I was thinking that was the time counted since the start of your last log-in, as in if you log out, then come to the site and log in again and tell it to keep your settings.  Or am I wrong?  It wouldn't be the first time.

Even though I had all the TS1 expansions I still don't want re-makes of them (well, with the exception that Nightlife is very similar to Hot Date and I really, really wanted something like that, but that's about as far as that goes).

Even so, I would like the option of taking my sims on a vacation but as was mentioned that's practically doable right now.  The only thing that's missing is some kind of amusement park.  (Oh!  Just had a thought!  Maybe I'll turn Bluewater Village [or whatever it's called] into a Vacation spot! LOL

I'm just glad I read this thread first because I did get to fill out the survey and tell them exactly what I think about the OFB mascot costumes.  

Okay--here's my take on the feature-by-feature:

Create your own holiday--  
Frisbee-- Why?  So we can have yet another invisible object to find and unstick?
Weather & Seasons-- NO!  I love it that when I'm freezing in the winter I can turn on my game and have a bright, sunny day and it never looks HOT there when it's over 100F here!
Croquet-- Could be fun
Casinos-- Boring
Pool toys-- *yawns*  My sims don't get pools, either, usually.
Celebs-- Remember Drew Carey? *pukes*
Zoos, amusement parks-- Yes! I voted on this!
Concert lighting & stages--- And these would be for?
Health & Sickness-- No thank you.  I like healthy sims.
Natural disasters-- Again, no thanks.  My sims can create enough of their own disasters.
Prom parties-- What skandelouslala said
Skating,ect-- This could be okay
Cooking materials-- I'm thinking something similar to what was in MM here--sims actually had to buy the ingredients in order to cook certain foods.  Of course this involved a special oven, but it was a lot more interesting than grabbing ready-prep stuff out of the fridge.
Casino stuff--- See Casinos, above.
Apartments-- Um-hmm.  What skandelouslala said.
Gardening-- Emphatic YES! here, as long as it actually works!  I'd also like to see sims gain body skills and a bit of fun from gardening.
Snowball Fights & Fishing-- Fishing=good, snowball fights would have to be dependent on the weather and I don't want weather.
Create your own furnishings-- What skandelouslala said because I can't see how you could create something with a new mesh on a workbench.
Movie Theater-- Could be interesting.
Camping-- Oh yeah!
Sports-- I don't do sports--and neither do my sims.
Hotels-- This I could enjoy (don't shoot me but I actually liked Vacation).
Going shopping--  What skandelouslala said
Pets--  Ditto

Ah, Pisces is one of my favorite signs!  They're nice, sort of neat and pretty active.  I don't really care much if they're super playful or super outgoing (unless they're a popularity sim then outgoing is a must!).  It's a good thing I don't make a lot of sims because I want to turn them all into Pisces. LOL

Pisces are most excellent matches with Sagittarians in addition to their supposedly most compatible signs.

I think that last message always flies by too fast--don't believe I've ever seen it.

Oh, and Blue, I think XP64 is the 64-bit version of the XP operating system.  Most computers run 32-bit, but from what I understand 64-bit is much spiffier, but finding drivers and such for it is a bit tricky.  Of course that's what I read a couple of months ago.  By now everything could've changed!

Thanks for explaining that, Theo!  I was thinking, "Oh great!  Here goes yet ANOTHER neighborhood!  And I was just getting this one sim off to a great start! LOL

Agreed.  When I first heard of the booster packs I wasn't at all thrilled.  Now the more the bring them out the less thrilled I am.


It didn't bother me in the least that there was only one disk for OFB--in fact, I was rather glad of it.  I just wish they'd have left out the ridiculous statues and 'mascot' uniforms and hats and given us a few more objects.  Overall, the build mode stuff is way nice, though.  The problem with too much of the content in x-packs is that it's merely a novelty that wears thin after a very short time.

I'm not sure what you're using or what you've read or haven't read.  I've used Theo's binning tool for fixing up my hair files, then started on facial hair and ran into the same problem you did.  I posted about it in Peasantry in the relevent thread and my daughter told me there was an explanation and fix, but then didn't get back to it because of MATY going down.

