I'm mad about the Holiday Pack and I won't buy it...

Unless... it has in it an animation of children sitting on Santa's lap, and then I will end up buying it because modders will soon fix that to be not Christmas-oriented and use it in other situations, and I'll want...

And I'll still be mad, more mad, furious even at the whole thing...

I want things that it's difficult for the community to create and things that make it easier for community to make new different things. New animations (how about slides and jungle gyms and other park toys for kids, strollers for little ones, etc.) If they do clothes, I want interesting meshes, same with furniture - good stuff for fun recolors. Things that have a long life because the community can build from them. New interactions would be good. New LTWs, turn-ons, aspirations, careers, degrees and all the stuff I'm really sick of already would be awesome of course

oh yeah, that reminds me...

Haster, Haster, Haster

so there

<gulp>

I'll be back when the Great C'thulhu is finished teaching me a lesson...

If I read that correctly... I believe she's saying JM would be mad if she *failed* to confuse users at JMs front page and instead let folks direct link in here. A link to the main site does still work there (or did yesterday), just not a specific page link.

Yep and me too. I'm just skinny - not in particularly good shape. My mom was the same until after she had her 4th child (I only had 3, so I guess I skipped that part) and so is my dad. After I hit 40, my belly got all slack - not really being overweight but just a pot belly thing that looked more or less like the not fit sims do (stupid in other words ). My metabolism is still high and no amount of change in diet was going to make that go away so I picked up dancing to get rid of it (after I whined a lot and decided I hated looking at myself anymore) and that worked like a charm for toning up. But I've never been terribly active - I'm an indoors kind of person - and while I'm what my friend calls "a savory" meaning I prefer salty snacks to sweet ones, I've never watched what I eat (and a whole bag of potato chips is no better for you than ice cream). It's muchly genes/metabolism.

There are two brothers that I'm pretty sure came with University (I know I didn't make them, I'm just not sure where I got them ) Almeric and Aldric. Aldric is very fit and wears glasses. Almeric started off overweight. I thought they were cute, but Almeric's bodyshape just didn't look right with his face, so I went to the trouble to have him get fit. But point being, I really do think he started out "fat" in the bin or wherever he came from.

Other than something like that, I usually don't bother with fitness at all, but don't let them overeat too much and they stay more or less in the middle. For some purposes, I wish I could get someone truly overweight for a storyline or whatever, and have a couple of meshes (but what I'm looking for is sometimes kind of hard to find). People come in all different shapes and I'm willing to have that in my game (same as colors and sexual orientation and anything else I can), but I don't like the way Maxis did it. Actually I think it's *more* insulting that they don't really allow anyone to look right, than if they'd just gone ahead and had some "fat" meshes - like no one would choose to use them or something :p

Unless you've a problem with them, or a problem waiting for approval (lots seem to get approved pretty quickly imo) or think they won't approve them, I think MTS2 is a good place to upload things (at least, I much prefer downloading from there than from the exchange ) You can have any kind of screenshots you like.

Hm, I'm pretty sure I get a message to the effect of: "You can't delete something with something else on or in it" - but maybe that's just with moveobjects off? My husband is hogging the computer right now, so I can't check

Well, I'm not going to argue with you about it as I don't disagree with you. That's why I was apologizing in advance. I just can't stand the dissemination of incorrect information. I'm the same way about... oh say, if someone posts that a user-created clothing mesh made their computer burst into flames. and if I saw unanimous agreement on anything, I believe I'd die of shock

Actually I don't believe that's true. You can certainly use a penname for a copyright announcement (otherwise, everyone would immediately have known Bachmann was the same as Stephen King) and I don't see any reason why any other alias would be different. Besides, you don't copyright *to* anything - you own the rights to your work the minute you create it. A copyright announcement, while handy paperwork in certain cases, isn't even necessary.

Despite the nitpicking, I agree the whole copyright issue is silly anyways... derivative works (and other kinds of collaboration, which all of this would be) have special regulations of their own. EA could shut all this stuff down, but they don't want to do that - user created content is way good for their business.

Edit: Yeah, that's not true... you can use "the name of the owner, an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally accepted alternative designation of the owner." Furthermore, "Section 406 (a) begins with a statement that the use of the wrong name in the notice will not affect the validity or ownership of the copyright..."

and "To be covered by copyright a work must be original and in a concrete "medium of expression." See § 102 of the act. Under current law, works are covered whether or not a copyright notice is attached and whether or not the work is registered."

