Managers and the salon chair

[skandelouslala]

I could very well be a complete idiot but I can't figure these two out unless there's a hack in my game preventing the two options from working properly.

1.  I can't assign a manager to my community lot based businesses.  The little instruction manual says "promote to manager" should be in the management pie menu but it isn't showing up for me.  Problem on my behalf or do sims have to have a certain badge level or something to be promoted to manager?

2.  The salon chair doesn't appear to work properly. I can assign someone to be a stylist..they however just stand there.  I'm assuming then that sims don't choose to be made over on their own.  Okay then, I figure out I have the option to offer a free makeover or ask the customers if they would like a makeover.  If they accept the free makeover my business owner will give them the free one instead of the stylist.  They have also accepted the one they are supposed to pay for, but they just nod and agree, get the customer loyalty star or whatever it is but then never go to the chair, or anything.  So to me the salon business seems to not work as I envisioned at all unless I am missing something or I have something interfering with it.

[gynarchy]

I haven't done much with the makeover chairs but in order to promote to manager, the employee needs a total of at least 5 badge points (bronze = 1, silver = 2, gold = 3).

[pioupiou]

Once you have offer a make-over to a sim he will stand next to the chair, looking at it with the green money bar on his head. When the bar fills up he will go to the chair, sit and have his make over : it works exactly like for selling objects in a shop (instead of picking up the object, the sim sits for his make over)
You can use the sell intercations on this sims to make the filling of the green bar faster.
Hopa my english makes sense.
Pioupiou

[Motoki]

They have also accepted the one they are supposed to pay for, but they just nod and agree, get the customer loyalty star or whatever it is but then never go to the chair, or anything.

That interaction seems to be bugged and broken. So far as I can tell, it was meant to be the equivalent of 'show item to' something that gets the ball rolling and starts their little green shopping interest meter about the chair, except that it does nothing except, as you noted, have them nod and agree and get the star.

They will sometimes browse the chair on their own, but at times they'll do it and other times they never seem to so there's no way to control that apparently. I tried to run a beauty shop. The first day a few sims got interested and then I did some sales pitches on them, they were ready and I worked the chair, they paid and I gave them their makeovers.

After that for several days I could not do anything to get them interested in the damned chair. Even setting the price to the cheapest setting did not help so I gave up and switched to the flower making business.

The 'offer makeover to' interaction is definitely something that needs to be fixed in a future patch or hack.

[sadiebutterfly]

My sister was having problem #2: her hairdresser can offer free makeovers, and they get carried out no problem, but when they're not free nothing happens even though the customer has nodded, agreed, got twinkly star above their head, whatever. Then the customer complains at her. WTF?

(as the salon was a major feature in our buying OFB in the first place, she's kind of unhappy about this.)

[aussieone]

After that for several days I could not do anything to get them interested in the damned chair. Even setting the price to the cheapest setting did not help so I gave up and switched to the flower making business.

The 'offer makeover to' interaction is definitely something that needs to be fixed in a future patch or hack.

I had the same issue with my first business.

I couldn't for the life of me understand why, when I emloyed someone to do the makeovers, they stood behind the chair and did nothing. The fact that they don't interact with customers had me scratching my head in frustration ( I almost did an impression of the German kid and his computer LOL) and then I thought stuff it, I'm opening a flower shop!!

Geez, this is the bug of all bugs as far as I'm concerned and yeah.....I'm not surprised, but frustrated nonetheless!! 

[Qwiggles]

I kept giving Florence Delarose a makeover with the chair but she didn't change at all!  No funny makeup, no new hair style, definitely no CAS screen showing up.
I'm having almost the same problem with my restaurant, too.  The customers would be convinced to dine in and yet not all of them sit down and eat.  Most of them got the star and walked out!    
Are you all playing the service chair with or without hacks?

[aussieone]

Are you all playing the service chair with or without hacks?

Well, I'm playing with all Pescado and TwoJeffs approved for OFB hacks if that's what you mean? 

[Motoki]

Same here, I'm using using ones TJ or Pescado deemed 'clean' or updated, but AFAIK none of them mess with anything that should effect the chair.

