More Awesome Than You!

I'd like to know if the time is right to install it. I haven't got it yet, and all the drama has put me off, but there also seems to be some cool stuff that I'd like to have in my game. There are several factors that would influence my decision, and I'd like the opinion of those of you who have it:

*Stability- Is it still too buggy? Even with Awesomeware installed?
*Anti-piracy- Are there easy ways to avoid the dreaded Securom? Will the ARR-ficial version be free of this taint?
*Launcher- Is it easily skipped?
*Lag- Have all the preventable sources of lag been stopped? Are there workarounds?
*Overall opinion- Do I really want this in my game? Is is worth of a gig of my space to install it?

Any other factors that influenced you are certainly welcome. I'm pretty happy right now with just Seasons, so I can accept a "no," but I'd like to play it if it's worth it.

I think your best bet is to read the threads on BV in the Podium.  There's some very good information there about SecuROM, avoiding it, using the .exe file to launch, lag, etc.  No sense in reinventing the wheel and there's been plenty said.

As to its stability, I've had no play issues since installing the antiredundancy and antiprank hacks.    Others may have.

I suppose you're right. I have been reading and lurking in the podium, but I don't think I ever found a solid answer about the stability of the game. I figured since I was asking about that, I might as well ask about everything. Good to know that your game functions well, though I might wait for at least a second opinion on that. Although, I'm still not sure about which version online is free of Securom. I heard the "fairlight" edition is fine, but I wouldn't know where to start looking for that one. I've used BTJunkie in the past on a recomendation, and it served me well, but with all the options to choose from, I don't know which ones don't have Securom, whether it be all of them or only a few.

If you want my opinion, the BV version is better than Seasons with respect to speed and stability. I haven't seen any sign of this "lag" other people are screaming about, but then I never connect to the internet when I run Windows.

The Launcher is very easily skipped, in fact the readme file in support tells you how to do this.

BV is very much worth it if you like the idea of beach lots.  ;D

The lag problem almost seems to be a random issue. I've seen people with higher specs than me saying they have lag. I haven't had any lag whatsoever, and I play on a laptop! It's a macbook pro, mind you, so it's a pretty powerful one, but still. My game loads faster than ever, with over 6 Gigs of cc. The only time there's any lag is when one of my sims is getting a sunburn or a tan, but it's just a few seconds. Doesn't bother me, much.

The launcher is easily bypassed. The most annoying thing about that, to me, was that I was used to clicking the shortcut icon, and going to get a drink or something and coming back to find my game loading. With the launcher, I'd come back to find I was supposed to have hit "play". That's what made me bypass the launcher, not any of the spyware talk. Yeah, I'm goofy like that. :P 

I've had the same bugs I've seen documented elsewhere: the taxi taking off for vacation, again, as soon as it drops the family off at home (my sims don't just camp, they re-re-re-re camp!), not being able to walk to other lots, things like that (many of which have fixes, now). And the same annoyances: ENDLESS sandcastle building. Thank god for no autonomy hacks. My sims were wanting to go build sandcastles in a friggin' thunderstorm, and I had to lock them in their house. Bwahahaha... I played with free will off most off the time to stop that Sea Chantey obsession.

But, all in all, I love, love LOVE this EP. BV is, IMHO, the best EP since Nightlife. I have become so addicted to the game, again. Unfortunately, I have very little time to actually play it. I'm still at my office right now, and it's almost 11 pm. I'm jonesin'. Seriously.

The Sea Chanty is awesomesauce, though. Too bad they can't do it in groups like with the pirate captain. YARR!

I'll bet they can once someone makes that non-autonomous, but still in the pie menu. (Edited to finish this sentence! )

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwNOdL4_qSc) is what happens when you take away the Sea Chantey skill while they're singing. Sim me sounds totally hammered.

And this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtjWeuIXf-A) is why I wanted them to stop.  :P (There's even peeing in this one! I turned the camera away, but then they started singing in the bathroom.  :-X )

edit: the video is jerky because I was filming on high settings with sound enabled. It doesn't do that in gameplay.

BV is faster for me than Seasons and has less lag. I have two Nvidia video cards and haven't had any video errors. However, for me, BV doesn't add all that much to the game. I do like the new objects, and vacations are okay, but the only change in my main hood has been that nearly all of my Sims constantly want to buy vacation houses. I won't let any of them learn the sea chanty etc. until I can find a hack that stompinates them to my satisfaction, because I know that's something that would drive me insane.

So I'd say it's stable enough, but doesn't add a whole lot, though the speed bonus and new objects have made it worthwhile for me.

I agree with Val.  This is, in my opinion, the best EP to date.  I've had a couple of little hiccups, but nothing major and certainly nothing that has put me off the game, or made me regret buying it. 

My advice..go for it.  Get it. 

Aww, you don't want a continuous stream of

Ro ho ho, a lipey liber nee
smailing ferney silder
Life is but a dream

Uh, okay. I don't remember the rest.  :P

It hasn't added as much to the game as Seasons did for me but it's definitely worth the little bit of pain to install it. I like the break in scenery that going on vacation gives and the beach lots are great. I have noticed intermittent lag but I don't think I've been so badly affected as I have small 'hoods thanks to using clean templates. My alphabet legacy has only just got to 274 characters and that's with 74 MATYians swelling the ranks.

