the cash to buy a home and a business! 

[Jysudo]

Although on first thought, it seems horribly crazy and stupid of Maxis to put boss sims as unemployed but on second thoughts, they did it so that your sim would still be eligable for employment in career tracks. They made OFB such that you can work ur sim to their simmy bones, having them operate a store and also go to work in a 'real' career track.

Bleah! I wouldn't even want this kind of crappy life in RL not to mention imposing it on my sims but its a feature, not Maxis' stupidity at work.

[Renatus]

So far my impression is still that this is an interesting and fun expansion that I'll get a lot of mileage out of. The only thing I've done is make a flower shop, which has kept the fortune sim who so desperately wanted one on his toes! I have a feeling it'll take me a very long time to explore all of the different types of businesses the game has to offer... I think I am an awfully slow player compared to everyone else. 

The only thing that annoys me, and it makes me really, really surly, is the register. Every time I see a sim sitting there hunting and pecking over his register for half an hour to ring up an increasingly impatient customer I want to shake the little bastard. I have worked retail of a variety of flavours and damn it, registers are not that hard to figure out unless you are actually mentally retarded. This is one thing I will totally feel justified in cheating a badge for - it takes too long to get a register badge and after observing a townie employee with a bronze badge sweat over the register, it doesn't do enough good at lower levels. I know sims are inherently stupid, but this is too much even for them.

[J. M. Pescado]

I am very tempted to make it much easier to gain register badges, PARTICULARLY with the corresponding skills. Someone with 10 logic points should not hunt and peck at a cash register more than once or twice.

[Renatus]

It would be a much-appreciated hack!

I don't know if it's my perception of things or what, but it seems to take much longer to get register badges than any other badges I've tried. The fortune sim in question does have 10 logic points, and he gained bronze in sales and restocking his first day at his business - yet he still sweats over the register as if he were disarming a bomb or something. For pity's sake, the store only sells four different types of items, it's not that hard!

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, who needs a cash register anyway when your store sell things everything at ONLY A DOLLAR. Seriously, $1 is not a hard concept.

Part of the problem with gaining register badges is that there is absolutely NO WAY to practice it at all. Which makes no sense, you'd think you'd alot time for a register clerk to practice with it just by poking some buttons and getting used to it. As opposed to sales, which must logically be practiced in the field. I mean, most other badges have a practice mode: Crafting badges let you practice churning out tons of useless junk before you try to sell anything, the Cosmetology badge lets you practice by mutilating friends and family....

[Mirelly]

I am very tempted to make it much easier to gain register badges, PARTICULARLY with the corresponding skills. Someone with 10 logic points should not hunt and peck at a cash register more than once or twice.

Absolutely! It's a must!

[Batelle]

JM, if you made a hack to shorten the time it takes to earn a register badge I'd pay double next billing period.  I'm sick of having flashbacks- I've trained absolute morons on register and they seem like brain trusts compare to my otherwise bright sims.  Also, having worked retail, watching the sims in line get antsy and irritable makes me uncomfortable as well. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

And how about a hack so that a customer (a) doesn't spend three sim days making up his tiny mind if he's going to buy something or not, and maybe locking him on to buying it once the bar is half-way filled?  In other words - no socializing instead of browsing.

[nectere]

I started with a premade sim that had a home based business - flower shop. She had about 4k in the bank and everything was already set up. I played without any CC or mods, this really didnt pose that big of an issue until she starting whining.

I didnt experience any of the bugs people have encountered. Once I closed the business with customers in line as the playable sim was seconds from passing out so I sent her to bed, the customers who were in line, left after some time leaving all their bags on the floor. The next day I had her clean up those bags and oddly she gained money from them, or at least it appeared so. She moved up in business rank somewhat quickly I thought, got to rank 3 by the end of the second day and had earned 4 perks and a good review. There were several customers who were in a bad mood and didnt like to be sold to, for them I used some joke interactions and then moved on to other customers, they bought stuff on their own.

