More Awesome Than You!

Ninja!  :o  Surely this sort of thing shouldn't happen?  Sheesh!

Even stranger, the ninja can be called on the phone...  I'm thinking it would be a bad idea to try, yes?

Let's just learn to teleport and run with it.

Screw it.

It's hard enough to catch that son of a bitch.

Yes, this would be a bad thing. Don't do it unless you want your game to freak out. Also, Death to all Nesses.

Easy way to catch the ninja -- put a teleporter object (I use Inge's cat) somewhere on the sim's hotel lot, and then teleport the ninja in. Have your sim standing right next to the teleport object when you do so. :)

(I reserve this for times when I have a sim I really want to learn how to teleport, and the damn ninja either never shows up, or disappears as soon as the sim hits the comm lot.)

Why not follow MATYs tips on catching a ninja?  Use the ninja statue. 

I do -- I have the ninja statue on pretty much every comm lot in the far east hood. And it works, most of the time. But I just get runs where he's standing by the statue when my sim arrives, and by the time my sim gets to him, he's gone.  And he doesn't come back. So the teleport cat is the backup plan. :)

The ninja always appears within 10-20 minutes, iirc, of a lot load. If he doesn't show up by then, he ain't showing up at all. I believe the Lot Debugger actually has in the Debug Infos a Ninja Hunter Light. If you see the Ninja Hunter Light "lit", then the ninja has not yet been checked. If the Ninja Hunter Light turns gray, the ninja has left the building. If no ninja has appeared, one will not appear until you rezone.

Errr, I obviously missed that day in class. What does the statue do?

No, I've actually mastered catching him recently.

He seems to appear on every comm lot load right upon your sims' arrival for only the first couple of seconds, usually in some corner of the lot not even in your view frame, and then he poofs immediately away before you'd ever think to start looking (as in, he doesn't stay for his typical 15 more frustrating seconds every time), so you probably never even notice him, but as far as I have seen, he is always there. So I zoom all the way out immediately as my family is arriving, wait with my finger hovered over the pause button, and as soon as I see the POOF, I pause, have my sim of choice run over to where the poof is, unpause, ask him for the riddle, answer it, and voila!

I do this every time my sims first arrive on a lot until each member of the family has learned to teleport.

I decided to live dangerously last night.  It was an elder that doesn't have too long left, so I had him call the ninja.  While on the phone, the ninja was poofing around the lot, but way too fast for someone to learn to teleport from him.

I decided that inviting him over and making friends with him were going TOO far...  But surely the game should have checks in place to make sure sims only bring home people from hikes that can be interacted with properly.

That's assuming way too much competence on Eaxis's part.  If they can't do so many other things right that should be simpler, why would they think to add checks for this in the first place?  And what are the odds that they would work if they did think to add them?  In fact, I believe the fact that your Sim met the ninja while on a hike in the first place proves that if they have checks for that (which is a big "if"), they didn't work.

The statue greatly magnifies his odds of appearing and causes him to ALWAYS appear at the statue. It will also sometimes delay his departure as he pauses to interact with the statue before disappearing.

I don't know why you guys have so much trouble.  I catch him more than half of the time.

Here's a tip: do it after dark.  You can see the POOF! more clearly.  And until he shows, just have your Sim walking from left to right without interacting with any other Sims.

In the lot that has the two teapots and the zen garden, he most often appears for me at the far left side of the screen, outside the fence, on the other side of the sushi bar.  The other times, he usually appears in the center back, near the trees.  I put my sim on the sidewalk, half-way between those two spots and just walk left and right for a while, and if I don't see him promptly, I leave and come back.

Ain't it fun that this game finally has an actual quick-of-the-draw strategy-needing type of thingy? Gamers? Yes?

NO!

I'm of the "I Just Wanna Play Dollhouse!" school.

But I've still got it down pat.  ;)

Don't have the ninja statue on any lots (didn't even know what you guys were talking about until I looked through the catalogue.) But it's still pretty easy to get him to appear (just keep lot-jumping if he doesn't show, or if you miss him.) The hard part is that the answer to the questions is completely random, so sometimes you get screwed by the RNG. I've sent a couple couples on vacation, and one sim just couldn't get the right answer. Fortunately, he can run, and it was his slow-assed wife who really needed the teleport, anyways.

The first time I encountered the ninja after installing BV, he hung around near the wishing well a bit and even did some social interactions after teaching my sim to teleport. I've never seen this since, so it's either a glitch, or one of those "show off the new feature" programming choices (like the annoying phone calls when you first install a downtown or vacation 'hood.)

I find it harder to get the other items (voodoo doll, dragon scroll) when sending couples on vacation. Sometimes, after one person gets the gift, the scenario won't reset for other vacationers. Other times, it does.

Honestly, this is just too much trouble for me.  If I want ninja, I summon ninja.  None of this walking back and forth, or lot hopping until he arrives.  I started playing TS2 because I was fed up with the "solve the puzzle" type games.

Well, you can take the entire party to get the dragon legend. One sim gets the wise old man to tell the story, then once it's going have the rest of the party join. They'll all learn the legend. Nice and efficient. :)  (Note: have not tried with guest vacationers, because they are annoying and useless.)

Yeah, not to mention they can just tell the legend to each other, and it passes on the scroll.

But I do it the Roux way and have the rest of the family hang out and fish while someone chats the man up.

The voodoo doll thing is annoying, and I've never been able to get it to reset during the same vacation.

No, one sim telling the legend to another sim does not pass the scroll. I checked this the first time someone got the scroll.

Of course, even a sim without the scroll who has never heard the legend can tell the legend, under freakish circumstances. But that's another matter.

I find that the ninja shows up in the same places as yours with same conditions. That fence around the one site, with the food stand, became an obstacle, so I removed the fence. Now the sim, who quietly waits nearby, gets there quickly before the ninja is gone.

The ninja statue is huge! Only place that I could see that it would fit in for me is if I created a 'Ninja World" commercial lot to visit and house that monster sized statue.

Where is the best place to put that statue? Does it have to be at one of the vacation lots? It is really huge and I imagine on top of one of the buildings wouldn't work if the ninja appears near it.

The statue is big, but there's usually enough room on the existing comm lots to put it somewhere.  Like the lot you talked about (the pagoda lot with the food stand and the wall) -- the ninja statute fits on the right-hand side of the entrance gate right in front, not far from the phone booth.  On the Lucky Shrine lot, you can stick it between the bathroom and the gift shop.  On the 'tea party' lot (with the two tea pavilions and food stand and zen garden), the only place it really fits is at the back of the lot, and then you have to remove one of the park benches. 

The only lot I haven't found a good place for it is the hot springs one.

Here is link to the mod that allow to learn teleport from non-ninja sims already learned it.
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=248430

It's a bit more drastic than moving a bench, but do they really need all four of those hot springs on the lot? Thinking I'll just yank one of those puppies out and insert ginormous metal ninja instead.

Yea, that would work. :)

Good idea, I will just have to squeeze it iin like you suggested and get that monster statue to fit. lol.