T H E S I M S & L I V I N ' L A R G E & H O U S E P A R T Y
& H O T D A T E & V A C A T I O N
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The Sims (PC, Mac) &
The Sims: Livin' Large (PC, Mac) &
The Sims: House Party (PC)
The Sims: Hot Date (PC)
The Sims: Vacation (PC)
The Complete Guide
September 25, 2002
Version 7.0
Written by: Dan Simpson
Email: manymoose@hotmail.com
Subject: Sims v7.0
Email Policy:
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Emails without the proper subject MAY BE DELETED!
Do NOT email me asking for a Serial Number.
If you see any mistakes, or have anything that you want to add
please email me! I will, of course, give you full credit for
your addition, and be eternally grateful to you.
Before emailing me with a question, be sure to check out the
Frequently Asked Questions section.
______________________________________Notes____________________________________
The most recent version of this FAQ can be found at:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/
http://www.cheatcc.com/
http://www.gamewinners.com/
Den nyeste norske versjonen kan finnes på:
http://www.danielthesim.cjb.net
La versione Italiana della mia FAQ si trova a
http://www.nonsologiochi.it/
If you wish to translate this FAQ into another language, just email me
telling me about it, and where it will be located (the URL). You still have
to give me credit for writing the FAQ, though.
In case you cared, The Sims has broken the SimCity 3000 sales record for the
first month of sales. SimCity 3000 went on to be the best grossing game of
1999 (it didn't sell the most copies, RollerCoaster Tycoon did that, SC3K
simply pulled in more dollars due to a higher cost-per-sale average), so we
can safely assume that The Sims will be one of the top games of 2000! It
already sold 1 Million copies! If you haven't bought it yet, what are you
waiting for? The Sims is now the best-sellingest PC game of all time.
There are now FOUR Expansion Packs out now for the Sims! Check out section
1.2 Information on the Expansion, Livin' Large for an introduction to
the Expansion Pack as well as section 1.3 Information on the Second Expansion,
House Party. 1.4 covers Hot Date and 1.5 covers Vacation. Unleashed is
the FIFTH expansion, but I don't have it yet, so no comment.
Be sure to check http://www.thesims.com/ every Thursday for a game update!
Updates so far (can be downloaded, also included with Livin Large):
http://thesims.ea.com/us/getcool/index.html
Cuckoo Clock
Moose Head Decoration
5 New Skins
5 New Houses
Wall Lights
Slot Machine
Guinea Pig (Pet)
Note: With the Guinea Pig, if you fail to keep its cage clean, your
Sim may catch a disease from it!
New Plants
New "Physical" Skins
"Elwood" Skin
MTV Skins
Topiaries (Hedge Animals and such)
Flowerbeds
Jukebox (actually at http://www.rankit.com/sims/simsoffer2.html)
The White House
Two New Trashcans
Glowing Flamingo
Art Studio, a tool to create custom Wall Hangings
Upgrades not included with Livin' Large
Jack O' Lantern
Turkey Dinner
Cookies
Telecom Upgrade (Sims can call each other to say "hi")
Vacation Island Beach Blanket
Hungry Hungry Hamster Game
Promotional Balloon Fence
Holiday Mistletoe
Triple Bull Dartboard
Pepsi Machine (North America only)
House Party Potty Pack
Nouveau Nites Party Lights
Queen Vivanco Roses
'Ukulele Lady Lamp
AND
A complete Game upgrade to The Sims version 1.1 (not needed if you
have Livin' Large)
A patch to Livin' Large
http://thesims.ea.com//us/getcool/gamepatch/LLpatchindex.html
A patch to Hot Date
http://thesims.ea.com/us/getcool/gamepatch/HDpatchindex.html
This FAQ looks best in Courier New at about 9 points.
This Document is Copyright 2000-2002 by Dan Simpson
The Sims is Copyright 2000-2002 by Electronic Arts
I am not affiliated with Maxis, Electronic Arts, or anyone who had anything
to do with the creation of this game. This FAQ may be posted on any site so
long as NOTHING IS CHANGED and you EMAIL ME telling me that you are posting
it. You may not charge for, or in any way profit from this FAQ.
_______________________________________________________________________________
__________________
What's New in 7.0:
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Updated the guide somewhat to reflect what's been going on in the world of
Sims. Added sections for the last 2 expansion packs (Hot Date and
Vacation) and tried to get everything reasonably up to date. Created a
new section (5.2.1) on creating a "Love Shack" that deals with multiple
Sim-romances.
For a complete Version History, check out the Final Words Section at the end
of the FAQ.
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Table of Contents:
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i.) What is The Sims?
1.) Getting Acquainted
1.1) Understanding Your Sims
1.1.1) What a Sim Wants/Needs
1.1.2) Why A Sim Does What He Does
1.2) Information on the Expansion, Livin' Large
1.2.1) Multiple Neighborhoods
1.2.2) Cockroaches
1.2.3) The Grim Reaper
1.2.4) Genie in a Bottle
1.2.5) The Chemistry Set
1.2.6) The "Love" Bed
1.2.7) Beejaphone Guitar
1.2.8) Woodworking Table (or the Work-at-Home career)
1.2.9) Madame Blahbatfry Crystal Ball
1.2.10) Servo
1.2.11) Horrowitz "Star Track" Backyard Telescope
1.2.12) The Tragic Clown
1.2.13) Voodoo Doll
1.3) Information on the Second Expansion, House Party
1.4) Information on the Third Expansion, Hot Date
1.4.1) New Social Interaction Options
1.4.2) Controlled Sim Interactions
1.4.3) Interests and Inventory
1.4.4) Downtown
1.5) Information on the Fourth Expansion, Vacation (forthcoming)
2.) Creating a Family
a.) Creating a Sim
b.) Of Neatness and Maids
2.1) The Bachelor Sim
2.1.1) The Bachelor Gets Married
2.2) The Full House (8 Sims)
3.) Building a House
3.1) Building a Better House
3.2) Who Needs Walls?
3.3) Housebuilding, Especially on a Budget
4.) Furnishing a House
a.) Lighting and Lamps
b.) Decorations
4.1) Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!)
4.1.1) Food Strategies
4.2) Room Rating
4.3) Alternative to Alarm Clocks
4.4) Who Needs a Trashcan?
4.5) Sims' Interaction With Objects
4.6) Moving Trash Yourself
4.7) The "Cluster" Method
5.) Of Friends and Lovers
a.) Socializing
b.) Marriage and Moving In
5.1) Befriending Mean Sims
5.2) Carrying on Multiple Romances
5.2.1 The "Love Shack"
5.3) Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
5.4) Sending your Sim Out of the House!
5.5) Creating Friends the Old Fashioned Way
5.6) How to Befriend SimKids
5.7) Sim Personalities and Compatibilities
5.8) Getting the Desired Interaction
6.) Working (and Not)
a.) Quitting
b.) Job Events
6.1) The Jobs Chart (a.k.a. the Career Paths)
6.1.1) Livin' Large Careers
6.1.2) Alternate Job Chart
6.2) Abusing the Carpool
6.2.1) Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool
no less!)
6.3) Quitting for Fun and Profit
6.3.1) Job Hopping Analysis
6.4) Job "Shifts"
7.) Running an Efficient Household
7.1) Working the Pause
8.) Expanding the House
8.1) Building that Second Story
8.1.1) The "Flying" Second Story
8.1.2) The Balcony
9.) Babies and Children
9.0.1) Baby Tips
9.0.2) Baby Personality Matrix
9.1) Children and School
9.2) What Kids Do
10.) Everything Else in the Neighborhood
10.1) Death and Ghosts
10.2) Did you Know?
11.) Cheats & Tricks
11.1) Deleting Trash (and Bills too!)
11.2) Paying only Every Other Bill
11.3) The Newbie Trick
11.4) Washing Dishes Faster
11.5) Deleting your Characters, and resetting their Mood
11.6) How to Max out all the Personality Stats
11.7) Starting a Sim with random Job Stats
11.8) Speeding up your Sim
11.9) Better Personalities through Chemistry (Livin' Large)
11.10) Sell the Rocket Explosion
12.) Customizing Your Game
12.1) Changing the Radio Station Music
12.2) Skins
12.2.1) The "Nude" Patch
12.3) Setting up Multiple Neighborhoods
12.4) Download Surprises
12.5) Playing Without the Sims CD
12.6) Creating your own Objects
12.7) Custom Interface Graphics
13.) Known Bugs
14.) Getting the Most from "The Sims"
15.) Wish List
Frequently Asked Questions
Livin' Large Frequently Asked Questions
Final Words...
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i. What is The Sims?
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The Sims, simply put, is the People Simulator from the creator of SimCity.
So, what is a People Simulator? Well, you get to run the lives of everyone
in a neighborhood (not all at once, of course). Taking on one "family" at a
time, you try to guide them to success in life, love, and the workplace.
Left to their own devices, the Sims tend to simply tread water (i.e. they
live without a goal), and that is where you come in. I like to think of the
player as the Sims' ambition, their goals in life, if you will. You are that
little voice in their head that tells them to study Mechanics, or to take a
shower, in order to get that promotion. Without you, their ambition, the
Sims will tend to lounge around, fulfilling only their most immediate desire,
without any eye on the future.
Sim (noun) : A simulated person in a Maxis game. Ex: The Sim went to
SimCity to buy a bagel.
Updates to The Sims:
There are several new downloads available at the Official Site
(www.thesims.com of course!). These aren't any great Patches, but are some
neat new objects and skins. Maxis promises that every Thursday that they
will have some cool new thing on the site, and therefore every Thursday is
called SimDay. So far they have had 9 downloads: a Slot Machine, a Cuckoo
Clock, a Moose Head, 5 Warrior Skins, 5 Houses, New Plants, Wall Lights,
new Physical Skins, "Elwood" Skin, MTV Skins, Topiaries, Flowerbeds, a
Guinea Pig, the White House, Two New Trashcans, a Glowing Flamingo, a tool
to create custom Wall Hangings, Turkey Dinner, Jack O'Lantern and a
Jukebox.
Mini-Review:
This is the first time a review of mine will be found in my FAQ. I just
felt that I needed to express my opinions on the game in a more
editorialized fashion than the normal FAQ sections allow.
I have been looking forward to The Sims since I heard about it back in
November. I couldn't quite put my finger on why this game sounded good to
me, but I was certainly intrigued. Controlling people's lives? Sounded
(strangely) like fun.
After having played it non-stop since I bought the game, I can sum up my
experience in one sentence: One of the most strangely addicting and
compelling games I have ever played. I haven't played a game this much
since Rollercoaster Tycoon, and that was back in April '99. That's almost
a year. I have stayed up many a night until 1 or 2 am, and only going to
sleep then so that I could get up the next day and play some MORE Sims!
In The Sims you take control of a family of Sims and try to guide them
through life. Along the way you develop friendships, work your way up the
career ladder at work, and try to keep your Sims fed and happy. You can
sit back and watch the Sims interact with each other, or you can take a
more active hand and FORCE them to do your bidding. You can even shut off
their Free Will.
Personal interactions between the Sims is often the most amusing part of
the game. Watch as someone will shoo another Sim out of the bathroom so he
can take a leak. Or as a Sim attempts to give another Sim a back rub, but
is pushed away. Then there are always the Sims who like each other... a
lot, and start getting passionate.
I also really enjoy the differences between the Sims. One may be very
neat, and like to clean up messes, and another may be extremely mean, and
prone to get into fights. Very interesting variety.
All in all I really enjoyed this game, and give it a 9.5.
Welcome to the crazy world of The Sims. I'm assuming that you have gone
through the first Tutorial, and if not, then you probably should. It teaches
you all of the basics of the Sims and their needs. Once you have finished
with that little tutorial, save it and go back to the Neighborhood.
Note: There is a neat little trick that one can do with the Tutorial,
check out section 11.3 The Newbie Trick for details.
Note: There is only one neighborhood! Therefore there is also only one
Save Slot. Of course, there are lots of houses in the neighborhood,
so do you really need more than one save slot?
The first thing you should know, is that you control the entire neighborhood.
Not at the same time, but one house at a time. When you aren't directly
controlling a house, NOTHING HAPPENS THERE. It's like they are in stasis.
They can be called over to your current house (assuming you've met them), but
they won't actually do anything. They'll be exactly as you left them when
you go back to them. So, if you play one house, then switch to another, then
switch back to the first, it will be as if nothing has happened. If house 1
was eating breakfast, they'll still be doing that when you get back.
Note: There is ONE exception to the "nothing happens while you're away"
rule. And that is Relationships. If you have the Sims in your
current house flirt with the Sims from the other house and their
relationship improves, then that will carry over.
Another thing to know at the Neighborhood level is that the people you put in
the neighborhood are the only ones you can be friends with. That is, there
are no "random Sims" wandering about. Since your Sims require the
friendships of lots of other Sims (some careers require that you have lots of
friends)that means that you will have to work on the Neighborhood as a whole,
rather than single-mindedly working one house. (more on this in section 5. Of
Friends and Lovers)
Free Will: A quick little note here on Free Will. You CAN turn free will
off if you'd like to take full control of the Sims. With only
one or two Sims under your command this is an easy thing to do.
However, once you get up to 5 to 8 Sims, then it can get very
difficult to control all of their separate actions at once.
Free Will is useful to some extent--the Sims will do things
that are quite beneficial to themselves, such as cleaning up
the house, or talking to the neighbor. Although you should
know that the Sims aren't very efficient in what they choose to
do. Suppose that you need to improve both Hygiene and Comfort.
The best choice (if you have the Time) is a bath. Well maybe
the Sim wants a shower. Or what if the Sim takes the bath just
as the carpool pulls up. Therefore you can't totally give over
to free will. But neither should you destroy it and control
their every move.
Sims WILL ignore your commands if what you're telling them to
do seems contrary to what they need most. A starving man won't
go play basketball (or at least, is far less likely to!).
Well on we go! Click on the Create a Family button to get things going.
(You could, of course, play the Goths, or the Newbies, but you will need to
create a new family to start filling in the Neighborhood)
The following subsections deals with the Sims themselves, and why they do the
things that they do.
Note: Throughout this FAQ I often refer to Sims as "he" or "him". This is
a fairly arbitrary choice of gender, basically because I myself am
male. This is not because all Sims are male, I just refer to them
that way.
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1.1 Understanding Your Sims
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Even if you don't have Freewill turned on (and you don't HAVE to, check the
Game Options) you should understand a few things about your Sims. What they
like, why they like it, etc. For example, why does a Sim choose what they
do on their own? Why do they stop doing it when they do?
In the first subsection we'll talk about the 8 motives (or as I prefer to
call them, Needs) and their effect on your Sim, then in the next subsection
we'll talk about the reasons behind your Sim's actions, and how to better
control them.
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1.1.1 What a Sim Wants/Needs
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Each Sim has 8 Needs that constantly need to be met. And at most you can
satisfy 2 or 3 needs at a time.
Note: The Hot Tub CAN satisfy up to 4 needs at a time, depending on
whether there's more than one person in the Hot Tub. Also, Sims
will stay in the Hot Tub until all 4 of those needs are filled.
(these Needs are Hygiene, Comfort, Fun, and if someone else is in
with them, Social)
Also realize that the needs are weighted differently. That is, Hunger counts
for more than Room does, although both count when computing mood. So, your
Sim will try to satisfy Needs based on the most serious Need first, which
may not be the Need that needs the most work done on it.
The Needs: (in no particular order)
Hunger -- fairly self-explanatory. Satisfying hunger can be done mostly at
the fridge. In a pinch you can also call the Pizza delivery guy
(under Services on your phone), but that isn't nearly so
satisfying as a good home cooked meal.
The following factors go into how satisfying, and therefore how
much of the Hunger Need is filled, a meal is:
- The Type of Fridge you have, the better the more satisfying
the meal.
- The Type of Preparation surface used. A food processor here
is best, followed by a bare counter, then by using the
surface on a dishwasher/garbage compactor. So don't count on
the surface of the dishwasher, as it makes less appealing
meals.
- The type of cooking implement used, again the better the
equipment, then the better the meal will be.
- And the skill of the cook comes into play here. The more
cooking skill points your Sim has, the better the meal.
If you have the best in all 4 of the above categories, then you
can and should let your hunger rating drop lower than you would
if you didn't. Otherwise you are wasting all those nutritional
points by eating a great meal when you only needed a good one.
For more information check out section 4.1 Cooking (or a Meal
fit for a Sim).
Room -- How appealing the room you are in is. This is covered in depth
in section 4.2 The Room Rating.
Social -- Sims are social creatures, and need companionship. Some Sims
(the High Outgoing Sims) need Social more than others. (i.e.
their Social rating will drop faster than the less outgoing Sims)
The "High Level" interactions, kissing, hugging, etc., have a
better effect on this than merely talking.
The best way to keep Social satisfied is to socialize at least
once a day. Work your way up on other Sims relationship charts,
dance with them, tell jokes, etc. Do that and you should be just
fine.
Bladder - Just use the toilet before this one hits Pure Red (empty) or you
might pee on the floor. Not only that, but having this little
"accident" cuts into their other Needs too, such as Hygiene.
Your sims will need to "use the facilities" after drinking coffee
or eating a meal.
Note: Non-neat Sims won't flush automatically after using the
toilet, so you will have to make sure that they do it,
or the toilet could clog up.
Energy -- Two ways to get Energy up, sleep, and Coffee. Sleep is the
better solution, and the better the bed (or couch in the case of
naps) the more Energy you get back in less time. If you fail to
get to sleep or drink some coffee before your Sims' Energy bar
hits Pure Red, then he will collapse on the floor and sleep
there. THIS IS NOT GOOD! Your Sim will wake up with NO Comfort,
and far less Energy than if he had slept in a bed. So before
Energy gets too low, send the Sim to bed!
Note: Espresso is better than Coffee, but takes longer to
drink.
Comfort - A gauge on how your Sim is FEELING. Low comfort is similar to
how you would feel Sore after exercising. Comfort is a Need that
you should never bother with on its own. You can always increase
Comfort while doing something else, for example, while eating
your Sim sits on a chair, or while watching TV he sits on a
couch.
Note: The Best Toilet also increases Comfort. Also the main
reason to get the top of the line Tub (not the hot tub)
is because it helps Comfort as well as Hygiene.
Hygiene - How clean your Sim feels. This naturally decays throughout the
day, but is also decreased by using the toilet without washing
your hands, or accidentally peeing your pants.
Fun -- And lastly there is Fun. A bored Sim is an unhappy Sim. Keep
your Sim entertained by having him read the Paper, a Book, or
Watch TV, Dance to the radio, etc.
There are some activities that help out 2 or more of the Needs. Some of
these are: Sitting in the Hot Tub (Hygiene, Comfort, Fun, Social), the
Hygeia-Matic Toilet (Comfort, Bladder), Eating while Sitting with Others
(Social, Hunger, Comfort), Dancing with a Guest (Fun, Social), Joking with a
Guest (Fun, Social), etc.
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1.1.2 Why A Sim Does What He Does
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Why do some Sims like to watch TV and others like to read a book? Why does
one Sim like cartoons and another the horror channel? Why does your Sim
STOP doing a certain activity even though he still hasn't filled that Need?
And why do they keep doing an inefficient activity when there are better
objects to fill that need around? Let's find out!
Here's where we get into the PERSONALITY of your Sims. (We won't actually
be CREATING our Sims for the moment, we're just looking at them first so you
can know what you're dealing with) Just like people, every Sim has his own
personality. One Sim may be a happy little go-getter, while another is a
slob who can't shut up. Obviously then, not all Sims are going to like doing
the same things.
The Personality Types:
Neat, Messy -- Neat Sims are like little Maids, they clean up not only
after themselves, but others too. They also wash their
hands after using the Toilet, and after eating with their
hands. They do the dishes, they take out the trash, and
are generally nice to have around. Messy Sims are the
opposite. They don't wash their hands, they don't do
dishes. They also tend to leave puddles when using the
shower.
0-2 Slob: So I occasionally leave a pizza box or two
lying around, and I don't mind the flies buzzing
all over. Why clean up when everybody else is
willing to do it?
3-7 Occasional Cleaner: When it comes to cleaning up, I
have a few basic rules. I flush when I'm done,
throw away my own junk, and take out the trash
now and then.
8-10 Neat Freak: I'm known to wash a dish as soon as I've
finished eating. The trashcan's barely full
before it's taken out. The paper is recycled as
soon as I've finished reading. And the house is
always spotless whenever I'm about.
Outgoing, Shy - Outgoing Sims crave conversation with other Sims. As
discussed in the last section, their Social Need will drop
like a rock if they don't have some friends over to chat
with. They're more likely to have the Higher Level social
interactions pop up, and react better when someone does one
on them (for example, they are less likely to push a hug
away). Shy Sims still need Social, but on a smaller scale.
0-2 Shy: Being self-conscious and introspective, I don't
have a great need to be social. It's hard for me
to meet new people and make friends.
3-7 Member of the Crowd: I'm a little reserved, and it
takes me a while to warm up to new people. You
won't see me in the middle of huge crowds at
parties, but I won't be sitting quietly in a
corner either.
8-10 People Person: I am an extrovert. I love to talk to
everyone. I crave social interactions. Basically,
I'm a social animal.
Active, Lazy -- The Active Sim wants to go out and play some Hoops, or do
something other than sit around watching TV. They Dance,
they Swim, and enjoy moving around. Lazy Sims are your
couch potatoes. Their Comfort score will drop faster than
for active Sims (to reflect their overwhelming desire to
sit). Lazy Sims also have troubles getting out of bed.
0-2 Lazy: Is there anything worse than getting out of bed
in the morning? Who needs ambition--a warm couch
and a good TV show is all anyone needs.
3-7 Laid Back: Though not always on the go, I am somewhat
motivated. Though I tend to linger a little too
long in a nice cozy chair, I won't be caught
sitting there all day either.
8-10 Energetic: Some say I'm a live wire. Some say I have
ants in my pants. Either way, it just means that
I'm always on the go and anxious to get there.
Playful, Serious -- Playful Sims like to play around with other Sims (i.e.
jokes) or with games (Pool, Computer, Pinball). Serious
Sims are your bookworms. They also like Newspapers.
0-2 Serious: Sims who spend their time joking around just
irritate me. Don't they understand that their
frivolous folly is meaningless? So much more
fun can be gained by reading a good book.
3-7 Amused: I laugh at good jokes, dance if there are other
people on the floor, and like to play games.
Generally, I like having fun, but I don't go
overboard.
8-10 Life of the Party: When I'm not telling jokes, I'm
laughing at them. I've never seen a game I
didn't want to play. That's why everyone knows
the party is always at my house.
Nice, Grouchy -- This mostly effects how well your Sim will interact with
others. Remember the old saying "Doesn't play well with
others", well that's the Grouchy Sim. I refer to them as
the Mean Sim as they like to insult, tease, taunt, and
brag.
0-2 Mean: Everything makes me mad, especially when someone
says I have a temper. If everything wasn't always
broken, or other Sims weren't always bothering
me, I probably wouldn't have to blow my stack so
often.
3-7 Easy-going: While some Sims can get on my nerves a
little, overall I'm pretty good-natured.
8-10 Compassionate: I like giving hugs and compliments. I
love making friends with everyone. If everyone
were more like me, the neighborhood would be a
nicer place.
Following your Sims' personality type will make them happy, but may make
others unhappy. (i.e. the Mean Sim insulting people) So try to work within
the boundaries of personality, but don't let it run their lives.
Serious -- Newspaper, Book, Chess Table, Looking at Paintings
Active -- Basketball, TV (Action), Pool, Radio
Lazy -- TV (Any Channel!), Computer
Outgoing - Hot Tub, TV (Romance)
Mean -- TV (Horror)
Note: Train Set, Toybox and Playground are for kids only, but playful
Sims seem to enjoy them more. (broadstrong)
For a more thorough look at Sims and their interactions with various Objects
check out section 4.5.
Tip: Holding the mouse pointer over a CONTROLLED Sim speeds his movement.
Holding it over an UNCONTROLLED Sim slows him down. (broadstrong)
Check out section 11.8 for more information on this.
Now let's actually create that Sim Family!
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1.2) Information on the Expansion, Livin' Large
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This is a cursory explanation about the Expansion Pack for The Sims, Livin'
Large. This section summarizes everything in the Expansion Pack, and then
lists where you can find more information on each subject. For example, the
new careers are listed in section 6.1.1.
First and foremost, Livin' Large is an Expansion Pack for The Sims. It is
NOT, I repeated, NOT something that you can download for free. You must go
to a store and purchase it. Try Walmart. Or Target. Or Babbage's/Software
Etc. The suggested retail price of Livin' Large is $29.95.
Dozens of new situations and objects:
Alien abductions
Roach infestations
A chemistry set
Genie in a lantern
Fortune telling crystal ball
Exploding garden gnome
Holiday decorations
Five new career paths featuring 50 new jobs:
Musician: subway musician, piano tuner, wedding singer, lounge singer
and more
Sloth: golf caddy, convenience store cashier, lifeguard and more
Paranormal: Tarot card reader, UFO investigator and more
Journalism: game reviewer, weatherman, TV show host and more
Game industry: beta tester, game designer, programmer and more
New architecture and decor:
Castle: Build the perfect creepy setting for the neighborhood mad scientist
Vegas: Outmoded but not cheap aesthetic, such as clashing colors and odd
decor
Retro: A revival of the 50s-60s "mod" craze, upscale and chic, with
graceful curves and a minimum of ornamentation
The next information here came from Computer Gaming World, courtesy of Joseph
Peitler. (Computer Gaming World issue 192, July 2000, in the read.me section,
there is an article about the Sims Expansion Pack, titled THE SIMS: LIVIN'
LARGE. Here are some items that MIGHT appear in the game coming out in the
Fall.)
New objects that have deeper repercussions:
- An antique lamp that inhabits a genie (but be careful, wishes can
backfire when you get stuck with an incompetent mystical being)
- A new workbench to make gnomes (but a low mechanical skill will result in
lawn ornamentation that basically functions as a proximity mine)
- A crystal ball (to predict a Sim's future)
- A voodoo doll (to torment other Sims)
New characters:
- Space aliens (that can abducts Sims)
- A Tragic Clown (who shows up and performs disastrous tricks and never
leaves)
- The Grim Reaper (who you can bargain with for the life of your perished
Sim)
Sean from Maxis mentioned the Grim Reaper in the recent chat:
The current design of the grim reaper is that he shows up
occasionally when people die. If you make the right bargain with him,
or win a little game, you can come back from the dead...but with..uh,
some... uh, drawbacks of course.
There was recently a chat with the designers, and Wendy Zupack summarized
some of the major points:
- In the Pack, there will be a vibrating bed where the naughty Sims will be
able to 'Play With' each other. This, of course, produces babies. Also,
it decreases energy and other needs severely, while increasing social
(duh).
- There will be about 125 new objects added, including objects now
available as downloads from TheSims.com
- There will be many more objects to increase Skills, such as an electric
guitar for Creativity and telescope for Logic (Beware, the telescope
brings on aliens!).
