Apparently, becoming friends or best friends during a date or outing gives a big jump in the meter.   Combining it with a want would give a major jump.

Outings "just for fun" is a good way to invite a lot of Sims to a lot with one phone call.  Useful if you want to manage a band and need to get everyone to a community lot with lots of instruments.

It appears that doing things that raise fun or social will add to the score meter.  I had 4 Sims playing instruments, nothing else happening, and the score kept going up.  Performing raises both fun and social.  I'm not sure, but it appears that the same thing has been added to parties.

Next time you see the drop in score, check the game clock.  Sims' relationship "normalizes" at exactly 4 PM which will cause a drop in all daily relationship scores.  This might be a cause of outing scores dropping, and might be a cause of party scores going down as well.

Hook

I haven't gotten any love or hate mail yet, or coupons, but all the dates my Sims have been on have been dream dates.  One night my Sim went on three different dream dates.  Two of the dates left flowers on the doorstep at the same time.  I expected a fight to break out, but it didn't.

One date brought a §3,500 flat screen TV, and another brought a DJ booth, around §2,750.  I kept the TV, sold the DJ booth.  One Sim I played got the TV, the other got the booth.

The two dates that left expensive gifts got maxed out date meters, and the dates were still running and still getting points.  That might be the trick to getting expensive gifts.

Hook

I tried timing it tonight and it's difficult.  Sims will dance for about an hour and a half before they stop on their own.  I've had teen Sims get Bust a Move at around 45 Sim minutes before, and some took as much as an hour and a half, so I guess it's partly based on personality or skills. 

My medium personality Sim with no skills took at least 3 hours of dancing before he had the Bust a Move available.  At least that's my best guess on how long he danced.  I suspect really outgoing Sims take a shorter time to get the dancing skill.


It wasn't intended to be sarcasm!  Maybe I just have a really high sarcasm tolerance.

I guess middle age should be 50 to 65.  They can take a few days off the teen years, which are way too long anyway. 

Hook

AWOL Headmaster appears as an option on all lots, even dorms.  What it does is delete the headmaster scenario controller.  It does not check to see if there's a messed up controller first, but doesn't appear to hurt anything in any case.

The AWOL Headmaster fixes problems where you have a headmaster that will not even show up when you call him, because the controller thinks there's already a headmaster scenario in progress.  If you have a lot where you can't get a headmaster to show up, and you can *still* Invite Headmaster after you've invited him once, then use the AWOL Headmaster option.

If you have a headmaster scheduled to show up when you upgrade the game with a patch or install a new EP, the controller will be messed up.  In my test house, the headmaster is standing in the living room even though he's not scheduled to appear for another 2 hours.  He disappears as soon as the game is unpaused, and there's no way to interact with him, even using Merola's Mind Control Mirror.  Inviting another headmaster does not give an error, but the headmaster never shows up.  Using AWOL Headmaster fixes the problem.

Hook

I've had Sims develop chemistry late in a relationship.  I have no idea why this happens.  They start with no lightning bolts and eventually build up to one or two.

I generally ignore compatibility and chemistry issues.  I've had no problems making friends with Sims who had negative chemistry, the lightning bolt with an X through it.  

I always watch carefully to see at what point in the daily relationship the friends icon appears.  If my Sim has a 65 relationship when the icon appears, then I know I'll need to get the relationship to at least 115 before the other Sim will have 100 daily with my Sim.  Just keep doing relationship building interactions after your Sim has 100 daily with the other Sim, enough to get another 15 points in this case.  

Appreciate adds 5 points, a good conversation adds up to 15 but you never know if the other Sim is getting the full 5 points.  Gossip adds around 7 or 8.  Joke adds 3.  Bust a move adds around 7 points plus 2 lifetime.  If you have Bust a Move available, you can do Appreciate/Bust a Move/Gossip for 20 points, repeat as necessary.  Four cycles of this will get a 100 daily relationship with a new Sim brought home from work (they should have Bust a Move available since their lifetime relationship starts at 15) at which point you can send the other Sim home.

Hook

Actually, comm-skilling IS working downtown, it just doesn't work on downtownies.  It works on townies and dormies and the Sim you're playing at the time just fine.  At least it did in the brief test I ran on it where a group of Sims was watching the Yummy channel.

It does not appear to work on the Electro Dance Sphere, however, but I've only tried that one a couple of times and didn't get a body skill indicator.

Hook

Ah.  I must be getting old, I forgot totally about that.

I guess my mind is clogged with things like how it's ok for a family Sim to have a lifetime want to graduate three children from college, but it's not ok for a teen to have a lifetime want to max a career that's only available to college grads. 


