It does fall in line with this game being about "community" and the interaction of said community. There are some really good ideas in the game but for some reason I am just not excited by this game. Too linear, too easy (all you need to do is show up two days at work to get promoted - skills not required), or too many EA created characters running about for me perhaps.  I have never played any of the in-game families as they hit the pail as soon as I started the game and townies and other assorted were avoided like the plague or killed never to regenerate again. I just can't put my finger on it but I have an over all feeling of "blah" about the whole thing. It just doesn't feel like my Sims living in my Sims' neighbourhood it feels like EA's Sims living in EA's neighbourhood and thus I don't give a shite about them.      

I find that the time speed ups move very slowly in game and observing a Sim doing most of their skilling at less than high speed is rather tedious.  All though not as tedious as watching them sleep at speeds 3 or 4. I don't know if it is my rather outdated video card or what but there is very little difference between 1 and 4, the only thing that seems to speed up are the sounds. I do like that Sims can skill at their job but following any Sims to their job, even a rabbit-hole job, was never on my must have features list. From playing this game I can see where they were trying to go but imo they never really got there. I never played "Sims Stories" or whatever they called that one but I did play "Busting Out" and it really reminds me of that console game. It is also reminiscent of that German game "Singles" that came out years ago for some odd reason.

I really like the customization tool and some of the interactions. I had a Sim sleeping and when a burglar was about to come into the house their neighbour who must of been outside at the time and had a brave attribute came running over and pounded them. That was funny. As was the "peeper" who was watching my Sim sleep at night. The jiggling of the flusher on the toilets however drives me bonkers. Of course The Sims have always had some long arsed animations that drove me. I don't really like the visual direction this game took. The more realistic 3D characters look the more living dead they look and gives them that extra creepy je n'ais quoi. In other games it is not really as noticeable as when a game is a life simulator and the more realistic characters are living in a cartoonish looking world. I found that the Sims 2 characters had a good balance of realism and toonish that they didn't have that yikes factor I find in this game, facial features aside.  

I dled the torrent after I read about all the changes that they had made to the game and I am glad that I did as I saved myself both cash and disappointment on release date. Unless future expansions add different types of game play I won't be purchasing the 3 franchise. The base game is not designed for the type of player I am of The Sims games. Like "Busting Out" is a game with an over all goal that once achieved I never picked up again.

I added my general comments under the 'What didn't you like about Nightlife' and 'How could have we improved Nightlife' -- or whatever those ‘in your own words' boxes were called.  I had a feeling that that there wouldn't be any general comments at the end as market research companies don't generally want general comments just a confirmation of what they found out in their last market research. One of my comments was to stop using market research so much for development as I do think that it kills any original or innovative ideas from ever being done and just produces the same games but with "bigger tits and bigger explosions"... but then this is EA.

You could call my style of game play event driven. I play each household up to a certain life event then move on to the next one until that event happens there and so on, keeping each household more or less at the same event or milestone. The events are generally move out, get engaged, get married/partnered/move in, have baby(ies) and teach toddler(s) talk/walk/potty, children grow into teens, teens go to University, young adults move back into neighbourhood and the cycle continues. I found this method works the best for me for keeping everyone in that neighbourbood aging roughly at the same time and I have found in life that peers generally do these things roughly about the same times in their life. Of course there are always exceptions. I don't keep detailed notes about what is going on in the neighbourhood but I do update the story for that neighbourhood with the last household that I was playing and play the households going down the streets left to right. There are some households that I do like playing more then others because of the story I have planned for them or for the personality that I have projected onto them so they do get a little extra play time (aka aging off).

I have not played the Sims 2 in quite awhile so I am starting off with a fresh neighbourhood and I moved in 20 single Sims and they have all been dating and about 1/3 of them have gotten married so far.     