- There will be more 'sets' of furniture, such as a dining table that might
go with counters and chairs.
- Wallpaper, flooring and furniture will have increased compatibility.
- There will be vacations for all the working Sims.
- The chemistry set and getting abducted by aliens both alter Sim
personality, either temporarily or permanantly.
- There will be triple the number of doors and windows (there are stained
glass windows, boomerang-shaped windows, etc.)
- It has been released! Check out the next few sections for more
information. [ and it will cost $29.95 USD ]
- New Items List:
= Egg-shaped chair
= Velvet Sofasauras Funk sofa
= Wood burning stove (perfect for those log cabins!)
= Coat of Arms (for the medieval people out there)
= Stainless steel table set
= Guinea pig painting
= Tiki lamps
= Head in a jar on pedestal
= Ceremic elephant end table
= Vibrating bed
= Black velvet painting
= Electric Guitar
= New piano
= Instruments of torture (not working implements of torture)
= Suit of Armor (the most expensive decorative item at §15,000 each)
= Throw Rugs (extra decoration)
To cure guinea pig disease, buy the "Forgotten Guinea Pig" painting and
hang it up. Your sim should be cured within a day. (JediPika88)
The party balloons has a chance of attracting 1 neighbor every 30
minutes. Once all the balloons are popped or you have five neighbors, no more
come. It does not work late at night. (JediPika88)
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1.2.1 Multiple Neighborhoods (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the most common fan Utilities is the Neighborhood Manager that allows
a user to create more than one Neighborhood. Now with the Expansion,
Livin' Large, everyone can create up to 5 unique Neighborhoods.
When the game first loads up you will be at the original Neighborhood Screen.
In the top left corner is a number with a LEFT and RIGHT arrow by it. If you
click the right arrow it will take you to Neighborhood 2, left to 5, etc.
These new neighborhoods exist completely separate from one another. That is,
you can't have Sims from one neighborhood visit another. And of the new
neighborhoods, only the 2nd neighborhood starts with houses and Sims already
in it. The others are completely blank.
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1.2.2 Cockroaches (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the more annoying additions in Livin' Large (well, they can't all be
happy fun new gadgets) are the cockroaches. They appear in a little swarm,
and need to be Sprayed. Roaches usually appear when there has been a mess
for awhile -- even an unmade bed counts as a "mess". To prevent them from
appearing, then, you must keep everything clean. Cockroaches will kill the
Room rating.
Also Roaches can walk through walls, go under any object, and generally make
a nuisance of themselves.
Getting rid of Roaches requires having a Sim click on the Roach, then select
the Spray option. There are a number of quirks with this action, however.
One: the Spray command MUST be the ONLY thing in your Sim's action Queue.
So you can't set them to Spray after they do something else, Spraying
must be the ONLY thing that they are set to do.
Two: if the Roaches move after you click them, then the Spray option
vanishes, and you must re-click the roaches.
Three: If you start Spraying roaches, and there are more than one swarm of
roaches around your property -- even if they are outside your house
-- your Sim will seek and destroy EVERY roach group that he can
find.
Maids will sometimes clean out the Roaches for you, but not all the time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.3 The Grim Reaper (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before Livin' Large, when a Sim died, he was dead. Nothing could be done
about it (short of simply not Saving the game). Your Sim was gone. Not
anymore! Now when your Sim dies, Death will come for him in the form of
the Grim Reaper that we all know and love.
When Death comes, anyone else in the family may go up to Death and [Plead]
with him to not take the dearly departed away.
At this point, Death can do three things:
1. Ignore your Plea, and take your dead Sim anyway. You still get their
remains as a Tombstone or Urn, though.
2. Play you in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors and you win. The Sim is
brought back to life, and Death goes on his merry way.
3. Play Rock-Paper-Scissors and you LOSE. He might take pity (or not) and
bring the Sim back. But as a zombie.
Hey, it's better than nothing!
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1.2.4 Genie in a Bottle (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the new Miscellaneous Objects in the game is a plain brass lamp.
Anyone who has seen "Aladdin" (or any other cartoon dealing with Genies)
will immediately recognize this as a Magic Lamp.
To get to the genie, select the lamp and [Clean]. It also has a very minor
effect on Fun when [Viewed]. The genie can be used ONCE PER DAY. (every
night at 12:01 a.m., he can be used again)
Note: Before ever using the genie, I'd be sure to have a Fire Alarm in
each room of your house. You can check out why under "Bad" for FIRE
and LEISURE.
The genie will make you choose between two things, and then he will "act."
Each choice that he gives you has both a GOOD and a BAD effect. For example,
choosing Money (from Love or Money) can give you either BILLS or a POT OF
GOLD. Here are the choices:
Love - Good - Summons forth a neighbor, who will immediately fall in
love with your Sim
- Bad - Ruins a relationship that you have
-- or --
Money - Good - Gives you a Pot of Gold worth between §1141-2918 (well
that's what I've gotten)
- Bad - Gives you three bright red, nearly-due bills
Friends - Good - Teleports someone there, and now they like you MORE
- Bad - Teleports a friend there, and they're now angry at you
(my person went down to -75 on the relationship-meter)
-- or --
Family - Good - Anyone living with your Sim has their relationship with
your Sim improved
- Bad - Creates a "family crisis" where another family member will
like you less (usually it just subtracts about 20 points
from their relationship, so if it was 100 it might now be
80)
Fire - Good - Improves your Sim's Comfort and Social Needs
- Bad - Starts an actual fire in your Sim's house
-- or --
Water - Good - Summons a fountain (for your Sim to play in, no doubt)
- Bad - Floods the house (about 8-12 "water" spots on the floor)
Work - Good - Gives a +1 to 3 different Skills (Logic, Body, Mechanical,
etc.)
- Bad - Deletes some of your Sim's Skills (for example, a Sim with
4 Cooking skills will have only 2 after this)
-- or --
Leisure - Good - Gives your Sim the Big Screen TV or another Leisure Item
- Bad - Sets one of your "leisure" items on fire (I've had
everything from the "love bed" to the good toilet burn up)
Earth - Good - Summons forth three indoor plants
- Bad - Summons five dead plants, which can't be deleted, though
your Sim can throw them away (an interesting side-note is
that if the "move_objects" cheat is activated, these
plants can be deleted in furnish mode for full price!)
-- or --
Air - Good - Summons forth about a dozen pink flamingoes on the lawn
- Bad - Plagues your house with lots of cockroaches
The chance of getting a BAD effect to a GOOD effect SEEMS to be about 3 to 2.
(so on average, every 3 bad events will be followed by 2 good effects) This
naturally makes using the Genie a VERY risky proposal! Here are the choices
that I would choose to minimize your risk:
Fire or Water:
Water (if the Fire burns something large, such as a bed, you won't get
the fire extinguished before it destroys the item!)
Love or Money:
Money (early in the game this makes a great deal of sense, a pot of gold
can net you almost §3000, and your 3 bills will add up to
considerably less)
Love (late in the game this makes more sense, you probably have a lot of
friends and a lot of money, therefore you won't need more money)
Earth or Air:
Earth (the plants sell for more than the flamingoes, PLUS it's easier to
clean up dead plants than it is to get rid of cockroaches)
Work or Leisure:
I have never had Work do anything beyond zap my skills, so I have to say
Leisure, despite the Fire risk. Hopefully it will be something small and
easy to put out.
Friends or Family:
Family (this one has almost no risk at all! Losing about 20 points with
someone you LIVE WITH is all too easy to fix, and occasionally it
will actually improve your relationships!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.5 The Chemistry Set (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the best new items in the expansion is the wonderful Chemistry Set.
(Called the Concoctonator) Its primary purpose is to improve your Sim's
Logic (it isn't fun). However, once you [Make a Potion], you can then
[Drink Potion], and depending on the COLOR of the potion you get a variety
of neat side effects:
Blue Potion - The most common type of potion. This will completely
fulfill THREE of your Sim's Needs randomly. One time this
potion will fill up Energy, Hunger and Fun, while another
time it will fill in Social, Bladder and Hygiene.
Dark Green - Creates an Evil Clone of your Sim. By "Evil Clone" it means
that this Sim is your exact duplicate. This means that this
Clone may not actually be evil. If your Sim is a jerk (low
Nice), then this Clone may be a really nice guy. You can't
get rid of a Clone, but eventually they just fade away.
Evil clones will ruin your Sim's relationships with other
Sims.
Yellow - Permanent Reverse Personality. Yep, your Sim will have
their entire personality flip-flopped. If you had 3 Nice,
you will now have 7. If you had 10 Neat, you will now have
none. There is a really cool trick involving this potion,
see "Tip" below.
Purple - Turn your Sim into a monster. Monsters just don't listen to
you! I had one that painted a picture (he didn't gain
Creativity, but I sold the picture for §166, and this was at
a mere 3 Creativity!). Monsters also tend to wake up
sleeping Sims if in the same room. Monsters don't lose Need
points. If they were halfway hungry when they became a
monster, that's where they'll be later.
Worse of all, monsters also have a tendency to break most
things they use! Plus they seem to want to use (break)
everything in the house!
This effect eventually wears off.
Light Green - Ruins all of your Sim's Needs except Room, such that they'll
all have a mere sliver of green.
If this one happens to you, you have to very quickly work
on EVERY Need your Sim has all at once. I would do it in
this order:
Energy (a quickie coffee to keep them up long enough to
eat)
Hunger (get them food, STAT! If possible, eat with a
family member, but you don't have time to call
anyone)
Bathroom (actually let them pee their pants, this only
worsens Hygiene, but it was nearly empty anyway)
Energy (get them to sleep)
Hunger (when they wake up they need to eat again, and
if you can, get some friends to eat with you)
Bathroom (in the toilet this time)
Hygiene (shower or bath)
Fun & Comfort (have them watch TV with a family member or
friend)
Social (have them Hug anyone they meet)
And that should be that. It took me about 16 hours to
resuscitate a Sim this way.
Orange - Turns your Sim invisible. Therefore other Sims can't
interact with that Sim. However, your invisible Sim CAN
interact with the other Sims. This potion has the shortest
effect of all of them.
Red - Causes your Sim to fall in love with someone in the
neighborhood.
White - Cures your Sim of sickness. 10:1 odds that this will appear
when your Sim is sick (JediPika88).
And, of course, the Chemistry Set can always explode in your face!
Tip: Once the potion is created, there are two ways to get rid of it.
First you can just drink it. This isn't always desirable, if say,
the potion is a bad one. Second, you can sell the Chemistry Set and
buy a new one. This will lose you some money as your chemistry set
will have depreciated. Well there is a neat little cheating way to
get around this.
Activate the "move_objects on" cheat. (Press CTRL-SHIFT-C, then type
"move_objects on" without the quotes) Now before you drink the
potion, SAVE THE GAME. Then drink the potion. The bad effect hits
you. Go into FURNISH mode (F2), click on your Sim, and press DEL.
Go back to LIVE mode (F1), and click on your Sim's portrait to bring
her back. Since the Sim is brought back from the last save, she'll
be exactly as she was before drinking the potion.
This does NOT work very well for the MONSTER effect, as if you delete
the Monster, your Sim will never return!
This tip also works well for the Genie effects, such as when he
blasts away your skills.
Tip: The Chemistry Set is one of the most fun objects in Livin' Large, and
there is one fun thing to try with it. Create a Sim and give her
NO PERSONALITY AT ALL. Then use the Chemistry Set until you get a
YELLOW, or Personality Reversal Potion. Drink it and you will have
the ULTIMATE PERSONALITY. Sweet. Takes awhile but it works!
Rob Sevening has another idea to remove unwanted Potions:
Another easy way (without cheating) to get rid of an unwanted potion is
to invite one of your Sim's friends over to your house. Make sure there
is no food for the friend to eat because the first thing friends look for
when they come over is something to eat. Anyway, once the friend arrives
have your Sim greet them and do nothing else. The friend will walk
directly to the potion set and drink the potion regardless of what type
it is. This has worked for me every time I wanted to purge a potion. If
it is the nasty green potion, the friend will leave immediately!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.6) The "Love" Bed (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a big cheesy red bed with a giant red heart. This bed allows your
Sims to finally do "it". Have one Sim get in the bed (under the [Vibrate]
command). They'll strip and get in the bed. Then have another Sim (one who
is in Love with the other Sim, naturally) go to the bed and do the [Play in
Bed] command. They will then proceed with gettin' it on. It is both Fun and
a Social activity. (naturally!) On the downside, it pulls down every other
Need you have quite dramatically.
The [vibrate] feature costs §20. There is also the [Relax] feature which
improves a Sim's Comfort like no other.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.7) Beejaphone Guitar (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new Guitar is both fun and it improves your Creativity at the same time.
Plus as a group activity, two people can share in the fun. Sometimes,
however, the second person (the "watcher") will Jeer the person playing.
This is usually caused by the first person being a horrible guitar player.
The better the Creativity level, the better the chance that anyone [Watching]
will "rock out".
Even with people listening to your Sim-guitar work, this isn't a Social
object.
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1.2.8) Woodworking Table (or the Work-at-Home career) (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The KraftMatic Woodworking Table doesn't COST money, it MAKES money. (You
still have to buy it, but it will soon be rakin' in the dough for you!)
Used to increase Mechanical Skill while creating yard Gnomes. There is a
slight chance that the police will fine you §500 (saying that kids can smell
the fumes miles away). In any event, once a Gnome is completed it can be
sold, (only through the Furnish F2 function) and the more Gnomes you make,
the more money you get per Gnome.
The rate at which Gnomes are produced is a little slow at first, but as you
progress and your Mechanical Skill gets higher they take less and less time.
Also the later Gnomes sell for more money. So, your first Gnome will sell
for a measely §1, while your last Gnome will sell for §100. About every 3
to 4 Gnomes, the price rises by §1, and at every Mechanical Skill Increase
the price rises by about §10.
Lawn Gnomes do NOT appreciate in value like artwork (not the stuff you paint,
but the stuff you buy). So if it would sell for §2 when you made it, it will
still sell at that rate in 100 SimDays.
The max price per Gnome is §100, which you will get when your Mechanical
Skill gets maxed out. Once that happens you are making a Gnome every
20 minutes (from the time the Block of Wood is put on the table, to the time
that the Gnome is put on the ground). Therefore you can make 3 Gnomes an
hour, for §300/hr. If you were to have your Sim work at the table for 8
hours you could make §2400 a day. Of course, the table is very stressful
for your Sim, and their Needs will drop while working on it.
Gnomes also are decorations and improve the Room rating slightly.
Note: Gnomes are more interactive in Hot Date. Your Sim can pick them up,
and give them as a gift. "Just what I always wanted..."
If a Gnome is kicked, it might explode! (I had a Sim turned into a Monster.
First thing he did was kick a Gnome, it exploded knocking him on his butt.)
The ONLY way to get a Sim to kick a Gnome is through Free Will. You can't
force them to kick a Gnome.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.9) Madame Blahbatfry Crystal Ball (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Madame's Crystal Ball is the other method to improve your Sim's personality.
What it does is it gives you a riddle. You must have your Sim do what the
riddle says, and you will have a permanent Stat increase. (such as
Playful +1) If it says to "seek pleasure", have some fun and become more
playful.
To gain your stat increase, simply do what you are told, and it will happen
naturally. No more work required. (some info below from JediPika88)
"be more clean" (have a clean house) - +1 Neat point
(have a dirty house) - -1 Neat point
"just enjoying yourself" or "fun not frown" (have fun) - +1 Playful point
(no fun) - -1 Playful point
"be nice" (improve a relationship by 20) - +1 Nice point
(don't be nice) - -1 Nice point
"befriend the neighborhood" (10 hours with
other Sims in your house) - +1 Outgoing
"active" (have a low comfort score) - +1 Active
And of course, sometimes it has no effect. (Possibly because you didn't fail
to meet its objectives, but didn't succeed either)
It takes 24 hours from the time you first look into the Crystal, to when it
adjusts your Personality.
Note: If you "Delete" your Sim (see Cheats & Tricks below) it will also
reset your Crystal Ball objective.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.2.10) Servo (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most expensive item in the game -- §15,000 -- is the robotic butler,
Servo. He can do just about anything, cook, clean, repair. In order to
function, his Pod must have one empty square in front of AND behind it. Then
simply [Turn On] and he'll patrol your house looking for things to do. Once
he runs out of tasks, he returns to his Pod.
Servo puts on different "hats" depending on the job he is about to perform.
He wears a brown cap if he wants to repair something, a little maid's cap to
clean and a Chef's Hat when he prepares a meal. If you see him wandering
around in the Brown Hat (for repairing) then you can assume that he WANTS to
repair something, he just can reach it. Find what it is (it's probably a
burnt out Wall Light), and clear the obstacle out of Servo's way so that he
can fix it.
To get Servo to COOK for you, simply click on his Pod again once he is
already out and about, and select [Serve Food]. Be warned, Servo is NOT a
good cook, and his meals are only slightly more satisfying than a mere SNACK.
Note: Servo's meals may be unsatisfying to your Sims, but they are FREE
and you can have him toss out LOTS of meals quickly. These meals
are the equivalent of a Pizza slice.
Servo MUST be [Turned On] EVERYTIME you want him to work.
One of the promotionals Maxis made prior to the release of Livin' Large
intimated that Servo might "rebel" against his human oppressors. I have not
confirmed whether this exists or not.
So in the end, is Servo worth it? No, not really. Even if you have the
money, a Maid and a Gardener are better bargains. A maid will cost you
usually only §10 a day, and a gardener is only §10 every 3 days. (we'll
assume that you repair your own items) At these rates, it would take 1127
days of owning and operating Servo before he becomes cost efficient vs. the
human help. Even if we doubled the Maid and Gardener rates (to §20 a day,
and §20 every three days respectively) it would still take over 563 days
before Servo is worth the money. Plus he has the annoying drawback that you
must activate him EVERY time you want him to do something. In that time, you
could probably do the thing you were turning him on to do! If Servo
automatically sensed a mess, or something to repair, went out and cleaned it
all on his own, then he would be worth it.
Rob Sevening has this to say about Servo:
I've noticed that when my family has friends over and my robot is finished
with his chores he will sometimes approach one of the visitors and interact
with them. Sometimes he will entertain them (juggling act) or sometimes he
will dance with them. He has never done it to any member of my family only
to visiting friends. Another thing was he only interacted with the exact
same friend every time she was over. It was though he grew some
'attraction' to that particular Sim.
Servo may attempt to interact with a Sim if his social score is low.
(JediPika88)
Increases a Sim's Logic Skill with only a slight chance of getting abducted
by Aliens.
Getting abducted by Aliens will mess up your Sim's personality. This hasn't
happened to me yet, so I can't say anything more specific about it.
Rob Sevening had his Sim's adbucted:
I don't use the telescope anymore because it seems every single time I've
had my Sims use the dang thing they get abducted. No aliens are ever seen,
but they get 'beamed' up in purple beams of light. My family members then
'grieve' at the spot they were abducted. They cry for a few minutes then
continue on with their business. The longest I've ever been gone was about
12 hours. The Sim then reappears in a random spot (usually near the
abduction point) with a picture of an alien in their conversation box.
Each time their personality was apparently randomized (no pattern found)
never to return to normal.
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1.2.12) The Tragic Clown (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tragic Clown will only appear in houses that have his portrait hanging
on their walls. Then the occupants must be sad, look at his portrait and he
will appear and attempt to cheer you up. Too bad that he is so depressed
himself, else he might actually be ABLE to cheer you up. As it stands, he
manages to make matters worse!
Hot Date & Vacation Note: The Clown can show up Downtown and in the
vacation areas. He does much the same stuff
there, but arrives without your having purchased
the clown portrait.
He does a variety of tricks (all of which fail miserably), but mostly just
wanders around your house crying, coughing, sneezing, and just generally
getting everyone down.
There are bunches of interaction options with the Clown, but the only one
that seems to make my Sims happy were [Insults].
There's nothing YOU can do to get rid of him, he simply has to leave on his
own.
Tip: Having trouble getting the clown to appear? Try this. Make potions
with the chemistry set and try to get the light green (The one that
makes you tragically unhappy yourself), then look at the clown's
portrait. This guarantees nothing, but the clown loves a good
tragedy!
JediPika88 has this to say about Clowns:
The tragic clown appears when the family's average motive drops below -20.
Do not try to trap him, if he cannot get somewhere he makes a hole, goes in
and pops up somewhere else. To get rid of him, get the family's motives up
to 25. He will then leave. Or you can put his painting above a fireplace,
remove smoke alarms, then light it. When the painting catches on fire, so
will the clown.
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1.2.13) Voodoo Doll (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Used to beat up someone from afar. Can't see that it has much point, other
than pure annoyance. It can only be used on someone currently in the house,
and cannot be used on children.
I can't see much of a purpose to this item, except for sadistic pleasure.
If the voodoo doll victim is in the same room as the one using it, they
will attempt to slap the user. (JediPika88)
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1.3 Information on the Second Expansion, House Party
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wasn't terribly satisfied with House Party, as an expansion. I just felt
that it didn't add enough to the Sims to justify the cost. Ah, well.
What's New:
3 New Neighborhoods (6-8)
Many new objects
New Characters (The Caterer, the Mime, the Raver, Drew Carey,
"Entertainer")
Parties - which are started by clicking the phone and selecting "Throw
Party"
A few things to know:
1) Good parties are expensive. First you need to buy just about every
party object in the game (which requires a large house to start with),
then you need to hire a caterer to feed the group. The quality of the
party can be measured by who shows up, if you get the Mime, your party
stinks, if you get Drew Carey, you probably have a good party.
2) The "Entertainer" (or, Stripper, if you want to be accurate) that pops
out of the big cake will flirt with members of the party who are around.
This can create a LOT of havoc in their lives! I saw one female
"entertainer" kiss about 4 different men before leaving, each one had
their girlfriend in the room at the same time. Result was a lot of
jealousy (and one completely ruined romance).
3) Mimes steal things.
4) Party crashers break things.
If you want additional information on House Party, I would suggest checking
out James Paterson's FAQ on House Party. This can also be found at
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/30989.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4 Information on the Fourth Expansion, Hot Date
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's New:
-----------
From the Sims: Hot Date Readme:
New Downtown Area
---------------
Each Neighborhood can have its’ own downtown. Just pick up the phone and
call a cab. When you get downtown, visit one of the lots that Maxis has
made for you. If you want to get creative with all of the new objects,
hit the downtown button from the neighborhood screen and build your own
downtown lot. When building your lot, it is best to place 3 tiles worth of
sidewalk next to the street. We recommend that you limit the number of
animated objects you place on your lot. The more you have, the slower the
performance will be.
New Non-Player Characters
---------------
There are two sets of NPC's that are in Hot Date. There are the
"worker-bees", like the chef, waitress and store clerks and there are the
"dateable" NPC's. These "dateables" are Sims you can meet downtown and
strike up a relationship with.
New Catalog Sorts
---------------
Each catalog sort now has a subsort in order to better organize the objects
that are available. If you double click on the buy mode icon, you will
notice that at home you have both a room and a functional sort. In downtown
buy mode you have a Place and a functional sort. If you choose to place
skill objects downtown, your Sim will not gain skill. Skills are only
gained in your Sim's house. If you have previously downloaded objects from
www.thesims.com, you will need to go to the website and download the
updated versions so that they function correctly with Hot Date.
New Web Features
---------------
There is now a new exchange available to you on www.thesims.com. The
Downtown Exchange is where you can post your new downtown lots that you
have worked so hard on. You also have the opportunity to download lots that
other Sim fans have created.
Neighborhoods
-------------------------
The Sims Livin' Large and The Sims House Party support multiple
neighborhoods. The Sims Hot Date allows you to have a different downtown
area with each one of these neighborhoods. You can select new neighborhoods
by using the arrow buttons in the upper left portion of the neighborhood
screen.
There are five neighborhoods to start with, the first of which is reserved
for the existing neighborhood players have created.
Neighborhoods 2,3,4 and 5 are not created by House Party. This is to allow
for Livin' Large to install its neighborhoods in these spaces.
Neighborhoods 6, 7, and 8 have been created for your House Party houses.
It is possible for users to have even more neighborhoods in The Sims House
Party. Here's how:
- Make a copy the TemplateUserData folder. Place it in the same directory
as the other UserData folders.
- Rename this copy to UserDataXX, where XX is an unused number (check the
existing UserData folder numbers) up to 99. We do not recommend you use
neighborhoods 2-5 until after you have installed Livin' Large. See
the "House Party and Livin' Large" section for more details.
- You can do this before you run the game, or while you are alt-tabbed away
from the game. Either way, the game should pick up the fact that you
added a new neighborhood.
Here's an example:
- You're running the game, and you decide you want to add a new
neighborhood to hold some imported houses you just found on
www.thesims.com.
- You alt-tab to the windows desktop, find the installation folder for The
Sims House Party, and make a copy of TemplateUserData. Rename this
folder to UserData23.
- Alt-tab back to the game. As you scroll through the different
neighborhoods, "23" will show up. This refers to your new UserData23
directory.
***WARNING***
Do NOT rename the original UserData folder either while the game in running
or when the game is not in use.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4.1 New Social Interaction Options (Hot Date)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are now far more things to worry about when your Sims interact.
First, you might not be able to control the reactions of each Sim in a
conversation. I'm not just referring to Sims who already lived together
that you FORCED to like each other, but also to Sims in the neighborhood.
Just switching from one household to the next to get 2 Sims to like each
other, propose and move in. Now some Sims are NPCs. That is, you don't
get to control them. You can meet NPCs at the new downtown area.
Note: These NPC's have the last name "Townie." They make a good way for
you to gain more Family Friends without having to simply fill up a
neighborhood with "filler" families.
The "Friendship Meter" used in previous versions is now replaced by a
"short term Friendship Meter." It works very similarly to the old meter.
Positive reactions to your Sim increase the meter, when it hits a certain
number (about 60) you make a new Family Friend.
Note: Remember that the meter represents YOUR SIM'S feelings, not the
total relationship. It won't tell you how the other person feels
about you, and THAT is critical in determing whether they become a
Family Friend.
The new "long term Friendship Meter" doesn't decrease nearly as often as
the short term (which decreases in value daily). It, as its name implies,
offers you a view on the long term relationship between your Sims.
Downtown ... while downtown you can only control ONE SIM. I imagine this is
what The Sims Online will be like. You can either "go it alone" with your
one Sim, or you can call/invite another Sim to go with you. This is like a
date, I suppose. While on your date, any time you do a "group" activity,
your date will follow you. That is, if you go to the restaurant and order
food, your date will automatically follow. Play pool, dance, etc.
Hot Date also allows you to control just how far you want your Sims to go
with an action. For example, if you want to Hug another Sim, but don't want
that Sim to get the "wrong idea" you could do a quick "Friendly Hug." Or,
maybe you want to become good friends/lovers you would go for the "Intimate
Hug," where they embrace for several seconds. It's all up to you, now.