You may want to check that thread.

Well, so far so good!  By compressing the textures, just like Syera said, the file size is being greatly reduced, usually anywhere from 50% to 75%.  I've noticed that some textures refuse to compress, but that just could be their nature.  Not all files are going to compress as well as others, just depends on their data.

Now I'm only wishing this was working out as well for custom facial hair and eyebrows.  I was trying to bin one set of eyebrows.  Each eyebrow file is less than 70kb each (total of four files).  After binning and saving as one file, the file size was over 3 megs.  Compression brought it down to a little over 2.  That's kinda scary!  

I haven't had a chance yet to look at any of the binned hairs in-game but have been checking them in BodyShop as I go along and so far everything looks great!

Phew!  I'm glad you said that, because I was thinking I remembered someone here playing without the mod and without CC and still having the problem.

And yet again, I didn't even start up my game today!  Instead I re-potted some houseplants (hopefully none turn into MY plumbob!), then spent a couple of hours doing bookkeeping then decided to try out that new hair-binning tool, and that led me out to try to find some new men's hairs, and here I am umpteen hours later, barely found a site from which I really wanted to download about half an hour ago so am downloading away.

*crosses fingers* and hopes everything continues well!

That site has got to have some of the most awesome men's hairs I've yet to see!  And to top it off, they also have my hubby's real eyebrows!  I'm so glad I found them BEFORE he croaked off in the game! LOL

You're kidding, right?  Half of the features they 'advertised' in their pre-release chats (waaaaaay back before TS2 ever hit the store shelves) were left out of the base game and have been added in the expansion packs.  It seems to me one of their main goals is to make people feel like they need to buy the expansions to experience the entire fullness of the game.  Why else would've they waited until Uni to add Lifetime Wants and perma-plat? (Not discounting the possibility they simply ran out of time when the original was still in development.)  And I really don't think one extra perk would make people rush right out and buy that piece of garbage Uni.

My opinion is that it's not better implemented because the developers are extremely limited on time and have to keep pushing everything out, ready or not.  Likely as not, though, if things were done correctly we'd be waiting two years for an expansion.

Just my opinion here, but Uni and NL combined are barely worth one OFB.  NL added some cool features and fun activities, but the ONLY things good about Uni are the enhanced wants, perma-plat, musical instruments and the plastic surgery machine.  OFB actually gives my sims something to do with their time instead of painting or writing novels all the time.

I enjoyed Vacation.  My only problem was I hardly ever had sims who could afford to take expensive vacations.  I was late getting into the game so very few of my sims got to travel.

I also want a farm-type expansion pack--one where I can raise real simulated animals, grow and harvest crops and sell them at my roadside stand.  This would be such a great enhancement to OFB.  If they decided to throw in some dogs and cats I wouldn't mind that, either.  Just keep the dad-burned mice!

Motoki, you could be on to something there.  Now that you mention it I'm pretty sure that when I installed SimPE on this computer that I did NOT install the NVidia DDS tools.  I was only freshly acquainted with them and barely installed them on my old computer so it would only be right for my brain for me to completely forget that on my new machine.

Edit:  Nope--that didn't do the trick.  I installed the tools, fixed it up in SimPE and re-did that particular package.  The file size is still the same.

Thank you, Syera!  It looks exactly as I imagined and is very beautiful!

I am finally getting the opportunity to try out this tool, and let's just say this is no doubt going to set me off on a hair downloading spree!  For months I've been seeing hairstyles and just *harrumphing* because I knew if I downloaded them I'd just be causing myself a ton more work.  Woo-boy!  This changes everything!   

Motoki, I really and truly appreciate your tenacity in the non-properly binned hair arena.  Keep it going!  And don't let up on those site-owners, especially now that this tool is out!

And Theo, thank you so very much for taking the time to program this!  I've no doubt your time you've used in its development has already saved many times that amount of time on everyone else's end by not having to bin the old-fashioned way!

