You have to let the damn thing start up when you play the game. Word is that you only have to be on-line the first time, but you do have to let the stupid downloader start up every single time.  Once the game starts, you can shut it down.

I was told that there's an updated version of it up on bittorrent as of Wednesday that no longer crashes.

I downloaded the HP fine, with no need for this nonsense. Needless to say, I won't be legally downloading anything else from Maxis. The game itself is enough of a resource hog without them requiring you to run other programs just to play.  I have a good enough computer to handle it, but that's beside the point. I should be the one to decide what programs I run, not Maxis. It may or may not be Spyware, but it's definitely Malware!

The EP-that-doesn't-exist should means that I can uninstall the damn downloader after I install it, right?

Let a toddler play in the toilet, and then move a broken dishwasher, trash compactor, etc into that bathroom.  Make sure the Sims has low needs before you start, as well, otherwise he'll get electrocuted and not die.  You can always also remove the smoke detectors and then start a fire by leaving something cooking and walking away from it, and then make the Sim go stand in the flames.

When turning off start-up crap, it's a good idea to keep a list of what you changed.  I always used BlackViper's site, and once I had a problem with WindowsUpdate because something I'd set to manual that wasn't supposed to break anything prevented the updater from working right- and it took a lot of digging in the help section to figure out what, exactly, the problem was, it was so seemingly unrelated.  So now I keep a print-out to help me trace down the problem if something goes kaplooie.

I have 2GB of RAM, and it looks like TS2 tends to use about 1.5GB, which normally keeps my page file to below 500MB.  However, I definitely think it was well worth it to add the 10000 RPM HD when I built my system last fall.  Even with a zillion downloads (at last count, I think it was 20k,  but I've downloaded a lot more since then) my game loads quickly, and barely a pause when I go to buy clothes, change appearance, etc. It's relatively expensive, especially for the size, but if you need more space for things that aren't game related, it's easy enough to throw in a huge 72000 RPM HD for storage and just keep windows and games on the fast one.

I also do not regret my X2.  I definitely need to consider upgrading it, while I still can, though. I don't need more power now, but I'd hate to not be able to get more if  I need it when the rest of my computer should hold me a couple years, at least.

Also: I highly recommend OCZ products. Their RAM was the lowest latency I could find- AND the least expensive, and when one of the sticks was erroring out in Memtest, they replaced it, no questions asked. Since I'm local to their headquarters, they even let me exchange it IN PERSON rather than paying for Fed Ex- just had to wait a day to give them time to test the new pair.  I ended up with one of their PSU's, and am extremely happy with its design, too. The fan sucks air in through the bottom and then out, so it works as an extra case fan, and it alone lowered my system temp by 10ºC.  A good product, low prices,  and excellent customer service will leave me singing their praises for a long time. Until, of course, they get too big and go the way of Alienware and ruin it all. 

You obviously didn't lie about your age like I did 

  Now that I have a computer that will be able to handle it, I'll be happy to see weather put back in. I always did think it was a cool idea. At the least, give me my freaking snow terrain!!! But when they do come out with weather, be prepared for the screams when the sheeple see the new system requirements.  Just in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, when it starts to rain, the FPS take a major hit, even on my machine.

We figure that it wasn't that only the teens were allowed to answer, but that by the time I saw it, all the other stay-at-home moms/domestic goddesses   had already fulfilled their quota for the 25-34 crowd, but the kids and college-age weren't home from school yet.  I didn't think to try older.

What gets me is that the idiot teens WILL pick, besides the pets (which we're going to get anyway, I don't know why they bother putting it on the survey, they know it's the most popular) the "Enjoy the best years of your Sims' youth! Dive into the world of your Sims' kids from birthdays, playground antics, and slumber parties to building tree-houses and forts, sports practice, and prom night. Forge special lifetime friendships with the new kids in the neighborhood." Those things might be fun as part of an EP or as an SP, but a whole EP devoted just to that? I might play it a week before I was sick of it.

And please God, I hope no one picked this one: "There's a new hospital in the neighborhood and your Sims are keeping the neighborhood happy and healthy. Choose a medical specialty including medicine, physical therapy, surgeon, or psychiatry and tend to other Sims who are ill. Heal the patients and determine how the relationships between the doctors, nurses, and patients unfold. The actions your Sims choose may affect the health and happiness of the whole neighborhood!" That has the potential to be even more tedious than Uni.