Tip: Remember to do actions that the other Sim enjoys the most. This is
(as before) based on that Sim's personality. For example, "Active"
Sims enjoy doing active things, such as Lively Dancing.
If a Sim consistently rebuffs your attempts at TYPES of actions,
then you know something about their personality, and what types of
actions to use on them. For instance, if a Sim always boos your
jokes/puppets/other playful things, you know they have a low
Playful rating.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.4.3 Interests and Inventory (Hot Date)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interests:
----------
The major changes to the Sim interface are the addition of an "Interests"
button and an "Inventory" button. Interests are literally what interests
your Sim. Ex. Dating/Sports/Money.
Note: To get your Sims to talk about Interests, click the Sim > Talk >
About Interests. If you are Downtown, you can actually ask the
Sims there what their interests are. Ask > What are you Into?
The major reason to ask a Sim what she is into, is if you can't just
check it yourself, for she is a Townie. (see Downtown below)
Each Sim has a rating in each Interest grouping. A Sim with a maxed out
Interest in Sports gets along well with other Sims who like Sports.
Conversely a Sim with NO interest in Sports gets along with other Sims who
hate sports. And just as you might suspect, the Sim that loves sports does
not get along so well with the Sim that hates sports.
In other words, a LACK OF INTEREST in a subject is itself a common interest
among Sims.
If you want to customize your Sims interests, go buy a Magazine from downtown
and read it. Each magazine contains 3 interests. Studying an interest in
the magazine will improve one Interest and drop another.
Livin Large §5 Music The 60s
Parties Technology
The 60s Weather
MAXISMUM §7 Travel The 60s
Outdoors Politics
Excercise Food
WhooNoo!!! §6 Romance Style
Hollywood Food
Style Technology
Victor's Digest §3 Food Hollywood
Sports Outdoors
Weather Outdoors
Inventory:
----------
Objects that your Sim is carrying. Typically this space is used to show you
what gifts you are carrying. (Gifts are bought downtown, or in the case of
Lawn Gnomes, built by your Sim) These gifts are then given to other Sims to
improve their friendship.
The default downtown comes with all but one of the lots full. Each lot
typically has a bunch of objects and things to do in it. Typically every
Need is accounted for in these Lots (except Energy, i.e. there are no beds
around). So, as long as your Sim has lots of Energy, you can head off to
Downtown. The best lot of the bunch is probably the old converted Farm,
which is now a pricey restaurant and nightclub. It offers the best
entertainment value, dancing, which is free.
Note: To go downtown, use your phone and call a cab. (§50)
Note: Everything Downtown costs MONEY and usually a lot more than normal.
Meals at restaurants are considerably more than the §20 you pay at
home.
Tip: Easily the most useful thing to do is to Auto-Center (Right-Click) on
your Sim to keep from losing her. You can also right-click your
Date's portrait (in your Relationship bar) to auto-center on him/her.
Wouldn't want to lose track of your Date... or yourself for that
matter.
Tip: While in a restaurant, if you get the guitar player at your table,
tip him §20 to get a more ROMANTIC mood.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5 Information on the Fourth Expansion, Vacation
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
Forthcoming
...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Creating a Family
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, your first family (besides the Newbies). Unless you created a family
earlier that failed, and now you want to find out what you did wrong. Either
way, we're going to create a Sim Family! Nothing fancy, mind you, just
something to get started with.
We're going to create two Sims for this family. Two is, in my opinion, the
best number to start with. It isn't so hard to control as, say, eight, and
is infinitely better than just having one as having an extra person gives you
a great advantage over having just the one.
What we're essentially going to do is to divide the tasks that our two family
members are going to have. One person is going to get a job, and the other
is going to take care of the house, cook, clean, and be the primary socialite
You really don't need to employ both people at this stage of the game. This
strategy really helps in the mornings when one person has to get ready for
work (shower, toilet, etc.) the other cooks breakfast. When the worker goes
off to work, the other one stays home, cleans up, and meets the neighbors who
will all drop by (not all at once). Then later in the game, this Sim will
call up those neighbors and try to make them into Family Friends. Also your
stay at home Sim can answer the phone (which may be a Reward or another
beneficial Event), pay the bills, etc.
a. Creating a Sim
So now we need to create some Sims! Two, in fact. The stats that
you can give them effect what the Sims want to do, not what you will
make them do. So a low Neatness isn't all that bad if you are going
to be forcing them to clean up anyway. Of course, if you are a more
passive Sims player, (you don't plan on telling them EVERY LITTLE
THING that they should do), then SOMEONE should have a high Neatness.
Plus it's nice when the Sims will automatically clean the table after
eating.
Try to keep your Sims distinctive and different. The stay at home
Sim needs to be outgoing, nice, and playful, while the worker Sim
needs to be active and outgoing. Beyond that keep the stats somewhat
average.
Note: If you keep a stat blank (that is, empty), then that person
will be the opposite of that stat. So if he or she has no
Nice, then that person will be mean, and prone to piss others
off. That makes getting friends difficult!
Another thing that stats effect is what type of recreation they most
enjoy. Inactive people love the TV, while more active would like
Dancing or other more interactive entertainment.
Note: You don't need to use up all of the Stats points while
creating a Sim, in fact, you could use NO stats points at all
and make a surly, messy, lazy, mean, introverted Sim!
b. Of Neatness and Maids
One alternative to Neat Sims is to hire a Maid. This way you can
avoid using ANY neat points to spend them elsewhere, and still have a
wonderfully clean house. At most the Maid will cost you §70 a day,
which isn't all that expensive. Plus the Maid is quite attractive!
If you DO hire a Maid, then you don't really NEED a stay at home Sim
(although I'd still recommend it for the Socializing aspect).
Note: There are more consequences of having a Messy Sim than one
would think. When the messy Sim gets out of the shower, he
ALWAYS leaves a little "puddle". Also, he NEVER flushes the
toilet.
Warning: If you fail to pay for a Maid, or a Gardener, they will
"Blacklist" you, that is, they will refuse to come back
and work for you. This isn't a permanent problem, they
"forget" about it after 5 days, but it can be annoying.
Can't wait that long? You could just move out and back
in.
For now we don't want anymore than these two adult Sims. Once your family is
finished, you cannot add new members by simply creating them... The only way
to get new Sims is to Marry them, ask them to Move In (between Same Sex
couples, either as friends or lovers), or to have a baby.
Now let's build them a house. (or if you'd rather not build your own house,
there are several already in the neighborhood)
(The following 2 sub sections are alternative ideas to having 2 Sims, the
first having to do with having just one Sim, and the second to having an
Arkload of Sims, 8!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1 The Bachelor Sim
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I say "Bachelor" I mean any Sim who is living alone, not just male Sims.
I have said that your first Family of Sims should probably be 2 Sims, well
here are a few different ideas on how to play. The first being the Bachelor.
The tricky thing about the Bachelor is that you have no one to help you.
There is no stay at home Sim. So your Bachelor must get a job, and while he
(or she, but for the purposes of this section, the Bachelor is a he) is at
work, you can't socialize (you can even watch as all your neighbors drop by,
and leave, because there's no one to greet them), nor can you clean up or
have a meal ready when he gets home. So the real problem here is TIME. You
simply never seem to have enough to Socialize, Work, and Improve your Skills.
So here are a couple ideas to having a good Bachelor:
1. Pick a job with decent hours. By this I mean stay away from the career
tracks that demand a lot of your time. I should suggest the Military
career track as it has good starting pay and fairly steady hours. Also
the Military requires the LEAST amount of Family Friends, and doesn't
require ANY until Level 5.
Note: The best way to pick and choose your Career is to use a
computer. If you can't really afford a computer, buy it before
you buy the rest of your things, use it quickly to get a good
job, then sell it before it has been 24 hours. If you sell
before that, you get all your money back!
Tip: The absolute best hours come from the Science track, with a final
hours from 10am-2pm.
2. Hire a maid. This way your Bachelor can live like a slob, and not
care. This frees him up to hit the exercise machine, or call a date.
The maid costs §10 an hour, and has a working hours of 10:00 am to
5:00 pm, for a maximum of §70 a day. However, if she runs out of
things to clean she leaves then.
3. Build a smaller house, and use the extra money to buy a better bed,
fridge, etc. Since you will have less time to do things (having no one
to help you) you will need the better things to be more efficient!
4. Go to work every other day (depending on how much money you need). In
the first few levels of your job, you will probably want to go everyday
because you need the money. But at the higher levels, you need TIME
more than anything, so skip a day. As long as you don't skip two days
in a row, you will be fine. Use that day to improve your skills, make
some friends, etc. You won't get paid or promoted, but it won't hurt
your chances of getting promoted either.
Of course, the challenge of trying to go to work every day and keep
relationships up is kinda fun.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.1 The Bachelor Gets Married
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Bachelor Sim can't stay a hermit forever, he eventually will fall in
love, and want someone to move in or marry him. However, there is a better
way than simply having him marry someone.
Here's the idea. Your Bachelor Sim works fairly far up the career ladder,
possibly to the top without getting married. He's putting career before
relationships, only socializing to Gain Friends or Maintain Friendships for
work. Once he is at or near the top of the ladder, he will be rich, and
very likely talented as well. He'll have a great paying job, and lots of
skills.
Why not then, get your BACHELOR HIMSELF to move out?
Here's what I mean. Say you're starting up a new family. Wouldn't it be
nice if you had someone who had a nice high paying job? Well that's
precisely what you should do! Marry the bachelor from the OTHER SIM. That
way he will move out of his house, bring all his assets with him, PLUS he
will keep his great job. This is a great way to help out Beginning Sim
Families. If his net worth was §28k, then that family will gain that much
when he is married into the family.
Sweet deal!
Note: Once you've moved your Bachelor out in this fashion, his old house
will remain EXACTLY AS HE LEFT IT! Which might make it an ideal house
to have another Bachelor move into, as it would be cheaper (due to
Item Value Degradation) than buying it all new.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2 The Full House (8 Sims)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting your first game with 8 Sims would be a little crazy. Just keeping
up with ONE Sim's needs is hard enough, much less 8 Sims who all need the
same things. Plus the most difficult thing about starting out with an 8
Sim Family is simply getting them all into a furnished house using only the
20k that you start with. I would normally just advise you to start with a
small family, then build up from there, adding members by marriage or child
birth.
However, there is a good way to start out with 8 members. Don't build any
special house, except having a longer bedroom. Stick in at least 4 beds in
here. If you have any children, place as many 2 person beds as you have
children. The bedroom will resemble a military barracks, but there's nothing
to be done about that yet.
Make sure there are at least 3 different Fun things for the Sims to do, or
they will all fight over their limited Fun items. A radio, bookcase, and a
TV should be enough.
Now get all but one adult Sim jobs.
Tip: Before fully furnishing your house buy the cheap computer and use
that to get your Sims jobs. This will give you the choice of 3
different jobs for each Sim. Then once they all have jobs, sell the
computer. If you sell it within 24 hours of buying it, you will get
a full refund.
With everyone working, you should get quite a lot of money, especially if any
of them get promoted.
Tip: If you start to get overwhelmed with these Sims, use the PAUSE
feature then decide what your Sims should do, then UNPAUSE. Remember
I did advise starting with only 2 Sims, a much more manageable
number.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Building a House
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our objective with building the house is to create a livable area and have
enough money left over to actually put THINGS in the house.
Here's our objectives: We need a good sized house (not large), with three
rooms (living room/kitchen/dining room, bathroom, and
one bedroom). The Sims don't require their own
private bedrooms, and will do quite fine in a
"communal" bedroom. (where everyone sleeps in the
same room)
We're going to start the house a minimum of 2 or 3 squares away from the
nearby sidewalk. Now we create the Living Room/Kitchen. A good size for
this is a smallish rectangle, about 11 x 6 squares. Build the entrance door
near the mailbox and trashcan. Now off to the side of the house build a
4 x 4 room to be your bathroom. You don't need any larger at the moment.
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold
| Living |-------- down the shift button while
| Room | building a wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
As you can see, this is a very small type of house, but is perfectly suited
for two people. This is a "basic" house, and as your family grows you will
need to add to it. Notice that there isn't a wall between the kitchen and
the living room. This is quite intentional to aid in the parties that you
will be throwing here! The open space allows people to move about more
freely, and to prevent people from running into each other. Also note that
this leaves space to the left of the Bedroom which is ideal for building
another room, be it a new bedroom, or an entertaining room, or even just an
outdoor pavilion.
Once the basic floor plan is done, we need to apply wallpaper to the outside
of the house, and to each room individually. The last few wallpapers in the
list are specifically for the outside, and aluminum siding is cheap (§7).
Note: To apply a wallpaper to every available surface, hold down the SHIFT
key, then click. If you're doing this to the outside, it won't
affect the inside, and if you are wallpapering the interior of a
room, then it will only wallpaper that room.
For the kitchen I would use the Deep Jade or the Tuscany Tin (§6). The
living room you can do separate from the Kitchen if you want, although you
can't use the SHIFT function if you do, as they aren't really separate rooms.
In the bathroom I would go with a "Too Turquoise" (§6).
Now we need to add flooring (can't have your Sims living on bare grass).
Both the kitchen and the bathroom have their own matching floor sets (if you
chose Tuscany, the best flooring would be the Il Perrinni Italliante tile
(§20)). In the bedroom I would go with the simply Blue Carpet, it's cheap,
and effective.
Windows: Each room needs quite a number of windows to keep the room bright
and happy. This effects one of the Sims' eight needs, that of
Room. So place windows around each room until it is as bright as
it can be. Don't forget this! Also, when you start furnishing a
house, you need to place Lamps for when it gets dark.
Which window you pick is entirely up to your individual preference!
Note: Don't bother with a second story yet, as you don't need it, and you
probably can't afford it! See the section on Expanding the House
below for more information on Second Stories.
Tip: A backdoor is a very useful thing to have, as it allows your Sims
another way in or out (if the main entrance is blocked), and can
provide for a nice patio outside as well. Try putting in a flamingo in
the backyard, just for fun. Also the neighbors seem to like it.
Alternate Floor plan 1:
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| |-------- Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| e |
----------------e----- Bath | Note: Two horizontal characters
| | room | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| |-------- This alternate version moves the
| Living | bathroom up 2 squares and builds a
| Room | door into the bedroom.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
Alternate Floor plan 2:
----------
/ \ Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| |-------- Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| e |
----------------e----- Bath | Note: Two horizontal characters
| | room | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| |-------- This alternate version cuts the
| Living | square corners to be diagonal. This
\ Room / helps Room rating, and looks more
----------e--------- attractive.
=======================
Tr
Now that we have a house, we need to buy things for the house!
But first some ideas on Better Houses (i.e. Richer).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1 Building a Better House
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not to be confused with Section 7. Expanding the House, this section deals
with building a house with more money to start with. After all, sometimes
it's easier to start over than to keep adding onto a current house.
--------------e---------------
/ e e \ Key:
| Bedroom ---e--- Bedroom |
| One / \ Two ----------- e - Door -- - wall
| e Bath e | | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| | Room | | Pool |
-----e-----| |-----e-----| Hall | Note: Two horizontal characters
| \___e___/ | | is one "square" of SimLand
| e Hottub | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen Living | |
| Room |\ / Notice just how much larger
| | ---e---- this house is than the previous
\ / models. Also, it makes the
------e-------------e--------- attempt to "round out" every
+ + room to improve Room Rating.
+ +
+ + This is a very large and
================================ spacious house, but designed to
Tr keep most everything "close by"
Notice particularly the amount
of doors that lead into the
house.
Why two bedrooms? When you have a baby, place the baby, plus one caregiver
to spend the night in their own bedroom. Then when the baby wakes up and
needs attention, only one of your Sims will have to be awakened by it. Plus
this allows you to do separate Socializing (you know, kissing other people
than your wife).
Alternate 1: The Second Story
Key: e - Door -- - Wall
Floor One: SS - Stairs + - Path
Pool and Hot Tub Outside Tr - Trash
/------e--------------e-------------e----\ This house keeps the first floor
| SS | Bath | very spartan and uses half the
| SS e Room | space for an outdoor pool and
| Kitchen SS Living | | spa area. The Stairs lead up to
| SS Room |\ / a Second Story, which will
| SS | -------- contain 2 bedrooms, a bathroom,
\ / as well as an extra room, for
------e-------------e--------- fun.
+ +
+ +
+ +
================================
Tr
Floor Two:
/----------------------------------------\ You could always leave the
| | SS | | | "Extra" room wall-less and have
| e SS e e Extra | it be a balcony.
| Bedroom | | Bedroom | |
| ---e---- |\ /
| e bath e | --------
\ | room | /
------e-------------e---------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.2 Who Needs Walls?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thinking about this logically (and we Sims players are nothing if not
logical) there is only one thing Sims need privacy for, and that's going to
the bathroom. They don't seem disturbed when they sleep in a room with other
people (though they do seem to mind being put into the same bed with a
stranger).
So, if all you need walls for is a bathroom, then why not simply save on
money, and ONLY build walls around the bathroom? Walls are expensive! Save
your money for something really cool, like that Hot Tub!
Note: Well this strategy seems really cool on the surface, but there is a
bit of a downside. No one can sleep in the same room as an active
TV or radio. Which means that everyone will have to sleep at the
same time. In other words, if Sim Bob is on the nightshift and
Sim Betty is on the dayshift, they'll overlap, and one will want to
sleep while the other wants to watch TV. Other than that it works
great.
Note: This strategy works best with a Bachelor Sim, for reasons stated in
the previous NOTE.
A more extreme version of this is to build ONLY the 2x1 bathroom, and have
no house at all. This really saves on money as walls aren't cheap, but has
some odd drawbacks, such as your Sim refusing to get out of the shower if
even another Sim wanders by the lot, or your Sim getting stuck in the
bathroom because another Sim wants to use it.
However, it makes a great starting Bachelor house (although it looks very
Hillbilly), if you intend to have this Bachelor get married into another
household later.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.3 Housebuilding, Especially on a Budget (from Seeker)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build Mode items, unlike Buy Mode items, depreciate as soon as you leave
Build Mode and only that once. With this in mind, it is very wise to have a
Sim who can lose money (usually just for this purpose, a shill) build homes,
then be evicted and then populated with the Sims you wish to have in that
house. This will amount to a savings of approximately one-third versus the
pre-depreciation value, more if you are not a very careful house designer and
have to delete and recreate walls, windows, or other items. That house that
would cost your regular Sims about $16,000 to build now can be yours for just
under $10,000.
I don't believe this works with items such as staircases and fireplaces, but
it will with walls, windows, doors, wallpapering, floors, and (most likely)
pools. Be sure that you don't outfit the house with Buy Mode items and then
evict the shill, because you will kick yourself when you have to do it all
over again.
Feel free to add as much flora as you wish from the Build Mode as well, it
has no effect on the property value other than raising your Yard score. In
fact, any item that can only be disposed of does not raise the cost. So go
ahead and add as many trees, shrubs, flowers, and topiaries as you like with
your shill.
Always make generous uses of corners, it not only increases your room scores,
it also saves money on building the house ($70 for a corner as opposed to
$140). For a little extra added effect, on interior corners do a diamond
pattern instead of a straight intersection. It costs the same and boosts
room score. It looks very good where four rooms meet. All of this can be at
the cost of space however.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Furnishing a House
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're going to build things based on the Sims' Needs, with the most pressing
needs first. We'll start with Hunger (the only Need that your Sims can Die
of) and furnish the Kitchen.
Kitchen Objects you Need:
Refrigerator (§600 for the Llamark)
Cooking Appliance (§400 for the Dialectic Free Standing Range, stove)
Empty Counter
Dish Cleaning Apparatus (either a Sink or the Fuzzy Logic Dishwasher, §650)
Fire Alarm (§50)
Food Processor (§220)
Trashcan (or if you can afford it, a Trash Compactor)
Here's what I did. At the left end of the Kitchen is a 6x long wall. At the
top I put a Dialectic Range, then a Fridge, then a Counter (if you did the
Jade walls and floors, then do the Jade counter top, otherwise just keep it
cheap!), then a counter with a Sink, and another blank counter. This leaves
one square left in the bottom corner, but we'll use that later when we have
more money. (By moving the Counter with the Sink to the corner, and filling
that hole with a Dishwasher) Finally on the empty counter place the Food
Processor.
Note: When someone cooks a full meal it will go like this, they will take
the food out of the Fridge, and stick it into the food processor
(or onto a counter if you don't have one, but the food processor
adds more Food value to the meal), then from there onto the stove,
and from the stove to the counter where it is finished.
Tip: Be vigilant with who makes the meals! Every Sim when they get hungry
will go to the fridge to get a snack or to make a quick meal. But
you should let only the person with the most Cooking skill cook, and
then have them SERVE the meal. This creates 8 portions for only
§20 which is very cost effective. Plus the higher cooking skill
reduces the chance of Fire and increases the Food Value.
Now 2 squares away from that stuff place a Card Table (§95). Around it place
4 Chairs (the cheapest chair works fine, §80). Make sure the chairs face the
table.
Tip: One good way to place the chairs is to put all the chairs in the
corners, like this:
Ch (not to scale)
Ch .....
.....
..... Ch
Ch
What this does, is keeps the other corners not touched by the chairs
completely free for your Sims to put things on like the mail, and for
YOU to put things like Lava Lamps (§80) on. The Sims will be eating
closer together, but they don't seem to mind. This table is a 2x2
table, so how does this work with the longer Parisian table?
Ch (also not to scale)
Ch ..... Ch
.....
.....
Ch ..... Ch
Ch
This table is longer, and can hold more chairs. I recommend the
above pattern with the Parisian, as you fit more people, but keep the
same amount of Places for Sims to Drop things (like Gifts from other
Sims) or for you to put things (like radios).
Onto the Bathroom.
Bathroom Objects you Need:
Toilet (§300 for the Hygeia-O-Matic)
Major Hygiene Item (§640 for the SpaceMiser Shower)
Bathroom Sink (§400 for the Andersonville sink)
The placement of these objects isn't so tough, just put them in the corners,
making sure that they face the right direction. If you have the money, I
would suggest also putting a Medicine Cabinet in above the Sink. However,
the Medicine Cabinet isn't as useful as a plain mirror placed in the living
room. (Mirrors are used to improve the Charisma Skill) This is because
other Sims like to use the bathroom, and you don't want to hold them up while
you make a speech to a mirror. We want the shower right now because it is
cheaper, and more time efficient. Plus we're saving up for that REALLY good
bathtub! (The Hydrothera) Once you get the money, you definitely want that
good tub!
However, you will still want that shower. Nothing beats the quick shower,
plus your Sim won't always need a full bath.
Pressing onward to the Bedroom.
Bedroom Objects you will Need:
1 Bed for each Person (in this case 2, Spartan Bed, §300 each)
You won't spend too much time in the Bedroom, so you don't need too much more
than that. Don't worry about the Room rating much either, so don't worry
about lighting or decorations. One thing that you might want in the bedroom
is an End Table with an Alarm Clock on it.
Note: Alarm Clocks do need to be set by your Sims before they can be
effective. The alarm goes off 2 hours before your Sim has to be
to work. If you want more time than that to get ready, you can
always manually waken your Sim. Although, if you get a Sim up
before he or she is fully rested (full energy bar) they will stomp
about a bit trying to wake up.
Tip: The first beds that you can get aren't very efficient at getting your
Sims their Energy. So as soon as humanly possible get that really
expensive (and worth it!) bed.
And finally the Living Room.
Living Room Objects you will Need:
1 Couch (Contempto is §150)
Television (Monochrome is §85, Trottco 27" is §500)
Bookcase (§250 for the Cheap Pine)
Desk/Table (Mesquite Desk/Table is §80)
Radio (Down Wid Dat Boom Box is §100)
Phone (could also put this in the Bedroom, although it wakes them up!)
Security Alarm
Have the Television placed by one of the walls, and have the couch face the
Television about 2 squares away, and put the Bookcase next to the TV by the
wall, so that your Sims can read and sit on the couch. Now on another wall
place the table and place the Radio on it. Place the Phone on the wall
behind the radio, and the Security Alarm anywhere on the wall.
Tip: Placing the TV 2 squares away from the couch is more important than it
might at first seem. Why is that? Well suppose a Guest Sim decides to
watch TV, but there's no more room on the couch, they'll stand right in
front of your Sim on the couch. But now your Sim wants to go to the
bathroom, but now there's a Sim in the way! You'll have to wait for
that Sim to move on his own before your Sim can get anywhere. (or you
could just use the move_objects cheat, see the Cheats section below)
Note: All appliances, computers, etc., can break down and need to be
repaired. You can either repair them yourself (and maybe get
electrocuted and killed) or call the Repairman who charges you §50 per
hour. Until you get your Mechanical skills up (via reading) you
should probably just call the experts.
Note: An alternative to placing the Security Alarm in the living room is
to put it outside. Then the Thief doesn't even have to enter the
house to trip the alarm. There's more on burglars in the Section
Everything Else in the Neighborhood.
a. Lighting and Lamps
Now that we've adequately furnished the house (I say adequate, because
once you get money, you'll want to replace your shoddy items with better
ones, like your little monochrome TV for a HUGE Plasma TV), you will
want to start filling your house with Lamps. I would place 1 lamp in
the bathroom, and 1 in the Bedroom, and a lot in the Living
Room/Kitchen. Keep the lamps spaced out to keep the lighting in the
room even. (Say, 3 to 4 squares apart)
Check out the Sims website (http://www.thesims.com) to download the new
Wall Lamps, which are placed on the walls rather than on the floor, in
the same way that the Fire Alarm attaches to the wall.
Note: Lights can burn out, and need to have their bulbs replaced.
BEWARE! Your Sims can get electrocuted by doing this! There
isn't a good chance of it (maybe 1 in 5), but you may want to
call a repairman.
b. Decorations
The other way to pump up the Room value is to put decorations into a
room. And the easiest of the decorations to place, are the Paintings.
Since these go on the wall, they don't take up any space, and unlike
plants, they don't require water.
Most decorations also have a Fun value, which happens whenever someone
looks at it. For example, you can have your Sim check out a painting.
Also the better objects (such as the Plasma TV) also have a positive
effect on the Room.
Use Decorations to get the Room rating up, not only for your Sims, but
to help the Mood of visiting Sims. That helps you make friends! You
know the old saying, a happy Sim is a friendly Sim.
More on the Room rating in that section below (Room Rating).
I know your house seems rather Spartan (you even have the Spartan beds, no
doubt!), but this is just the starter equipment. As you go along, UPGRADE!
Replace that fridge as soon as you can, as well as the Range. These will
help alleviate your Sims' hunger rating better. Also replace those Spartan
beds with better ones. If you get your 2 Sims to like each other enough, you
can get a 2 person bed, and get them into it. I would also definitely get
rid of that couch the first chance you get, and also get rid of the cheap
lights in favor of the top of the line lights.
Generally you spend a good deal of the game replacing your old junk with the
better stuff.
Let's make some friends...