From: http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/copyright.html

Sorry, I am... but I'm anal

Well my two family sims (who both had this as LTWs - I'm sure not getting much variety even among the ones that are right for the aspirations, I changed my romance to pleasure and back to romance and all around and still got 20 simultaneous lovers, which I don't like much... if it doesn't improve, I'm going to need that variety hack.</offtopic>) just reached elder. The next day (hey they're old and tired and have a bunch of kids ) I clicked on the phone and couldn't get anniversary party to show up. I thought maybe it was too early, but still didn't have the option after 7... until I placed the toasting set and suddenly there it was. They both went platinum immediately after the wife made the call. I know you've been able to throw the party, but maybe try that anyway?

I decided to try out outings as a friendship only thing and had very little luck with it.

I started out having the patriarch (Henry) attempt an outing to get to know his son-in-law-to-be (Almeric). They hadn't previously met (the YAs met at college and her mother had visited but not her father.) So her mother invited him over and Henry set to work getting to be friends with him. A joke and a chat didn't get us very far (not far enough to set up an outing) and they had no chemistry, so Henry used manage groups to take Almeric out bowling. With no extra points from work or anything and no chemistry, they started the outing with something like 8/0 relationship scores.

Dates seem to be set-up to succeed - wants are rerolled when you hit DT and again when the date meter comes up (with an opportunity to lock any of those) and you get the panel that says what the date wants. The same isn't true of outings - it rolls once, but not twice and no extra help keeping them happy. Henry and Almeric had very little in the way of possible activities and none of it moved their scores very far and I couldn't even manage to get to extra time on the timer so it ended without being very much fun for either of them. Almeric went home.

There happened to be a female there that had good chemistry with Henry (dunno how much as he didn't flirt with her), so he asked her on an outing. They also started at 0/0 but with the extra options from the lightning bolts, they had more fun. Still, they got to be friends and the daily score was well up there, but best friends was a distant dream. The outing would have lasted a bit longer, but as this was Henry's second without a break, and the energy boost doesn't come until the timer goes off, he ran out of energy (it's possible to let the timer run out, get the boost, and ask them out again - but he was falling asleep on his feet, so I gave it up).

Still without the flirt interactions, I just couldn't find enough that would up LTR scores quickly. I wish outings would at least reroll wants to match (Henry's a family sim, his wants were nonsense in a bowling alley) and if it's one-on-one give you the option of seeing the other sims wants, like dates do. It probably works better with a pleasure sim, as they're set-up to like downtown, and roll those wants a lot.

I *did* find that none of the "play" interactions when dining out (throw food, steal food), nor the general ask ones ("what do you do" etc.) caused any sort of romantic thing (post-patch), so that's good

I can't believe I read that thread... and honestly that is one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've been around the gaming community and a variety of other places that can have some pretty big blowouts, for a long time. It's all full of overly dramatic exaggeration and misinformation and I don't even know Carrigon but she sounds kinda... out there.

None of these people must do very much html coding. Hasn't anyone ever used a wsiwig editor and then looked at the (side note: usually really really bad) code? Many of them (a particularly notorious piece of worthless junk by MS but many others as well) insert "created by" and copyright notices at the top of every page of html output using them - either in comments (that is, commented out in the code) or in meta tags (also invisible to joe public but easy to find if you actually look at the code - this page and VS have nice w3c lines, which is actually much more appropriate.) The creators of the editor certainly didn't *invent* html (not that Berners-Lee ever really gets the credit he deserves), nor do they own the copyright on the design, but they let everyone know their software was used in the process. And they don't "announce" they're doing it (you won't find it in the docs.)

Oh, and the opensource community does tons of things like that - all the various source codes for multi-user dimensions gives credit in the code to the original creators (many of whom left the community years previously - one way or another), and the license *requires* that that credit be untouched and that credit *also* be posted visibly for all who log in.

"Secret" credit lines :p Try and create a pdf without Adobe's name all over it - really... none of those companies give a whit if you own the copyright on the material you're creating on their programs, they're certainly putting their names into them any and everywhere they can (and for a pdf, you probably actually created it with some other program and did nothing but save it in that format for transferring.)

And no, your computer won't explode from CEP, and no someone can't just steal your work by inaccurately announcing a copyright. Copyright law is tricky, and it might be hard to prove if said person was fighting it (tho anyone with reasonable amounts of backups and developmental clutter on their computer could probably do it easily), but copyright is attached when the work is created, not when the notice is applied. *Claiming* something (truely or falsely, maliciously or benignly) is not the same as *having* something. Neither Numenor, RGiles (who I rather miss :p), nor MTS2 owns the copyright on any object created by someone else, whether they say they do or not (which I gather they don't). Although actually fighting for copyright on an object that requires Maxis' game to work would be opening a rather large can of worms anyways. None of us (not even EA) want to go there.

