Here's my reward:



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Maybe you your friends didn't buy the right bong.

 - Gus

The obvious thing is to fulfill some Fears, since you get Dream Dates through Wants.  However, a little experimentation showed that to be very difficult.  Date fears are all things like "reject Entertainment" which almost never happens.

I did find a way to do it, though.  First I flirted up to Crush, and fulfilled a few Wants so I had some time.  The date was "great" at that point.  Then I Influenced my date to flirt with a stranger, which of course resulted in immediate fury.  That got me to "bad."  Then I attacked, since Fury opened that up.  That sent me straight to Horrible.  Absolute bottom, and the whole date meter got a red tinge.

 - Gus

Yeah, I just had that happen now.  The Cow comes into the Greek House and pushes and grosses out Gregory.  Gregory has a history with the Cow, so he's at -70 / -40 at this point.  Then the Cow flirts with Gregory, which pisses off his girlfriend Tina who is the same room.  Of course Gregory doesn't accept it, he hates the Cow's guts, but Tina slaps Gregory and her relationship with him drops into the negative range, she falls out of love, and she's furious with him.

Now I can either spend time repairing a relationship that should never have been damaged in the first place or I can reload from the last save game.  You can't really ignore Sim jealousy with NPCs like the Cow around.

 - Gus

Yes, I was trying to say that I agreed.  I'm not sure how what I said could be read any other way, but that's how the internet works, right?

 - Gus

Water pipes are also known as "bongs" here in the US and used to smoke marijuana.  Particularly in college.  I saw several in use when I attended Boston University.  This is so clearly the derivation of the "bubble blower" that I halfway expected it to lower the Hunger meter.

 - Gus

I tried it with two engaged Sims with 100/100 relationships and 2 Chemistry bolts.  I was right.  They crashed and burned.

On the first date, they spent the entire date talking to other Sims.

On the second date, I cancelled any interaction with other Sims to force them to do things with each other.  They never fulfilled any Wants, and scored very few points, despite doing little except talking to each other.

On the third date, I jump-started it by fulfilling wants until it was "Great," which took very little time, and gave them 5 1/2 hours on the clock.  They still made no significant progress.

You must hand-manage Dates, they just don't know how to have fun on their own.

 - Gus

Hehehehe.  

 - Gus

I'll have to try that.  Doesn't it crash and burn pretty quickly?  The time limit is short, in my experience Sims rarely fulfill their Wants autonomously.


Actually, I'm OK with that as a house rule.  As a game The Sims 2 is so ridiculously easy that you have to make up your own restrictions to make it more interesting.  So a self-imposed restriction of "don't date anyone you don't have at least 1 bolt (or 2) of Chemistry" sounds like it might add some fun to the game.

I play with a lot of rules like this.  For example, when my Sims hit college, I won't have them do class-related stuff like term papers or assignments unless they have a Want for it.  Since it's trivial to get a 4.0 grade if you make any effort at all, it becomes a game to see which Sims will graduate with based on their own "efforts."  I do make them study the required skills, since many aspirations never roll "get a skill point."


Not me either.  I do like Sims picking fights on their own, but I the idea of forcing Sims to fight myself turns me off.  The main exception is if a Family Sim catches a spouse cheating, I feel it's in character to ask for divorce.  Of course, the last time I did that, the Sim in question couldn't stop thinking of her ex-husband, the cheating rat, and she acted on her Wants and ended up reconciling with him and then re-marrying him.


No offense to our Glorious Presidente, but the e-mail challenge is too weird and divorced from "real life"  for me to enjoy.  I had some fun adapting the Bachelor Challenge to university life.  Among other things, running it in a dorm meant I didn't have to give the Sims cash, so when Scott and Allegra ended up hooking up at the end they weren't ruined by too much money.


As I said before, I'm more interested in finding new ways to enjoy the game than in defending the idea that Nightlife is "bad" somehow.


The hacks I like fall into 3 categories:

1) Bug fixes.
2) UI improvements.  I.e. don't interrupt me to ask whether a Sim is home or not.
3) Things which add challenge.  Pretty much unheard of, except for the Romance mod.

 - Gus

I like the Furious state myself.  I always thought it was a bit boring that if Sims act autonomously, i.e. you leave them alone or have them interacting in the background on community lots, 90% of the time they built relationships until everyone like everyone else.  Maxis may have gone overboard in how easy it is for Sims to make enemies on their own, but it's still something I like.

What I don't like is that if Alfred tries to flirt with Betty, and Betty rejects it but Betty's husband Charlie sees this, Charlie is furious at Betty.  That's just wrong.  So far I've only seen the old autonomous flirts, i.e. the Cow Mascot and the Professors, but people here have said they've seen Sims flirt on their own.

