Nightlife Rocks (Gasp!)
Gus Smedstad:
I'm kind of disappointed in it so far, compared to University. I don't like the Dates very much because they're much too easy, though it took me a few tries to learn the ground rules. One thing that bugs me about them is that you can sometimes ignore your Date's wants entirely. Fulfilling Wants for either your Sim or his/her Date fills up the meter. I had one Date for a Romance Sim go like this: Flirt, Flirt, Kiss, Make Out, Woohoo in Car, Flirt, Kiss, Make Out, Woohoo in Car, wham, Dream Date. They never even left the lot, she never had any Wants fulfilled, she just got Woohooed senseless, and she yakked afterward about how she was going to tell all her friends what an amazing date he was.
The Dates also speed up the process of getting into a relationship more than I like. Granted, doing it still takes up your time as a player, but a Dream Date can easily add half a day to a Sim's playable life, and accomplish relationship advancement that would normally take a week. I suppose this is a good thing for Romance sims who want to hit that 20 Loves goal.
Outings are tougher, maybe because I don't understand how to advance them, and you don't get to see your group member's Wants unless you're controlling them. They also seem kind of pointless.
On the positive side, Community Lots do seem more interesting and worthwhile now, particularly for college students, now that the semester timer doesn't count down Downtown. I can also see that the time compression of Dates make it possible to seriously pursue romance at college without throwing your academic career in the toilet. I haven't sent any college students on a Date yet, just teens and adults, so I'll have to explore this a bit more.
The groups are a big part of why Community lots are more worthwhile. I hated using University lots because rarely did everyone need to go to the Library, and I found taking them there one at a time boring. It got to the point that I made a special Dorm with most of the college amenities on-site because I found playing college lots so boring.
Cars are kind of nice, since they cut down on waiting time for the taxi, and they give you a boost to energy, which makes using multiple lots more practical. They don't really change gameplay that much, though, since you can do anything you can do with a car with a taxi. OK, except go to work late, but I try and avoid that because it feels like cheating.
The chemistry / turn-ons / turn-offs haven't affected my game much at all yet. Maybe I'll see more with time, but for the moment I can't tell the practical difference between romancing a Sim who is turned off by my Sim and one who is turned on. The new Ask interactions all seem like a waste of time, not to mention the problem with them being Romantic.
University added a new, challenging gameplay mode, and it added additional wants and double-locking. The double-locking is a big deal, since a Uni grad can think about stuff like making a particular Best Friend without losing a long-term goal like 10 Best Friends. Night Life adds a relatively easy, boring minigame (dates), and doesn't seem to add much to ordinary play.
I'm interested in hearing more details as to how you've found it improved the game, though.
- Gus
RainbowTigress:
Quote from: Rooby on 2005 September 21, 18:41:47
I miss Autoyak a LOT, and hope that is one of the mods that is updated for NL.
I tried the autoyak, and it seems to work well. Pescado said somewhere on here that it was considered an object and wouldn't conflict.
Oddysey:
Quote from: Rooby on 2005 September 21, 18:41:47
My husband is a games software engineer in test, but not for EA. I know how hard those folks work on a game. Do you honestly think these people invest years of their lives (for what is rumored to be crappy compensation) to intentionally release a shit game? When I see some of the childish 'EA GAMES IS THE ANTICHRIST' posts on these boards I just want to take away their computers for a week and send the authors out to mow the grass and take out the garbage. It's a GAME, and a pretty amazing game at that. Threatening class action lawsuits and so forth is incredibly juvenile. If you don't like the game, don't play it. If you have positive suggestions, make them. If you have the skills to mod, goddess bless you. If you have the ability to skin & mesh WELL more power to you, and if I think it is good enough I will GLADLY pay for your work.
I even like the packaging. The box is big enough to hold all of the disks for the game thus far. I removed the product key sheet from the first two jewel cases and the paperwork fits nicely in the left side. Having been through the frustration of trying to find the original game disks for a reinstall after a couple of years, I appreciate a neat & tidy solution to keeping the whole game together. The background on the new box is my favorite shade of purple, AND the X-pack came out the day before my birthday.
There you have it - as uncool as it is, I am pretty darned happy with this X-pack and I think EA did a fantastic job.
Rooby
I agree with you on most of your points. This is a damn good EP, concept wise, and the execution isn't half bad either. A week of "Das Nightlife Test" has broken the game in enough that I've been able to deal with most of the major problems, which is an improvement over my first week of Uni. And the box is pretty awesome. Now accidentally stepping on it won't do as much damage to the CD.
But . . . "EA GAMES IS THE ANTI CHRIST"? Haven't seen that post. And the only people I know of threatening class action lawsuits against EA are the employees. (And alumni of my high school, no less. Heh heh heh.) The complaints I've seen haven't been nearly as extreme as you suggest, and some people do have valid complaints. But things have been getting better; I've gotten some very good information from MaxoidTom, and I'm very pleased that Maxis is working on a patch.
Hook:
Quote from: Gus Smedstad on 2005 September 21, 23:30:36
I'm interested in hearing more details as to how you've found it improved the game, though.
While Nightlife doesn't add as much to the game as Uni did, it's still quite worthwhile.
I've been playing the new aspiration with an adult and young adult newly created in CAS and they're fun to play. I'll be playing a teen next to see how it affects teen play. I'm hoping there might be a reason to play teen Sims now rather than sending them to college as soon as possible.
Cars are good. If only because you can woohoo in them, which can give an almost instant Dream Date. Some of my Sims with cars still use the taxi rather than their cars, as the taxi is actually more efficient. Woohooing in a car on a community lot doesn't count as a public woohoo, and doesn't trigger jealousy in other Sims on the lot from what I can see. One Sim had her father in law on the lot, woohoo'd in the car, and he never noticed.
Dating is good. If you have a Sim with a bunch of unfulfillable wants and you need to get them into platinum so they'll get a promotion, you can send them on a date and be fairly certain they'll return with platinum aspiration at the same time they left. Or you can have the date at home if you have enough time. You can still woohoo in a car on a date at home.
Two new lifetime wants help a bit. Fifty first dates is problematic, but at least it doesn't have to be a good date to count. Fifty dream dates shouldn't be too hard as you can have them all with the same Sim as far as I know. And a really good dream date will deliver gifts the next day. I've gotten a couple of big screen tv's and a dj booth. Dating for fun and profit. :)
Vampires are much more fun to play than zombies. :D
Dining out isn't as interesting as it was in Hot Date, but it's still good. There are several new interatactions added with dining.
The major downside I've noticed is that eating in a group takes forever. I wouldn't mind if relatonships built faster during group meals than before, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.
Overall, Nightlife is good and I don't regret buying it.
Hook
Motoki:
You know, I'm going to be another party pooper. Not because of bugs or because of what other people are saying, but because quite frankly, I'm bored with it already. In fact, I was bored with it a few days ago. I really don't feel like it adds very much at all, same treadmill. And it's basically Hot Date redux, except Hot Date added a lot of innovations to TS1 that already shipped with TS2 (liftetime relationship, buying clothes, community lots etc). I guess I'd just like something that adds a new element of gameplay, and neither this nor University really do much. I suppose moreso University does than Nightlife, but even that is essentially just a far more limited version of the regular neighborhood with a bunch of obnoxious npcs running around.
I have to say the idea of a small business simulation like the next addon seems to be appeals to me much more. Having said all that, if Nightlife does appeal to you then I'm not going to knock anyone else down for what they like, more power to you. And to be fair, the first 2 addons for TS2 really didn't add all that much and weren't anything special IMO.
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