Snide remark: Wouldn't promotions generally be given based on the work done *at* the company, and certainly shouldn't job performance ratings be based on that, rather than (hopefully) extensive amounts of off-work time on a hobby? I've used freelance, voluntary work, or even self-promotional pieces as a part of my portfolio, but I can't see handing my bosses furniture and clothes created for the Sims2 and hoping that would aid in earning me a promotion - I think they'd be concerned my mind, if not company resources, wasn't more on my hobby than my job. </snide remark>

I'm not a big MTS2 fan - I like it well enough in some respects. In others I don't at all. But that was ridiculous and paranoid and... well just ... not completely sane...

(Yes I know I shouldn't drag it in here, but even if I could post there, I'd rather not, and I just felt a need to say something - so ya'll got stuck with my vent.)

Thanks Windy Moon - I still don't think so, but I'm glad people think it's an interesting idea. I just get bored easily and tend to have lots of big ideas - if I ever actually implemented any of them, then maybe that'd be true.

Thanks for the list, I'm going to download what I don't already have and play around this weekend and see what trouble I can get into.


Well, I have no idea That's one of the things I was hoping for help with. But I'm going to back up my neighborhoods and spend the weekend messing around and see what happens. I don't mind testing and see where they end up if I make them NPCs or seeing if I can find a checkbox or something to make them professors... there must be some way the game tags it, and if I untag the existing ones and tag new ones (if I can figure out how), it *should* work (not counting the world between should and does).

I was misleading, sorry about that. I purposefully invited people I knew wouldn't show. I don't like parties at all and it doesn't count against you if you don't have any guests. One of the two I invited was a playable sim I'd moved out - I thought he might show up (he and the party giver had lived in the same house) but they didn't have a great relationship score anyway. The other was the countess, who actually *did* show up to tell me there was way too much light for her before she left (which I found amusing, inbetween feeling sorry for her). I was just kinda playing around to see what would happen at that point (this was not very long after I'd gotten the EP).

I don't like the sneak out options either. Doesn't "ask on a date" fill the "go out" one? If it doesn't, that's a bug imo. A teen going out is set up like a date, and it seems to me it should count, but I haven't tried it.

I did the anniversary party after NL came out, but before the patch and it worked perfectly at that point. Neither of my guests showed up (which was actually what I wanted and that didn't matter - I got the announcement the want was filled immediately after the planning or the start of the party (forget which, but certainly before it ended). The sims were married as adults and both transitioned to elder before I got the option for anniversary party.

It could be the patch, I suppose. I thought they had to get married as adults and transition to elders, however.

That's a start klapaucius, thanks

What I'd really like to do is make my own, similarly to the way people make their own townies so they look the way they want, but... they'd still have to teach, and I'd like to choose what they teach... I'm not sure if that's possible - or if it's too hard for me also (I've downloaded simpe several times and it's there on my computer, but I've never really learned to use it - other than to recolor a couple of objects.)

Also I'd like to allow some students to graduate and still stay on campus, to be grad students and eventually professors themselves.

Well maybe *all* elders is an exaggeration hyperCat, but the majority of them seem to be. One of my students has met 6 professors at this point and 5 of them are elders. I don't like the sucking up for grades thing, but am hoping that adding some "life" and options to the professors and campus will make it more interesting for me. I wouldn't mind a grad student falling for a student and could see them getting married and the like.

In some ways, I think Maxis did the same "this is someting you go through to get what you want" kind of thing I did. There's the secret society and greek houses, but there aren't any student groups, or dances, or sports events. There isn't any campus politics or - well it feels like a lot of what makes campus life interesting is missing. I'm thinking I can kinda give a campus a personality - with profs and workers that all have stories of their own, and make up my own student groups and the like - and then my young adults will come into a vibrant place, get involved or not as suits their personalities and desires, and it'll all be more interesting to play

Edit: Oops, I forgot to say thanks to Rohina. Thanks! And for the recommendation - I'll definately look that one up.

I've had the bug described in the original post. It wasn't a portal (I don't think) as the car arrived properly and left the lot after waiting an hour, but the sim couldn't use it. This was... before the patch. I tried everything I could think of to get the sim in the car... if you paused the game and clicked "go to work" - the action would stay there until the game was unpaused, and then drop out. "Go to work" wouldn't come up autonomously like it's supposed to. Originally, it was just her and the kids could get on the bus, but I believe it spread and eventually no one could leave. I had to move them into another house to fix it.

Iiirc I had never used testing cheats at that time and had no hacks - I don't believer the clothes rack from the cheats had anything to do with it. I've used it since many times and had no problem, although these days I prefer hacks.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that part of my problem with the University EP is that I've never really added or developed a story for the University. All the YA's have personalities, of course, and family stories and goals, but I'm treating the University years as mostly a holding pattern - they have to go through this to accomplish what I/they want so let's get it over with, kind of thing. It will, hopefully, be more fun if I add atmosphere and story lines and quit "wishing their lives away" as I already do that enough with my own and their lives are pretty short for that.