In my other store I hired an elder vampire former lunch lady with a gold cosmotology badge (lol!) and assigned her to the chair but she just stood there getting paid all night and ran out in the morning. No one ever used the darned chair though my business owner was able to give free makeovers.

I think that darned chair is just fuct.  Has anyone let Maxis know yet I wonder? They often seem out of touch about a lot of these things.

[aussieone]

I think that darned chair is just fuct.  Has anyone let Maxis know yet I wonder? They often seem out of touch about a lot of these things.

Hahaha.....

well Motoki I don't wade through the qaugmire that is the BBS, so if anyone's going to inform Maxis about the problem, please do, because it ain't gonna be me!! 

[momtogirls]

try lowering the price of the makeover.  I started out with it being 15 simoleans, and raised the price with every business rating point.  My customers now pay over 100 simoleans for a makeover.

[Motoki]

I lowered it to the minimum and they still weren't biting. *shrug* Of course I did give some people some bad makeovers so maybe word of mouth spread? Anyway, that still doesn't explain the weirdness with the chair and offer makeover action.

re: reporting at the BBS

There's a form. It's actually just the standard one they've always had but some of the Maxoids are telling people to report OFB problems via it. However, I have serious doubts whether such reports will reach the right eyeballs and get heard. I'm sure they have to wade through a bunch of 'WHERZ BE11A!!!!oneoneoene' 'wHen R U geTing AnImAlZ???' and 'how do u get twinz?? hhhheeelllppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' reports.

[Qwiggles]

Turns out, my restaurant situation is caused by not having enough chairs around the table.  I had only 2 instead of 4 so sims were confused with the blank space, go figure!
I took out all my hacks to see if my Florence problem is still there.  Sure enough, she cannot get a makeover.  Oh, well.

[Katze]

re: reporting at the BBS

There's a form. It's actually just the standard one they've always had but some of the Maxoids are telling people to report OFB problems via it. However, I have serious doubts whether such reports will reach the right eyeballs and get heard. I'm sure they have to wade through a bunch of 'WHERZ BE11A!!!!oneoneoene' 'wHen R U geTing AnImAlZ???' and 'how do u get twinz?? hhhheeelllppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' reports.

Nice to have you back Motoki I missed your humor, I haven't had much time playing with OFB so didn't encounter any bugs yet.

[Lyall]

I've been able to get the salon chair to work but only if it's with a playable Sim. I use the 'Offer Makeover' interaction, get the bar up, and once it's full, choose the 'Be Stylist' option. It's worked almost every time with me (for some reason, it doesn't seem to work if my Sim was about to interact with the other Sim when the bar fills up).

Then again, the salon chair might be bugged and I've just been lucky enough to get it to work. Who knows? 

[Motoki]

I suppose I could try taking all my hacks out and seeing if the damned chair works any better, but too be honest, I don't feel like it. :p I still the darned thing is bugged. 

[Sandilou]

Motoki I haven't played with the beauty salon chair yet.  I've loaded a big family to test out Doc Doofus' hack, so while I'm at it I'll see if I can get the chair to work.  I had a vanilla neighbourhood, but I've just loaded back in the basics.  If I have problems I'll remove the downloads folder and try the chair again.

[J. M. Pescado]

Maybe that's what they're supposed to do. I mean, it seems like a business fundamentally aimed at mutilating sims seem to be unprofitable: Why would you want to change how a sim looks, given that you probably already had them the way you WANT them to look to begin with? So maybe this is the non-destructive way that they make money.

[Motoki]

Well that might be all well and good if I actually were making money. 

Besides, OFB adds a whole new shopping district town full of uglies that need to be made over.

[skandelouslala]

Figured out the manager thing after reading this, thanks
Although the whole manager thing doesn't quite work the way I expected to either.  After about a sim day I got a message that my store was making no money and I need to go "shake things up a bit".  Umm yeah, the reason I wanted a manager was so I wouldn't hafta go to the damned business everyday and focus on another one.

Anyways...
I've been messing with the chair.  I gave up and turned my salon/flower shop into a plain old flower shop.  I had a few sims approach the chair on their own.  A few bad makeovers took place.  The good ones  done by a non playable employee left the sim lookiing exactly the same.  It seems the only way their appearance changes is if a playable sim is giving a makeover or a bad makeover takes place which makes enough sense I suppose.

