(And here I was going to go to bed!)  Nope--that is still there, and actually I don't believe it's a glitch.  I noticed months back that when the transition doesn't follow through and I force it with the birthday cake the newly-turned toddler has at least one need that's near critical.  Most of the time it's an energy deficiency.  If the baby's had a bottle, fresh diaper and a nap the age transition goes smoothly.  If not, watch out--you're in for a rough ride.

Oh wow!  How on earth to say this so as I don't sound like I'm as sleep-deprived as I feel!

I started a new neighborhood for my new Legacy sims and although it creates a huge extra challenge, I wiped it clean of all default characters, then set about generating the needed players.  I went ahead and took out my No Townie generation mod because I just didn't want to take the time to create Townies for this neighborhood and figured I could generate teens then some adults and things would be a-okay.  After all, my non-heir generally ends up finding a teen love, and sometimes my heir does too.  Granted, the won't marry them but it adds fun to the challenge (not to mention the awesome gifts that can be had--Brady's girlfriend brought him a DJ station!).

So, my sims were running around like mad trying to get the teens generated so we could get the adults started.  The first generation mama is a former maid and popularity sim (shy at that!) and at the rate she's going will probably never manage to make her 30-best friends want, so I've been trying to hustle on this.

Well, this evening after I played I loaded up SimPE to take a peek at the new Townies and low and behold, stuck in there in between the last couple of teens generated are a couple of children!

Originally, the game generated teens then adults, but it would seem it's now generating teens then children.

The problem is, we (or at least I) really, really need a no Townie children mod!  I'm begging!  I'm pleading!  Not only are my sim kids not allowed to play with Townie children (they just have too many other more important things to do) they clog up my game just way too much.

Well, now that I've vented about this (and no, I don't feel lots better) I think I'll slink off to bed.

I just read a thread on the official BBS written by those who're thinking the duplicatation process is some sort of new feature.  I haven't noticed it yet myself since I haven't placed any houses lately, and shoot, I always end up with more than enough copies of one house because I usually install the ones I download two or three times, anyway! 

I agree there's probably no reason for a re-install for new drivers, but with a new graphics card a re-install might be necessary.  When I 'upgraded' mine, my game simply would not run until after I re-installed it.

Yep, kind of stupid--reminds me of how in TS1 if your sim paid a compliment to another it was considered a romantic interaction.  I was so happy they remedied that in TS2 then was completely mortified to see the whole 'ask' thing in NL is viewed as a romantic interaction!

Another thing I've seen that's really dumb is that when a sim has a 2-bolt attraction to another sim and that sim visits them, then when they tell that sim good-bye they stand there and suck face for a half-sim-hour even though they've never had any romantic interactions with each other in their lives, before the visiting sim leaves.

Ah well--I'm getting too tired--I'm starting to sound absolutely snarky here!

   You all crack me up!  I've enjoyed reading your stories and observations--and chuckling at the amusement all these new aspects are providing.

I've ran into a few of my own, as well.  I decided to start from scratch on a Legacy family--took me three tries before I finally felt like I was off to a decent start (going with the Xtreme challenge is a hoot!).

I decided my founder wasn't going to have to settle with half-way love--it was all or nothing.  After a couple of false starts on relationships with a bartender and a waitress he finally found the love of his life, a maid he hired for a day just so he could meet her.

Right away they had two lightning bolts, which I felt was reasonable for a start.  I set my founder's turn-ons to blonde hair and red hair, thinking that I could change them if needs be.

He was nearly halfway through his adulthood when he finally married, and after tweaking both their turn-ons (her turn-ons were fat and formalwear so I set them to brown hair and facial hair), then set his, leaving the blonde hair and replacing red hair with make-up.

Low and behold, they were up to a 4-bolt attraction!

I've had to be a little careful because some of the other girls he knew were always flirting with him, so if they visit caution must be taken.  Since his wife is a popularity sim I decided to hand off the friendships to her so we won't have too much trouble.  Hubby's a money sim so he's happy gaining skills and earning money--no problem.

So far these two haven't provided a lot in the line of hilarity, but I've had them pretty busy doing the kind of things Legacy families have to do in order to succeed.  No doubt by the time they max their careers they'll be a lot more entertaining.

After playing TS1 for a good long time with all x-packs except for SuperStar, then playing TS2 for a full year without any expansion pack I think I had fairly reasonable expectations about what Nightlife could be and honestly, those expectations were extremely surpassed.