You used to be able to do Bust a Move with around 18 daily relationship with the other Sim.  But if you bring a Sim home from work they have 25/15 and can do Bust a Move immediately.  It looks like they've changed it from around 18 daily to 15 lifetime.

Hook

I've got a copy of Industry Giant that I got free because I worked at iMagic.  As I recall, it wasn't that good.  I suspect Hotel Giant and Restaurant Giant would be much better.  I got two of the Capitalism games free the same way.

These games seem to be more resource management games (as is Sims 2) instead of business sims, where you have to consider the laws of supply and demand.

Hook

I had the same problem radiophonic describes above.  I didn't end a group on a downtown lot and the two groupies want back to the dorm with my Sim.  I got the message and two dorm rooms became vacant.  Then the groupies left and the original dorm members came back and reclaimed their rooms.

Also had a student have a want to buy a car.  There's no way to build a driveway without using the dormspecifictoolsenabled cheat, so there's no way to buy a car for a student.  You shouldn't have to use cheats to be able to fulfill wants.  Suggestion:  make the driveway tools usable normally in dorms.

Hook

Once you are ready to back the car out of the driveway, the options to buy and build are grayed out.

Crammyboy:  Good job!  Sounds like you've done it right, thannks.

Hook

Because a lot of people like to whine.  They're not happy unless they're miserable.

The game has bugs and glitches, but it's far from unplayable.  Wanna bet a lot of severe bugs people experience now are because they used the Clean Installer to remove hacks... instead of emptying out their downloads folder like they should have done?  The Clean Installer seems to miss a lot of hacks which end up getting left in your game.

One good thing I've noticed with Nightlife is that the downtown lots aren't as offensively bad as most of the lots in the base game and Uni.  I've only seen minor problems with the buildings so far, none that require major surgery, as do some of the dorms.

Basically, I'm happy with the game.  I'll be even happier when the modders have upgraded all their mods to fix the annoyances.  And at least Maxis says they're working on patches, which is more than we ever had before.  It made much more sense to ignore the Maxis bug reporting and *hope* that *eventually*, if Maxis thought you'd actually found a bug they *might* *try* to fix it, and simply report the bugs to the modders who would have a fix published within 24 hours.  At least the modders would respond.  With any luck, Maxis will start responding as well.

Hook

I love business sims.  From Lemonade Stand on the Apple 2, Cartels & Cutthroats, Capitalism 1 and 2 and Plus, Free Enterprise, probably some I'm forgetting.  I can't wait for a combination business simulation and Sims 2.

I figure I'll buy all the expansion packs as soon as they're available.  At least I'll be able to help test for new bugs that way.

Uni was quite different from the original game, and Nightlife seems to have added a few new features, not as many as Uni tho.  I don't regret buying either of them.

Hook

I've seen the Watch Out action a few times now.  It usually happens when your Sim has to walk behind the car after getting out of it.  It has happened once when my Sim was leaving and another Sim walked past the dorm (more on the dorm later). 

I suspect the Watch Out could be triggered because the car alarm went off.  Even if you don't have a car alarm.  Just because no one's ever heard the car alarm go off doesn't mean there isn't one going off;  there are a lot of sound issues in Nightlife.

Now, the car at the dorm.  My Sim created as a young adult in CAS with Pleasure aspiration rolled up a want to buy a car.  While living in a dorm.  There's no way to buy a car for her without the dormspecifctoolsenabled cheat to place a driveway first.  Since I was having the devil's own time keeping her in gold, I really needed those 1500 aspiration points.  So.... I used the cheat.  Sorry Maxis, you shouldn't have to use a cheat to fulfill a want.

The dorm was Deardorff Dorm at Sim State, so I had room to place a driveway on the right side of the lot after removing the stupid tree that blocks your view of most of the dorm.  The driveway itself was near the center of the lot, and was placed as far to the right as possible.

I had an odd bug with a group invited to a community lot.  I forgot to end the group before my Sim left for home in my car, and two of the group were still on the community lot.  They both got in the car with my Sim.  When I arrived at the dorm, I got a message that my dorm was already full and some Sims would move out to make room for the new Sims.  Two Sims moved out.  The two groupies immediately left and I had two empty rooms, which were soon taken by the Sims who had just moved out of the rooms and had also left the lot but returned.

It may be a bad idea to remove the Watch Out action or alter its behavior.  What if someone starts playing kicky bag behind the car between the time you get in and the time the car leaves?  How do you get the idiots Sims behind the car to move?

Hook

It's possible that simply saving the lot with a newly pregnant Sim and exiting, then immediately reentering will not cause problems.