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4.1 Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But first, let's look a little deeper into the realm of Cooking for Sims. As
I have said a number of times, we want the Stay at Home Sim to be our Cook,
and therefore they should spend a good deal of time Studying Cooking.
Whenever they have a spare moment, they should grab that book and study until
they get all the way up to 10 Cooking Points. This helps in two ways: One,
they are far less likely to burn down the house (unless using the Grill), and
they prepare more satisfying meals.
Beyond simply helping the Cook become a better Chef, you can also improve
your equipment, and how you prepare the meals.
Let's start with the equipment. The first step in cooking is the
Refrigerator, and, no surprise here, the better the Fridge, the more
satisfying the meals (the more it satisfies the Hunger Need, that is). The
next piece of equipment is the Preparation part, which can be either just a
countertop, or the Food Processor. The Food Processor is about twice as good
as a mere countertop, and is faster to boot, so getting one of those is quite
valuable. Then comes the cooking implement, from Microwave (the worst) to
the Gas Range (the best). Finally you have to set the meal down on an empty
counter top to serve the meal. (only necessary if you ARE doing a SERVE, if
you are merely HAVING dinner this is skipped)
Note: To keep things moving efficiently, you should arrange the kitchen
appliances in order of use, so place the Fridge, then next to it
have the Food Processor on a Counter, then the Cooking Range, and
finally a blank counter. Why? Saves time, and every second counts!
Note: If a step along the meal preparation chain is broken (say you have
no preparation surface, or your range is broken, etc.) then you will
get a different (and less satisfying) meal. If you don't have a
prep surface or food processor you end out with a Can (or cans) of
Beans. If you prepare it, but have no way to cook it, then you get
a salad. These results ALSO occur if you have the item, but can't
get to it. So if another Sim is in between your Cook and the Stove,
you could end out with Salad.
Next is how you prepare the meals. There are 4 basic options at every meal:
Snack, Quick Meal, Have Meal, and Serve Meal. I would heartily recommend
doing ONLY "Serve Meal"s and having them cooked ONLY by your best Chef. Then
the meals will be very effective at removing hunger. This requires that you
constantly check your other Sims when they get hungry as they will want to
have Snacks or Quick Meals. It's much more cost efficient to have just the
Big Meals (Serve Dinner, Serve Breakfast, etc.)
Other Options:
If you have no way of preparing your own meals, you can always call for
pizza (§40). It also takes some time for the pizza to arrive, and it isn't
very satisfying.
Also you can use a Grill to grill up some food. This isn't so satisfying
and can cause a fire (if something is too close to the grill).
Both these options do make for some good socializing, however.
When you prepare a meal (fit for 6) the plate will remain fresh for about 8
hours. However you can prolong this. When you take plate of food off the
main dish, it will last 8 hours in itself. So if the main dish is 6 hours
old and you take a plate off. That one plate will not get flies above it for
approximately 14 hours. So, one thing you might want to try is to make a
meal (that is not going to get all eaten of course) and after 6 or 7 hours.
Take a plate off one at a time. Do not eat them. Just cancel the action
after they have taken the plate. They will probably put it on the floor.
Now that food will last another 8 hours. When your sims get home from a hard
days work, and your homemaker sim needs a bit of rest. You can control the
sims to take that food and eat it. Also, guests do not eat food that has
already been dished out.
Well aside from that, 6 plates takes up a lot of room. And so does chocolate
and brownies. In the build or buy mode you can move plates of food (the main
dish as well). If you hover the food over the fridge, it will allow you to
"put the food in the fridge." When you move the fridge any food inside will
remain inside. I am not sure if there is a limit to how many dishes you can
put in or not. Guests can take food that they have brought or take off the
main plate, but again, they will not eat food already dished out. A couple
downsides to this are, snacks and meals cannot be made from that fridge. The
fridge also does not give anymore time for the food to go rotton. Another
thing I am unsure of is when flies begin swarming the plate, if room value
goes down. To get food out of the stocked up fridge, you will need to hover
the cursor over the middle of the fridge, so that the fridge does not light
up, this will give you the option to take plate or clean up. Pizza cannot go
in the fridge. I am not sure if the little vases of flowers can or not
either.
Tip: If you are busy busy in the morning getting sims off to school and
ready for work. Make breakfast (though it will be called dinner,
unless made after 12:00 AM) around 10 or 11 the night before. The
food will last then from 6 to 7. A prompt sim should be up by at
least 6. And the food is ready for them to enjoy.
The Room Rating is influenced by quite a number of things, but we'll boil it
down to the essentials. One, is how well lit the room is. This is
influenced (in the day) by windows, and in the night by Lamps. Two, is what
is in the room that improves it, such as decorations. Three, is what is in
the room that degrades it, such as garbage and messes. And four, the size of
the room, the larger the better.
In the early part of the game you probably can't afford the mighty
Torchosterone lamp (the best lamp in the game, as it improves Room rating two
ways, by being a Lamp, and by being a Decoration), but as soon as you get
some steady cash flow, start replacing your old lamps with the good ones.
Tip: In the beginning of the game, only buy a few lamps. It will be dark,
and your room rating won't be so great, but you will save money (all
objects degrade in value over time) so that you can buy the better
lights later. Also the good lamps tend to need less bulb
replacements.
All the good objects also have a Room rating attached to them. Things like
the Plasma TV, the good couches, etc. Therefore, once you have all the neat
gadgets in your living room, do you really need some art deco piece?
The Outside Room rating is probably the most important, at least as far as
your Job goes. It's probably already well lit, and large, so the only two
things that you can do to improve it are to keep it clean, and add some
decoration. A fountain and some flamingoes would go well out there. Plus
you could put a fireplace out there if you really wanted to.
Note: Keep in mind that if you let something go to Pot (such as a flower
dying, or fish dying, a computer breaking, etc.) then it will pull
down the Room Rating just like trash. After all, if you can't use
the object as it was meant to be used, it's not much more than
trash!
Tip: The Fireplace has the best Room Rating (when lit anyway) of
anything. HOWEVER, it can cause things (such as objects, or Sims)
to catch on fire, and should be placed well away from anything!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As anyone who has had to wake up to an alarm clock might say, it isn't the
most pleasant feeling. Yet the alarm clock is the only way to get your Sims
up in time for work. Or is it?
Sims tend to sleep until their Energy Bar is full, then they also tend to
keep on sleeping until an alarm clock goes off, or you wake them up. So you
could just wake them up as soon as you notice their Energy bar full green (or
at any set time that you want, although Sims take longer to get up if they
aren't fully rested), but I prefer this little trick.
If the Sim is sleeping, but is fully rested, he will tend to keep on sleeping
until he has a reason to get up. Simply add something to his Queue (such as
using the Toilet) and once his Energy bar fills up, he will wake up and start
working on his queue. This way your Sim gets to be fully rested. This is a
little more dynamic than simply waking your Sim with an alarm clock 2 hours
before the Carpool arrives.
Mark Hissett has this to add:
A well rested sim will sleep to 6:00 AM. That means, if a sims energy bar
is green at 4 or 5 AM, they will not automatically wake up until 6. If you
tell them to do something while they are asleep, they will automatically do
it, as soon as their energy bar is full, which may be earlier than you
intended. A not so well rested sim will wake up anytime after 6, as soon
as their energy bar is full, or if you wake them up, or if the alarm goes
off.
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4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 3 forms of waste management in The Sims:
1. Your outside trashcan. This is part of the Lot when you buy it, and
you can neither move it, nor sell it. This trashcan is here to stay.
2. A standard trashcan. This holds trash, and can be put anywhere you
want. When it fills up with trash (it doesn't take long!) it will take
down the Room Rating until someone takes out the trash.
3. And finally there is the Trash Compactor, which not only can it hold
more Garbage (because it compacts the garbage), but when it gets full,
it does not take down the room rating, because the garbage is self-
contained.
However, you can probably get away with NOT HAVING A HOUSE TRASHCAN at all.
You can never get rid of the First type of trashcan, so why should you buy
any more trashcans?
Here's what I'm talking about. There are only THREE MAIN types of trash
(there are more than 2 types, but you won't come across the others often),
Snacks, Newspapers, and Gifts. Consider for a moment that the place most
likely to need a trashcan is the Kitchen area, which is notably near the
exterior trash anyway (well it should be, it is in my designs). Therefore
the walk outside to the trash isn't much longer than that to go outside. The
important thing here is that we SKIP A STEP. If you don't have an interior
trashcan, you NEVER HAVE TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH.
For a different, i.e. "cheating", tactic on this, see section 11.1 Deleting
Trash (and Bills too!).
TheReaper86 has a slight different take on this:
About the "who needs a trash can" thing: instead of buying a small Trash
Can only to take THAT trash to the outside one...OR simply taking it to the
outside trash, you can just use the CTRL+SHIFT+C cheat and use the
"move_objects on" code and move the outside trash into the kitchen -- the
only place you ever need one anyways.
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4.5 Sims Interactions with Objects
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You may wonder why a Sim will go painting for fun when he doesn't need the
Creativity, and he Needs more Fun than he can get out of painting. Part of
the reason is that when Sims choose what they are going to do, they pick
their most pressing need (Hunger being the greatest Need, then the rest based
on how Red they are), and checking the room for the best objects. Once they
have an idea of the best objects in the area, they'll randomly pick one and
go to it.
So it isn't entirely a random process, it's just not an entirely educated
process either. After all, Sims do get bored of watching TV, they need more
than just one source of Fun.
So, if your Sim needs some Fun, he'll take stock of the area, find all the
available sources of Fun, and pick one. They usually limit their choices to
the better objects, so the more better objects you have, the better chance
that they will pick at least one good object instead of going to something
less than preferable.
Note: This Randomness doesn't seem to apply to Guest Sims (Sims who you
have invited over), they always seem to know what they want and
use the best available method to get it.
You, the player, can pick up any object while in build mode, including dirty
dishes, trash, bills, and other things. What does this mean to you? Read
on!
Red Phoenix sent me this:
"While in Build mode, you can move any object that's currently not in use.
You can get this ability to do lots of micro-management. For instance,
before you can afford a maid, you can help your Sims with clean up. Gather
all of the dishes and stack them next to the sink. Or gather trash and place
it next to a trash can. If you're really cheap and lazy, you can create a
garbage pit at the side of your house where you can throw your trash."
If you do create a garbage pit, make it in a small enclosed space that has no
doors. You will be able to move things in and out, but no one, thankfully,
will be able to go in there.
Also, you could just DELETE the garbage (see section 11.1 Deleting Trash and
Bills too! This trick DOESN'T work with Livin' Large installed) instead.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.7 The "Cluster" Method
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, what is the "Cluster" Method? My latest attempt at efficiency! Here's
the idea: Keep a cluster of objects around the mailbox/trashcan.
That's the jist of it, anyway. Here's a more detailed explanation. Build
your house about 3 squares away from the sidewalk, with your door being close
to the mailbox/trashcan. Pave a little walkway from your door to the
sidewalk. Now on one side of the walkway, place a cheap desk, facing the
walkway. When you get the mail, your Sim will place the Bills on this desk,
instead of walking who knows how far.
On the other side of the table place a standard phone.
On the opposite side of the walkway place an Easel, a Mirror, and a chess set
with a chair (or two).
Now when you call another Sim over to your house, you have a few things that
you can do while waiting for them to actually arrive! So, call someone, then
start working on your Charisma (using the Mirror), or play some Chess, or
whatnot.
Tip: If a Guest Sim arrives with an Object, such as candies, flowers, or
whatnot, cancel AFTER they have given it to you, and your Sim looks
for a place to put it (if you don't, it will possibly end up on your
desk, candies likely end out in your kitchen), and your Sim will drop
it there. However, it's very close to your garbage can for easy
disposal.
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5. Of Friends and Lovers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Sims are going to need some friends in The Sims. Not only to keep your
Sims from going insane (Social being one of their 8 Needs), but also to
advance in certain job fields you will need a certain number of friends.
(for example, on the political career track, to become a Senator you need 14
friends, and mayor requires 17!)
Note: Your Sim does not personally need to be a friend with someone, as
long as SOMEONE in your family is friends with them, that is enough.
In other words you only need family friends, not personal friends.
When you first move into your house, various people from the neighborhood
will come by and chat with you. Make sure to greet them! They might not
come back if you don't. Once that new Sim is greeted then that person is
"known" and at any time, you can call them on the phone to get them to come
over. (unless they are working at that exact moment, but you can call them
before or after work)
Note: Yeah it sounds stupid but, the Sim you are calling also needs to
have a phone for this to work. I mention this because you might
want to create a large 8 person family, stick them on a vacant lot,
and befriend them. If you want to do that, at least build one wall
with a phone attached to it!
Once greeted, this neighbor Sim will start working to fulfill his or her
needs, just as your current Sims do. If there is food out, and they're
hungry they'll eat it (but they can't fix themselves any food, not even a
snack). If they have to go to the bathroom, they'll go (but they can't
shower, or take a bath). Mostly, however, what they want to do, is to
socialize!
a. Socializing
When you first start socializing with someone, keep it simple. Just
talk. As your relationship gets better (10+ or so... depends on the
Sim), start complimenting them, and telling jokes. Avoid doing anything
else for awhile. Also, if they try to do something too intimate to you,
and your "rating" (click on the Relationship button to see the number
rating of how much you like them. By the way, they also have a number
for you, and they may not be the same number... You might love them,
and they might not care for you!) is not very high, you may want to
cancel their action. So if you see "Be Hugged" by someone you just met,
you may want to click it to get rid of it.
Note: Negative reactions to social interactions (eg. crying after
being slapped) will increase the social Need, but decrease
relationships. Seems that bad interaction may be better than
no interaction at all. (Winston Jen)
As you get to know someone (40+) you want to start dancing, and hugging.
Dancing is not considered sexual, and doing it is not coming on to them.
And as you get even higher (70+) you may want to start flirting, and
maybe even kissing! This all depends on where you want this
relationship to go. Although you can be in love with EVERYONE in the
neighborhood (except children), you probably won't want to. It makes
parties awkward if you are in love with everyone there. Someone might
want to kiss you, and if you are in love with everyone in the room...
Tip: If you hear the "bad" music (meaning usually that something is going
wrong, it sounds like a bad trumpet) and you just flirted with
someone (or kissed, hugged, or danced with them), then you probably
just flirted with someone's significant other! Check your "queue" to
see if someone is going to slap you, and if so, click it to stop
them. (Pause the game, if that helps)
So how do you come onto someone else's significant other? Go into an
empty room (if none are available, go outside), and Call Over that
Sim that you like. Then flirt away!
By the way, it doesn't matter if you hug them (or kiss them...) or if
they hug you, their significant other will still get mad. Although
maybe not at you...
Tip: (from Nick Yowler) There's another exception to the rule about
calling a Sim over to your house and nothing happens during their
timeline. If you can get them to join you in a game of chess (for
example), and you get them to play long enough, then their logic
points will eventually go up. This also carries over to their house.
So I suppose if you wanted you could call them over and enhance their
skills without wasting time back at their place.
b. Marriage and Moving In
When you get someone higher up on the Relationship-O-Meter, you will get
the option to ask them to marry (propose) or move in with you. Whether
they say yes is based on their mood, and their opinion of your Sim.
Getting someone to marry/move in with you is simply a two stepped
process. First you must get them to love you. This is built up
gradually. Start out with a friendship, then gradually work up to love.
(Getting them in love with you is not necessary for Move Ins) Once you
believe that they love you enough, now you have to work on their Mood.
Sims will only marry you if all their needs are being met, and are
therefore happy enough to marry. As such, you will want to feed him or
her, entertain them, and generally keep them comfortable and happy.
Propose, and they're in!
When a Guest Sim (anyone you call over) comes to your house, their Needs
are usually in an atrocious state. They are hungry, bored, and need to
talk a LOT. This counter will reset every time you invite the Sim over,
so if you fail to get them to marry your Sim in one sitting, you will
have to start all over the next day.
Note: If your Sim is turned down, the other Sim will give a reason,
such as "We don't talk enough." (which means, that their Social
Need needs work) They give what they think is the thing that
would help their mood out the most, saying "We don't talk
enough" tells you that you need to work on Social a lot, but
that might not be the only thing that they need, merely it is
the most pressing Need.
Note: Moving In is only between Same Sex couples, whether they are
lovers, or just roommates.
Whenever someone is brought into the family through marriage or moving
in, they not only bring any children they have with them, but if they
are the only member of their family, they will sell their old house, and
bring that money plus the cash they had on hand to their new family.
Warning: When someone joins the family, they can no longer be
considered a family friend! Although they remain a close
personal friend (and possibly a lover) they are no longer
counted in the Family Friend count. (Although they ARE
counted as such in the Neighborhood, if you hold the mouse
over their house)
Note: So, you had someone marry you, and they were the last in their
family, and so sold the house. Well the house is still in the
neighborhood, and furthermore, it is in EXACTLY the same
condition as it was when the person left it! So if someone new
moves into it, they might find dirty dishes!
All relationships wither over time, and as such, you need to constantly keep
on socializing with your family friends to make sure that they STAY family
friends!
Tip: When working to maintain a relationship, you needn't work as hard at
it as when you were building the relationship. So call the Sim over,
talk a bit, maybe give a hug or two, then once the Rating is back up,
tell them to go home. Then move onto the next Sim...
Social Activities:
Talking -- usually the most successful for simply improving the rating.
This one also happens, to a lesser degree, when two Sims are
doing the same thing, such as both watching TV or eating dinner.
Compliment -- depending on how much they like you, and what type of person
they are, the Sim you compliment will likely be impressed by
this. They might, however, take it the wrong way. (best if
done over 10)
Entertain -- adults juggle dice; kids play with yoyo. Increases Fun and
Social. Best for 30+ or so, but not quite good if the other
party is not so playful (3-4 bars or less), especially around
30 or so. (from broadstrong)
Tickle -- an activity that increases Fun and Social, but only best for good
friends (75 or more) and the other party should be quite playful.
(from broadstrong)
Give Gift -- gives a nicely wrapped present. Will only appear when
relationship reaches 40 or so. Seems like the other party
will ALWAYS accept. (from broadstrong)
EvilDave2 points out that: Sims that you have relationships
with will NOT always accept gifts. In fact, in this
relationship with my lady sim and Bella Goth, Bella ALWAYS
took the gift and crushed it underfoot! Talk about paying
someone to hate you! It affects relationships about -10 to -20
points. Also, this is strange since my sim's personality was
compatible with Bella's.
Joke -- depending on how playful the Sim is, and how much they like you,
this will help your relationship. Best if used over 10. Also
increases both of your Fun ratings
Hug -- a better social activity, best between good friends, and lovers.
Can make the other Sim's lover(s) jealous, though.
Back Rub -- increases the Sim's comfort level, and helps socialization.
Also will increase jealousy.
Dance -- increases Fun rating, and makes others jealous. Best if used only
between good friends (40+ or so).
Note: There are two ways of dancing with someone. One is to click on
the Sim and select Dance, and the other is to wait for someone to
dance by the Radio, and then click on the radio and click Join.
The second one will help Fun, but won't help Social (but they're
less likely to turn it down!).
Flirt -- for when you want the relationship to go further. Use this on
friends to make them lovers. Best if used over 80. And you
guessed it, makes other Sims jealous!
Kiss -- the ultimate sign of affection! Also the most likely to get
someone slapped, if either of the kissing Sims is already attached.
Others: Brag, Tease, and Fight
Joseph Peitler sent me this:
I discovered another speaking action that a sim can use. When a sim
starts flirting with sim mate 1 and is seen by sim mate 2 (that's when
you hear the trumpet sounds of the "Woody Woodpecker" theme), that sim
can over and "apologize" to sim mate 2 after the damage is done. It
doesn't eliminate all the negative relationship points, but it does get
rid of sim mate 2's negative reactions, such as slap, shove, and fight.
broadstrong sent me this:
More Social Interactions - Joining Interactions
This comes in one of three types - Watch TV (TV only), Listen (piano
only) or Join (everything else that allows Social Activity, except
playground and guinea pig). Click on the Sim the active Sim wants to
join with, then choose this action. Note that for the piano, if the
listener doesn't like the music, the relationship points drop!
[Ed. Note: The more Creatively Skilled your Sim is, the better he will
play the piano, and the more likely the other Sim will enjoy their
playing.]
Note: So, can Sims get into homosexual relations? Yes, but only if you make
them. They won't seek it out on their own. But it's just as easy to
get 2 same sex people together as two of the opposite sex together.
One final thing here. What do you do when you want someone to Move OUT?
Well you could kill them (there ARE ways...), but if you're less bloodthirsty
than that, here's what you can try. Load up another household somewhere,
with another family that you aren't too likely to play often, and who has
room for one more. Call up the person that you are trying to get rid of (or
if they just moved into the neighborhood, wait for him or her to come
around). Then socialize the Sim until you can get them to move in with you.
Now they've left your first Sim family and joined a new one.
Note: Sims may also pack up and leave if they get into a fight. At which
point they disappear forever.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.1 Befriending Mean Sims
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a quick note on how you should go about making friends with a mean Sim.
The mean Sim tends to like to Taunt, Brag, and Insult the other Sims. This
makes them happy (and gives THEM a better opinion of YOUR Sim, but makes YOUR
Sim hate them). But it won't ever get them any friends, which is where you
come in.
In any social situation with a mean Sim, just keep an eye on your Sim's
Queue to check for "Be teased", "Be insulted", etc. Whenever any of these
pop up, just cancel them.
Tip: Keep social interactions with Mean Sims simple (just Talking) until
they start to like you. Once they like you, they are far less likely
to be mean to you. So after your Sim is done talking, PAUSE, talk
again, then UNPAUSE. Allow no other interaction to take place.
Tip: Another way to avoid mean actions is to enter Group Interaction.
Have the Mean Sim eat dinner with your Sim, or watch TV. This grows
their relationship slower, but safer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Sim(s) can fall in love with anyone and everyone. Sims are rather easy
about who they fall in love with, all they have to have is a pulse.
However, things start to get really sticky when one Sim is having relations
with multiple other Sims. You know what I mean, Jealousy. When a Sim sees
her boyfriend kissing someone else, she tends to react badly. She might slap
someone, or stalk off, or even get into a fight. You could completely lose
someone's friendship this way. They might even leave the game if provoked
enough (via fighting that is).
Yet the "romantic" actions are very common at the high levels of a
relationship. You can't very well go without hugging a friend, can you? In
fact, as you get closer to 100 in relationship points, you start losing the
basic things, such as Talking, Telling Jokes, and Compliment. Which means,
that the only way to maintain good relations, is to Hug, Kiss, and Flirt.
But how to avoid that thorn of jealousy?
- First off, never EVER do your socializing outside where everyone can see
you. This does not include areas that are hidden behind a fence. Sims
can tend to wander the neighborhood, and what if the husband of the girl
you are kissing wanders by?
- Second, if you are having many people over, and you THINK that 2 of them
may already be romantically "linked", then go into an unoccupied room,
and do a CALL OVER to get the right Sim in that room. Bedrooms work
great for this. Once the Sim is alone with you... well...
- Third, try to avoid falling in love with 2 people who are already in
love. These love triangles are just begging for trouble. Even if you
aren't caught in the act, you might catch THEM in the act which is just
as bad.
With just a little careful planning, your Sim can pretty much have it all!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2.1 The "Love Shack"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My favorite new strategy, build yourself a "Love Shack" and make the entire
neighborhood fall in love with you. This is very similar to the Second
strategy outlined above, but works a little better. This is a quick 2-part
strategy:
1.) Build yourself a small "guest house" out of the way. Paint it, give it
lighting, etc., but no USEABLE objects. Nothing that would attract a
Sim with Free Will to enter on her own.
2.) Call multiple people over to your house. If you know several already
have a relationship, or you have a romantic linking with multiple Sims,
keep the initial actions romance-neutral. Once the basic needs of the
Sims are dealt with (Food, mostly), go out to your Shack, and call one
of the Sims over. Have Fun. Get that Sim out of your Shack, call the
next one over.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every relationship your Sims have will naturally degrade by 2 points every
day. That means that no matter how in love with you they may be, they'll
eventually fall out of it if you don't call them up for a visit. Therefore
before too long, they won't even be your Family Friend any more (although you
will get a phone call reminding you to socialize with them before that
happens).
So, obviously your Sim has to keep working on his current friends to keep
them as friends. Now, you COULD just wait for that phone call to invite them
over, then wine, dine, dance, and kiss them; or you could call them over when
they are at about 70 relationship points.
Once the Sim is over, talk to them once, compliment them once, then hug them
until they hit 100, and then Ask them to Leave. Once they're gone, find the
next lowest relationship, and call that Sim over. You can probably work on
3 Sims a night, and 1 in the morning (call after 6:00 am, see 6.2.1 Early
Morning Social Call).
Note: Maintaining a 70+ relationship is a lot easier than starting from 0
and working your way up. Therefore you need take less time doing
it. And as such, I like to Ask them To Leave. Why? So you can
cleanly work on the next Sim. You could just leave the first Sim
alone, but this works better without interference (see the last
section).
Note: In Hot Date, I found that other Sims didn't like being repeatedly
Hugged over and over. I had to mix up the social interactions quite
a bit more than usual. Hug / Entertain (if Playful) / Kiss (if
possible) / Hug / Compliment / etc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.4 Sending your Sim Out of the House!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, you can't actually go to another Sim's house while playing as one Sim.
But there is another way, you can simply go back to the Neighborhood screen
(save first), and then play one of your neighbors, and have THEM call your
first Sim.
Red Phoenix sent me this:
"You don't have to wait for your friends to come to you. You can go to them.
Go to your neighborhood selector and choose another house. Then call up the
Sim you are working on and invite him or her over. Then, bombard the Sim
with social options. This works great with large families. The Sim you've
invited can interact with three or four other Sims and boost his relationship
rating. An extra bonus to this technique is that it doesn't cost the Sim and
time or energy. When you go back to the original Sim's house, no time will
have passed."
Note: You are NOT in control of your original Sim, you now control a
different family. That means that you might not be able to even get
your first Sim to come over, and lord knows he might not get along
with these Sims.
Hote Date and Vacation allow your Sim to get out of the house and head
Downtown and on Vacation. While there, you control ONLY the Sim that called
for the Cab/Vacation. If you invited someone with you, you do get an
indicator icon above his/her head (Blue represents a Happy Sim, other colors
are bad).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.5 Creating Friends the Old Fashioned Way
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some jobs require a LOT of friends. In fact, if you are playing your first
family of Sims, your neighborhood will be rather sparse, and you will need to
start new Families just so your first one has a few people to talk with.
Red Phoenix sent me this:
"If your Sim is in dire need of new friends, create a large family of new
Sims and move them onto a lot. You don't have to worry about completely
outfitting a new house, or building any house at all. Just give them a
phone. Without a phone, you can't call the new Sims and invite them over."
What this amounts to is creating a Family specifically to be used by a Sim
who you like more. Fun!
Tip: When "Creating My Own Friends," I like to set their Personality such
that they are easy to befriend. Lots of Nice, Playful and Outgoing.