I have a feeling Maxis will say the way the chair works is "by design" but it does seem a little buggy and makes it almost impossible to run a salon type business.

And off the topic, but I'm getting sick of sims lounging around my business having pillow fights, tickling each other and play kicky sac.

[Sandilou]

Skandelousa there is a Glamour Pack due out in June.  Perhaps all will be made easier with the parting of yet more real cash.    I was running an establishment of Lizzlove's woohoo beds while testing out Doc Doofus' hack -  a household of 8 sims, (now 3 are pregnant, so I'm awaiting the births), so what an ideal place to put a salon chair.  After watching a cashier, a salesman and a stylist eat 121 simoleans an hour into the account (money borrowed of Monique's computer), I got somewhere.  A playable sim did a free makeover on a customer.  One very unhappy client.  Nevertheless, another customer hung around considering, but gave up in the end and went for a woohoo.   Many, many simoleans later, I discovered that my playable sim had earned herself a bronze badge after standing behind the chair for quite some time.  A customer queued and sat in the chair.  The mirror came up and I did the makeover - on behalf of the playable sim.  One happy customer.  But it seems it does only happen with a playable sim.  I'll try again, because the npc stylist has a silver badge in cosmotology, but she did not get a customer all day.  Maybe the salon needs an appointment system. 

[Motoki]

Figured out the manager thing after reading this, thanks
Although the whole manager thing doesn't quite work the way I expected to either.  After about a sim day I got a message that my store was making no money and I need to go "shake things up a bit".  Umm yeah, the reason I wanted a manager was so I wouldn't hafta go to the damned business everyday and focus on another one.

Apparently, the Prima guide says you have to call and "check in" on your business once a day. If it's the lowest level doing that will take 4 hours (!!) and if it's the highest, 10, it will only take 15 minutes. The rest are somewhere in between. Personally, I think the god damned things should be able to run themselves. 

I have a feeling Maxis will say the way the chair works is "by design" but it does seem a little buggy and makes it almost impossible to run a salon type business.

They always do that because they are lazy fucks and don't want to fix it, or rather they are greedy fucks and would rather allocate their time doing things that will get us to shell out more money like making 'shopping packs'  rather than doing things to fix annoyances and non playstopping bugs but won't get them any money. I mean, how long have we all been bitching about the god damned phone now? But it's not some glitzy feature they can promote for their next expansion I suppose.

Oh and I seriously doubt the glamour pack will interact with the chair in any way. As far as I can tell, all these packs are just objects and that's it. I think the Christmas one was a little bit of an anomaly since it did have npcs, but I see no mention of anything but just regular old objects in the upcoming packs.

[pioupiou]

I think the problem with the salon chair is that customers lose it from their queue very easyly : for example simJane just decide that she wants the make-over (her green "carrot" bar fills up to the top) but SimJoe is telling a dirty joke to simTom just in front of the chair : simJane just drops the action, and often goes to check another chair if available, starting over the green "carro" bar filling process. You may gain some stars this way, but no money !
If there's no one in the way the chair works very well in my game. When two sims are checking the same chair, the second one to make the decision even go sit on a sofa and wait for his turn to the chair. But then again if someone or something blocks his way he drops the action immediately and goes away, finding something else to do.

[skandelouslala]

Oh yes, I figured out that you're supposed to call & check in on your business..only to start wandering if that concept is a little buggy as well.  Since I have no idea how it is supposed to work it's hard to say.  I left my business alone for about 4 sim days.  Each day I had the sim call in and check on the business, 1x per day.  The first day it worked normally.  The following days I get a rather rude message from my manager stating something about blah blah things are going fine why are you calling so much or something to that extent then eventually followed by your business isn't making any money message.  Hmmm yeah okay.

Pioupiou, I agree.  I wish that so much socializing didn't go on in the shops.  It seems to take precedense(sp?) over actual shopping. 

[Motoki]

Perhaps there is a certain amount of time required to pass before you should call again, like say 24 hours or something, so if you called at 10 one day and 9 the next it might not be enough time. Or maybe it's just buggy. :p