In any case, I can understand how you feel, and if it's possible to remove it, no doubt some modder will do so.  This may not be the right place to ask, though.  Pescado generally doesn't do cuddly mods like that.  A man after my own heart.

 - Gus

I'm assuming it involves Nuns.

 - Gus

Well, shoot, anyone can tell that Remington is gay.

 - Gus

Yeah, I have TS1, but I stopped having fun after about two weeks, and I never bought any of the expansion packs.  There just aren't any goals in TS1 beyond hitting the top of your career.  The big thing for me in TS2 is the Wants.  I pretty much play to fulfill Wants as much as possible, and see what happens while I'm doing it.

Yes, I do think it's boring.  I played The Sims 2 really heavily after it came out, but eventually I exhausted pretty much everything the game had to show me.  When University came out, I delayed a bit picking it up, but when I did it gave me a lot of new stuff to do.  I had the basic college thing, and getting into a Greek House, and playing a Greek House actively and trying to max out the level, and designing my own dorms, and starting a Greek House from absolutely nothing, and trying to get into the Secret Society, and trying for lots of scholarships for college, and futzing with the new aspiration rewards.

It was quite a while before I burned out on University.  Nightlife certainly has a lot of content, but I find it hasn't really offered me much in new ways to play, as yet.  I bought a car, I ran through how to date, and how to run an outing, and then I was done with the new things to do introduced by Nightlife.

I'm not saying it sucks, I'm saying it hasn't changed my game enough.  Half the reason I'm currently reading this board is to find new ideas for what to do in Nightlife.

 - Gus

When I read how they worked, I fully expected them to be boring.  As you say, they have so few needs compared to ordinary Sims that they're not interesting.  I suppose they might be a tad tougher if you played strict "no daylight, ever" rules with them, which would make most jobs impossible, but they could still make money through art or writing, so that's not that tough.

 - Gus

I was thinking of saying the same thing, but it felt too curmudgeonly a thing to say.  Dates got boring quickly.  I have a Pleasure sim, and every time his only viable want is "ask sim on date" I think, oh no, not again.  Even with the new Groups, skilling in University community lots is still boring.  It's more fun to set a Sim skilling at home and then forget him a while and pay attention to someone else.

I don't really like the new Pleasure aspiration very much.  So far the only long term Wants I've encountered were "go on X dates," and dates just aren't that interesting.

I think I was hoping Chemistry would do more than just make interactions available and succeed at lower relationship levels.  I was hoping it would make romantic relationships harder, so that you really had to seek out a Sim with whom you had mutual attraction.

 - Gus

Uh-oh.  I just encountered this one myself.  The file is 2,578 KB bigger than the install version, and the modification date is today at 11 AM.  I noticed the "hang out" icon wasn't showing right, and I remembered this thread.

My first indication that anything was wrong was the abnormal end of a date.  My Sim had returned from the downtown lot with his date still in progress, and then he had to go to his final - I hadn't been watching his clock closely.  This ended his date, but the "go to class" icon was a blue blob like "clean puddle."  Of course that may not be the actual cause of the file corruption.

 - Gus

I bought my first bubble blower today.  Yeah, kinda late considering I've had Uni for months, but bongs really aren't my thing.  One of my Pleasure sims wanted one, though, so I bought one for him.

It was kind of amusing at first.  After a while your Sims start floating, because they're "high,"  I guess.  I set 4 Sims playing with it who all needed some Fun, and then ignored it for a while.  Then I noticed one of those Sims was in the yellow, so I went to check on them.  All of them had full Fun meters, but they all refused to leave on their own, even though they were full up.

So I guess the Bubble Blower is "addicting" as well, but it's really annoying.  Bubble blowers are almost as bad as musical instruments.  At least with the instruments, they're gaining creativity while they're stuck to it.  On the other hand, they don't have that hideously long "check for tips" animation when you drag them away, and they don't draw every Sim on the lot the way instruments do.

The best entertainment objects seem to be pinball games and the really expensive TVs.  With those the Fun recovers fairly quickly, and Sims gain social and relationship while using them with other Sims.  Unlike, say, the video game console.  The main drawback of both is that you can't queue any actions for when they're done, any other action at all cancels them.

 - Gus

It's the slapping.  No one likes being slapped.  Though this seems to vary, I've had a few jealousy episodes recently, and the cheater doesn't always seem to get furious.

Since you mention it, the apologize option really bugs me.  The way the wounded party has to apologize and the cheater can't apologize is completely whacked.  It's like they're dogs.  If you accidently step on a dog's foot, they get all apologetic - "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!  You hurt me, I must have done something wrong!"    Sigh, dogs are such doormats.