No points in Neat (that's what Maids are for).
Playful Sims are easy to Tickle, which is my favorite Sim-interaction
once Hot Date is installed. It is quick to pull off, and builds both
short and long term good will.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.6 How to Befriend SimKids
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you've ever tried befriending a Sim Kid, you may have noticed that as the
night gets going, their parent will come and collect the kid. This cuts the
time short that you could use to befriend the kid. (you could just avoid this
altogether by not HAVING any kids in the neighborhood, but where's the fun in
that?)
Red Phoenix sent me this:
"Having good relationships with neighborhood kids can be tough for the
working adult due to narrow window of social time between school hours and
the eight o'clock curfew. But there's a way around this. If a kid is
visiting and the kid's parent comes over to collect the kid, ignore the
parent. Don't answer the door and keep the kid occupied. Eventually, the
parent will go away and you keep the kid well past midnight."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.7 Sim Personalities and Compatibilities
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section comes to us courtesy of Mike Fenton.
Sims are described by a "zodiac" label that gives you an idea of their
SimFate. Here's how they are numbered (in the tables below):
Compatibility is a measure of how well Sims can socially interact.
Generally speaking, Sims that share similar traits tend to get along, as
long as they avoid competitive behaviors.
Sims that have the exact same personality have similar interests, but
mutually-exclusive activities can cause problems. Sims who share too many
activities can crowd each other or become obstacles to each other.
Sims that have exactly opposite personalities rarely share interests, so
their chances for interactions are minimal.
Sims that are the most compatible tend to have the best ability to adapt
to give-and-take roles in their interactions. For example, one tends to
prefer starting a conversation or leading a dance or telling a joke, and
the other prefers to be lead.
Sims compatibility chart (++ most compatible, -- least compatible)
------------------------
Mutual compatibility or lack of compatibility is convenient in that it
gives you an idea of how difficult a relationship is to maintain between
the Sims. An Aries-Taurus relationship is easy, but a Taurus-Virgo
relationship is a bit of a challenge.
Oppositely compatible is odd in that it gives you an ideal match one way
that really stinks the other way. For example, Aries is most compatible
with Gemini, but Gemini is least compatible with Aries.
Personalities high on this list are the most rewarding but the most
demanding.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.8 Getting the Desired Interaction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of the time, your Sims will just want to Talk, even though that isn't
the best thing in terms of getting a better relationship going. In fact,
most the time you want your Sims doing things such as Hug, Joke, or Kiss to
get a good relationship in the quickest amount of time.
But often (especially when you first meet someone) you won't get the same
choice two times in a row. For example, you talk to someone, then joke, but
then the only option you get is to Talk again.
Well, Jon Mars has a little trick about this:
"One of the tactics that I have employed to increase the efficiency of my
Sims' interaction with other Sims has been to simply queue up a bunch of
behaviours then delete the alternate behaviours so that they will only
actually complete the ones I want them to. Example: Queue Talk, Joke, Talk,
Joke, Talk, Joke... then go and cancel all the Talks... the end result is
that my sim will just Joke all the time (or whatever behaviour I desire
them to do). Generally I just do this on the fly, but pausing the game may
be easier for others to implement. If done properly you can raise a
relationship from 0-100 in half the time."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Working (and Not)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Sim per household should definitely stay home. Any others should then
try to find a job. To keep things interesting, I try to get each Sim on a
different career track. So one Sim may be on the Law Enforcement track,
while another takes the business track.
Note: The starting pay of each career track has nothing to do with the
final pay. The starting pay for the business track is low, but the
final pay is high (§1200). Politics starts out relatively well, but
ends out somewhat low (§750). A full list on these pays can be
found in the next section 6.1 Career Tracks below.
I have already discussed the importance of why you leave someone home (to
socialize with the neighbors, of course!), another good reason is that when
you first start out, you really don't need the money that badly. As long as
all your needs are met, your expenses will be low. You have a §40 per day
bill on food (assuming you do a "serve breakfast" and "serve dinner") and
likely around §200 to §300 in bills every 3 days. Most jobs start out around
§200 a day, and you should be able to get quickly promoted to around §300 or
so before the bills come. So money won't be crucial.
Depending on the job you take, you'll need to increase your "stats". Things
such as Creativity, Body, Logic, etc. are needed to advance past the most
entry level jobs. And some jobs don't require some stats, researchers don't
need to develop their body, and so forth. To find out how much stat
increases you need to get the next promotion, click on the Jobs button. The
first few skill points are relatively easy to get, a short time studying will
get you your first cooking point, for example. But the later stat points may
take a LOT longer.
SimSkills:
Your Sim has 6 Skills that may need improving to get a job. These are:
Cooking -- Study Cooking at a bookshelf to improve. Useful to prevent
kitchen catastrophes, and many jobs require at least 1 point
for the higher levels.
Mechanical -- Study Mechanical on a bookshelf to improve. Useful in that
now your own Sims can repair broken items rather than that
expensive repairman. Most useful in the military and
scientist career tracks.
Logic -- Play Chess on a chess set, you can do this alone or with
others to also improve your social skills. Logic doesn't help
you out around the house, however. Used in the scientist
career track, although most career tracks require a little bit
of logic. With Livin' Large I prefer to get my Logic through
the Chemistry Set, after making the potion, you can drink your
reward.
Charisma -- Practice a Speech in front of any available mirror. No
practical use around the house. Used in the Entertainment and
Political career tracks mostly, but again, most career paths
need some Charisma.
Body -- Work out on that exercise machine to improve. You can also
try swimming, but this never worked for me. Used in the
military and law enforcement tracks, but most require at least
one point here. Also you can Swim in the pool for Body, but
it takes 4x as long in the pool as on the Machine.
Creativity -- Play the Piano or Paint a Picture (which can then be sold,
starting out at a mere §5, but eventually going up to §166,
also at that point your Sim will actually LOSE Fun by
painting!) to become more creative.
Note: When the Carpool arrives, your Sim will automatically add the "Go to
Work" item to his or her queue of things to do. However, in many
cases, this Sim will not cancel what they are currently doing (at
least until they "finish" doing it), so you may need to cancel that
thing for them so they get to work on time. You have until an hour
after the Carpool shows up to get inside the car to get to work on
time.
There are 3 things need to get a promotion at work. One, is to make sure you
have all the right stats at the right levels; two, is to make sure that you
have enough family friends; and lastly you have to be in a good Mood to get
a promotion. Happy Sims are productive Sims. Again, everything you'll need
to know about this can be found in the Jobs button. It also has a
description of how well you are working (bad, average, good, excellent) which
is based on your Sims' mood. Below that will be how many Family Friends you
need (if it isn't there, then you have already met that requirement!), and to
the right are all the stats.
Note: You can sometimes miss one day of work, but missing two in a row is
a guaranteed firing. You can miss alternating days of work, but you
will miss out on a lot of money that way. Also, the night shift
tends to be more strict about missing shifts, and may fire you on
the first missed shift.
Tip: If you need a lot of friends for a promotion (the politics career
track especially), then create an 8 person family, and wait for your
Stay at home Sim to come over to socialize. Get each of the 8 to
talk to this Sim at least once, then go back to your original Sims.
Now you have a lot of people that you can call up!
a. Quitting
So, that new career as a Scientist just isn't working out. Or maybe,
you just want to try out something else. Well there are several ways to
quit your job. As we saw in the above note, you can just stop showing
up to work. They'll get the hint. Or you can just check the paper and
take the job from there (it will warn you that doing so will get rid of
your first job).
Warning: If two Sims are sharing a carpool, and one of them gets a
new job at a different time, then that carpool won't show up
for EITHER person!
I would also assume that if you did your job very poorly, or got caught
doing something really bad at work (see "Job Events" below), you may
also get fired.
How you quit depends on your goal from it. If you just want to stay at
home and be lazy, then by all means, just skip work. If you really are
tired of your career path (maybe you'd rather be an actor), then just
take that waiter job.
Note: Whenever taking a different job, you always start out at the
lowest rung on the ladder. So don't just quit to see what the
other jobs are like. That's very inefficient.
Although, if your Skills are high enough, jumping to a new
career may be quite profitable! (see Section 6.3 Quitting for
Fun and Profit)
b. Job Events
Every once in awhile, a major event will happen to your Sim at his or
her job. These events are quite random as to when they happen, and they
only happen once. These are usually just little things like, "Taking a
Bribe" or "Scandal". They will often give you a choice, which amounts
to doing the right or wrong thing, and if you do the wrong thing you can
get caught.
Some other job events are less good vs. evil, such as the actor in the
remake.
In any event, these Events have 2 outcomes, a good one (whatever it
was succeeded perfectly) and the bad one (it failed miserably), and
depending on the severity of the choice, you get rewarded or punished.
Some punishments are rather severe (your family leaves you) or just
annoying (a fine, or loss of stats). But the rewards may be worth the
risks...
There is another type of random job event, and that is the Job Swap,
where you are fired from your Level 10 job and given a Level 6 (or so)
Job in another Career.
Mark H. Dove sent me this about it:
Here it is. I reached the top of the career ladder with my guy, he
became a General, and I was very satisfied about that result, then,
once all of a sudden one day when he came back from work I got a
message about a random event that was about something like: "Military
downsizing: You've been fired due to excess personnel in the base,
but because of your high ranking postion and your knowing of military
strategies you easily find a job as a Swat Team Leader". So my
military career (level 10) automatically changed (and I had no way to
choose if to accept it or not) to the Law Enforcement Career (Level
6). It also happened to me other times from Level 10 Business Tycoon
to Level 6 Politcian, from Level 10 Law Enforcment to Level 6
Entertainment.
But remember it does happen JUST if you reached the top of the career
ladder.
This may actually end out good in the end, as some careers have much
better final pay, which you can see in the Job Chart in the next
section.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1 The Jobs Chart
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: When I say "To Get Promoted" that is what you must work on to get to
the next job level. So in Politics at the Intern Level it says that
you need "+2 Charisma", that is you need that much of that stat to
get to the next level, Lobbyist.
Career Hours Wage To Get Promoted
Politics:
Campaign Worker 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §220 --
Intern 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §300 +2 Charisma
Lobbyist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §360 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
2 Family Friend
Campaign Manager 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §430 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
4 Family Friend
City Council Mem. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §485 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friend
State Assembly 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §540 +1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friend
Congressperson 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §600 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Judge 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §650 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Senator 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §700 +3 Charisma
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
17 Family Friend
Mayor 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §750 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 0
Charisma -- 9
Body -- 5
Logic -- 7
Creativity -- 5
Entertainment:
Waitress 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §100 --
Extra 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §150 +2 Charisma
Bit Player 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §200 +2 Body
2 Family Friends
Stunt Double 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §275 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
4 Family Friends
B-Movie Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm §375 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Supporting Player 10:00 am - 6:00 pm §500 +2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
8 Family Friends
TV Star 10:00 am - 6:00 pm §650 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Feature Star 5:00 pm - 1:00 am §900 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+3 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Broadway Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm §1100 +2 Charisma
+1 Body
+3 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Superstar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm §1400 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 10
Body -- 8
Logic -- 0
Creativity -- 10
Law Enforcement:
Security Guard 12:00 am - 6:00 am §240 --
Cadet 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §320 +2 Body
Patrol Officer 5:00 pm - 1:00 am §380 +2 Mechanical
1 Family Friend
Desk Sergeant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §440 +1 Mechanical
+2 Body
2 Family Friends
Vice Squad 10:00 pm - 4:00 am §490 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
4 Family Friends
Detective 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §540 +1 Charisma
+2 Logic
6 Family Friends
Lieutenant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §590 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
8 Family Friends
SWAT Team Leader 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §625 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+2 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Police Chief 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §650 +2 Charisma
+3 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Captain Hero 10:00 am - 4:00 pm §700 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 1
Mechanical -- 4
Charisma -- 6
Body -- 7
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 5
Business:
Mail Room 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §120 --
Executive Asst. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §180 +2 Mechanical
Field Sales Rep. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §250 +2 Charisma
1 Family Friend
Junior Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §320 +2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §400 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Senior Manager 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §520 +1 Charisma
+2 Body
+1 Logic
8 Family Friends
Vice President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §660 +1 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §800 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
CEO 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §950 +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Business Tycoon 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §1200 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 2
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 6
Life of Crime:
Pickpocket 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §140 --
Bagman 11:00 pm - 7:00 am §200 +2 Body
Bookie 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm §275 +1 Charisma
+1 Creativity
2 Family Friends
Con Artist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §350 +2 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
3 Family Friends
Getaway Driver 5:00 pm - 1:00 am §425 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
4 Family Friends
Bank Robber 3:00 pm - 11:00 pm §530 +1 Cooking
+2 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Cat Burglar 9:00 pm - 3:00 am §640 +2 Mechanical
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
8 Family Friends
Counterfeiter 9:00 pm - 3:00 am §760 +3 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Smuggler 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §900 +1 Cooking
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Criminal 6:00 pm - 12:00 am §1100 --
Mastermind
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 5
Charisma -- 7
Body -- 6
Logic -- 4
Creativity -- 8
Medicine:
Medical Technician 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §200 --
Paramedic 11:00 pm - 5:00 am §275 +2 Mechanical
Nurse 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §340 +2 Body
2 Family Friends
Intern 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §410 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Resident 9:00 pm - 4:00 am §480 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
4 Family Friends
GP 10:00 am - 6:00 pm §550 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Specialist 10:00 pm - 4:00 am §625 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
7 Family Friends
Surgeon 10:00 pm - 4:00 am §700 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Medical Researcher 9:00 pm - 4:00 am §775 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Chief of Hospital 9:00 pm - 4:00 am §850 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 6
Charisma -- 6
Body -- 7
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 4
Military:
Recruit 6:00 am - 12:00 pm §250 --
Elite Forces 7:00 am - 1:00 pm §325 +2 Body
Drill Instructor 8:00 am - 2:00 pm §350 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
Junior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §450 +1 Cooking
+2 Body
Counter-Intell. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §500 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
1 Family Friend
Flight Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §550 +1 Mechanical
+1 Body
+2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Senior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §580 +3 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+2 Logic
5 Family Friends
Commander 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §600 +3 Mechanical
+3 Body
+1 Logic
6 Family Friends
Astronaut 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §625 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+2 Body
+3 Logic
8 Family Friends
General 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §650 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 1
Mechanical -- 10
Charisma -- 7
Body -- 10
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 0
Pro Athlete:
Team Mascot 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm §110 --
Minor Leaguer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §170 +2 Body
Rookie 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §230 +3 Body
1 Family Friend
Starter 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §300 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
3 Family Friends
All-Star 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §385 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
5 Family Friends
MVP 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §510 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
7 Family Friends
Superstar 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §680 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Assistant Coach 9:00 am - 2:00 pm §850 +1 Cooking
+2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Coach 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §1000 +1 Cooking
+3 Charisma
+1 Creativity
13 Family Friend
Hall of Famer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §1300 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 4
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 9
Body -- 10
Logic -- 0
Creativity -- 3
Science:
Test Subject 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §155 --
Lab Assistant 11:00 pm - 5:00 am §230 +2 Logic
Field Researcher 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §320 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
1 Family Friend
Science Teacher 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §375 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
3 Family Friends
Project Leader 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §450 +2 Mechanical
+2 Creativity
4 Family Friends
Inventor 10:00 am - 7:00 pm §540 +2 Mechanical
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Scholar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm §640 +1 Cooking
+2 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
7 Family Friends
Top Secret 10:00 am - 3:00 pm §740 +1 Mechanical
Researcher +2 Logic
+3 Creativity
8 Family Friends
Theorist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm §870 +1 Cooking
+1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+3 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Mad Scientist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm §1000 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 8
Charisma -- 5
Body -- 0
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 10
Xtreme:
Daredevil 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §175 --
Bungee Jump Inst. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §250 +2 Body
1 Family Friend
Whitewater Guide 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §325 +1 Mechanical
+2 Body
2 Family Friends
Xtreme Circuit 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §400 +1 Cooking
Pro +1 Mechanical
+1 Logic
3 Family Friends
Bush Pilot 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §475 +2 Mechanical
+2 Body
4 Family Friends
Mountain Climber 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §550 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+3 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Photo-Journalist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §650 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
7 Family Friends
Treasure Hunter 10:00 am - 5:00 pm §725 +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+3 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Grand Prix Driver 10:00 am - 4:00 pm §825 +1 Cooking
+3 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
11 Family Friend
International Spy 11:00 am - 5:00 pm §925 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 6
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 8
Logic -- 6
Creativity -- 9
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1.1 Livin' Large Careers (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This list isn't finished yet. As it stands, only the Paranormal career is
filled in. All the others are started, but it will take some time to
complete this chart. When it is completed, I will also add the appropriate
information to the next section (Alternate Job Charts) as well.
Hacker Career:
Beta Tester 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §120 --
Support Tech 8:00 am - 4:00 pm §150 +2 Mechanical
Web Master 6:00 pm - 2:00 am §200 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
Hacker 12:00 am - 9:00 am §240 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
2 Friends
Security 10:00 am - 7:00 pm §400 +4 Creativity
Consultant 3 Friends
Game Designer 2:00 pm - 11:00 pm §610 +2 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
5 Friends
Internet 10:00 am - 8:00 pm §800 +2 Charisma
Entrepreneur +2 Logic
+1 Creativity
6 Friends
Software CEO 10:00 am - 7:00 pm §1100 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
8 Friends
Venture 11:00 am - 8:00 pm §1300 +2 Mechanical
Capitalist +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
8 Friends
Information 11:00 am - 8:00 pm §1550 --
Overlord
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 7
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 0
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 10
I realize that the above chart isn't the most user friendly of charts
(although it looks fine to me) and I realize that it does have an annoying
flaw in it. So here are some Different Styles of charts that contain roughly
the same information.
Most of these charts compare all the jobs, rather than show you all the
information for a particular career path. (since that information can be
found in the previous section)
The Money Chart Comparison: (allows you to simply compare Pay of each job at
each level, Sorted by Final Pay)
Note: This is just another way of deciding which job ends out being the
best. You can see that Science and Entertainer are incredibly
good, Science being only 4 hours a day (from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm)
and Entertainer bringing in the most total money.
Final Stats: (this is for the 10th level only! Sorted from the Career that
requires the least stats, to the one with the most)
Note: The lower the total here, the better, as that means that it takes
less time to get to the 10th level in that Career.
Marcel VanDalfsen has a few charts of his own:
When I was looking through the alternate job charts (sec 6.1.2),
specifically at the final skills chart, I realized another way of
sorting the data. -> the amount of time to build those skills.
This does not depend linearly on the skill levels! (eg. it is
quicker to build four skills to lvl 3, than to build two skills
to lvl 5).
The amount of time it takes to build any particular skill is:
T = 0.5*(n)*(n+1) [with T in sim-hours]
that is:
skill time skill time skill time
0 0 4 10 8 36
1 1 5 15 9 45
2 3 6 21 10 55
3 6 7 28
These numbers of course don't take into account trait/skill
accelerators (eg. outgoing -> charisma)
So, if the level 10 careers are then sorted by this category
(excluding friends category of course) in order of # of sims-hours
to build those skills:
Politics : 103
Business : 108
Crime : 113
*Slacker : 115
Athlete : 119
Medicine : 125
Law Enf. : 130
*Paranormal : 134
*Journalist : 142
Entertain. : 149
Xtreme : 162
Science : 164
*Musician : 171
*Hacker : 174
Military : 184
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2 Abusing the Carpool
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have an alarm, it will go off 2 hours before the Carpool is going to
arrives to pick you up. The carpool itself arrives an hour before your shift
at work is actually set to begin. This is a fact that we can abuse!
You don't need to get into the carpool until it is just about ready to leave.
In fact, if you are even on your way just before your shift begins, the
carpool will wait for you! So, if you get into the carpool the second it
arrives, you are essentially losing ONE WHOLE HOUR of time that you could
be spending doing something constructive, like eating, or playing chess to
get that last logic point for that promotion.
In other words, don't leave for work until the last possible moment!
This gives you essentially 3 hours between when the alarm gets you up, and
when you get to work. It also makes my earlier idea of not using an alarm
clock a little more realistic. Even if you get up a little late, you'll
still have time to use the toilet, shower, and probably eat as well. Then
spend the rest of the time fulfilling other needs (such as Fun and Comfort by
watching TV) or by building Skills. Or do both and play Chess.
GamemaniaX sent me this:
"EXPANDED CARPOOL ABUSE (BUG?!)
I think this bug is similar to the carpool bug written in your faqs. I got
2 sims. SimA got an 9:00 AM carpool and SimB got an 10:00 AM carpool. I
was busy working on SimA with his hunger and bath. When I finished all
that, I realized that SimA is already late for work (10:03)! The funny
thing is, the car still didn't move a bit! Probably the 10:00 AM
carpool is "stacking" into the 9:00 AM carpool. Stragely enough, I put SimA
into the car. It works! Yet the car still isn't moving. I began working
on SimB and put her into the car to work. And, finally the car take both
Sims to work! This is excellent considering that SimA now got an extra 1
hour to fiddle with before going to work!
"The side effects I noticed from this bug is that it effects your Sims work
performace. Even though I got level 4 mood, the game still stated that I
only got an average performace for my work. Probably because the game
thought that the Sims didn't go to work since he already missed the
carpool. Also, I didn't got promoted even I have fulfilled all necessary
requirements for promotion. HOWEVER, this can be neutralized if
you take your "late" Sims to work ON TIME the next following day."
broadstrong had this to add:
Note: When the "stacking of carpools" occurs, the carpool for the later
time (10AM) will not come, maybe because the earlier (9AM) carpool
had not left! So the player MUST direct the Sims (in the later
carpool) to work. However, for this stacking to work, at least one
person for the earlier carpool must get in before the time is up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2.1 Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool no less!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the other Sims have jobs, just like your current Sims do. You
probably know what these jobs are, as you probably gave them to these other
Sims. Well, during the day they are probably at work, so if you were to call
them, you would get the Machine telling you that they are at work. The usual
solution to this problem is to simply call them after they get off work.
But another idea is to call them as soon as you get up.
The brilliance of this idea is even more evident when playing as a bachelor.
Your Sim gets up in the morning, goes to work, then has a little bit of time
to socialize, gain skills, and keep up with his own needs. Well, what we CAN
do is to help him out by starting socializing in the morning. He gets up,
calls someone, then continues getting ready. He Greets the guest Sim, then
Serves Breakfast. While they are both eating, then both socialize. After
eating your Sim could watch TV with the other Sim, or maybe they could just
talk.
Since we have about 3 hours to work with (due to the last strategy, Abuse the
Carpool), your Sim have plenty of time to improve his relationships!
broadstrong had this idea:
My Sim has a 8 AM carpool. On one day, the family invited a guest (whom I
know has a 9 AM carpool) over. Well he was at the doorstep before 9 AM.
Now the funny thing -- The time was already 9.03AM, but the 8 AM carpool
is still there! Probably it "noticed" the guest with the 9 AM carpool and
"decided" to wait for him to get in. With this trick, my Sim has one more
hour to catch the carpool! This is another reason to invite guests over
early in the morning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.3 Quitting for Fun and Profit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a neat little idea to try if you are sick of your job. Assuming that
you have fairly high skills, your Sim would find it pretty easy to jump up a
new career ladder, right? And at each promotion level your Sim is given a
Promotion Bonus which is equal to 2x the time of the salary that they are
being promoted to. That is key.
So say, your Sim, Bob, is a Superstar in the Entertainment track. There is
no hope for him to ever get promoted since he is at the Apex of his career.
Well why not start over? Since Bob already has a lot of stats from getting
this high in the first place, he will JUMP rather quickly up several other
career ladders!
Ideally if you could get him back into Entertainment, he would rise very
quickly.
And at every single promotion you get your Promotion Bonus. And if you chose
a new Career wisely (similar stats), you could get promoted EVERY DAY. Quite
the bonus!
After reading the bit in your FAQ about "job hopping", I decided to find out
exactly how much you benefit from it. (as well as some other misc. stats)
I created a spreadsheet and got data for going from lvl 1-8 and 1-10, as
well as allowing you to specify how often you get promoted.
How often you can get promoted turns out to be the most important factor. In
the Military track, if you get promoted every day, you more than triple your
earnings if you go all the way to lvl 10. ( for a daily avg of 1952.00 ) If
you only get promoted every other day, the benefits are significantly less.
The most realistic timeframe is probably 2 promotions every 3 days.
Given the 2/3 promotion rate:
Military benefits the most (not quite double), and Entertainment actually
loses 80 per day. (for lvl 10)
For the most part, the higher the lvl 10 pay is, the less you gain.
These charts show the number of friends required for lvl 8 and 10 of each
career, the average daily pay for lvl 8 and 10, and the benefit recived for
restarting the career as opposed to just staying at lvl 8 or lvl 10. The
second column in the daily average shows how much you earn per friend that
you must maintain.
1 day avg pay
( 3(sum of lvl 1-Y pay) + ((sum of lvl 1-Y pay)/Y)(((days for promotion)-1)*Y)
=
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Y*(days for promotion)
promoted 1 out of 2 days Career
# friends 1 day avg 8 1 day avg 10 Benefit
This section is from RD Saunders and Joseph Peitler (Livin' Large jobs)
I found that after reaching the top position of each career choice you are
able to be transfered to a new career (most of the time to a 5,6,7 ranked
job). I found it is possible to go in circles and end up in the same job
again with all the bonuses and going therough all the careers.
I made this to show the circle or careers. It shows the starting job and
career and why your sims changes (the reason or excuse given) and the new job
and career of your sim.
- Medicine Chief of Hospital -> (your advanced medical knowledge)
-> Inventor, Science
- Crime Criminal Mastermind -> (want to become a clean businessman)
-> Executive, Business
- Business Business Tycoon -> (your burnt out at the top)
-> All Star, Athlete
- Athlete Hall of Famer -> (you've finished with your career)
-> Mountain Climber, XTreme
- XTreme International Spy -> (your intelligence)
-> Counter-Intelligence, Military
- Military General -> (military downsising)
-> SWAT Team Leader, Law Enforcement
- Law Enf. Captain Hero -> (you start to captain hero TV show)
-> TV star, Entertainer
- Entertainer Superstar -> (want to do something with your fame)
-> Congressperson, Politics
- Politics Mayor -> (a scandal forces you to resign)
-> Intern, Medicene
- Musician Celebrity Activist -> Getting in touch with your inner self
-> Medium, Paranormal
- Hacker Information Overload-> Your infomation is inaccurate
-> Newspaper Reporter, Journalism
- Journalism Talk show host -> Need to "stop and smell the Roses"
-> Freelance Photographer, Slacker
- Paranormal Cult Leader -> Want a jobs with less exposure.