Apparently the game thinks the Sim has had morning sickness for over 10 days, where death by disease normally occurs.  While normally morning sickness cannot last more than a day, something seems to be telling the game that it's been more than the normal period.

It may be that if you save the lot, then play other lots for a while, then go back to the lot with the newly pregnant Sim, the game thinks more time has passed for that Sim than just what you've played on that lot.  I tend to have lots where I'll play for a while, then quit and play another lot for a while, then eventually go back.  It's very likely that more than 10 days passed playing other lots.  I've only had the pregnancy death once, but after the first time I was very careful never to save between lullaby and the first bump.

I guess this is what I'm saying:  If you never save between lullaby and first bump, you'll never experience pregnancy death.  If you do save during this time, you *might* experience it.

Hook

Newly pregnant sims only die if the game is saved and realoaded.  Simply saving the game isn't enough to trigger the bug.

Hook

You can request your date to be either male or female.

Hook

The ghost should be flat with a black tire mark running bottom to top.

Hook

There is also a lot of stuff in the graphics rules file about video cards.  If you don't have enough video RAM or don't have a high enough level of video firmware processing, it can force your game to run at lower specs.  These numbers can be different for various brands and models of video cards, and the information is much more difficult to dig out.

If your game only allows you limited options when you have high RAM and processor speed, it's the video card.  And one thing that will definitely lower your options is having "integrated" video.  If you don't have a separate video card you're outta luck.

Hook

Ok, this is the first time I've heard of this one.  If this is true it would explain a lot of problems people have with getting their babies to transition into toddlers.  Thanks for the info.


Family Sims can get a want to graduate THREE children from college.  So what's worse, sending a single Sim to college so he can get into a career that's only available to college grads, or having to have three children, raise them, and play them all through to graduation before the parent can get their LTW?


Well, I *am* anal retentive enough to keep track of when the transitions are due.   It turns out that the transitions come 25 hours apart, not 24.  So if you have houses where the last transition was near midnight and only play for 24 hours, you might not play long enough for the final transition to having the baby born. This could explain why your babies are born after playing for another hour.

And if the game is saved between the time you hear the lullaby and the time the first bump appears, then the game is reloaded, it's likely that when you reaload the lot your newly pregnant Sim will die.  This includes both saving and exiting the lot and sending someone to a community lot during this period, which also saves the game.  Many people have given the advice not to save before the first bump shows.

Hook

Update on comm-skilling:

This works for dormies and townies, but not for downtownies.  I guess this is reasonable to expect at this point.  Where you *really* need comm-skilling is for dormies:  if you buy instruments for a dorm and your dormies play them, at least they'll get to the point where they don't make your ears bleed.  After playing a dorm through several students, there will be a lot of dormies with maxed creativity and they can really rake in the tips, which you collect. 

Hook

Running looks to be a lot faster than vampire flying.  Like Xav said, it would be useful for lazier Sims who don't run.

Don't call a vampire during the day (7 AM to 7 PM) as they complain about being called when the sun is up and their relationship with you will plummet (although your relationship with them won't take a hit).  You can call a vampire after midnight just fine, as you would expect.  Something to think about for the phone hack Pescado.

Basically, vampires need to remove all windows (including doors with glass) if they intend to be awake during the daylight hours.  Even with all windows removed the needs seem to go down faster than normal during daylight.  This is balanced by the needs not dropping during the night at all. 

I had one vampire Sim exercise on the weight bench most of one night and her hygiene dropped barely at all.  And expect to use that weight bench a lot if your vampire goes out to eat with anyone, as their hunger need stays full all the time which causes their fitness to go down if they eat.

Oh yes, and buy a coffin for your vampires to sleep in.  But don't sell off the bed, as you still need it for woohoo.

Hook

Comm skilling appears to work.  I didn't test it thoroughly, but it appeared to work normally and didn't crash.

Manual navigation works too, except for two new vampire modes of locomotion:  stalk here and fly here.  The moves just cancel out, nothing crashes.

FFS Lot Debugger seems to work, at least the stuff I tried.

Hook

The first time I had my Sim eat at a restaurant, I didn't know about paying.  When she left the lot, she got charged for the two meals she'd bought.  The money showed above her head as if she'd been charged by a service NPC.

Hook

So it would be Dr. Aardvark?  What did you profess?

Does flirting/woohooing with a professor actually get your grades up, or does it happen like it did to a friend of mine who went Back To School and dated his English professor?  She graded him more harshly than she did her other students in an attempt to not show any favortism.

Hook

Excellent!  Some others may not agree with this, but I think it's a great move on Maxis' part.

And welcome to the forum, MaxoidTom.

Hook