Although I've ran into an occasional bug, I'm having a blast with this expansion.  I love the fact that any sim can afford to go out to dinner--they can eat for under $20 compared to Hot Date where it would cost them at a bare minimum 300+ and they wouldn't even get nearly full.  I also really enjoy the fact that I can have sim couples totally into each other--as in 'this is my complete and utter soul mate and I'll never again want to be near another person!' in addition to the sims who will never quite find Mr. or Ms. Right and just may have to settle on less than perfect if they want to settle down (kind of reminds me of real life that way, LOL).

I'm really appreciating my sims having cars and not having to wait on the Taxi all the time.

There's been a lot in this x-pack for me to get used to and learn (especially since I didn't have University) so that's fun, too.

Oh, and about those hacks?  Well, there are some I use simply because they stop annoyances or add features to the game that if I had been on the development team would've at least been suggested if not implemented.  To my mind, The Sims 2 is a great game only made better with the imagination of its players.

I tried reading through this whole thread but no doubt I've missed some things.  (And oh, don't you all just love it when the game decides a superior piece of hardware you add to your computer all of a sudden is somehow inferior to what you just took out?  TS2 alone did that when I upgraded my video card!)

One bug I noticed and posted about on the BBS is that beds don't seem to work too well after they've been put into inventory.  I moved a family and stuck most of their furnishings in their inventories.  Once they arrived, I took their stuff out and started placing it.  Well, the beds wouldn't allow me to place them with the headboard against a wall--it was as if there was another object blocking its way.  Then to top it off, those beds couldn't be used--there was a 'no actions available' message on them.  After I posted this on the BBS there were quite a few people who joined in saying they had the same problem, and one had also had problems with the most expensive wardrobe.

Then last night I discovered something else that's happening.  I had a neighborhood that I decided to recycle, so I used the 'delete all characters' code and decided to start fresh.  One of my little simmies started to work on helping to generate Downtownies by visiting various Downtown lots.  So far there are quite a few sims generated so I decided she might as well see if she could find someone appealing in the mix.  So far, she can't stand any of the Downtownies (she's a pleasure seeking sim with reasonable turn-ons and turn-offs) and I got to wondering why so I loaded up SimPE to take a backdoor peek at these sims' aspirations, etc.  Out of 40 sims autonomously generated in that neighborhood (both Downtownies and Service Workers) not one of them has a Pleasure Seeker aspiration.  Does anyone besides me think there's something wrong with this picture?

On top of that, not one single vampire has been autonomously generated, although Mrs. Crumplebottom is alive and well--at least for the moment.  It's possible they won't be generated until the very last, but this seems totally bizarre, although possibly not unexpected.  I noticed that when each neighborhood gets its set of Downtownies they are the same characters with the same aspirations and the same personalities in every single neighborhood with one difference:  their names are changed (to protect the innocent or the guilty, I wonder).

And I just remembered.  I also had trouble with a gardener, but this was one hired after installing NL.  He came, he watered one out of 5 wilting flowerbeds then said he was finished for the day and left.

It sounds like many of us have the same mindset when it comes to playing:  we don't want a neighborhood that is chaos because it takes too much time to try to fix everything, so we all try to prevent it to begin with!

I also tend to add my own moral base to my game.  I've been happily married for 21 years and I'm also old-fashioned enough I don't believe in divorce (if two sims can't get along the one can move out and live on their own--but they aren't going to get involved with anyone else unless they don't have a spouse).

I do tend to think single sims should be able to play the field, so to speak, as long as they don't get too carried away in their relationships.  I don't mind at all when some of them grow up and marry their childhood sweethearts, but that shouldn't happen all the time.

I don't find it very practical to fulfill all of my sims' wants all the time.  I much prefer spouses who spin up wants for interaction with their spouses, and if they have a want for an interaction with someone else I consider it much like I do my own real life.  Just because I'm married doesn't mean I can't look--I just prefer not to act on those feelings.

At least I can say I do have some very original Townies now, although not enough of them--or at least I think not enough.  I may add a handful of elders and leave it be for a while and see how things go.

If my memory was better it might bug me too knowing what every one of them's personality, aspirations, etc. is but honestly I can't remember more than about five minutes what I did with them.  I do like to know a little bit about them, though, so named some of them accordingly.  For example, one fortune sim's name is now Brent Lucher, and a Romance sim is Trent Romero.  I won't forget those two.

Ah well--it's late and I'm tired!   

Pescado, I really think your game does things just to spite you. 