-> Jr. Executive, Business
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Running an Efficient Household
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most difficult aspect of the Sims is managing all your Sim's time. Since
each Sim has only 24 hours in the day, 8 major needs, promotions,
socializing, and whatnot, you have to be fairly efficient in how you do
things. It should be noted that the Sims themselves are not especially
efficient in how they decide to do things. A Sim who has a nearly Red
bladder Need, may sit down to read a book, when his Fun need is still mostly
Green.
Generally you want to fulfill your Sims' needs on a Need basis. Whichever
they need most, you have them do first. There are, of course, many
exceptions.
For example, you should use the toilet after eating, not before. You should
shower after using the toilet.
Anyway, since I advised you to create two Sims, I'll do a rundown of how
their first few mornings should go:
I'll call the two Sims, Worker, and Homer. When you first appear at your
house, you'll already have a Newspaper, and another one will be coming
along at 9:00 AM. Have Worker look for a job, and if you want to, take it.
If it is still before 8:00 AM, the car pool will be picking Worker up at
that time (assuming you didn't take a night job). Send Worker off to work.
Now Homer will be home alone. Have him Study up on Cooking so that he can
fix a feast when Worker comes home. One or two points here is all you need
(although you should keep at this until you have all the points!). Now
your neighbors are going to start dropping by. Cancel the Cooking Lessons,
and go out to greet them. Once greeted, the neighbor becomes a Guest in
your house, and will eat food if you have already prepared it, watch your
TV (if it's already on), etc. This neighbor should be very chatty, so just
let your Sims talk for a bit. At this point, it is more important to greet
new Sims, than to work up relationships with Sims already there, so if
someone new comes to the door, go greet them.
Note: If you have two or more Sims around when other Sims come to the
door, make sure that ALL of your Sims have talked to the new Sim
at least once. This is most important if you ever take control
of the other Sims' house, and need to get him some friends.
In the early days of your neighborhood, there won't be that many people for
you to socialize with, so you will have to start new families soon.
Worker comes home, and watches TV to get his fun rating up. While he is
doing that, Homer Serves Dinner (always do Serve Dinner! It costs only 2x
as much as "Have Dinner" and feeds 6!), and then the two sit around the
table eating and chatting. Also any guests in the house will eat with you,
and Socialize as well.
Note: Although they are talking here, their relationships only improve
by a mere point or two.
After dinner, Worker goes to improve some Stat to help get promoted, while
Homer talks to the Guest Sims. Before going to sleep, both Sims go to the
bathroom.
The next morning, Homer gets up at 5:00 AM to Serve Breakfast. Worker
stays in bed until his Energy rating is all the way back up, and as soon as
it is he jumps out of bed, and goes to take a shower, eat breakfast, and
maybe watch some TV before the Carpool arrives.
Note: The 5:00 AM breakfast gives your stay at home Sim plenty of time
to prepare the breakfast so that it is ready for the other Sim(s)
when they get up. Since the first Sim isn't going to work, he
doesn't need to worry about lack of energy. What I did usually is
let the game run on fast mode (speed level 3) until 5 AM, then I
paused it (press either 'p' or the key left of the 1 button),
clicked on the Sleep icon to cancel it (top left corner), and
click on the Fridge and Serve Breakfast. I wake up most Sims like
this. Pause, then order them to do something, then unpause for
them to do it.
Of course, if you simply give a sleeping Sim something to do,
then they'll wake up automatically and do it (as soon as they
feel "rested" of course).
Once Worker is at work, Homer takes a shower, goes to the bathroom, and
fulfills his needs. Once that's done he picks up that Cooking book and
works on that for awhile, hoping that some new neighbors might drop by. If
they don't, he picks up the phone and calls the Sim who is close to
becoming a Family Friend. That Sim comes over (or blows you off with an
excuse), the two chat for a bit, and the Guest Sim smelling food, goes over
and eats some breakfast. Homer joins him.
Note: Since Homer got up early, he might need a nap. Usually I would
wait for my working Sims to get home before sending my Stay At
Home to sleep, then I would get that Sim up in time to fix dinner
and Socialize some more with the neighbors.
They continue socializing until you get a new Family Friend. At this
point, keep going until the relationship is at 100. At some point here,
Homer is going to need to clean up the table, and get rid of what remains
of the breakfast (it has undoubtedly spoiled by now).
Worker comes home and studies some more for a promotion. Homer takes a
small nap, and gets up to make dinner. The two Sims (three if you still
have a guest) eat and talk. After dinner everyone watches TV and talks.
Finally everyone goes to sleep.
That was just a sample of how to run things efficiently. It featured a
staggered approach to getting ready in the mornings, one Sim got up at 5, the
other a little later. The first Sim made breakfast, while the other did some
things in the bathroom. This is also how you do things when you get more
Sims (although you will probably need to build a second bathroom).
Remember, you aren't just fulfilling Needs, you're also advancing these Sims
in their lives. Work on Stats for promotion, have them practice speeches in
front of the bathroom mirror, or play chess to work on their logic. (chess is
also Fun) Bear in mind that Sims will work on their Stats forever if you let
them, so keep an eye on their Needs, and cut short their Statbuilding if they
need to go to the bathroom or something.
Also keep in mind that you CAN hire Maids, Gardeners, and even call for a
Pizza if you want to. These services cost you a little (Maids are §10 an
hour), but they can help out if you are getting overwhelmed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1 Working the Pause
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part of running an efficient household is to know when to pause the game. If
you were to watch me playing The Sims, you would see that I pause the game a
lot. And unless you're playing just one Sim, you are going to need to pause
quite a bit.
Here are the basics of when to pause and how often to pause your game.
- Pause Whenever you need to decide what your Sims are going to do.
This is fairly simple. While you are thinking of what your Sims should be
doing, you should pause the game. Once paused, you can look around at all
their various stats, moods, and whatnot, and decide what would be the best
thing for them to do right then. Ex. Your Sim comes home from work, you
pause it to think of what he should do first.
Note: Don't just give your Sim ONE thing to do, give him several. He will
then simply go from one activity to another. For example, have him
use the toilet, then take a shower, then serve dinner.
- Pause in Social Interactions
There are two really good times to do this. The first is when you are just
starting out with another Sim to avoid them doing something that your Sim
won't like (such as them trying to Hug you, and your Sim rejecting them,
that will drop your relationship, so you need to cancel it). So, I will
simply pause after they finish what they are doing, then have them do
something SAFE (such as talk). The other time this comes in handy is when
you are carrying on an affair, you will want to pause to make sure they
don't kiss you while the wife is around.
This all has to do with TIME EFFICIENCY. Since your Sims never seem to have
enough hours in the day to do everything they need to do, those precious
moments they lose while you are deciding what they should do are costly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Expanding the House
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well your Sims are doing quite well, you have gotten some promotions, you
have a bit of money now, and you want to spruce up your house. Who can blame
you? The first thing you should probably do is to replace your
Not-Top-Of-The-Line kitchen appliances with better ones. Get rid of the
cheap Fridge and Range for more expensive versions. These help satisfy your
Sims hunger better. Generally you will want to replace your cheap crap with
expensive stuff. Don't go overboard and spend all your money at once (you
might have to pay bills, or something).
If you succeed in getting someone to Move In or Marry you, then you have to
find a place for them to sleep, which may mean expanding the entire house (or
could just mean replacing a Spartan Bed with a Two Person Bed). But as the
game goes on, you definitely need to expand the house.
Here's the house as I designed it earlier:
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
And here are a couple improvement Ideas:
Idea 1: Mega Bedroom
----------------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
Idea 2: Mega Bedroom, Move Bathroom, Add Den
----------------------
| Bedroom | Key:
| --------- |
| | Bath | | e - Door -- - wall
| e room e | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| | | |
---e------e-----e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Den | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| | | Note: The Den would have a Desk for
| Living |-------- a computer, as well as
| Room | a Piano, etc.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
And, of course, you could always build some stairs and add a second level.
Remember on the second level that people can't go up there until there is a
floor. And you can only build walls out one square past the walls on the
first story. Whatever else you stick on the second story, I would definitely
place a bathroom.
Also as I previously mentioned, a great deal of expanding your house is to
replace your old furniture and objects with bigger shinier models.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1 Building that Second Story
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There isn't all that much to building a second story. As long as you can
fit those stairs in your house somewhere, you can build the second story.
Once the stairs are built, switch to the Second Story view. Notice how there
is nothing here, but the area directly above the walled area is marked. That
is where you can build. The buildable area extends out one square from the
first story's wall, in case you want to build out a little.
You will probably just want to build your walls directly above the first
story's walls. Make sure to wallpaper the outside and inside. Decide what
you are going to do with this story, and build interior walls appropriately.
Tip: I would recommend building a bathroom upstairs, at least. This way,
anyone up there won't have to come down to use the facilities, and
it gives you another bathroom in case the first gets "busy".
Note: If you want to build out a balcony that isn't directly above an
already walled area, there are two ways to do it. The first is the
standard Balcony idea (see 8.1.2) and the second is the "Flying"
Balcony Idea. (see 8.1.1)
To finish the second story, make sure to build a flooring. Without a floor
no one can go up there!
Note: For walls, fences and barricades (on the second storey) above the
staircase, these can only be built from the third square (counting
from the staircase landing on the second storey) onwards.
(broadstrong)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on a strategy from http://thesims.xtremesims.com/ (David Phillips)
There is a way around the "Pillar Limitation" as discussed in the previous
section. Here is what we're going to do. Say you want to build out a
true balcony, one that doesn't have any first story rooms below it. The only
way (until now) to do this was to build a Pillar under every square that you
wanted to build on.
First, do what you would normally do to build a balcony. That is, place a
pillar everywhere you want to build on. Then build the second story room,
floor, walls, whatever. Just make sure that it is finished. Now go back to
the first story, and DELETE all the pillars.
You will now have a True Balcony! If you want, you can leave a pillar or two
for aesthetic reasons.
You can even do this without having a First Story, so that you have nothing
but stairs down there, then a fully "flying" second story. It's great!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1.2 The Balcony
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following correction comes from Christopher Scatliff:
When building a balcony, you don't need to put pillars under *every* square.
Every pillar supports a 3x3 area, but these buildable floor squares don't
appear until there is a floor square next to them.
Therefore, your pillar pattern can be every 3rd square:
As you can see. those six pillars will support a balcony of area 6x9! But
that floor area won't become apparent until you actually put the balcony
floor in place.
Of course, you could just use the "flying balcony" strategy, too...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Babies and Children
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can start any family with children, but you can't start them with a baby.
There are only two ways to get a baby, lots of kissing of the passionate
sort, or Adoption. I'll deal with adoption first. The way adoption works is
that they will call you and ask if you want a baby. This can happen to
either gay couples or singles (as they can't produce children on their own).
You are given the choice of taking or rejecting it.
Note: Adoption can also happen to opposite sex couples (man-woman), but
isn't so common. (from Keri)
As for the natural method, simply have a guy kiss a girl a lot (or visa
versa, it doesn't matter who kisses whom) and the option will come up "Would
you like to have a baby?" No, you don't get to see them have sex. The baby
just appears, magically. The sex and personality are set at birth, you have
no control over that. You do get to name the baby, though.
Now that you have the baby, you have to take care of her for 3 days. 72
hours exactly from the moment you got her.
Tip: The best time to get a baby would probably be in the morning, as when
the baby becomes a Child, they have perfect Energy, and you don't
want perfect energy late at night. Not with school the next morning!
Tip: Children are a TAX CREDIT, which is a deduction in Bill Payments.
How much? About 10% off of Bills per child. So if your bills were
§310 before having a kid, after it will be about §279. (assuming you
haven't bought anything, nor had anything stolen/sold/broken, and
that depreciation was small/nonexistent)
Naturally the most you can get off is 70% (you can only get 7 kids,
you NEED at least one adult).
A baby is a huge responsibility. But you didn't need me to tell you that.
You have only 3 things you can do with the baby, Feed, Play and Sing (to
sleep). The baby will be resting quite comfortably when suddenly "WAH!" The
baby will cry out. Anyone sleeping in the area will be awakened (I'd
recommend sleeping ONE and only ONE person with the baby, and rotating who
gets to do it, so no one Sim loses too much Energy). Then you have to figure
out what the baby wants (impossible). Usually I would just do each option
once from Feed to Play to Sing. If that didn't put the baby to sleep, I'd
feed again and Sing again. That almost always works. If it does, the baby
will go back to sleep... only to wake up in a few hours bawling.
Note: If you fail to take proper care of the baby, she will be taken away
by the Social Workers. Shame on you!
As you can see, having someone home at all times is CRUCIAL here, not just
recommended. This is another place where it really helps to have left
someone home all along. But if you didn't, just have different people miss
work different days to care for the child. Sorry, there is no "day care" or
"baby sitter" for you to call. What I did, is I used my stay at home Sim to
care for the child until the first person got off work, then Sim 1 would go
to sleep and Sim 2 would take over tending over the baby. Make sure you have
something constructive to do while the child sleeps, so maybe you should move
the Chess set to the room that has the baby (or something like that).
After 3 full days, the baby goes *poof* and becomes a Child. Children can
sleep with any adult in the household, if you can't afford to buy her own
bed. Children have only one responsibility, and that is School. They have
to go everyday at 9 AM and come back everyday at 3 PM. Furthermore they have
to study to keep their grades up (you can study at any bookcase or computer).
Note: One side effect of good grades is that Grandparents can give money
for good grades. At the A+ level, I got §100.
At this point you probably should buy a Toybox for the child so she can play
with the toys. And as you can guess, they like to watch Cartoons on TV as
well.
Finally children can also Play with other children, where they will just
start running amok. And no, children never grow up.
When the female sings and plays with the baby, her fun bar goes up. It
has no effect whatsoever when the male does it.
This tip comes from Mark Hissett:
Have a baby when a few guests are over (just kiss a lot). The guests
will be able to play with the baby then. I find it easier that way,
because my sims are happy, and the guests are happy (usually). After a
day or so, it's much harder to get company over (me speaking that is),
because your sims aren't feeling so well rested, and the baby is only not
crying if its asleep. So it won't interact much with neighbors.
However, as said above, the little simkid will get a better chance at
outgoing points if neighbors are over at the time of birth. And they
all come in and clap too.
These tips come from broadstrong:
If a couple (man and woman) is eager to have a baby, can try this: the
Houseworking Sim call someone at 3 something (preferably 3 to 3.30 pm) to
invite someone over (make sure he agrees, or it may not work). The Working
Sim comes back from work at around 3 or 4 pm. When you know that the
invited guest is approaching (about 4.15 to 4.30 pm by then), the couple go
for a passionate kiss (prior to this, can also have Hug, Back Rub if player
wants)! If lucky enough, either there will be a phone call asking for
adoption, or one of them will ask for a baby. Click "Yes" and the baby,
crib and all, will appear! This worked for me 70% of the time and ALL the
babies in my neighbourhood come through this fashion, really! Wonder if it
is because that 4 something timeframe is a "magic" time for babies to
appear, or because visitors appear (get a baby to appear so there is more
difficulty in entertaining BOTH baby and visitor). I wonder if this will
work for other timing, though.
Note: In your FAQ, it was stated that adoption is less common in
man-woman couples. I beg to differ. For my neighbourhood, I get
more phone calls for adoption than someone asking for a baby.
Want to know if the baby is asleep? Here's a way: Once the Sim starts
putting the baby back, place the mouse cursor on the crib, and click once
(can also see the type of cursor). If further options (the Sim's face with
actions surrounding him) come up, this means the baby is awake! Be
prepared to tend to it further. If nothing comes up, the baby is asleep,
leaving his (or her) family members alone for 6 hours. Be warned, though.
I have seen babies crying BEFORE the 6 hours is up!
Apart from the fun of seeing the Sim playing with the baby, "Play" is
actually useless. The baby is awake throughout and the motives will drop
fast. Feed-Feed-Sing is a sure and fast way to care for the baby and let
it sleep. Of course, with sufficient time (and Mood!), one can try all
sorts of combinations and play with the baby as wanted.
Editor's Note: Actually the "Play" option does make a difference in how
your baby's personality will turn out. As of right now, I
don't have any stats on this, but I may get some in the
future.
broadstrong sent in an update:
An update to my "70% sure way of getting a baby":-
Seems like this trick won't work if the couple is kissing in any room other
than the first room from the front door (ie. living room). I wonder if
this still works if the first room is not a living room.
Where will the baby (crib and all) appear? For babies born by birth, they
will appear just beside the spot where the couple does the kissing. For
adopted babies, they will appear in the room where the phone call is being
picked up.
How to determine if the next baby is a boy or girl? Seems like this rule
prevails --- if there are more boys than girls, then the baby is a girl;
otherwise there will be a baby boy.
(Conclusion: The SimNation prefer boys.)
(P.S. It would be fun if there can be twins or even triplets.)
It was earlier reported from Joseph Peitler, that you could not move the Crib
once it had been placed. This was incorrect, you can move the Crib in either
furnish or build modes (F2 or F3). One thing to do with the Crib, to help
make sure that you baby isn't taken away by the County Social Workers, is to
move the Crib into whatever room your Sim happens to be in at the time.
(modified from a tip by Jordan Edmonson)
Note: Also, Joseph Peitler wrote that you can't move the baby crib. This
is not true. It's the same as if you're trying to move a bed: if
someone's sleeping in it, you can't move it. Also, if someone has
the bed in their queue bar and you try moving it, you can't. The
same goes with the baby crib. If the baby cradle is not in anyone's
queue bar, you can move the cradle by going to buy or build mode and
clicking on it. (from Keri)
Important: Have a Sim at home at ALL TIMES! This doesn't mean that you
have to have an unemployed Sim stay home, just make sure that
at least one Sim is home. If one comes home, the other one is
now free to go to work. What you might want to try is to have
(if you have 2 Sims) them go to work every other day, one day
the first stays home, then the next, the other stays home.
I think I have figured out how the baby personality points are
determined. I've experimented with 18 Sims babies. (Whew! What a lot of
sleepless Sims' nights!) I did this because my first Sims babies didn't
have personalities that seemed to relate to their parents. I wondered why.
Plus, I wondered why the children that the babies turned into rarely had
exactly 25 points. A few had less. Most had more than 25 points. I
didn't know why kids should have more than the 25 allowed for the parents.
Then suddenly, my babies-turned-to-kids' personalities started looking more
like their parents in the numbers. It took me a long time to figure out that
the program's algorithm for determining the baby's points must have changed
when LL was added. Luckily, my family albums told me when the babies were
born, and I had written down the date that I'd registered LL, so I knew when
it was installed. I could easily see the dividing line between pre-LL babies
and post-LL babies.
I experimented with Sims who had the reversed personality efffect and who
then ended up with 10 points for every trait. Their kids ended up with
identical personality points -- all 10's. I tried a couple with 0 in every
trait. (Those mean and nasty folks!) I would have expected a 0 in every
trait, yet the kid had a 5 for Playful. The baby had not been played with.
Then it dawned on me that kids were said to be playful in the manual --
because that's mostly what kids do is to play. And this meant that the
program wasn't going to produce a kid with a Playful score of less than 5.
Note: You can have a kid with less than 5 Playful, but this is possible
only with a User-created kid, who was never a baby.
This is the way I think the algorithm works. There seem to be only 3
possibilities for scores for each of the traits. Either the baby will match
the Mom, or it will match the Dad, or it will be a truncated average of the
two. So, for example, if Mom has a Neatness score of 3, and Dad has an 8,
then Baby can have only 3 possible results: 3, 8, or 5 (the truncated average
of 3 and 8). The baby cannot have any other scores inbetween, like a 4, 6,
or 7. This seemed strange until I started thinking how easy it would be to
write the program with only the three possibilities. (Select a random number
between 1 and 3, with the 3rd being the "average".) It would only have
taken a few more code lines to make the "in-between" scores possible, I
believe. But there was no reason to do so. This was variation enough. This
is the way that all the traits seem to be done, except for Playful. And
there, a 5 is added to the three possible numbers. If that results in being
greater than 10, then it just becomes a 10. And this explains why each baby
has a different total of points. Imagine the extra work for the computer to
keep trying the random possibilities until they added up to 25. In some
cases, it might have been impossible. So, it was easier to allow the kids as
many points as were necessary. My baby with the least points 21 is seemingly
not too different from the one with 37 -- just some little subtle
differences. I think the balance is what counts, not the total number of
points.
I had kept records of 17 babies, and this had proven true in every case. I
did an experimental baby, trying to be sure that the parents were quite
different, and seeing if there were any "inbetween" scores, and it didn't
happen on this 18th kid.
Here's how my experimental 18th kid went: ( I don't think I can do a chart in
e-mail, so will just put the points on a line.)
Mom: 3, 7, 5, 2, 8
Dad: 8, 2, 5, 3, 1
Baby... could have had:
Neat 3, 8 or 5 --- This time it was a 5. (Average)
Outgoing: 7, 2, or 4 -- This time it was a 4. (Average)
Active: 5, 5, or 5 -- And it was a 5! (A no-brainer for the computer!)
Playful: 2 (+5 extra), 3 (+5 extra), or 2 (+5 extra). It was a 7 (either
like Mom or average).
Nice: 8, 1, or 4. Turned out to be a 4. (Average)
Looking over my other Sims baby records, sometimes the baby took after only
one parent, but most times it was a combination of one trait like Dad, one
like Mom, one average, etc. I think that part had to be entirely random.
I think that all of these points are determined at the moment of birth. That
I say because I raised the same baby twice. I saved the program immediately
after naming the baby -- as fast as I could hit Enter for the name, and hit
Pause for the action. I went through the three days and then checked the
resulting child's personality points, recorded them, and then Quit without
saving. I started back up where I'd saved the program and raised the same
kid again. The results were identical in personality points, but not in
head/skin. I came to the conclusion that this meant that it was all "nature"
and not "nurture" that determined the points. Playing with the baby didn't
affect the results. It's nice for the emotional effect upon the game player
to watch the parent and siblings and friends playing with the baby, but it
doesn't change those baby points, according to what I could determine.
Also, it isn't exactly 72 hours for the baby to turn into a child. It's
close to 72 hours, but can vary at least as much as half an hour. I found
that the crying pattern of babies seemed different, even when I used the same
pattern of "Feed, sing, feed, sing" with them.
Apparently, the skills points assigned to the kids is just totally random.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.1 Children and School
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids have to go to school everyday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Skipping a day
will drop their Grade one whole letter (say from A to B, or from B+ to C+).
If the child Sim (or SimKid if you will) goes to school everyday in a good
mood, their grades will naturally increase. The other way to increase the
child's grades is to have them Study. They can study either on a computer or
with a book, it makes no difference. After a period of time, they will
increase their grades. This period of studying is small for the low grades,
and large for the high grades. It's therefore easier to improve from a D to
a C than it is from a B to an A.
Note: As I noted earlier, you can randomly get §100 gifts from
grandparents with an A+. Also with an A+ you don't have the option
to study anymore. What would be the point?
So what happens if you don't have good grades? Your Sim gets shipped off to
a military school! Plus your family has to pay §1000 for tuition (but
thankfully you only pay this once, and they never ever bother you again).
Tip: Therefore to get rid of any troublesome child (i.e. a lazy one), just
let his or her grades slip to an F, and away they go!
Apieper sent me this:
Regarding the section of kids and getting good grades... I always get $100
for good grades too. I don't think it goes higher, and I'm pretty sure it
only happens at the A+ level. And a friend of mine pointed out that
studying is optional. Attending school for one day raises your grade by
three points (from B- to A-, or from F to D+) and studying raises it one
point. So if you go to school every day you don't need to study. I think
it's important to add that children are far more likely to cause a mess in
the shower or tub than adults. (Ed. Note: Although "Messy" adult Sims will
make messes as well)
broadstrong sent me this:
Apieper's kid tip has an error. Attending school for one day (in a good
mood) raises only one grade point (B- to B, B+ to A- etc), so studying at
home do helps in grade increase, though it is quite time consuming.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.2 What Kids Do
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids are a lot like the Adult Sims, except for the fact that they don't have
jobs, and therefore don't need Skill Points. They also never need to gain
Friends as it doesn't help them any. (although a parent could use them as an
extra agent of socialization)
So, once a Kid gets up to an A+ and has satisfied all of her needs, what IS
she going to do?
Since you aren't trying to get them up the Career Ladder, and getting them
good grades is absurdly easy, I would just leave kids alone, and let their
free will take them where it will.
Tip: Two kids together will almost always start running around Playing
together. So if there are other kids in the neighborhood, call them
over. Or you could always have a second kid.
The following tips come from broadstrong:
It is much better to have kids later on than to create them in the Family
Screen. Kids (and adults too) created this way can use only 25 bars
maximum for personality. Kids born through adoption or birth have more
bars available (easily 30+ bars), so it is possible for these kids to have
8+ for two or even three of their personality bars. Too bad they can't
grow into adults.
Note: I don't think kids will get their personality from parents. For
my game, the Jones family (one of those available as Maxis
download) are outgoing but very inactive, yet their child (by
birth) is an introvert, but quite active.
"Play" is just about the best social interaction for kids; it increases Fun
and Social motives TO THE MAXIMUM; kids CONTINUE to play even when both
motives are full; ANY kid would accept to play, even serious kids; play
sufficiently long and relationship will really go up. They do need a large
enough amount of space to play, which can exclude some rooms.
Joseph Peitler sent me this:
Simkids are not a waste of space. They can make a lot of friends for your
sim family while adult sims are busy doing other things, such as cooking,
working on their skills, or sleeping after work. One thing I noticed is
that alarm clocks doesn't go off for the sleeping simkid. Is this a glitch
or has this happen to anyone else? Also, since simkid don't "love", they
can't go to the bathroom with another sim without being "shooed off" or
shooing them off.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Everything Else in the Neighborhood
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your house can be burglarized. During the night, the game will slow down to
the slow game speed, and a PIP will show the burglar coming your way. If you
have alarms, the second he enters the house, the police will be called. But
if he's clever, he'll just grab one thing and run, and may get away with it.
So if you see a burglar, here's something to try:
- Wake up your Sim.
- If possible, call the police BEFORE the burglar enters the house to get
the police here sooner.
- Now here's the fun part, since the burglar runs on the same pathfinding
algorithm as the rest of the Sims, you can "bump into" him, and he'll
stop cold. So if he's trying to go out the door, and you are in the
doorway, he'll have to stop and wait for you to move!
Note: Anything stolen by the thief can't be returned to you, but you do
get partial reimbursement from the Insurance Company. Plus if he
is captured you also get a §1000 reward!
Tip: Place burglar alarms on the OUTSIDE of your house, the burglar will
be caught before he has a chance to steal anything!
Joseph Peitler has this to add about Burlgers:
The more sims you have in your family house, the less chance your house
would likely be burglarize. One house had 8 sims and after 100 days, their
house was broken into only once. While the houses that had 1 to 3 sims got
broken into 3-4 times in less than 70 days.
broadstrong sent these tips:
Tip: Burglars come when everyone present in the house is sleeping, so they
come at night. But I had one instance where the burglar came in the
MORNING! (It should be noted that that time, the father was away to
work, the kids had left for school and the mother was still sleeping)
Tip: Burglars TEND TO plunder the less well-to-do households, perhaps
thinking that they could not afford the burglar alarm. My Valentino
(available as Maxis download) house never got burglarized so far
(about 20 days passed by) even though there are only Rudy and Julia
inside.