 - Gus

I vacillate a bit on this.  Most of the time everyone but Romance sims sticks to their first relationship.  Until Nightlife I was running the "Teens Keep Loves" mod, so generally everyone settled down with their childhood sweetheart.  I'm debating reinstalling this mod since it's supposed to be Nightlife compatible.  The problem is that it kills much of Nightlife's dating gameplay if Sims never develop a second relationship.  The first relationship sets their sexuality, so you can't let them pick their own interests initially.

All of my Sims are heterosexual, by the way.  I don't play gay sims for the same reason I don't watch gay romance films.  I'm not wired to enjoy that.

Sometimes my Sims seem to completely lose interest in their partner.  They stop rolling "Talk With...", "Flirt With..." etc. Wants for that Sim.  When that happens, I occasionally will have them start pursuing someone who they do roll Wants for.  In that case I'll break off the old relationship rather than have them cheat.

Naturally the main exception to all this straight-laced monogamy is my alter-Sim, who got 3 wives when I first started playing The Sims 2.  OK, 1 wife and 2 live-in girlfriends.  The problem was that getting any WooHoo in was a nerve-wracking exercise, since the other two had to be asleep or off the lot.  I started developing a Pavlovian response where I practically expected the "Bwong!" jealousy noise and a round of slapping every time he got any WooHoo.  After a while I dropped 2 of the 3 because it was just so much more pleasant to WooHoo anytime he got the urge.

Jealousy seems like a more serious issue now that Nightlife is here.  Not only do they get Furious, but the LTR relationship now drops to -50 or worse, instead of cheating just hurting DR and keeping the Love flag.  Plus they start hitting and arguing with the cheater autonomously.  I'm toying with doing the 3-wives thing again with a new alter-Sim just for the challenge under the new rules.

 - Gus

I think MaxoidTom deserves another round of appreciation.

Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!

 - Gus

My experience has been that married Sims seem to take on some of the Wants of their partner.  I don't think it would have happened if his wife wasn't Romance.

 - Gus

Townies are all adopted.

 - Gus

I had to reload my game three times from the same point.  First two were deliberate, I was testing the Chemistry effects (see the Chemistry thread), but didn't want to keep the new romantic relationship between the two Sims.  The third time, I'd gotten through much of the day, and I went to check on the Sim in question and he was playing handheld with Sheldon autonomously in the bathroom.  When I aborted it to get him to eat, suddenly "crush" symbols started floating off both of them.  I definitely didn't want that.  After reloading and testing that the HandHeldFix still worked, it occurred to me that this Sim's day had been a bit confusing, sexually.

 - Gus

Ever see the movie Groundhog Day?  Today was like that for me.

I'm playing Sack Man Pinball in the dorm rec room when Allegra comes up behind me and kisses me full on the lips.  I've always thought she was hot, but I never did anything about it.  I'm engaged to Minya, after all.  Still, it was nice.

Suddenly everything jumps and I'm back to playing Sack Man again, and Allegra is just coming through the door.  So I kissed her.  I mean, after all, she kissed me first, right?  Only she acts like I've never kissed her before.  But she seems to like it.

Then everything jumps again and I'm back to playing Sack Man, and Allegra comes in and joins the game.  I eyeball her a bit, but don't do anything, and she doesn't do anything either.  I guess we'll pretend it never happened.

Anyway, most of the day goes by, and I've just finished in the bathroom when Sheldon barges in and wants to play our GBA's head-to-head.  Hasn't he ever heard of privacy?  So we play for a bit and when we finish I'm suddenly all sexually turned on toward Sheldon.  Which is really gross, I never knew I was gay.

Then suddenly the world jumps again, and it's 11 AM, and I'm back playing Sack Man Pinball!  It's like the whole afternoon never happened.  Allegra comes up and we play pinball again.  I'm tempted to kiss her just to prove I'm not gay.  Sheldon wanders by and I just have to know, so I whip out my GBA and demand we play head-to-head.  We have a good time and I'm not the least bit attracted to him when we're done.

I hope when I wake up tomorrow I don't suddenly find myself playing pinball again.

 - Gus
p.s. HandheldFix still works with Nightlife.

The acceptance part is definitely more important than the ability to initiate an action.  It's good to hear that you've seen a real effect on this.  For my part, I just tested a Kiss / Romantic between two sims who were simply friends.  They had 3 bolts of chemistry between them, and he accepted the kiss even though his LTR was only 40 with her.  It worked the other way, too, and she only had a 35 LTR with him.  My prior experience was that below 50 kisses were always rejected.

 - Gus