I got a good review, where is it?

[Lion]

The reporter came and left with a message "your establishement is a top notch...I will give your a good review...yadiyadiyada...", and my shop owner's "get a good review" want is fulfilled. But where is the good review?  What does it do? Is it the best of the best reward that boosts customer's moods? Sorry, this is my first "good review", hooray!!!

[verdaeni]

i read about it in the prima book and it helps attract more customers... i think.   i dont think it actually shows up anywhere you can see it.

[Ness]

verdaeni is right - you don't get a physical object that is your review, it just causes more customers.

There is a particular screen on you business manager thingy that states you have a good review - that's the only place you'll see anything.

[wishy-washy]

You only get a physical object if you get the "best of the best award." When sims pass by the award plaque they will take notice and their buy bar ill get a large boost when they browse an object. Just getting a "good review" will not get you a best of the best award plaque.

[Lion]

Oh, I see. Thanks guys. How to get the best of best award then? Will they come in your inventory?

[wishy-washy]

Yep, The reporter's message at the end will tell you that they have given you the best of the best award and it will be in the business owner's inventory.

[J. M. Pescado]

Once you get the first one, they start to just fall from the sky en-masse, practically becoming memory spam.

[VyeOlin]

What effect does a bad review have on a business?  Less customers?  I had a junky yard sale type business get the best of the best award and a few really nicely setup businesses get a bad review.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think the number of customers is directly linked to the star rating your business has, but a bad review would probably make them harder to sell to.

[Ness]

A good review increases the amount of customers over what the star rating will give you.  It's entirely possible that a bad review works the same way - decreases the number of customers below what the star rating will give - but I've never had one so I can't say.

[C.S.]

Once you get the first one, they start to just fall from the sky en-masse, practically becoming memory spam.

Huh! I wondered for the longest time if the 'best of the best award' want was just some kind of broken Wants spam until I saw ZephyrZodiac mention Herb Oldie has several of those things, because only some of my sims were lucky enough to have a reporter make a rare appearance and get something out of the visit.

Most of the time, in my game, if the reporters do show up, they'll just shop and leave instead of doing reporter-ly things like scribbing in their notepad and doing a review. Sometimes, another reporter will show up the next day if the first one did nothing, but then the second one usually does the same as the first - shop and leave. I've tried doing things the 'hard' way, I've tried the easy way (i.e. cheating ), but it's when I least expect it that I got any kind of reward. Strangely, it's usually after the reporters got used by the bathroom. And so far, only 2 lots managed to get both a 'best of the best award' and good review after weeks of playing. Each lot is played for about a sim week and the business is left opened for as long as anyone's home (sometimes 24/7), and the reporters doesn't come visit again for a long time. My sims own only home businesses though, if that makes any difference. I just can't figure this out.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I get too many customers as it is!  Once they're up to level 8, the choppiness and the number of times I have to unfreeze customer motives drives me mad!

Lisa Ramirez is now the owner of the family business, now Ramirez Interiors, and she had only been opened 5 minutes when she got a Best of the Best!  But there's no cheap stuff there, and there's a nice public loo right by the front door!

[C.S.]

Heh, I had only one townie up until last week, now I have a grand total of 4. I used to resent maxis making it so that everybody meets everybody, now I'm glad for the NL NPCs; if my sims were going to meet all these people, might as well make full use of them!

I get the reporters around level 4, but usually no awards nor review of any kind until a few more levels after, what with the shopping and trying to leave immediately after.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Wierd isn't it, how they walk off the lot with a full shopping bag, then come back later to pay!  and if they've paid, they just hang around making a damn nuisance of themselves!  We need another hack - pay for your things and leave!

[C.S.]

I've got the BRU mod installed, and I think it makes a shopper who tries to walk off the lot with their shopping bag pay by automatically adding the costs of their purchases to the family fund and their bag then disappears. I haven't seen any 'shoplifting' in a long while a few versions back though, so I could be wrong. The townie/NPC shoppers I have mostly prefer to fling their bags on the floor in anger and stomp off when my sims don't get to the cash register to ring up their purchases in time. I thought the angry noises they make and the way they throw their bags on the floor was pretty funny.

The reporters do queue up to pay, but that's all they mostly do, pick up an item, queue to pay and leave, forgetting the reviews.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I've got the mod but haven't been to a business for a while, so I'll  have to check when  I get the chance.  I found the most shoplifting was done by the townie teens, particularly Sophie!  Yet on another occasion she could afford to buy the medieval bed, so she certainly didn't need to steal!

Have you got your sim to do the sales routine with the reporter?  Get a female one to chat up the male (Zeeshan Despret in my game) and make a friend of him.  (She'll be telephone stalked forevermore, but at least you'll maybe get a good review!)

[J. M. Pescado]

A good review increases the amount of customers over what the star rating will give you.  It's entirely possible that a bad review works the same way - decreases the number of customers below what the star rating will give - but I've never had one so I can't say.

Good Review is +2 to max customers, Bad Review is -2, but note that the maximum number of customers is bounded by other factors as well, such as maxvisitors and a few other factors. The net effect is that good reviews have no effect on good business, and bad reviews have no effect on bad businesses.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Their only real use is to help keep your sim's aspiration meter up, in my opinion.

[C.S.]

Have you got your sim to do the sales routine with the reporter?  Get a female one to chat up the male (Zeeshan Despret in my game) and make a friend of him.  (She'll be telephone stalked forevermore, but at least you'll maybe get a good review!)

Well, when the reporters show up, I had my sims macro-socialise them a bit, let the BRU do its thing, then when they try to leave, show them more items and socialise with them some more everytime they head for the cash register, and so on and so forth. A female reporter wet herself one time because I kept stalling.