One thing I really didnt like is that when I sent my employee on a break, he really didnt do anything to refresh himself, I ended up having to stop the main sim from selling and running the register to cook and serve food for the employee. So I guess I am still working out the assign/take break interactions etc as my employee was pretty much always in the yellow and once got in the red (needed food), but he didnt quit so, I guess I didnt muck it up too bad.

I guess my initial impression is that it is a whole lot of pointing and clicking at this point. I only played for a couple of hours. I like the new build stuff however and I am excited to build some homes etc with the new things. Also I am getting a kick out of people having so many issues trying to figure out how to play the game, since many people complained that the previous EPs were far too easy and didnt offer any sort of challenge...

[angelyne]

There is a new hack over at MTS2 to fix that

can you post a link or at least the title so I can search for it. thanks

First page of the mods section over at MTS2 : http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=136854

[PlayLives]

thanks

[Swiftgold]

I'm having a lot of fun with it so far - admittedly, I played the business part of it for the first time last night. Still, it was great. I had a family I was kinda not looking forward to playing - the dad was next in line to age to elder and he had 15 days left. I was contemplating "accidental" Simicide, but now they are suddenly really fun and I breezed through five days with the son's new community-lot florist shop.

Maybe it's because I was reading here so much, but so far it seems pretty intuitive, and I've gotten to level three. Definitely look for customers who seem confused, I've found - if you ask them 'may I help you?' and show them what they're looking for, they almost inevitably get a shiny gold loyalty star. My most loyal customers so far are the confused ones I was able to get to in time.

The second day my owner brought both his pregnant wife and his pregnant mother to work with him. The mother got the usual community-lot wants, though she worked the register in a pinch, and the wife had the running-a-business wants, including the want to fire the one employee which wouldn't go away! She's still obsessed with getting a bronze sales badge, even though she has a normal job. They made a couple sales pitches and basically just hung out and ate, being pregnant, but it was still helpful to have them there. I wish they could have napped on the couch in the break room, though. I had to use a motives cheat for energy to keep them awake enough to close and go home.

The only thing that annoys me, and it makes me really, really surly, is the register. Every time I see a sim sitting there hunting and pecking over his register for half an hour to ring up an increasingly impatient customer I want to shake the little bastard. I have worked retail of a variety of flavours and damn it, registers are not that hard to figure out unless you are actually mentally retarded. This is one thing I will totally feel justified in cheating a badge for - it takes too long to get a register badge and after observing a townie employee with a bronze badge sweat over the register, it doesn't do enough good at lower levels. I know sims are inherently stupid, but this is too much even for them.

This was my big issue, too, and the one thing I cheated on, though I only gave him a bronze badge. After four days he still hasn't upgraded - WTF? Yet he's gotten a bronze flower arranging badge and a bronze sales badge from scratch, and the one employee has gotten a bronze restocking badge because that's all he does.

My other big beef is that, since I moidered all my townies, no one starts with badges. There are five townies I made myself that DO have badges, but they aren't exactly the types who work in cheap furniture stores. All the rest are my playables, about 150 of them. I'd seriously love a hack that assigns playable Sims random badges, because although I could cheat and assign them some myself... well, I don't wannnt to cheat that way, for once People aren't always talented in exactly the right areas and I don't want my Sims to be, either.

I noticed also where some people were complaining about the amount of customers? That seems to be tied into the amount of Sims on a lot ala the graphics rules. There definitely (thankfully!) aren't as many as come onto downtown lots, but I still get a good amount of customers, I think about five, at once, which was too many for my owner to handle alone. Three in line while he hunts and pecks at the register? Pain! Incidentally when I threw his wedding party I was able to invite five Sims, which is more than the game ever let me do before without editing the graphics rules, and this is on the same computer as ever.

Otherwise, well, I'm having tons of fun with it, and I'll have to get one of my richer families to buy a different kind of business to see how that goes. Otherwise I'll have to veto bunches of plants only in all my playables' inventories

[Motoki]

JM, if you made a hack to shorten the time it takes to earn a register badge I'd pay double next billing period.  I'm sick of having flashbacks- I've trained absolute morons on register and they seem like brain trusts compare to my otherwise bright sims.  Also, having worked retail, watching the sims in line get antsy and irritable makes me uncomfortable as well. 