I thought the last line was along the lines of "a pirates life for me"...  But I try not to listen too closely when I let my sims learn it.  :-\

I thought I already did reduce the autonomousness of it. If you have antivacationactions, they shouldn't autonomously attempt it outside of VacationLand.

I do have antivacationactions, and it did cut the autonomy. But it doesn't show in the pie menu as an option.

It doesn't? You can't sing it at all anymore? Because that doesn't happen in my game. Not sure what you mean.

Oops, my bad. I forgot which of my sims have the skill, and which don't.   :P

Yes, Sea Chantey does show up.

Yeah, thanks for that. I never got to see the viral nature of the sea chantey, and it couldn't make me happier. Gives my sims more time for water balloon fights.

Overall, I'd say get it, then get rid of SecuRom, use no-cd crack. Vacations will barely be happening in my game, but I love the Tai Chi, love the new roofs, love the furniture (lots of it actually matches!), and beach lots are the best.

I was getting the feeling that I was the lone player who actually likes some of the vacation stuff :D

I like the tai chi too, and I like the hula, and the bow. I find the bow elegant and classy I don't like the slap-dance, and since hearing things about teleporting, I won't let them learn that either.

The beach lots are nice, hard to place, but nice. I have to see if I can find some hood templates that allow for beach lots in regular hoods. The 'walk-to' option is nice as well.

The one thing I truly dislike is SecuRom. It hasn't done anything yet, but even the very idea that someone put something un-erasable on my computer without my consent is truly bothering me.

The tea serving, and the ma-jong are also nice, I just wish they wouldn't do it endlessly. Less advertising of those two would be nice. Another thing I like is the grand piano, but again, my simmies can't seem to stay away from it. A non-autonomous for that would be nice as well (or a lot less advertising).

I like the axe throwing thing, and the log rolling thing.

I may like the tai chi if I could actually find anyone doing it in the asian hood.... :)

Glad to see such a positive response. I'll probably obtain it once I figure which source is the best. BTJunkie offers a varied selection, but the only .iso I found was in Spanish. It's good enough, and I can fix the language, but it doesn't say anything about Securom, so I don't know if it has it or not. Does anyone know a good place to go for an image without Securom?

I do love the vacation stuffs! If all it had were the beach lots, I'd install it just for that alone. My Simmies are all getting to be Rich Simmies with oveanfront properties right now.  :D

I also love the massages, the dances, and the sending them on tours. And if you build your own hotels with only a few hotel rooms, the lag isn't bad, even with all the coming and going and suntannings and treasure/seashell digging.

Check the "BV with no CD" thread, kutto -- there's links there to good images.

Fankoo.

Yes, the massages are going to be very useful to me soon. Edmund, the resident skeez, is going to be running a massage parlor with "extra" services offered.

As for beach-ready terrains...check MTS2. There's been a lot of them submitted lately. I also shared my terrain for Queen's Cove recently. It's at MTS2 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=253268). I should put it and my terrains for the mainland (downtown) and college up as a package. They were built in SC4 to go together. College is really cool...it's a small plateau coming off of a mountain, with a huge drop-off into the sea.

Thanks bunches, Zazazu, I grabbed it (City Donut).

I was a little shocked at the small file size, lol. I guess I've come to expect that most stuff for DL is huge nowadays. I'll stick it in and try it out. I have to muddle my way through the empty template/clean neighborhood/etc. stuff for now. I didn't know that 'delete all characters' was now a bad thing. Thank goodness I haven't attempted it lately.

I'll also check MTS2. I've had a few difficulties lately downloading from there, but I'm a patient woman. After all, can't beat free, can you?

I found a couple really nice terrains for beach lots at mts2 by CardiganAnjel and by Caupi

I've recently looked at/checked in game many terrains to see how they handle beach lots  :P   I didn't check the Diamondbar Islands/Delta terrains by Caupi but they look like the beach lots will be nearly flat (which is wonderful).

the run down for the ones I did check by CardiganAnjel

Echos of Simology - really nice and nearly flat beach lots, with a bit of fiddling you can fit quite a few beach lots.  I suggest if you get this one that you place beach lots first, then if you screw up the terrain, you can just start over and not make the same mistakes (thats what I had to do, currently holding onto that hood for future use)

Miho Island 2 - really nice (if you want to see pictures click my Despair link and look in my "Despair and The Story" thread), you can fit exactly 25 (of the smallest), nearly flat, beach lots. Two of my pictures are of my new Public Beach community lot and in other pictures you can see exactly where the 25 beach lots will fit.

Miho Island 3 - really nice (almost used this one instead), with a bit of fiddling you can fit more then 25 (smallest) beach lots but they won't all be nearly flat, some will have more of a slope from the sidewalk to the beach.


Avoid "Sand Simolean Point" by Phaenoh, it's sad to say that. That terrain is really nice and I was considering using it but it SUCKS for beach lots...unless you like needing stairs to reach the beach. it's so bad the slope starts at the sidewalk  :( 


some other nice ones can be found at http://www.simsanne.com/Forum/filebase.php 
Insel-19 - I was using it for Despair, the slope on the beach lots wasn't bad to play but sucked for taking pictures. you can see pictures in some of my other threads via my Despair link.

I haven't checked the other ones there except for Land1, some look like the beach lots will be nearly flat. They were nice on Land1, briefly considered using it for my new hood but I disliked the mountain (to close to the roads) and it wouldn't have been big enough for all my sims, specially when trying to stay away from the mountain/hills.