I'm not too crazy about the mystery one, either. If I want an adventure game, I'll play an adventure game (okay, I'll have to dig out the old ones, since they don't really make good adventure games anymore) . And since that one was asked about, all on its own (like the ideas for NL and OFB were, in previous surveys) and THEN mentioned again with the others, it's practically a done deal.
 

I really hope pets is next, though, so all the whining and demands will stop.

You also will probably have to lie about your age if you're over 24.  Both kellin and I tried, and got a "thank you" and bumped out until I changed computers and tried 18-24 instead.

Well, I'm going to leave the hack-fixes out, but some things Maxis considers a "feature", I consider an annoyance- like plants dying because the gardener can't take care of them all  once every 3 days. So the daily gardener hack goes in right away.

Mine installed without a problem too, but I moved my downloads folder to my desktop before install.  It loaded fine, so I put back walls and floors- I'll try objects next. Then I'll have to go through my hacks folder and delete the ones I (hopefully) no longer need before I test to see if it broke the ones I still want.

But man, that list of fixes is long. 

Apparently they decided to split the difference between (barely) reasonable and totally outrageous, and the cost will be $15.  Oh, and free standard shipping via the slow boat. 

I'm thinking that they haven't announced a price yet to see what people are saying about it, and they will base the price on what they figure will get the most sheeple to buy it.

I came to the TS1 right before Unleashed, and I bought all the EP's except for House Party, and even that, I eventually got used, right before MM came out. And as stated above, I am a complete nut about Christmas. But even I am not going to spend $20+shipping for only 17 objects they aren't offering for free.   At least I hope I'm not.  

If more news comes out, and there's more to it than that- and there really are new parties and interactions, I'll still be stupid, but they'll get $20 out of me. 

By carefully using the debug cheat to perfectly match up two Sims on aspiration and sign, as well as turn ons/offs, I've had 3 lightning bolts, so I don't think there is 4.

MK made a post about it - 12 objects will be available for download free, if you want everything else (new year's eve parties, visits from Santa, and who knows what else) you're going to have to fork over the cash.    No price set yet, so they must be still trying to decide how much they'll be able to squeeze out of us.

I have it turned on all the time as well, and I've only had it cause a couple problems.

Twice, it froze because an error popped up in the middle of a cut scene.

And 99% of the time, if I leave it on when the headmaster is due to come over, he errors out before he hits the lot, and even if I turn it back on for some strange reason when he's there (like an emergency refrigerator stock) he will manage to error himself out/disappear.  The only way to get the kids into private school after either of those situations is to move the family off the lot and back in, which does not make me happy, so I just turn it off by 4:30 when I've invited him over, and don't turn it back on until he leaves.  If I need to use it when he's there, I pause the game, turn it on, do whatever I have to do, turn it back off, and then unpause it.

I've been known to force errors when someone gets stuck, and sometimes (gasp) I've even been known to hit delete on those damn dream errors!    With it on every single time I play for months and months, even with my allegedly bad behavior, I've never had to reinstall the game once or had any other major problems.  However, I will admit to being very sorry the one time I decided to invite the whole neighborhood over, and will never, ever, ever do that again! LOL (despite being curious as to how my new machine will handle it)

Heck, even if you want to experiment with all the shiny buttons, there's no permanent harm to it- the most it will cause is a reinstall- some BBSers seem to love to reinstall the game constantly, anyway.   I'd just suggest backing up your EA Games folder in My Documents before you conduct any experiments so you don't lose anything.

My MIL is an OB/GYN, so when she was pregnant with my BIL, she explained to my husband, who was 6 at the time, exactly how babies are made, with the right kind of book.  That he then wanted to take in for Show and Tell in kindergarten!   For some reason the teacher was having none of that, and he remembers not understanding what her problem was! 

He was 13 when his mom was pregnant with his youngest brother, and his sister, who was 3 at the time, knew all about how babies were made from an age-appropriate DVD my MIL brought home from the office for her.  And she wanted to share this exciting information with anyone who would listen- most notably the cashiers at the grocery store, which made him just about die from embarassment! ROFL

I was 10 when I learned where babies came from, when my Mom sent me down in front of the PBS show about it.    I probably would have found it much more interesting if they'd explained it more when she was pregnant with my brother when I was 3.