What's your second and third impression of OFB?

[ZephyrZodiac]

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.

Where do you get the May I help you option?  I certainly haven't seen it, or any of the management options either.  I'm beginning to think I need to reinstall it to see if things show up that I'm missing.  I think I've had to do that with every darned EP so far, and it's absolutely infuriating!  It's almost as though when the CDs are to shiny and new that stuff doesn't get copied properly!

[Motoki]

They don't always have it, only certain customers sometimes do. You'll be able to tell because they'll be looking all around like they are lost and have no idea where they are or what they are doing.

I'm not sure what the rate is for how often you get a customer like that. It seemed like some days I don't get any and some days I might get 2 or 3 a day. It's usually not a lot though.

[Pegasys]

Well it just takes a lot of ringing up. Bronze happens fairly quickly, one of my employees got Bronze in about a day or two. The same Gold Sales badge Sim has a Silver in cash register. But I'm glad something takes a long time, I don't want everything to be too easy. If you're concerned you can hire employees who have silver or gold register.

It's weird some people (I don't mean you, Motoki) complain about gameplay being too easy, then want cheats to speed things up...

[Motoki]

I don't want a cheat per say, but practicing when the store is closed might be nice. Pretty much ever other skill I can think of, even the hidden ones, you can continuously practice in and you can control how long and when you want to practice so this register skill is kind of an anomaly in that respect.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, you'd think that if you asing an employee to the register, then they'd actually be skill-building while they stand there, other wise there's no point in having that option, you might as well do it yourself and just "ring up customers" when they appear with shopping bags!

And what's the betting, if you made George Macarthy a playable sim, and managed to employ him, he'd be just as useless in spite of countless hours with no breaks at the community lots and the campus stores!!

[angelyne]

I don't want a cheat per say, but practicing when the store is closed might be nice. Pretty much ever other skill I can think of, even the hidden ones, you can continuously practice in and you can control how long and when you want to practice so this register skill is kind of an anomaly in that respect.

That, or maybe an option for the manager or owner to train the employee similar to a parent teaching a kid to study.  You'd get an immediate boost (maybe to bronze) and maybe the employee could learn at an accelerated rate while they are being coached?

I'd be happy with any of these options, even just one that makes learning the cash go much faster.  Seems to me that a couple of sim hours (less than a day)  should be enough to get to bronze, and maybe a week to silver and a month to gold.

Yes, you'd think that if you asing an employee to the register, then they'd actually be skill-building while they stand there, other wise there's no point in having that option, you might as well do it yourself and just "ring up customers" when they appear with shopping bags!

I think the idea is that when you assign a cashier, you don't have to worry about your cash being unattended and your customers getting pissed off.  In fact, one thing I find supremely annoying is that you can't assign a controllable sim to assisting customers like you can an employee.  So you need to constanly click click click or next thing you know they are off watching tv instead of serving customers. I'm hoping JM will do something about that soon.

[Swiftgold]

Where do you get the May I help you option?  I certainly haven't seen it, or any of the management options either.  I'm beginning to think I need to reinstall it to see if things show up that I'm missing.  I think I've had to do that with every darned EP so far, and it's absolutely infuriating!  It's almost as though when the CDs are to shiny and new that stuff doesn't get copied properly!

Yeah, it only shows up when you click Sales... on a confused-looking customer. Do you not have the management options on a vanilla-OFB installation? I removed many of my hacks that weren't specifically OFB compatible and only put back in the ones from here and I haven't had any problems. It looks like I also skirted the 'driving a car to comm lot' bug because, though my owner took his car all but the first day, I never saved on the store lot! Phew!

Well it just takes a lot of ringing up. Bronze happens fairly quickly, one of my employees got Bronze in about a day or two. The same Gold Sales badge Sim has a Silver in cash register. But I'm glad something takes a long time, I don't want everything to be too easy. If you're concerned you can hire employees who have silver or gold register.

It's weird some people (I don't mean you, Motoki) complain about gameplay being too easy, then want cheats to speed things up...

Well, in my case anyway, I have only six Sims (Townies I've made) who've come with any badges whatsoever, and considering they're the immortal tyrants of the Neighborhood, some great-grandparents of my other Sims, etc etc, I don't really want to hire them as Florist Shop Restocker when there are tons of playables who aren't doing much of anything.   If it was possible to randomly give badges to the playables, so I'd be able to hire one with a register badge, I'd do so...