Sims who don't know their way around the kitchen, not only cut themselves or
burn themselves a lot while making a meal, may also cause a Fire to break
out. Once the fire has started, your alarm (if you have one) will go off.
If you don't have an alarm, call the Fire Dept. You can try to extinguish
the fire yourself, but ... you can die from the flames!
The character § can be typed by pressing and holding ALT, then on the number
pad pressing 0167. This is the character for "Simoleon" the monetary unit of
the Sims. If you want to see something bizarre, check out the Money bag on
the CD case, and on the instruction manual. You will see the symbol § on
both, but on the CD case, for some reason, it is backward!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.1 Death and Ghosts
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death can come to the Sims in a couple ways. One, they can starve to death.
This one is fairly easy to avoid, as when the Hunger bar gets low, it doesn't
deplete as fast, and even when it gets to completely red, your Sim won't die.
Give it a few days, and they will, however, so get them some food. The other
way for them to die is in a fire that they are either trying to extinguish,
or merely got caught in. Another way for them to die is to have them Drown
in your Swimming Pool. This occurs when they run out of energy in the Pool.
This can only happen if you remove the ladder out of the pool while they are
swimming, otherwise they'll just get out before they drown. When they die,
the Sims leave a Tombstone (you can readily see these by playing the Goth
household), and furthermore, they will HAUNT the living! So don't let the
Sims die.
Another way to kill a Sim would be to stick a fence (or a wall) around him,
and wait. I did this once, and it was rather depressing to watch as the
Sim first went Insane, then died of hunger.
Note: Ghost Sims (or SimGhosts if you will) usually do their haunting at
11 pm. It is random as to whether they will do it or not, but if
you have enough graves (see the Goth house) it will probably happen
every night!
Note: Where the Sim dies determines their "marker". If they die outside,
they leave a Tombstone, inside an Urn. The living members of your
household then have to "mourn" the marker for 24 hours. That is, of
course, after they have finished what they were already doing (so
they will watch TV until satisfied, then go mourn). After that you
can mourn at your leisure.
Death is one of the few ways to get rid of a Sim for Good. So, if you have
just plain too many Sims in your family, or you married a Bum or something...
Well you get the idea. Although this is HIGHLY amoral! (good thing morality
isn't a Need!)
Tip: One way to fortune is to marry a bachelor, take all their money, then
"bump them off". Two good ways to kill them, wall them up somewhere
and let nature take its course, or remove the ladder in a pool.
Bloodthirsty, but effective. Maybe you should even name your
murderous little Sim the "Black Widow" or something.
Well you've had your fun with the Ghost spooking your Sims, and now you want
rid of that Ghost. Well you can just sell their Tombstone/Urn for §5, or
destroy the house and they'll never pester you again. Or if you like the
ghost, but don't like the hauntings, you can just move your bedrooms to the
second story since Ghosts can't climb stairs (probably since they'd go right
THROUGH the stairs!).
Joseph Peitler had this to add:
Dead Sim Walking
It takes a lot longer to kill a sim by isolate and starve him off then it
is to drown him. On a full stomach, it takes 4-5 days for the hunger gauge
to reach zero and red and another 1-2 days for him to die from. It is even
longer if it is a visiting sim, although I don't know you can actually kill
a visiting sim that way (you can drown them). Drowning is quicker, by it
doesn't show any devatating effects like screaming or gurgling sounds the
way a starving sim before he dies. The most disturbing death of a sim is
from a flu by a GPV (Guinea Pig Virus), because even with energy and hunger
gauge at halfway, the sim could die when you least expect it.
It doesn't matter where a sim dies, if you move he's "death marker" outside,
it becomes a tombstone. Move it in a house, it's a urn. But suppose you
want the urn outdoor? Place the urn on any desk/table/counter (no end
table), then move the table out of the house.
Joseph Peitler has this to add:
The ghosts come out after every two days, after 11:00 PM (mostly
12AM-1AM) and go back around 6AM or sooner.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.2 Did you Know?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After 100 days of your Sim living in their house (to check how long they have
lived there, click on their money, and in the corner it will say "Days since
Move In"), you get the option of getting little messages about the people who
made this game. I have included only the first one here (there are a lot of
them!), the rest you'll have to see for yourself!
Will Wright -- Game Designer
Will first thought of "The Sims" shortly after the original SimCity. It
took this long for technology to catch up with Will's vision. In the
Maxis offices we have a mock-up design for the original idea of The Sims.
Though the technology is far more advanced, the actual game does not vary
much from this prototype. Will makes wicked Excel sheets, and likes to
zip around the Maxis offices on a bright red electric scooter.
Fun Fact: Will purchased a couple of real pink flamingo lawn ornaments
for the team so we could properly model both the complex 3D shape of the
birds and the physics and emotional algorithims needed for kicking them.
Joseph Peitler sent in a list of the other "Did you Know" people:
1. Will Wright
2. Rana Ryan
3. Jeff Charvat
4. Charles London
5. James (Jamie) Doornbos
6. Patrick Buechner
7. Chris Trottier
8. Luc Barthelet
9. Patrick J. Barrett
10. Eric "Bo Bo" Bowman
11. Don Hopkins
12. Trevor Perrin
13. Alex Zvenigorodsky
14. Robi Kauker
15. Eric "Chin" Chin
16. Eric "Irk" Hedman
17. Jami Becker
18. Michael "Mike" Lawson
19. Melissa Bachman
20. Timle Tourneau
21. Sean Baity
22. Paul Wilkinson
23. Roxy Wolosenko
24. Claire Curtain
25. Bob King
26. The Sims testing team-guided by Jami, Gabe, and Etienne
27. Jim Mackraz
The following Cheats come from http://www.gamewinners.com/
To bring up the Console to enter the Cheats into, press CTRL-SHIFT-C.
Warning: Try to avoid using the move_objects cheat to delete things like
mailboxes and carpools. If you delete a Mailbox, sure you can't
get bills, but it screws up the game (in mine Guest Sims could
arrive, but couldn't be greeted!!). Also if you delete the
carpool, you can't go to work. Ever.
Also, if you delete a Sim, they will revert to the state they
were in when you last saved it. So if you got a lot of Skills,
then delete your Sim, they'll lose all that.
I have an idea about how you could get your Mailbox/Carpool back
if you deleted them: Import a new house from somewhere (usually
http://www.thesims.com/) and install that into the game. That
should work. Or you could just uninstall the game then
reinstall.
I've divided the cheats into two categories, those that I KNOW work, and
those that probably don't.
Cheats that work:
- 1000 Simoleons (unpatched game version) klapaucius
- 1000 Simoleons (patched game version & Livin' Large) rosebud
- Create moat or streams water_tool
- Display personality and interests interests
- Move any object move_objects
Cheats that probably don't work:
- Add new family history stat to the current family hist_add
- Appends the route destination list to AllRoutes.txt
every time a route is found write_destlist
- Architecture tools automatically set the level as
needed auto_level
- Automatically import and load indicated FAM file import
- Automatically load indicated house, no questions
asked house
- Check and fix required lot objects prepare_lot
- Completely flush app to VM file when running Windows NT flush
- Crash game crash
- Create shrunk_text_#.bmp files shrink_text
- Create-a-character mode edit_char
- Draw all animation frames disabled draw_all_frames off
- Draw all animation frames enabled draw_all_frames on
- Draw colored dots at each person's origin draw_origins
- Dump entire memory to core_dump_[date:time].txt core_dump
- Dump selected person's most recent list of scored
interactions to a file dump_happy
- Dump selected person's motive contribution curve
to a file dump_mc
- Enable debug flag to show outcome choice dialogs
for social interactions debug_social
- End sim logging sim_log end
- Execute "file.cht" file as a list of cheats cht
- Floorable grid disabled draw_floorable off
- Floorable grid enabled draw_floorable on
- Force an assert for testing assert
- Log animations in the event log window log_animations
- Map editor disabled map_edit off
- Map editor enabled map_edit on
- No tutorial object generation when tutorial house
is loaded tutorial off
- Prevent web browser crashes browser_failsafe
- Preview animations disabled preview_anims off
- Preview animations enabled preview_anims on
- Programmer stats tile_info
- Quit game quit
- Read in behavior tuning constants from Tuning.txt #import
- Rebuilds entire control panel/UCP from scratch rebuild_cp
- Refresh the BMP_ resources for all people whose
IFF files are writable refresh_faces
- Rematch dependent textures and regenerate bitmaps
for all user characters refresh_textures
- Restore tutorial restore_tut
- Rotate camera rotation <0-3>
- Routing debug balloons disabled route_balloons off
- Routing debug balloons enabled route_balloons on
- Run series of random operations on unhoused families fam_test
- Save currently loaded house save
- Save family history file history
- Say "plugh" plugh
- Say "porntipsguzzardo" porntipsguzzardo
- Say "xyzzy" xyzzy
- Selected person's path displayed draw_routes on
- Selected person's path hidden draw_routes off
- Set event logging mask log_mask
- Set free thinking level autonomy <1-100>
- Set game speed sim_speed <-1000-1000>
- Set grass change value edit_grass :
Set grass growth grow_grass <0-150>, 150 is brown grass
- Set lot size lot_size
- Set maximum milliseconds to allow simulator sim_limit
- Set time of day (unpatched game version) set_hour <1-24>
- Set z offset for thought bubbles bubble_tweak
- Sets the neighborhood directory to the path
- Sets up the borders of the lot with non-editable
flag. Requires rotation lot_border
- Sets whether menu items appear for in use objects allow_inuse
- Show memory view window in debug builds of the game memview
- Start sim logging sim_log begin
- Swap the two house files and updates families
swap_houses
- Ticks disabled sweep off
- Ticks enabled sweep on
- Tile information displayed tile_info on
- Tile information hidden tile_info off
- Toggle allowing visitors to be controlled using
the keyboard visitor_control
- Toggle assets report report_assets
- Toggle automatic object reset feature auto_reset
- Toggle calls to PeekMessage within sim loop sim_peek
- Toggle camera mode cam_mode
- Toggle display of unavailable interactions in
person control menus all_menus
- Toggle music music
- Toggle object compression in save file obj_comp
- Toggle quaternion transformations quats
- Toggle sound log window sound_log
- Toggle sounds sound
- Toggle web page creation html
- Total reload of people skeletons, animations,
suits and skins reload_people
- Trigger sound event soundevent
- Write out an RTE file every time a route is found write_routes
- Write out behavior tuning constants to Tuning.txt #export
This was sent in by Nancy Beck:
I (actually, my son) found 2 quicker ways to make money with the cheat. One
is when you are typing all the !;!;! add a wrong symbol at the end and just
hold the enter key. It will come up saying no such cheat, but will still add
the money. Just back space over the wrong symbol at the end and enter to get
rid of the window. Another way is to type klapaucius; ; and just hold the
enter key...it too will add all the money.
This was sent in by Mandy Falco:
Another way to get a bunch of money - after typing the "klapaucius" cheat,
*do the "!;!;!;!;!;!;!" except fill up the command line until it starts
clicking at you (it should end on an "!".) Now copy what you typed and
hit enter. you should get around 130,000 simoleons. Since you copied it
now you just keep pasting in your new code and before you know it you
will have one simoleon short of 10 million. :)
This comes from broadstrong:
Water Tool Cheat: The water tool cheat works only in build mode. To remove
the water created with this, use Ctrl-click (just as other objects in Build
mode). Clicking any Build mode button disables the water tool.
____________
Easter Eggs:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
There is only one easter egg that I know of. Insert the game CD and let the
autoplay screen come up. Once it's up, click the Maxis logo in the lower
left of the window to open up a picture of Will Wright with Sims crawling
all over him. (from Mikey Griffiths)
And no, I haven't tested any of them, and therefore know very little about
them.
_______
Tricks:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
The old "Marry them for their Money" trick:
One way to get a bunch of money is to get the last person of a household to
marry into your family. Then they bring over all the money they had, plus
the money they got from selling their house. So, what you should do is to
simply create a Sim, put him in a cheap house (a Wall with a Phone will be
sufficient!) and then wait for your Family of Sims to come by. Once he has
met them, switch back to that Family and begin the process to get him (or
her) married into the family. You can do this as often as you want, until
your family is up to 8 members.
The old "Use it then return it" trick:
If you buy something, and decide that you don't really want it, then as
long as you get rid of it (in Furnish mode, click on it then press DEL) the
same day as you bought it, you'll get the full money back. Great for
getting rid of those impulse buys. Also useful if you want to buy a
computer for the purposes of Job Hunting, but don't need a computer just
yet.
The old "Use it while it's being repossessed" trick:
If you manage to use an object at the same time as it is being repossessed,
you will get money for that object, as if you had sold it. It sure beats
just LOSING the item!
The old "Job Switching" Trick:
Many career paths use similar skills. For example, both law enforcement,
and military require much the same thing (Crime as well). So if you want
to suddenly... switch careers you will be able to jump up another career
ladder quite easily! And at each promotion you will be given a Bonus...
You can see where I'm going with this. So switching careers MAY be quite
beneficial!
The following tricks come to us from Kyrre Aalerud:
1: A little trick to get rid of garbage: Throw the garbage-can away!
This actually works! If the garbage-can is new, then you will get §30
for it, and a new one costs the same!
2: Also, I couldn't find anything about getting rid of children...
I only know of this way: have them do lousy at school, or not go at
all. This will send them to military school and out of your hair.
Killing everyone in the neighborhood (for Sadists, I suppose) by Dan Vernon:
If you are a real sadist, and you want to kill off an entire Sim
neighbourhood, read this. For maximum effect, have a family of 8. Buy a
brand new lot, and build a house with a 3-4 tile gap all the way around it.
Build a swimming pool all around (use klapaucius if the money's getting
short) and put a diving boardgoing in (from pavement to pool) and a ladder
coming out (pool to front door). Get all your family inside and wait for
the neighbours to arrive... They'll dive in and come inside, socialize with
your Sims and then when they want to go home, attempt to leave.
This is where it gets fun! The neighbours will swim around until they've
run out of energy, and then, they will DROWN! Repeat until entire
neighbourhood dies (try all this after making a large neighbourhood that
went wrong). Then put all but one (an adult) of the house Sims into the
pool and sell the ladder! Watch them all drown and then, using the
move_objects cheat, move all the tombstones into the lonely Sims bedroom.
Then make a space for him to get out (to go to work) and wait for 11 pm!
There are sometimes several ghosts (it's very odd when they try to swim
underneath furniture!) in the night and they howl and wake up Sims (which
is the downside of this really....).
Empty Trash Can Trick, from Broadstrong:
When the trash can is full, empty it, then cancel the action. There will
be a pile of mess around the Sim. Click on the pile and select "Clean Up".
The Sim throws the trash back nito the trash can, but the trash can IS NOT
FULL! (or you could just try the Trick in the next section)
I always find it hard to juggle keeping my Sims happy, socializing, and
cleaning. Well, I solved the cleaning agenda, which made it a whole lot
easier for me to concentrate on the other aspects of the game. While in
purchase mode, you can pick up dishes. On the bottom of the screen it
says they can't be sold or deleted. Which is false. In order to dispose
of these nuisances in a timely fashion, simply pick it up, place it over
another object such as a plant or couch. Somewhere it cannot be placed
onto. Then simply hit the escape key while it's hovering over the object.
Bingo! Gone for good. It makes cleaning your house a snap, and it gives
you extra time to do whatever needs be.
Also, this trick works on bills too! Yes, you can hover them over other
objects, and hit escape, thus deleting your bills in the process. And
don't worry, they don't come back to haunt you. I've played for several
months without having paid a bill, and never had a thing repossessed!
I hope you can pass along this info. It's a terribly sneaky cheat, but
it makes things a whole lot easier. And please give credit, it you decide
to post it on your FAQ. Thank you, and if ya can give me an email, and
let me know if they worked as well for you as they have for me. Thanks.
Editor's Note: This Cheat does NOT work once Livin' Large is installed!
If you try to delete something with LL installed, the Bill
will simply reset to where you picked it up from. There
is still the 'move_objects on' method of deleting bills,
however.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.2 Paying only Every Other Bill
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found the following cheat at http://strategyshrine.gamereactor.net/
Paying the Bills
Simply keep a bill, unpaid, until the mail carrier delivers the next set.
When your flag is up (your mailbox being full of-- what else, more bills),
pay the first one (i.e., bring it out to the mailbox.) When you do this, the
newer bills disappear. Using this cheat, you will only have to pay every
other bill, instead of every one. (sent in by Jesper Thiesen)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.3 The Newbie Trick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, we all remember the Newbies, those crazy cats from the Tutorial. But
there is a really neat little trick that one can do with them, if one pays
attention.
Here's the crux of the trick:
While the tutorial is going, the Newbies Needs drop very very slowly. In
other words, you can safely ignore most everything and have them do
whatever you please. This works ONLY SO LONG AS THE TUTORIAL is running,
and stops once the tutorial does. So as soon as Betty Newbie pops in, do
no more of the tutorial.
But what will one do with these Newbies? Build their skills! And since
their Needs don't fall (well, not exactly, check the following NOTE), you can
build skills at the Ultra Speed to get them up to perfect skills.
Note: Although Needs don't drop on their own, they will drop if you start
exercising, or while at work. However, this drop is considerably
smaller than what one would experience by just normally standing
around the house, and can be eliminated quickly by a quick nap,
sleeping in a bed, or by Coffee/Espresso.
Using this trick, one can quickly get some Super Newbies!
Mandy Falco sent me this:
"When you are cheating the Newbie mode to max out all your skills be aware
that it takes about 24 sim hours for your sims to regain all their energy
back."
Oh sure, you COULD just delete the dishes (see the above trick), but suppose
you don't want to, there is a way to just do the dishes a little faster.
Mandy Falco sent me this:
"Washing dishes faster - as soon as your sim starts washing dishes tell
him to quit or make him do something else and the dishes disappear."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.5 Deleting your Characters, and resetting their Mood
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You may have noticed that any time you move your Sims into a new house, their
Mood is set at a default level, which has most Needs at full green, except
for a couple (such as Fun) which are only down a little. What use is this?
Well, first off, any time you move your Sims into a new house, their Mood
resets to the default level. So if you feel like getting full energy without
the work, just move them into a new house.
But there is an easier way. Before doing this, save your game (see the
warning below) Use the move_objects cheat, and go into the Furnish mode. Now
select your Sim, and press delete. Your Sim will be pulled out of the game.
Now go back to Live mode, and click on your Sim's portrait to bring her back.
Warning: Your Sim will essentially be loaded out of your last save game,
so all her stats will be what they were when you last saved it,
so before you delete your Sim, SAVE THE GAME!!
Now you have your stats back, and no time has passed! If you don't gain any
stats since you saved last, don't bother saving, it won't help you any.
Note: Relationships are not effected by this trick.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.6 How to Max out all the Personality Stats
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is from http://geocities.com/simdiscussion/index.html
How to create max stats and skills:
To max out skills, you need to do 2 things first, backup your Neighborhood
file and get a Hex Editor (I used Cygnus which I downloaded from
softseek.com). Now go into the Characters folder and there should be files
names userXXXXX (on a side note you can rearrange which families and houses
certain sims are in by altering these files, thus you can instantly move a
sim from one family to another), open a userXXXXX file in notepad and
scroll to the bottom, the name of the sim should be there somewhere, make
note of which sim is associated with which userXXXXX. Now open up your
Neighborhood file in the Hex Editor, use the find feature to locate
userXXXXX (whichever you want to alter) in the file, once you find it
select it and everything for a few lines after, making sure the selection
starts right before the 'u' in userXXXXX. Now cut this section out and
paste it into a new blank file, if you notice it counts of by tens on the
left: 00000000 00000010 00000020 ect.
Thus on row 2 (00000010) the sets of two characters are numbered 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F. Ok you need to alter pairs of these
to E8 03, and the pairs are
After you are finished altering the file insert it back into the
neighborhood file exactly where you took it out. Save the file and that's
about it.
There is an Editor that will do this for you, check out the Cheats section
above.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.7 Starting a Sim with random Job Stats
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's an odd trick to try. (modified from http://go.to/simuniverse/)
Create a new family at the neighborhood level. Now create a SimKid, choose
his stats, but don't bother with the skin, and click "Done" on the Kid. Now
click the Edit button for the Kid, and change him from a Kid to an Adult.
You can change the skin all you want, but I think that you can't change the
stats.
Now when you play this family, you have to click this Sim's portrait to make
him appear, and once he does, he will already have several Stats filled in
randomly. Mine had about 8 Charisma, 2 Cooking, etc. A neat little trick to
try!
Note: This Sim will also be considered to have a "job", but this job gives
you no money, so you probably will not want to keep it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.8 Speeding up your Sim
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is pretty much from broadstrong.
Here's how to Speed up/Slow Down a Sim: Holding the mouse pointer over a
CONTROLLED Sim speeds his movement. Holding it over an UNCONTROLLED Sim
slows him down.
And here are some strategies that utilize this trick:
a) Speed up the Sim to save time. This is especially crucial for
long-distance walking, getting to work on time, skills training (body
for example) or non-active Sims who seem to walk slower.
b) Slow down the Sim, not to waste time, but to help the other Sim get a
desired interaction (social or itemwise), avoid "jealousy" (and the
awful trumpet sound) and hence lowered Relationship scores, and more
importantly (for me), to avoid collisions of the Sims or blockage of
doorways.
c) Slow down the burglar so that he is captured before stealing anything!
Yes, I have tried it and it works (I must admit it is very cheap
though)!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.9 Better Personality through Chemistry (Livin' Large ONLY)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is also discussed in a TIP in the Chemistry Set section above.
The Chemistry Set has 8 distinct potions that can be created on it. Some
help you, some turn you into monsters, and the YELLOW one flips your Sim's
personality. This leads to one of the spiffiest new tricks in Livin' Large.
1.) Create a Sim, but give her NO PERSONALITY AT ALL. That's right, not one
point spent on anything. No nice, no neat, nothing!
2.) Move this Sim into a vacant lot/house, and buy a Chemistry Set. Now have
her [Make Potion] until she comes up with a Yellow potion. This could
take a LONG time. My Sim got 8 Logic points before making a Yellow
potion.
3.) Drink the Yellow potion, and your Sim will go from having NO PERSONALITY,
to have the ULTIMATE PERSONALITY. That's right, full 10's in every
category! Sweet!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.10 Sell the Rocket Explosion
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Alex Pinkney:
My friend Ben discovered a way to make huge amounts of money, taking next to
no time, and having fun at the same time.
Buy the fireworks, and launch a rocket. Wait until you can see the rocket
coming downwards. Go into buy mode and you can sell the rocket/explosion for
§2300!!! This method is guilt free because you don't even need to use the
move_objects cheat!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12. Customizing Your Game
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within these next couple of subsections are the various ways that you can
customize The Sims, including the Nude Patch. (heh)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.1 Changing the Radio Station Music
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changing the Radio Station Music: (from http://www.thesims.com/)
In case you were wondering, you CAN have the Sims listen to YOUR music,
rather than the default music. Go to:
C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Music\Stations
And you will see 4 folders: Rock, Country, Latin, and Classica (not
Classical, just Classica). Now place any MP3 or shortcut to an MP3 in
these folders and that song will play when they play the radio! And, no
you can't add new stations. You can, however, add as many songs as you
want to each station.
You can download Skins for your Sims (think different outfits and heads) at
almost any of the Websites listed below in the Final Words... section. If
you are interested in creating your own Skins, I would suggest this link:
http://www.simzonline.com/features/19990602/
Located at http://www.simzonline.com/ this feature is a comprehensive look at
how you can create your own skins. I would also recommend downloading
several other programs from http://www.thesims.com/, such as FaceLift and
SimShow.
There are other programs at the official site, which you may be interested
in.
broadstrong sent me this:
Besides the obvious skins in the game, these things are skins too, namely:-
(a) Blanket and milk bottle for the baby
(b) Costume for the toydoll (toydoll from the toybox)
(c) Paint for the toycar (toycar also from toybox)
(d) Wrapping Paper for the gift (under "Give Gift" option)
However, by default, all these are green.
Coasters (http://members.xoom.com/CoastersSims/) and
SIMply Dariene (http://members.xoom.com/baschdar1/simdex.html)
(two very good fan sites I recommend) have the customized skins for all
these stuff. (Latest: Coasters got more new stuff)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.2.1 The "Nude" Patch
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well somebody finally got around to getting around the pixellated censoring
that occurs whenever your Sim does something "naughty" (such as going to the
bathroom). It should be noted that this isn't anything great as Maxis never
really intended for the Sims to be seen in the buff, and therefore they
didn't put any detail into it.
All the instructions that you will need are in the ZIP file on that site.
What you do when you get it is to unzip it, and place the files in your SKINS
directory, which is probably something like:
C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\UserData\Skins
Note: This does NOT work for children, and furthermore, it is not anything
that would be considered "pornographic." In other words, you don't
really get to "see" anything.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.3 Setting up Multiple Neighborhoods
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I vaguely covered this in the FAQ for a few versions, and decided it needed
its own section.
There are actually two ways to do this. One is the Do-It-Yourself method,
and the other is the Download-A-Program method.
The first method is really simple. This is best done BEFORE you have done
any work on your neighborhood! In your Game Directory (which is probably
c:\program files\maxis\thesims\) is a directory called UserData. Right Click
on this, and select COPY. Now go back out to the Maxis directory, and do a
CTRL-V to paste (or click the Edit menu and choose Paste, also you can place
this directory anywhere). You now have a copy of your neighborhood. Now
rename the folder to UserData2 and move it back to TheSims directory. Now
to switch between neighborhoods, simply rename UserData to UserData1 and
UserData2 to UserData.
The second method is to download this program: (Neighborhood Watch)
and run it! This file is from http://www.simzonline.com/ a great site for
your Simming needs.
This method is NOT recommended for use if you have any of the Expansion
Packs. See the section above for Hot Date (or the Sims: Hot Date readme
file) for information on setting up more neighborhoods.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.4 Download Surprises (thanks to Joseph Peitler)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the list of all the current downloads: (http://www.thesims.com/)
Cuckoo Clock
Moose Head Decoration
5 New Skins
5 New Houses
Wall Lights
Slot Machine
Guinea Pig (Pet)
New Plants
New "Physical" Skins
"Elwood" Skin
MTV Skins (which includes "Elwood")
Topiaries (Hedge Animals and such)
Flowerbeds
Jukebox
The White House
Two New Trashcans
Glowing Flamingo Wall Light
AND
A complete Game upgrade to The Sims version 1.1!
What you may not know is that some of these downloads are not all that they
appear to be, some have Trojan Horses in them. No, not computer viruses that
could kill your computer, but rather they have other game effects that you
may not be aware of.