The nogizmowants.package basically curbs Sims enthusiasm for buying gizmos unless there was a kiosk around and prevented Sims who did not have a hand-held from rolling a play hand-held with another Sim want. My understanding of this fix done in the patch is that with Nightlife when something is placed in their inventory the Sim loses (or lost) any notification that they have that item. So when the Sims purchased a gizmo and it went into their inventory there was no marker/token/whatever to indicate that they already had that gizmo so the want would re-roll later because the game was not recognizing that the Sim already had that item. I had a popularity Sim who rolled a want to buy a mobile phone, he purchased one and received the 500 or so aspiration points for the purchase. The next morning he rolled the buy a mobile phone want even though he already had one. He then rolled this want every bleeding morning.   

I would say that it was either your power supply was inadequate or your card was overheating due to insufficient cooling.   

Check to see if there is a hardware I/O conflict between your video card and another piece of hardware in your machine. You can check this by start > all programs > accessories > system tools > system information.

Then under Hardware Resources click conflicts/sharing

I do know that some Creative sound cards have I/O conflicts with some Radeon cards if the two cards are in slots right next to each other.  They have to be at least one slot from each other or they try to use the same ports.

Thanks for the replys. I was able to place his sofa, bed, etc against walls but I guess that would be the inconsistant part. I have not had things disappear from the inventory but it seems that once something goes into it the Sim has nothing to indicate that it has that item. I had a Sim that wanted a cell phone and he went to a community lot to buy it and recieved the aspiration points for it, then the next morning he rolled a buy a cell phone want, and he still rolls it quite frequently. If memory serves me right before NL if they had a cell phone (or the MP3 player or hand-held) in their inventory they would not roll the want. Also in one of the houses that I put items in the inventory and then took them out to see if they would get the 'groundshadow' error was a hottub. After I put it into the inventory and put it back on the lot the one of the Sims wants rolled to buy a hottub.

I had forgotten about the boolprop command it has been quite sometime and quite a few games since I last played The Sims as I found University was... well kind of lackluster. Thank you gillies for the info on the notownieregen, now I am off to torch those bloody downtownies.

Has this occured in anyone else's game? In my game once an item has been placed in thier inventory it is unable to cast shadows when placed on a lot. Now it is not that big of a deal since the objects function normally... well seem to. It is items that two Sims can use together that are used or entered at an angle like the above ground hot tub and the punchingbag can no longer be placed against a wall, railing or in a corner but require to be one space from from the physical barrier. When these items are orginally bought they can be against a physical barrier or in a corner. Like a said no big deal but...

One of my Sims moved from one lot to another and brought most of his things with him in his inventory which included his hatchback car. He later went to a community lot to buy a cell phone and some groceries. Stopped to talk to some neighbours and then I clicked on the car and told him to drive home. He walked to the opposite end of the lot and started walking in a V pattern, trying to find his car I presume. The way to the car was unobstructed and he was actually right next to the car when I instructed him to drive home. I pulled up the console with the cheat menu and it said the following:

ERROR TSSGShadow:GUOB subset not bound to GUOB material: 'groundshdow' in 'vehicleHatchBackNew'.\source\ TSSGShadow.cpp(1586) 

I then hit the return to neighbourhood and left the lot without saving, as one has to do. Then I went back into his lot and opened up the console on his lot and every item that was in his inventory and placed on the lot had the same error message, with of course the appropriate item name. I then got him to drive to another lot and the same thing happened there. I tried it with another lot, same result also. I then went back into his lot sold his hatchback and bought another one had him drive to the first lot buy a cell phone, some groceries and chat to his neighbours. Then stood him beside the car clicked on it and told him to drive home, he got in the car and sped off. I then went to other Sims lots in the neighbourhood and put an item or two in their inventory then removed it and recieved the same 'groundshadow' error messages for those items.

So my question is, was he unable to get into his original hatchback because the car was unable to cast a shadow on the community lot so there was a one tile space around the enterance to his car that made it unaccesable? (They enter their cars at an angle) Or was this another problem with the lots? He was able to enter his car on his home lot. 

Edit: To add that I do have one hack in my game the notownieregion and anxiously awaiting the nodowntownieregion hack I might add.