I've made quite a few new neighborhoods in my game, then always use the 'delete all characters' code and regenerate new Townie adults.  I didn't buy University and have used the mod that doesn't allow children or teens to spawn.  While I agree when it comes to the looks department that there's a serious lack of originality in those Townie sims (I mean, who on earth needs 4 Townie sims that look like Arnold Schwarznegger?) they absolutely do not have the same personalities.  After reading that you were having problems with that I checked with SimPE.  One thing I did notice was that all family sims generated were either Cancer or Aquarius, all Romance sims were either Libra or Taurus, and the list goes on with each aspiration being set with two particular signs.  I also noticed that not only did they have varied personalities, but their outward personality wasn't set in stone as to their astrology sign, while their genetic personality matched their signs.

If the no spawn townies mod works with NL I'll go ahead and give it a try, though.  I can always make my own Townies but the problem is that before long I'm running out of original ideas for them and don't mind a few spontaneously generated ones added to the mix.

Okey-dokey!  Thanks so much for the clarification!  Since it's been so long since I played without it I no doubt forgot about when it could or couldn't be cancelled out.  Oh, I so remember one sim in particular going downstairs to use the bathroom, then hiking all the way back upstairs because she had to make that darned bed!  Honestly, why on earth do these sims have maids, anyway? 

Now that's good news!  I always figured the birthday cake really wasn't too bad of a price for the amount of food.  A couple of pieces will fill a sim's hunger meter up a good ways--and fill it completely if it's only about half full.

I don't use the cakes often either, and then try to use them between 8 and 9 p.m. so it's still good in the morning.  Of course I'm also really inclined to send sims to school or work hungry so they can get a free meal.  Yeah, I'm a cheapskate. 

Nothing new about this one--it's been around since the beginning of TS2!  It's how I ended up with 50 gardeners spawned in my neighborhood once!  Yes, that's 50 gardeners.  I counted them using SimPE.  I about fell over!

Then the house I was playing at the time (this was last October) just kept getting slower and slower.  At that time I didn't realize invisible service workers could be on their lot so they got booted out and moved back in, which also fixed the problem.

I've been going kind of easy on putting some of the mods back in my game--checking from time to time to see what works and what doesn't, and just put them in as I go along, so I never did get around to putting back in the abortbedmaking one.

Then today I was playing with one of those Virgos, and you all know how they are about making their beds, right?  Well, about the time good old Abercrombie woke up I queued up taking care of the money trees, then make the bed slid in right behind.  I don't know whatever I was thinking at one point, but for whatever reason I decided not to have him make his bed that morning and forgot that I couldn't cancel it.  So, I hit to cancel it and low and behold, Abercrombie did NOT make his bed!

So, maybe this one actually has been fixed.  It sure seemed to work today. 

Okay--you all went and done it!  I finally had to register here because this is such a fun topic!

I've been having rather a blast with the whole chemistry thing, and a lot of the reason is because now I have sim-spouses swooning over their mates like crazy--the way it should've been from the get-go!  I mean, after all, how many of us walk down the street, look at a slut and swoon?

I just figured out the whole lightning bolt with the interactions thing yesterday, and indeed it does cause for some sped-up romances.  I've also figured out a few things that will help seriously with the attractions.

For one thing, whenever I make a couple of sims I want to have go together, I've always tried to make their astrological signs compatible.  Although this doesn't always encourage spontaneous relationships about 9 times out of 10 it works a treat.  One thing I found in the past (pre-NL) was that making two sims the same sign was a boon to getting them to want to spend time together.

Yesterday I made a new couple, two single sims, moved them into their own houses.  I set them both as family sims, both Cancers.  Aziza's attracted to glasses and facial hair (Eben has both).  Eben likes brown hair and make-up and Aziza has both.  I had him check her out and *poof* four lightning bolts!

This pair ended up spending part of a day together, mainly talking, playing Red Hands and stuff like that.  Then they had a date which quickly turned into a Dream Date.  While playing with some other sims I remember looking at those lightning bolts and thinking, "No way!  There's no way they can 'make out' with a relationship that low!"  Or "there's no way they can 'slow dance' when they just met!"  That's when I started experimenting and sure enough, those sims with equal attractions would definitely accept those interactions from the other sim.

The thing is, it's always been romantic interactions which are the true 'best friend' makers.  I've always thought it'd be nice if all sims could make best friends that quickly.  However, with TS2 alone, about the fastest I could have a couple ready to marry would be within three sim days of having met each other, and that was usually playing both of them three days, having them spend all reasonable time together (they do have to sleep and study occasionally).  After playing Eben and Aziza for a total of 2 sim days combined, Eben woke up the next morning and suddenly realized he wanted to marry Aziza.  Now that's fast!