[angelyne]

there are tons of playables who aren't doing much of anything.  If it was possible to randomly give badges to the playables, so I'd be able to hire one with a register badge, I'd do so...

Maybe you should turn your extra payable characters into townies.  In the old game there wasn't much difference between townies and player characters (that you weren't playing).  But now with OFB there are two big differences, money and badges.  I'm thinking I am going to turn some of the characters I don't play into townies.  I can always turn them back if I get this sudden urge to play them.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Swiftgold, I don't get any management options at all.  Maybe I should take my hacks out and see if that solves the problem.

[Swiftgold]

Maybe you should turn your extra payable characters into townies.  In the old game there wasn't much difference between townies and player characters (that you weren't playing).  But now with OFB there are two big differences, money and badges.  I'm thinking I am going to turn some of the characters I don't play into townies.  I can always turn them back if I get this sudden urge to play them.

Oho. Yeah, I might just end up doing that with some of them. Once I get them through Uni, if I don't have a storyline going for them, they just end up living in some house and I never play them, so that might work nicely. I'd just have to remember where they are in my aging list and adjust them accordingly if they ever become playable again through marriage...

Swiftgold, I don't get any management options at all.  Maybe I should take my hacks out and see if that solves the problem.

Yeah, it's possible you're getting a conflict with a hack that adds something to the pie menus? I'll be reintroducing my other-site hacks when they're updated, but so far I have the director's cut in, the ones from Inge, TJ and Crammyboy that are compatible, and some that I frankly just guessed wouldn't conflict, heh. So if you suddenly get the management and sales options, you'll know a hack's the culprit which is better than guessing, anyway...

[Motoki]

If we make playable sims into townies AFTER we already have installed OFB will they get random badges? My feeling is no, but I'm not sure.

[sanmonroe]

Personally I wish you could take badges away from towniees.

I hate paying them for things that I would never use them to do.

Thats why all my employees are the unskilled homeless people and trailer trash that populate my town.

Then I can traint hem in one, and only one, job and save 30$ an hour.

[akatonbo]

If we make playable sims into townies AFTER we already have installed OFB will they get random badges? My feeling is no, but I'm not sure.

If you make a Sim in CAS and then immediately use Inge's teleporter shrub to turn it into a townie, it receives random skills, doesn't it? So it should be possible for badges as well. Might as well try it. (I'd do so, but I'm still trying to free up a little more HD space for a much-needed pre-installation defrag.)

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I reinstalled and loaded up vanilla and everything seemed fine, so I started to put a few hacks back in.  Still everything seemed fine, until Lucy Burb decided to go jump on her parents bed.  I didn't x out the action, merely gave her a different instruction, but after that not only was the bed broken, but nearly everything else was not working properly.  Somehow, I think the portals got damaged, since John's car did not appear to take him to work, although he changed into his uniform.   Unfortunately I decided to try deleting him, and then sent Jennifer off to her shop.  when the taxi cam, it suddenly teleported off the lot with her in it, and when I got to the shop, it was in build/buy mode and I couldn't get play mode at all.  Now I can neither play the shop and get Jennifer to go back to the house, or get into the house!  I think my only option now is to move them in with someone else and then move them back!

[flowerchile]

Sounds like fun ZZ..NOT.  I love the new EP.  Only a couple of complaints though.  One I posted a thread about, and two: if I send employees on a break, no matter how long they have they get really pissed off whe I tell them to get back to work.  One even quit.  So no breaks for them little suckers from now on.

[angelyne]

If you make a Sim in CAS and then immediately use Inge's teleporter shrub to turn it into a townie, it receives random skills, doesn't it? So it should be possible for badges as well. Might as well try it. (I'd do so, but I'm still trying to free up a little more HD space for a much-needed pre-installation defrag.)

To my knowledge making your own townies from CAS sims does not assign them random skills or anything else.  So I doubt that they would get a bagdge as well.

When I created my pool of townies, I went into SimsPE and for every townie, I gave them a randomly determined job and level, randomized their skills (there is a button for that in SimPE) and adjusted their skills to match their profession.