I agree, lol, it gives me PTSD flashbacks just watching it. :p

And it takes WAY to long to get the darned badges. Unlike the other skills, you can't continually be ringing up so what takes sim hours to raise in the other skills takes many days to raise register. I have a sim who has worked register for nearly a sim week and is only a bronze in register, but he's long since maxed out his sales and robotics. :p

And I agree about giving them breaks and they aren't very smart about satisfying their needs. Sometimes they do, more often than not they don't just come back with their little dot in the red again. :p

[Sagana]

I'm having a lot of fun with it so far - admittedly, I played the business part of it for the first time last night. Still, it was great. I had a family I was kinda not looking forward to playing - the dad was next in line to age to elder and he had 15 days left. I was contemplating "accidental" Simicide, but now they are suddenly really fun and I breezed through five days with the son's new community-lot florist shop.

This is the part I'm enjoying the most also. All my sims suddenly have plenty to do again - all the time. My ingame borns that overly easily maxed skills (not all of them, usually, mostly because I don't *try* it makes everything so easy) and permaplats way early, now have new skills to gain and new goals that I set for them. I've given each one (4 sons of the original family now in 4 seperate houses with their own kids and 2 originally townie families that they picked up as playables after uni) a different business goal of some sort. So they're all madly still working jobs and skills, taking care of kids, learning new skills, setting up businesses and earning money so they can buy more stuff (I used no 20k handouts and they pretty much just got out of Uni so they aren't rich by any means). Someone said there was no replay value, but for me the point isn't to make the best business possible and "win" the game (I'm not even sure this IS a game, really. I think it's a stage with some cast, some props etc. A platform for your own individual games and stories which makes it interesting for non-gamers and explains the varying levels of ease people pick it up etc.) But anyway, for me it's infinately replayable, now more than ever, as setting and accomplishing my own goals is a huge rush </soapbox>

There are lots of bugs and poorly done issues (why can't custom content be treated like any other piece one sells?) - Maxis can't implement anything, rushing all the programmers through and everything. And the cash registers drive me insane as well. Even if you hire staff with skill levels in it, it seems slow. I'll quadruple my subscriptions to get both No PC customers and Faster Cash Registers But I still love the game

[Assmitten]

I would be more than happy with a mod that allowed for register "practicing." I think that's more realistic and I would feel less like I was cheating. Also, yes, employees are TERRIBLE. You stand around and do nothing for two hours, and then bitch at me when I tell you to get back to work? Have fun at the unemployment office, Ivy Copur and the four other sims I've fired.

I hired a clerk with a gold badge in sales and she hard-sold everyone, and they cried to the boss about it. I wonder if that's a personality thing?

[Motoki]

Having employees sell just doesn't seem to work. They are stupid and will continually try to sell to sims even to someone who gave them a bad reaction. Gold badge doesn't help, paying them the max doesn't help, them being in green and in a good mood doesn't help. I just don't bother having them sell anymore and give them the menial tasks. :p

[Pegasys]

And it takes WAY to long to get the darned badges. Unlike the other skills, you can't continually be ringing up so what takes sim hours to raise in the other skills takes many days to raise register. I have a sim who has worked register for nearly a sim week and is only a bronze in register, but he's long since maxed out his sales and robotics. :p

The skills they have really make a difference in how fast the badges are acquired. It didn't take long for my Sim who has 7 or 8 charisma points to get a Gold Sales badge. Register is accelerated by high Logic points, perhaps Sims with no logic will take a long time.

[Motoki]

Yes but my point is, you can continually sell sell sell. You can't do that with the register. I got a gold sales badge easily as well, even with a sim without any charisma. The only one I have a real problem with getting up is the register. Most of the time you just spend standing around waiting or doing other things and you have to wait for the customers to come to you before you can ring them up and when you do, it doesn't take very long or go up much for each sale rung up. The problem is, since you can't continually pratice it, it takes forever to get up. Logic helps a little, but still doesn't make up for this problem.