Soooo - I start thinking about literature that features University life, looking for ideas, and all I can really think of is Lovecraft and Arkham. There must be more than that... so I go on a research spree, and discover there is more than that. As a matter of fact, there's a whole genre dating back to the 1940s called "campus novels".

And... an awful lot of the plot lines revolve around professors and/or professors' affairs with (and often marriage to) students - but the profs in the novels don't bother me near as much as they do in the sims. Often (and especially in the less... problematic... kinds of things) the profs are assistant or associate professors (or even grad students) and socialize perfectly reasonably with the university kids. Who teaches freshman classes anyway? Grad students mostly or at least assoc. profs, not the real deal - they're too busy with university politics and being dept. heads and deans.

The problem is - the sims professors are too old - they're all elders. That certainly isn't necessary. So now I have some good plot ideas and a real need to figure out how to replace the University professors with younger ones of my choosing and/or letting a few students stay on after graduation and become grad students and teach classes and the like - and/or maybe professors eventually.

So any help on the easiest way to accomplish this kind of thing? Is it the same as building your own townies? (I've never done that, so please give advice in the advice to dummies kind of thing

I have and I don't have any phone hacks in at all. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but my sim was talking to his roommate's brother on the phone and the kid appeared on the lot (standing below the porch actually... wasn't a big deal, but definately happens.

Oh, and I'm taking my chances and letting them have mobile phones, so it was a mobile.

oh... sorry I don't know. I haven't used dates for just friends, and I've only done outtings a bit... they're ok for fun activities, but if I want a friend (not including some roleplay/story reason that requires certain actions) I usually just have 'em come over a bit and play with them, then call them on the phone every spare minute... guess I've never been in that big a hurry as that takes 3-4 days.

that's what happened to me too - I thought maybe I was doing it wrong, or the other sim didn't have a place for them to go home or something... I wanted them to go woohoo at *her* place (his was kinda crowded)

I have... I've taken sims that have never met before through best friends, crush (maybe reverse order, crush is easier to get and love, ending with 100/100 score, in one date - I won't get them engaged usually, even if they both have the want, as I like to set that up romantically.

It does matter that they start with good attraction - I think that'd be really hard with only 1 bolt and probably impossible with none (tho if they're a little bit friends, dream dates aren't hard).

<scuffle> I always switch types of interactions at least twice before repeating one. I just didn't think about that mattering - I've done it since whenever it started to be important (was that sims1?) and just got into it as a routine and never changed.

Also, I'm sure the ones you've not done before add more - so I like to make sure I'm doing everything. Telling a dirty joke can add a lot all of the sudden. Oh and the sims kind of tell you when they need to do something you're not thinking of - pillow fight or backrub will keep showing up in wants - if you've done enough of those, you'll get a whole round of hug, kiss, makeout stuff.

I guess I just never "read" the icon <blush> - I'm very word-oriented.

LTRs continue to go up for the heavier "date-related" options even after the first time. I think it's less, but still some. Make-out still gives quite a lot, 7 pts maybe? (and woohoo for the adults of course) I try and have them do the more friend stuff early on - lots of play and talk stuff and then move up to the kisses as you get a real time/meter boost when they hit best friends (or any relationship change). I have trouble when they're up to 100/100 and love, or 100/74 (evil place and I don't want them to woohoo but want more time on the clock. Makeout won't always do it then. Oh anything you haven't done before will give an extra boost and/or extra relationship score too - so go back and do "kiss up arm" or serenade or even blow kisses and caress hands at the table, if you haven't done those. (throwing food does too, but it kinda... grates on my nerves.)

Actually I believe your wants will roll spontaneously sometimes too, if you're doing the dating type things. And of course they reroll if you change lots also, so if you're really stuck you can just meander across the street

I do believe it's jealousy. Anybody child age or older can pat the mother's stomach and talk to it when she's pregnant and they'll have better relationship scores after the baby is born if they do. (Talking to the baby while an adult is holding it, as well as playing with them on the various toys helps too.) Of course none of that works for twins, or toddler and infant - you have to get them to toddler walking and talking before you can do anything about theirs.

They just extended the time - you can "ask on date" until 2:00 am and after that you get the same "why are you waking me up" stuff you get for calling.

Oh and if you invite a date home late at night, make sure you have enough time on the date clock to get them to woohoo. Otherwise they'll say it's too late and leave. (Personally I thought that should be the equivalent of asking them to spend the night, but it's not).

Has anyone got the "want a ride home" thing to work out? How does it work?