[Pegasys]

Sounds like fun ZZ..NOT.  I love the new EP.  Only a couple of complaints though.  One I posted a thread about, and two: if I send employees on a break, no matter how long they have they get really pissed off whe I tell them to get back to work.  One even quit.  So no breaks for them little suckers from now on.

The way it's supposed to work is that when you send employees on a break, they'll automatically go back to work in an hour if they're paid enough/mood is raised enough/relationship is high enough. The goal is to send them on break before their needs drop too low and they'll return on their own. Making them go back to work always pisses them off.

Careful, I discovered that if an employee quits, if you try to rehire them, their required pay goes up substantially. In one case it more than doubled even though my Sim had a great relationship with him.

[Assmitten]

Careful, I discovered that if an employee quits, if you try to rehire them, their required pay goes up substantially. In one case it more than doubled even though my Sim had a great relationship with him.

Yeah, because they're so experienced now from standing around at your store picking their butts. 

Only once have I had an employee go back to work cheerfully. They're just more trouble than they're worth, to me. I might try again later, after I get better at making a profit without employees.

[pcgeekri]

Overall it's okay.

It should have been bundled with the real game manual sold by Primagames (I call all game guides the REAL game manuals).  Lockers/dressers don't work on community lots except for the sim that owns the lot.  The only practicality may be and I haven't tried this yet is the home business. 

The only way a sim makes real money fast from the lot is by buying, raising the rank, then selling the lot and better to sell the lot back to the community or a townie NOT a playable sim so the lot will reset back to rank of 0. 

The lot MUST be played each day (or the lot doesn't make any money for the day if you don't play at all) by the owner or take a loss by operating it remotely IF you have a manager.  Therefore you could spend hours playing an owned community lot and really not progressing in the game. 

Oh!  And one other thing, When a sim goes to a community lot to restock the regrigerator one better check to see how much is needed because unlike before when a sim buys groceries a sim can now always buy the maximum amount of groceries of 600 dollars and may only need 250 dollars or less to restock the fridge. 

The extra goodies with the expansion pack are always welcome.

That's about it,

Pcgeekri

[sanmonroe]

The only way a sim makes money from the lot is by buying, raising the rank, then selling the lot and better to sell the lot back to the community or a townie NOT a playable sim so the lot will reset back to rank of 0. 

Huh?

I have a flower/art shop with over 200k of profits.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I finally managed to save the Burbs thanks to Inge's teleporter plus, but I still couldn't send Jennifer to the shop without getting the buy/build screen and a frozen jennifer - but this time John was home so I was able to load the home lot, and Jennifer reapppeared.  I got Jennifer to sell the store and then exited, evicted them and bought them a better house.  I bulldozed the original house, which I'm pretty sure was very corrupted.

I've also got all the management options now, and I'm beginning to get the hang of it at last!  However, I do wish they'd made it possible for staff to make a meal or a cup of espresso when they're on their break!

And by the way, Dustin Broke is a brilliant employee, he tries really hard and is a great salesman!   (And so much better than standing on a street corner watching to see if the cops are around!)

[Assmitten]

And by the way, Dustin Broke is a brilliant employee, he tries really hard and is a great salesman!   (And so much better than standing on a street corner watching to see if the cops are around!)

IMO, Dustin Broke just needs some direction. Otherwise he will hang out stamping your Sims' flowerbeds. I try to keep him busy.

[simmiecal]

And by the way, Dustin Broke is a brilliant employee, he tries really hard and is a great salesman!   (And so much better than standing on a street corner watching to see if the cops are around!)

IMO, Dustin Broke just needs some direction. Otherwise he will hang out stamping your Sims' flowerbeds. I try to keep him busy.

He did real well with the lemonade stand.   

[Motoki]

OMG teens can use it too? How embarassing lol.

I did notice child age sims can't get any badges. That's too bad because I thought they should actually be able to get a sales badge for the lemonade stand. 

[Renatus]

Check the lameass excuse for why they can't, too - "should be free from the pressures of adult life" or some nonsense like that. So that's why American public schools press grade schoolers to sell overpriced candy to everyone they know, huh? Bake sales? Scouts?  Sheesh, Maxis, if anyone needs sales badges it's the kids!