Okay--now before I forget!  I do have one question.  I noticed that when I binned a hairstyle, then saved it as one file instead of the original four, that the size of that file is a whopping 5.4 megs!  The hairfiles that went into it averaged 700 kb each.  This means that somehow or another that file grew almost 3 megs in size between binning and saving.  Is there any way around this because this is going to be absolute hell on people's games, especially on slower systems, not to mention what it could do to bandwidth and upload/download times? 

It's been my theory for years that when it comes to The Sims Maxis does many things just because they can, and the #18 template face seemed to me to be one of those.  I can see them now, "Hey, we can make REALLY awful looking faces here!  Look at this one!  I just know EVERYONE will want to kill this sim over and over and over again!"

I remember in the movie "Quigley Down Under" some pretty wild-looking aboriginals, but even the 'ugliest' ones were downright cute!

So far, I had one sim who hired one of her best friends and she worked long enough to gain a cash register skill at which point would be time to give her a raise.  I was keeping a close eye on her meter, which was still green, and was sending my sim over to give her a raise and then send her on break.  She got mad and quit.  I'm not the slave driver you are, so I don't mind giving a raise now and then, but that seemed a little extreme.  I since had them hire another sim out of my Downtownie pool and so far he's working out well.

I can definitely see your point when it comes to a store.  They become quite messy while the sims are there but do reset.  However, one draw-back I see to not having any employees is that if you don't get your sim to the object you're having them purchase in time, another sim is going to come along and grab it first.  If the owner sim has a cashier working for them, they have time to re-stock that item so your sim has another chance.

Although I've played a home business quite extensively, I'm still trying to pick up all the checks and balances of running community businesses.  I know I'm not exceptionally bright so it shouldn't be a huge surprise I haven't quite grasped all of it just yet.

I know after NL, my neighborhood was plagued with burglaries, dormies were getting into all kinds of fights, and my neighborhood was starting to be over-ridden with furious sims.  It was so bad it was making me furious!

Since installing OFB and playing it a LOT, I've had one burglary.  It made me wonder if Maxis increased the chance of burglary to show off their new furious feature.  I've been less than impressed with that one from the get-go.

Pescado, I would LOVE to have an awesome version of this mod, and NOT one I have to go behind closed doors to retrieve! LOL

I remember way back in the early chats about TS2, it was said breast feeding was to be an option.  I was very disappointed when the game came out with only bottles.

I understand your pickle.  You may be better off reverting to the back-up of your neighborhood, even though you've made quite a bit of progress since.  In any event, make sure to save it, just in case something goes wrong with the later files because I've found it's a whale of a lot better to have a back-up that's a few days old than to have none at all.

I created myself quite a mess with my favorite sims.  I eventually got it resolved satisfactorily, but if it hadn't been for the back-up of their old neighborhood they'd have all been lost.  I lost quite a bit of their lives, but was glad enough just to be able to 're-live' those parts and put the families straight again.

You moved a sim into a home that had already at one point had a home business?  Geez, every time I try to do that my game crashes!  Every house I've had so far that have previously been home businesses end up getting dozed and replaced with their clone from the lot bin.

I believe what those trays are for is placing on top of cabinets that can't otherwise hold multiple objects.  The store shelves already have that function, except for with custom content.

I didn't even get to turn on my game today--ended up having to run errands this afternoon then went on a date with DH tonight and now I'm feeling just all together too sleepy.

Ah, shoot, maybe none of you all are still on dial-up.  I don't have much better to do with my time waiting for files to download than right-click, save picture as, and re-name it accordingly. LOL

LOL  That was going to be my suggestion, too.  Those cinematics were entertaining something like the first 50 times I watched them.  Then I realized that even if I did want a picture of something good going on it wasn't going to happen (I don't know--maybe you can do the camera keyboard shortcut but I never think of that), so off it went and for the most part it's stayed off.

I don't see a problem with them being considered unemployed as they're available to their friends without conflicting job schedules.  And if you have a phone in their shop, which is a handy thing, especially if you want to hire employees, their friends call them frequently while they're at work (that is, unless you use the phone hack to turn off the ringer).