00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 The Sims 2 Nightlife FAQ 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Creator Information: Author: TheSocialBunny (Zephos Amaranis) E-Mail: [email protected] Personal Website: http://www.xynthica.com FAQ Information: Version: 1.01 Date of Creation: October 08, 2005 Date of Last Update: January 28, 2006 ============================================================================= Update Comment: The much anticipated update to The Sims 2 Nightlife FAQ has finally been completed! In between drawing my usual pictures of cute anime female bipeds with questionably large hydro active optics and a quarter of a year absence from playing The Sims 2, I finally got the munchies for some more ground zero sim testing action thanks to all you great people out there who sent me tips and leads! And fifty dead sims later and a blank memory bug, this sucker is ready to be upgraded! Actually, this update was done simultaneously with my The Sims 2: University FAQ, and seeing as how the next expansion pack The Sims 2: Open for Business is right around the corner, I wanted to get it out of the way before I bury my head in the game's sand and fail to acknowledge my friend's and co-worker's right to existence - or the need for sleep and food for that matter. In unrelated news, I'm considering displacing some of the more non-expansion specific info from both FAQs into a more generalized base FAQ in the future. So what's new? To top the list off, the ever popular action guide has had several new entries added to it and has been heavily refined, and there are a couple of new tricks and glitches in their respective section and the usual all around grammar correcting good cheer! Overall though, the Action Guide is 80% of what this update is about, so please enjoy. ^_^ ============================================================================= Introduction: 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Now with 50% less beached whales due to popular demand, the spirit of The Sims 2 University Practical FAQ that was anything but practical has now been carried on into this The Sims 2: Nightlife FAQ! Yeah, I suppose sometime down the road when Maxis gets to their seventh or two hundredth expansions for this game, I'm going to have to compile it into one huge abominable ocean of nonsensical advice in a War and Peace sized textbook, but for now, I'm going to target this expansion specifically! Actually, to be more accurate, this is an "Expansion FAQ". There are many basic techniques and cute little entrails of information in my The Sims 2 University FAQ that covers the core game and university, so please consult it if you have a more general question about the core game or The Sims 2: University, and of course, there are many other great FAQs and forums out on the internet to help you in all your simming needs! The Sims 2: Nightlife is the second expansion pack to grace The Sims 2 lineup, and focuses on the dark and exotic scene when the moon is full, the night is young and the sims run wild all over downtown! There's a little something for every The Sims 2 player with this expansion pack! From the OCD perfectionist Level 99 powering RPG inspired zealot to the laissez faire casual gamer who loves to watch soap operas unfold to the psychopathic homicidal gamer with a tendency to oh, violently kill their own virtual children off for a lack of a better euphemism, there's a whole new toy box to open and dismantle for players all around the gaming table! Of course, there's something for the master builders out there as well, and the great artists cranking out that most excellent custom content, you will now have a whole new bag of goodies to play with! In addition to the core game, there are lots of fun and practical additions that Nightlife makes in conjunction with the University expansion pack! So much that it makes me want to bang my head into particularly spiky picket fence when I realized just how much of my original university FAQ advice was made obsolete by such game altering features as the inventory, cars, vampires and those blasted blind dates that should go right, but never really do (Actually, do blind dates ever go well in real life?)... oh, and those stupid restaurants with the incompetent waiters and their projectile food. Now then, before we start, I'm going to quickly review what I learned over the past few months since my The Sims 2 University FAQ was released. First of all, you The Sim 2 fans are awesome! Thank you for all your kind e-mails and questions, I really appreciate it! You guys are the best! Second, EA isn't an evil faceless corporate juggernaut - in Canada at least. Third, imitation isn't the highest form of flattery, blatant plagiarism is, and to that I say thank you! You never know if something is really good until someone tries to pass it as their own and sell it on e-bay! Too bad it's against my personal beliefs to make profit off of another person's or organization's work unless officially commissioned too, hahahaha. Yup, that's going to come around to haunt me alright when it's time for my next meal. Since I covered so much in the University FAQ and not a big fan of copy and paste methodology, virtually everything in this guide was original written just for Nightlife, save for the very popular special move and command section of my FAQ that everyone loves! It's now been updated! Please refer to my University FAQ for more thorough coverage at: http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/sims_2_university_a.txt This FAQ is based a little bit on my experience with the game, but a lot of it comes from advice and help from many of the The Sims 2 related forums. I have relied a great deal on others for corrections when making this FAQ, and I will definitely still be relying on you for them when it's done. Thank you for reading, and please enjoy! ============================================================================= Table of Contents: Chapter 1: How Nightlife Will Traumatize Your Sims [0] General Update [1] Relationships Changes [1.01] Chemistry 101 [1.02] Chemistry Factors [1.03] Turn Ons and Turn Offs [1.04] Perfecting Chemistry [1.05] The Perfect Couple [1.05] Changing Your Sim's Mind [1.06] Fury [1.07] Contacts [1.08] Interest Update [1.09] Influence Update [2] Aspirations Update [2.01] Wealth Aspiration [2.02] Knowledge Aspiration [2.03] Family Aspiration [2.04] Romance Aspiration [2.05] Popularity Aspiration [2.06] Grow Up Aspiration [2.07] Pleasure Seeker Aspiration [2.08] Grilled Cheese Aspiration [3] Sim Inventory [3.01] Inventory Mechanics [3.02] Usable Devices [3.03] Consumable Potions [3.04] The Inventory Advantage [4] In Cars [4.01] About Cars [4.02] Building a Garage [4.03] Car Alarms Chapter 2: Going Downtown [5] Why Go Downtown [5.01] Why Community Lots Don't Suck Anymore [5.02] Downtown Design Essentials [5.03] Nightlife Benefits to University Young Adults [6] Restaurants [6.01] Eating Out [6.02] Favorite Foods [6.03] Disgruntled Waiters [6.04] Getting A Discount from the Host [6.05] Skipping Out On the Bill [6.06] Restaurant Tricks [6.07] Why Restaurants Suck [7] Recreation and Fun [7.01] Being the DJ [7.02] Bowling [7.03] Photo Booth [7.04] Poker Table [7.05] Electro Dance Sphere [7.06] Karaoke Machine {8] Miscellaneous Downtown [8.01] How to Make A Cemetery [8.02] Building a Base Chapter 3: Getting Together [9] Dates [9.01] How To Get A Date [9.02] How Dates Work [9.03] How to Have the Date from Hell [9.04] How to Have a Dream Date [9.05] Rewards and Punishment [10] Outings [10.01] How To Go On An Outing [10.02] How Outings Work [10.03] The Worst Case Scenario [10.04] The Omni Outing [10.05] Goodies And Grief Chapter 4: Vampires [11] Going Vampire [11.01] Becoming A Vampire [11.02] The Vampire Lifestyle [11.03] Special Abilities [11.04] Curing Vampirism [11.05] The Ultimate Vampire Chapter 5: Meet The People [12] New NPCs [12.01] The Matchmaker [12.02] The Count and Countess [12.03] Mr. Big and the Diva [12.05] The Slobs [12.06] The DJs [12.07] The Host [12.08] Waiter/Waitress [12.09] The Chef [12.10] Mrs. Crumplebottom Chapter 6: Action Guide [13] Special Skills, Commands and Actions [13.01] Hidden Skills [13.02] Special Manual Commands [13.03] Age Based Interactions [13.04] Special Effects [13.05] Automatic Commands [13.06] Object Based Interactions [13.07] Dining Interactions [13.08] Motive Desperation [13.09] Aspiration Desperation [13.10] When Disaster Strikes [13.11] Reactions to Death [13.12] Paranormal Actions [13.13] Career Reward Actions Chapter 7: Wrapping Up [14] Cheats [15] Closure [16] Copyright [17] Special Thanks: ***************************************************************************** Chapter 1: How Nightlife Will Traumatize Your Sims: ***************************************************************************** [0] General Update: For When the Instruction Manual Self Destructs The Sims 2: Nightlife adds so many excellent things you'll be wondering if they were there since the beginning game or not! One thing you can change now in the gameplay options is to have the surrounding neighboring buildings around the lot visible while in actual play, as well as the decorations you used on the neighborhood screen! Also, if you click on a neighboring lot, you can now conveniently swap over to play them! These features are awesome, and definitely make screen snapping album makers like myself happy when you have a lush backdrop instead of a patch of infinite blue! Granted the quality of the surrounding area is reduced to an abbreviated 3D model similar to what you see on your neighborhood screen, but it's either that or your computer implodes, and I much rather take the former. Another new and very much welcomed addition to The Sims 2 is now the ability to adjust the fade distance to increase or enhance game performance. You will find these two options and a bit more under the newly improved gameplay options tab. On an audio note, upon first playing the game, you'll immediately notice the most excellent music they put into the game as well! Many of them are remixes of your tried and true The Sims 2 songs that you heard way too many times to not remember, you know, when spending like seven hours in build mode. EA got some rather prominent artists like Timo Maas, Adam Freeland and my personal favorite, Lemon Jelly, to work their music! Its nice weather for ducks, isn't it!? Another part of the game's interface that was highly improved is now the menu screen for when you take to your car or taxi cab and go to a community lot. The menu will now allow you to go straight to any place you want in any of your neighborhood's communities, including the local area and downtown, as well as university campuses for young adults. This also means that young adults can go outside of their campus shells and go back to their home neighborhood, to another university's campus or any of the created downtowns, and do it directly as well, instead of having to go to the respected area's neighborhood screen. They wouldn't get to visit other secret societies, but oh well; you take what you can get. While we are talking about the neighborhood screen, it should be to much delight that you can now toggle between day and night! Downtown areas are by default shown at night time, but you can switch any neighborhood back and forth if you so desire! Just remember for those special effect lovers, spotlights only work at night, rainbows only work during day. Along with the standard lush and desert types of landscapes for neighborhoods, the game has added two more new styles, dirt for those somewhat evil and cold neighborhoods, and concrete for those cold and evil neighborhoods. Added to the expansion at neighborhood screens are also new decorations like spotlights and skyscrapers, which add to the downtown feel. It's a bit depressing when a preset skyscraper is bigger than even your largest construct on your largest lot by twenty fold, but eh, what are ya' going to do? Well, you could use the cheat and build a 255 floor ziggurat or something and blow up your computer, but that's not recommended, hahahaha, seriously, don't do it unless you got your computer from NASA or something. Speaking of lot sizes, the game adds much more variety! You can now get a petite 1X3 sized lot, and other lot sizes to help diversify your neighborhood when space absolutely, positively has to be filled. Oh! There are also new preset buildings in the houses bin, some complete with garages for that brand new car! Speaking of garages, there are a few building tools added to the game, specifically half-walls, drive ways and diagonal pools! Heavy duty builders like me will be glad to know that you can now build half- walls. Half-walls act very much like fences but can be painted and wall papered. Unfortunately, you can't put tiles on them to make a half floor like many of us were hoping, but eh, it's still a nice addition. Half-walls are more for cosmetic and design purposes more so than practical gameplay. You can't put doors, windows or wall hung objects on them like paintings, and you can't put a gate on them like a fence. They do look good on a well designed lots though or as a room divider or rail. About the only thing that actually gets past half-walls is light, even noise and an Environmental score straight from the depths of Hell, complete with roaches, pools of urine and piles of trash get filtered out by an enclosed half-wall. A new feature introduced to Nightlife that many might not notice at first are the addition of rugs! Now, you can have that perfect little sheet of wooly cloth to cover the floors and add some depth to the room that you always wanted! Rugs can be stacked on top of each other for some neat patterns, and they are great for hiding that unseemly repeating effect that ordinary tiles give to large room. Be careful with Rugs though, as they can be somewhat of a fire hazard, and little children can rub their feet against them to deliver a static shock to unassuming sim! Next on the list are driveways! They come in two varieties, brick and cement, and also have extended parts that can be used to build a garage. Cars can only be placed on driveways, and the garage is also mostly for cosmetic purposes, save for in the case that your sim is a blood sucking vampire, but it's good to know that they are there. Finally, Maxis has made pool building much easier! Long gone are the days when you had to fool the game to build that looped, squiggly, or just plain distorted to Hell and back pool of your dreams! The game now allows you to build diagonal pools, and the pool tool is far more adjustable and editable than its old "Lay down a rectangle of water and that's it" version. Unfortunately, you can't place ladders, lights or diving boards on the diagonal portions of the pool, but it's no biggy. No expansion pack for The Sims 2 would be complete without new interactions, and Nightlife offers a bucket full of fish heads of them! In particular, you can now mass call sims to dinner, including guests and your household or everyone in one step! Saves that clickity, clickity pain! Also new to the game is the "Ask" social interaction menu. It's so obvious you'll wonder why they didn't put it in sooner. Now you can ask sims to find out information about them, like what their wants are, what their job is, their zodiac sign, how skilled they are, and of course, how much money they will give you if you marry them. You can also ask them out on a date as well as offer to give them a ride back home or to your sim's place while on the date. Other ask functions like "Ask to Join" get their own command on the main menu still, so don't worry too much about command clutter! The "Ask" command can also be used to start casual groups or ask sims what they think of your sim, but way more on that later! Along with the new object interactions, there's also a new dance in town, the Smustle -- which is just plain disturbing - and kids can do it too! Of course, there are now a few new romantic interactions, including the Slow Dance! Now you don't need to be around music for your sims to dance, and they can now do it with feeling! The slow dance also has three subcommands that can be used during it, and often is chainable with related wants in sequence. Finally, there are plenty of special interactions that can be done at the dinner table between lovers and friends. Really, there's so much to talk about, but this section is starting to get embarrassingly long, so I'm going to have to snippity snip. Of course, there are also new cloths, new hair styles, and other new goodies to customize your sim's appearance with, and a few extra yummies, but I'll save them for later in the FAQ! ============================================================================= [1] Relationship Changes: Sims Have Feelings Too! Trample Them! There are many new additions to the relationship system in The Sims 2: Nightlife! Now your sims have chemistry between each other that can make their dates a living Hell or Heaven on Earth! Also new are the turn ons and turn offs, special preferences that sims are looking for in their potential mates! One of my personal favorite additions is Fury. Now, your sims can be thoroughly pissed off at each other, and they will indeed show their inner most contempt for the rest of sim kind, or at least at your sim! On the opposite end are contacts, people who want to lick your sim's boots and will have a temporary positive relationship with your sim! These factors are at the core of the new expansion pack, so enjoy! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.01] Chemistry 101: Because Alchemy Just Doesn't Work Like It Used To The Sims 2 Nightlife is all about good chemistry, well, either that or chemistry gone terribly, horrifically wrong, one of the two. Now sims can be irrationally biased pricks too, and doesn't that just make the game so much more realistic? The chemistry factor affects your sim's ability to interact with another sim, particularly in regards to romantic actions. Positive chemistry increases the success rate of social interactions, as well as allows certain actions, as represented by a lightning bolt next to the interactions name to be boosted to be executed earlier than normal, although it should be noted that it's not necessarily a good idea to actually do so unless their compatibility is extremely high, as it still usually stands a good chance of being rejected. These bolts will be very prominent when you are just opening up a fresh relationship, often helping to guide your path in woohooing the perfect guy or girl of your sim's dreams, but they will go away from the command menu when your sim starts to max their lifetime and daily relationship with the person in question, since they will have freely unlocked all social interactions and have no need for the chemistry boost. Personally, I recommend when interacting to pick the next most powerful interaction down from the lightning bolt, as it's almost guaranteed to work instead of the actual lightning bolt command, which might deep fry the relationship. This is especially true on dates when you don't want to add insult to injury and get a flaming bag of poo the next morning. This is of course, unless you are experienced with what and what will not work based on the relationship and chemistry score, which takes quite a bit of play experience to master now with the chemistry system in place which gives different levels of success and accessibility. It's also interesting to know that chemistry also "helps" with negative interactions under the irritate command if the relationship is in the negatives, although exactly what else could not go wrong from using a negative interaction with chemistry is beyond me. In order to get a read on your sim's chemistry in a relationship with another sim, the most direct course of action is to use the "Check Out Sim" command under Flirt, don't worry, it wouldn't piss the other sim off, they wouldn't even know that you are stalking them. You can also ask them if they like what they see under the "Ask" menu or just execute a romantic action to get a read on their compatibility. You'll know that two sims have good chemistry by looking at the thought bubble of the person over a sim's head. If you see a bubble with a sim's face in it with hearts fluttering about happily, it means that there is at least some positive attraction there. Likewise, if you see a bubble with Xs flying and the sim acts like they are going to vomit, it's a bit of an understatement to say that they might not naturally get along so well. Sometimes, your sim will automatically add another sim to their chemistry relationship list, but this only seems to apply if they have positive chemistry. A more wide spread course of action is to click on your sim and have them use the "Scope Room" action. Doing so will run a quick check, and any sims with positive chemistry will have a white aura around them. It should be noted that Scope Room is based on your sim's sexual preference. If you sim only has had relationships with guys, then only guys will glow white, the opposite is true for the lovely ladies. Of course, if your sim is bisexual or nonsexual, then the scope will be scanning both sides of the field. If your sim hasn't had a romantic interaction with or checked out another sim though, the "Scope Room" ability will not be available Oh yeah, if you were wondering, all sims have the potential to be bisexual, so unlike in our world where same sex relationships aren't something universally accepted, in The Sims 2 world, any sim can romantically involve themselves with any other sim with no objection, regardless of gender. As a matter of fact, if I were to be thinking in my usual extremely practical game exploiting manner instead of my society dictating "common sense", I'd have to say that a bisexual sim has an advantage over one that only plays one side of the fence, since they have a wider selection to go through. As soon as a sim stakes their sexual preference, their chemistry boosted commands will automatically be displayed when dealing with compatible mates. Sims cannot develop chemistry towards family members or other sims that they are romantically incapable of falling in love with. Virtually all moves that can be boosted by good chemistry share in common the ability to alter lifetime relationship along with daily relationship, keep this in mind when using them. A Sim's chemistry with another sim is represented by a little lightning bolt icon. The numbers of the boost here are an approximation and vary between their levels of power. There are 5 levels of chemistry attraction, here in order from worst to best: 1. Lightning Bolt Crossed Out: Horrible Chemistry Boost: No Boost, Higher Risk of Failure 2. No Lightning Bolt: No Chemistry (Or Unknown Chemistry Status) Boost: No Boost 3. One Lightning Bolt: Good Chemistry Boost: 15-10 Daily and 5 Lifetime Relationship 4. Two Lightning Bolts: Great Chemistry Boost: 25-20 Daily and 15 to 10 Lifetime Relationship 5. Three Lightning Bolts: Incredible Chemistry Boost: 40-45 Daily and 20-25 Lifetime Relationship As an important note, the boost of chemistry might not be equal on both sides, although it's generally around the same neighborhood within the bolt indication. There might be times when one partner gets a boost in one action that the other does not. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.02] Chemistry Factors: For When Love Isn't Blind, or Stupid There are five factors to chemistry attraction, Zodiac, Personality, Aspiration, Relationship and Turn Ons and Offs. Chemistry is tough to properly evaluate, it's not as simple as one bolt plus two bolts equals three bolts. There's actually an underlying numeral score and the bolts are just there to vaguely represent it. This makes testing it accurately very tricky. Without further delay though, the five factors of chemistry are as follows: ------------------------ Zodiac Compatibility: Of all of the factors to take into account, the Zodiac Sign is the most important to take into consideration, if only because it's the only one you can't change after sim creation. All sims are attracted and repelled by two signs each, but it really makes no good sense why, and it's definitely not symmetrical or systematic, kind of like astrology really (Depends on who you ask). Speaking of astrology, if you know your real world astrology inside out, you'll realize that the sim one isn't the same as the one we humans have become accustom too, although it has the same signs, but I guess that's just the just the way it is. Due to the way the game works out, some signs have general overall advantages over others, for example, Sagittarius is a well liked sign and apparently doesn't repel any other signs, making it idea for Romance Sims who want as many partners as possible. In the case of star crossed lovers, Aries and Taurus work well together, since they both mutually attract and can be adjusted to have similar personalities, which leads us to the next factor. ------------------------ Personality Compatibility: Unlike Zodiac Signs that are positively or negatively affected by signs other than their own, Personality Compatibility is based on how similar the two sim's personalities are to each other, the closer the better. You'd think this whole bit would be a big sweaty shell of redunda' fodder, since Zodiac Sign is closely tied to personality initially in "Create A Sim" mode, but you can alter the points within a certain degree and still be labeled under a certain sign in create a sim mode. There are also a few ways to alter personality, the safest being elderly and parental encouragement. On the flip side is the not so safe way, which involves killing your sims off and bringing them back with the Resurrect o' Nomitron wrong, either as a zombie or on the side of cheap that reverses their old personality. Personality is the second most important compatibility trait, simply because it's very difficult to change controllably, especially for anyone older than a Teen as encouragement starts to lose effect and you'll basically need an elder in the family. To throw salt on wounds, you'd need to have two parents with extreme opposite personalities to have good control over their child's personality, which takes planning and lots of forethought, and there will still be one stray personality value left unless there is an elder to straighten it out. This is because parents can only encourage another sim to be at a level of personality equal to their own. It'll at least be this way until a new expansion pack introduces another way to alter personality, like the good old crystal ball from the first game. ------------------------ Aspiration Compatibility Aspiration type is a big part of the game, and now different aspiration types have different compatibility relationships with others. All aspiration types love other sims of the same aspiration, so that's the safest bet, but let's face it, having a town of all the same aspiration is boring, and probably impossible thanks to the expendable NPCs that keep on coming back despite making your city into a death trap. Outside of having the same aspiration type, which will always be good chemistry, attraction between aspiration types is a mixed bag that is not shared equally on both sides. Aspiration used to be harder to change than even personality, only getting one shot at it in university, but now with the aspiration item the ReNuYu Senso Orb, it becomes almost as easy to change as turn ons and turn offs, allowing for interesting gameplay. ------------------------ Relationship The saving grace of chemistry, when your sims have a strong daily and lifetime relationship, their chemistry score will also get a boost. It's practically impossible for two sims that are the best of friends to have bad chemistry with each other. Unfortunately, this is quite useless in actual practical effect since chemistry specifically helps build relationship faster and safer. When two sims already have maxed out their lifetime and daily relationship scores, the purpose of chemistry becomes pretty much obsolete. Still, if you like the look of a triple lightning bolt, then it definitely helps. On the flip side, if two sims hate each other's guts, they'll also have a massive decrease in chemistry. You'll know that two sims are truly, compatible if they can become mortal enemies and still have triple bolts, albeit there's not exactly a good reason for them to be at odds in the first place, unless one of them cheats. ------------------------ Turn Ons and Turn Offs New to Nightlife, Sims now have turn ons and turn offs! In case you are under six years old and live under a rock where cute little dragons hoard their treasure night and day, turn ons and turn offs are what people desire in their potential mates. If the lovely guy or gal in question matches the turn ons of your sim and not the turn offs, then it'll give their chemistry score a boost. In this game, turn ons and turn offs exist solely for effecting chemistry between sims and can mean the difference between an easy romp and a kick in between the legs, figuratively of course, it'd be awesome if there was a social interaction to do that. Newly created characters or children that grow up to teens can pick their turn ons and turn offs, as well as the usual aspiration selection system, but old sims from before the expansion get a random batch of them upon you first playing them after Nightlife installs, however, Maxis knew this would piss off gamers, and included a handy ReNuYu Potion with every sim from previous saves that you can chug to instantly change them. Of course, Maxis also knew that they would have pissed the Hell out of the world if they decided to have turn ons and turn offs based on the color of a sim's skin, hence why they aren't there, and to that I salute you and your politically correct minions of orthodoxy Maxis! Anyhoo, there is much more about turn offs and turn ons to come, but that'll be in just a little bitty from down here, so please be patient. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.03] Turn Ons and Turn Offs: Hey Folks! Artificial Discrimination! Well, that was a long wait! Since I'm already riding on a wave of words here, I'll just get right down and crawl through the mud - that's right, crawl through the mud! Of important note is that the "Best" turn ons and turn offs are directly related to your playing style and who the majority of people in your neighborhood are, or the potential mate you want to set your sim up with, so there is no "Best" choice for all situations, ah screw that, Custom Hair is the best turn on or turn off in the game, next. Of all of the factors in the game, turn ons and turn offs are the easiest to change, you can also change your own and other sims to match preferences, so it's no biggy if your old sim from before the expansion gets some really weird fetishes when you check their turn on and turn off tabs. Turn ons and turn offs are also one of the more influential factors in chemistry Here's a list of the Turn Ons and Turn Offs with small notes: ------------------------ Fat: Sadly, a turn off in our world and age (Remember when plump and pale was in some hundreds of years ago?) but the sims seem to randomly love fat people as much as fit people. Still, most townies are average build, so unless you have a custom neighborhood full of fat people, it makes a safe turn off. It makes the perfect turn on though however if your desired partner has the Grill Cheesed Sandwich Aspiration. It's a difficult factor to change unfortunately, albeit infinitely easier than in real life, just get your sim to use an exercise machine till they have reached the desired weight. ------------------------ Fit: A good turn on in custom neighborhoods with sims that have been raised with particularly strict athletic attention, whether they wanted it or not. It's pretty hard to get a sim with high body skill that isn't fit accidentally. The downside to being fit is that it's hard to change on a dime if your date happens to hate athletes or supermodels, so you have to really plump your sim out through over eating. Keepin' it real! ------------------------ Stink: There is really nothing good that comes out of having this as a turn on, it's probably the worst turn on you can have, since sims who start to stink generally have extremely low hygiene and have other things on their mind than chumming about with romantic interests. It makes a natural turn off though. ------------------------ Cologne: All sims can buy a bottle of cologne for 125 simoleans, it can last up to four and a half hours if you don't ultra speed through it, so it's a safe turn on to have and also a safe turn off, since you can use it at will, so long as you got the scratch to pay. It's downside of course is the fact that it costs bling whales and it's temporary. ------------------------ Vampirism: Makes a safe turn off if you don't plan to have any vampires in your neighborhood, but what fun would that be? On the flip side, if your vampire loving sim's mate isn't to their liking, you can always remedy that problem should they be vampires themselves with a big ol' bite. You can always reverse vampirism with Vamprocillin-D. Formal Wear: A good turn on, since it's controllable, but not particularly constant, since non-controllable sims tend to rarely wear, if ever wear it outside of special events. It's okay if you have two controllable sims and a wardrobe though. Can't recommend it as a turn off, just incase you want to dress the part for oh, a wedding or something trivial like that. Formal wear and other clothing types can be changed with a wardrobe instantly, as well as performing certain actions like going to bed, taking a swim or working out. It is also be possible to make a custom "Omni Suit" like my main sim's custom made "Xynthica's Universal Yukata" dress that counts for all clothing types, however, it will only count for the style of cloths that you put it on as with the wardrobe, so you wouldn't be able to hit all three clothing turn ons at the same time. Still, having like six outfits for the price of one isn't horrible, and it's especially useful to give your sim when they start out in create a sim mode. ------------------------ Swim Suits: A logical turn on for the voyeur sim in you, or pretty much any biped with a pulse. There is actually only one reason why a sim should be given this as a turn on, and that's specifically for hot tub interactions or around the pool. I can't recommend it as a turn off though, since it's always handy to have in those cases. I'm personally not sure if outgoing sims who take it all off in hot tubs are classified as being in swimsuits, it has yet to be tested. ------------------------ Underwear: Yeah! Panties! Fan service! Ahem... other than making an infinite amount of sense as being a turn on, you almost never see non-controllable sims in their underwear, save for extremely outgoing sims at Toga Parties, in which case, I still have to test if the outfit counts as underwear instead of a toga. Seriously, unless you don't approve of minor things like oh, how the Hell sims can reproduce, don't give your sims this as a turn off, as they are still technically going to be wearing it during Woohoo, and you don't want that going south. ------------------------ Make Up: A safe turn on for girl lovers, since quite a few female sims in the game wear makeup by default, although it doesn't quite always work that way for the opposite sex so it makes a safe turn off for men lovers. Make up and other facial features, including hair style and color, glasses, hats and basically everything down on the this list from here can be changed using a mirror. It seems that sims don't actually take off their Make Up when they are about to take a shower or go to sleep, so it seems to have a pretty constant presence. Not to imply anything politically incorrect here, but you can take advantage of the Make Up turn on to "brand" your sim's love interests using the "Make Over" option with the Cornerstone Variable Vanity table. This will accelerate the attraction if your sim has a turn on for Make Up, and Makeup isn't as obvious as some of the other turn on or turn off choices in appearance, so it can help. ------------------------ Full Face Make Up: Very few sims wear full face makeup in blank default custom neighborhoods, save for those that are ruled by clowns and evil pro wrestlers, but it's an easily alterable trait, so if you happen to aesthetically like it, it's not a problem. Full Face Makeup also makes a good Turn Off otherwise. ------------------------ Glasses: I hate people with glasses, it makes me want to punch their squiggly little faces in, or so I would like to say - if I didn't wear glasses. Glasses are a good controllable turn on and turn off. The glasses do come off on some occasions though, so it might not be as universally viable as some of the other turn ons or turn offs. ------------------------ Hat: Who doesn't like hats? Oh wait, me, I absolutely hate hats, I can't stand them, I think they are an insult to cacti everywhere. That being said, hats are very changeable, just go to a mirror and pop one or off, makes for a controllable Turn On or Turn Off, and at least a small amount of townies wear them. Sims have a tendency to take their hats off when they aren't dressed to go outdoors or are planning on doing something like sleeping or showering, so it's not the most stable turn on or turn off. ------------------------ Facial Hair: Anyone who has their eye on the lovely ladies has a better chance to fetch an ice cream bowl out of Hell with their teeth than to have this as a turn on, seeing as how girls in this game are normally incapable of having facial hair. It's a pretty safe turn on though for man chasers though, at least a fair deal of townies has facial hair. ------------------------ Black Hair: It's black, its hair, what more is there to say? Makes a great turn on, but a pretty counterproductive turnoff, seeing as how a lot of townies, dare I say the majority, have black hair, well, that's the way it is in our world anyway. If you are starting a fresh neighborhood with no grandiose plans of community assimilation in mind, I highly recommend giving your sim it as a turn on. ------------------------ Brown Hair: It's brown, it's hair, and it's everywhere! There aren't many ways to go wrong with having brown hair as a turn on, and like all the other hairs, quite a bit if it's a turn off. ------------------------ Blond Hair: Blonds are more fun! Hurray! And to think that they are going to do the dodo in two hundred years (Actually, that article was more or less debunked). Save the blonds! Have blond hair as your sims turn on! Well, if you have it as a turn off, fair enough, I like black hair more anyway. ------------------------ Red Hair: Apparently, according to a study, red heads feel naturally feel more pain. That being said, don't make their sim counterparts go through the emotional half of it! Yup, it's a similar case with the other hair types. ------------------------ Gray Hair: Old people! Yeah! I love old people! Nothing says "I'm old and rich! Give me some love!" like gray hair, not to be confused with white or silver hair that says, "I'll kill you and use your entrails as a skipping rope". Naturally, if your sim and his/her love interests are elders, giving them gray hair can only be beneficial. It's not bad for young and regular adults either, but don't give it to teens because they wouldn't be able to romantically interact with elders. ------------------------ Custom Hair: Custom hair, in a few words is the absolute best turn on AND turns off you can have in the game, depending on your gaming preference. For example, if your entire city consists of giddy anime hair brushing school girls (School referring to university of course) with hair color from all parts of the Mississippi northern lights, then have a single guy with a turn on for custom hair, he's going to definitely be in chemistry heaven. Well, on the somewhat more practical side, you can just make all of the "anime girl" sims extra yuri, and that'll do more than just solve the problem. Anyhoo, bottom-line is that if you get a community of custom haired sims together, it'll be all one love, love, happy, happy community! Custom Hair can be of any color or texture as well, since you create it, so you can have a blond who is still technically considered as having custom hair despite it looking exactly like the preset blond hair. It doesn't work at all well with the townies, but you can invite them home and change em' up a bit to your liking. Basically, the work will take place outside of the game in the Body Shop, but since hair color has an indefinite duration, it'll have a permanent effect until you decide to change it. If you're really serious about milking your sim community's potential, the Custom Hair factor is definitely an aspect to look into. Of course, if you happen to hate the body shop and don't like downloading custom content, well, then Custom Hair might not be the Turn On to float your boat. On the flip side, if you don't plan to have custom hair, it suddenly becomes the safest Turn Off in the game, because nobody in the game uses it outside of your own sims, nobody that you can form a romantic relationship with at least that I know of. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.04] Perfecting Chemistry: When It Doesn't Blow Up In Your Face Chemistry and Compatibility in The Sims 2: Nightlife is a surprisingly hard thing to predict. Unless you happen to know about the finer details, you'll probably rely on trial and error to find your sim's perfect match, which can be a bit of a pain can't it? The following tables regarding Aspiration Compatibility and Zodiac Sign were taken directly from the official www.thesims2.com site and I hope you to find them as useful as I did: ----------------------- Zodiac Sign Compatibility: Zodiac Sign: Attracted to: Repelled by: Aries Gemini/Taurus Cancer/Libra Taurus Aries/Libra Virgo/Cancer Gemini Pisces/Virgo Capricorn/Aries Cancer Taurus/Scorpio Gemini/Aries Leo Sagittarius/Cancer Capricorn/Gemini Virgo Aquarius/Sagittarius Leo/Taurus Libra Virgo/Cancer Pisces/Scorpio Scorpio Pisces/Leo Libra/Aquarius Sagittarius Pisces/Capricorn Libra/Scorpio Capricorn Aquarius/Taurus Leo/Gemini Aquarius Capricorn/Sagittarius Scorpio/Virgo Pisces Scorpio/Gemini Leo/Aries ----------------------- B: Bad N: Neutral G: Good (R) (W) (P) (F) (K) (PS) (C) Romance G N G B B N N Wealth N G B G N G G Popularity N B G N B B N Family B N B G G B N Knowledge B B N N G N N Pleasure G G N B N G G Cheese N N N N N N G ----------------------- I'll level with you folks, I agree with the Zodiac Sign chart, since I've crossed referenced it with other sources, and it seems to work in execution, but I have my doubts about some parts of the Aspiration Compatibility table, namely because I've experienced a couple scenarios where making a neutral aspiration compatibility on both sides go bad had a positive effect on the relationship chemistry and vice versa. So you're probably thinking that an obsessive compulsive, perfectionist, RPG level hoarding bastard like yours truly couldn't possibly come up with a completely different version of the chart through repeated painful accounts of trial and error? Well, you don't have to spell it out so clearly, but yeah, I did. Unlike the official chart above, this one focuses on the actual outcome of the final chemistry score, instead of what one aspiration type thinks of the other. I have never seen through hundreds and hundreds of different chemistry combinations a case where two people didn't have the same chemistry rating for each other, they consistently and reliably mirror each other. There does apparently seem to be an asymmetrical attraction between aspiration types though like the above chart states, as evident when you use the "Check Out" command and one partner is impressed and the other is indifferent, so it does seem true that one aspiration type can like another, but not the other way around., this is taken into account automatically in the final score, which is what I am using as a measurement. Okay then, here are the ratings, unlike the chart above, the one I researched has six different levels, although please keep in mind that there are probably actually more increments of measurement: 1. Sucky 2. Bad 3. Neutral 4. Good 5. Great 6. C. Lust ----------------------- (W) (K) (F) (R) (P) (PS) (C) Wealth 5 3 4 3 4 3 1 Knowledge 3 5 5 2 2 1 3 Family 4 6 5 1 2 2 4 Romance 3 2 1 5 3 5 2 Popularity 4 2 2 3 5 4 1 Pleasure 2 1 2 5 4 5 3 Cheese 1 3 4 2 1 4 6 ----------------------- So you're probably wondering what C. Lust stands for right? Cheese Lust of course! It is by far the most powerful Aspiration attraction. It practically equals triple bolts even if virtually everything else between the couple is wrong, so if you are thinking about making a couple with as insanely high chemistry score as possible, make them Grill Cheese Aspiration sims! Oh yes, please feel free to follow the aspiration compatibility chart that works for you better. As I have not found enough volunteers to cross check my version of the chart, I do not have complete confidence in its universal accuracy, although it seems that the official chart has a few skeptics as well. If you find my version of the chart to be accurate or inaccurate, please let me know, I appreciate it. Okay then! At the very least, any relationship between two sims in the game can be turned into a double lightning bolt from changing aspirations and turn ons and turn offs to fit on both sides to fit each other alone. The roadblock in chemistry is generally the Zodiac Sign, since it cannot be changed. Personality is a close second of course, since you can only change it controllably if you have someone in your family in an older age group than your sim. On the positive side, the other loose variables of chemistry that are aspiration type, relationship and turn ons and turn offs are pretty influential and adjustable, there's even a pretty good chance that you can ring up a triple from just altering those three factors alone. It's not very hard to convert crappy chemistry into good chemistry once you know how things work out. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.05] The Perfect Couple: Are Not Born, They Are Made It is very rare that two sims will just naturally have triple bolts without you trying. Even if you pay the Matchmaker top dollar, chances are, she'll just summon an okay double bolter from the heavens. A double bolter who's a stranger can become a triple bolter upon becoming a lover, but where's the fun in that? You want a couple with such insanely high chemistry that they can tear each other's eyes out and become lovers again in the same day! Do you want a couple with chemistry so ridiculously high that they can still "Friendly Hug" each other when they are in the negatives? How about a couple that doesn't just get to the third base in few short hours but a full blown homerun? If you are, here's how you do it. Please take note that under most normal circumstances, as mentioned above, a good deal of couples can be changed up to meet the triple bolt level by adjusting aspiration type and turn ons and turn offs alone. Personally, my main sim is a Cancer, so the fact that Cancer is kinda' "Uguuuu..." when it comes to general or specialized compatibility ticks me off, but she still managed to get a triple bolt with her Sagittarius partner. if you want to make a couple with perfect compatibility, which by the way is pretty pointless at 100 daily and lifetime relationship since the success rate of almost all positive interactions with the exception of badly told jokes and automated chatting is virtually 100%, then this section is for you! ----------------------- Perfect Zodiac Compatibility: There are four Zodiac combinations that mutually attract each other: Aries to Taurus Capricorn to Aquarius Gemini to Pisces Scorpio to Pisces Of these four, Aries to Taurus is the one that starts off naturally as having the closest personality in Create a Sim mode, which bring us to our next section. ----------------------- Perfect Personality Compatibility: If you start your sims as teens or younger and encourage them to match their destined lover's personality perfectly then you have hopes of scoring the maximum score for personality compatibility. This part of the process requires a lot of planning and effort, and your sim should at least have parents that have personality levels that match or exceed the child's destined lover's personality, both on the positives and negatives. At this point, it all boils down to lots and lots of encouragement commands. In the case of a good match like Aries to Taurus though, you wouldn't have to shuffle that many points to get them to match ----------------------- Perfect Aspiration Type Compatibility: The easy way to do this is to just have your two sims have the same aspiration. However, in the case that the level of compatibility is all that matters and nothing else, than have your two sims stick their heads into the ReNuYu Senso Orb with crappy a aspiration level and fry the grill cheesed sandwich aspiration into their heads. There will be more details regarding this in a later section. Two cheese aspiring sims have the greatest compatibility by far of all the aspiration matching, a practically guaranteed triple bolt. ----------------------- Perfect Turn On and Turn Off Compatibility: This one is easy, you either make your sim's turn ons and turn offs match their partner, or you make their partner match their turn ons and turn offs. This process is a double sided road, meaning that it's ideal if both partner's match each others preferences from both sides. You can't change the turn ons and turn offs for your partner if they are an NPC not living with you, so you have to work with what you can change. For the first case, just have your sim drink a ReNuYu Port o' Chug or stick their head into a ReNuYu Senso Orb with success, as opposed to grilled cheese surprise. Next, just pick two traits that your partner has, like black hair and wearing makeup that are indefinite in time duration for most all circumstances, as opposed to temporary effects like wearing cologne or what type of cloths they are wearing. This will help boost the chemistry on your sims side. In the second case that is changing your partner to fit your sim's turn ons and turn offs, buy the Cornerstone Variable Vanity and use the "Make Over" option. Assuming that your sim's relationship with the other sim is tolerable, they'll allow you to prep them up however you wish, just like when your own sim uses a mirror. You wouldn't be able to change everything about them, but you can at least alter things like makeup and hair, and make them look like your sim's dead lover in a creepy sort of Hitchcock inspired way. Of course, if you know your partner's own turn ons and turn offs, try to have your sim match them as well if you can't control them to change. You can either use the wardrobe to change clothing if they have a preference for underwear, swimsuits or formal clothing or use a mirror to put on make up, change hair styles, or any other number of things. All of this of course will take a moment, so it's recommended that you prepare for it before the date if possible. ----------------------- Perfect Relationship Compatibility: This one is pretty much automatic, when your relationship with the other sim reaches very high levels, their compatibility will naturally increase as well. Just have the two sims hit off on each other normally and romantically, and they'll have maxed out relationship compatibility in no time. ----------------------- Love Potion #8.5 Touch Up: If you want to absolutely, positively make sure that the relationship is as high as the game can possibly allow, then have each partner drink a Love Potion #8.5. Basically, this is like injecting steroids into a pink elephant, there's really no need to since anything past this point in chemistry is pretty much all in your head rather than in practical gameplay, but if you're the kinda' person who likes the cake, the icing, the card, the cherry on top and the box that the dang thing came in, then this is a good final step. ----------------------- Well then, there you go, after taking care of all five variables, you now have a couple that is so ridiculously compatible that they can beat each other down with baseball bats and still be lovey dovey in no time, as a matter of fact, most any interaction between the two will work as soon as they appear, and your sims will even be able to successfully deliver friendly hugs even when their daily and lifetime relationship scores are -25 each and furious with each other! At a neutral level of 0 daily and lifetime relationship, they also already start off at a healthy launching point for middle level flirts and low level hugs and kisses. You can practically take them from 0 to 100 in a couple of hours. How's that for compatibility!? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.06] Changing Your Sims Mind: When Being Yourself Just Isn't Good Enough Do you think that it's weird that even a beautiful young maiden of a sim that you have watched and cared for like a doting father each and every sim day is turned on by smelly vampires after installing Nightlife? No problem! Maxis included two ways to easily change your sim's turn ons and turn offs. First off, with every old time sim's inventory from before the expansion back was installed is a ReNuYu Porta-Chug! Good for a one time use to change their preferences, and of which I will discuss more in the inventory section. Now, onto the second method to change your sim's turn ons and turn offs! The dream machine behind this is the new and only additional aspiration reward called the ReNuYu Senso Orb! All your sim has to do is stick their head into it and get reprogrammed to witness the broader horizons of life! It costs 6250 points, comes with five charges and can change your sim's aspiration type and turn ons and turn offs - but wait! There's MORE! IT CAN COMPLETELY SCREW YOUR SIM'S MIND OVER AND GIVE THEM THE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH ASPIRATION! Ahem, pretend you didn't read that whole part in caps and let's go on. No longer will your sims have to go through the hell that is university to give themselves a fresh perspective on life! Now even grown adults can experience any aspiration they want, and Family Sims will now finally have a way out of those nightmarish lifetime wants like "Marry Off 6 Children", like Hell they will! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.07] Fury: When Cold Silent Homicidal Hatred Just Doesn't Cut It Long gone are the days when Sims were innocent, inherently good love children of the player! Now, you can look down on all of creation with pity and embarrassment! Fury is a special period where one sim is clearly pissed off at another sim for a variety of possible reasons. In this time, the portrait of the character in the relationship menu is eclipsed in a red haze that slowly clears up like a clock and provides a massive temporary decrease in both lifetime and daily relationship scores. It doesn't make positive interaction with the sim impossible, but it definitely limits your options, since the big scoring interactions wouldn't be around unless you work them back up to the positives. You can restore a relationship back to its former state even when still in fury if you work at it and do everything you could before, but it might be a battle better waited out than fought. Sims in fury that you do not control will make it their mission in life to ruin yours. From stealing your newspaper, to kicking over your trash can to just plain ominously creeping about your lot at night, furious sims not under your control are obvious not very nice. You can pay them off to stop for 50 simoleans, but it's best to let things blow over and repair things after the red clears up. Fury makes the game much more "interesting", in an evil, more realistic sorta' way, and balances out the game's original friendly environment. In the old days before Nightlife, the worst two freewill controlled sims could usually do on their own without pre-intervention was have the usual awkward conversation, piss off each other with annoying pranks, and the occasional poke and shove, but it never really escalated on freewill alone into a full on brawl. Now computer controlled sims will escalate their negative social interactions, even on community lots into full blown fights! I had two of my best sims become mortal enemies with -80 on both lifetime and daily just from one nasty set of exchanged social interactions on a community lot. Also, if you influence a sim to attack another sim, there is far more leverage and a much higher possibly that the two will start attacking each other out of their own freewill. There are several ways to incite Fury. First off and most guaranteed, is catching someone cheating on your sim, resulting in a slap happy sim seeing red. Another way is just attacking them and beating them into a bloody pulp. Losing in a fight seems to automatically ensure fury, but so does simply repeatedly insulting and attacking the other sim. Yet another way is when a burglar robs your house, it results in your sims being furious at him or her, yeah really. Another very reliable way is to use the "Throw Drink" command under irritate to easily and understandably toss the victim of the splashy surprise into a furious frenzy. There seem to be a lot of ways to feel the fury indeed. In regards to fury and all around general hatred, there is one personality trait in the game that has become much more prominent in its role, the Grouchy and Nice parameter. Even before nightlife, there was a difference in behavior; like grouchy sims would cheat when playing chess, more and Nice ones would take pleasure in joyful actions like hugging, but now there is even more of an effect. In Nightlife, the freewill takes the grouchy personally and has gotten around to making them pure evil. Seriously, I have one old man of a grouchy sim, and he insults and attacks almost any sim he doesn't have a friendly relationship with, I have to quickly exit the lot as soon as I see him poking another sim, because I just know he's going to try and attack them - again. Very nice sims on the other hand start their relationships quite well, you can leave them on their own on community lots controlled by freewill, and be pleasantly surprised at their new acquaintances when you get back to playing them. It seems that being nice now has definitely been stepped up in Nightlife to become a very important personality trait if you happen to like your neighbors, and I don't mean in a tiny drinkable cup of cow plant milk. That's not all there is to being a Nice or a Grouchy sim now either, Fury's power and duration is actually directly affected by how nice your sim is, at least on their side of the conflict. A perfectly nice sim has the ability to reduce the total time it takes for them to get a grip and subside from fury by almost four times as fast as a perfectly Grouchy sim. Being perfectly Nice also reduces more than half of the relational damage that being perfectly Grouchy takes when triggering a furious state, along with having a generally higher relationship score when the dust clears. Nice sims also get a little behavior bonus that you'll notice if you watch them carefully -- they don't fight back! If a grouchy sim comes up and slaps one up the side of the head for no good reason, they'd sooner run away with tears streaming out of their eyes than slap back. It's lacking a bit of dignity to it, but nice sims are experts at keeping bad emotional fallout to a minimum, which can be extremely helpful if you don't like to watch your sims wring each other's necks. Of course, if your nice sim still has high body score, they can still finish what another sim starts if they are full on attacked. Generally, if you have a good relationship that has taken a furious hit, then being Nice can only be an asset, on the other side of the coin being Grouchy actually has some benefits in the fury department as well, if only because it exploits the game mechanics. There is a unique case where a smart player can use fury to their advantage to actually increase relationship! It is best used if their sim is especially Grouchy, but it'll work with any sim to varying degrees. If a sim already has hit the bottom of the hate well and is in the deep -100 in daily and lifetime relationship, or pretty darn close to there, a sim can actually heal their relationship by initiating Fury. The Fury period actually recovers the relationship from its lowest point as it subsides by a very good amount, this is of course, partially due to the natural recovery of negative relations over time, but it's also because there's just nowhere else to go after -100 but up. Since Grouchy sims have a much longer recovery time, they'll actually heal more, since they don't take any additional relational damage over -100. This does take quite a long time though, so don't expect any immediate gratification. It's also not exactly a common thing to "accidentally" get two sims to hate each other to the point of maximum bloody red loathing. So how long does Fury last exactly? It depends on the severity of the action really and how nice the offended sim is. Doing something somewhat small like throwing your drink at another sim can make them pissed off at you for about 5 to 18 hours, but beating the tar out of them can leave them burning in their own rage for a day to half a week! So what's the longest time I've ever seen? When a burglar robbed the house of a perfectly Grouchy sim, that must have went on for what must have seemed to be weeks, probably enough time to go through almost all four years of University come to think of it. Needless to say, sims do not take kindly to having their houses plundered. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.08] Contacts: When Other People Want to Lick Your Sim's Boots Put simply, Contact status is the positive opposite of Fury, they happen most often when your sim has gone out for a good date or outing with a person with connections, and you might get a phone call from one of their buddies later. In my experience, contacts have always been, except for one case, people who your sim hasn't met yet. They'll just call you up when you're all good and not ready and ask for an outing, just like real life! With Contacts, instead of covering their portrait in a red haze, you get a blue haze and a nice boost to their relationship of something like 30 Daily Relationship and 10 Lifetime Relationship, enough to easily cut to the chase and make them your friend permanently. When a sim has contact status, you should try your best to befriend them before the time is up, since it's a very easy way to make a new friend. Well, that's it for contacts, so much fury, so little friendly, hahahah. Oh yeah, since there is really only one way to get contacts, they are pretty stable in length I'm theorizing, about 24 hours or so regardless of personality, of course, they are also generally much rarer to come by because you can't trigger them at will, unlike Fury. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.08] Interest Update: When Grill Cheese Is a Cold Issue Along with the original 18 interests that were around since the core game was released, there is a bit of a hidden one that doesn't work quite as conventionally, the grill cheesed sandwich interest. Seriously, I can't make this stuff up, well, actually I can, but that's beside the point. It might be that there is a grilled chees sandwich interest parameter in everybody, but unless they happen to have the Grill Cheese Sandwich aspiration, other sims with it the same aspiration stand a snowball's chance in hell of successfully communicating their cheesy good desire, and since the cheese sim has frequent wants and fears relating to it, it's rather important to them. Oh yes, this is not exclusive to the expansion pack, but I did more testing on interests in my epic crusade to try and max out my main sim Xyni and discovered the following. Apparently, there is indeed a limit to the total amount of points a single sim can have in interests, if it exceeds the limit, then other interests decrease to compensate. The magic number hovers around 101-110 total interest points. If an attempt either by reading magazines or sharing interests is made to exceed the 101 number, then it is extremely likely that the total number will rebound back to 101 by decreasing other areas. You can crawl past it just slightly, but 110 is about as far as you can stretch it to. On the other hand, a sim who has less interest points than 101 can safely increase their interest in any area they wish without fear of a rebound until they meet the set number. It should also be noted that sims start having serious trouble reading magazines for long periods of time when they are around the 90 point or so period and wouldn't be able to sit down and soak the information in as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.09] Influence Update: Being Even More Under the Influence There are a few new influence actions for those with the luxury to own both expansion packs! Bite Neck: 1000 The most useful of the new influence options, a sim can now influence a vampire sim to directly bite another sim, turning them into a vampire in the process! It should also be noted that if you influence a Count or Countessa to do so, their chances of success will be significantly higher, even on complete strangers, as opposed to if you influenced a regular vampire. Drink Vamprocillin-D: 1000 Basically the opposite to the Bite Neck influence command, Vamprocillin-D is a potion you can buy from the Matchmaker for 60 simoleans, and if you take it out and put it directly onto an open space on a square, you can influence vampires to drink it to be restored to normal. Take note though that there seems to be a bug in the game that prevents computer controlled sims from being influenced to drink Vamprocillin-D. Kind of stupid, since that's pretty much the entire point of the command. The option will be available, they will acknowledge the action, but the game will make them not actually jump into action. That doesn't mean that they can't be restored though if you gain control of them and have them drink it manually. Serve Grill Cheese Sandwiches: 2500 A notorious influence ability exclusive to cheese sims. Cheese sims can influence other sims to cook grill cheesed sandwiches regardless of their cooking skill level or time of day. Cheese sims also have a high paying want that corresponds with this. Sing Karaoke: 1000 You can influence a sim to make an idiot out of themselves on lots where there is a karaoke machine available. There seems to be a corresponding want to this, and in all fairness, it's rather fun watching people sing very badly like an American Idol reject. Sing With: 1000 I hate duets, I really hate duets. They annoy me. To have a sim sing with another sim at the same time, just use this influence option. Their relationship with the other sim should at least be tolerable for it to work. ============================================================================= [2] Aspirations Update All of your favorite aspiration types are back and more fleshed out than ever, but making their new appearance in this expansion pack are two new aspirations! Now, the highly anticipated Free Loader, errrr, I mean, Pleasure Seeker aspiration is available! So what's the second new aspiration? Well, if you didn't see it being mentioned several times already, read on down! ============================================================================= [2.01] Wealth Aspiration It's back with a fistful of cash and more worldly desires than before! Well, that's what I would like to say, but aside from a desire to try out some of the new toys and social interactions in the game, wealth aspiring sims haven't changed much, they are still reliable and solid choices for climbing the corporate later though, and I'm willing to bet in the next business oriented expansion pack, they are going to take a big ol' spotlight. On the plus side for wealth sims in this game, they gain an extremely big benefit from the inventory, so much that it feels like you are cheating. When you stash an object, say an expensive painting away in their inventory, their want to buy it again will be renewed for you to quench again. Additionally, object's values don't depreciate in the inventory, so you can easily exploit the wealth sim's want to buy things by stashing them immediately after buying them and then selling them a day and a bit later for no loss of aspiration or money! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.02] Knowledge Aspiration The most evil and twisted aspiration in the game has just gotten even more evil and extra twisty with the addition of vampires! Now, most sims don't want to be vampires, and if they are, they want to be bloody cured of the dang ailment, but not knowledge aspiring sims, they want to share the love in big watery mouthfuls with as many people as they might remotely like! Bleh! If you are thinking of making a vamp who wants to spread their lifestyle, pick the knowledge aspiration, you wouldn't regret it. There is so much fun to be had with vampires though that I definitely had to make a section in this FAQ dedicated to them, and will cover more of the importance of the knowledge aspiration in it as well. Oh yeah, if you read my last FAQ on The Sims 2: University, you'll know that the sims of knowledge aspiration have the unique ability remember very bad things, like seeing ghosts, being turned into a zombie or being abducted by aliens in a very good light. The knowledge aspiration actually starts to gain relevant wants and fears to particular phenomenon after first witnessing them, more so than any other aspiration type. Upon seeing or being through their first alien abduction, zombie resurrection, the grim reaper, or vampire turning, they will start to have wants related to them. Other sims go through a similar process, but they will most likely have fears about them instead of wants. For scoring purposes, it's good to focus your knowledge sim in one instead of all phenomenons, so they can combo their want satisfaction better, but having a sim who's seen and done everything is also satisfying. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.03] Family Aspiration: Not much has changed with the family aspiring sims with this expansion, still good, still sweet, and still firm believers of monogamy. Like it's popularity striving sister, family sims thrive on social interaction, and can take advantage of the new dating features, however, they can get away again and again with dating the person who matters the most - their spouse! How exciting is that! Yeah, you can tell I haven't been married yet can you tell? Actually, the Family Aspiration loses a bit out to the other aspiration types in this game, because now any aspiration can go into "Date Override" mode and gain intimate interactions with their partner, which was one of the things the family aspiring sim excelled at originally that made them so reliable. Oh yeah, I noted it in my previous FAQ, but although the family aspiration is one of the most reliable in the game, right next to the popularly aspiration, it has some of the most painful lifetime wants, like getting 6 children married, getting 6 grandchildren, getting 3 children through college. This especially screws up your game if you happen to be an OCD story teller like me and have no idea how to fit something like 6 grandchildren into your plot arc. Thanks to the ReNuYu Senso Orb, you can now switch your sim out into another aspiration to fulfill a much easier lifetime want, the lifetime wants of the wealth aspiration are particularly easy to achieve, then switch them back with their lifetime platinum aspiration still intact. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.04] Romance Aspiration: If it weren't for the Pleasure Seeker aspiration, I'd swear that Nightlife was made for romance aspiring sims in mind! Of all of the old aspirations, the romance aspiration has the most to gain from the expansion. Now thanks to the dating feature, they can get aspiration points and also get some good one on one time with their potential love interests to shoot their meters to platinum and through the roof! This isn't even taking into account that they can now also conveniently woohoo in cars and in photo booths for extra booya! The Photo Booth in particular actually allows them to do "Public Woohoo" in the comfort of their own home oddly enough. The chemistry system also gives players a lot more to think about to what their romance sim's personality, zodiac sign and turn ons and offs should be, so that they will have the sweetest honey to attract the flies. For best results, get a romance sim who is a Sagittarius or to a slightly weaker case, a Taurus which have the best attraction versus repelling ratios of any of the signs. After deciding their chemistry features, make them start hitting on anything that moves, except for the RC car thingie, that would be just weird, and buggy (Seriously, the RC car is bugged, don't use it!). Now the only thing you have to watch out for is getting caught cheating! Oh yeah, if you didn't read my other FAQ, then you should take note that romance sims are notorious for being self gratifying, disloyal, cheating bastards that would sooner jump on anything with two legs that move than conform to something as trivial as commitment, no offense to anyone who's like that in real life. Trying to have a lovingly committed romance sim is like trying to make a Chia Pet designed to be lit on fire. The problem that comes with Romance Sims is that dating becomes very difficult when any other lovers see your sim dating a new boyfriend or girlfriend. When former flames are stalking your every move, it practically becomes a game of Metal Gear Solid, and I'm not even talking about the radio waves that doing a woohoo apparently sends to any potential hearts on the lot to come into your general vicinity with extra slap happy virgin oil on their minds. Now then, when half of the neighborhood is deeply in love with your romance sim and you go downtown for a date, you can imagine the Hell that will ensue, it'll steamroll your dating score, back up, then run over it again - in slow motion. Remember folks, just because it happens in harem anime definitely doesn't mean that it'll work here (Might work in real life though), so there are two things you can do in order to keep your free loving sim from disasterizing every date they go on in a town where everybody loves them. First of all, you can kill all of your sim's old lovers *sips a cup of coffee*. You know, I just realized just how morally bankrupt that sounds, but really, it's not a bad idea. Just ask them to move in, take their money and inventory, and then just chuck them into a pool without a ladder or an incinerator room for that extra crispy flavor *takes a bigger sip of coffee*. Actually, that's not an incredibly bad idea either, your romance sim might not even have to work if he or she lives off of marrying the rich and mowing them down underground after emptying their pockets, I mean, they're all just expendable, worthless excuses for digital people after all *finishes the cup of coffee*. Anyhow, remember, sims don't kill sims, people kill sims. Actually, the above paragraph wasn't the best idea really; it's just the most amusing. The best idea is to invite your sim's lover to move in, and then move them to the family bin using the "Find Own Place" command on computers and newspapers, that way, your sim will still technically be in love with them, but they wouldn't be able to come and interfere with your sim's life. This is especially useful for you to be able to achieve the multiple loves at a time related wants. Keep in mind though that relationships deteriorate with the passing of time, so you might have to move them in temporarily to refresh the love then out again to the bin, this is not actually a bad idea either, because when you move them out, they'll gain the default 20,000 simoleans, and when you move them back in, you'll add that amount to your account as well. Of course, this is kinda' exploiting the game, but if you don't like exploiting the game, then you shouldn't be reading a FAQ in the first place, especially this FAQ, hahahaha. Oh yeah, watch out when you ask a young adult to move in, they'll automatically drop out of university in the process. Young adults and adults look almost identical, so the best to tell is by their voice sets. The second, and infinitely more morally correct solution than the ones proposed above is to simply have your romance sim date at home where the roving public eye wouldn't follow them, but that just makes too much sense, and where's the adventure? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.05] Popularity Aspiration: Ah, after practically writing an essay on the popularity sim in my last FAQ, I'm sad to say that there isn't much new to say about it. Popularity sims can take great advantage of both outings and dates, helping to satisfy their rapid wants to meet new people and make friends, helping with their longer termed goals. It's actually pretty fair to say that the concept of outings had popularity aspiring sims in mind, since they are basically like parties on the go, although pleasure seeking sims develop the relevant want to do so far more frequently where popularity aspiring sims tend to want parties instead. Popularity aspiring sims definitely have a lot to gain by dating. Unlike romance sims and more like family sims, they can stick to one loving sim and not get tired of them, unlike real life I might want to add as I dodge various implements of death being thrown at me. At peak performance, they still have the highest aspiration point output, especially if they go on frequent dates and outings now. Oh yeah, in case you are wondering, my "main gal" sim that I mentioned several times in my last FAQ as being a popularity aspiring sim is doing fine, she's almost graduated from university with highest honors at the time of writing this part of the FAQ. Her name is Xyni, named after my own original anime style character which you can find on my site mentioned at the bottom of this FAQ. She has blue hair, pink eyes, two legs, and loves her cow plant, and is very much in love with a snail (My stories are messed up, hahaa). Then again, the real Xyni has a man eating tail and collects caltrops, but until the The Sims 2 gets the "The Sims 2: Completely !@#$ed Up!" expansion pack, I'll have to improvise. Almost all of the positive experience I have in the game comes from playing her and her family. On the flip side, I also have Xyni's "Onee-chan" Rally Vippy. Rally has pink hair, blue eyes, and is basically the exact opposite personality of Xyni, which is to say that she's Satan. As you might have guessed, a lot of the "evil" things mentioned on this FAQ are experienced by playing as her. I will mention the two sims in a way similar to "Good Idea", "Bad Idea" later in this FAQ, because I think it's !@#$ing hilarious. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.06] Grow Up Aspiration Since Nightlife has so little to do with the children and the younger aspects of The Sims 2, there is very little to mention here. I just thought I'd list it here for the sake of completeness. The grow up aspiration is extremely dependant on what stage of childhood your sim is in. As a toddler, they'll want to learn the basics of life, like walking, potty training, and that kind of fun stuff. As a child, they'll be more independent and want to do things like play with other sims and make friends and learn how to study. Except for family night outings, kids don't have very much to do with the Nightlife Expansion, but it doesn't stop them from going to nightclubs if mommy or daddy comes along. Sim parents can't leave their children at home without a nanny, so bringing them along to a nightclub, a bar, or a poker joint isn't actually a completely horrible idea, unlike in real life where they could be exposed to the lowest levels of human corruption. Oh yeah, on the bright side, similar to how having children at home makes other children automatically appear as passing by neighbors, bringing a child to a community lot makes other children to interact with appear, and that means that your child will finally have a victim to bully and attack. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.07] Pleasure Seeker Aspiration Freeloaders rejoice! The new pleasure seeker aspiration has been introduced into Nightlife, and what a pleasure it is! Honestly, I'd like to compare it to some of the other aspirations, but there's just nothing particularly close enough. Sure, it has the worldly desire to buy lots of stuff like the Wealth aspiring sim, it has the drive to go on dates like the romance sim, and perhaps it has a dab of the original grow up aspiration's playful nature, but for the pleasure seeker, it's really all about having good times using fun objects, going on great dates, not lifting a finger to work and juggling balls! Yup, you can't forget to juggle balls if you have a sim with 8 points and up or there is a juggling opportunity for an object on the lot, because your sim will remind you that they want to juggle every chance you get! In terms of lifetime wants, I have seen pleasure seekers have the following: 1. Become a Professional Party Guest 2. Have 50 First Dates 3. Have 50 Dream Dates The Professional Party Guest job is the top of the slacker career, so it's a pretty normal lifetime want shared by the romance sim, but the other lifetime wants are rather unique. Believe it or not, the 50 First Dates want is actually a bit more difficult than the 50 Dream Dates one, because you have to date a different person each time. Well, it's actually very easy if you don't mind them ending regularly in disaster, just go to the Matchmaker, pay minimum wage for a date, then end the date immediate, it's almost as fun as using a broken slot machine, but you might have to change up the prices later on when you get the same idiot falling from the sky a few times. You should be able to at least squeeze by with at least a "Good" and above rating with a total stranger if you are actually trying and something doesn't go horribly, horribly wrong, but it all depends on how you want to play the game. With the "Have 50 Dream Dates" lifetime want, all you have to do is go on a date with the same person over and over and over again. Your sim can even be married to them, and the dates will go by very fast in getting to Dream Date, since they can cut straight to the heavy duty romantic actions. I like to call this technique "Machinegun Dating" and will cover it thoroughly later in the FAQ in the dating section. The pleasure seeker sim is probably the most difficult sim out of the aspiration types to start off alone due to their tendency to quickly saturate their wants list with wanting to buy objects that you might not have the money to part with, and no other way to clear off their list. Of course, you can use the inventory trick mentioned in this FAQ's inventory section to help lighten the burden, but seriously, it can become rather annoying, since unlike the wealth sim that has the desire to actually make the bread to buy the butter, the pleasure seeker is basically a good for nothing freeloader, I mean that in the nicest way possible. When making a Pleasure Seeker sim, you might want to highly consider giving them 8 points of playfulness, because unlike all the other sims who find the art of juggling completely useless, the Pleasure Seeker sim can get a small regular boost just from whipping out their balls, errrr, I mean juggling. Still, you don't absolutely need the actual innate ability to juggle to satisfy the want, since sims can juggle tumblers and bottles as well to satisfy the want, but it's a much more portable way to satisfy a want than going to an object. The higher their playfulness level is also generally means the weirder and more out there the pleasure seeker's wants will be. This should at least keep them a float till they fill their houses with materialistic goodness. Of course, needless to say, the downtown feature of the game was practically designed with the pleasure seeker in mind, as they'll frequently get wants to just go there, and once they are there, they will find plenty of things for them to do to help rejuvenate their aspiration meter. A good strategy for pleasure seeking sims is to pair them up with adult wealth aspiring sims. Pleasure seeking and wealth aspiring sims can help fulfill each others needs. They both also frequently get buying object wants, so you can get lucky and nail two birds with one stone by buying objects that both sims want. Of course, needless to say, the pleasure seeker sim can freeload off of the wealth sim's bling whales. An alternative, but very effective strategy, similar to the romance sim, for pleasure seeking sims is to have them specialize in dating wealthy sims, like Mr. Big and the Diva. A pleasure seeking sim that specializes in dating for profit would invite lovers to move in or marry, then kill or ship them off after looting their money and inventory. It wouldn't take a well played pleasure seeking sim very long to land a lover ready to move in after a good date or two, which they'll most likely have wants to do anyway, and if you manage to land Mr. Big or the Diva, you'll be set for quite a while to come, so it'll be done, done, onto the next one. Aside from all of the above, pleasure seeking sims sure have some fun small time wants only exceeded in weirdness by the cheese aspiring sim. Pleasure seeker sims love to play pranks on people, fair enough, they also are particularly fond of using influence commands, however, that doesn't even begin to cover their hilarious want to roast marshmallows over a fire jet that could potentially fry their eyebrows off or to stay home from work. That's right, pleasure seeking sims can actually get a puny counterproductive want to stay home from work, something we all can relate to. They also will want to do things like jump on the coach and take bubbles baths, and the want to go on outings or dates is pretty standard with them as well. One other cute want that certain personality pleasure seekers have is the desire to change into their PJs when they are at home, I can kinda' relate, hahahah. Finally, pleasure seekers also develop the want to buy children's toys, guess there is a kid in every sim after all, except for romance sims, they're evil. Oh yeah, Pleasure Seekers have one of the most hilarious desperation aspiration animations of the bunch! They put a lamp shade over their head and start dancing like the delusional disco inferno stud that they are, oh yeah, they also make weird noises while they are at it, can't forget the weird noises. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.08] Grilled Cheese Aspiration What's grilled, has cheese in it, and is sandwiched? A beached whale of course! Errrr, I mean a grilled cheese sandwich, and now your sims that have enough emotional problems in their lives to deal with as it is can be further traumatized with dreams and ambitions of a better grilled cheese sandwich for tomorrow! So how do you get this magnificently cheesy aspiration? Stick your sim's head into the ReNuYu Senso Orb with green, and most definitely red aspiration level and watch as they get the dreams of the ideal grilled cheese sandwich implanted into their minds! In case you aren't familiar with aspiration rewards slightly defective quirks, they tend to backfire when your sims are lower than gold mode, the ReNuYu Senso Orb in this case is just acting out it's defective paces. So what is the grilled cheese sandwich aspiration good for? Absolutely nothing! Hahaha, if only that were really true, cheese sims ironically gain the most new abilities from their new found aspiration, more so than any other aspiration type. Some of these special abilities include the talent to make grilled cheese sandwiches at anytime of the day and to talk about grill cheese sandwiches to other sims for a surprisingly big pay off if they can actually relate, in which case is dismally not often unless they are also cheese sims, since it seems other sims find the grill cheese fetish apparently rather bizarre. Sure, they're pretty useless abilities, but then again, what the hell good is the sexy walk for anyway? Another ability of cheese sims is that they can influence others to serve specifically grilled cheese sandwiches, this actually isn't all that bad of an extra skill, since grill cheese sandwiches are at least a lot better than the instant meals the lazy talent lacking townies tend to serve, although if they burn down your kitchen in the process, your grilled cheese sandwich and local friendly townie might be a little overdone, although it's good to know that the sandwich is still somewhat eatable -- not so much with your neighbor. Normally, you need two points of cooking skill to make a grill cheese sandwich and it can only be done during lunch time, but cheese sims can completely bypass that, as well as bypass the limit of others when influencing them. Cheese sims are actually pretty reliable in their wants, you wouldn't get want palette lock too easily with them, since their grill cheese related wants are simple to satisfy and small in variety. They're weakness however seems to be that they don't have any gigantic payoff wants unique to them, so you'll have to chip away at their wants in small doses. The simple wants that they do have however, pay surprisingly well for such simple tasks. All you have to do is keep them at home cranking out sandwiches all day long, but hopefully you'll have another bread bringer in the family to keep the fridge nice and full. So what about wants? Well, compared to other aspiration types, the grilled cheese sandwich is quite limited. They will have wants of eating a grill cheese sandwich, serving grill cheesed sandwiches, influencing other sims to serve grill cheesed sandwiches, and the occasional object or relation oriented want that the other aspirations get as well. On the flip side, they fear eating bad grill cheese sandwiches, burning grill cheesed sandwiches, losing cooking skill points, and of course, our good old friend since the dawn of time, fire. So with all of this fun, what would the cheese aspiring sim's ultimate lifetime want be, well there's only one, and it involves wolfing down 200 grill cheese sandwiches! They are definitely going to put on a little weight for that one! So how are you going to count how many sandwiches your sim has eaten? Well, each time a cheese aspiring sim eats a grill cheesed sandwich, they get a vivid memory of it, beats me why anyone would make such a big deal about such a small thing, then I remember the succulently smooth, warm and gooey texture of a grill cheese sandwich, and I can kinda' relate. For the normal "Eat Grill Cheese Sandwich" want, you can take one bite out of it to fulfill the want, but in the case of getting a marker for their life time want; they have to eat the entire sandwich for it to count. Since naturally doing this will require your sim to eat it all in one sitting or else it might rot, they will most likely overflow past their hunger bar and put on weight. Basically, trying to have a fit grilled cheese sandwich sim is like sticking your hand into a flaming toaster and expecting it to come out okay. In actuality, the best strategy with cheese sims is to have them work in twos. Giving your cheese loving sim a partner to share their passion with, serve and be served meals to is a great strategy, and kinda' cute in a sick, nonsensical kind of way. In particular, they'll be able to satisfy their want to talk about grill cheese sandwiches more, since sims of other aspirations tend to have an inherent indifference or sheer hatred of them, regardless if they have a high food interest score or not. Two grilled cheese sims together also have the highest aspiration type compatibility possible, so that's definitely something to look forward to. Cheese sims have a rather hilarious aspiration desperation for when their meter is in the deep red. They'll take out a cardboard plank with a grill cheesed sandwich picture on it and fantasize over it. Grilled cheese sandwich, I solute your greatness *Bites out of a hamburger*! ============================================================================= [3] Sim Inventory Finally! Long time fans of the original The Sims with its fully decked out roster of expansion packs will be more than happy to discover that Maxis has revived the inventory feature in Nightlife! Except this time, they loaded it up with steroids, spun it around three times, and sent it out to the players wielding an aluminum baseball bat! Ever wonder how the burglar manages to steal things bigger than any single human could ever hope to carry, like say, your new car? Well, we'll probably never know exactly how, but now your sim can do it too, and isn't that all the better!? ============================================================================= [3.01] Inventory Mechanics: Your Sim's Own Personal Black Hole The new inventory system doesn't just hold usable items like the cellphone and consumable objects like cologne, it holds practically everything that you can buy in the game, any aspiration or career reward, paintings and pictures, and even a bag of flaming poo that pissed off daters leave on your front door! For the love of all things holy, you can pocket other people's tombstones! The basic rule is that if you can select and delete it, and it isn't a window or a door, then you can stuff it down your sim's pants (Seriously, where exactly do they put their belongings?). All you got to do is enter the inventory screen and drag and drop the item into your inventory bin, and your sim's semi-infinite black hole of a pocket will grip onto it where ever they go! The classic "Bag of Holding" has got nothing on this bad boy of a black hole inventory system! There is a time though when you can't use the inventory though, and that's basically the same time as whenever buy and build mode are not available, such as a disaster, a burglary, or on a community lot. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.02] Usable Devices: Because the World Needs More Distractions All three of the usable objects in the game that can be carried with your sim and used infinitely originated with the University Expansion pack. For the long, winding, and admittedly far wordier than it should be version, please check out my The Sims 2 University FAQ, specifically the master copy on www.gamefaqs.com. ----------------------- NOYIN 2680 Cellular Phone Price: 149 Simoleans Buy From: Sellafone Gadget Kiosk The cornerstone of all on the go sim communication, your sim can take their cellphone out of their inventory now! It seems from my experience, that you can add cellphones sometimes by drag and drop, but other times you can't, so your sim has to pick it up and use it manually to add it back again. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Maxis finally fixed the cellphone waking up people in the middle of their slumber problem. It seems now that when your sim sleeps, their cellphone automatically stops ringing, yeah, I can't believe it either. With the new downtown in place, a sim with many, many friends can expect to be invited to go downtown quite often, feel free to say no, as it can actually be rather disruptive to your sims' lives if they say yes to every invitation. The cellphone is probably the number one most important item to have in your sims inventory, and now that it doesn't seem to wake them up, it's all the better. After using a cellphone for a while, you'll start to feel naked without one. ----------------------- Cozmo MP3 Player Price: 195 Simoleans Buy From: Sellafone Gadget Kiosk Allowing your sim to whip out the music everywhere they go, so long as they don't mind standing around in the middle of the street dancing like an idiot. It's a handy device to use boost up your sims fun motive. ----------------------- LeTournament Decahedron XS Price: 245 Simoleans Buy From: Sellafone Gadget Kiosk Ah! The ever addictive marvel of portable entertainment is still available to enjoy for sims of most ages! As of the recent patch, sims now wouldn't have to worry about getting a crush with themselves or another sim from the wonders of gaming technology and metaphysical string theory application! Oh yeah, if you didn't know, the word "LeTournament" is a play off of Maxis' senior producer "Tim LeTourneau". In somewhat related news, if you were wondering why the names of the objects in the game are so ridiculously long and hard to remember, it's because Maxis hires tiny little elves slaving over a typewriter to cram as many in-jokes as literally possible into each and every little write up, very similar to how the Caramilk bar is made, except those are made with evil machines. I like Caramilk bars. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.03] Consumable Potions: Liquid Solutions to Your Every Problem! ReNuYu Port o'Chug Price: N/A Buy From: N/A All sims that were created before the Nightlife expansion pack will get a complimentary ReNuYu Port o' Chug magically deposited into their inventory, free of charge! The blue potion is good for a one time change of turn ons and turn offs. In the case that you want to get more ReNuYu Port o' Chugs though, don't fret, pretty much all default townies come with one in their inventory upon moving into your household and becoming controllable, so you can just take theirs and deposit it into your inventory before introducing them to your torture room full of fire jets. ----------------------- Compulsion by Melvin Stein Cologne: Price: 125 Simoleans Buy From: Compulsion Fragrance Display Cologne is a handy little fragrance your sim can sprit onto themselves to help increase their chemistry with sims who are turned on by it. You can use it at anytime by clicking on your sim and selecting the appropriate command. Cologne can last up to about four hours and a half consistently, however it actually seems that going into Ultra Speed mode ends its full duration prematurely, and not just special effects. You'll know it's working when the flower petals flutter about your sim. With the exception of the ReNuYu Port o' Chug, potions can also be bought in bulk in intervals of 1, 3, 5 and 10. ----------------------- Love Potion #8.5 Price: 350 Simoleans Buy From: Matchmaker When your sim absolutely, positive has to make a relationship work, regardless of trivial crap like the other person's feelings, then try some Love Potion 8.5, because apparently the sim FDA deemed version 9 unsafe for human consumption, works fine on cats though. You can buy a bottle of Love Potion #8.5 from the Matchmaker for 350 simoleans each, and it's definitely worth using in a pinch, especially in combination with the Cool Shades aspiration item for an enhanced effect during a date. What Love Potion #8.5 does exactly is temporary boost chemistry between your sim and any other potential romantic for a period of game time. Strangely enough, if you set the game on Ultra Speed, the game makes the potion's effects wear off prematurely, whereas if you play at normal or fast speed, it seems to last reliably for four hours of game time, so make sure you work fast within that time to dig your way into the relationship. You'll know that the potion is taking effect when you see the flowers sprout from wherever your sim stands and hearts are radiating from them, as opposed to seeing birds suddenly appear whenever they are near. Drinking a vile of Love Potion #8.5 usually adds about one or two bolts to your chemistry score by multiplying the effect of your sim's existing chemistry variables, however, if you happen to be controlling two sims that you want to hook up, having both of them drink Love Potion #8.5 together has a multiplying effect that basically results in an instant triple lightning bolt chemistry. This is unless in the extremely rare case that every single one of the five chemistry factors violently clashes, including relationship, after all, a billion multiplied by zero is still zero. Even if you have just one of the five factors that do work though and the rest clash completely, you should expect at least a positive chemistry to work with, especially if the relationship is descent, meaning that the lovebirds aren't ripping each other's hair out. Having a couple with perfectly broken chemistry is as hard to create or come across a couple with perfectly compatible chemistry, so it shouldn't be an every day event that downing two Love Potion #8.5s each wouldn't do the trick. ----------------------- Vamprocillin-D Price: 60 Simoleans Buy From: Matchmaker There's only one cure for the power of darkness that is vampirism, and it doesn't involve chopping off a vampire's head, filling it with garlic and whopping it with a silver golf club, and that cure is Vamprocillin-D! Along with being able to cure your sim by clicking on them and selecting it, a sim can influence another vampire to drink it for 1000 influence points and return them to normal, however, this does not seem to actually work on computer controlled NPCs at the time of writing this, as although they will appear to comply, they simply wouldn't spring into the actual action. Vamprocillin-D is also surprisingly cheap, costing only a measly 60 simoleans from your local friendly Matchmaker! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.04] The Inventory Advantage: Exploiting The Game One Step At A Time Now thanks to the inventory system, otherwise heartbreaking scenarios can easily be remedied! Here are a few cases in which you might find the inventory extremely useful! ----------------------- Scenario 1: Moving Are your sims moving, but you want to take all their goodies, including sentimental pictures and paintings, and hard earned career and aspiration rewards instead of selling them with the house for dismal returns? Well now you can! Just pile on anything that isn't nailed down with the house in a sim's inventory, then get a moving on up! ----------------------- Scenario 2: Going to University Is your teen sim going to university to live a life of poverty but her family is obscenely rich and it makes absolutely no sense why they can't give her some serious bling whales on her adventure to higher education? No problem, just load her up with expensive goodies like a little pony in the spring time, send her to university, have her sell some expensive objects, preferably expensive art for money to buy and move to a bigger lot, then build a ginourmas mansion bigger than any other building on campus and fill it with material zeal! You can even lend them some career and aspiration rewards to share with their friends or bring to the secret society for future generations! That's right folks; the mind numbing trauma that I underlined so many times in my previous FAQ of sims going to university is now officially remedied! ----------------------- Scenario 3: Lending a Helping Hand Now if you have an established and powerful sim in your neighborhood with more money than they know what to do with (Without crashing your computer) they can lend the new sims in town that you create a helping hand by -- you guessed it, moving them in and loading them up like a pony, then sending them out to their own lot to lay down their new toys! Thanks to the inventory, sims helping sims is now even easier, and the boost is extremely helpful for a fast startup! ----------------------- Scenario 4: Ransacking! Thanks to the inventory system, now your sims too can be thieving, lying bastards, well, maybe except for the lying part, sims seem inherently incapable of lying, with that whole speaking in a nonsensical language and everything. Anyway, similar to the ransacking trick with the normal University expansion pack, your sims now can go from dorm to dorm in university and steal everything that isn't nailed down and if that wasn't enough, they can also plunder the entire Secret Society along with their career rewards. So if you have a sim who wants a Cow Plant or a Resurrect o' Nomitron, but doesn't want to do something like actually work for it, then you can have them "borrow" it from the Secret Society, minus the return. ----------------------- Scenario 5: Space Saving Is your game running like a jumbo, mutant, drunk snail like in my student film because there is too much on the screen at once? Is your house so full of useless clutter than you have nowhere to put anything else and your sims are constantly complaining that there is something in the way? Thanks again to your friend and mine, the inventory system, you can now spare some of the pains of kleptomania without having to sell your horribly depreciated belonging! So much can the inventory system hold exactly? It can hold enough to store away every single item in the buy catalog, and probably much, much more. You can practically have a sim who's acts as a walking and talking shopping mall this way. ----------------------- Scenario 6: Portable Trash Disposal Do you have a flaming bag of poo burning a hole in your front lawn, annoying books lying around everywhere, and newspapers rotting from all parts of the lot? Now you can just fork them over into a sim's inventory and improve the environment score, oddly enough. It truly does seem that the inventory system is a bottomless black hole, and although the item is literally on your sim, their interpretation of the environment will be improved - and that's a good thing! Yeah, it makes no sense to me either, but oh well, since when have I let a little something like basic reasoning skills get in the way of exploiting computer games? Of course, you might want to eventually ditch the trash someday, unless your idea of a legacy is giving your children your collection of poo bags. You can't put everything in, like dirty dishes or garbage, but you can improve the environment score by sacking anything that's biting away, including dirty items like toilets, showers, stoves and counters. Of course, if you happen to be related to Satan, you can always just load an expendable sim with crap, then send him on a death march into a swimming pool without a ladder, there you go, garbage problem solved. ----------------------- Scenario 7: Grave Keeper Yeah, it sounds pretty weird in concept, and it is, I mean, do you know anyone who carries around a grave stone with them everywhere they go and plops them around anywhere, aside from my uncle? Well, now your sims can, so if you really want to make a sick sim who collects trophies from his kills, you sure can do that now, not that I've giving any impressionable youths any ideas - on purpose anyway. A more practical description of this game device will be discussed in the Cemetery section. As a rather funny note, you can pocket a sim's tombstone, then revive them and still have the tombstone in your inventory. Unfortunately, the tombstone will disappear immediately if you place it on the lot while the sim is still alive, but it makes a nice souvenir for the psychopath in you. ----------------------- Scenario 8: Time Capsule Want to know something else amazing about the inventory other than the fact that it's a virtual black hole? Apparently, time doesn't escape it either! Objects you just bought will not depreciate or age, making it the perfect place to stash items you bought solely for filling your sim's buying aspiration then selling them later! Okay, maybe I didn't emphasize that last sentence enough for you to notice. You know those annoying "Want to Buy" wants that your sims, specifically Wealth and Pleasure Seeker sims have all the time? Now you can easily satisfy them without ultimately losing a dime! Just buy the item, stash it in your sim's inventory for a day and a bit, take it out when they've already forgotten about it and then sell it, and they wouldn't get the negative aspiration score that they normally would if you sold it within the twenty-four hours, nor will the object have depreciated! It's so convenient; you'll practically feel like you are cheating! There's more fun to be had as well! Newspapers don't age either, and you can collect and achieve them daily to have a bigger library of jobs to select from when you finally do decide to get one, as they will still be fresh and readable with different opportunities each. Flowers and shrubs will also not age, so you don't have to water or trim them if your sim is rushed for time, but then again, they are so inexpensive, you wouldn't really have to worry about replacing them anyway. The timeless aspect of the inventory will also give you more control over many other items that depend on time, such as the Hydroponics Garden, Cow Plant, and Money Tree. ----------------------- Scenario 9: Dodging the Repo Man Are you too poor to pay the big old bad bills but don't want that funny reefer, errr, I mean repo man to repossess your hard earned belongings? If you have time to kill on your hands and just want to piss off the sim government, all you have to do is stash all of the objects in your house that you bought in Buy Mode into your sim's inventory, and then when the Repo Man comes to reclaim your goods, they'll be nothing left and he'll leave without even entering your house, parting with just some rather painful words about how poor your sim is and how they should get a job, but little does he know that your sim is really a millionaire gifted with extreme bill evading skills! ----------------------- Scenario 10: Bringing Home the Bacon With the ability to now store and drop stuff in your inventory, you can send a single sim out to a community lot to buy electronic accessories like multiple cell phones and mp3 players, and then take them home to share with the entire household, saving everyone the painful trip of coming along. This of course, can also be done with potions like Cologne and Vamprocillin-D, making it handy for saving time and effort. ----------------------- Scenario 11: Barter and Trade Have you ever wanted to barter and trade with other sims in your neighborhood but always though it to be impossible due to limited game mechanics? Now you can, thanks to the inventory system! This technique is a bit of a work around and not quite as clean cut a system as I would like to advertise, but it does work! All you need to do is create a sim who specializes in moving from lot to lot where your other sims dwell, and picking up and delivering objects by storing them in his or her inventory and unloading them upon reaching the location of your desired recipients! Did that one sim of yours want to borrow the killer cow plant for the weekend to much on some neighborly cuisine? Not a problem when you have the delivery sims! Think of them as pack mules -- but more expendable! With them in action, your sim community will run more efficiently, and be able to support itself better! Remember, the key to this trick is to have the delivery sim use a computer or newspaper and chose to "Find Own Place", this way, the original family living on the lot will still be there, and only the delivery sim will be sent out. The only real side effect to this bartering and trade system that I originally suspected is that there would be tons of memory fallout from joining and moving out all the time, but as my tests suggest so far, with the exception of the delivery sim receiving a memory of having moved out each time, the other sims he deals with on each different lot practically don't even initially notice him or her in their memories, aside from the default relationship boost, which comes in handy too for counting friends! If that wasn't good enough, for each bounce from lot to lot that a delivery sim does, the recipient lot gets the delivery sim's default and apparently self renewing 20,000 simoleans! It's almost borderline cheating! This method might work a bit different on university campuses though, since the college town game mechanics are different and Greek Houses can't be joined unless the sim has a strict membership with it. I personally recommend having two delivery people for each neighborhood, a male and a female. For the most part, they are completely expendable unless you want otherwise, but the reason why they both are of different genders is that they can also transfer any unique clothing into the wardrobes of the sims' lots that they move into. This way, you can spread rare clothing like the Diva's dress from household to household without having to ask the Diva herself to move in to obtain it! Scenario 12: Screwing the Bookshelf Store If your poor sim family and their cardboard box of a home are having serious penny pinching financial problems, you can opt to save a nice wad of cash by stuffing the books straight off the shelf into your sim's inventory and promptly returning the shelf while the books are kept nice and tight down your sim's pants. Really, you don't actually need the bookshelf, just the books, you can even share them with the rest of the family! ============================================================================= [4] In Cars Well, its official, Hell has finally frozen over, the one thing that sim fans have been nagging up mother Maxis' skirt has finally come true! Next thing you know, the sims will be able to run their own businesses, yeah like that'll ever happen, ahahaha. Anyway, if you somehow missed hearing about all the fans screaming for the The Sims 2 to have drivable cars, then you're probably reading this with a giant WTF thought bubble over your head, but yup, your sims can now officially OWN their own car, and build a garage around it too! No more of those stupid carpools, albeit some of them like the helicopter, limo and flying to work superhero style were pretty awesome. ============================================================================= [4.01] About Cars: No You Can't Run People Over So, what can you do now that Maxis has compromised the eco-friendly carpool system with gas guzzling materialistic bliss? Plenty! First of all, let's talk about how to get a car. In order to place a car on your lot, you first need a driveway, then you can select from 5 different cars with many different paint jobs from the new car section of the shopping catalog, I especially like the retina burning pink cars! The game does an excellent job of describing each car, so I'll skip on the details for now (Damn, I wish I could get a job writing dialogue for Maxis games!) but if you want a good idea, the cheapest car is the same wreck that comes to pick you up for carpool at bottom level jobs that still has problems with the door closing. On the flip side, the most expensive one is the most excellent sports car that comes to pick your sim up at top career jobs as athletics and culinary, and did I already mention that you can now buy it in iris engraving pink?! Oh yeah, although all the cars are the same in function, the better cars offer more fun and comfort, and the best cars can apparently actually recover energy when you are in them and driving off, helping to compensate for the drain that it takes of going between lots! Oh, if you were one of the lucky and smart consumers who bought the game on pre-order you would have gotten a "Rave Card" with a special number to download one more extra special car. Don't have a Rave Card? No problem, some of the lots up on the sims official site at www.thesims2.com have one included, just download the lot, and you should get the car into your catalog as well, assuming that Maxis doesn't crack down on people after finding out that people are doing this, and they probably already know about it as it is. Cars are a convenient and fast way to go to community lots! No longer do you have to phone a cab and wonder what is taking them so long, just run to your car and drive away into the sunset - oh, wait, The Sims 2 doesn't have sunsets yet, screw that! With cars, there is now an option to make a sim its owner; this will allow them specifically to take their cars to work instead of have the carpool come. Sims can also now actually be late for work, funny how that wasn't possible before. Your job performance will suffer from it and it definitely isn't a good way to avoid getting fired, however, I heard that you can get away with sending your kids very late to school and not lose out, and it seems to be true from my experience. Oh yeah, sim parents can take their kiddies to school and return very quickly. Their kids will return on a school bus, and for all good purposes, this is a good way to give your sim family's children more time before turning to the "Establishment" for education. So who can own a car? As soon as a sim becomes a teenager, they can own a car, no need to take a driving test and fork over more hard earned cash to the corrupt sim government! I wish I was that lucky back then, then again, I would have decimated my car, I'm a ridiculously bad driver. Hurray for public transit! It seems that young adults in university do not need a car to go to classes or the final exam, but it does sure help with taking them to community lots both on and off campus. As a side note, community lots cannot have driveways or ready made cars on them. It also seems that Secret Societies cannot have driveways or cars placed on them either, although they are available on the menu, the game simply doesn't allow them to be placed, even if you do something dramatic like lop off half of the building, since there is very little room to put a driveway even if you could. Sims can also just sit in their cars now, crank up the stereo, turn the headlights on and off and even invite other sims to come into their cars for serious passion making, including Make Out and woohoo options. As a matter of fact, the "Woohoo in Car" want is rather a frequent want that accompanies the regular woohoo want, and that means big aspiration points! Well, they call it woohoo, but if you actually look inside the car, the two sims actually disappear to another dimension far, far, far away. I wonder what happens if the kids are in the car though as well as mommy and daddy, that could be a bit awkward. Well, I actually know the answer; it just cancels all of the intimate actions, same with pretty much having anyone else in car besides the two love birds. Sims can also just go for a joy ride with the "Take a Spin" command to drive the car out of the lot without loading up a community screen or anything. This will help restore their fun score in particular, and is a good way to get them off the lot if another sim on your lot has blatant adultery on their minds. Just like alcohol, cars are extremely useful for dates and outings. On outings particularly, everybody in your group climbs into your car. How eight people can fit in a two seater is beyond me, but they apparently can, and when you get in your car ready and have already commanded your sim to drive off to another lot, their motives will fixate while waiting for their friends or date. Additionally, if you are on a date or an outing, the rating bar will temporarily be omitted so that you don't waste anymore time. I seriously have to thank Maxis for doing this, because there's nothing like being at the mercy of an idiotic sim eating a full course meal before getting into your car before driving off, and it does happen, trust me. On dates in particular, the car is the perfect Make Out and Woohoo nest, so it's definitely worth considering buying at least a crappy car, now if only they brought in motorcycles, Maxis sure has it hard with the fans. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [4.02] Building a Garage: Having A Real Place to Stash the Murder Weapon Unlike real life where garages actually have a purpose, like keeping your car from becoming the pissing grounds for a bunch of disease infested squirrels, preventing shifty looking neighbors from borrowing your car, minus the return, or hiding a murder weapon (Pssst, you should know that's the first place they'll look), the garages in The Sims 2: Nightlife are pretty much entirely for cosmetic purposes. To build a garage, add an extended driveway to your already existing one and then add a garage door between the two parts. Next, surround it with walls to form a room and there you go, you now officially have a garage! Of course, you can style your garages anyway you want, like in the case you want to make your garage an underground racing hangout for the slow and sedated! Oh yeah, the garage door can be entered by sims on foot as well as by car, so you don't have to worry about building another exterior door to the garage if you don't want to. If you want your sim to drive their car into the garage, you must manually place the car within the driveway inside the garage, the next time your sim drives out, they'll drive back into the garage. Basically, the car remembers where it is parked, and it'll always be parked there while at home. Garages however are extremely useful in one case, sending your family vampire out to work during the daytime. Vampires literally burn in daylight, and if they aren't in platinum mode, this can bring ruination onto their overall mood, decreasing their chance for a promotion and lowering job performance. Although Vampire's needs decrease fast regardless during the daytime, if they are indoors, it helps a great deal in stopping their motives from draining, so placing their coffin right next to the garage indoors in a great way to help them go to work when absolutely positively have to. Vampires are usually actually pretty comfy while at work or school, since they apparently have vampire working accommodations for the livingly impaired, so their motives don't drain as fast as you might expect, it's usually the twelve feet getting out of their drive way that actually roasts them. Oh, in case you were wondering, you can indeed build like a thirty car garage with eight garage doors and fill it with automated mobile bliss! You can even literally bulldoze paradise and put up a parking lot! Too bad you can't do it on community lots where parking lots really belong, but oh well, close enough. You can even drive your cars out in the back of the extended pavement, even if they have a line up of cars in front of them, and they'll just kinda' pop onto the street in front of your house and drive off and pop back when they return. So feel free to give your sim a car collection the size of Bruce Wayne's if they have enough scratch and space. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [4.03] Car Alarms: Instant Dance Party! Yes, finally the alternative minimalist techno that plays every night out of cars to wake everybody up in busy cities finally finds its way to The Sims 2 neighborhood! Life now officially sucks! For the price of 250 simoleans, your sim can take their car out to be fitted with an alarm. Your sim will be gone for sixty minutes doing this. The alarm is activated by a remote key each time you enter and exit the car, and can be disarmed if necessary. So what exactly does the car alarm do you might ask? Much like a regular alarm, if a burglar comes onto your lot, there's a good chance that the car will the first thing they go for. However, unlike our puny overly insensitive car alarms in real life, the car alarm in The Sims 2 can sense a burglar coming to steal it quite a distance away, and will stop the burglar from stealing it, even if he walks right up to it. You might actually be wondering about how a burglar can steal a bloody entire car, well, apparently, he has the same inventory system that your sims are now equipped with, so rather than just drive it away, he'll actually just suck it into a bag like he normally does with everything else. ***************************************************************************** Chapter 2: Going Downtown ***************************************************************************** [5] Why Go Downtown Right smack dab at the heart of The Sims 2: Nightlife is the new downtown area, armed with more restaurants, nightclubs, bowling alleys and washrooms than you can securely shake a stick at! Along with the game comes a custom made Downtown with many nice hotspots, although if you aren't a very big fan of the word "Default" then you'll be glad to know that you can virtually build as many downtown areas as you want! Unlike the university campus, Downtown is actually very similar to the regular neighborhood now that Nightlife has armed the player with all sorts of fun building tools, the only real difference is the roster of NPCs and Townies that visit the downtown neighborhood, the fact that you can create multiple downtowns, and sims will specifically invite your sims to go downtown over the phone. Downtown community lots also seem to be perpetually full, even at nighttime, and it seems even NPCs and service sims from all walks of life stroll on by the sidewalk, which might give you a good chance to meet people you normally wouldn't. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.01] Why Community Lots Don't Suck Anymore: Because They Sure Did Before Let's face it, not too many people were fans of the community lots when The Sims 2 first came out. First of all were the painful loading times if you went to a large lot with tons of sims. The second problem was that calling the carpool was annoying, very annoying. The third was that you couldn't bloody save if things went very, very, very wrong, and if you quit without going back home, you'll have returned back to your home lot with about half an hours time wasted. Of course, having your sim deprived of their usual sources of motive satisfaction was also a bit scary, but now with Nightlife, Maxis has made some really good reasons to go downtown and experience the joy that are community lots! Downtown areas are by default, viewed in nighttime but you can toggle day and night off for all neighborhoods now. Residential lots can also be made Downtown, so it is now possible to basically build entire new communities and still have them be linked to each other outside of university, very handy indeed if your normal neighborhood is running out of space. Although residents from downtown and your normal neighborhood will stop by and be controlled by the AI, the young adults still at university will not visit automatically. This does not stop university students from going downtown though under your control, as a matter of fact, university students have the most to gain from going downtown! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.02] Downtown Design Essentials: When Incompetence Really Shows The default Downtown the game came with a very large and very well designed downtown area with something for everybody, but if you happen to be an obsessive compulsive builder who simply can't stand the word "default", then there are few things you should know about making a good downtown design! It is actually possible to practically have a sim live indefinitely downtown, since they don't age if you know how, and the key to that is having the right objects! ----------------------- Must Have Setups: ----------------------- 1. Barista's Coffee Counter: I swear, every lot should have a coffee dispenser in it, you have no idea how ridiculously important it is! Since sims can't sleep on community lots or take naps, the only way to restore energy is through the warm, rich, dark brew of life! It'll take you maybe three or four cups to max out your sim's Energy, but remember, actual time is non-existent on downtown lots and your sim doesn't have to go to work or school, this is especially true for university students, which I will elaborate greatly in the next section. Also place a sofa or armchair next to the coffee stand, your sims will make good use of it after buying their brew. Also, as always for practical purposes, use expensive wallpaper and floor tiles, coupled with lots of light to maximize Environment score for your sims. There is a handy want to buy coffee for another sim to be fulfilled if the lot your sim visits has a coffee stand, but beware, this can make the two sims form a crush with each other if they have a daily relationship above 50, so be careful and only do it with family or steady lovers if you don't want any fallout. Needless to say, other than leaving your sim as a jittering mess, you're sim is going to really go to the washroom since coffee makes their bladder fill up like the Titanic after hitting an iceberg. ----------------------- 2. Toilet and Shower: Put the best toilet and shower on every community lot, preferably right in a room next to a coffee counter! Nothing says "Run like Hell back home!" like nature's calling, and there's nothing as effective for restoring hygiene on community lots as a good shower! Without these two, you'll be in a serious pinch if one of your sims starts to get desperate, and if you want your sims to milk their time downtown, you can't have that! ----------------------- 3. An All Purpose Shop: Sure, you might have the urge to make multiple stores that specialize in selling different things like a classic RPG town, but not only will this slow down your computer with unnecessary NPCs (A new cashier is created for each cash register), but it's also highly inconvenient for your sim. To save a little pain, make a store where your sim can buy everything, and by everything I mean clothing, games, magazines, portable devices, cologne, groceries, and get their photo taken with a cherry on top, taking up as little space as possible. Also, as a general tip, try to keep your lots small, trust me, grandiose giant buildings the size of Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy 8 might sound good in concept, but when it comes to loading, you're going to be in a world of pain. I have quite a few gi-nourmas structures that I spent hours on, and I'll be blunt in saying that my sims never go there, because the loading times tend to crash my computer. Keep them small, and keep them many and you're downtown experience will be fun and fruitful. ----------------------- Building Tips: I'm in no way a master builder, I've cranked maybe 40 or something buildings, but it's not something I'd advertise as a skill (My buildings look like Andy Warhol's worst nightmare after all), since there are some master builders in the sim community that know things that I couldn't even begin to figure out. Instead, I'm going to mention somewhat obscure building tricks that the game doesn't clearly spell out, specifically object related ones. ----------------------- Sectional Seats: With Nightlife, there are four different types of chairs that can connect together to form different shapes. You'll know them, because they all have the word "Section" or "Sectional" in their name. They are good for placing around corners to give the room a unifying look. One set of the sectional chairs deserves special attention, the Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth. These seats are particularly useful in diners, as a sim can slide on them to any of the seats around the table, allowing the designer to save space and establish a closer feel of unity. Other sectional seats just apparently don't work in diners, and when you use them at home with a dining table, your sims will eat with the plates in their hands, disabling some of the seated dining interactions. Now then, the special aspect, there are two special interactions that can only be done on the Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth on community lots. So what are they? Dining Love Talk and Dining Hot Smooch. I'll talk more about them in the special ability section and their ridiculous requirements. Oh yes, be careful with using Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth for home use, as although they work fine in diners most of the time, for home use they seem to cause a lot of path finding problems for sims that makes it so that they cannot carry their food to the table and sit down, which can get old real fast. ----------------------- ClubCube by Luminescent Projections: It's been asked on a few forums, and I'd figure I'd finally nail it down and answer how you can have obscenely high stacks of color changing cubes taller than the dang building, and the best part is that you don't even have to cheat to do it! Now, normally, the game only allows you to stack two together, however the default Downtown completely defies this, as displayed by Sugar Cube Bowling, leading many designers wondering how the heck they did this. It's very simple, instead of stacking each additional cube onto the stack one by one, you have to place the entire stack onto each single cube! Just keep on placing the stack onto individual cubes, like a stamp, and soon you'll have your very own towering temple of seizure inducing disco blocks! I don't know why they designed it this way, but it works, so it's all good. Light cubes can also be adjusted for different display patterns and you can turn them onto color fade mode as well for a nice warm glowing effect. The floor version can also be adjusted this way. ----------------------- Colorful Lights: Worth a mention because they are just so lovu-ree! The Sims 2: Nightlife now contains colorful lights from all over the spectrum that you can place all over your lot! Now your red light district really can have red lights, how awesome is that! The three different types of hanging dance floor lights come in four colors, white, yellowish orange, red and blue. Although the hanging lights cover a large area, they can be placed very close to each other. Not the largest selection we could have hoped for, however, if you want to make a new color try combining lights together. Do you want an electric violet color? Combine blue and red together and voila! This technically doesn't work perfectly with all combinations, in particular, blue and yellow don't seem to make a believable green, but it'll have to do, The actual color of the light beams wouldn't change, but the actual light they give off will, which helps if you're a huge fan of bondi blue and tickly pink like I am, after all, they're Xyni's color scheme! There are also wall lights, but these come in more colors generally, so it's not such a problem. It should also be noted that the animation pattern of the Shadow Streamer and the Gobo-o-go-go Spotlighter from LumiO ----------------------- Dining Table Lights: It's important when designing a restaurant to know that not all table lights will allow your sims to place their plates down on the table and comfortably eat, generally being on account of being too big. Before Nightlife, this wasn't a particularly big deal, but now that there are several actions that sims can perform when seated and eating (with their plates on the table) it has become something very worthy of consideration. For example, the Romantic Romance by Elle and Eey is a nice small light that will allow your sims to eat comfortably at the table, where as a big honking light like the Dynasty "Enlightenment" Light isn't. In the worst case scenario, the game might not even consider a single square dining table with a large light on it as a table when bringing guests to it, so be careful. ----------------------- Coffee Tables: Coffee tables are virtually useless, pretty much only good for two things unless you count holding things on top and aesthetic appeal, yoga can be performed on them by extremely active sims, and sims can deposit their empty coffee cups on them. Still if you want to make use of a coffee table, they are designed to be put right next to a sofa and allow Sims to slide over to their respected places while having the coffee table directly in front of them, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.03] Nightlife Benefits to University Young Adults: Give Maxis Money! Who would have guessed? To no other age group do the downtown neighborhoods benefit more than the young adults at university, which give plenty of reason to get both expansion packs! Give the fine folks at Maxis more money! Yeah! Ahem. Along with the inventory system which gives teens growing up to be young adults a huge boost from home, the ability to travel to community lots outside of the university campus to downtown and the base neighborhood gives a great advantage as well. The properties and game mechanics are different in other neighborhood community lots than they are for university ones, allowing for some interesting extended play. First the bad new, young adult sims can only gain skills on university community lots, that means if they do something like workout on an exercise machine downtown, they wouldn't be building any skill, although they will lose weight and become more fit. Fortunately, there is plenty of good news to go around. As long as a young adult is downtown, their actual time in university will cease to pass! What this means is that they wouldn't have to worry about going to class, going to final exams, and best of all yet, their clock to the next semester wouldn't tick down! You can massively extend the time a sim spends their time as a young adult this way, and make a little extra money on the side to help fill their campus den with goodies, and even a car! Within this time, as with other sims on community lots, the relationship adjustment period doesn't happen, in other words, relationship scores will not go down with the passing of time, making it the perfect time to brush up on old friends. Unfortunately, lifetime scores wouldn't be altered positively regularly either, but that's the dark side of the same coin as they say. Now that young adult sims can venture off campus, they will get to mingle again with their old friends and family back in the regular neighborhood and downtown without having to manually invite them over, although their pals from university wouldn't be around there unless they call em' up or string em' along manually. Like adult sims outside of university, they will be able to go on dates and outings and get rewards and goodies for their tiny home, as well as the possibility of increasing their skills without losing time back at home. Of course, other sims can take advantage of this as well, but since sims can't get a real job in university that actually pays money, they are worth much more. All in all, Nightlife softens the linear nature of university for the young adults, and allows them to break out of their studies without fear of wasting valuable time that could be otherwise spent to boost their class performance bar. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6] Restaurants Now your sims can dine out in style without having to turn to the pyro-prone barbeque grills or the cranky cafeteria worker! So suit your sims up for the occasion, get in the car and drive downtime for some good eating! Restaurants are open 24 hours a day seven days a week oddly enough, and where else are you going to get service like that in real life? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.01] Eating Out: For When Your Sim Makes Fire Better Than Food The way restaurants in this game work are very different from the typical pick up a plate and eat routine that you and your sims may be used to. First when your sims enters a restaurant, they have to talk to the host to be seated either at a table or at a counter. Each customer that comes in alone or with a group gets their own table to be seated at. In order to have multiple sims eating at the same time, you must have invited them to meet you on the lot either through a date, a regular phone call, or as a part of your group for outings or fun. As long as those conditions are met, your sim friends will follow you to the dinner table, which hopefully will hold all of you or else they'll be seated elsewhere. At this point in time, the closest waiter will walk up to you and take your order, so select what you would like off the menu, the more expensive the food, the more filling it is. This is not true in all cases, but it's a safe rule of thumb. Here's a list of the foods with the prices, foods with the * next to them are foods that your sims can't normally cook at home and worth mentioning. *Glass of Water: 0 Cake: 8 Mac and Cheese: 9 Spaghetti: 9 Baked Alaska: 10 Omelettes: 11 *Nectarine Tartlette: 12 Crepes Suzette: 13 Chili Con Carne: 14 Chef Salad: 16 Hamburgers: 17 *Ribs: 18 *Fried Chicken: 18 *Lime Seared Prawns: 19 Salmon: 21 *Pork Chops: 23 *Fillet Mignon: 25 Lobster Thermidor: 35 Unlike chef's in real life, the chef's in the restaurants apparently have telepathy and work with the hands of a surgeon at the speed of a martial artist, in other words, they practically make the food instantly as soon as you order, all ready for the waiter or waitress to bring for your eating pleasure! It is surprisingly quick compared to the restaurant system in the original The Sims: Hot Date which Nightlife is frequently compared to. While your sim is seated sipping away at a bottomless glass of water, they can order as many dishes as they like and it'll be added to their total bill. When they are done, they can pay the bill manually or pay it automatically upon leaving the lot. There is of course, a fun little alternative to actually paying which involves stealth and stinginess. Oh yes, the Crepes Suzette is a new dessert that you can order at restaurants as well as make at home at about four points of cooking skill! Just watch out though, it involves fire! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.02] Favorite Foods: Sukiyaki! Sukiyaki! (There's no Sukiyaki) Upon visiting a restaurant and being seated for their first time, a sim will develop a favorite food as displayed by the thought bubble with the food of preference floating in it and which they should retain for the rest of their lives. So what exactly is so special about a sim's favorite food? It seems that on dates and outings, having your sim and company eat their favorite food gives the date rating a little boost, although it might be a bit difficult to tell, since your sims are usually talking when they are seated and naturally increasing their relationship, thus, the date rating rises automatically. Some sims with particular aspirations and personality types might also have wants to eat their favorite food, specifically knowledge and wealth sims, but it's not a particularly common thing, so it seems hard to tell if it was because of the introduction of Nightlife, since wants to eat a certain food have existed since the core game was released. When you order the "Chef's Choice" option, they will automatically bring your sim's their favorite food. You can also order Chef's Choice for your entire group to add a little variety to the table. Oh yeah, be warned that some of the foods look a bit weird when they are floating in the bubble, particularly the hamburger which looks more like a meat muffin than a standard hamburger. You'll come to recognize each food soon enough and there's always Chef's Choice if you are still unsure. Now then, that being said, since favorite food is apparently permanent and unique for each sim, it helps if you happen to be an obsessive compulsive, perfectionist who wouldn't take no for an answer, like me, to reset the game while on the community lot over and over and over and over, *inhales* and over until they finally get Lobster Thermidor as their favorite food. The proceeding procedure I will guaranteed will drive you bloody up the wall, it'll make you friggin' suicidal for crying out loud, since every time you reset the game while in a trip to a community lot, it roughly wastes almost an hour of time in residential lot for driving out and driving back, even with a car and it's even worst with a carpool. Then there are the loading times, oh the loading times *shivers*. If your favorite sim naturally got something good like lobster of frustration or Fillet Mignon, consider yourself lucky. It doesn't really make any sense since it plays a pretty obscure part in the grand picture of the game, but then again, washing my hands thirty times a day doesn't make sense either. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.03] Disgruntled Waiters: They Hate Their Job and They Hate You Remember kids, waiters and waitresses are people too! So be kind to them, or they'll unintentionally get revenge on you by dumping a hot steamy plate of human sustenance on you! Yeah, in my experience, it tends to happen more often when you order expensive foods like Lobster Thermidor, but your sim will get a bad memory nonetheless from it and the waiter and host will just stand there looking stupid instead of compensating you like any real dining establishment would in real life. Although on further experiences after writing this, it seems that the waiters will also redeliver your order instead of just ignoring you at least some of time. Fortunately, you also don't have to pay the bill for food that lands on your sims lap, but it's still a speed bump on dates, even it doesn't actually seem to decrease the date rating. To help reduce the chance of flying food, it helps to befriend the waiters and waitresses, as the game itself recommends if your sim has a fear of food being dropped on them, but the problem is usually that there are so many of them compared to the host and hostesses that you have to put a little more effort into it, and you never know who's going to be the one to finally bring your food to it's final destination, since the computer decides for you by picking the waiter who is closest to the food with free actions. Fortunately, spilled food isn't a very common event; it's kind of the restaurant equivalent to burning food. Still, if you want to befriend waiters and waitresses, just take a seat and don't order anything, and eventually they'll come around to talk to you. You can also tip them and talk to them when they have a free moment, and then you can work the relationship up from there. It also seems from my experience that making a complete mortal enemy out of waiters or waitresses' doesn't seem to increase the rate of dropped food, so I guess you can say that they are actually pretty professional with their work. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.04] Getting a Discount from the Host: Friendship Pays! It pays to be friends with the Hosts! At least become friends with one Host, because each restaurant randomly cycles through several hosts. When you do see the one you are friendly with, you can directly pick them standing at the restaurant podium and hopefully get a discount on your total bill! Normally, eating alone isn't all that expensive, but when you have a group of four, the bill can kinda' add up, so it helps. The discount seems to be based directly on your lifetime relationship score as opposed to your daily score. The biggest discount I've seen so far is 30% and although the relationship score might be constantly high, it seems somewhat random to how much you get off of each meal. Unlike the fine waiters and waitresses of the establishment, hosts and hostesses cannot be directly interacted with while they are on the job, however, your sim will add them to their relationship list upon the first time they go to the restaurant and are seated by them. After that, it's up to your sim to call them up and help start forging a solid relationship. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.05] Skipping Out On the Bill: Meals on the Go Ah! It's time to do the Solid Snake and sneak away after eating some dead animal. Oh wait, that's closer to Naked Snake, my bad. After your sim is finished eating, but before they cancel the dining action or pay the bill and are just sitting down sipping innocently away at their bottomless cup of water, click on the Host and select the "Skip Out On Bill" command, and get ready to run. As soon as you select that command, the timer will start and you will have to survive for 45 game minutes without the Host or Hostess coming close enough to be considered as catching you. I personally highly recommend turning off freewill when doing this, as you will know much better than your sim will how to escape. Shortly after gaining control of your sim and the timer starting, the Host will start to actively seek out your sim. The Host will run at you if he happens to see you in sight, so just run away as far away as you can, preferably outside where there is as much maneuverability as possible. As soon as the time is up, the Host will forget completely about what happened and you'll get away without paying. In the case that you get caught though, you'll be forced to pay the bill, and the hostess will yell at you, resulting in a double minus reaction. On the plus side, it seems that when you dine out as a group or on a date, the host will ignore the other members of your group and you only have to worry about the active one who opted to skip out on the bill. Don't think that you can escape in your car though early though, even if you get away, the bill will be paid automatically. Of course, if you are building your own lots, it helps to specifically design the area for running away and high maneuverability with particular emphasis on the ability to go from one room to another with no dead-ends, but there is only so much that you can do. I will say this right here and now, having a sim who can run or at least skip or fly as a vampire (Hopefully it's not day time or you WILL burn) is of utter importance to not get caught. Now, you might think you're a rocket scientist if you have a female sim and hide in the women's washroom with the anti-man door and everything, but the male host is even smarter, HE HAS NO SHAME IN RUNNING INTO THE WOMEN'S WASHROOM AND SCREAMING AT YOU! It seems that service sims on community lots are blind when it comes to gender restrictions. If you want some more tips on making a place where you can dodge the bill more effectively, I'll tell you this much, the Host is a fricken' Terminator, you can try using Myne Doors that don't actually work on community lots or even a giant swimming pool half the size of the lot to slow them down, but nothing stops the Host when she or he smells blood and an unpaid restaurant bill, almost nothing. If you feel like outsmarting the Host still, and don't mind desecrating your sim's ancestral graves, there is a way to completely avoid being caught by the Host, although it's slightly inconveniencing. Close to the location of dining table, but far away from the restaurant podium as possible, create a narrow one square wide corridor sealed with two doors on each side with one door leading to remote chamber. This trick requires that your sim has a spare grave in their inventory, yeah, just in the case that they carry those around wherever they go. Simply seal the corridor with an urn or a tombstone on the side the host will be coming from, and then have your sim walk into the remote room. With the grave marker acting as a road block in a one square thick corridor, the Host should be blocked from catching your sim till the time runs out. It still might ultimately be easier to run for your life in most circumstances. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.06] Restaurant Tricks: Probably Would Work In Real Life Too Free food! Who doesn't like free food? I sure know that I do -- despite what you might have heard! There are other ways to get free grub aside from skipping out on the bill! Sometimes, you can get lucky and get your sim to eat free food by having another dining sim get distracted. Sometimes this happens naturally, but since dining sims are pretty unresponsive to your interference, there is an even better way to distract sims from their eating - make a scene! If your sim has a mortal enemy in the vicinity, call him over and attack him or her! All the dining sims will immediately get up from their comfy little seats and watch as you beat your victim into submission (Or the other way around) that or run away, and they will still be wandering around like idiots for a bit when the fight is done. Assuming that they took at least one bite out of the food, you should now be able to sit down to some free grub before the waiter takes it away or the true consumer lays their filthy legitimate paws on it! Another more semi-rational strategy is food sharing. If your sim has gotten full on that big giant king of all cooked crayfish that is Lobster Thermidor, they can quickly get up and let another sim that you are controlling sit down and finish it, but you have to be quick or the waiter will take the plate to the washers, oh what a waste of good food! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.07] Why Restaurants Suck: Because "Fast Food" Isn't an Option Despite the fact that I wrote this whole ginourmas section regarding the wonder that are restaurants, in conclusion, I actually really hate them for the following reasons in no particular order: 1. It fills the lots up with tons of service sim NPCs, slowing down your computer. You'll get one cook, one host and a number of waiters proportional to how many dining tables to serve. 2. The food is surprisingly not that effective at fulfilling the Hunger motive! A Lobster Thermidor cooked by a sim with 10 cooking points is more filling than that cooked at a restaurant by a master chef! As a matter of fact though, there's practically nothing that tops home cooked turkey for feeding an entire group. If your sim's Hunger bar is in the yellow to reds, chances are that you're going to need at least a two or three coarse meal to fill them up. At least you can order multiple times during a single restaurant seating. 3. You have to pay money! Nobody likes to pay money! Do you like to pay money?! I know I don't! 4. Each time you order from a disgruntled waiter, you risk the chance of witnessing the phenomenon that is artificial incompetence in the form of flying food! Some sims actually have a fear of this, and it's something that can only go wrong in a restaurant. 5. Freewill controlled sims are annoying unresponsive when dining! When you have a restaurant, usually the first thing sims controlled by freewill do is go to the dining podium and be seated to dine, and you can't override their actions with your own and you'll have to wait for them to finish dining before interacting with them, unless you want to reach out and attack someone. 6. When you are seated, you never really know where! Sometime the Hosts take you to the other side of the lot to sit down on some obscure counter, multiplying the time it takes for the waiter to get to you for compound time wasting! This is especially annoying, since some dining interactions can only be done under certain conditions and formations. 7. The tables and counters have the possibility of filling up! It doesn't happen too often, but if the restaurant is rather small, then you wouldn't be able to dine until someone else finishes! Yeah, it's like real life, and it sucks! 8. Even though the sim restaurants are inhumanly faster than restaurants in real life, they are still much slower than other forms of filling hunger on community lots. 9. Since restaurants can only exist on community lots, they also come with all of the weaknesses of community lots, such as the inability to save, switch to build or buy mode in case something gets in the way or there is a path finding error. As a conclusion you should only go to restaurants in three cases. First of all is the want to dine out with other sims at restaurants, fair enough even though it pays a miniscule amount of aspiration points and influence for such a time consuming action, even if you can cancel it prematurely and still satisfy the want. Second reason is if you value building relationships between the people eating more than the food (Although there are a lot more things to do standing up for building relationship). Finally, there are a lot of fun things for your sims to do while sitting down and dining, like toast, throw food and feed your sim's lover a bite. If you want to put some pretty pictures in your photo album, you should at least have a few shots of them in a well lit restaurant. Basically, if you are playing this game for the "Experience", then diners are fun places to be, but if you happen to be a ridiculously practical person with heavy emphasis on efficiency as much as the Borg, then don't have your sims go to restaurants. So what's the alternative? If you have The Sims 2: Univesity Expansion pack, believe it or not, the cafeteria setup is a better choice! Despite the potential for food poisoning that comes from eating rotten or burnt food, it's a much more practical way to dine. The food is free, surprisingly filling despite being rather cheap food, you can take as much of it as you want if there are lots of kitchen islands for the cooks to put the food on, it's easy and fast to pick up and eat, and there is no risk of your sim getting a burnt memory since the cafeteria cook incinerates it for you. The cafeteria has two disadvantages over the restaurant, unfortunately. Cafeteria workers arrive at work at 12:00am and return to work at 4:00am, leaving a four hour period where you wouldn't have any fresh food, although the last batch they cook can usually last for a few hours before rotting. Second of course is the possibility of food poisoning which is more than just a serious pain. Actually, it's pretty easy to avoid getting food poisoning for sims that you control, just eat food when it's fresh and not burnt. The real problem is when freewill controlled sims who you actually might care about do the opposite. Just make sure that there are sinks in the kitchen and having two cafeteria workers instead of one isn't a bad idea either so one can wash dishes while the other cooks them. Yet another alternative to restaurants is the outdoor grill which can be used safely both outdoors and indoors on community lots, otherwise it becomes an instant pyrotechnic kit if you happen to have a bright sim light it up on a residential lot indoors. In order for the grill to be effective however, your sim will have to have a high cooking score, otherwise they'll crispify their food in the process and the cooking time will be longer as well. I wonder if The Sims 2 will ever have an eat all you can buffet style restaurant, I would really love that. Lousy a la carte service and their traditionally inefficient methods! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7] Recreation and Fun As to be expected, there are several fun new stylish toys at your sim's disposal that can be either used on community lots or at home! First up we have a most excellent DJ Booth that your sims can be paid to spin and scratch on when on community lots! Also on the list are bowling alleys and photo booths, and who can forget the much anticipated Poker Table and the Electro Dance Sphere? There are about 125 new objects introduced into The Sims 2: Nightlife from what I've heard, but these are my very favorite! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.01] Being the DJ: When Will They Ever Learn To Cross Fade Properly? Who doesn't want to scratch hot burning vinyl and feel the wave of ecstasy from the crowd?! If you have a very creative sim or two with financial problems, especially if they are enrolled at university, you'll be happy to know that being the DJ is now the most profitable and reliable way to make money on community lots! Wanting to DJ for money is also a frequent want among sims of all aspirations as well, so it helps give your sim a small shot of aspiration. DJ Booths can play four styles of music, House Mix, Fast, Medium and Slow and other sims can dance and do the Smustle to it. What exactly is the Smustle you might ask? It's like a dance that's a cross between riding on a pony in the spring time and acting like a drunken zombie on vodka I'd say. Your interpretation might vary. You can get a bunch of sims to do it in synchronization and it's very fun to watch. Oh yes! It might be my imagination playing tricks on me, but it seems that the animation to depict dancing skill is now much more noticeable. On low dancing skill, sims will sometimes forget moves, fall down, be laughed at, and generally look stupid. At high dancing skill, well, they wouldn't be faking the funk - as much. Dancing skill now applies both to the Smustle dance and regular dancing, so take your time to enjoy your sims getting their groove on. Now potentially, performing music for tips or freestyling is the best way to get money on lots, however, it's not very reliable, sometimes, sims around just wouldn't dig all that deep, and that's not a good thing. While your sim is a DJ with high creativity they will make a tidy 30 simoleans for intervals of about 10 minutes of game time. That's much better than other steady working jobs like being a Barista, Cafeteria Worker or Bartender. Your sim will also take a great deal of fun in playing those records, and if you are doing it on a university community lot, they can also gain Creativity skill from it. If your sim is about as creative as a stick of butter though, you might want to consider having them develop a few points before putting them in front of a critically laughing crowd, as they wouldn't make remotely as much money due to sheer suckage. So do you want to know just the extent of a completely uncreative sim is in a DJ Booth? First of all, they make a pathetic 5 simoleans every 10 minutes; next, they accidentally tend to butter finger the headphones, catching them just in time. Finally, one of the funniest things incompetent DJs do is mix in annoying and completely out of place elevator music into the groove, and you will also actively see people who are trying to dance to the beat have a thought bubble with the DJ Booth crossed out over their heads. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.02] Bowling: Knocking Down Sticks with Balls Your lucky sims can now bowl, and what's better is they don't have to stick on the crappy tight fitting bowling shoe filled with toe crud to do so! Of course, your sims can buy their own personal bowling alley for home use, and bowl from the comfort of their home. Still, the most fun to be had bowling is downtown, if only because you can find or build lots that completely specialize in the ball rolling art and have other wandering sims join in on the fun, including Mrs. Crumplebottom herself. On residential and university community lots however, sims can gain body skill points at a good rate, although they don't seem to lose weight as fast as other physical activities. Wanting to go bowling is a common want among most aspiration types, particularly the Pleasure Seeker, they'll even have wants specifically of going bowling with their date. There might be a little fuzz going around the forums claiming that bowling is a hidden skill, it is most definitely not, it is directly relational to high their body skill is. At a prefect ten points of body, you can expect them to throw strikes on every try, how awesomely unrealistic is that? Sims can also play other sims since it is a group activity. It doesn't do wonders for raising relationships like Poker and Chess do, but it's fun to watch. Oh, in case you are wondering, the bowling allies are nine pin standard with American style extra meaty bowling balls with holes in them, opposed to the Canadian's embarrassingly small coconut balls. Yeah, I used to bowl when I was a kid, and I was ticked off that the dang balls weren't bigger too. I was like "Well, yeah, but I'm an American, so give me a bigger ball!", but they were like "Nooooooo, you're in Canada now, so let's go build an igloo and drink maple syrup while chopping down trees, eh!" and it kinda' went like that for a while. Hahha, in all honestly, I'm both a Canadian and an American, so more slander power for me! Too bad sims with low body scores don't do the "sissy" way of bowling from between the legs, that would have brought back some good memories, hahahah! Oh! Wait, I just found out that even children can bowl, and guess how they do it? Yup! They throw the ball the sissy way, ahahahaha, I'm so happy to relive those good old memories! As an extra note, adult sims who are incredibly bad at bowling and have a low Body score can sometimes slip and smack their face on the hard polished wood when throwing the ball, always good for a laugh. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.03] Photo Booth: To Whoever Invented These Things, I Salute You! Ah! I have such fond memories of photo booths! You know, you don't see them very often in North America where I live, but when I was in Asia, wow! They even printed them out in little strips with frilly pink borders and stuff, awesome @#$%! Anyhow, now for the price of 10 or so simoleans, your sims can get their portraits immortalized solo or with another person in three different styles! Normally, a single sim can only do Normal and Goofy styles, however, get a person in there with a romantic relationship with your sim, and you can also take a Romantic photo. After the pictures are taken, the photo will slide out of the booth and develop for your sim to pick up and add to their inventory. Each picture print actually contains four pictures in one, and it's rather funny that one of the pictures in the Romantic print has your sim looking angrily at the camera and covering the lens. I mean, you chose to have the picture taken, deal with it, hahahaha. Anyhow, there's one other fun little thing you can do with the Photo Booth, and that's of course public woohoo, just in case they get tired of doing it everywhere else. On an odd note, you can satisfy the woohoo in public want by having your sims buy at photo booth and woohoo in there, although it's not technically in public, it still apparently counts. The Photo Booth holds a maximum of two people and is also a frequent want among sims of all aspirations, as a matter of fact, it's pretty common to have a want to take a picture and a want to take a picture with their date at the same time when on dates. It's a nice quick way to shoot up some aspiration points. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.04] Poker Table: Gambling Your Kid's College Money Away My favorite card game is finally in The Sims 2! Now if they would only bring in blackjack! In order to get the Poker Table functional, you have to add four dining chairs to it first. When you add them, they'll somewhat latch onto the table, so you can move all five pieces around without inconvenience. On community lots, when one person starts a poker game, others will be likely to automatically come and join, but you might want to manually invite them over. Up to four players can join at a time, and the dealer is rotated between each player. If your sim is looking to have a fun time, then poker is definitely a good option. It's also a good place to start a relationship with the other players, although it's more diluted than a one on one chess or pool game. Unfortunately, if you are looking to make some serious bling whales off of poker, you're playing the wrong game, go play online poker where every other player besides you has a software program running to calculate odds in favor of screwing you over and you can't read the faces of any of your opponents who just can't wait to introduce their loan shark associates to you. Seriously, consider yourself lucky if you double your hundred in a single game of poker, you have just as good a chance of losing as you would of winning it seems. The only strategy I can think about when it comes to poker is to have three of your own players against one computer one, but that takes quite a bit of time and resources. There isn't much that your sims can do in poker in this game other than lay down their 100 simoleans into chip form, and play the hand dealt to them. Unfortunately, in this case, poker is a game of luck. There is apparently no hidden skill that can be improved, coordinating regular skill, or winning personality to help with that poker face. It seems that sims are naturally extremely emotional and even a super serious sim can be read like a book and no amount of skill can fix that. I've tried to test if there was a winning variable in poker for a while now, as well as having the one family play the hell out of it, and there just doesn't seem to be sadly enough, because in real life I truly respect skilled poker players, since poker is a metaphor for life. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.05] Electro Dance Sphere: This Thing Will Never Be Invented This object definitely fits into the definition of awesome! Makes you wonder if somebody will ever invent such a torture device, errr, I mean entertainment machine in our world and time. The Electro Dance Sphere starts off as a glowing ring like structure over a base foundation, but when your sim gets into it, it spreads out to form a spread of metal curves and begins to rotate around in midair due to electro-magnetic manipulation and stabilization from the base. The Electro Dance Sphere has three settings, Easy, Medium and Hard. Sims often have a want to ride the Electro Dance Sphere when there is one around, however, they will also commonly have a fear of being thrown off one, which is rather hilarious to see. The higher a sim's body skill is, the longer and better they will be able to ride the sphere at higher settings. Buying one for your home use to practice on isn't a bad idea, it's a great way to gain Body skill and lose weight, but you should give them a couple of points from more conventional methods since they can get tossed from even easy mode with no skill points, and it's just sad to watch. While spinning, other sims can come to watch and cheer you on, which restore some of the onlooker's motives and it looks good too. At very high body skill, a sim can actually float in midair tucked into a ball without holding onto the handles that I like to compare to Samus' Crystal Flash move in Super Metroid, but with more spinning and less healing. There is another little phenomenon that can occur from using the Electro Dance Sphere, although I'm not sure if it can be done on community lots, but I'm very sure it can be done on residential lots. Sims who have been abducted by aliens before can apparently "warp out" of existence when using the Electro Dance Sphere, assumingly having been abducted yet again. It's not remotely as grandiose as the telescope abduction, they don't get a memory of it or a cut scene, and you might not even notice it at all or write it off as a glitch, but it does happen. When warped out of existence, the sim's motives are fixated and they wouldn't return for a few hours, and when they do come back, they'll do it very quickly and almost blink back into existence. Supposedly, male sims can get pregnant yet again by this happening, but I've not been able to try this out for myself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.06] Karaoke Machine: Also Known As The Humiliator Ah, Karaoke, Who doesn't love karaoke? Most likely anyone who sucks at it, that's who. Every one else like me just loves it! Bring on the weird J-Pop that I have no fricken' idea what is being said but sing to it anyway! Suki! Suki! Sankyu! Karaoke can either be sung solo by a sim or as a duet with another sim with a fair relationship, and a Karaoke machine can conveniently also be purchased for home use and is an effective way to increase Creativity skill, have fun and increase relationship scores with those your sim sings with and those who watch. Depending on your sim's Creativity skill level and the style of music randomly being played, their animation will vary. So you must be wondering, exactly what does a sim who has the creative genius of a pothole do when performing Karaoke? Well, outside of the expected suckage, they have to look at the scrolling lyric screen more, their movements are less coordinated, they screw up occasionally, and they kinda' just generally blow, no other way to put it. Of course, to show their utter malcontent for your sim's lack of vocal skills, other sims watching will laugh and boo at them. On the flip side, Karaoke singers with high Creativity skill will know the words by heart and be very bold and dynamic with their actions. On one upbeat soft rock like sounding track, they'll actually jump on and off of the main part of the Karaoke Machine. Typically though, Duets are in a slow, more romantic way than going solo, so it makes for an ideal dating activity. Fortunately, Karaoke seems to be fun and traumatizing for the whole family, as even children can do it! All in all, although you might hate Karaoke, your sims actually seem to like it. Then again, these are usually the same sims who's idea of fun is to play pirate in a bath tub and jump on coaches. Oh yeah, anyone else here try to sing to "One Winged Angel"? You know, "blah- blah-bla-bla-blaaah, SEPHIROTH! Da-da-daaa-da!" Awesome song. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- {8] Miscellaneous Downtown Other things you can make and your sims can enjoy downtown - or suffer from! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [8.01] How to Make a Cemetery: A Zoo For Knowledge Sims Maxis realized that it gets pretty annoying when the dead come back to make grown sims piss their pants and you can't get rid of them save for the delete key, I mean, it happened enough in the first The Sims, but the ghosts weren't quite as life ruining. Don't worry, Maxis feels your pain and has made a convenient way so that you can shuffle the dead straight off the mortal coil to some remote dung hole that nobody will ever visit again, that or a peaceful cemetery surrounded by the wonders of nature. Now then, along with the original option to mourn a grave or urn, and in the case of sims who happen to have hated the decease with each passing breath, smash and kick, sims now have the option to move graves to different community lots for proper burial. Additionally, if you happen to kill your sims in bulk, like me, then you can move all of the graves at once. Once they get there, they'll be planted around somewhat randomly for your sim to add to their inventory and move around as they see fit. Normally, you can also enter build mode on the community lot when not playing your sims to adjust the tombstones, however, there has been a known glitch where when you do try and edit the cemetery, the tombstones that you sent and saved wouldn't appear, nor will it save the location of the stones if your sim manually moved them upon visiting the community lot, so be careful. As mentioned before, sims can add gravestones to their inventory and plant them anywhere they can walk. This makes for an excellent road block on community lots, or a form of semi-convenient portable fun, since evil sims can get some fun from repeatedly kicking graves, but if you happen not to think like a sick and twisted sim murderer like me, you can plop it on a community lot to make a nice quite wellspring of death and damnation, oops. Actually, ghosts are supposedly a bit better behaved on community lots, and at the very least, they wouldn't be able to kill your sim from fright while they are there. Too bad you can't bring some fun ghost interactive toys like the Xylophone and Teddy Bear though. All of the above being said, now knowledge sims have a safe and reliable way to come see the pretty ghosts! In the past, knowledge sims always had the nagging want to see ghosts, but of course, you didn't want to kill any members of your family that you might actually care about, and if you "accidentally" killed some townie on your lot, their ghost will be there to haunt and annoy you, waking your sim up in the middle of the night on occasions and scaring them randomly. In many ways, the graveyard is like a tourist attraction for the inherently evil knowledge aspiring sim. Whenever they get the want to see dead people, send them on over to the graveyard and let them pet the ferocious ghosts to satisfy their wants. Other sim types also get the want to see ghosts, but it's generally that of a sim they really, really, really hate who's ironically still usually alive, but now thanks to the new furious system, you'll be seeing that surprisingly more often. As an important note, if you are seriously considering making a cemetery with the intention of giving those happy little knowledge sims a new pet ghost to cuddle and love, as opposed to oh, a burial ground of respect and dignity, it is important to remember that ghosts tend to scare sims they hate far more than sims they actually might like, especially enemies. If you plan to off a sim to run the graveyard shift for "entertainment" purposes, you might want to make them "mortal" enemies of any of your knowledge sims in the neighborhood before having them jump off their mortal coil. On community lots, ghosts also can't kill people with fright, so it's an excellent safety feature, especially if you happened to make a cesspool of utter damnation. Another useful purpose of cemeteries that will never catch on in the real world due to common sense is that they can act as convenient "Rent a Ghost" centers that sims who want to adopt a ghost to haunt their lot can come to and pick. In order to send a tombstone back to a residential lot, click on the tombstone and select the appropriate options to transfer the tombstone back to home or pocket it in their inventory and unload it when you get back. Yeah, if something like this ever happens in real life, it'll be six billion years too soon. *Ahem* Now then, in order to get the graves to make a good zoo, errr, I mean graveyard, one must be experienced at the art of killing your sims! Errr, why is everyone looking at me for advice? You know, I only spend a quarter of my time killing sims compared to playing them well, but oh what the Hell. First of all, sims can only die on residential lots, so you must do your dirty work there. There are four effective ways as of Nightlife to kill sims without cheating, I feel like I'm killing off victims in Deception III again, love that game. Here the methods are as follows: ----------------------- The Pool Without A Ladder: The pool without a ladder system is perhaps the most infamous way for a sim to die since the first The Sims game due to the total lack of common survival skills on the sim's part. All you have to do is build a pool with one or two diving boards and greet visiting sims. Upon doing so, they will often automatically get into the pool. As soon as a sim runs out of Energy in a pool, they drown; it's pretty much as simple as that. It should however be noted that visiting sims take longer to drown than those that you control due to the wonderful magic of computer game mechanics. Pools are best for killing sims indiscriminately in bulk over a long period of time. It's practically automatic and you don't have to life a finger after building the pool. ----------------------- Cow Plant: My main sim Xyni loves her cow plant, she borrowed it from the Secret Society and has yet to give it back, but since then it has helped to keep her smile bright and skin milky smooth! Her children will probably end up returning it someday, but anyhoo. The cow plant is the best way to ultimately kill a single sim, it's fast, reliable, no chance of pleading with the grim reaper, easily controllable, clean, and other sims visiting are naturally attracted to it's cake like tongue and mouth full of teeth. Best of all, it gives off life restoring milk that turns back the aging clock by five days and some sims even have wants to drink their mortal enemies. The only weakness of the cow plant is its recharge time of twelve hours. Your own controlled sims wouldn't be stupid enough to go for it, but be careful if you have some neighbors that you might actually care about and tuck it away into a safe room or it's owner's inventory. ----------------------- Incinerator Room: Because the outside grill used indoors and TV dinner time bomb oven weren't enough of a fire hazard, Maxis has given us sim pyromaniacs a new toy. Now then, does having a device in your house powered by a baby dragon that propels scorching flames several feet into the air sound like a fire hazard to you? Seriously, this thing might be great on community lots, but unless you are doing what this part of the FAQ is telling you to do, keep that dang death machine out of your house! Fortunately, your sim can turn it off, but then again, they can turn it on, from far, far, far away I might add, just like a light can be turned on and off even when paused. To build your own incinerator room, just build or empty out a room for the purpose, place an archway as your only entrance into it and fill it full of fire jets turned off. Next, call over as many victims as you can fit into the room. Have your sim exit the archway unless you want them to take one for the team, and remove the archway. The reason it is an archway instead of a door is that doors cannot be moved when they are actively opened, whereas arches don't have to open. Anyway, lob in a cheap couch or something, make a cup of tea and sit and watch the fireworks as you turn your blasters on. Cook till tender, repeat as necessary. If you'd rather make them suffer, put in a water sprinkler that puts out the fire, only to have them instantly reignite again. The fire jet is such a ludicrously effective fire starter that if the firemen come, they might never leave. On the down side, where a fire is active, you will not be able to use build, buy or inventory modes, so be careful. ----------------------- A Vampire's Day in The Sun: This isn't a very effective way to kill sims honestly unless you gain control of them. NPCs that are turned into vampires by being bitten on the neck automatically run away when sunrise comes, and if you lock them in a room they disappear in a puff of smoke. If you do however control them and leave them to easy bake in the sun, they'll light up like a blowtorch and fade away into nothingness, specifically when their hunger bar runs dry. Still, if your sim is dating and asking their lovers to move in faster than you know how to kill them, now you do, granted that your own sim is a vampire. You might even make an easy bake room that's not completely closed off by walls but fences or half-walls instead, although the great outdoors normally does the trick fine. Oh, if you are wondering what type of ghosts sun dried vampires make, they are basically the same as ghosts who have died from starvation. Their naturally pale skin makes them look a bit bluer and they don't appear in mirrors like they did when they were slightly less undead, but they are still basically the same old ordinary starvation ghost. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [8.02] Building a Base: Home Away From Home The base isn't a particularly well advertised feature in the game as much it is a technique for downtown that I highly recommend. The purpose of the base is very simple, to refill your sim's motives as quickly and efficiently as possible taking as little space as possible on a small lot for quick loading and processing times. There will be frequent times when after shopping, a date or an outing downtown that your sim will be running low on one motive or another. It is in this case that the base is an essential stop to make before continuing the downtown adventure. So why not just return home to restore everything? Well that's because it eats away at time. A good night's sleep, a shower, a trip to the toilet, and a full meal takes a great deal out of your sims actual daily routine, and they might not be prepared to go to work or school after all that partying the last night. Even if you have a cellar full of Enigmatic Energizers, you'll still take at least an hour to freshen up, but with a base, you can actually go downtown to restore your motives to a state much better than they were when your sim left, and do it much faster and more efficiently than a huge honking community lot. As a matter of fact, if you play your sim well, they can spend time indefinitely on community lots without returning home to the horrors of work and family. The game automatically saves in between lot loadings, so you don't have to worry about losing too much data if something goes horribly wrong and you can go on dates and outings galore! Similar to the Downtown Design Essential section, the base has to have the best shower, the best toilet, a source of food, preferably a cafeteria and coffee, can't forget coffee! Don't use gender specific doors for the washrooms; you'll be surprised how counterproductive this is! Additionally, all the key features should all be within relatively close distance to each other, especially the coffee stand to the washroom. Sims who can run will always have the advantage over time, but not all sims can run, skip or fly, so you have to take that into consideration. You might want to put a small shop with everything compressed into it as well, but it's optional. The base also has another purpose, for your sim to make some hard earned cash without going to their actual excuse for a job, extremely useful for young adults in university. Definitely put a DJ Booth in and some instruments, as you can actually get money from the tips that other sims get while playing, and if your neighborhood has some especially creative sims, you'll be thankful for every simolean they add to your bank account. The musical devices will also help greatly in restoring fun, you'll practically not even have to worry about it, and social is already in the bag too with so many people walking around and a cellphone at your disposal. A pool table for hustling or poker table isn't a bad idea to place in your base. At the very least, a poker table seems to distract Mrs. Crumplebottom from getting on your case too often. Speaking of Mrs. Crumplebottom, build a "chill room" that is located in a remote section of the building with no bars, bowling alleys or poker tables, as they tend to attract her. The chill room is designed for one purpose; public displays of affection outside of the public eye, and definitely out of Mrs. Crumplebottom's peripheral vision. While you are at it, make sure you stuff a photo booth in there too for woohoo. Of course, if you are controlling the love bird sims, and they can teleport with meditation, you can just build a very remote room high in the sky with no doors or stairs leading to it where the old hag can't reach them and warp them there for some happy, happy, luv-u-ree! ***************************************************************************** Chapter 3: Getting Together ***************************************************************************** [9] Dates Satisfying, new, and refreshing to The Sims 2 Nightlife is the new dating system! Yeah, we can see how this can go horrifically wrong. Actually, dates are extremely easy and fun once you get the hang of the system, and that is what this entire long and winding segment is about! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [9.01] How to Get a Date: Ridiculously Easier Than Real Life Before getting into the details of how the dates actually work, it's best if I discuss how your sim actually can go on a date, there are several ways. The first method is the most direct, if the person you want your sim to ask out for a date is on the same lot as your sim is, just have them go up and use the "On Date" command under "Ask". If your relationship is high enough, or occasionally in the case that the two sims have great chemistry but are total strangers, they will immediate start the dating game. The second method is similar to the first but over the phone, you can call up a sim for a date and have them meet you on a community lot or at home. You can also invite them to date you while your own sim is already on a community lot. As with the previous case, the relationship and chemistry determines the success rate of initiating the date. Also take note that you can only invite sims out for a date during the hours that they are normally awake and aren't away. Finally, the third and a rather hilarious method is to go through the Matchmaker who can randomly wander onto the lot, as well as be summoned on the phone under service sims. The Matchmaker sells potions, along with setting your sim up with a blind date from the heavens; literally, they fall out of the sky. In any case, depending on how much you pay the Matchmaker from anywhere from 1 - 5000 simoleans, the compatibility of your date will vary, the more, the better your results, but there's no guaranteed you'll find an incredible triple lightning compatible mate right off the bat. Remember, in this game perfect couples are rarely born - they are made. Oh yeah, you can also piss off your date extra royally by standing them up by inviting them to a community lot but not going yourself in the first place, shades of real life. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [9.02] How Dates Work: Reducing Sim Romance into a Cold Hard Science Okay then, onto the actual dating game. Similar to how the party system works, your date is rated on different levels, but unlike parties, there is a visual UI thermometer on the right side of the screen that will tell you exactly how you are doing! Also unlike parties, you start off with only three hours, but each time you climb to a new rating level the time of the date is extended, like Sol's extended Gun Flame in Guilty Gear X2 while in Dragon Install mode which requires half a bar of tension to perform. Well, there are better comparisons, but you get my point. By the way, did I mention how much I like Dizzy's character design from that game? Well, now I did. Okay, then the levels of the dates and their extended times are as follows: Date Ratings: All dates start on the edge of the Okay rating, if your meter falls down due to mid date trauma, then you do not gain additional extended time for recovering to the time periods below Okay or those that you have previously already reached during the date but. Horrible: N/a Bad: N/A Lame: N/A Okay 3:00 Good: +2:30 Great: +2:00 Dream Date: +1:30 Total Extended Time: 9:00 All together, a fully extended date lasts nine hours. You can end a date however anytime you want which makes things extra convenient, it also let's you steamroll the system, back up, and run over it again, again and again, as the Xyni-licious Dream Date example will explain in a later section. Date ratings are affected by two main factors, how well the cumulative reactions to social interactions are between the two sims and the total aspiration point addition or reduction from wants and fears satisfied. In simpler terms, hitting it off well with your date and fulfilling their wants is the key to having good dates, that and you have to work fast. At the very least, you should reach the Good rating before doing any activity that is particularly time consuming. It should also be noted that after you reach the top of the meter at Dream Date, any additional date rating points you get will act as a buffer zone to prevent the meter from decreasing, thus, it's possible to have a total disaster happen at the top of a dream date and still be perfectly fine, so long as that disaster doesn't involve something trivial like your date getting eaten by flies or being lit up like a roman candle, not to be confused with roman cancel, you'd be surprised how often that happens. Unique to dating is the ability to view and lock your date's wants by clicking on the tab under the thermometer that has their aspiration type symbol on it. This is extremely useful, so make sure that you do it whenever you see something tantalizing like a "Make Out" or a "Woohoo" want. Your ability to control your date's wants and fears will be the equivalent of what it would be if you were controlling them, this means that if they are full fledged university graduates, you can see their six wants and lock two of them as well. Although all aspiration types are different normally, when they go on a date, they enter a mode I like to describe as "Date Override". Similar to Party Override, which puts your sims in a state of mind to socialize when hosting a party, Dating Override sets your sim up for the date. Basically, most of the sims's wants and fears instantly become related to the person being dated as soon as the event is initiated. This makes it so that the less social aspiration types like knowledge and wealth can easily pick up the pace and swing into things almost as well as any romance, family or popularity sim. There are also a few other things out of the regular that can effect a date, however, most of them are for the worst. Mrs. Crumplebottom is a perfect example. Getting your sim's head clubbed in by a purse full of knitting gear is a pretty good way to step down your date, but it's not enough to completely obliterate it, no, for something like that you need a jealous lover or two to run and slap the living daylights out of your sim. I've probably mentioned it a few times in this FAQ, but when your sims are dating, any rival hearts that see them will suddenly go into a ballistic slapping rage, and the two don't necessarily even have to be together for that to happen either, as long as they are in date mode and the jealous lover sees the person they are in love with, they'll get the urge to smack. Having jealous lovers assault your sims is pretty much the number one way to kill a date, aside from attacking and irritating your date, which is just kinda' common sense not to do. Fortunately, you only have to worry about two people, instead of multiple ones like for an outing, but try to minimize negative interactions as much as possible and encourage positive ones for a good date. Another score modifier for dates, as well as outings are changes in relationship status, for example, becoming friends, best friends and lovers. Doing this results in some pretty big points, and at the very least will usually push the bar up one level. Of course, on the flip side, becoming an enemy with year date is pretty much romantic suicide, but since when has that stopped players from doing it at least once? There are several ways to accidentally end a date prematurely. If the date rating reaches rock bottom on the meter, you leave the lot without your date in tow, as in the case of going to work or taking a spin in your car, or in the rare case that your date has a untimely demise in such a fashion as oh, being on the receiving end of Sim NASA's latest satellite, then the date will end. Other more normal ways for the date to end early is if you offer to take your date home in your car under the "Ask" command or your date suffers from too much motive deprivation. It is for the later reason that you want your dates to be short and successful, and that means reaching Dream Date level at record speeds. You can take a guess what motive your date wants to satisfy and try to fulfill it, it'll usually be hunger or bladder, but it takes time to satisfy those things, and you generally don't want to drag a date out longer than it takes to reach the highest level, as you never know when something could go wrong. As your own sim and their date's motive's decrease, their overall mood will also decrease, making risky social interactions less likely to hit, so if you expect the date to be in for the long haul, you might as well go through the paces. Also of special note is if your sim is dating a vampire, they will almost immediate run off into the sunrise at 7:00am, canceling the date, so be careful when you time your vampire loving sim's dates. So why go on dates? After all of the things that could possibly go wrong, there has to be something to come out of it right? There are quite a few good reasons to go on dates! First of all, they are extremely effective ways to bring a sim's aspiration to platinum level if you play your cards right. Second on the list is that they are also an excellent opportunity to focus your time on another sim to raise their relationship level to as high as possible. Finally, there are also lots of goodies to be had from dating as well, which will be covered thoroughly in another section. An important thing to keep in mind is that dates don't necessarily have to be done by potential love interests. It's quite possible to have a successful dream date between best friends, although not quite as easy without the high scoring romantic interactions. Just the same though, watch out for rival hearts, as they'll whap your sim upside the head with little discrimination if you are in date mode, even if it's just a friendly thing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [9.03] How to Have the Date from Hell: When Bad Just Isn't Good Enough Before I discuss how to do it right, it's important to know what you can do wrong if you want a date that's an absolute catastrophe, there are also some "interesting" little nuggets of love you can get from dates gone wrong. For this case of defective dating, it'll be the lovely Rally of the Axiom neighborhood to act as our esteemed example! ----------------------- How Rally Gets A Date: ----------------------- Rally's Example #1: Ask People Your Sim Doesn't Even Know for a Date! Assuming you don't get rejected, and there's a pretty dang good chance that you will, the date is going to be one mountain of a steep climb. No problem! That just means there's less room to fall down! On the flip side of Rally's thought process, dates can still end up being very successful dream dates with an almost total stranger, but at the very least, the sim you want to date should have 30 daily relationships with fair or better chemistry. That will allow to start using double plus interactions like gossip, bust a' move and red hands and vastly improve your success rate when you need it the most. At around 60 daily and lifetime relationship and chemistry doesn't become as important and you should be able to work your way up with the big stuff under hugs and kisses easily at that point. Needless to say, if your relationship is a perfect 100 on both fronts, you're in for a very easy time with "Make Out" and "Woohoo" rocketing your score through the roof. If you use some of Xyni's examples in the next section though, it's possible to take a complete 0 to a perfect 100 daily and lifetime relationship score within the time of a date. ----------------------- Rally's Example #2: Pay the Matchmaker Minimum Wage! It's a great idea to skimp on the dating when it comes to the Matchmaker! She's pretty dang pricy for just hooking you up with a single date, with the maximum price for a date being 5000 simoleans, what a rip off! Even the good dates she brings are ugly, so why not just get an expendable loser with no chemistry at all to abuse and attack?! Really though, unless your sim has way more money than she has love, don't rely on the Matchmaker to set you up. It's easier to create your own sim to match your sim's chemistry anyway. Of course, if you happen to be dating for disposable income and an even more disposable spouse, the Matchmaker is the way to go! Speaking of being ripped off, if you paid money for this FAQ, you got scammed! Report the person who sold it to you immediately and get your money back! ----------------------- Rally's Example #3: Date a Guy with Lots of Girlfriends! Nothing quite says disaster quite like sending radio waves to all of your date's lovers that might come onto the lot that you're claiming a stake on their man, and that's exactly what happens when your sim dates a guy with many lovers! It's amazing what a few slappy happies does for making a date a living nightmare! If you are dating a fresh townie though, in general you wouldn't have to worry. For the most part, you are in total control of who falls in love in the neighborhood, albeit accidental love does happen, like when you throw your food at a sim with a high enough relationship score who's a young adult or older, sheesh, who could have saw that coming? In which sick culture is throwing your food at people a sign of intimate love? ----------------------- What Rally Does On A Date: ----------------------- Rally's Example #1: Attack Your Date! It's so crazy that it might just work! Of course, unless your sim inherently already hates their date and somehow got them in a Matchmaker's draw, you're going to have to irritate and poke them quite a bit before you can get to the fun that is assault and battery. On the more practical application of how not to piss off your date, stick to safe risk intimate actions. If there is strong chemistry, like a triple bolter, you might get away with a few chemistry accelerated actions, but only use them if it's an all or nothing race against time or you are perfectly comfortable with the chance of failure, it wouldn't take long for chemistry accelerated actions to become regular safe actions anyway. As with building any normal relationships, find a combination of three strong interactions that work, then cycle them over and over again till a another strong and safe one is available and substitute it into the cycle. At the highest level of romance, the cycle of Make Out, Goose and Squeeze does the trick, but it wouldn't be long before the couple starts wanting to woohoo, so prepare for that as well. At that point though, any inherently good interaction will be almost guaranteed to work, and relationship building to the maximum level will be easy, along with taking your date to the top! ----------------------- Rally's Example #2: Waste Your Time Rally likes food more than men. More specifically, she likes men as food, but she can't do that in this game, at least not without a cow plant, so the first thing she'll do on a date is be seated at a restaurant and spend all of her time trying to order something and wolf it down while somewhat paying attention to her date. By the time they are done eating, the date is dead and cold. The proceeding example was an incredible waste of time and puts your sim in a disadvantage to score relationship points and satisfy wants! If your sim already has a high enough relationship to be romantically involved with the other sim during a date, there is plenty to do at the table, but if not, you're practically walking through a social interaction minefield, since the only safe one is toasting at low relationship levels. Be careful when doing actions outside of direct standing interaction like dining, bowling, poker, and dancing, as they will limit your arsenal of possible interactions. Cancel out of any want related action as soon as the want is satisfied to help save time, such as the want to dance, the want to dine, the want to play cards and so on. It might not be very sweat and subtle, but your date wouldn't mind the fast pace, and the date's pacing will be significantly accelerated. When you've already reached Dream Date at the top of the Date Rating meter, then your sims can relax and enjoy their time at the diner table or play fun activities together, but don't do it at the beginning of a date or the stretch of inactive time might kill it before it really starts to warm up. ----------------------- Rally's Example #3: Take Your Date Home and Kill Them Rally has a great deal of experience with bags of flaming poo being left on her front door. She also doesn't like them very much; she thinks they are very disrespectful. Of course, Rally has discovered a way to persuade her old dates gone bad from doing such a thing - lock them in an incinerator room and light them on fire! If your date hasn't gone completely south, you can ask your date to come home with you and off them. Alternatively and more reliably, you can invite them to your lot in the first place - then off them. You might have figured it out by now, but Rally is not a nice person. Oddly enough, the date meter only falls about two levels if your date happens to oh, die, but the date will pretty much also instant fail and of course, nobody will be coming to bring you flowers. Well, that's it, no positive lesson to be learned from this example, other than "Do much worst onto others, before others intend to do it to you", seeing as how dates gone bad can come back to haunt you. As a special note to any impressionable youths, DO NOT DO THIS IN REAL LIFE! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [9.04] How to Have a Dream Date: Payapaya! Well, now that we're through that sadistic slugfest part of the FAQ, it's time to talk about how to consistently have a Dream Date each and every time and completely abuse the system in a way that would make Maxis cry. Now, to explain this segment by example is our other Axiom resident, the luv-u-ree female biped Xyni and her portable cow plant! Not to be confused with the actual Xyni from my website, Xyni Platini from Second Life, that other Xyni I used for Wizardry 8, that one that I used for Morrowind, the Xyni I used from the original The Sims, and of course, definitely not the one used for the original Final Fantasy, which only supported four character names anyway. The name goes a long, long, long way back. Okay, nuff' of that, onto the examples! ----------------------- How Xyni Gets a Date ----------------------- Xyni's Example #1: Machinegun Dating! Well, here's something you can't do in real life, without some strange looks from people anyway. Since Xyni is a popularity aspiring sim, she can stick to one sim she likes very much and satisfy all of her and her partner's wants on demand without clashing with her aspiration nature, unlike Romance sims who might get wants to Make Out, Woohoo and fall in love with multiple sims while on a date, which can definitely clash with their dating goal at hand. Xyni also just graduated from Axiom University, so her palette of six wants and two locks gives her a much larger selection of actions and directions to go in on dates. Xyni's dates are ridiculously short, lasting less than two hours before they reach Dream Date level, mainly because of repeated Make Out and Woohoo actions, then she ends the date and starts it again immediately, locking any high scoring wants from the last date to be used as accelerants for the new date. More on the locking bit later. In the time it takes another sim to go through a fully extended Dream Date, Xyni can have four or five Dream Dates with her partner and amass obscene amounts aspiration points. Its borderline unrealistic that any physical living being in real life could actually do that, and Maxis apparently didn't think it unrealistic that a person can date the same person like fifteen times on the same day, so exploit it and bite away at the wound like a ferocious cougar on the weakest gazelle! Of course, Xyni's "best friend" will stop by to give her a few flowers and other goodies from the compound dating, sometimes even during the current date, and hopefully, he wouldn't get eaten by the cow plant. Oh yes! Another goodie that comes from delivering a Dream Date is that the dating sims' motives get about a fifth of their meters in all areas restored, save for Environment of course. What this means is that our healthy female biped here and her best friend can machinegun date practically indefinitely all day and night long without interruptions. Oh yeah, it should be noted that married couples can still date each other! Oh what an unrealistically ideal world The Sims 2 is! So don't let a little something like monogamy get in the way of your sim's dating pursuits! ----------------------- Xyni's Example #2: Home Is Where Your Date Is The place where most good dates end should really be the place where they all begin, at home. Unlike real life where first time daters like to meet on neutral grounds just in case one of them is a serial killer, like Rally up there, in this game, sims can invite their date to meet them at home in the first place. Home has many advantages to it aside from being a place you are familiar with, you can fix some problems that might come up with build, buy and inventory mode and help make things work better, such as bringing the jukebox into the room when you need to dance together. Other advantages are that you can use aspiration rewards like the Love Tub and Cool Shades, you can have double beds on residential lots, which is always useful for obvious reasons, and finally, you can SAVE YOUR GAME! Having your sim's date at home is also ideal for established romance sims with multiple lovers who have a better chance of going to Heaven than going on for a date on the town without receiving a fistful of slap. Of course, the reverse is kinda' true should a more family oriented sim be domestically anchored to the old ball and chain and want to escape the confines of their spouse's domain of terror. Of course, pretty much every sim with the exception of the romance sim can become very satisfied with monogamy, so it's really more for story purposes. Another help to having your sim's date at home is that if your sim lives with other people, they can also help support the date to work better so you wouldn't have to solo it on your own, such as with cooking meals and cleaning. Better yet, you can double date or even all out multi date all at the same time! You can do this on community lots as well, but multiple dates mean multiple risks, so it's good to be home. Yeah, it might be a massive undertaking, but with the home team advantage, it'll be a snap! Downtown does have some advantages over home though, most important is the fact that actual worldly time doesn't pass so you can be there for as long as you like if your motives are healthy. The second is that you will only find restaurants downtown, although the want to dine out with another sim is actually very low paying. A good alternative to home though is to invite your sim to the "Base" mentioned in its own section. Of course, dates can travel around from one location to another, but home is the perfect place to anchor the dating relationship to a secure point before taking off to a community lot, plus you wouldn't have to fear being caught cheating as remotely as much as if you were downtown. ----------------------- Xyni's Example #3: Ummm, Control Your Date You wouldn't have the luxury of controlling both of your dates all the time unless the sim has somehow moved in with your family or was built into the household. This works pretty well for micromanagement style players who like to build their neighborhoods and sim communities from the ground up, but more plug and play gamers might opt to wine and dine the townies instead. After the household merging system that came with The Sims 2 University, it's not all that hard to control any two of your own sims under one roof by merging the respected two families together. Even if they don't have good relationships, you can force them to live with each other from the neighborhood screen. Additionally, if it's a townie or service sim we are talking about here, you can purpose for them to "Move In" after reaching a good best friend relationship or even marriage if commitment is no problem for you. Not only does controlling both of your sims give you an enormous advantage by burning the candle at both ends and increasing efficiency in unity (Your date wouldn't wander off to go bowling with Mrs. Crumplebottom), you'll also be able to satisfy each other's wants better. ----------------------- What Xyni Does On A Date: ----------------------- Xyni's Example #1: Fools Rush In -- And It Works! Taking 0 to 100! Love! Love! If you dated a person under Xyni's first three examples above, then you're practically guaranteed to have a Dream Date if you just remotely try, however, you wouldn't always have that much control over your date, and for the sake of immoral "common wisdom", a little romantic variety doesn't hurt, so this and the following rules are in the case that your date doesn't like you very much. So you might be asking, if Xyni was such a dedicated love interest to her man, why would she need to start dating total strangers? Well, her cow plant ate her "Best Friend", the end. Okay, that didn't really happen (In any game that I saved at least), but if it did, this is what she would do on dates with complete strangers. Now then, it brings me great pleasure to reduce the wonders of dating into a cold hard soul lacking science - again -- but this time in steps! At Okay Level: The first three hours of the date are the most important and difficult. This is when your new date is at their most alienated state and when you don't have any time extensions or hard hitting interactions. If you can manage to get them into the Good level and get the extended 2:30 hours quickly, then you'll have a much higher chance of getting to Dream Date. If you are working a zero relationship, then you're definitely in for a ride, although it's not all that difficult if you've become experienced in how the dating system works and a complete utter disaster doesn't disintegrate your date on arrival. On the flip side, if the two sims have triple lightning bolt chemistry, you can get away with a very easy dream date and maxing to 100 daily and lifetime relationship even if you make some big mistakes and start off as total strangers. The key to boosting the dating rating as fast as possible is to nail the intimate interaction related wants of both sims as quickly as possible, preferably nailing multiple at a time and getting a plus reaction from it in the process. Let the sim and their date's want list guide your actions. Metaphorically, you are trying to kill as many birds with as few stones as possible. Fulfilling wants by sheer number isn't enough; you want your sim's relationship to flourish and grow so that you can advance up the social interaction level, bring bigger paying wants and bring out the big guns like Woohoo and Makeout. Take note that a good indicating of actions that will work are the wants your partner has, sometimes they'll want a risky action like Slow Dance or Make Out before they are typically ready for them. It is a good bet that using those interactions that they want will work, although it's not perfectly guaranteed, particularly if your sim's chemistry isn't going for them, but it's a good hint and a bonus for if it does work. The hardest part when first dating is the first 30 points of daily relationship on both sides, take or give depending on chemistry (The 30 mark is from neutral chemistry). Hopefully your sims have good chemistry, but that's wishful thinking too. Thankfully, Nightlife has the new "Ask" command that is far more effective than automated talking and informative too. You might want to have 10 points of daily relationship before you ask certain questions if your chemistry doesn't bounce. Oh yes, please keep in mind that the full palette of "Ask" commands will not be available if your sim's date is being controlled at the same time, the game kinda' renders it redundant I would suppose. This isn't a particularly big deal though, as they get a default bonus relationship upon moving in together well past the zero point anyway where asking is most useful. Anyhow, back to using the "Ask" command, it is safe to generally first ask what your date's sign is, then what their job is, followed by what turns them on or off, then their wants and fears. There are several other ask options, but you typically don't want to ask them how much money they have until the relationship improves (This seems to piss off the Diva and Mr. Big in particular), although if you are a romance, pleasure seeker or a gold digging wealth sim, that'll be the first question you want to ask, but really shouldn't. The reason why the 30 point mark is so important is that it is when reliable double plus interactions become readily available, such as Gossip, Red Hands and Bust a' Move. Fortunately, some of the "Ask" commands can result in double pluses as well, making them surprisingly effective given their quick speed, but be warned if you are trying not to actually get your sim romantically involved. Asking can trigger a Crush relationship when daily relationship reaches past 50, save for "About Interests" and "Ask If They Like What They See". . Ask commands also don't have coordinating wants, so as soon as such actions as Admire, Tickle, Gossip, Dance Together become available, switch to them to double bank on the wants, especially on dates. At Good Level: Assuming that you made it here, you can now feel just a little bit relieved, even more so if you broke the 30 point barrier. At this stage, start using double plus reactions with minimal risk, it's still not completely safe to start a romance, but try to get in some lifetime relationship effecting actions in like "Friendly Hug" and "Bust a' Move". At Great Level: Hopefully at this point, your sim and their date will be at least friends at 50 relationship points. At this point, you can start using subtle romantic actions with a good chance of success like Peck, Sweet Talk and Romantic Hug. The key to this point is to start increasing lifetime relationship score with the low level intimate actions and work your way up to higher level ones. It'll only get easier from this point. Remember, in order to perform stronger romantic interactions, it is the lifetime relationship level that is more vital. Certain casual moves don't do a thing at all of increasing the lifetime level, but others nudge it and the strongest romantic interactions shove it. Nonromantic actions like Bust a' Move and Backrub can increase lifetime relationship a little, but you'd best turn to intimate actions under hug, flirt and kiss if you want the romance to bloom. At Dream Date: You have finally tasted the sweet taste of success! You can always end your date here and expect roses in the morning, but there's a pretty good chance that your sim's relationships haven't been maxed out to 100 daily and lifetime relationship yet, and this is the best time to do it while the iron is hot! Ideally at this point, you will have increased your sim's relationship to 100 daily and above 50 Lifetime relationship. That's not particularly easy to do normally, but the later examples in this section will help with that. At this point, it's fairly safe to use high level flirts like Caress, Hold Hands and Goose as well as the high level hugs and kisses. What you want to see in your sim and their want palette is the want to flirt or be flirted with. If you are lucky, hitting this want will lead to the make Make Out want in addition with the Kiss want, and satisfying that will lead to the Woohoo want and very possibly any of its alternate sisters like Woohoo in bed, Woohoo in Hot Tub, Woohoo in public, but most specifically Woohoo in car seems frequent if there is a car on your lot, including community lots. ----------------------- Xyni's Rule #2: Use the Tools of The Trade! In real life, we don't have any real devices to make dates go better other than our own charismatic personality, oh wait, we have booze - and that made all the difference. Anyhow, the best place to start a date hands down is at home as mentioned before, but what I didn't elaborate on where how aspiration rewards and other items can severely enhance your dating rating potential, as well as Love Potion #8.5, Cologne and having a wardrobe and a mirror. First of all, I'll talk about Love Potion #8.5. If you have a bottle of it, definitely use it within the first three hours of the date. At the very least, it'll help to neutralize horrible chemistry and if you already have good, but not perfect chemistry with your date, it can help you temporarily achieve that illusive triple lightning bolt rating, making things significantly easier. Next on the list are two aspiration items that will help you accelerate your date, the Cool Shades and Love Tub. The Cool Shades aspiration item multiplies the effect of interactions, both successful and negative by a good deal, so if you are confident that the social interaction will work, wear them and do it. For dates in development, I recommend using it with Bust a' Move, but for dates already in the secure circle of love, I highly recommend using it with Make Out. You can also use the Cool Shades with Woohoo for incredible payoff, but it's a bit tricky, as sims automatically talk when they are in the hot tub or in bed, wasting the glasses. In order to get the glasses to work with Woohoo, you have to make out in a public cloths booth or a photo booth, but wait you say, you can't bring the Cool Shades to a community lot? No problem, buy a photo booth for home use and that will suffice! Oh yeah, if you are controlling both sims, try making both of them wear Cool Shades when performing a strong interaction, since they will multiply the effect. The Cool Shades are particularly useful for jump starting lifetime relationship, which is usually something that time does better than anything outside of high level intimate actions, so use them many and use them plenty if you got the aspiration output for it. Chances are that you'll be far more than just compensated for their price at the end of a Dream Date. Now then, about the Love Tub, sim's gain a much higher level of success with romantic actions performed in the love tub, so you can Make Out and Woohoo with significantly less risk, and since those two are the biggest paying social interactions in the game, they'll blast your date rating straight through the roof. There is also a specific want to Woohoo in the Love Tub want that can be satisfied for some good points at the same time as the regular want to woohoo in a hot tub. The mirror and the wardrobe are very useful in helping to increase chemistry by altering a sim's characteristics. First, you have to find out what turns your date on and off, so ask them under the "Ask" command. With a wardrobe and mirror, you should be able to change the majority of variables. There is one table mirror under Surfaces in the Miscellaneous section in the shopping catalog that you might also find handy called the Cornerstone Variable Vanity that will allow you to extreme makeup your date to better fit your sim's preferences. You might not have the time to do all of this on a date of course, but it doesn't take all that long and the results do payoff if the couple has the chemistry of water and oil. Using these tools, I've been able to regularly turn horrific 36 simolean discount Matchmaker nightmares into Dream Dates, and now you can too! ----------------------- Xyni's Rule #3: Lock and Load Your Wants! This trick works best in the case that you are "machinegun dating" like mentioned in Xyni's Example #1 for How Xyni Gets a Date, which is best summarized as having extremely fast Dream Dates one immediately right after the other with the same person. At the end of a Dream Date, there is usually some fallout from the "Dating Override" that all the passion making brought about. You can take advantage of it and ride it into your next date with the person by locking it so that you don't have to worry about want shuffling start up time between ending your current date and starting your new one, which tends to start the date off with low level interactions. For example, if you had a spare Make Out want at the end of your last date and you locked it, you can satisfy it immediate upon starting a new date and get the wants shuffling at the highest intimate level of making out, flirting and woohoo. This kick starts the date right where the last one left off, and is a highly effective strategy in reaching Dream Date as fast as possible. There is another similarly related strategy for dating, and that is to save and lock a powerful want that your sim can satisfy controllably, specifically something like the "Sell a Masterpiece" want for extremely creative sims under the popularity and wealth aspirations who have a spare painting on a canvas waiting to be sold. This will give your sim an a good boost even on completely crappy dates with strangers, although high paying wants outside of the "Sell a Masterpiece" are pretty hard to control, giving popularity and wealth aspiring sims a bit of a dating advantage. Well, that was a really long segment, finally, onto what wonderful goodies you get from going on dates! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [9.05] Rewards and Punishment: Poo and Roses There are several rewards your sim can get for a well done date, as well as some that are not so nice from dates gone wild, or just plain disastrous. With most of the gifts, you'll see your date come onto your lot to deliver the item personally to your front door at any given time of the day, or in the case of the letters, a mail man will bring it straight to your mail box in the morning. In the case that your sim date lives together, he will have his actions overwritten once his queue is free and deliver the gift. Gifts have a nice little bit of amusing poetry attached to them, and they can be viewed to see them or you can read the description after putting them into your inventory. Oh! The good Gifts also have a funny secondary effect if other lovers of the sim view them; they start crying and get a moderately large negative reaction towards their lover who went on a date, as well as the possibility of becoming Furious. Gifts from dates are actually a pretty useful device for when you want to end a loving relationship without getting caught cheating or domestic abuse. Anyhow, without further delay, onto the goodies! Gifts: 1. "You're My Dream Date" Bouquet: I have so many of these on my main sim's front lawn that it's a bit ridiculous! Still, this is the immediate gift that you get from a date very well done, a lovely bouquet of non-perishable roses, and by non- perishable, I mean bloody immortal like the Highlander Duncan McCloud. 2. "I Had A Great Time Flower: The diminutively less impressive version of the rose bouquet for having a Great Date, it's still a treasure for a job well done and is apparently also an immortal plant that doesn't require water or substance of any form or sort to flourish. 3. "Thanks for the Fun" Note For having a Good Date, this pink tidy little letter will land in your mail box and be directly deposited to your sims inventory. 4. "Don't Call Me" Note: This one's a treasure to me! If you get a lame or bad date, you might just find this in your mail box the next day! I've gotten so many dream date bouquets that I was so happy to find this little golden nugget of hate mail in my sim's mail box one day! The letter is a black note with a red seal on the front, and it apparently smells very badly, as your sim discovers as they receive them. It can't get worst than this though can it? Oh yes it can! 5. "Worst Date Ever" Flaming Bag of Poo: The ultimate in date hate, if you have a horrible date, your date will sneak onto your lot and light this perpetually burning bag of poo. I mean, I just waited and waited for days for the thing to go out, but it just doesn't seem to stop burning! The bag of hot steamy feces does massive damage to the environment score, and in order to throw it away, one of your sims has to stamp it out and clean it up. Other Rewards: 1. +1 Cleaning Point: Your sim can randomly receive one cleaning skill point for a successful date. There doesn't seem to be any determining variable, it just happens at random. It might also be possible to get other skill points from dates, but I haven't seen it happen personally, unlike with outings. 2. Motive Restoration: Depending on how well your date went, you will get an instant boost to motives as soon as the date ends. A Dream Date can restore about a fifth to all motives, but a horrible date wouldn't really help anything. 3. A Random Item from the Buy Catalog: It might be proportional to how well your date went or not, but you can get some great stuff from your date. What will happen is that your date will sneak onto your lot with one of those bottomless inventory bags and deposit the item at your door steps where there is space available. The item seems to be random as well as the actual chance of the event occurring, and they seem to be too various to list. I've seen and heard everything from flower pots to stoves to remote controlled cars to pianos, the only basic rule seems that it has to be able to fit on the ground on your front lawn. You can get some great grub for free this way! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [10] Outings Ah, there isn't quite anything like the classic outing where your sim and company can venture from lot to lot, beating down and shooting any rival gangs that get in their way, oops, wrong game. Seriously though, you can assemble gangs together to go and terrorize people using outings, but of course, that's far from what Maxis intended the player to do, although I'm pretty sure some rogue game testers somewhere thought otherwise! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [10.01] How to Go On an Outing: When Parties Become Obsolete Outings are a cross between the group numbers of parties with the mobility and play mechanics of dates. They also allow you and your sim friends to travel from lot to lot using taxi or car, which equals a very adventurous romp. You can also just stay grounded at home, similar to a regular party. Alright then, similar to what I did with dates, I'm going to talk about how to go on outings first! There are three ways to go on an outing; I will discuss the more conventional way first. New to Nightlife is the group system to make repeated outings with your sim's friends much easier. When your sim uses either a cellular phone or a land phone, they will have the command "Groups" in the menu. When you first choose it, the only option available will be "Manage Groups". This will allow you to assemble groups of multiple people together for outings from people your sim knows. Similar to parties, the power of your computer, as determined by what the game detects (If you happen to have an AMD processor like me, it tends to read wrong), is what limits how many people you can have in a single group. The highest I've personally seen is 8 but your results will vary. Groups also include the sim that assembled the group. If you created a group involving other sims you can have control over, as indicated by the diamond on the group creation screen next to the name, that person too will have the group listed when you go to play them. All right then! We're ready for an outing! All you have to do now is pick the either of the two options under "Groups" that are "Invite Over" and "Meet On A Community Lot". These two options will be available if you are calling from home, but you will only be able to summon your group to where you are if you are on a community lot. Be warned in the case of the later, because all your groupies tend not to show up when the community lot is full of townies. There are also two options under the previously mentioned commands, "For an Outing" and "For Fun". The only real different is that "For an Outing" starts the Outing Rating meter where as the "For Fun" one doesn't and can go on basically indefinitely so long as all of the members of the group don't leave or you manually disband it. Your group still follows you around wherever you go, and it's good if you are going out with a group of strangers who would sooner beat the tar out of each other than have fun. Finally, onto the second method which I like to call the Katamari Damacy system or perhaps it is better described as the "RPG Party Plot Device System". Basically, it involves you adventuring around, quite possibly from lot to lot and adding new people to your group as you go. In any case, when you click on another sim there will be a command under the "Ask" option, look for the option of "Ask To Join Casual Group". You will start off the outing with a single person, and be able to gather people as you go along. You can also ask people to join your group in any of the other outing situations, as well as ask them to leave. Finally, if your sim has some friends or potential contacts in the mix, they may be asked to go downtown over the phone for a group outing. This is probably the worst case scenario if you are looking to have a successful outing, since you don't pick and choose who will be in the group, and there's a good chance that your sim wouldn't be friends with the other members of the group in question. For crying out loud, the people in the group are probably not even friends of the other people in the group, the grouchy ones in particular seem more likely to eat each others faces than to actually bother with something low priority like communication. Outings actually somewhat make ordinary parties obsolete, since you actually get rewards and goodies from them and you can call groups much easier than independently invite guests. Of course, this is not to mention that you can bring outings anywhere, from home to downtown community lots. The only downside to outings is that it seems that you don't get a memory for having them, but it's not such a big deal. Parties do however have the benefit of having more frequent variations of wants to satisfy though, and more aspiration types get them more often, so they are still good for when your sim just has to party. Still, parties still use the old text box rating system. I'd like to see them updated in a future expansion pack. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [10.02] How Outings Work: Trying Not To Make Your Friends Hate You Outings have the thermometer rating system almost exactly like dates do, except the names of the levels are different and you will not be able to view any of the other sim's wants or fears. Similar to dates, you start at the middle ranged "So-So" level with three hours, and each time you reach a new level, you get your time extended. Disaster: N/A Real Drag: N/A Boring: N/A So-So: 3:00 Fun: 2:30 Super: 2:00 Rockin': 1:30 The Outing Rating also behaves almost exactly like the dating system, increasing and decreasing with interaction results and wants and fears being fulfilled and the other stray variables mentioned for dating. Many of the strategies that work for dates can be adapted with a little multitasking common sense for outings. The Outing Rating is actually quite a bit tougher to fill up than the Date Rating, as it involves multiple people who may or may not actually like each other. Fortunately, if the other people in the group do like each other, then they will automatically help fill the bar up with each positive interaction. On the flip side, if they are beating each other down into a bloody pulp and continue to assault each other with slaps, shoves and pokes, the outing could easily become an unrecoverable disaster. Just like how starting a date makes your sim go into "Date Override" mode, outings have their own "Outing Override" equivalent that focuses on interacting with other members in the group. As you probably can guess, fulfilling these wants in conjunction with having good interactions, and doing it quickly are the keys to rockin' outings. In particular when it comes to increasing or decreasing the outing score is achieving new relationship statuses, like best friends, lovers and enemy. It seems to be a lot more volatile with so many people than on a date where you generally try not to rearrange your partner's face as a rule of thumb. Be very careful with what your guests are doing. It seems to be okay if someone else is pissing them off or attacking them, but if two people in your group irritate or fight with each other, it could be quite painful for the meter. If this becomes the case, click on one of the offenders and select the "Leave Casual Group" command under "Ask" and eject the idiot before he or she causes some major rating damage. An important strategy in outings is to focus your attention on people in your group as marked by the smaller diamond over their heads, and if any good friends come strolling by while you're roaming with your group, invite them on board unless they are a mortal enemy of other people in your group. Fortunately, unlike dates, other rival hearts in the area wouldn't come and slap the hell out of your sim when they are on an outing automatically, thank goodness. However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't string a single romantic interest along with you, in fact, doing so results in a much easier outing. Of course, if you are thinking of stringing along two love interests, you better be extremely careful not to let one see you making out with the other, as I've seen a outing at the Fun rating go straight down to the bottom of the meter at disaster by a sim that was caught cheating, which basically insta-killed the Outing. Similar to dates, outings can be ended at anytime by clicking on your sim and selecting the "End Casual Outing" command. You can also gather your group together into one spot using the "Gather Casual Group". Ironically, you can kill off people in your group if you are on a residential lot, and the score doesn't seem to decrease, although killing everyone in your group is pretty much automatic failure. In other related news, if the idea of a vicious gang that goes around getting into fights sounds like an interesting story bit to you, you can very well do that with outings. It seems that your own sim can get away with fighting people not in the group during an outing and get away without hurting the rating. The same case applies when you influence your groupies to fight other expendable townies; at least this seems to be the case most of the time. When you are on an outing, you can venture from one lot to another, and it's particularly useful if you have a car, as everyone will squeeze in, taking your party along as you go. Oh yeah, the following sections are in story form. I figured you might be tired of my cold analytical game oriented scrutiny, so I thought I'd have a story time break to help teach the little kiddies about outings! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [10.03] The Worst Case Scenario: When It Can Always Get Worst The following is based on an actual The Sims 2 story: It seemed like a simple enough outing for Rally. The local Mr. Big decided to invite her over to an outing with her friends on some cold night that nobody will ever remember. Normally, Rally didn't like invitations, seeing as sims who usually accepted hers have a tendency to oh, die, but since Rally had plans of world domination and to steal Mr. Big's money before tossing him into the incineration room. It seemed like a good idea at the time. When Rally arrived at "Yushi's Floating Market" she realized that all of Mr. Big's friends were all a bunch of worthless losers that had faces that looked like they'd be pressed firmly against a George Foreman Grill. There was no way she was going to associate with these decrepit vagrants. Still, Rally wanted to get some goodies from a good outing score, so she did her best to meet the wants and act friendlier than normal, which means she's not trying to kill anyone with boolprop cheats. After playing poker on one of the platforms, Rally noticed that two of Mr. Big's friends were starting to royally piss each other off. After a while, they got into a slapping contest, now that can't be good for the rating. Before Rally got over there to eject one of the idiots with the "Leave Casual Group" command, they finally broke into a fistfight and became enemies on the spot, because apparently they weren't enemies before. This unfortunately completely leveled the Outing Rating, and things were looking pretty hopeless since Rally didn't have any particularly strong friends outside of Mr. Big who was just a casual friend. That's when it happened. Rally's best friend and "little sister" Xyni came onto the lot. Had she still been in university, she wouldn't have come to a downtown lot automatically on her own, but since she recently graduated and moved into a cardboard box of a house, she was all good to go. Rally quickly ran over to Xyni and asked her to join her group. After that moment the two completely ignored everyone else and were in a world of there own. Rally was highly considering swinging the other way, you know, to help accelerate the Outing Rating with intimate actions, that's all, but doing so would completely wreck the story continuity, so she stuck to friendly actions. Through satisfying several combo chained wants and high powered interactions and a lot of effort in a little time, the outing finally turned into a Rockin' success! Wheel of Morality Says: Generally, you should be careful accepting invitations downtown over the phone, they do not work in your advantage and can be rather difficult if you don't have many close friends in the group, and even worst if the people in the group hate each other. You should have at least one close friend during an outing to rely on if things go hideously wrong. Concentrate on getting your Outing Rating as high as possible through interacting positively with this person before moving onto strangers. If there is no one available, find a person with good chemistry, or better yet, if a sim who is friends with yours walks onto the lot, invite them to join the group and work with them for a better outing tomorrow! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [10.04] The Omni Outing: When You Have The Attention Span of a Hummingbird The following is based on an actual The Sims 2 story experience, like there's even a point to writing this statement: There is one thing you should know about Xyni - she's insane. No, it's not because she commands an army of semi-evil zombie slaves that crank out counterfeit money day and night, or the fact that she named her pet cow plant "Moo Moo the Man Eating Plant", and it's not that thing she has for meteor paperweights and pocket caltrops either -- probably. No, it's because Xyni, in her complete utter lack of time management skills has decided to have an outing, a party, and to top it off, a date tonight - all within five hours overlapping! Xyni called up her best friend and love interest to come to a house party instead of a sports party, since sweaty people whooping the crap out of each other in questionably valid athletic activities while onlookers eat potato chips is out of the question for her, being really poor and living in a cardboard box like house with no TV - or a ceiling for that matter and all that other optional jazz. The reason Xyni only invited one person through the party call is simple, she follows the party call with a call to assemble her favorite group of friends to meet her at the house for an outing! This way, they all take part in the party upon arriving on the lot, and Xyni will only need to ask her best friend to join the outing instead of multiple people! Now, Xyni read the programmer's code, and knows that if she left the lot to go venturing during the outing on a community lot with her entourage of scum and villainy, the party would resume right where it left off when she returned, but she doesn't want to exploit the game's play mechanics - again, so she's going to do it the realistic way. If Xyni ever wanted to take her group away from home though and eat at a fancy diner though, she could very well do it at no additional consequence, since party time ceases when off the residential lot. When all of the guests for the party that double as outing members arrive at the house, Xyni asks her best friend to join the outing and since parties and outings are very similar, all positive actions count for both of the events! Wham! Xyni effectively hits two hippopotamuses with one telephone phone! Synergy! After hugging and greeting all of her long time friends to help brush things up to that beautiful little 100 relationship number, Xyni returns to her love interest and they do some "Payapaya" sending the Outing Score through the Roof Raiser score that the party is enjoying simultaneously, but it's not over yet! While there are still two and a half hours on the clock, Xyni quickly asks her partner for a date, suddenly, the Outing automatically ends as a Rockin' Outing (Although the message wouldn't come up till after the date) and the Date Begins! After some more "Payapaya" on the bed, a little "Payapaya" in the car, a dab of Payapaya in the Photobooth and just a wee bit of "Payapaya" in the love tub, she ends the date as a Dream Date and the party ends shortly there after as well. Xyni has now effectively had a Roof Raiser Party, a Rockin' Outing and a Dream Date all in the time it would take to throw just a normal party or almost half of a regular outing. And they lived happily ever after. Wheel of Morality Says: You can actually go on a date or an outing at the same time as throwing a party! Since all three events rely heavily on positive social interactions, you are basically getting a three for the price of one plus tax deal. Although you'll have to work the outing and date independently, the dating score can help reinforce the party score. Outings and dates unfortunately cannot be had at the same time for a single sim, so you have to divide them over the duration of the party. Of course, if you wanted extra time since two and a half hours is only about a fourth of a full date or outing, you can always exceed the party time limit. Normally parties make sims force leave automatically when they end, but if they are members of your group or date, they'll stay with you after the party ends. Alternatively, you can always take off for a community lot for more time. It is absolutely vital that the sims you invite have a good relationship with your sim. Having a single successful date, outing or party alone might be easy, but having all three rolled into one is a bit more complex, so you want to make sure you're prepared for an epic undertaking like this. I've actually done more complicated, multiple dates and outings between multiple sims running simultaneously while a party is running, but I can feel my computer crying when I start to try things like that, so I don't do it unless it's for the sake of doing it. Actually, it's weird, but you can have two sims start rival outings and steal each other's members into their own group, although two groups cannot be merged by asking the leader to join. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [10.05] Goodies and Grief: Grief not included There aren't clear cut rewards for successful outings every time you have them, although you might randomly receive the following if you are lucky. 1. +1 Skill Point: Like dates, you can gain skill points by having a successful outing, although it seems completely random. I've personally seen cleaning, creativity, charisma, body, cooking and mechanical points added this way, the last remaining skill, Logic, can most likely also be gained this way as well. It should also be noted that you can still get points this way even if you have a high level 9 in a respected skill, which makes for a very easy point when you're that far along in skill development. Oh yeah, the game generally tells you something along the lines that the reason that you got the skill point was that your sim was around other sims with the quality in the outing. In my experience, this doesn't seem to be true; it appears to be completely random in fact. Any controllable sim in the group has the opportunity to gain a skill point after it ends well, making including other members of your household in the group very useful! 2. A Random Object From The Buy Catalog: Just like with dates as well, a sim from your outing can sneak onto your lot and deliver some well deserved loot. I've gotten some nice expensive items this way for free, and there's nothing cheaper than for free. I've seen everything from the Soma Audiogeek TK421 Tower System to a 12th Century Song Dynasty Sculpted Vase to a Bust of Tylopoda. It might also just be me, but I think that you can only get objects from good outings if they involved at least one sim that you do not control who will visit your lot to deposit the item. The same seems to be true of dates as well. I'm trying to composite a reliable list of objects, but it seems pretty hard to nail down. 3. Motive Restoration: For a good outing, you can receive a nice boost to all motives that will help you recover the energy you exerted while trying to keep your "friends" from killing each other. 4. Coupon for a Free Meal: To tell the truth, I don't know if this is a reward for a successful outing or just a randomly deposited goodie in your mail box. In my experience, it always comes right after a great outing, but the game itself doesn't say anything about it being because of a good outing unlike other rewards. In any case, this coupon is good for one free meal for your sim and his or her guests at a community lot restaurant! The coupon is definitely a nice little treat, so order some really expensive stuff, okay? I have also heard that you can get promotions for your sim's job from outings as well, although I have yet to see this happen myself. It woud also seem that there aren't any particular negative penalties for doing extremely bad on an outing other than a few harsh automated words. Also, similar to how you can take advantage of dates to increase motives, aspiration and increase skills in the style of "Machinegun Dating", you can also do "Machinegun Outings" to restore motives to an entire group of people who live in your sim's household and who have great relationships with each other, as well as the chance to also pick up some spare skill points. Machinegun Outings aren't as executable as Machinegun Dating due to the rating thermometer being harder to fill, but they do cover more sims at the same time, and can be multitasked with other activities, making them a very worth consideration. ***************************************************************************** Chapter 4: Vampires ***************************************************************************** [11] Going Vampire One of the most notorious features about The Sims 2: Nightlife that fans have been waiting from the sidelines for and debated ever since that little preview that came with The Sims 2: University was seen is now here! Vampires are the newest "alternative lifeform" to be added to The Sims 2 universe and are far different in play compared to normal sims than both aliens and zombies combined! Of course, big time fans of vampires will notice a few differences from the legend, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying a life shrouded in arguably comical darkness. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [11.01] Becoming a Vampire: When You Don't Intend To Work on Your Tan There are three ways to get your first vampire sim, although they basically both involve the Grand Vampires that roam the community lots at nighttime downtown. There are two Grand Vampires at any given downtown, although it's also possible that there are two sets of them by default, either way, you have the Count and Countessa, which I'm starting to wonder if is even a real word. The Count wears a unique black "Dracula" like suit with a gold medallion while the Countessa wears a distinctive red long dress, and tends to wear the hair style that came with Nightlife with the jewel piece. You will also recognize them by their pale skin color, fangs, red eyes and the way they walk with their arm covering their face stalking the night. Yup, they're pretty evil and aren't very good at hiding it. It might seem that they are very rare at first, but they seem to appear more frequently after you meet them for the first time, although it might just be a psychological thing. Oh yeah, vampires tend to say "bleh!" a lot, it's one of Maxis' running jokes with a little bit of Hollywood folklore interpretation tossed in. I miss the days when people actually feared vampires, not that I would know anything about that. Speaking of fear, if you have no intention of having your sim become a vampire, you would do well to not have them befriend the Count or Countessa, as once they reach about the best friend mark with 50 daily and 50 lifetime relationship, the Count or Countessa will most likely start to have the munchies for your sim's neck, and you can guess how that'll turn out. This is especially true if they have naturally good chemistry with the vampires, and can be bitten even earlier than that. As a matter of fact, I've had an almost complete stranger in one of my households get bitten this way. Just keep a watchful eye and get ready to cancel the action to be bitten if it pops up. It should also be noted that the Count and Countessa are unique in their automatic response to bite a sim. That is to say that other NPC sims turned vampire don't seem to do it nearly as often. To tell the truth, although I hear of it frequently, I have yet to see a non-controllable vampire outside of the Grand Vampires bite a sim personally, and I've turned entire neighborhoods into vampire stomping grounds, invited like eight of them to a single normal sim's house for eight hours and not get a single bite, whereas I've had several occasions where I invited only a Count or a Countessa over and got a relatively immediate bite. It also seems that your own controlled vampires will bite necks automatically if you turn freewill on as well and let them act on your own, which is generally not a good thing, since if you wanted them to bite, you would have made them do so manually. On the flip side of not getting bitten, if you want your sim to become a vampire, befriend the Count and Countessa at all costs! They might be a little hard to find, since they only come out at night on community lots and run away at 6:00am due to the sunlight, unless they get occupied by something addictive like poker. I'm not joking about the poker bit, although it happens with activities as well, vampires can become distracted before realizing they are starting to sizzle, then run away. This happens a lot when you've turned a fair share of the neighborhood to the dark side and there are vampires left and right. Oh yeah, speaking of vampires running away during the daylight, be very careful if you are dating a vampire or have one as a member of your outing group, as if the sun rises, they'll run away and instantly end the date, likewise, if you bring them home and the sun is shining when you last left it, your date will burn and run. Basically, the sun makes vampires cancel whatever action they are doing and take off for their crypt, so be careful about dealing with them when daylight is about to break, especially in dating and cases where you use influence on them to do something like writing your term paper. On a positive note, you can also use the difference in time between community lots and residential lots to extend a vampire date if you left your home at night time when meeting your date on the community lot, and proceed to return home when daylight breaks, since you'll be returning to a night atmosphere instead of to a vampire sizzling sun. You might be able to take a shortcut to the Grand Vampire of your dreams if you use the Matchmaker to find your undead date. If you have a pleasure seeker sim with a turn on for vampirism, you have a good chance of meeting a Count or Countessa if you pay the Matchmaker top dollar. Likewise if your sim is a perfect opposite, you can pay her minimum wage and take your chances. Of course, this works best before half of the neighborhood conveniently goes vamp, but by then, you wouldn't really need the Grand Vampires for turning anymore. Regarding the Count and Countessa, they seem to always be pleasure seeking sims with Professional Party Guess jobs, their other traits tend to be somewhat random. Either way, make sure you do it at night, or your date might run off with a really nasty sun tan. In related news, there are times when vampires just don't know any better, such as when a vampire friend comes home from work or school with your sim, and immediately runs off, or when a sim asks if they can bring a friend a long, and it turns out to be a vampire. Once you get the Count or Countess to a reasonable level of friendship, invite them to your sim's residence at night, turn freewill off for your sim so they aren't doing anything, and hopefully the vamp will give your sim the chomp. This is the first method to getting a vampire, and generally the one most players experience first in Nightlife. The only thing is that it can be a bit annoying to be at the mercy of the computer's "Freewill" to get your sim bitten. In my case, I had the "designated vampire" of my neighborhood be bitten on my first try while on her first date with a Countessa, but there are a lot of stories of people getting royally pissed that their sim is not getting bitten. In my experience, your chances of getting bitten on residential lots seem to be much higher, and at the very least, it's a controllable environment where you can save if things don't go right. The second method is similar to the first in involving the Count and Countessa, but seems to work better in general and more reliably. Unlike the first method that involved developing a close friendship and waiting to be bitten, this method involves using influence on a Count or Countessa to bite another sim. Now, you might be thinking that since the sim in question and the Count and Countessa don't exactly know each other, the chance of their bite working is slim, but it seems surprisingly reliable in its success rate. This seems to be an exclusive ability to the Grand Vampires, that is to say they have a significantly higher success rate of biting necks when influenced compared to ordinary turned vampires. As a matter of fact, I hate to say anything is guaranteed, but I've had sims that absolutely hated a Countessa's guts with around -100 daily and lifetime relationship, and the bite still worked! In other related news, I had the same Countessa bite like four different complete strangers on a community lot, and a Matchmaker to boot, and she landed every one of them! Of course, Counts and Countessa's lose this ability when they move in and become controllable, so you might want to keep them as NPCs, even though they'll be replaced. In the end, you have to get a sim that acts as an in between man that knows a Count or Countess and the sim who you want to become a vampire, get them both on the same lot, and influence the Count or the Countessa to bite them. With a little luck, this should do the trick and you'll have your first new vampire. Now then, onto the third method for getting a vampire, you must build up your relationship with a Grand Vampire and ask them to move in or marry them. They'll bring a hefty 50,380 or so simoleans into your coffers and give you the player control over a vampire lord to start your own cute little batty clan, which may or may not tolerate drinking blood from sewer rats. Alternatively, you can kill them and resurrect them with the Resurrect o' Nomitron under your control, but the first way is much easier and rewarding. Oh yeah, in the case that you want to pull a "Buffy" and slay a few vampires, they seem to have the ability to teleport out of your lot with a puff of smoke if they are trapped in a room when the sunlight comes out, so you might have to resort to a more conventional form of divine delivery to finish them off, like drowning or a cow plant. After you get your first vampire, spreading the love is much easier to do, since you can now have your new vampire turn other sims on your command once they reach a healthy enough relationship. Vampires can screw up their bite attempt though, with hilarious results. The "Bite Neck" command is also affected by chemistry, so you can take advantage of sims that share a good compatibility with your vampire to make a quick light snack, the Matchmaker once again is a good source of disposable victims. Strangely enough, and probably a good thing, becoming and being cured of vampirism both leave good memories for your sim behind, as opposed to getting abducted by aliens or getting resurrected as a zombie. This doesn't seem to apply exclusively to knowledge sims like other phenomenon, but to all aspiration types it would seem, despite most sims fearing becoming vampires. Oh yeah, in case you haven't guessed, sims are infinitely more tolerant of different lifeforms than people on our little ball of whirling mud, nobody will really care if your sim is a vampire, zombie, alien, or even a vampire zombie alien with the cheese aspiration who just happens to have had their electrically charred faced rearranged to look like a Picasso by Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic Surgery machine gone wild and has taken on the appearance of death warmed over with the personality of oatmeal. Well, in the case of vampires, the only real discrimination is another sim specifically has a turn on or turn off that coordinates with vampirism. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [11.02] The Vampire Lifestyle: Bleh, Bleh, Bleh! So what is the glamorous vampire lifestyle like? Aside from gaining pale complexion, red eyes, fangs, and a new sim portrait with them looking mighty evil, they also have several new abilities and play differently from other sim! Unlike the classic myths, sim vampires don't have some of the weaknesses that vampires are generally known for. They don't necessarily have to be invited into your house to walk in, they don't need to drink blood to survive and might actually prefer garlic sprinkled spaghetti, and of course, there are no wooden stakes in this game - yet. They also don't burn in water when taking a swim or bath, which is another less common vampire belief, but Vampires still have one weakness, oh, and what a weakness it is! As most everyone knows, vampires hate the sun, they really hate the sun, as a matter of fact, the sun probably hates them too. Whenever a vampire sim is outdoors in the open sun, their motives will decrease as if they were being set on fire. Within a single hour, all of their motives will be in the bloody red, and if they continue to stay in the sun for a few more hours, they'll burn to ashes. In other words, "Run! Run! Before you are well done!" Indoors, vampire's motives still drain faster than a regular living sim's and it becomes very difficult to maintain them. If you are wondering if taking down the windows and lights helps prevent vampire motive drain indoors, it really doesn't seem to; their motive drain is pretty much constant wherever they go indoors. Vampires also seem to have the inability to faint when their energy zeroes out, but they sure will complain about being tired a lot. Fortunately, to solve our Vampire's day life problems, Nightlife introduces a nice spiffy little coffin bed called the "Deep Sleeper by Igor and Sons". Aside from potentially being used to kill other sims, the coffin will freeze your vampire sim's motives and restore their energy. Other sims are actually able to sleep in coffins, as a matter of fact, even little kids, but they wouldn't have the same static motive benefit as vampires. Vampires also have a much more spectacular entrance into their coffin, complete with mist, sound effects and all that jazz. The coffin also cannot be used for woohoo, its way too small. You can however, have your sim peek or dare someone else to peek at the coffin and scare the living daylights out of them. There are two reactions to peeking at a vampire sleeping inside a coffin; it depends on how much energy your vampire has. If your vampire has low energy, the sim viewing the vampire will get shivers down their spine. On the other hand, if the vampire sim has almost full energy, they will leap out and scare the holy Hell out of the sim. This is a very similar effect to when ghosts scare sims, as a matter of fact, if the sim that peak's motives are low enough, they can die from fright! Now that we're done talking about the horrors of the vampire day life, onto the good stuff! Vampires don't have to worry about motive deterioration at night! Of course, the Environment score is still directly related to your sim's immediate area and not be effected, but all other motives will not decrease normally, keep in mind though that objects and activities that normally sap motives will still be in effect though, such as using an exercise machine drains hygiene or being scared by a ghost drains all around motives, but without the natural decrease, it'll barely count as a problem, unless they come across something a little troublesome, like being lit on fire or sticking their finger into an electric socket. Your vampire sim can pretty much party the entire night away without having to worry about trivial things like going to the toilet or eating, but if they want to restore their motives; they still can do so with no natural decrease to counteract the increase! Of course, the night doesn't last forever. Nighttime lasts exactly from 7:00pm to 7:00am, so you better get your vampire running home before the sun rises! Although it should be noted that sims, including vampires can't die on community lots, but they sure can if they go home and their motives are too low for them to take six steps to their front door in the sunlight and another seven to their coffin. For this reason, it's important to build a garage for your vampire's car so that they will be exposed to as little sunlight as possible when coming home during the day, and make sure you put the room with their coffin close to it! Oh yeah, you are probably wondering, if your sim is constantly getting French fried in sunlight, and I don't mean the detergent, how are you going to get them to work or class? Outside of the pains of stepping out into the daylight to get to their car and off the lot, vampire's motives don't seem to decrease particularly that rapidly when off the lot, they'll still be in a bit of a pinch if they return during the daytime. Still, it can be difficult to have your vampire in a good mood when a few minutes of sun sucks the death out of them, so have an Enigmatic Energizer around. Also, if you are able to get them to platinum mood before work, it could easily be their saving grace for getting that promotion. Young Adult vampires have it a bit hard though, since the times of their classes are all over the place for each semester and they actually walk to class instead of take a car. The best you can do in this case is have them run or fly out to the edge of the lot where they normally walk off to and have them go to class manually, at the very least, it'll minimize the damage. Vampirism is not genetic, if two vampires have a kid, he'll be perfectly normal. Strange that vampires can even have kids, being all moldy and dead and all, but that's how it works. Having kids is one distinct advantage vampires have over the distinctively inferior walking shambles that are zombies. As a matter of fact, except for their weakness to sunlight, vampires are superior to zombies in every way; they even have the gift of not aging just like zombies! Also like zombies though, the youngest a vampire can be is a teenager, since the "Bite Neck" command will not be available when interacting with children. Vampires can also pick up the Undead Scholarship for university, exactly the same one that Zombies can pick up. This is a lot better, because unlike being a zombie, being a vampire isn't permanent. An NPC vampire's daily schedule is virtually the opposite from a living sim's, although they ultimately clock less hours since normal sims can be called up and invited from 7:00 in the morning to 12:00 at midnight, giving them a total of 17 hours, along with more tolerance for the late hours. Vampires only get 12 hours from night to day. If you try and call a vampire up during the day time, they'll refuse to comply and tell you that the sun is just slightly too bright for them, minus the slightly part. However, vampires are perfectly available during the nighttime. Due to the fact that vampire's schedules are so utterly different from regular sims, it is wise to group them or invite them separately from other sims, otherwise their times might clash and they'll ride away into sunrise. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [11.03] Special Abilities: More Than Just Bleh! Unlike their pathetic undead cousins the zombies, vampires actually get some pretty good abilities and less of the annoying defects. Of course, you probably all know about their "Bite Neck" command that allows them to mesmerize a living sim before sinking their teeth into them, but they have a few other exclusive moves as well. First of all, vampires gain two new move commands! First, they can transform into a bat and fly! Flying isn't quite as fast as running is; it's actually exactly the same speed as skipping. Unfortunately, it actually doesn't allow your sim to pass over fences, half-walls, lakes or anything else on the ground that common sense would dictate that you can fly over, trust me, I've tried, but it sure does look cool. Flying unfortunately, is still inferior to running, and if your sim has low motives, they might cancel out of it immediately. Fortunately, bat transformed vampire sims can still open doors automatically, that'd be pretty painful otherwise -- "Ka-Splat!" The other new move command that vampires get is "Stalk", which is kinda' like a walk, but with more stalk and less talk. Stalking is basically the action I described earlier when the vampire has their arm in front of them to cover their face while sneaking by. It's a basically useless action, being about the same speed as walking, but it sure does look shifty and ominous. It's actually possible to have your sim do a "Stalk Run" where their legs are running but their arm is still in front of their face. This is done similar to how "Go to" walking automatically accelerates into running when the selected sim has to cross large distances and has high energy. Vampires have one special effect that many players might not notice at first, their reflections don't appear in mirrors! This is hilarious when your vampire is interacting with a living sim, particularly for activities like "Kicky Bag" or "Leap Into Arms", as there will only be the living partner in the interaction visible. Finally, one of my personal favorites is the "Bleh!" command under "Irritate". Depending on who you use it on, the reaction will be different. If a vampire uses it on another vampire, the other vampire will be slightly annoyed and bleh back! On the flip side, if a vampire blehs a non-vampire sim, it will cause them to freak out. If you happen to use "Bleh" when a non- vampire sim's bladder is very low, they'll also piss their pants. Strangely enough, after doing this once, their bladder doesn't seem to reset, so you can terrorize a single sim over and over again with "Bleh" and have them do a "Noah's Ark". Fortunately or unfortunately, you can't kill another sim with "Bleh", trust me, I've tried. Even stranger though is that "Bleh" has absolutely no social relationship reaction to it, no pluses or minuses. Well, that's it for special abilities; let's talk about the cure next! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [11.04] Curing Vampirism: Wadda'ya know, it's a life style after all! So you've had your fun with your own personal walking and talking embodiment of evil, huh? Do you want to reverse that horrible ailment that's leaving your skin peeling in the light of things? No problem! Unlike virtually every other story involving vampires, killing them with a wooden stake, chopping their head off, filling it with garlic, and smacking it squarely with a five- iron into a lake of holy water isn't the answer to curing vampirism here! Nope, the answer is Vamprocillin-D! A potion you can buy from the Matchmaker for 60 simoleans that you vampire sim can drink, and influence others to drink! Sure, striking them a few times with the Belmont family whip would be a better alternative, but you have to make the best of what you got! Since the Vamprocillin-D is so cheap and easy to get a hold of, you can actually very well just have one vampire in the household during the day time while all the other vampires in the family drink Vamprocillin-D and walk through the day before voluntarily being bitten again to enjoy the night, repeating the cycle! Aside from the wants and fears related to becoming and being cured of vampirism, this is actually a very handy gameplay tactic! As a matter of fact, it's a good idea to always have your vampire with a bottle of Vamprocillin-D, just in case of emergencies, like when you are out on a date with a living sim that must absolutely go well, and you don't want your vampire to go the way of the Hindenburg. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [11.05] The Ultimate Vampire: Without Sharp Pointy Impaling Things Who doesn't love an omnipotent vampire? Generally in story telling, Vampires come in two categories; those that you can actually respect that possess style, dignity, and enough power to compete with the Energizer Bunny in a marching band, and then those you don't want to be seen in public with due to their irritating cartoon like personality, although Count Chocula is okay in my book. How could anyone with so much chocolaty goodness not be awesome? This part of the guide is dedicated to making the ultimate evil vampire that you can be proud of. Although all of the NPC Counts and Countessas in the game are of pleasure seeker aspiration, the ultimate vampire is a knowledge aspiring sim. Why is that? Well, it's simple - knowledge aspiring sims are evil. Sure, Maxis will tell you otherwise, but we know better than that with their constant want to see dead people and bring back zombies n' stuff. If a knowledge sim has become a vampire they'll have specific wants to see other sims, most likely with high relationships as vampires, along with the usual "Bite Neck" want. Along with that, they'll actually have fears of being cured of vampirism, if that doesn't say that they are dead and loving it, nothing will! They will also gain the want to become a vampire again should they have been cured, "accidentally". Of course, you can still be very successful with vampires of other aspirations, a grilled cheese sandwich vampire in particular would be hilarious, but since you want your sim to be a vampire in the first place, you might as well take advantage of their dark nature, otherwise you're better off forging a perfect "ordinary" sim like what my other FAQ recommends. The type of vampire this part of the FAQ is aiming for is one who can easily soak in the occult and turn the majority of the neighborhood to the undead underside of things. Unfortunately, it seems that knowledge aspiring sims have wants from all over the board, especially if they have already witnessed aliens and zombies, as they probably have the biggest palette of possible wants of all the aspirations, so it can be a bit difficult to bring up the ones you want related to vampirism up on demand. Since this is the case, it's good to rely on other ones based on the occult, such as seeing ghosts or bringing back zombies, along with more normal ones like going on dates. An additional great help to the limited want palette is to have the university graduation boost that adds two want slots and an extra lock. One of the greatest forms of aspiration income that knowledge sims can thrive on is seeing ghosts. You might have seen your sim get scared here or then, and thought that getting scared by a ghost is a relatively rare thing, well it's not if you know how to manufacture a cesspool of death and damnation! Normally, you might be used to your casual family ghost, or the neutral paper boy that you accidentally lit on fire ghost, but nothing compares in sheer scaring ratio to that of an extremely pissed off ghost with utter contempt for the sim who's lot their grave dwells in. Ghosts that have a particular hatred towards a living sim on the lot they are on will be far more likely to scare them, resulting in big points for satisfying the "See a ghost" want multiple times with surprising frequency. It's a very lucrative way for your knowledge sim vampire to get aspiration points, granted they don't die in the process from fright that results if a sim is scared with low motives. If you have a dozen or do dead sims who were mortal enemies of your vampire sim buried on your lot, it's not uncommon that they'll at least try to scare you several times a night, sometimes your sim might get scared three times in a roll by different ghosts who all hate him or her, satisfying the same "To see ghost" want all three times before the want slots can even fully turn over! Of course, being ridiculously mean to these people before they meet their untimely demise them is also a part of the vampire lifestyle, and the way the gameplays around with knowledge sims, it's actually one of the rare cases where being mean can ultimately benefit a player! The ability with Nightlife to incite fury also makes this process easier than it was in the past, since apparently, even death doesn't cure fury. Vampires also have a particular advantage in this area that ordinary sims do not, and that's their ability to seal off their ordinary motive decrease during the night time. Ghosts still can cause them general motive drain, but it'll be much more difficult for them to kick the bucket, taking around eight or so scares in a roll before risking death by fright. Anyhow, back to talking about how to forge your ultimate vampire from the beginning! Ideal vampires should have a specific chemistry and personality, within a threshold of variation. Like romance sims, they'll want to focus on working on chemistry and compatibility so that they will be able to perform a successful bite option as soon as possible. It is recommended that your vampire be under the Sagittarius sign if possible, due to its generally good all round compatibility and lack of any who are really repelled by it. The Taurus zodiac sign is also an okay alternative choice. For vampires, it makes sense to have them be turned on by vampirism, which gives them an automatic boost in chemistry to sims that they turn, which does definitely act as a bit of a side motivation as well as help them get turned into a vampire in the first place. On the flip side, the sims your vampire will be eating for lunch wouldn't be vampires to begin with, so you might opt to have them be turned on to a specific hair color as well, as it is very useful for biting the general population. Personality wise, you should try to make your vampire as outgoing as possible so they'll be more socially adept, funny how that works out. You might also what to adjust their nice and grouchy score. In relation to the occult, Knowledge sims have different wants depending on how nice or grouchy they are. Grouchy sims are more akin to making zombies and doing resurrection on the cheap, ideal for your vampire's zombie army. Nice sims on the other hand, are usually content with seeing ghosts and doing full resurrections, more suitable if you simply want that loner vampire who gets the Hell scared out of them every so often a night. Of course, relationship to the dearly departed sim also matters in determining what the evil knowledge sim will want to do to them after they have bounced off the mortal coil, as if they hated them, they will be more than happy to bring them back as a zombie, whereas they will be more merciful with full resurrections if they had actually liked them when they were not so dead. Of all of the personality parameters, the most useful personality detail to take into account is to make sure that your vampire has seven or under points of playfulness. Since vampires can naturally fly, being Active and able to run isn't completely necessary, but it still helps a great deal. Now then, why was it so important that vampire sims have seven and under points of playfulness? Once they gain 3 points of logic, they will be able to meditate. If a sim has over seven points of playfulness they'll lose their ability to meditate, at about nine or so points, gain the ability to juggle, which is really only useful to pleasure seeker sims. Meditation, like with any other sims, makes motives static as long as they are in the transcendental state. Vampires can use this to their advantage, as by meditating, they will not have to return to their coffins during the day. Instead, they can bask in the glow of the warm Tuscan sun without fear of getting dusted. Additionally, after a certain amount of time meditating, a sim will gain the ability to teleport, this is also true with vampires! They might not be able to do much, but they'll at least be able to move around and prepare for when the night comes by warping right next to their carpool or car. Vampires can use meditation on community lots to wait out the day time and party away the night. It seems though that when daylight comes, any action a vampire is doing, meditation included is canceled, so you have to quickly snap your vamp sim back into it before they burn. For when vampires absolutely, positively have to be around during the day time, make sure you have an Enigmatic Energizer up and ready to restore them if things get a little red. Also, it's best to turn off freewill, as there are times when your vampire will walk outside on their own for trivial purposes and get dark roasted. Starting a struggling sims life off as a vampire can be a bit taxing, but it's nothing a little getting used to wouldn't solve. Still, vampires in The Sims 2 can't live on sucking blood alone, they need money. So now that you have your vampire, what is the best way to make a living you are probably asking? Well, there are really two choices, get a job or have rich people move in with you that'll double as your personal torture victim. The later I prefer, but first I'll discuss the best final jobs for vampire. Naturally, since vampires thrive on the night, their job should also take place during the night right? It depends on how you look at it actually. Motive decrease isn't completely horrible when your vampire is at work during the day and at least they're off doing something rather than staying dormant in a coffin, as a matter of fact, at some of the top job positions, they'll actually gain motive points instead of lose them and their motive drain will stop as usual when at work as well, but still increase, in which case they can handle pretty much any job as long as they don't fry when getting to their car. Still, it works against their favor to shake and bake in the sun, so ideally you want to give them a night time job. No job is all exclusively night hours throughout its entire career track, but the best case scenario is to have the final position in it be, in which case the best job is naturally the top of the Paranormal career track at Cult Leader. Although you have to get to work when the sun is still out at 6:00pm, the majority of the hours from being a Cult Leader are at night and your sim will come back from work at 3:00am with motives better than when they left the lot and you can snag a Resurrect o' Nomitron on the way up the corporate ladder for all your zombie cranking fun needs as well. Unfortunately, none of top positions of the university exclusive jobs that pay the most in the game take place entirely during the night, so you'll have to make due. Outside of university though, the Mad Scientist, Criminal Mastermind and Professional Party Guest are perfect since they take place entirely at night, and although they pay quite a bit less than the university jobs, they sure are a lot safer for a night stalking blood sucker such as your vampire sim. The Mad Scientist is the Science career, the Criminal Mastermind is in the Criminal career track, and finally, the Professional Party Guest is a job for the Slacker career track, and also what the Grand Vampires have. The second way to get some bling whales into your bank account is quite the evil way indeed. Befriend or fall in love with an important and wealthy sim like Mr. Big, the Diva or even another "rival" Grand Vampire and ask them to move in with you. After they give you their hard earned disposable income, it's time for you to dispose of them however you see fit. Don't worry; they'll always be another NPC to replace them that you can exploit, the NPCs in particular always seem to spawn a replacement. It also seems that if you bite any service sim in the game, they'll automatically get a replacement as well, since vampire sims can't stand the sunlight. Of course, you can bite them, kill them off and bring them back as a discount zombie or kill them off entirely and have them hang around as a tormented spirit to satisfy your knowledge sim's various evil wants in the process. Needless to say, this course of action is not for any players who might feel it necessary to exercise their conscience in gaming, but you can't say that it doesn't work. After a while of this, your sim will truly be the most evil being to walk on the streets of Sim City with hoards of zombies and vampire millions to help serve their evil bidding. ***************************************************************************** Chapter 5: Meet the People ***************************************************************************** [12] New NPCs There are several new NPCs added to the roster of The Sims 2: Nightlife that add flavor, and in the case of Mrs. Crumplebottom, torment! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.01] The Gypsy Matchmaker: Matchmakers haven't come along way since the old day, having become virtually extinct in North America and all that jazz. That hasn't stopped these crystal ball shining, respectably aged ladies from coming onto your lot to say hello to your household and offer their potions and services for a price. You know it's a Matchmaker when they wear lots of orange, and lots of makeup, oh yeah, and the crystal ball is a big giveaway. You can buy two potions from the Matchmaker, Vamprocillin-D and Love Potion #8.5. Both very useful under the right circumstances, but unfortunately, she wouldn't give you a discount even if you are good friends with her, but you can at least buy them in bulk. In addition to selling liquid solutions in a bottle, the Matchmaker can set your sim up for an instant date. Depending on how much you pay her between 1 - 5000 simoleans, she'll set you up with a date that matches your compatibility, or completely clashes with it, in the case that you pay her the bare minimum. Upon confirming the transaction, the Matchmaker will summon your date from the heavens to crash land right beside your sim in an untimely matter that would have killed any normal human, and then the date is on with a bang! Hey kiddies, do you want your sim to do something stupid and fun with the Matchmaker? No, I don't mean that, well, not all the way to the third base anyway. You know how dates automatically cause romantic interests in the area to come over and reach out and touch your sim with a hand full of slap? Well, if you have your sim get into a loving relationship with the Matchmaker and you ask her to set you up for a date, her hand will hit your sims face only seconds after your current date hits the ground. Needless to say, unless you want to tell a funny story about the crazy Matchmaker's lack of social common sense, don't make your sim fall in love with a Matchmaker, makes for a good laugh or two though. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.02] The Count and Countessa The Count and Countessa are the two Grand Vampires that roam the downtown community lots at night; they are your sim's ticket to the mystical journey of vampire splendor. After your sim gets to know them, they will get the possible chance to be bitten by a Grand Vampire and join the undead. You can recognize the Count from his black typical vampire suit. The count's particular suit is actually unique, and you cannot normally buy it on community lots, although there is a similar version to it without the gloves, red inner cape and gold medallion for sale. The Countessa wears a long elegant looking red dress and has a specific hair style with jeweled accessories. You can buy two similar dresses to the one the Countessa wears, but her particular red one seems to be exclusive to her. Both vampires have red eyes, fangs and pale skin, with a very distinctive stalk walk. You'll also recognize them because they have the titles "Count" and "Countessa" before their name and like to say "Bleh" a lot. The Count and Countess are quite rich, when they move in or marry into your sim's household, they will share their 50,380 or so simoleans with them. The Grand Vampires are reliably pleasure seeking sims that work as Professional Party Guests, although their other factors seem to be random. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.03] Mr. Big and the Diva Two especially rich sims with the Wealth Aspiration who typically work as Professional Party Guests. They generally come very skilled and if your sim can latch these big spenders into their own household, will contribute a hefty 70,950 simoleans and an inventory full of great items, about nine random objects from the buy catalog and one ReNuYu Port o' Chug. A good deal of townies can also contribute items and money to your household upon moving in, but none quite as bountiful as these two, they are the epitome of gold digger's pay dirt. You'll recognize Mr. Big by his smokin' red jacket and typically clean cut appearance and the Diva wears a distinctive black dress with a red scarf around her neck. Although they are best known as "Mr. Big" and the "Diva", these names are actually just labels and you wouldn't actually see them normally in game. The Diva and Mr. Big will appear under a much more normal name, which differs from downtown to downtown as it's basically randomly generated. Like all NPCs, if they should get into a fatal "accident", they'll be conveniently replaced. It seems that both Mr. Big and the Diva have exclusive clothing that you cannot buy, although Mr. Big's smokin' red jacket has a couple of alternately colored versions for purchase, it kinda' looks like a bathrobe come to think of it. The Diva's dress on the other hand seems to be completely unique and stands out in a crowd with the distinctive black cut and red scarf. Supposedly, Mr. Big and the Diva are the ultimate dating challenge, but if you play your cards right, they really aren't that much harder to bring over to your sim's side than any other sim. This is especially true if your sim has good chemistry with them. The fact that the two contribute so much money to your sim's household upon moving in gives you very good reason to try and target them if the thought of vile financial exploitation through fake friendliness makes you smile. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.05] The Slobs The polar opposite of Mr. Big and the Diva are the slobs. You'll know who they are because they are vile, rude, and have a rather unique way of communicating with their body through fart and belch, more so than even the sloppiest of normal sims. Other than that, you will be able to recognize the two slobs by the clothing they wear. They actually wear PJs, and dirty and tacky ones at that, with heavy emphasis on the dirty part. If you want to know exactly what their clothing looks like, they are the only PJs by default to come with the Nightlife expansion. Mr. Slob's PJs have white and red stripes, he also tends to be blonde, as for Ms. Slob, she wears a filthy T-Shirt with what appears to be a bull on it, she also tends to have red hair. Both seem to actually be somewhat skilled, but work as Gas Station Attendants, most likely due to complete utter lack of ambition. So just how much money do they contribute to your sim's coffers? 14 whole simoleans, there's not a missing zero there or anything, that's all you really get. They also will come with a ReNuYu Port o' Chug, but that's about it for what they can give you. Naturally, they are free loading pleasure seeker sims, so you might just want to humor them and ask them to move in. It certainly wouldn't be because of the money in this case. Something still has to be said about their incredible ability to fart and belch though. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.06] The DJs Every DJ booth on a community lot comes with its own DJ. They wouldn't say much of anything, or even be available to interact with directly for that matter when DJing, but when your sim wants to start spinning records on their own, the active NPC DJ will temporarily leave the booth to allow your sim to work their magic, and go and play some poker or something. There is nothing particularly special about DJs outside of that, although they do wear some pretty spiffy two piece tracksuit like clothing that you can buy from clothing stores. While DJ NPCs, as well as your own sims are scratching away, other controllable sims can request tunes from four different styles, slow, medium, fast and house mix. Other sims can also do the Smustle and dance normally. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.07] The Host One of the NPCs actually worth befriending since she or he will give your sim and their buddies a potential discount on their meal, based on the lifetime relationship score, although there is a bit of randomness involved. Although it's a good idea to befriend the host, don't have him or her fall in love with your sim, or any other service sims for that matter unless your sim is intending to actually marry them, as you will often find your dates going through some very awkward moments. The host stands patiently at the dining podium at restaurants accepting phone calls and welcoming in customers. They are generally elders, although sometimes you'll find adult hosts as well. Upon greeting you, they will take your sim and their guests to their table where they will begin dining. When the meal is done, you can pay the host the bill or skip out on it, in which case the host will try and hunt your sim down like a dog and they will have to survive 45 game minutes or be caught. Getting caught results in a double minus interaction with the host, and your sim has to pay the bill anyway. Hosts cannot be interacted with while at work, so if you want to befriend them, you'll have to call them up and contact them on your own time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.08] Waiter/Waitress Ah the waiter and the waitress, either your best friend or worst enemy, depending on their chance of incompetence in action. Waiters and Waitresses take your sim's order, chat things up and finally bring the food cooked by the Chef to its final destination, which hopefully is your sim's mouth instead of their lap. According to the game itself, increasing your relationship with the waiter or waitress decreases the chances of spilt food, which results in a bad memory but it's hard to tell exactly since the chance of spilt food is relatively rare on its own. When waiters or waitresses are not currently serving food, you can interact with them somewhat normally, minus the more intimate actions, and tip them up to 100 simoleans as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.09] The Chef Ah, the wonderful Chef of the dining establishment that literally makes meals at record speed. The chef is simply there to make meals for your sim, no more and no less. There are no interactions you can do with the Chef while he is on the job, so the chance of you normally having a Chef NPC in your relationship list is slim, however, like other NPCs and service sims, he can sometimes be found wandering downtown community lots or at least passing through on the sidewalk. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [12.10] Mrs. Crumplebottom The legendary Crumplebottom bloodline continues to traumatize sims of all sizes, shapes and colors on community lots with her purse full of socks and knitting gear. If you've followed The Sims games for a long time, there's a good chance you've already familiar with the name and know what the "Crumplebottom" name stands for, which is everything anti "Public Displays of Affection". Basically, that means if two sims get lovey dovey when she's around, she'll come over and beat one of them over the head with her purse. So what exactly is it that sim fans have come to love or hate so much about the Crumplebottom name? In the original The Sims: Hot Date, it was Miss Crumplebottom who came to community lots to assault any sims getting their groove on with each other, but due to popular demand, or perhaps the reverse, Maxis has placed her distant relative in The Sims 2: Nightlife who goes by Mrs. Crumplebottom. Apparently, the joys of domestic wifehood haven't made this new one any friendlier. Okay then, a brief history of the Crumplebottom familyline! The Crumplebottoms are actually ancestors of the ever popular Goth family that was around since the first game and who still reside by default in Pleasantview. You can actually see the deceased Crumplebottoms' tombstones on the Goth lot and resurrect them with the Resurrect o' Nomitron, but don't expect anything ground breaking to surface, they are basically just empty shells. The oldest known member of the Crumplebottom family was Simon, who married a fine lady by the name of Prudence and grew old together. They had two children before passing away, Agnes and Cornelia. Cornelia went to marry Gunther Goth from a long line of Goths and had Mortimer, Agnes on the other hand, apparently never got married and died in obscurity. As to why she never got married, it is a mystery, but being old and single can't be good for your view on public displays of affection, unlike Cornelia who clearly did get it on with her husband at least once. Here's where the theories collide. In Hot Date, it was actually "Miss Crumplebottom" who would come to harass you on the community lots, however, there is an object description that mentions a Mrs. Crumplebottom as the widow of a famous puppeteer. The most likely scenario is that it was either Prudence or Cornelia who was the Mrs. Crumplebottom, and Agnes was the infamous Miss Crumplebottom of morality policing fame. Since Agnes never had children or got married, she's already pretty much ruled out for having descendants, but the strange thing is this, since Cornelia was married to Gunther Goth, all of her descendant's surnames would have been Goth, not Crumplebottom, so where the heck did the new Mrs. Crumplebottom come from? This leaves us with three possibilities. The first possible scenario is that Mrs. Crumplebottom in The Sims 2 is a very, very distance cousin of the original Miss Crumplebottom with a histoty dating way past Simon's, the second one is that she's a clone, the third is that the developers of the game had no idea that she would become such a hilarious running joke and left loopholes the size of the Grand Canyon in the continuity of the Crumplebottom bloodline. Actually, Maxis pretty much said it themselves that Mrs. Crumplebottom is a distant relative, but where's the fun in "official" evidence, other than being true and all that jazz of course. There can be all sorts of other theories, depending on what evidence you choose to believe and which you conveniently ignore, that's why fans are so great right? All right, enough of the history lesson. So what exactly is it that Mrs. Crumplebottom does? She beats down any sim in her vicinity with her purse full of socks whenever they perform a "Public Display of Affection" which is basically anything under the kiss, hug or flirt menus. The rule is if it looks like romantic fun, she'll come undone; the old prune just loves to hate lovers. Hahhaa, I remember her terrorizing the Xyni that I had in The Sims, and her remote successor has effectively continued that legacy when I first started playing Nightlife. I wanted Xyni to befriend her, since I'm such a big fan of hers, but nope, she wouldn't have of it. Mrs. Crumplebottom also seems to have an inherent hatred of Swimwear and Underwear as well, and will cause lecture and cause your sim to automatically return to their default everyday outfit if she gets to them. Children also wouldn't have anything to do with her, which is actually pretty smart if you really think about it. Nothing good comes out of Mrs. Crumplebottom, if your sim tries to be nice and hug her, or perform any interaction for that matter, she will cancel it out and lecture them for no apparent reason. Getting smacked by Mrs. Crumplebottom's purse also decreases rating scores on dates slightly, and can be a bit annoying when you are strapped for time. Mrs. Crumplebottom also does a few surprisingly interesting things despite her decrepit appearance. She drinks juice at the bars like a fish, she bowls like Fred Flintstone and she plays poker like a dog, which is usually actually a pretty good distraction from her lover hunting hobby. Mrs. Crumplebottom also always brings her knitting gear wherever she goes, and occasionally takes the time to work on her latest sock project. Mrs. Crumplebottom also does not act like a typical sim, heck she's not even classified as a regular NPC, as she has no motive meter, and she can spend what seems like an eternity on a community lot and has a black hole of a bladder, meaning she never has to use the washroom despite her age. She specifically seems to be attracted to places with poker, bowling and bars though, so if you want a Crumplebottom free crumple buffer zone, avoid putting those objects on your community lots, although she seems to come anyway if you wait long enough. Actually, Mrs. Crumplebottom isn't all bad, she's actually got a bit of a hidden love animal side to her if you know how to play your sim's cards right, and by that, I mean glitch the game to Saskatchewan and back. Read the "Mrs. Crumplebottom Gives Lots of Love" trick for more information. ***************************************************************************** Chapter 6: Action Guide ***************************************************************************** [13] Special Skills, Commands and Actions As you might have read, I am not a fan of copy and paste, comes with the OCD, as a matter of fact, up to this point in the FAQ, everything has been original and especially catered for The Sims 2: Nightlife expansion pack. However, due to the multiple e-mails I have received in regards to this section, there is little doubt in my mind that this section on special and unique abilities has become the most popular part of my University FAQ! So to all of you great people asked for more, so I'm giving you more, more, more! It is my pleasure to introduce an updated and expanded version for your viewing pleasure! * Updated entry ** New Entry ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.01]Hidden Skills: Hidden skills are abilities that a sim can improve in that are not a part of the regular skill set necessary for getting jobs and optimizing for majors. Hidden skill levels also cannot normally be revealed to the player other than by close observation of their related actions. ----------------------- *Dancing: Requirements: A stereo, jukebox or DJ booth and practice Dancing is a hidden skill, but it is best practiced by dancing together with another sim as opposed to dancing solo. A character with high dance skill moves their bodies in more flexible ways with smoother motion and grace, and in particular has the ability to do a quick flipback maneuver. It doesn't really contribute to the game so much in practical essence as visual, but it's good to know that your sim can shake down the dance floor. As a note, despite common belief, dancing does not operate on the ten step level similar to ordinary skill. There are three levels of dancing, low, medium and high. Also of important note is that high dancing skill allows a sim to be able to perform "Bust a' Move". As of Nightlife there is a new dance gracing the nightclubs known only as the "Smustle", is it a cross between a shuffle and a hustle or something far more sinister? Well, it sure is awfully funny looking no matter how you think about it. The animation of dancing regularly also seems to have been updated to more clearly display your sim's level of skill, or perhaps the lack thereof would be more accurate statement. Sims will now fall down and forget steps if they are especially untalented in dancing. Dance skill counts for both regular dancing and the Smustle as well, so you don't have to worry about mastering both. Dance skill also effects the Slow Dance action, and if a sim has no skill in that area, there is a chance that they will step on the foot of the person they are dancing in, resulting in a small negative drop, and a rather awkward moment. Regarding normal solo dancing, the personality of your sim also has an effect on the standby animation that occurs between each move. Depending on how Outgoing or Shy your sim is, their standby animation will reflect their nature in dance, although they will be able to perform the actual moves equally well. Shy dancers will be very conservative, keeping their hands close to their body and taking small steps. On the flip side, Outgoing sims will flail their arms in the air like they just don't care, and will be much more into the spirit of things. ----------------------- Pool: Requirements: A pool table and practice Pool skill is new in The Sims 2 University and a very useful skill, since sims will occasionally have the desire to hustle another on their want list, and losing sucks. There is also a great scholarship to go with it and it's a great way to make friends, even after you beat their pants off. Speaking of a related subject, the hustle want description says that the option might not appear if the relationship isn't good, but to my experience, I've had sims that were on straight -100 scores for both daily and lifetime relationships that were able to hustle each other without a problem. If you watch sims play pool enough, you'll get to recognize the critical shot where if they screw up, the other sim wins. To avoid humiliation before your sim masters their pool skills, get to know what this shot is and be prepared to cancel if they do screw up to avoid unintentionally hitting a Lose Game fear or losing money. The maximum amount of money you can hustle is 150 simoleans, but if you have less than that in your funds, you will not be able to wager that much. Additionally, make sure the pool table is a nice wide open space, as frequently, long pool games can be ended abruptly by playing sims bumping into each other. 150 simoleans is not very much in common society, but it is actually quite the chunk of change when you live in university. The best way to judge a sim's Pool ability is by having them perform trick shots. There are two types of trick shots, cup and xylophone. The former basically has the sim trying to get the ball into a cup, and later has them trying to play a little tune on a toy xylophone and is mighty impressive if they succeed. The game calculates a winner ahead of time by running up the ability of both sims playing. Even master pool players can lose on occasion to novices, but it is fairly rare. Pool, like dancing doesn't operate on the ordinary skill level either, instead, it operates normally on a 0 to 100 score, with trick shots giving two points and full games giving around one to eleven, depending on how long they play and how many other sims they are playing with. In general though, the more time they are actually at the table shooting, the better. The game allows having a pretty much bottom negative score as well, but under normal play, it seems that skill will only go up, win or lose. For this reason, if you are trying to hustle people, make sure to keep your opponents fresh, as I remember the family maid who came over every day to shoot some pool got to become quite the formidable enemy on the table, which I found odd, since normal skills don't seem to improve for computer controlled sims under ordinary circumstances. ----------------------- Painting: Requirements: An Independent Expression Easel Although painting originally relies on creativity, the painting ability has it's own independent parameter that increases with each successful painting completed and it has yet to be determined if there is a limit to how high it can go. Originally, paintings will sell anywhere from 400 to 600 simoleans when a sim first maxes out their creativity skill, however, it will gradually increase the more a sim paints but always randomly varies between a range of 200 simoleans. Training this skill is ideal for Fortune and Popularity aspiring sims, as they specifically have a very generous want to sell a masterpiece that gives a 2500 influence point bonus and 6000 aspiration points, so painting frequently becomes a great way to hyper charge their aspiration meters. To meet this want specifically, a sim must sell a painting worth over 500 simoleans fresh off the easel, although it doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be their painting, as you can sell someone else's artwork and get away with it. Paintings also tend to gradually increase in price with time. Painting seems to be a bottomless skill to build, so if you have a sim who has done it all, this is a great place for them to focus their time until another fun expansion pack comes out. Oh, for the record, it takes about six and a half hours to paint a complete picture from start to finish, and final price is determined upon completion, so you can essentially reload your way to a higher price if you interrupt the painting process, continue it and see if you get a higher price. If your painting didn't turn out as valuable as you would have hoped for, you can always just hang it on a wall. ----------------------- **Writing Requirements: A Computer Similar to the independent skill involved with painting, the value of selling novels does indeed increase with each new completion! Every time your sim finishes writing a novel on a computer, the original base value of the novel increases by a slight amount. Since novels are worth more, the value also increases more per each attempt; however, since novels naturally take about four times as long to write as a masterpiece takes to paint, have a greater range of value fluctuation, and have less valuable aspiration payoffs, pursuing writing over painting is quite the undertaking, as it takes a great deal of time out of your sim's life. Similar to the want to paint a masterpiece, popularity and wealth aspiring sims at full creativity can also have a want to write a great novel. In terms of aspiration payoff to time invested ratio, painting a masterpiece is far superior, seeing as how it takes a big meaty 27 hours to write a novel, but once again for that sim who has done everything and has way too much time on their hands, giving them a shot at the good old keyboard and monitor can only help them broaden their horizons. ----------------------- **Study In regards to doing homework in elementary school, high school and college, sims have their own independent value for competence in doing homework. It's the same skill for all three however, so the younger you teach them the better, especially since usually all it takes is a single focused session of an older person in the family tutoring the younger to shave time off of all of the homework they'll be doing for the rest of their lives. A sim who doesn't know how to study can take up to roughly two hours to do homework, however, a sim who does know how to study can cut that time in half, and the initial period of being taught also speeds up the rate at which homework is done. Additionally, even a sim who knows how to study can cut about 15 minutes off the clock if someone is there to help them. For children and teenagers, the process is basically the same, they bring the homework back to their residence and an elder member of the family can opt to assist them. For university students, it's a bit different; they have to ask another student with a higher GPA to tutor them until they learn the skill of studying, as indicated by the spinning textbook icon when it is activated. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.02]Special Manual Commands: Not all sims are able to perform the same repertoire of commands. There are actions that are personality driven, and then there are skill driven commands, then there are unique abilities that require both or have another requirement thrown in for good measures. This section covers some of the lesser known commands that require tricky prerequisites. ----------------------- *Meditate, Levitate and Teleportation: Requirements: 3 points of logic skill and roughly 31 hours of meditation Meditation is a useful technique as it is. After obtaining the requirements, putting a sim in a meditative state allows them to lock their motives so that they cease to plummet. There however, is an additional bonus that comes with the ability to meditate. In the original The Sims's expansion Makin' Magic there was a purple magic growth crystal that gave your sims the ability to teleport at will. This ability was incredible and was probably the single biggest improvement a sim could go through and it was incredibly fun to boot, even though you could get busted for using it in public. In The Sims 2, any sim with a playfulness 7* and under can teleport. In order to levitate, a sim must first have at least three points of logic to be able to use the meditate command. After meditating for about 19 hours, they will start to levitate in a burst of blue aura. Keep up the good work for 22 more hours and they gain the ability to teleport while in levitation. After going through this initial trial and being able to teleport for the first time, it will then take roughly one hour of mediation to reach levitating state again on sequential executions and at which point, the sub command teleportation will be available for your sim to warp right past any walls, multiple stories up high and basically anywhere on the map you want to go, even if there is no normal way for other sims to get there. Your sim will be able to continue to teleport as many times as they want until meditation is canceled out of. Meditation as it is locks all motives and prevents them from decreasing, but important factors, such as age, aspiration level and relationships will still gradually fall, so its usefulness is very limited in university where time is limited. In normal neighborhoods however, teleportation can become very handy outside of university, particularly in community lots, where time is essentially unlimited and where there is an area actually large enough worth teleporting. Teleportation has also become more useful in The Sims 2 University, as when you reach a lifetime want, you aspiration stays fixed at platinum, so that takes one of the big disadvantages of meditation out. Levitating zombies also don't have to worry about wasting their precious days away and could actually really use it because their zombie shamble is so ridiculously slow, so if you can get your zombie to teleport, feel free to call him a lich king or something fun and mighty sounding. Thanks to The Sims 2: Nightlife, we now actually have someone who can make some actually practical use of meditation and teleportation despite the long startup time. When a vampire meditates during the day, their motives lock just like they do for any other sim, however, this is very useful in their case, especially on community lots, because vampires have incredibly rapid motive deterioration during the daylight, especially when outdoors and exposed to direct sunlight. Since meditation effectively stops the drain of motives for vampires during the day, they will not necessarily have to return home to their coffin to when the sun rises. By using meditation, it is very possible for a vampire to stay at a community lot indefinitely without worrying about fulfilling motives if they move during the night and meditate during the day. ----------------------- Yoga: Requirements: 3 points of body skill Yoga takes three points of body skill, but despite what some say, it is not a hidden skill. The ability to perform Yoga is directly proportional to body skill, and at maximum body skill, a sim can stand on their finger on their first time performing yoga. I personally enjoy watching some of the lesser skilled sims screw up though, it is rather entertaining. I personally find Yoga to be one of the very best ways to lose weight, as it doesn't kill hygiene like other forms of exercise, can be performed anywhere, and is surprisingly effective, as active sims derive fun out of it and can invite other sims for a social boost. ----------------------- *Yoga on Coffee Table: Requirements: 9 points of body and 9 to 10 points of Active personality To add that extra cool factor in your yoga oriented sim, you can have them perform yoga while standing on a coffee table, simply by selecting a coffee table and choosing Yoga. Who would have thought that coffee tables in this game weren't completely useless? This actual talent seems to actually some rather strict requirements that I didn't originally notice when I first wrote it up, but it seems that your sim has to be both very active and very skilled with their body to do this. ----------------------- *Juggle: Requirements: 9 to 10 points of playful personality Available at a whopping 9 to 10 points of playfulness, I am sad to say that juggling seems to be an almost useless skill, especially with the handheld game system which is far more effective at increasing fun. Juggle however does allow a playful sim to invite other sims, playful or not to join. I think it would have been a lot better if it was a hidden skill and when improved, sims could start juggling chainsaws or something, but oh well. It is impossible for a single sim to be able to both juggle and meditate at the same personality state. It should also be noted that while this particular juggle command requires a high playfulness, any sim can juggle bottles out of the fridge or cups out of the espresso machine. With the addition of Nightlife, the ability to juggle actually now has a purpose! Pleasure Seeker sims will often have wants to do just that for a small aspiration boost! It still doesn't have the wow factor of meditation and teleport though, although pleasure seekers might find it more practical in actual game play. Oh yes, another thing that Juggle has as an advantage that that Meditate doesn't is that children can do it. Oh, but keep in mind that even non-playful pleasure seeking sims can have the juggling want satisfied by picking the slightly alternative command at a fridge, bar or when serving up coffee. ----------------------- *Run: Requirements: 6 to 10 points of active personality The single most useful special ability in The Sims 2 and an extremely welcomed feature they put in, since the original The Sims was practically crying out for it with both arms. Any sim can run normally if it's over a long distance when they have enough energy or are late, but it takes an active sim to get the ability to run on command. Simply select an empty space and command them to run to it. Running is about three or four times faster than walking, and can save a great deal of time. You especially feel the difference when your sim lives in a huge house or goes to a community lot, and what's better is that they can go up stairs as well. Active sims also seem to have a glitch where they might get into a hyper mode. In this state, they run everywhere automatically they would normally walk and do so hilariously fast, even when doing chores or talking on the phone. I've been trying to find a way to glitch this on command, since it's quite useful, but I yet to figure out exactly how. Under normal circumstances though, running is slightly inconvenient, because you must manually make your sim do it. It is still very handy for shaving time off the clock though, and you get used to it. Since The Sims 2: Nightlife is highly focused on community lots, which will generally be significantly larger in size than residential lots are, the ability to run has become even more important. Running is also extremely useful for skipping out on the bill in restaurants and avoiding the Host, as it is the fastest form of self sufficient traveling, still beating out the vampire's ability to fly. It is also possible for vampires to do a stalk run, by commanding their vampire sim to stalk a long distance with high energy, as opposed to the regular walking speed stalk. ----------------------- Skip: Requirements: 5 to 10 of playful personality Run's slow and stupid looking little brother. Skipping is faster than walking by about twice, but unfortunately, the command disappears if your sim is doing certain activities so you can't always have him or her do it in queue. Skipping is also disabled on stairs so they have to walk up normally. If you are trying to create a lazy sim, skip is the best thing you can give them to compensate for the lack of the ability to run, save for vampire abilities, but for really long foot journeys, teleportation and its one hour warm up might actually be faster. ----------------------- Bust A' Move: Requirements: High Dancing Skill Aside from the fact that it shares the name with one of my favorite video games, Bust A' Move, introduced in The Sims 2 University is the ultimate social interaction outside of romantic actions. It's very fast, has a low chance for rejection if the target's relationship is above 25, increases 2 points of lifetime relationship and around 8 of daily relationship. All sims can perform bust a move, fortunately, it ties into one of the hidden skills! In order to be able to use bust a move, you must be first skilled at dancing! It doesn't take long at all either. Just a few hours of dancing together should slap this awesome little jig in your sim's arsenal. If I remember correctly though, it would seem that bust a' move can only be preformed by sims to other sims of equal or greater age, although in university, generally only young adults exist unless invited. ----------------------- Play (With Lawn Gnome): Requires: A Lawn Gnome and 9 to 10 Playfulness Your playful sim takes the lawn gnome for a magical spin through the air and back down to earth and gets a very small boost of fun in return. Seeing as how a sim in the original The Sims could live off building and selling gnomes, along with that fact that they could come to life, water your lawn and kick your sim in the shins, there will always be a special place in my heart for gnomes in the sims universe. Don't kick them. ----------------------- Play (With Bathtub) Requires: Bathtub and 8 to 10 Playfulness Sail the high seas as your sim takes a cue from Spongebob and plays pirate solely by sailing on the wings of their own deluded imagination. Come to think about it, I can't really remember Spongebob playing pirate per say, but he's already done pretty much everything else, so why not? In any case, this can be done with any bath tub, and your sim will get minimal fun in return, it makes for some great pictures, especially if you have two bathtubs facing each other and sims playing in each one. ----------------------- *Crank Call: Requirements: 0 to 1 points of Nice. Crank calling is a surprisingly useful skill and pretty much the only thing good that comes from being grouchy. You might think crank calls useless at first, but they have a very useful purpose. They can provoke a sim, regardless of their relationship to come visit your household regardless of time of day. You can have anyone your sim knows basically pay you a visit at ohhh... four o' clock in the morning, although they might quickly leave saying that it is too late, but they don't particularly seem to be angry about being dragged out of bed in the middle of the morning, so it all balances out. For this reason, having at least one grouchy sim in your household might not be such a bad idea after all when making friends. Oh yeah, Crank Call doesn't work very well when trying to call out vampires to come and fry at your place. If they do manage to show up somehow or another, they'll quickly run off before you can even get a word to them. Surprisingly though, you can invite vampires in bulk to come during the day time by throwing a party, and watch their delayed reaction to figuring out that they are basking in the warm rays of the sun. ----------------------- *Salvage: Requirements: 0 to 1 Neatness and a trashcan with contents It is time to dig in the thrash like your favorite childhood friend Oscar the Grouch. Salvaging is the most useful skill a sloppy sim can have, but is quite limited. In order for them to do so, have them put some junk in the a trashcan and the salvage option will be available if they are very sloppy sims. When a sim salvages, they find various interesting pieces of trash like cups, dolls and alarm clocks and get small amounts of money for them. Unfortunately, hygiene goes down, way down. Even children can salvage though, which is rather amusing. Unlike what I originally though, a sloppy sim can salvage any garbage can, save logically for the trash compactor, cause that would just be plain suicidal. So if you have an small trash cans in your household, you can engage in a filthy fill filled family activity and dig in. ----------------------- Lick Clean (Plate): Requirements: 0 to 3 Neatness. Licking plates clean is a surprisingly useful skill in a bind if it doesn't happen to churn your stomach into butter watching. It is rather a quick way to make dirty dishes with no more food on them disappear without having to visit the sink or use the dishwasher. There seems to be a bit of trick regarding selection though, you must click on the outer rim of the plate, as for some reason, clicking on the center just brings up the usual clean up command ----------------------- Use (Shrub): Requirements: Male and have a low bladder. Introducing the only thing male sims have over female sims in this game... well, that and being able to get impregnated by aliens. If you have a bush or a shrub and your sim has got to take a leak, then feel free to give Mother Nature's toilet a whiz. Predictably, your sims aim wouldn't always be tried and true, and puddles will form, resulting in weeds. Apparently, even very neat sims can do this, but sloppy ones do it automatically. ----------------------- *Kick (Tombstone): Requires: A tombstone of a dead sim who is an enemy For when death to the infidels isn't enough, you can always add disrespect to death by kicking old enemies grave a couple of times to infuriate the spirit. Oh yeah, kicking tombstones many times is a surprisingly quick and effective way to increase fun. If you choose to mourn over an enemy's grave however, your sim would more likely prefer to laugh and cheer rather than sigh or cry. Certain sims can develop a rather hilarious want to kick a former foes tombstone, as well as a fear in the case that they actually might have liked the dearly departed. ----------------------- *Smash (Urn): Requires: An urn of a dead sim who was an enemy As bad as kicking the tombstone was, what you can do to an urn is exponentially worst. A sim can effectively finish off a dead sim and their spirit for good by smashing an urn and sweeping up the remains. Tombstones and urns are interchangeable, depending on whether the object is inside or outside, on a table or not. Oddly enough, the spilt ashes of a smashed urn can still technically be moved to a graveyard. It also seems that smashing an urn and cleaning up the ashes might actually not be a permanent way to delete a ghost, sometimes it seems to glitch and give them a permanent residence instead. In any case, be careful about playing with the dead. On a related note, sims who have extremely spiteful relationships with a deceased sim who is on their lot in urn form can gain a want to specifically smash their urn for a small 500 aspiration point bonus. I've seen knowledge sims in particular have this want, but it's possible that other aspiration types can gain it as well. Sims can also develop a fear towards getting a loved one's urn smashed, I mean, who wouldn't? ----------------------- Sleep On Floor: Requirements: Member of a Greek House in University. Essentially having the exact effect as fainting, members of Greek House that require sleep can do so on the floor where things like fluffy pillows and warm blankets wouldn't get in the way. This option will only be available if your sim requires sleep, similar to how sleep options don't appear when you click on beds if your sim is already well rested. Not many good things can come out of sleeping on the floor, as it drains comfort and is the slowest way for a sim to recover energy by sleep possible, well, aside from being cheap or watching your sims suffer. ------------------------ Nag Requirements: Be part of a family and in a really bad mood The bane of all marriages that causes almost as much strife and chaos as leaving the toilet seat up, nagging is now an equal opportunity action in The Sims 2 universe and can be done by either women or men in an intimate relationship under a crappy mood. Even teenagers can nag their parents for a nice touch. Nagging, which is located under the Irritate category, has a strong negative impact for a social interaction, but it goes a long way to make the game more realistic. ------------------------ **Bad Mouth Requirements: A sim who is furious with someone and a person to talk with If your sim has become furious with another sim, they can share their distinct hate of them to another sim who at least has a neutral relationship. Just look under the "Talk" category for this realistic shade of social reality. This action has a rather strange effect on relationships. It boost's your sim's relationship by a small positive amount, but the person you talk to gets a double negative relationship decrease. Animation wise, Bad Mouth is very similar to gossip, except you'll see the person being disrespected clearly in a thought bubble. ------------------------ **Buy Off For 50 Simoleans: A sim who is furious with your sim If you accidentally pissed off another sim for them to be in a furious state who does not live in the same household, then you probably notice their tendency to pull off a "Homestar Runner" and repeatedly walk back and fourth across your lot, adding to the routine the addition of kicking your garbage can down and stealing your newspaper. Using this unique command, you can pay them off with 50 simoleans with the agreement that they will leave you alone. ------------------------ Groom Requirements: Available between family members who are Young Adults or Adults Although a relatively common command that any sim who is part of a family can do, the ability to groom a fellow family sim deserves special note because it actually restores hygiene, making it special among other social interactions. Grooming can be performed by young adults and adults on younger sims in their family as well, and is a effective way to restore hygiene in a pinch. In order for this command, which is located under "Appreciate" to become available, the target sim's hygiene must not be completely filled. ------------------------ **Primp Requirements: None A new action that neat sims do on their own rather frequently when freewill is turned on, primping restores a very small amount of hygiene and is similar to Groom, except a sim does it to themselves by fixing themselves up with mirror in hand. It seems that for the most part, all mature sims can primp regardless of how neat they are. ------------------------ Cheer Up Requirements: A friend of a sim in a horrible mood If a sim is in a really bad mood, another sim who is in a good relationship with that sim can select the "Cheer Up" command under "Appreciate". Cheering a sim up doesn't seem to have any special effects added to it, but it's guaranteed to work, whereas trying many other social interactions might face rejection. ------------------------ *Apologize Requirements: A negative relationship If two sims have gotten off to the wrong start, one of them can apologize to help pave the way back from bitter hatred to tolerable indifference. Now with the new furious system in order, you will be seeing a lot more potentially negative relationships than the utopia that was pre-Nightlife. As such, you might find yourself using Apologize quite a bit more often than before. When it is available though, it does a good amount of restoration to the relationship for a single nonromantic action. ------------------------ Make/Serve Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (Any time of day) Requirements: Grilled Cheese Sandwich Aspiration Sims with the aspiration for freshly made grilled cheese sandwiches around the clock gain the ability to make them clock regardless of their actual cooking skill level or the time of day. ------------------------ Influence to Serve Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: Requirements: Grilled Cheese Sandwich Aspiration Similar to the cheese sim's usual ability to make grill cheese sandwiches, they are also capable of influencing others to do so regardless of time of day or actual cooking skill for 2500 points. ------------------------ Talk About Grilled Cheese Sandwiches Requirements: Grilled Cheese Sandwich Aspiration A rather amusing concept if you think about it, cheese sims can talk about grilled cheese sandwiches to their sim friends, whether they will actually care or not is a completely different matter. Typically, only sims who share the same passion for warm gooey cheese on toasted wheat will respond favorably about talking about grilled cheese sandwiches. Other sims simply hate talking about them, perhaps due to post grill cheese trauma. ----------------------- Talk About Major: Requirements: Two young adults in college majoring in the same subject. One of the benefits of having two sims specialize in the same major is that they can discuss the subject and both increase their class performance meter slightly under the context of a conversation. Of course, you can also do this with NPC sims, but in general, virtually every townie generated at university has an undeclared major, so it becomes difficult for your young adult sim to relate to the townies after they start following a specific major. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.03] Age Based Interactions While the other sections of this ability and command list apply generally to adults and young adults where the majority of a sim's life will be spent, there are some special abilities that sims of other ages can perform that you might miss since they grow so fast. ------------------------ *Noogie Requirements: Teenagers under the same household Although not a particularly secret command, it's one that you could play the game for a long time without ever seeing, since they seem to lose it when they grow up. Teenage members of the same household can give each other noogies, but unlike other social interactions, noogies have a very strange effect. The person giving the noogie gets a large boost to their relationship, but the person receiving gets a large hit to their relationship. ------------------------- Tell Secret Requirements: Child to child Telling a secret is the children's equivalent of Gossip, so watch as the little kiddies out there share evil and spiteful rumors about their next door neighbors. ------------------------- Mary Mack Requirements: Child to a child Until playing this game, I had no idea what the heck this game was. Located under the play command, you can have two young children play this fun little patty cake like game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cops and Robbers: Requirements: Child to a child Not to be confused with its politically incorrect cousin "Cowboys and Indians", children can practice enforcing the law with imaginary guns in preparation for the real thing, more less. ------------------------ Tag Requirements: Child to a child The fundamental game that has resulted in millions of children being ridiculed and which summarizes everything that is wrong with our society can be played at any time when two children get together. ------------------------ Nyah Nyah Requirements: Child to a child If the children aren't on the best of terms, they can tease each other in good old fashion traumatic manner. ------------------------ Splash Requirements: Children/toddlers and a puddle Children and toddlers can splash in puddles of water, or urine for that matter if you really start to think about it. Toddlers in particular have a tendency to like to play with the toilet and flood the washroom for a quick shallow pool. ----------------------- **Snuggle Requirements: A child an older family member on a couch or loveseat As opposed to the more mature "Cuddle" command, the snuggle command is a cute and tender way to get your young ones closer to their family roots. Simply have a child sit next to an older sim, be it a sibling, parent or grandparent and if their relationship is high enough, the snuggle command should be available for some family time. ----------------------- **Static Shock Requirements: A child standing on a rug Who would have thought that the seemingly useless rugs introduced in Nightlife for mostly cosmetic purposes would actually serve a very amusing and hard to find purpose! Children who are standing on carpets have the ability to perform the time tested and true prank of charging their little socks up with static by rubbing their feet on the carpet, and then discharging it on a rather shocked sim with hilarious results. Children can also perform this prank with sims who are older, for immature little sims who just want to get even with mommy and daddy for not buying that lovely little teddy bear! Most any rug can be used to charge up static, even one tile bathroom mats, so remember parental units, if you want your children to be vengeful pranksters in the terror of your own home, line your floors with fluffy static prone goodness and get ready to fry. ----------------------- **"Welcome Back Home!" Friendly Hug Requirements: A child with a good relationship with a parent The friendly hug is a normal enough move; however, little children in a fair mood and good relationships with their parental unit occasionally come running to their parents when they come home from work and give them a big friendly hug to welcome them home automatically! It's so sweat, and it's definitely a great way to end your sim mother or father's day at the office. It should be noted that as of the latest patch, the override effect of this automatic action is suppose to happen less. Apparently, loving children were starting to get on some player's nerves. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.04]Special Effects: Certain sims who have met particular requirements do the same action differently from other sims, as such, they essentially add a special effect to a rather ordinary routine. ----------------------- Super Sparkling Cleaning Bubbles: Requirements: 9 to 10 Neat If you want your sim to cleanse the tyranny of filth from their stoves, toilets and showers with a little more oomph, make sure that they are extremely neat and they will be able to clean with bubbles and sparkles everywhere they go as well as have fun while doing it. Cleaning that almost sentient moss off the toilet isn't so bad now anymore, isn't it? As an additional note for sims who have an incredibly neat personality, they can actually reach a higher state of cleanliness than other sloppier sims can. That is to say that they can opt to clean some objects even if it's just slightly dirty, whereas dirtier sims wouldn't have the option appear. ----------------------- **Pee in Shower Requirements: 1 to 0 Neat For when a quick whiz at the toilet just isn't convenient enough! Extremely sloppy sims get a little bonus when they take a shower in the form of brief relief in their Bladder score. Of course, you never actually get to see them whizzing about their business, but you'll see their Bladder motive be restored. This of course, explains why sloppy sims also tend to leave overflowing floods after taking a shower. The restoration to Bladder does not occur when the sloppy sim is taking a bath, and also only seems to work with single purpose shower stalls, as opposed to dual purpose shower/baths like the Colonial Combocleen by Imperial Plumbing Works. ----------------------- Sexy Walk Requirement: Romance Sim with platinum mood Ah, the legendary sexy walk full of mystery. It'll save the mystery and tell you exactly how to do it. In order to do the Sexy Walk, a sim must have Romance aspiration and be in platinum mood. At that point, command them to perform a romantic or intimate action with another sim, such as flirting or kissing and they will walk quite provocatively to their target. The men will strut there stuff predictably, but it's quite amusing to watch how the women walk with an almost serpent like wobble of the hips, even more so than the regular walk. ----------------------- *Super Ultra Happy Back From Work Cheer: Requirement: A family aspiring sim who returns back from work to household Thanks to several e-mails from fellow sim fans to cross reference my original theory, this move has now been nailed down! The key ingredient to the this action is to have a family aspiring sim with who is at least in a descent mood return home from her job to his or her household! Normally, sims will just return home, and that's it, but family aspiring sims will perform a happy little cheer as they wait for their family to greet them! A sim will open their arms widely in happiness and start celebrating their return in big bold motions to say that they are glad to be back. Kinda' sad how everyone just kinda' sits there and ignores them. ----------------------- Jitters: Requirements: Coffee or Espresso To give your sim that nervous wreck look that all of us are so familiar with, have them drink a solid amount of coffee or Espresso and watch as they start to shake and jitter in everything they do This is particularly more fun to watch when they have low aspiration and look even more burned out with just a hint of crazy. In case you were tempted to try, your sims can't overdose on coffee and die, although it would be rather amusing. ----------------------- Enter Hot Tub Nude: Requirements: About 10 Points of Outgoing If your sim is a perfectly outgoing young adult or above, don't be surprised to see them take it all off while going into the hot tub. This of course, can be rather fun to watch and other sims will freak out accordingly, but it would seem that it is actually somewhat counter productive, as when there is a nude sim in a hot tub, teen sims can't join, although it makes pretty good sense in retrospect. ----------------------- Go To Toga Party in Underwear Requirements: 9-10 Points of Outgoing Some sims just seem to rather go closer to commando than go Greek, and if an extremely outgoing sim throws or is invited to a toga party, they might wear just their underwear instead of a full on toga. ----------------------- Popularity Factor: Requirements: A popularity sim It seems that popularity aspiring sims naturally just seem to simply get other sims thinking about them much more frequently than other aspiration types, as indicated with thought balloons with their face in them. It's difficult to evaluate whether this is a factor of platinum mood or not, since the effect is quite subtle, but it's at least worth taking a note of. ------------------------ *Friendly Gesture: Requirements: An outgoing sim Instead of a humble wave, an outgoing sim will point and smile as they pass by other sims that they are friendly with or give a thumbs up. I have also reason to believe that this might be a natural action of popularity sims as well, instead of for outgoing sims in general, but it requires a bit more testing. ------------------------ Bash Alarm Clock Requirements: An alarm clock and a sim in a really bad mood In recognition of potentially the most evil invention created by man, sims show their respect by bashing it a couple of times with their fists to try and get them to shut up, should they be in quite a horrible mood, as opposed to simply switching them off. As a bit of a note, I highly recommend against relying on alarm clocks in this game, as if you ever really wanted your sims to wake up, doing it yourself is always a more direct approach. Oh yeah, ringing alarm clocks actually also lower environment, so if you want to go ahead and reenact my student film, fill a room full of alarm clocks and laugh as your sims are awoken from their only natural state of happiness and forced to turn off more alarm clocks than they can count before going crazy. ----------------------- Shadow Boxing: Requirements: A playful sim If you leave a playful sim alone with no commands or freewill long enough, they will shadow box for a waiting animation. ----------------------- Cross Arms Requirements: A serious sim If you leave a serious sim long enough without commands or freewill, they will cross their arms and wave side to side in anticipation of your next command. ----------------------- Lazy Posture: Requirements: A lazy sim Lazy sims tend to revert to a slouched over posture should you leave them on standby, whereas an active sim will stand upright and ready for action. ------------------------ *Clean Self: Requirements: A neat or sloppy sim Neat sims on standby animation have a tendency to brush themselves off. This doesn't actually increase hygiene or anything, but it's interesting to watch. Sloppy sims on the other hand clean themselves in a more barbaric manner, blowing their nose or checking under their armpits. Also note that now neat sims now also Primp when on standby on freewill, which although takes up a bit of time, restores a small bit of hygiene. ------------------------ **Counter Attack Slap or Shove: Requirements: 6 and below Nice If your sim's personality dictates that they don't like getting a fistful of slap in their face, they can quickly return the favor by slapping or shoving the other sim back for that extra zing their sting. This might not actually be exactly what you'd call a good thing if you are trying to get your sim to embrace something as trivial as the power of friendship, but it does give your sim a little less passive aggressive spine. ------------------------ **Counter Attack Poke: Requirements: 4 and below Nice It takes a relatively grouchier sim to counter attack a tiny little poke, but eh, since you're already returning violent favors with interest, you might as well cover the small returns as well. ------------------------ **Cry After Attack: Requirements: 5 and above for Poke 6 and above for Shove 5 and below for Slap Some sims just don't like the idea of getting whacked upside the head, who wouldn't? Shove and Poke can be bypassed if your sim has grouchy enough personality. In other words, nice sims tend to walk away and cry after an attack whereas grouchy ones tough it out. Surprisingly enough though when it comes to slapping, very nice sims can actually tolerate being slapped, not counter attacking or even crying, talk about turning the other cheek. Crying after an attack can still occur even if the targeted sim counter attacks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.05]Automatic Commands: Freewill is for the Stupid Automatic commands occur naturally when a sim's freewill is on and are normally inaccessible to the player to use on demand. These actions are often preformed by guests and NPCs. Due to the semi-random nature of these events; many of the requirements listed are not exact. And this list is far from complete. ----------------------- Sponge Bath: Requirements: A kitchen sink and a very sloppy sim with low hygienic One of the most hilarious and shocking actions a sim can perform. When a sloppy sim's hygiene dips well below toleration and they happen to be near by a sink and no shower or bath tub in sight, they will sometimes take it all off and clean themselves in a more manually intensive way. As to be guessed, this automatic action is far from effective compared to ordinary ways to raise hygiene. ----------------------- Belch At: Requirements: A sloppy sim with a bad relationship Normally, sloppy sims belch and fart on their own, but under circumstances, they will use it as a manifestation of their hatred for another sim's existence. The Evil Mascot is particularly fond of doing this. ----------------------- Watch Prank Requirements: A sim to prank and people to watch A fairly standard action, when a sim pulls a prank on another sim, some on lookers will get a nice big laugh out of watching the ensuing humiliation. The reaction actually does vary on the relationship the onlookers have with the prank victim and executioner, and sometimes it can result in a worried look instead of laughing. ----------------------- Tease: Requirements: A bad relationship Although it should belong under the irritate category, this little display of belittling public affection is quite routine among grouchy sims with a bone to pick and helps to further throw fuel into a bad relationship's fire. I've seem nice sims do it as well however, so it doesn't seem to be particularly personality driven. ----------------------- **Laugh out Loud: Requirements: Another sim to watch an embarrassing moment After doing something stupid and embarrassingly, like dancing like an idiot in front of other sims, they will relate your sim's attempt to express their feelings with song and dance with their attempt to express their own feelings with insult and laughter. There are different degrees of laughing at other sims, you'll be able to tell them apart naturally with your sense of human expressive interpretation. ----------------------- Congratulate: Requirements: A sim with a recent positive memory and another sim with nothing better to do and a good relationship. Congratulate isn't a particularly noticeable interaction, it's just a simple pat on the shoulder followed by a thumbs up, however, the fact that it can only be done randomly by free will makes it interesting. Originally, I thought that it was a rather rare action, but later I discovered that the reason I didn't see it often was because I'm a control freak who doesn't trust such trivial things as freewill. The Congratulate action occurs when your sim has recently had a good memory and there is another sim around with a good relationship to give them a pat on the back, it also seems to help if they've witnessed it. In a particular scenario, having two sims fall in love with each other in front of a friend or family member warrants congratulations, but I have also heard of reports of congratulations from everything from graduating from university to just meeting a new person, to engagements to making best friends. It seems that just about any positive memory can be congratulated for. In any case, the key factor in the equation is to let freewill take over, as this action seems never to activate for a sim who is constantly being commanded around. ----------------------- Attraction: Requirements: A romance sim and other sims to be around. Induced by romance aspiring sims on other sims, an attraction is quick gesture of potentially or romantic interest, albeit it might as very well be the caked tongue of the cow plant if you are familiar with the sole purpose in life of a romance sim. Unfortunately, it gets a little annoying after a while, since it happens quite often if your sim has healthy aspiration and is in a good mood and can occasionally stall actions. ----------------------- Play With Fridge: Requirements: A very playful sim Having your sim spontaneously decide to dance with the fridge is a surprisingly entertaining action to watch. On rare occasions, a fun loving sim will open the doors of a fridge and start swinging on them all while opening and closing them with vigorous passion. Doesn't do much in the way of meeting motives, but it is very fun to watch. ----------------------- Visit Campus: Requires: Be in a Greek House at university Your sim will leave the lot and come back with a box of pizza or a random low quality object from bonsai trees to television sets. ----------------------- Get Gnome Back: Requires: Lawn Gnome I have only heard about this frequently, but have never been lucky enough to see it for myself, unfortunately. Apparently, guests can sometimes steal your lawn gnome, and at a random point in the day, your sim will leave the lot to depart on a magical journey to get it back. ----------------------- *Kick Trash Can Over: Requirements: A wandering sim who passes your lot with an attitude problem. The sim kicks over the big trash can, leaving a huge mess. This would be a good time to get a little revenge with the Sim Vac or using influence. Now since the addition of The Sims 2: Nightlife, this happens much more frequently with furious sims, as a matter of fact, the same sim can come to your lot repeatedly in a single day and kick the can each and every time you try to pick and clean it up. As a strange note, there was one mysterious occasion I experienced where I could actually command a sim to kick over the garbage can manually, and each time she kicked it over, new trash would spill out. I have since yet not been able to reproduce this action however, and when I reloaded my game, the sim was no longer able to perform the action. ----------------------- **Steal Newspaper Requirements: A grouchy or exponentially furious sim neighbor When I first started playing Nightlife, this was the first neighborly greeting I got from the local Mr. Big. Grouchy, or enemy sims seem to do this occasionally, but the furious sims do this all the time every chance they get. As soon as the newspaper is delivered, the thieving sim will sneak onto your lot, grab your newspaper and run as onlookers yell at them. In the case you want sweat revenge for that thief in your life who keeps on taking your newspaper, build an incineration room with fire jets, place the newspaper inside as bait, remove the door from behind the paper them, turn on the jets and chuck in a cheat sofa, voila, missing newspaper problem solved. It actually seems that other sims will not steal the newspaper if it is indoors, so if you actually care about getting your morning dose of black, white and read all over media, place it inside the house or a sim's inventory. In the case of the incinerator room bait mentioned above, you actually have to keep at least one segment of wall open for them to be lured in and charred, yes, I am very serious about those who steal my newspaper. ----------------------- *Lecture: Requirements: Several This happens occasionally when one sim breaks an object while in another sim's presence. Typically, this will happen when a child sim smashes their doll house, but I've seen it happen among adult couples as well in regards to a broken bathtub. Lectures also occur if your child is doing horribly in school, as can be expected. There are apparently also different levels of lecturing, depending on just how severely defective the action of the sim being lectured was. Mrs. Crumplebottom also loves lecturing other sims who try to interact with her, so this will most commonly be your only interaction with her outside of getting clubbed over the head with a purse full of "magic". ----------------------- Chastise: Requirements: When a teen gets caught sneaking out If a parent catches a teen trying to sneak out, they will properly catch them and lecture them about the rules of the house. You can cancel this however, and it seems that in families with good relationships, a teen can surprisingly sneak out without anybody throwing a hissy fit. ----------------------- Be Embarrassed: Requirements: Performing a very intimate action in front of others If two sims in love perform a particularly sexy interaction in front of others, such as a Goose, which is basically a brisk grab of the behind for the uninformed, other sims in the room stand a chance of becoming embarrassed in the "go get a room!" sort of way. ----------------------- *Disapprove/Approve: Requirements: A close family member witnessing a romantic interaction with another family member towards another sim The approval/disapprove action is a semi-random reaction that can occur. Sometimes, it happens randomly out of the blue, but more often than not, it happens when a sim witnesses a member of their family romantically interacting with another sim who they may or may not like as their reaction suggests. It's basically a quick nod or shake of the head, but in such obvious cases as a wife catching her hubby cheating on her, you will probably expect a fistful of slap before the nod of disapproval. ----------------------- Cold Shower: Requirements: A cheap shower and a toilet When a sim is taking a shower, have another sim flush the toilet. Now, we all know from general experience what this does. In reaction to the sudden shift in convenience, the sim in the shower will come out exceptionally angry and start poking and yelling at the sim who flushed the toilet ----------------------- Wash (Window): Requirements: Unknown Normally there are no manual actions regarding windows, but occasionally, a sim will go ahead and wash one, even though they are apparently incapable of getting dirty. This might be a factor of a neat personality, but it rarely happens unless your sims live in a house with nothing but windows, so it is hard to tell. ----------------------- Look Out (Window) Requirements: Unknown On rare occasions, a sim will automatically look out the window. Really makes me wonder for what other reasons were windows invented, and I don't mean the Bill Gate's variety either. ----------------------- Miss Object: Requirements: A debt hungry repo man or a penny pinching you If run into debt and the repo man comes over with his magical ray gun to zap some merchandise, your sim may go through a missing animation. Similarly, if a sim had a want to buy a certain object and you fulfilled it, only to take it away again and sell it within the same day, they will come over to the place where the object used to be and sigh. ----------------------- **Smells Good This action has been around since the core game. Whenever a sim comes within the vicinity of skillfully non-carbonized eatable food, they will have a whiff and acknowledge its greatness in terms of consumption capability. Smells Good has its reverse counterpart "Smells Bad". ----------------------- Be Shocked: Requires: Nudity This is a hilarious reaction, specifically because of the delay time of which sims usually have it. Your young adult could be playing pool with a naked streaker for hours, then when the match is finally over, finally notice that the guy is naked and freak. Likewise, sims react this way to very outgoing sims who go into the hot tub without anything they weren't born with. You'll also see this happen quite often in your washrooms between sims who aren't romantically in love. ----------------------- What's This? Requires: Any object on your lot When a sim has nothing better to do, they often wander to a random object and start to wonder about the great meaning of the universe behind it. Usually, this occurs when you first buy an object and there are sims around to see it. On several cases, a sim will react either positively or negatively depending on the value of the item. Just like people in real life, sims don't like crap. ----------------------- Witness Abduction: Requirements: A sim that is abducted through the telescope and another to watch. When a sim is abducted and there is another sim around to witness it, they will have this reaction. After witnessing an abduction, a sim will start to have wants and fears related to aliens without having to be abducted themselves. ----------------------- Return Home Requirements: A sim who is abducted When a sim is abducted, this is the name of the action that they are doing while off the lot. Who knows, they might be actually torching the mothership down or playing Go Fish as opposed to taking a nap on a cold hard metal slab. ----------------------- Welcome Home! Requirements: An abducted sim returning and others to watch When a sim returns from their magical adventure to outer space and being probed by semi-hostile aliens, other sims watching will cheer and welcome them home. If you also happen to have cut scenes off, this command will also appear if you click on the alien ship, albeit it doesn't seem to do anything. ----------------------- Be Shoved (By a random sim who comes running onto your lot): Requirements: A telescope to look through in the daytime. If you use a telescope during the daytime, there is a possibility that an angry sim from the neighborhood will come running in and attack your sim, most likely in the form of a shove. Feel free to do this every day to satisfy the stalker in you and follow up with a few crank calls to bring them over to beat up. ----------------------- Crack Knuckles: Requirements: A sim ready to fight If a sim is about to execute an action under the "Fight" category, on occasions they will crack their knuckles in preparation for the assault while the other sim is stalling time doing something like crying. ------------------------ Hide Diary Requirements: A sim writing a diary and another sim in close proximity It's rare to have a sim write in a diary, because it seems to be a slow useless action with barely any increase in motive, however, it is fun to watch sims try and hide their diaries should another sim walk by, this includes babies, service NPCs and even the Grim Reaper. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.06] Object Based Interactions: Use and Abuse Although the majority of unique objects in the game are designed to be interacted with by your sims, there are a few interactions that deserve attention for being uncommonly known, or just plain hilarious to watch. Although some of the actions in the previous section involved objects, the ones in this section don't have any more requirements other than possessing the object, but are definitely worth trying out at least once. ------------------------ Join LAN Party: Requirements Two or more computers on the same lot and an equal number of people to play them You can have two or more sims play computer games together if you have one sim start playing a game and have another sim click on another available computer and choose this command. LAN parties increase fun and social at a good rate. This should also be possible to do on community lots. ----------------------- **Lay on Back: Requirements: A sim who is swimming If you click on your sim while they are swimming in a pool, this option will appear. Many players never see this simply because they seldom ever actually click on their own sims when swimming. ------------------------ **Play on Couch: Requirements: A couch Who here hasn't had the wonderful experience of jumping on soft bouncy things when they were a child? To have your sim of all ages play trampoline on the couch like your mom told you over and over again not too or you will DIE, simply click on it and select "Play" when clicking on a couch. It seems that it doesn't matter how playful or serious your sim is, they will be able to do this. The ability to play on couches has always been around since the core game was released, but now it actually has a purpose! Pleasure seeking sims of the playful variety can have a want to do it! As a fun side note, if a sim is playing on the couch next to another sim who is just sitting down, that sim will start to bounce a little bit as well, whether they want to or not. ------------------------ **Roast Marshmallow: Requirement: A Bonfire or a Fire Jet It used to be before Nightlife that you could only do this on the Stack-o- Flames Bonfire, but now you can also do it with the Hottcorp Burning 8-R Fire Jet, you can now toast marshmallows from the comfort inside your own home, as opposed to outside it on the front lawn, where it might actually be safe. Pleasure seeking sims also have a coordinated want to roast marshmallows, but be careful or when using the fire jet, because a sim can be thoroughly cooked themselves in the process of toasting their mallow of marsh. Eating marshmallows restores a small bit of hunger, along with regenerating a fair bit of fun. Oh yeah, it seems that sims with incompetent cooking skills have the opportunity to burn their marshmallows in a fiery blaze, always fun to watch! ------------------------ **Add Soap (To Fountain) Requirements: A fountain This has been around The Sims 2: University, but I figured since I'm already listing a broader range of interesting abilities and actions, I might as well putt it into the hole of information. A rather hilarious action that sims can develop related wants to and have the ability to influence other sims to do, adding soap to an otherwise classic fountain will make it sprinkle and sputter bubbles for several hours as onlookers either come to gasp in horror or laugh their pants off. There were originally two fountains in The Sims 2 University that this could be done with, a small one and a ginourmas one, but The Sims 2: Nightlife introduces a more practical upstanding one that can be used as well that only takes two squares of ground space. ------------------------ **Pull Prank (With Sprinkler) Requirements: A sprinkler Ah, water, water everywhere, and who's going to clean it up? Seriously, who here doesn't like to abuse and take advantage of otherwise well designed security and safety measures? If your sim has the mischievous nature to click on a sprinkler and pull a prank, they'll ignite a lighter under it and set it off, gushing water all over the floor. This action can also be influenced, and apparently occasionally also has a want that corresponds with it. ------------------------ **Maintain Clock Requires: Ol' Grandfather Clock Normally with the grandfather clock, all you can do is wind it to keep on running, however, after a certain amount of time, the clock will eventually wear out it's up to your sim and their bag of repair skills to maintain it it. What is particularly interesting about this case though is that if your sim is incompetent and screws up, the entire clock falls apart like cheap shoes in water. I remember this scaring me half to death the first time I saw it. ------------------------ Open Rear Door: Requirements: A criminal who has just been arrested. You can actually free burglars who have just been caught by the police right after robbing your house blind. Talk about being benevolent, huh? Doing this however is a bit tricky and the timeframe of opportunity is extremely small. Shortly after the cop arrests the burglar and puts him or her in the police car, he or she will walk back into your house to inform your family of the news. It would seem that the time in which the option on the police car "Open Rear Door" appears only for a brief while if the cop takes long enough to go into the house and talk to one of your sims. From my tests, it usually happens exactly at the time when the cop hands over the compensation or reward money that this elusive command appears. After first seeing the "Open Rear Door" command, you can select it to send a sim running to open the door on the cop car and free the prisoner, getting a large double plus relationship bonus. However, you'll also get a large negative towards the cop who arrested the criminal and who will be completely pissed off in the process when they get back to the car and find no one to be in it. From that point on, the sim who freed the burglar should be able to call up either the cop or the burglar and treat them as you would any other sim. Just for the sake of hilarity, try to invite both of them over for a party and see how they react. ------------------------- **Smash (Doll House) Requirements: Will Lloyd Wright Dollhouse Crushing a doll house with your bare feet is a gem of an action from the core game that is definitely worth watching. After all, what Godzilla loving sim wouldn't jump at the pleasure of squishing a miniature embodiment of their own domestic imprisonment? Children and above can all enjoy smashing this lifelike replica of man's favorite domestic abode, although it should be noted that children tend to get a lecture if they do this whereas adults can just brush it off to a middle aged crisis. Oh yeah, only children can actually play with the Doll House, as opposed to the more logical "Must Smash" approach which also boosts up the fun a motive a fair bit. ------------------------- **Teddy Bear Fun Requirements: Durably Plush Teddy Bear Grown ups can talk through the teddy bear for some awkwardly fun trauma with their kids or even total strangers for that the most part, but the fun part comes from children interacting with them. Children, along with the ability to carry them around normally without an inventory, have different ways of playing with the teddy bear depending on their aspiration and mood. If they are in a good mood, they will play happily and gently, whereas if they in a horrible mood, they'll beat it into a pulp, similar to what you see in create a sim mode, but it seems that being nice is not a determining factor. ------------------------- **Newspaper Fun Requirements: The daily newspaper What more fun than can be had with a piece of paper? Along side the logic enhancing crossword puzzle, and obvious little uses, like oh, reading the dang thing or finding a job sims can also opt to fold it into a neat little aerodynamic aero plane and send it for a soar through the sky before recycling it. Just because the people Maxis think too much, there is actually a limit to how many times a sim can throw a paper airplane before it breaks. Sims can also do the crossword puzzle once per each newspaper for a small logic boost. I laughed quite whole heartedly the first time I saw a sim use the recycle option, since where I live, recycling is taught thoroughly in school and is somewhat of a great sin to do otherwise. You know, you sort your burnable, paper, plastic, dead sheep and stuff products apart from each other and toss them in a special blue or green box for the fine folks at the recycling center to process. Guess how sims "recycle" their garbage? Yup, they just toss them in the garbage can like most people do. Remember kids, we only have one planet, so let's try not to destroy it before we take over Untitled- 2394.930 Alpha. -------------------------- **Make Over Requirements: Cornerstone Variable Vanity This object deserves special attention just because of how hard it actually is to find in the buy catalog, and how useful it actually can be. Normally with a normal mirror, all your sim can do is change themselves up, however, with the Cornerstone Variable Vanity, sims can now make over their friends and lovers to fit their needs as well! What this means is that you can make over even service sims who you could not normally have access to unless you asked them to move in directly with you. Do you want that Count in the neighborhood to have a big afro, no problem! With the Cornerstone Variable Vanity, cosmetic humiliation is only a click away! In actual practical use, the Cornerstone Variable Vanity is useful for making over sims to fit your sim's turn ons and turn offs to improve chemistry. This item is a bit tough to find it residential catalogs, but can be located under the Miscellaneous section of Surfaces. ----------------------- Watch Television in Bed Requirements: A bed with a television in front of it Although it makes perfectly good sense to lazy people the world over, a lot of players don't know that sims can enjoy the wonders of telegraphed vision from the comforts of their own bed! Sims don't automatically lay down on bed when they watch television unlike how they automatically sit down on coaches, instead, you have to manually command them to relax on a bed, then have them use the appropriate watch command. Now, if they could only eat in bed they'd be just as lazy as their human counterparts! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.07] Dining Interactions: Cause Dining Love Smooch Is Evil Incarnate Now introduced with The Sims 2: Nightlife are some new interactions that sims can only perform when they are sitting down for a bite! In order to perform most of these actions, having your sims seated on dining chairs in front of a dining table is necessary. Of particular note is to specifically have the dining chair called Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth (two of them to be exact next to each other) and sitting side to side to unlock all of the interactions. There a several common interactions, like Blow Kiss, Toast and Caress Hands, but a few deserve special attention for being especially unique. Actions that are exclusive to seated sims are indicated by a chair icon next to the command name. Some of the moves can also only be done when eating, and others, when not eating. ------------------------- **Throw Food Requirements: Sims eating food, sitting close to each other at dining table with a good relationship. In what culture is throwing your food at other people a sign of deep intimacy? Well, I'd imagine the Greeks or Italians or something, but I'm pretty sure the Chinese and Japanese consider it extremely disrespectful. Ignoring that, sims can now officially fling food at each other if their relation is high enough, and what's more is that it is classified as an intimate action! Sims can actually fall fully head over heels with each other by just slinging left over lobster into each other's general direction! Another interesting thing about this move however, is similar to "Peck", it does not make other rival hearts in the area jealous and still can trigger a love relationship. As a bit of irony, Throw Food also seems to be the only dining interaction that adults can do with kids, so I guess you can say that it's an all purpose interaction, it's pretty funny watching a little kid repeatedly assault their mommy with food though and get away with it. ------------------------- **Throw Drink (Seated) Requirements: Sims sitting close together at dining table with a neutral or worst relationship level Okay, someone explain this to me, by reasonable analogy, you'd figure that since throwing food is a loving action, throwing a beverage at someone would also be a very intimate action right? Well, the answer is no, definitely no. If two sims have about a neutral or worst relationship with each other, one can splash the other in the face with cold, icy, reality inspired water while still sitting down and instantly incite fury, very similar to the more conventional "Throw Drink" standing up version. I never get tired of watching "Throw Drink", it's always so funny! ------------------------- **Steal Bite: Requirements: Sims eating food, sitting close to each other at the dining table with a good relationship Located under the Play category, this curious display of self gluttony at the expense of another sim's dinner is a move to be careful of, since it can trigger a crush between the two sims involved. ------------------------- **Feed a Bite Requirements: Sims eating food, sitting close to each other at the dining table with a very good relationship As opposed to "Steal Bite", "Feed a Bite" is a serious romantic action, although it still doesn't cause other jealous lovers in the area to come and beat down on your sims. Actually, pretty much all seated interactions when actually eating have the ability to dodge the eyes of jealous lovers, including Blow Kiss and Caress which is actually pretty useful for avoiding getting caught outside of dates. With feed a bite, your sim delicately delivers a fork full of food into their potential lover's mouth for a nice score. ------------------------- **Cuddle (Dining Version) Requirements: Sit side to side with lover on Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth This version of cuddle that apparently can only be done on Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth is very different from the normal variation that can be done on loveseats, sofas and other sectional seats. Instead of introducing the regular option of Make Out, Peck and Romantic kisses, this one allows the usual actions that can be done on a diner table, plus two exclusive new ones if the two sims are sitting side by side. You don't absolutely need a dining table to perform this action, but having a dining table in front of the sectional booth will allow for more interaction options. Unlike the normal eating romantic interactions, Cuddle definitely brings on the fury from other loving sims, and so do the other actions that it links into. ------------------------- **Love Talk Requirements: Sit side to side with a lover on Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth in Cuddle mode What can be more loving than Love Talk? Well, probably a lot of things, but that's beside the point. Love Talk is a pretty ordinary action outside of its rather strict requirements, but it's another handy tool for a lover's arsenal. ------------------------- **Hot Smooth Requirements: Sit side to side with a lover on Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth in Cuddle mode Along with "Love Talk" Hot Smooch is the other interaction that can be done on a Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth when in Cuddle mode. It's pretty much what it sounds like, a hot smooch. Good for when your sims are too lazy to get up to kiss or after a meal. ------------------------- **Dining Love Talk Requirements: Sit side to side with a lover on Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth in Cuddle mode in a community lot while dining at a restaurant but not eating and coincidentally sitting next to each other under the extremely likely chance that you will not due to your stupid Host Introducing the single most difficult interaction to execute in The Sims 2 with the least amount of payoff possible, it is my pleasure to present to you the horror that is Dining Love Talk. Dining Love Talk is virtually exactly the same as Love Talk, except the name is different and it must be done on a community lot when dining at a restaurant, but not eating while in Cuddle Mode. The hardest part about this interaction is sitting next to your sim's partner, since there is really no guarantee that they will be seated that way by the Host, unless you designed the restaurant with that in mind by having each table matched only with two Jacuster's "Last Stand" Sectional Booths. ------------------------- **Dining Hot Smooch Requirements: Why don't you just go sell your soul to Satan already? It's easier! Writing the requirements for this move, which are exactly like the Dining Love Talk makes me wonder to Heaven and back how the heck I found out about it in the first place. As you probably can guess, the Dining Hot Smooch is not any easier than the Dining Love Talk and unless you are lucky or smart in your restaurant designs, you are pretty dang likely never to see it. ------------------------- **Surprise Engagement: Requirements: Sims sitting close together at a dining table with a loving relationship The Sims 2: Nightlife introduces a new type of way to attach the old ball and chain to your future spouse's leg ahead of time! Now your sims can propose while sitting down at a dining table! Surprise Engagement isn't actually all that much more surprising than the original engagement interaction, though. Actually, I'd have to say that it's a bit less dramatic; not doing that whole kneeling bit that girl's dream of so much. Throwing an engagement ring through your lover's apartment window with a giant rock attached, or slipping it into their red wine and having them go to the hospital for swallowing it, now that's surprising, but eh, this way isn't bad either and with far less sexual harassment potential. It makes a good way to end a date and an alternative to the conventional engagement proposal. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.08]Motive Desperation: What's Your Motivation? When a sim has extremely low motives in one area, they will start yelling at the player and this is called a desperation action. All motives have one, but they are basically the same in effect. It is usually what follows immediately after that is interesting to watch. ----------------------- Die of Starvation: Requirements: Absolute redline on hunger Your sim reaches out for one final breathe before crumbling into a fetal position and kicking the can. Wearing the accursed Noodle Soother gone terribly wrong with a side effect is a great way to see this effect early. ----------------------- Have An "Accident": Requirements: A sim that has completely redlined the bladder meter You sim will form a surprisingly clean puddle of water when they had their chance to go but didn't. As an additional note, surrounding sims might laugh at the overloaded bladder victim or try to comfort them, depending on their personality and relationship ----------------------- *The Green Stench: Requirements: No hygiene left When your sim runs low on hygiene, they start to vent a green fume that repels most other sims away. This is actually fairly common should your sims exercise a lot. As of The Sims 2: Nightlife, simulated stink has now become a potential turn on or turn off, although why any "normal" person would like the smell of rot and sweat is just a little bit beyond my expertise in human sociology. ------------------------ **Cover Ears from Loud Noise Requirements: A helicopter carpool If one of your sims travels to and back from work with a helicopter, other sims in the immediate area of the copter will cover their ears and be unable to do anything until the noise has past. A bit annoying, but it's apparently the price sim's pay for stylish aerial mobility. ------------------------ Smells Bad: Requirement: A sim with low hygiene or burnt food This reaction is a self explanatory reaction to an invasion of nasal nausea. When your sim has low hygiene or has learned how to cook a hot steamy plate of charcoal, any other sims in the area will react with this. ----------------------- Be Disgusted: Requirements: A bad dirty joke If a sim bombs on a dirty joke, the person who they are telling it to will through a motion similar to vomiting. This automatic action also appears under other cases, such as when a sim is sick. ----------------------- Vomit: Requirements: Morning sickness or food poisoning Should your sim come down with food poisoning or morning sickness, you can expect them to run to the local toilet several times to vomit before they recover. After vomiting blue fluid, the toilet will become severely dirty, although if there isn't a toilet around, the floor will have to suffice. There are also other fun ways to vomit, just because it's so refreshing! Sims with low body skill will frequently puke after riding the Electro Dance Sphere and I've heard stories of sims who have drank the night away saying goodbye to breakfast in garbage cans, although I have yet to see it myself. ----------------------- Cough and Sneeze: Requirements: Flu, Cold or Pneumonia If you sim comes down with the above mentioned sicknesses, they will be prone to interrupt their actions with long coughing or sneezing spells. ------------------------ Summon the Social Bunny: Requirements: Extremely low social motive When a sim's social is very low, the social bunny will fall from the heavens ready for a nice big hug... that or you can beat him up. The social bunny is an imaginary being, so when you select other sims, they will not be able to see it. ----------------------- Faint: Requires: A sim that has run out of energy A sim, depending on how much space is around them will collapse on the floor or fall asleep standing up looking like they've been hanged, in which case other sims around them will come over to laugh, even if they are just one step away from dying. ----------------------- **Fall Asleep In Food Requires: A sim who is very low on energy when eating A hilarious action that many actually competent players might miss, if you have a sim who is on the verge of fainting start eat away on a plate or bowl set on a table, they might do a face plant into their favorite foods and snooze, slowly recovering energy similar to after fainting, and staying that way until you wake them up. You can also hear smearing sounds as they mash their face around in the mush. If another sim is eating at the same table, they may also react to the sim falling asleep by looking somewhat awkwardly from side to side. Strangely enough, they will continue talking to the sleeping sim despite their apparent lack of consciousness. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.09] Aspiration Desperation: Aspire to This! Similar to when your sim's motives hit red rock bottom, your sims will also go a little loopy should you deprive them of their hard earned ambition in life. Certain aspirations have particular weaknesses, such as knowledge sims frequently fearing fire, fortune sims fearing the repoman or family sims understandably dreading the return of a zombie sim from the dead. Exploit these fears well, and you will be rewarded with entertainment at the expense the little digital people who put all their faith in you. Oh yeah, just for the record, although Maxis strongly insists that The Sims 2 is a life simulator and encourages players to play the game properly, you will notice by watching the intro sequence that they show almost all of the aspiration desperation animations in sequence. I'm quite sure the animators had a good laugh making them as many of us do watching them. The following occur randomly when your sim almost has full negative aspiration. ----------------------- Fortune Aspiration Desperation: The financially challenged sim will take out a sign and a mug and start panhandling, most often on the side of the road. ----------------------- Knowledge Aspiration Desperation: Taking a cue from the movie Cast Away, a desperate knowledge Sim will take out a volley ball with a graduation cap named Prof. von Ball and start talking to him. ----------------------- Family Aspiration Desperation: Will start to play and love a little baby flour sack, cradling it back and fourth. This one is just depressing folks. ----------------------- Romance Aspiration Desperation: Romance sims will take out a sponge mop with a paper face and proceed to dance with it. That doesn't seem all that unusual to me to tell the truth. ----------------------- Popularity Aspiration Desperation: Takes out a cup with a face on it and hands named Cup-Stick Buddy to be their new best friend, seeing as how if you got them to this point, they probably don't have any. ----------------------- **Pleasure Seeker Aspiration Desperation: I couldn't stop laughing when I first saw this. So what exactly do pleasure seekers do when there is no pleasure in their life? Well, you might be thinking of a lot of things, but in this case, they plop a lamp shade on top of their head with a smiley face on it and start disco dancing to the sound of a different beat in their head, complete with self made sound effects. ------------------------ **Grilled Cheese Sandwich Aspiration Desperation: Cardboard cheese! Seriously, this is one of the saddest things you'll ever see, I mean, what could be more depressing than going insane because you can't get a single grill cheese sandwich? You'd have to seriously torment your own sims pretty badly to get them this far, but fortunately, every cheese sim carries with them a conveniently drawn grill cheese sandwich on a plank of cardboard that they can whip out and fantasize about when feel down! ----------------------- Ultimate Desperation: Occurs when the aspiration meter is at its absolute lowest bottom rung on the ladder, and occurs to all aspiration types. Your sim will simply go insane and summon an imaginary psychiatrist that will put them into a hypnotic trance to perform a humiliating impression of an animal before snapping them back to semi-functional normal. Other sims that happen to be around will gesture quite politely that this sim has gone nuts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.10]When Disaster Strikes: And You Have Popcorn By now, you probably know all the ways a sim can die from other FAQs or by accidental exposure. You got your starvation, fire, drowning, electrocution, disease, death by flies, satellite, death by fright, old age and the mighty cow plant, but what you might like to know is how other sims may react to them and other crisis. This section covers various reactions to disaster as well as interesting notes about some of them. ----------------------- Watch Fight: Requirements: Two sims to fight and others to watch Depending on a sim's personality between shy to outgoing, a sim will have two reactions to this. The first is that they will watch intently and the second is that they will run out of the room. Needless to say, everybody loves to watch a fight at other people's expense, and when you have multiple sims who all hate the same person, things can get pretty wild. Sims will also cheer and boo for the sims involved in the fight if they like or hate them and react accordingly to the victor. ----------------------- Run Away: Requirements: A teenager in a very unhappy family Teenage sims can run away should they have exceptionally horrible relationships with their parents and other household occupants. You can sic' the cops on them to bring them back though, although it might not always work, particularly after 24 hours. ----------------------- Electrocution Requirements: Low mechanical skill when repairing a complex object For when you want to light up that special sim in your life, there are very few literal substitutes to just plain and simple electrocution which can happen randomly, but most frequently when your sim has very little mechanical skill, in which case repairing something like a garbage compactor or dishwasher is just plain suicidal. Electrocution is also interesting in that if your sim survives, they'll have a unique appearance of having spiky electrified hair and be blacked out all over their body. This can be easily remedied by a clothing change at a wardrobe or a trip to the showers, but it's so ridiculously funny looking, that you might just want to keep it anyway. It looks especially hilarious on zombie sims, making them look even more dead, if that's even technically possible. Electrocution also has the negative effect of making your sim lose skill points as well as a pretty hefty motive drain in all areas except environment and a naturally negative memory. Oh yeah, in case you haven't figured it out already, electrocution has the slight side of effect of oh, death, if your sim's motives, specifically their Energy bar is very low. ----------------------- Fire: Requirements: Errr, fire Quite possibly the most annoying automatic action, or the most hilarious to watch, depending on how much you hate your sims. Fire makes idiots out of sims, and they basically start panicking like chopped head roosters only making the situation worst. Fire is a very persistent action and will cancel out any other action in queue, making it difficult to escape. Of course, needless to say, a sim reacts quite a bit more desperate when they actually catch on fire as opposed to just watching it. ----------------------- Burglar: Requirements: Self explanatory Should a burglar ever choose to pay your house a visit and there is a waking sim to witness them, they will proceed to run around like an idiot while the burglar plunders their precious property. This still applies if your sim is oh, let's say a cop or even Captain Hero, heck it even applies if your sim is a vampire, seriously, there should be an alternative to detouring the burglar side from calling the cops, but I guess doing this vigilante style wouldn't be really the kinda' thing Maxis would want to promote. ----------------------- Vermin: Requires: Roaches! Should your house happen to be a filthy mess of a domestic battlefield, there is a high chance that you will develop roaches. Sims who try to spray away roaches or stomp on them have a good chance of panicking in the process and might get a vermin memory as well. When there are vermin around for too long, sickness can't be too far behind, so if you actually care about your sims, have them vacate the room and call an exterminator. ----------------------- Watch In Distress: Requirements: A stupid sim, a broken appliance, and a lot of electricity. When a sim gets electrocuted, other sims in the nearby area come to watch in distress. Watch in distress can also occur in other instances where a sim is going through massive turmoil, like passing out. If a sim is in a bad relationship with a victim, they will laugh instead of be distressed. For the record, energy is the key factor of a sim who will die after being electrocuted, although it makes it hard to kill a sim this way, since they will usually interrupt themselves when their energy is low. ----------------------- Worry Requirements: A sim who actually cares about a sim who has fainted Very similar to "Watch in Distress" and only really different in name, a sim who sees a friend or family member faint will have a worried look on their face. In the case that the person watching doesn't have all that good of a relationship with the sim who has fainted though, they'll get a good laugh out of it. Personality type might also play a role in the reaction that takes place. ----------------------- Spread Sickness: Requires: A sim with a cold, flue or pneumonia If your sim has come down with a cold or another contagious virus, there is a high chance that they can accidentally share the love if they get close to another sim for prolonged periods of time. It seems that you can also infect townies this way as well, so if you happen to be Satan, you can quarantine about a dozen sims into a small tiny glass room, have them all infect each other, then promptly incinerate them to benefit the many at the cost of the few. For anyone else trying to play the game competently though, just don't put sims with contagious sicknesses around other sims, as even if they have recovered, there is a chance that a person who they passed the affliction onto can return the sickness back to them. It does not seem like the Mystery Disease is contagious. ----------------------- Crying: Requirements: Recent bad memories: If a sim lost a fight, had a loved one die, lost their job, made a brand new enemy or have been put through some other tragedy, they might spontaneously cry throughout the day. Sims with even high aspiration can start crying from a bad memory, but sims with low aspiration or horrible mood in addition might get even more disturbing behaviors added to their roster, like stomping on flowers. ----------------------- Nightmare: Requirements: Recent bad memories and low aspiration If your sim has had an incredibly bad few days with people biting the dust and fighting left and right all while catching the flu and having dozens of other bad things happen to them, along with a red lined aspiration, they will start to have nightmares and wake up abruptly in the middle of the night in cold sweat. ----------------------- **Throw Tantrum: Requirements: A sim with low aspiration in a bad mood I've seen this action happen specifically with children and teens when they are in an especially crappy mood and low aspiration, but it might be possible for adults to do it as well. There also seem to be different levels of tantrums, but you'll know that it's at its worst when your sim is stamping their feet into the ground and flailing their arms about. ----------------------- **Drop Flaming Dessert: Requires: Bare Minimum Cooking Skills and Incompetence This is one of the most hilarious things you'll see in this game, and also a rare event! You'll rejoice at watching your sim dance in a fiesta of flame after accidentally dropping their fire friendly food after such a grand presentation! There are two desserts that can be dropped that both conveniently involve fire. The first dessert is Baked Alaska which has been around since the core game and can be made with 8 cooking points. The second and new with Nightlife dessert introduced into the mix are Crepes Suzette, because only the French and the Alaskans (Baked Alaska didn't really come from Alaska actually) could possibly invent a dessert so difficult to make that screwing up royally can result in death. Well, in this game at least. On a completely unrelated note, I've always wanted to try Baked Alaska since I was knee high, it's on my to do list for life somewhere. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.11]Reactions To Sim Death: And How To Make The Most of It. Depending on the relationship a sim has with a sim who has just died their reaction will be different. ----------------------- Cry Softly: Requirements: A good relationship with a sim who has just died. Fairly self explanatory when a good friend or close family member has died. ----------------------- Sigh Requirements: The death of a sim who has an indifferent relationship. Sighing is on a progressively lesser notch in the "I don't care" department when another sim has died. ----------------------- Laugh At: Requires: The death of a sim who is an enemy Sims are just like real people, except they tend to do things that all of us are thinking, but never in a lifetime will do. As such, having them laugh as their arch enemies take off on their journey to the great beyond is quite amusing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.12]Paranormal Actions: For When Your Sim's Life Doesn't Suck Enough These are some of the actions available related to the more occult ambulance chasers of The Sims 2 world. From ghosts to zombies to vampires and aliens, oh my! ----------------------- *See Ghost: Requirements: A well aged tombstone or urn on the lot to bring out a ghost When night settles in on a lot where the dead wander, occasionally a ghost will pop out of nowhere and scare the daylights out of a sim with a rather amusing reaction. It usually takes three days after death for a tombstone to manifest a ghost, but once they are around, they'll be bouncing about your lot for ages to come. Most sims remember this badly, some even die if their motives are low, but ironically, knowledge sims love seeing ghosts. It would seem that if a sim is an arch enemy of another, he will start having wants to see that sim as a ghost. This is the kid friendly way of explaining that they want the other sim to die, but lack the programmed means to do so in order to keep the game on a level acceptable to violence condoning families everywhere. Since I'm already on this subject, it should be noted that sims that really hate each other can develop a want to drink their enemies via cow plant. Ghosts scare sims that they particularly hate far more frequently than normal, this can lead to some ludicrous profit for knowledge aspiring sims who live in full fledge vengeful ghost houses. That is if they happen not to get a heart attack in the night and die from fright. ----------------------- Be Abducted (Telescope): Requirements: Stargaze through the farstar e3 Telescope and lots of luck What could be more fun than being abducted by aliens, probed with highly unfamiliar metallic tools not unlike those of Salvador Dali's worst nightmare, and spit back out? A lot of things actually, but that's beside the point. In order to get your sim abducted, you have to purchase the expensive telescope available in the buy catalog, yeah, the one with the ominous description related to aliens. After purchasing it, have your sim stargaze with it at night time and with a lot of random luck, they might be abducted by aliens in a grandiose fashion and taken aboard their ship for some probe on sim action. A lot of fans have speculated many, many different ways to help the chances of being abducted, but nothing has really been proven solid, so for the most part, just assume that it's pure random luck. During the time soaring through the cold vacuum of outer space and experiencing the business end of an alien probe, the abducted sim's motives will wildly fluctuate and they will be gone for several hours. Upon return, they will be tossed out of the flying saucer onto the pavement in a rather less than gentle matter, and upon realizing their latest ordeal, will start to gain wants or fears related to aliens. Male sims will also be left with a little souvenir that comes in the form of being impregnated with an alien baby, although female sims will be just fine, albeit a bit freaked out. A lot of sim fans wonder why is it that only male sims get impregnated. Well, it's because of the way the sim alien society works. There is one female queen and countless male drones roaming about, and apparently their biomechanics work in reverse, so the queen impregnates the male drones and all sorts of other fun stuff that most people just don't to think about due to paradigm shifts and human globalism. It should also be noted that other than having different eyes and skin color, aliens are pretty much exactly like normal sims. ----------------------- **Be Abducted (Electro Dance Sphere) Requirements: Electro Dance Sphere and a previous abduction experience A sim who has been abducted before, or perhaps has at least acknowledged the existence of aliens as indicated by their wants or fears, has the chance to mysteriously vanish when using the Electro Dance Sphere, most likely back to the mothership for another intimate exchange with Sir Probalot. The player doesn't get to see anything happen, and the exit out of existence is very discreet compared to the telescope abduction, but it's a fun little activity nonetheless, in a weird abnormal pink flying elephant kinda' way.. Upon being abducted, the sim's motives will be made static and they will have disappeared once again for several hours, it sure is tough being an alien guinea pig. I have heard that it is possible for male sims to get imprenated with an alien baby yet again through this exchange, but I have not experienced it personally. ----------------------- **Resurrect Zombie Requirements: Resurrect o' Nomitron So you want your own defective, incurable shambling mound of walking and surprisingly talking flesh? No problem, to get a zombie, just use the Resurrect o' Nomitron from the Secret Society or that can be won up the career ladder upon getting the Medium position in the Paranormal career track. If you pay slightly above 1000 simoleans to resurrect a deceased sim, they will come back as a zombie, complete with slow and annoying funky zombie shamble and agelessness, as well as a grab at the Undead Scholarship if they are teens. ----------------------- **Bite Neck Requirements: Be a vampire The cornerstone of sim to vampire conversion, all it takes is a little bit of hocus pocus mesmerizing magic on the other sim and a nice dramatic chomp to add them to your army of the walking undead. The "Bite Neck" command can also be influenced, and is particularly effective when doing so with the Count or Countessa Grand Vampires. For other sims who want their friends to fly the night away with them on first bite, they should have about 50 daily and 50 lifetime relationship on both sides for a munch, depending on chemistry. "Bite Neck" is not immune to failure, in which case the other sim gets pissed off at whatever the vampire is trying to do to them and ignores them, resulting in a double negative reaction. The "Bite Neck" command, if successful is actually a fairly strong interaction in itself that increases daily and lifetime relationship, despite its possibility of traumatizing the other sim who might have a chronic fear of becoming a vampire. Note that if you bite a computer controlled sim during the day time, they'll most likely run off due to daylight savings, or was that saving themselves from the daylight? Vampires are very different from ordinary sims. Their motives don't drop normally during the night time, but they easy bake in the sun outdoors during the day time and have heavy motive drain indoors as well. ----------------------- **Bleh! Requirements: Be a vampire Vampire sims have the ability to irritate other sims by attempting to show them their slightly more scary side. "Bleh!" doesn't seem to directly affect relationship levels between two sims, it does however have the ability to make other sims piss their pants if their bladder is too low. Oddly enough, instead of the usual toilet bowl icon desperation over their heads appearing, they'll get a rather infantile baby bottle to appear over their heads. Even stranger is that it seems that taking a leak on the spot doesn't apparently empty their bladder, so you can do it multiple times to make them flood the room in a truly humiliating manner. ----------------------- **Fly Requirements: Be a vampire Zombies have the ability to transform into a bat and flutter around from area to area at the same speed as skipping. A handy form of transportation, although it doesn't seem that they can actually fly over anything you'd think they would normally be capable of, like lakes, fences, walls and stuff. ------------------------ **Stalk Requirements: Be a vampire What's better than stalk talk? Stalk walk! Vampire sims can walk around shiftily with an arm in front of their face and look all spooky and everything and watch in amazement as sim political correctness makes everyone ridiculously indifferent to their evil nature. Stalk is basically exactly the same as walking in use, and can be extended into a running version of the sim who uses it crosses a long enough distance with enough energy. ------------------------- **No Reflection Requirements: Be a vampire True to the legend, vampires don't have a reflection when in front of a mirror. Sure, it defies the laws of energy related physics, but then again, since when has a computer game not defied physics and spit in its general direction to boot? -------------------------- Peek and Dare to Peek in Coffin Requirements: A vampire snoozing in their coffin When a vampire sim is sleeping, other sims can take a sneak peek at the freak by clicking on the coffin at picking the appropriate interaction. Depending on how much energy the vampire has recovered, there will be two outcomes. If the vampire is still low on energy, he'll still be snoozing when the lid is opened, but your sim will be just slightly disturbed by the sight of the sleeping undead. On the flip side, if your vampire has almost recovered all of his energy, he will scare the living daylights out of your sim with the possibility of even inflicting death by fright if the sim he or she scared had low enough motives. If you rather have your sim do on to others very much what you wouldn't want them to do onto you, and your sim has a fair relationship with the victim, errrr, I mean person in question, then they can successfully dare that person to peek into the vampire's coffin instead for a shocking surprise! **Getting Dusted Requirements: Be a dead vampire, sun dried style If you let your vampire have their day in the sun, chances are that they'll be extra crispy in a few hours. The death animation of vampires who die in sunlight is that they gasp in horror as they fade away into the daylight and leave behind a pile of ashes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [13.13] Career Reward Actions: When Using Them Right Isn't Good Enough Other than the purpose that they were designed in mind with, certain Career Rewards can have a few interesting features and side effects that might not be all thoroughly known. Since the Resurrect o' Nomitron and Cow Plant have been well documented in other sections, their specific information with be omitted here. -------------------------- Make Medicine: Requirements: Simsanto Inc. Biotech Station Although making medicine to sell or take is the Biotech Stations basic function, it deserves special mention since the medicine can be taken to shorten the duration of a sickness. Depending on how high your sim's logic is, they will be able to sell it for a higher price and it will become more effective in cutting down the duration of sickness. -------------------------- Make Virus Requirements: Simsanto Inc. Biotech Station and 9-10 Logic A some what dummied out function of the game, although sims with high logic can make viruses using the Biotech Station, there is really nothing that can be done with them, as the original "Sell Virus Illegally" command was apparently removed out from the game before official release, probably because of moral and ethical issues. As it stands, there is really no purpose to making a virus. -------------------------- Contract Mystery Virus Requirements: Simsanto Inc. Biotech Station After brewing up a patch of biological goodness, it is possible for your sim to contract the Mystery Virus when opening the hatch of the Biotech Station. The mystery virus is a rather odd phenomenon and not much is known about it, but it seems to be the only virus that can out right kill your sims regardless of motive level if they are not treated well and cured within a certain amount of time, so be careful and hasty in curing it if a sim you might actually care about has come down with it. -------------------------- Obstacle Course Humiliation Requirements: Exerto Selflog Obstacle Course Nothing says being broken down to the end of yourself like hot sweaty intense military issued training, and it's all the more humiliating when you're forcing a little girl to do it. Depending on how low their body score is, a sim will screw up more frequently on different parts of the course. Specifically, sims will trip over the hurdle logs, get caught in the mesh netting, and fall down when try climbing up the wall, all very good stuff to watch and their expense! -------------------------- Chocolate Puddle Requirements: Schokolade 890 Chocolate Manufacturing Facility Brown puddles! Who doesn't like brown puddles? Sims with low cooking score can often screw up the initialization process when using the Chocolate Maker and cause the chocolate reservoir to overflow, resulting in an ominous, yet tasty chocolate puddle on the floor that is lots of fun to clean up for the whole family! Speaking of family it should be interesting to note that although children cannot use the chocolate maker, an older more skilled family member can teach them by example to increase their cooking skill, however, no money seems to be made this way, and the person teaching's skill doesn't increase. -------------------------- Spare the Children from Shock Therapy Requirements: SensoTwitch Lie Detector and a child You might know the SensoTwitch Lie Detector well from its rather shocking dose of punishment it can inflict when a sim screws up, however, in this case, it is what it doesn't do that is of particular interest. Simply put, the SensoTwitch Lie Detector is kid friendly, and although it still beeps when an error is made, doesn't shock them into submission when they screw up. Apparently, Maxis deemed that having your kids well behaved doesn't necessarily equate to having them well done. -------------------------- Harvest Hydroponic Garden Requirements: Aquagreen Hydroponic Garden After growing flowers in the Hydroponic Garden, you can have your sim harvest it for nature grown goodness. The resulting potted plants can either be sold at 350 simoleans a pop or used to decorate the room for a slight environmental boost. It takes roughly five to six days to get your flowers to the stage in which they bloom and can be harvested, quite a while really, but fortunately, you only have to tend it a little bit between each available stage to keep it going. On the other hand, if you don't tend the garden, that's another story. -------------------------- Let Hydroponics Garden Wilt Requirements: Hydroponics Garden Like most everything in real life, if you ignore the blooming buds in the garden long enough, they will start to rot. If you do not have your sim tend regularly to their Hydroponics Garden when it is growing, it can wilt and leave a dirty monument to neglect behind. -------------------------- Get Face Rearranged Requirements: Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic Surgery In the Sim world, Dr. Vu has a pretty bad reputation, trying to take over the world in Sim City 4 with UFOs, toxic trucks and a mechanical whale that shoots missiles kinda' does that to you, so why not trust the same mad scientist when it comes to rearranging your sim's face? Well, just in case you couldn't imagine what could go horribly wrong, on random occasions of using Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic Surgery station, the machine will go nuts and give your sim a face only a mother could love. I'm currently unsure if there is a controlling factor for increasing or decreasing the likeliness of this happening, but I would suspect mechanical skill would be the reasonable variable. -------------------------- ***************************************************************************** Chapter 7: Wrapping Up ***************************************************************************** [14] Bugs, Tricks and Glitches: Exploit The Game! ----------------------- Nightlife Bugs: When Nightlife first came out, there were bugs from side to side, as much as I hate to say it. I remembered grieving over my sim's missing newly received diploma and cellphone, and then there was the fact that I couldn't hear any of my sims sing karaoke which I was looking very much forward to! Fortunately, the patch is supposed to fix that, so I can't wait to try it out after I'm done writing this FAQ! Now, the diploma is supposed to transfer from its rightful place from the Career Rewards section to the Inventory section. There are still two bugs that definitely need to be watched out for though since I believe the patch doesn't fix it. First of all, don't have your sim use the remote control car electronic entertainment on a lot and save. Doing so results in a "Blank Memory" bug. Another bug that you probably have heard about already is the "Do not make Mrs. Crumblebottom a vampire" bug, which corrupts the game and triggers a series of rather nasty related bugs that makes the game run like a pregnant yak. Of course, the natural work around this is to avoid the temptation to turn Mrs. Crumplebottom to the dark side. Oh, like she wasn't there before? ----------------------- Mrs. Crumplebottom Gives Lots of Love: If any other person told me that you could get Mrs. Crumplebottom to give your sim hugs and kisses in normal gameplay, I would have thought they were dishonest rumor spreading bastards, yet here I am typing down this trick that I discovered and have been able to reproduce some twenty times. I mean, it makes no sense, technically, Mrs. Crumplebottom is an "object", not a sim, and she isn't like any other sim in the game, so how the heck is this possible? It goes against all common sense, but I'm definitely not dreaming. It's probably a glitch, since Mrs. Crumplebottom doesn't actually have proper animation to correspond with the actions, but having the opportunity to witness a "Public Display of Affection" from the very person who would rather bite off her own leg than do them herself is surely something noteworthy, so that's why this is here! I have seen Mrs. Crumplebottom perform three intimate interactions using the following trick with an adult sim, her animation is screwed and her face looks like it's ejected with a few gallons of botox, unable to change expression, but you'll definitely see the name of the action in the queue and your sim reacting to it, and best of all, your sim will have a chance to reject Mrs. Crumplebottom's advances! How ironic is that!? The three actions Crumplebottom can perform are: Romantic Hug Romantic Kiss Leap Into Arms Of all three, Leap into Arms is the only one with a remote chance to work. Since this is a glitch, there is no way I can guarantee if it'll work on your game. For the record, I don't use mods and I don't use cheats, and at the time of writing this, I still haven't installed the newest patch. If this trick works for you, please let me know! This is how you get Mrs. Crumplebottom to give your sim lots of love: Step 1: Go to a community lot and find Mrs. Crumplebottom. Step 2: Use the Charm action with her under "Flirt" as many times as the queue will hold and you cannot add it anymore. In theory, any action will work, but I used Flirt specifically. Step 3: The queue will quickly clear and Mrs. Crumplebottom will start to lecture your sim. Step 4: Quickly add "Chat" under "Talk" with another adult sim other than Mrs. Crumplebottom to the queue. Any action might actually work, but this is what I used. Mrs. Crumplebottom will continue to lecture your sim multiple times in a roll by this point. Step 5: Mrs. Crumplebottom will continue her reign of lectures for a while, but at the very end of it, she'll add one more action out of her normal routine, you'll know that's it because it will appear after the "Chat" command you ordered with another person on the queue instead of before like the lecture ones. Step 6: Quickly cancel the chat command with the other person, and feel Mrs. Crumplebottom's warm embrace. Just for laughs, the first person I had do this by accident was a women, hahahaha. Never knew Mrs. Crumplebottom swung that way, but oh well. There is another thing, I've also had Mrs. Crumplebottom cheat four times in a role with the lover of that same women I just mentioned. Each time Mrs. Crumplebottom tried to hit on my sim, her lover came and slapped Mrs. Crumplebottom, not because she though her partner was cheating on her, but because she saw Mrs. Crumplebottom cheating on her with her partner! When I went to see this jealous lover's memories, there were four "Caught Mrs. Crumplebottom Cheating" memories right next to each other (I got it to work four times in a roll by then) and a memory of having met her for the first time in between! Unfortunately, Mrs. Crumplebottom seems to be impossible to add to the list of relationships no matter how hard you try without full on cheating. As an additional note, you can actually play as Mrs. Crumplebottom if you use the good old debug mode boolprop code, shift click on a mail box on a residential lot to summon Mrs. Crumplebottom over, then promptly kill her (I found an incineration room most effective, as she cannot be boolprop killed like ordinary sims, but strangely enough, she isn't immortal). Next up, just use the Resurrect o' Nomitron to revive her perfectly, and she should now be back and you should have Mrs. Crumplebottom as a playable sim, but she's glitchy as hell and many of the animations will look weird, as her hands are usually in a locked position. From this, you can find out that Mrs. Crumplebottom is a family aspiring sim, is a Scorpio with a very extreme personality, has no turn ons or turn offs, and is surprisingly skilled in several areas, and is indeed a virgin, heck it seems she's never even kissed. From this point on, you can torture her as you wish, like get her electrocuted, rejected for woohoo and all around revenge for the pain she's put your sims through on community lots now that she's on your home turf and under control. She'll still take time out to knit socks though, oddly enough. Be very careful when experimenting with the above trick mentioned, as it is practically begging to corrupt your game, try not to do any permanent changing scenarios, like oh, turning her into a vampire or zombie, and for all things holy, make a back up save before you do it if you are actually playing seriously. If you don't mind going royally off the deep end, you can use the Sim Modder spawned item to restore her back to her younger years (Still with bag in hand), and wouldn't you know it, she doesn't look all that bad, except for the fact that her texture is different from other sims with a huge lip line. Honestly, be very careful with this trick, I just gave my game the blank memory bug three minutes ago with it - again. I personally don't like using actual cheat codes, I have absolutely no gripes if it can be all done in game though, so if you are wondering why I don't explore this trick more, that's the reason. ----------------------- Multi-Term Paper! This is an awesome trick contributed by Jason Newman after I wrote my The Sims 2 University FAQ but never had time to update back then, so I'm putting it here now! Hope you don't mind! Unlike the Mrs. Crumplebottom love trick above, this trick is actually very useful! With this trick, it is possible to get double or even triple term paper credits in a single semester! If you have your sim influence other sims to write term papers before the first term paper for the semester finishes, they will all start typing away on them, and when they finish, their compiled term papers will all be counted onto the score and send the Class Performance Meter soaring! As a bit of a note, three term papers in one semester is pretty much enough to send any class performance meter straight from the bottom to the top and costs 7500 influence points total. Of course, you have to have enough computers on the lot for the sims to write on, so this trick works especially well on dorms and university community lots where the resources are available, as well as the Secret Society. Of course, your sim can also jump into the frenzy to write his or her term paper themselves when other sims are being influenced to type away at it at the same time, for in the case that they are running low on influence or want to fulfill a term paper want. ----------------------- Getting Special Clothing: Along with getting to add work cloths to your sims wardrobe upon reaching the desired position, you can get the clothing of service sims and townies by asking them to move into your household. Upon being able to control them, the cloths will be available to sims of the same age and gender, although some outfits are unisex or can cross multiple age groups. Using this trick, you can now get that lovely Diva dress or the Countessa's unique red long dress of sheer evilness. Of course, if they happen to "disappear" from this mortal plane, you will still retain the precious drags in loving memory. Collecting cloths in the game can become quite the side hobby. On a slightly saner note, if you move an NPC out to find their own place and they have a unique set of clothing, the lot they were previous on will still retain a copy of their cloths, so long as other sims stll live there, as well as the new lot they decide to live in. Using this, you can trade and spread unique clothing from residential lot to residential lot, along with any spare inventory items you might load them up with. As a bit of caution to the wind, the armoire's arsenal is strictly tied to the lot that it's on. Even if you take the wardrobe in your sim's inventory, they will only have the clothing that the lot they are moving to has. In the case that it is a new lot, they will only have their basic set of current cloths. In the case that they are going to a community lot though, they will be able to change into any outfit they have at home. There is also an alternative and quite a bit more evil way to do this trick, and that's to kill an NPC sim off and revive them on your lot as a discount zombie, although it might be just a little bit too evil for to pull off just to get someone's clothing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Long Good Night This trick is especially for those vampires out sims there who would rather the night lasted almost forever. There actually is a way that you can extend the time of night by a few dozen folds if you really want to shower your vampire with nightlife time and love. Have your vampire sim leave for a community lot immediate when the sunsets at 7:00pm, then have them return back to it before the time on the community lot reaches 7:00am. When your sim returns back to their home, it will still be night time, and you can send them back to the community lot which will reset to being nighttime immediately again, just repeat the cycle over and over again until you either get tired or day time eventually comes to the residential lot from the elapsed time of driving in and out. Counting total time on community lots from each visit using this trick, you could clock ultimately more than 150+ game hours of vampire loving nighttime in a roll. This trick is especially handy at University for vampire young adults, as their motives will not normally drop, and they still will be able to attend their final exams and build required skills on university community lots, allowing them to effectively progress through University without having to rest in their coffins or be interrupted to refill motives. This is actually probably the best strategy for vampire sims in university, with it's only downside being that they wouldn't be able to attend day classes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Easy Career Rewards: Here's a trick that I first learned from Martin Ostera who e-mailed me all the juicy details of one of the biggest in game exploits I've seen! As a matter of fact, this trick is so ridiculously useful; it's a mystery to me why I haven't found out about it until now! Have you ever wanted all the career rewards that you could ever possibly hope for, but too lazy to actually play the game and too honorable to actually consider using type in cheats? Well, this is just perfect for you! Originally, in the core game, when your sim applied for a job through the computer, they could overshoot the position that would normally give them the career reward if they were overqualified and go on for the rest of their career until they reach the top without ever getting it. This led to most career reward hunting players starting their climb up the job ladder from the bottom rung by finding a job in the newspaper instead of through a computer. Now, it seems that somewhere between all the current expansions and patches, Maxis has remedied this problem, and now, you can obtain career rewards retroactively, simply by reaching or overshooting the job position that would normally give the career reward. For better or worst though, Maxis didn't see how this feature could be massively exploited, and here's where Martin Ostera's trick comes into play. This trick works best with sims who have graduated from university with a Summa Cum Laude earning 4.0 GPA to grace their diplomas with high skill and a dozen or more friends, as it virtually guarantees them the highest position possible, usually a level 8-9 position optimally, however, even sims without post secondary education can do it to a lesser degree so long as they have enough friends and very high skills to offset. Okay then, let the career reward ripping begin! All you have to do is have your sim pick a job, any job using the computer, and so long as the position they start off with meets or surpasses the career reward position, they will obtain that career reward simply for being hired! Now, all you gotta' do is hop from one from one career path to the next and mop up the goodies, all in a few in game minutes for your sim from the comfort of their own computer! Even better, with Nightlife, you can share the love by distributing multiple career rewards to other members of the household to spread around the neighborhood, and presto, you have a full blown career reward manufacturing facility to share the wealth! With this trick, you can obtain the career rewards from every career path in the game, including the four university exclusive ones if you have a graduate doing the job hunting, and although you only get five career options available to your sims on their computer every day, that is barely a pothole in the light of the power this trick can give to your sims. Now everybody on the block can own their very own cow plant, and wouldn't that make the world a much better place? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Play as a Ghost It is actually possible to play as a ghost in The Sims 2! Now, if you know your debug boolprop, you might have tried to make wandering ghosts selectable only to find out that they don't listen to your commands as all. It is however possible to semi-glitch the game and play as a ghost! Just don't expect them to last very long unless you watch over them angelically. In order to get a playable ghost, first have the sim you want to kill off and become a ghost relax on a bed to help fill their command queue. This is important because as long as the ghost sim's command queue has something in it, they wouldn't vanish later on when you resume playing them. Next up, have another sim invite them to their own lot, and promptly kill them as you see fit. I typically use fire for this, but other leading causes of death should work as well. After the deed is done, save your lot then return back to the original lot where the sim who died was lying down in bed. If all things fall into place, you should now be able to control the phantom, but be warned, in essence, you have to constantly keep the ghost's command queue full, or else the game will recognize that the sim is actually dead and make them vanish! Ka-poof! Unfortunately, this trick is mostly for novelty and cosmetic purposes, as controllable ghost sims wouldn't be able to float or scare people or do those neat little ghostly interactions with children's toys. They do have a few neat abilities though. For starters, they actually can walk through objects and walls, although since the game never intended this glitch to be a feature, the path finding AI still occurs so you usually only see it by accident. Second of all, ghost sims are incapable of interacting with other sims, with the exception of through objects. Unfortunately, ghosts still have motive decrease and can't gain skills to make it even worst. Despite all of the limits of ghosts, you can take a little of their borrowed time to make things right before they puff into thin air for good and it makes for some good pictures. Ghosts have a few other things they can do, or to be more accurate, can't do to be worth trying out at least once in an isolated neighborhood where sims you might actually care about don't live, as it's an unstable glitch that may have side effects. You can also screw things up a little more with if you try and get another sim to revive them with the Resurrect o' Nomitron while they are dead and walking around on the same lot. This has a weird effect, giving the ghost sim back their normal abilities, but locking up the sim using the Resurrect o' Nomitron and canceling the ability to exit the game, as well as access build and buy mode, so it's not recommended. ============================================================================= [15] Closure Well, that's a wrap! I can't believe for the life of me that this FAQ actually ended up longer than The Sims 2: University FAQ, if you've read this entire thing, congratulate yourself, because you have just read a document pretty much the size of a moderately thick paperback novel - but with bigger pages. Makes me wonder if I should start writing short stories and become a starving writer instead of a starving artist! This FAQ was written for two reasons, the fact that I happen to really like this game, and as a tribute to all of the great people who have e-mailed me since my University FAQ with tons of positive feedback! You people rock! I probably would have never made this follow up FAQ if it weren't for all of you! If you have any questions, comments or information, please contact me at the e-mail address on the top of this FAQ! Hurray! I love exclamation marks! Oh yes, if you liked my writing style and sense of humor, please visit: www.xynthica.com It's my website filled with overly cute anime styled goodness and satirical humor openly mocking the limited potential of the human race! It's almost as fun as a bowl full of mice! Or maybe it's actually MORE fun than a bowl full of mice?! Please let me know what you think, because we here at www.xynthica.com love to suffer for you! This is Zephos (TheSocialBunny) saying happy simming and have a great nightlife! And remember: EXPLOIT THE GAME! ============================================================================= [16] Legal Stuff Copyright 2005 Zephos Amaranis This guide may be freely distributed, digitally displayed, and or reproduced for personal and private use for non-profitable purposes, so long as its contents are unaltered and the original author is acknowledged. The following sites have obtained my official acknowledgement and approval for hosting this FAQ: http://www.gamefaqs.com (Master Copy) http://www.neoseeker.com http://www.cheatcc.com http://www.supercheats.com http://dlh.net http://www.gamerstemple.com http://groups.msn.com/TheSims2Database ============================================================================= [17] Special Thanks Lots and lots of people to thank! This FAQ could have never been what it turned out to be without the help of enthusiastic gamers like yourself, so let the long detailed credits roll! - First and foremost my utter most thanks to Maxis for making this excellent electronic entertainment product and all of its expansion packs and trying not to piss the fans off by being as politically correct as corporately possible while still retaining a most excellent sense of humor! Loved you guys since the original Sim City, love you guys even more now! Llamas forever! -Special thanks to EA for giving me my copy of The Sims 2 for being a volunteer tester, you guys are awesome! I take back everything I said about you being an evil faceless corporate juggernaut that runs gymnasiums full of overtime working sweatshop conditioned game testers! Well, your British Columbian branches anyway, you guys got so many branches that you should really look into world domination when you've got the time. -My personal thanks goes to warfreak on www.gamefaqs.com for writing the first The Sims 2: Nightlife FAQ available! Warfreak actually wrote the first version of the Nightlife FAQ before I even bought the expansion pack! It was an excellent rundown of things I had to research and look into, and I found myself reading it to cross reference my own FAQ many times. -Incredible thanks to Jason Newman for telling me personally through e-mail the information regarding the Multi-Term Paper trick! I use it all the time now and it's such a useful time saving way to exploit the game, and you all know how much I LOVE to exploit the game! Well, without cheat codes or mods anyway. -Hefty thanks to Carrie Kube for telling me about the "Welcome Home" Friendly Hug that children can automatically give to their parents when they arrive home from work. How sweet it is! -Indispensable thanks goes to Richard Doyle, Laura Samuel, and J.T. Bloodstorm for helping me to lock down the true nature of the "Super Ultra Happy Back from Work Cheer". When my information was bleeding, you guys stepped up to help me nail it down, and that made all the difference! -Undeniable thanks goes to Slurpicus for explaining why the heck my AMD processor gets read wrong by the game to allow only two guests at parties and relaying to me the solution! I swear it saved me a kitten sized brain tumor! -Extra virgin oil thanks to Asleon who wrote guides to perfect couples and romance sims available on www.thesims2.com forums that gave me a great deal of incite into how the chemistry system works. -Incredible thanks goes to all of the people who stood up for me and reported the numerous plagiarism related cases of my FAQ. Not so much thanks to those who actually did rip it off, although I forgive you. Heh, I'm an artist, plagiarism isn't anything new to me. As my brother taught me when I was young, there is only one way to beat plagiarism, and that's to keep on consistently doing what only you can do, but do it better. Well, that or hire an army of lawyers, one of the two. -Grandiose thanks goes to the authors of the official The Sims 2: Nightlife guide by Prima! I've personally never read it or any of the other The Sims 2 guides save for the demo pages of the University guide online, but I've heard that it's the size of my eleventh grade math textbook and packed full of information, buy it at a store near you! There's a good chance that someone down the road who gave me advice learned it from that book, so to it I give it credit and thanks! I also have every intention of buying and assimilating the information now that my FAQ is done and needs cross checking. - A mound of thanks to Carlos Alberto Colon for informing me of how sloppy sims can take a whiz in the shower and about how the salvage command works on normal trash cans as well as the big mother trash can! -Congratulatory thanks to Marius who helped me isolate the cause and effect to the rare auto-action Congratulate! -Extensively spectacular thanks to Avalikia Kapu for dropping me an enormous tip on the exact cause of the approve and disapprove actions, I couldn't have boiled it down if it wasn't for your help! Awesome name by the way! -Super happy thanks to Martin Ostera for his trick about getting easy career rewards through simply getting hired at high positions! Surely one of the greatest in game exploits I have ever come across to date! -My heart felt thanks to all of the wonderful representatives of various video game sites who have asked to host my FAQ and done an excellent job doing so! I'm not a very promotion or public person, so thank you for making my work easier and taking care of the worries of displaying my FAQ so that I can focus on writing them, you guys are the best! -Finally, thanks to all of those people who sent in those e-mails and responded to my inquiries on the forums! You guys are the best! I'll be looking forward to the next expansion pack as well, so see you all then! ============================================================================= There are two things in any good game to avoid doing, losing, and unfortunately, winning... www.xynthica.com
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