Here is a list of all the hidden effects that I know of: (some info here is
from broadstrong)
Slot Machine -- carries a mini-patch on it that fixes some bugs. If you
want to keep all of the cheats intact (such as the set_hour
cheat) then install this instead. It isn't as complete,
but should help. Also, has a hidden money cheat (or money
spinner, maybe). Play it when fun is low; there is a
greater chance to win! Great especially when the bid is
100 Simoleons.
Guinea Pig -- The worst one of all, this one carries with it the PLAGUE.
Literally, this Guinea Pig comes complete with a Virus.
There are two things that can make a Sim sick. One is when
you don't keep the cage clean and when the Sim plays with
it and gets bitten. Keeping the cage is easy, especially
if you have a maid, because she can clean it for you. If
your Sim gets bitten once when the cage is clean, it will
have no effect. However, if he gets bitten more than once,
even when the cage is clean, the Sims will get sick. The
more bites the Sim gets, the sooner he gets sick, the
longer the sickness remains and the more chances your Sim
will die. After bitten, the Sim might get sick around 1 or
2 days. However, if he comes accross a sick Sim and catches
it, he will get sick in less of a day. Especially if he got
bitten before then. In order to avoid all this don't buy
the guina pig, unless you are really tired of your Sims.
If you wish to buy it, here are a few warnings: keep
the cage clean and don't play with it so much. The more
you play with it, the more chances of getting bitten. If
the Sim does get sick, isolate him in room immediately,
so he won't walk around. (from Joseph Peitler)
One thing about the guinea pig -- the best (or maybe only)
time to play with it is when it is awake, otherwise it will
bite the Sim (but of course, which animal or human likes to
be awakened rudely?). (from broadstrong)
Moose Head -- This one isn't so bad. The antlers on the moose head will
"droop" depending on the total "family mood" of the house.
So if everyone is feeling bad, the anters will droop quite
a bit.
Cuckoo Clock -- it "cuckoos" at 12am, 6am, 12pm and 6 pm, waking up adults,
and only adults, in the room. Since it sounds at 6am,
it can be used as an alarm clock (but I never tried it
because I never used the alarm clock).
Party Balloons -- No doubt they will attract all your neighbours and start
a party, but as time goes, the balloons will burst, leaving
a pile of mess that brings the Room rating straight down,
and gives work for someone (maid or Sim) to do. But I see
from somewhere that the mess can be sold! Not confirmed
though.
Topiary/Coped Flowers -- The topiaries and coped flowers have a flower bed,
which may act as a pathblock. Sims bumping into it will
stop short and pause before moving on (just like Sims
bumping into other Sims). This is time-wasting and energy
zapping. (broadstrong)
Turkey Dinner -- Sims from all over the neighborhood flock to your house to
partake of the feast. Yet often, they ignore the turkey
and won't eat it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.5 Playing Without the Sims CD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are likely several very good reasons why you might want the Sims game
CD to be out. Maybe you don't like swapping in CD's all the time, or maybe
you are on a computer that doesn't have a CD-ROM (such as a laptop where you
have to swap devices in and out). I'm not here to judge!
Anyway, here's a site that offers a new Sims.exe for those of you who don't
want to have your game CD in all the time:
http://sgn.simgames.net/thesims/addons/ (link dead, no other links found)
Warning: If you use this "altered" EXE file, you will likely end out unable
to install Livin' Large properly. When you get Livin' Large you
will then have to uninstall the game, then reinstall it before
you can put in the Add-On.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.6 Creating your own Objects
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone wants to be able to create their own objects, maybe a new couch, or
a new fridge. An ultimate TV perhaps, that has more than 3 channels. Well,
there are a couple of Editors that allow just that.
Warning: These editors can cause havoc with your game! There have been
reports where objects created with these editors cause the game
to crash, burn and other nasty things. That said, enjoy!
The first Editor is Blueprint by Bil Simser:
http://www.simbabes.com/blueprint/
And the second Editor is SimTransmogrifier by Don Hopkins:
This is the only site I know of that has new Interface Graphics for The Sims
and Livin' Large. Not only does it have replacement graphics (to get rid
of that Blue interface), but it also has instructions on making your own
interfaces.
Also there are new start up screens for Livin' Large.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13. Known Bugs
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apieper sent me these:
Repairmen can't walk up or down hills to repair things, only to repossess
things. So if your entire house is elevated below or above the sidewalk (I
know one lot starts out like this, lot 2 I believe), and you call a
repairman, they will just stand in place for 8 hours, bill you, and leave.
If a sim "Sam" is watching TV on a couch, and another sim "Stanley " tries to
interact with them, then Stanley will simply stand in front of Sam waiting
for Sam to stop watching TV. However, Sam will be blocked from standing up,
because Stanley is standing in front of them. Even if you cancel Stanley's
"interact with Sam" action, Stanley won't be able to move. They will be
stuck doing nothing for a few hours - possibly missing work, or urinating on
themselves.
Similarly, if a Sim, "Escher" is painting and another sim "Dopey" is standing
behind him trying to interact with him, Dopey will block Escher again.
However, this time Escher will be able to stop painting, and he will occupy
the same square as Dopey, so that neither of them can move under any
condition. The only way to resolve this situation is to evict everyone in
the home.
Not done yet! If you have guests, and they are swimming in your pool, you
can't ask them to leave, or even to stop swimming. They will swim and swim
and swim, sometimes until they just climb out of the pool and collapse in
front of the pool ladder. If there are any sims in the swimming pool when the
pool ladder is blocked, they will all die.
If you have an angled wall on top of a carpet, you can't remove the carpet
without removing the wall.
Oh! And a HUGE glitch. If you delete any picture in a scrapbook, then the
caption for the picture is automatically overwritten.
So overall, the sims isn't a very glitchy game as long as you avoid having
houses with any hills, couches, chairs, paint sets, and don't use your photo
album.
_______________
The "Twins Bug"
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Catty Burton sent me this:
I've got something really weird to tell you, and hopefully we will be able to
solve this problem I have. I decided to have a baby, after having one
already. When the baby changes into a Sim kid, there are TWO of them!
Weird, but it gets stranger. One is a real person, that you can control and
make do things. But the other, acts like a guest and you can't make him do
anything or interact with him (nothing happens when I click on him). The
twins can even interact with each other, and the Friendships signs come up
(though the other twin isn't in the relationship bar). This has happened
almost every time I give birth to a baby (because I start back from a saved
game), is this a glitch? I'm going to experiment with this, see what happens
when the controlled sim is sent to military school or dies. I'll give you a
report on that. And this kid, he's a Cancer, but when he was born, he has
nothing on his personality. I mean nothing, no blue slots, and he is the
worst of every category. Isn't there some way you can use those 25
personality points?
Knowla sent me this:
Catty Burton was published on your faq (thanks for all the info by the way)
saying that she experienced having twins every time the sims had babies. I
had that problem too, it's always with the little wizard kids for my game.
Anyway all I had to do was evict the family from the house and when I moved
them back in, the two kids were re-loaded and became "as one" again. Be
careful though, because sometimes when you move the family out, and you
move back in the game automatically sells all your furniture and you have
to do that over again.
moonshine sent me this:
I also play The Sims and happen to have downloaded your Walkthrough. It was
the greatest! I wrote to you regarding one of the known bugs you featured
in the walkthrough, the one sent by Catty Burton. The same thing happened
with me: I was playing the Snooty Patooty family (downloaded from
http://www.thesims.com) and as I was painstakingly taking care of the baby,
the weirdest thing happened. A boy appeared on my front lawn, just before
the baby cradle turned into a boy, who happened to look exactly like the
one who appeared by the front lawn. The boy from the lawn behaved like a
guest, only I couldn't ask him to leave. I was able to control the other
Simkid though. Like Catty's case, the kid had no personality stats (nice,
playful, etc.). Since I read about it in your walkthough, I decided to
conduct an experiment of my own.
I walled-off the "guest Simkid" but I let the other one live on. The game
became annoying since the walled-off kid constantly tried to play and talk
with its twin. I had to cancel all his attempts since I was trying to get
rid of him. Then, I quit the game and restarted it again. The weirdest
thing happened! The walled-off Simkid and its twin somehow traded roles -
the walled-off Simkid was the one who could be controlled while the other
Simkid acted like a visitor. I decided to go out of the game again (always
saved it before quitting) and reload the game. This time, both traded roles
AND moods. The free Sim now had the all-red mood. I decided then to kill
off both of the Simkids...I made the free Simkid (this time he no longer
behaved like a guest) swim and removed the ladders afterwards. When he
drowned, the walled-off kid was still there! I decided, for the last time,
to save the game, exit it, then come back once more. At that point, the
walled-off Simkid had also disappeared.
And moonshine also sent this:
I downloaded a house from http://www.mallofthesims.com (from Seth
Nickerson's Olympian Architecture) -- it's a house for lot 3 (greek
estate). I was able to create a family and moved them in. While I was
playing my new family, some neighbors came by but since the house was a bit
too big, it took forever for my stay-home sim to get to the door and greet
the visiting Sim. Before I was able to do so, they have already left.
At 3PM, the working Sim and the kids came back from work and school and I
was startled that the carpool and school bus kept on honking their horns
(like how they are in the morning while waiting for the sims to catch their
rides). I paused my game and saw two of those sims who earlier visited the
house stuck at the edge of the lot. Eventually Jeff Pleasant moved to let
the carpool and school bus pass. I tried to greet the sims but for some
unexplanable reason, I couldn't. There came a point that the help screen
flashed the message Jeff Pleasant is hungry...is going home...but he just
wouldn't go away. Then out of nowhere, Montgomery Goth appears and my sim
was able to talk to him. When I asked him to leave, he said goodbye but
wasn't able to go home.
If you know anything about this (solution and stuff), please tell me about
it. I also heard that a friend of mine encountered the same problem (in
her game, 7 sims got stuck in the same place!) but I'm not sure if this
also happened in lot 3.
broadstrong had this to say about that:
How far was the house from the roadside pavement? If the house is VERY
NEAR (two squares or less, with pillars, fences etc in between),
visitors can get stuck even at the doorway or at pavements. Maximus
house (Maxis download) is one very fine example. That's why it is
better to leave three or four squares apart, and don't place too many
things at the frontside (basically, don't create a front porch unless
you have enough space for one).
broadstrong had more to say about the Twins Bug:
About the twin bug, I also encountered it! It happened in the Hatfield
house (another Maxis download).
That time, the crib was in the kids' bedroom, and Jeff Pleasant, an invited
guest, was nearing the doorstep. At 5 pm, after Billy Hatfield had fed the
baby and put her back into the crib (but I know the baby was not asleep), a
SimGirl appeared in the room! I could not recall if I saw twins, or
whether I paused the game before the "other twin" can appear, but I checked
that that SimGirl had NO BLUE BARS for personality (on seeing that, I felt
somewhat chilly)!
I reloaded the house (without saving), and this time the crib was in the
living room, no guest was invited, and by the time Billy fed the baby, it
was not yet 5 pm and he gets to sing to the baby. After singing, the
baby-to-kid animation went on as usual, and now the family has a normal kid
(except that she has no outgoing bars, but the bars were well distributed
in the other four personalities).
As said, there were three differences between these two cases:-
(1) The crib was in the living room the second time but it was in the
kids' bedroom (not the first room) initially.
(2) There were no guests, as opposed to Jeff Pleasant visiting.
(3) The baby was still awake when the "twin" appeared, but seems to be
well tended the secong time round.
I don't know if these differences matter in the appearing of the "twin",
but it can't be mere coincidence, can it? It also seems that playing with
the baby too often can lead to this, because "Play" leaves a lag time of an
hour or so before the baby cries (if it is effective).
Joseph Peitler sent me this:
Here are three glitches I recently saw:
This one is similar to the ones Aaron Pieper described, but not as bad.
Sim"Jim" was working out, while the visit sim "Tim" was walking towards him,
to speak to him. I cancelled Jim workout order, but not before Tim was
standing over him, blocking the workbench exit. You know the character
finishes his workout, his arms drops and he says "WHEW!" Well, Jim was doing
that 5 times before Tim moved away to a distance. He was a visitor, so I
couldn't control him at that time.
2. One of the floor lamps burned out, so I made my character call the
repairman. He came over, touch the lamp and got electrocuted. Thanks for
the patch, he didn't die (there is a joke in there, somewhere). He finish it
and went on as usual. It was funny seeing him light up like a Christmas
tree, though.
Eric Chapman had this to add:
"Hey, I was reading your FAQ and saw the note about the repairman being
electrocuted and not dying after the patch. Well, it happened to me
BEFORE I patched. And yes, he died. The photobook entry says "NPC
Repairman has been electrocuted" and now whenever I call for a
repairman, his ghost shows up! This is a GOOD thing! Why? Cause he can
still fix things just like before, but because he's a ghost, he can walk
through walls, people, whatever to get to the broken item. He just shows
up, makes a quick bee-line to the broken item, fixes it, and makes
another straight line through the walls and furniture back out. This
saves money too, if you have alot of repairs to do in a crowded house,
as less time is spent wandering around trying to get from point to
point."
3. I have 8 sims in a household. One works at night. Four starts work at 8,
the last three at 9. When 8 o'clock carpool arrived, the four got to work
with no problems and the work pictures showed up on their face photos. When
the 9 o'clock carpool arrived, the first one went at 9:30, the second one at
9:45. I had trouble getting the third one out of the swimming pool (It seems
that I had to click on the "get out" order before the "go to work" order,
because she kept swimming and swimming, ignoring the "go to work" order). By
the time she went towards the car, it was 10:10, the car went off. When that
happened, ALL OF THE SIX PEOPLE WHO WENT TO WORK MAGICALLY APPEARED IN THE
READING ROOM OF THE HOUSE WITH THEIR WORK PICTURES GONE. This is not the
first time it happened. It seems that whenever any one sim misses work, the
other sims who work the same or close to it job time, who is already at work
appears back home. This also happens to my other 2 sims in a different house
(in the bathroom, this time), but not as much as the 8. I got the version
1.1 patch when this happened. The bad news is those 6 sims won't get paid,
even though they went to work. If this happens again, I'll see if I can make
them miss work the next day to see if they get fired. See if I can make them
miss work twice and not get fired using this glitch.
An update to the glitch about 8 sims going to work and suddenly appearing
back in the house. This mostly happens when a sim is already in his work
clothes and misses his car pool. The car will stay there until around 10
minutes after the departure hour (even a bit longer if the sim is already on
the street and on command to "go to work"). Also, If the sim get delayed or
"bumped" into standing still, delaying him from going to the car, the car
will leave. If he still has the command, he will go to the street where the
car was and then disappears. Then, he will reappear back in the house in his
regular clothes, If he was wearing work clothes at that time.
This also happens if you sent your sims to work, then save within a "sim"
hour and went into another house, where they ask one of the working sims to
move in or purpose and he said yes. When you go back to the working sims'
house, you would find that all the working sims appear in a room except for
that one sim that moved out.
Mark Hissett sent me these:
Some possible bugs (I think). After a fire this one girl I had, she cleaned
some dirty dishes with flies. Next thing I know, she has flies circling
around her. Her hygiene bar is about 75% green, and they still don't come
off after a shower. I don't believe they ever did leave her.
In the buy or build modes, you can move dishes and such. If you take the
brownies someone has brought over (I am not sure if it works for all food
items) and place it under the fridge, it will actually go into the fridge,
when you move the fridge, the food moves with it. One problem this causes,
is that you can't make meals or anything. You can eat the food, as well as
take it out. It is quite the problem when 3 or 4 dishes are under there and
they have to wash them. One thing I am unsure of is if the food goes rotten.
I don't recall any flies in the fridge, but they dishes were not in there
long anyway. It would be cool if the food lasted that way. I will have to
see if it works for meals, so they last longer than 6 or 8 hours.
Headless Sims
This happened to me once, and apparantly happened so someone else as well
(Ashley Baker). What happened is I had Betty Newbie move in with another
one of my families, which already had someone with that head. Nothing
happened until I saved it, left, and came back later. Then her portrait
at the bottom of the screen was just black. No more picture of her, just
a black square.
This happened to Ashley as well, but with the Pleasants: "I have got the
'plesant' family (comes with the game), in a house. I don't know why, but
the 'man' (forgot his name) of the family has no head, when you choose the
family member, nor when you chose what house in the neighborhood screen. I
have not deleted anything from the skins folder. His head appears to be
normal, when 'playing' the game (when you can see all of the body, in the
main 'bit' of the game). Weird!"
Pathfinding Follies from broadstrong:
Sims will take routes with the least doors, so between a short-cut through
the house and a long way around the house (for example from backyard to
frontyard), the Sim will choose the latter! Also Sims rather prefer to walk
on pathways than bare grassland. Sims would rather walk in an L-shape manner
than to walk diagonally (but the diagonal route is shorter!). Both actions
can really waste a lot of time and energy.
As an illustration, Maximus house has a layout something like this (only
partially shown):-
------------
| |
| |
R | |
O | |
A | -d-----------
D | SSSS
|
D ROOM
|
-------------------------
Legend: D- main door (facing road)
d- door (not facing road),
SSSS- stairs
--- & | are walls
Note: Pavement all around the house
Q: If a visitor rings the bell at main door and a Maximus had gone down the
stairs, will he go to the main door directly through the room to greet the
visitor?
A: NO! (Surprised?)
The Maximus will go out from the other door (door d), and WALK ALONG THE
HOUSE (up-left-down in this case) to reach at main door and greet visitor
then (Visitor could have left by then).
I think it's because the Sim would rather walk on the pavement than on the
indoor floor.
Sims only care about the "best possible" path without caring if other Sims
are in the way. So to be safe, leave TWO squares (three for really paranoid
players) free around any object, structure (whatever thing) for walking, and
for objects that don't have social interaction, place them by the wall. Only
objects having social interaction (playhouse, pool table etc.) needs to be
placed in free space.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. Getting the Most from The Sims
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is devoted to getting more gameplay out of The Sims, an
excellent game, but one that people can get bored of after awhile. Why?
Because there's no way to win, and only so many things to do. But with a few
of these ideas, you'll be able to play this excellent game forever.
1. Don't cheat! Cheating takes out the challenge from the game, which
can drastically decrease the amount of long term enjoyment that you
will get from The Sims.
2. Do the complete opposite of what you normally do. If you created a
male Sim, create a female. If you did a Bachelor, do 3 or 4 Sims to
start with. Be creative in how you build your house. Make it a giant
Octagon with doors everywhere, or a triangle with no doors at all.
If you created an Outgoing Neat Sim, create an Active Nice Sim. Or
maybe you could try making the Old Coot Sim, who has NO STATS
WHATSOEVER! How's that for a challenge? Just TRY to have him make a
few friends!
The possiblities are endless, play around with it a little! Don't just
play to succeed, play for the fun of it.
3. Watch someone else play. Let your little sister try her hand at a the
game. Not only will you be watching virtual people, but you'll be
watching someone else watching virtual people! How existential is
that?
Then have your Sims interact with your Sisters seems and see how they
get along.
4. Don't play to succeed. Fail. Watch your Sims run around without your
supervision, see how far they get. Keep them unemployed and watch the
bills pile up. Let the Repo man come. Let your Sim die if you want,
just don't enjoy it or anything, that would be sadistic.
5. Don't cheat! Cheating is great when you just want to mess around, but
when you use it in order to buy the best of everything, you get tired
of the game quicker. If you have to actually work to get those things,
you'll value it more than if you just cheated to get it. And if you
are going to cheat, don't give yourself too much money, or you'll take
out most of the fun of the game. I'm serious! A lot of this game
involves working for money, and if you don't need money for anything,
you've just rendered a lot of the game pointless.
So don't cheat, if you do, you'll feel cheap in the morning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15. Wish List
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are just some ideas for what should/must be included in any further
expansion or sequel for The Sims. If you have your own Wishes, just email
them in.
1. Ability to take your Sims out of their house.
This could be to go to a store (perhaps you actually have to go pick out
your furniture?), to another Sim's house, or to work. In any case, these
would add a lot of new depth to the game. And potentially unbalance the
game and make it less fun, but hey, I'm not a game designer, I'm sure
they could work around that.
DONE. Hot Date and Vacation allow your Sim to head to Downtown and on
Vacation respectively.
2. More Careers, and which Job you have carries over into your Sim's daily
life.
Yeah, we need more jobs. How about the Computer Nerd career track?
Start out as a lowly data entry geek, and work up to some sort of Bill
Gates figure. Furthermore, your job should affect your Sim's life in
more ways than just their hours, and pay. For example, if you have a Law
Enforcement Sim, and your house is getting burglarized, your Cop Sim
could arrest the criminal. Or you had a criminal Sim, and a Cop Sim
living together, they wouldn't get along so well. You get the idea.
3. More things to do with houses.
Third stories, basements, secret tunnels (to the batcave!), whatever. Or
maybe even "alternative" houses, such as Oriental Style, Ancient Style,
Caves, Huts, and whatnot.
4. Ditch the carpool, get your Sim their own car!
Think of how this game would be expanded if you could build your own
garage, and put in it, your very own car! You'd have to make payments
on the car for a certain amount of time, and then the car would be yours.
(Or it could be bought outright like furniture) Then when you went to
work, you'd just take out the family car, and drive off to work under
your own power.
5. More types of social interactions.
How about two Sims being able to talk while on the couch, not watching TV
or anything, just sitting and talking. Or maybe making out on the couch.
Or how about large conversations? Three or four people having an
animated discussion on politics (not in a hot tub, just them talking).
DONE. As of Hot Date, if you put two Sims on a couch (watching TV or
just sitting) and they'll talk. You can even have them Cuddle if you
want.
6. Aging!
Yes, babies grow up to be kids, but why not kids to adults? Or adults
into old people? Think of the logistics of having to take care of a
feeble old man! As things stand now, there just isn't enough for kids to
do, and getting them to become adults, would help things out
immeasurably. Maybe they should go to college for awhile, then when they
come back, they're all grown up. (like on TV where a character leaves for
awhile)
7. Treat clothes as separate objects.
This would require you to have a utility room (or hire a laundry
service). Old clothes would lie scattered on the floor like garbage and
neat Sims would groan and pick up dirty clothes and put them into the
hamper.
Sims would need to "change" clothes to keep their hygiene level good just
like actual people. They would need to pick up dirty clothes to keep
their room scores high (add this to the list of chores for the maid).
An ambitious programmer at Maxis might treat the "skins" as separate from
the mesh objects for clothing objects. Now, there's a wish!
(from Mike Fenton)
8. Pets! (not just fish and guinea pigs)
Pets would be a nice addition, I think. Not just dogs and cats, but
other things as well, such as turtles, snakes and lizards. Imagine then
if one Sim's pet snake got out and bit another Sim. Why that Sim would
never forgive him! (thanks to James Wardle)
Pets are being added with the expansion, the Sims: Unleashed.
9. Dynamic Sim Personalities
Right now your Sim's personalities are set at the beginning and don't
change during the game. Well what if that Sim's experiences in SimLife
could radically change their personality? Suppose one Sim has an
experience so traumatic that she no longer is so nice? Imagine if an
Outgoing Sim gets beaten a lot, then they might lose some outgoingness as
they lose trust in other Sims. Or if a mean Sim has an act of kindness
done to him that makes him a little less cranky.
10. COMPUTERS
Can someone please convice Maxis to make more use of the computers? Why
not CHAT through computers! Whoa! That should be more hell efficient than
calling them over! Better yet, make the computers have multimedia option!
Combine TV and Hi-Fi to make an excellent computer. AND why not make the
computers a fun filled group activity (on-line multiplaying option!),
provided that the Sims have you want to play with got a modem. How about
advancing mechanical skills trhough computers? Business Sims (or other
computer related jobs) must fiddle around with computers before they can
be promoted. (from GamemaniaX)
broadstrong sent me these wishes:
What I hope for:-
(i) Stats to tie up with everyday life, such as:-
(a) High Body can render more immunity to the Guinea Pig Virus.
(b) High Charisma makes social interactions more successful.
(c) High Logic renders the Sim better "AI", will make better decisions
under Free Will.
(d) High Body + High Creativity allows the Sim to do things like jump over
couches or go under tables, thus avoiding being trapped in crowded
places.
(e) High Mechanical + High Creativity renders the Sim to be a "handyman",
able to perform tasks like adding a flipping board to turn a
rectangular desk to a square table, or changing the upholstery to
increase the comfort of chairs and couches (how's that to program in a
game?!)
(ii) More interactions with NPC (Repairman, Maid, etc)
More options possible for these characters, such as getting a tip or
two from the Repairman (maybe increasing Mechanical stat!).
(iii)Weather Changes
How can everyday be a fine, sunny day? Maybe at daytime, it could be
so cloudy that the rooms are less well-lit (decreasing Room), or the
day could be so rainy that the barbecue is cancelled. or so windy that
the cinders from the fireplace spread further than normal. Well,
things like that. Maybe under Build mode there can be an extra item
-- canopies (the retractable type even).
(iv) Transportation System
SimCity 3000 has trains, subways and bus network; why can't The Sims
have these? Why must there be "the very own car", when you need to
buy the car, maintain it and build a garage just for it? Taking the
public transport system would be much cheaper, though like the carpool
you cannot be late also.
(v) Twins (or even triplets or quadruplets)
In the real world, there are twins, so in the Sims, why can't twins
(identical or fraternal) appear? Tending to one baby is tough enough;
try taking care of two (or more)! That would be a challenge! Or
perhaps there can be special objects for babies only (such as cots,
baby toys, milk bottle etc.).
(P.S. I hope somebody from Coasters has seen this FAQ and design new
skins for the baby crib. The green colour...sucks somewhat.)
If you have a question that wasn't answered by one of the Frequently Asked
Questions above, please feel free to email me: manymoose@hotmail.com
Q: Is The Sims going to be released on the Mac?
A: Yes, it already was.
Q: Is there any way to skip the intro, where the Sims logo is on a blue
screen and the phrases are scrolling by at the bottom?
A: Nope! This is The Sims equivalent of the "Now Loading..." screen, and
therefore cannot be skipped!
"So just what is the program doing when 'Reticulating Splines,'
'Inserting Chaos Generator,' and 'Balancing Domestic Coefficients'
flash across the bottom of your screen? Absolutely nothing, actually.
'They're inventions of (Creator) Will Wright's imagination,' says a
Maxis spokesman. Speaking of the SIMS, expect Maxis to release an
expansion pack this fall..." (from INCITE PC # 7, June 2000, thanks to
Joseph Peitler)
Q: Is there any way to alter a Sim's biography after once you're out of
the Family Creation screen, or am I stuck with what I wrote initially?
A: Yes there is! From Page 40, Paragraph 1 of the Game Manual:
"...If you click and hold on a character, the character's bio which
you composed in the Create a Sim window [or Maxis did] appears. If
you think the bio needs a little refreshing, just Control-Click on the
character in question, and get that bio in an editable dialogue box
for your red-pen pleasure." (Thanks to Andrew Tate for pointing this
out to me!)
Q: Can I switch a Sim's skin after I've created them, or will my Sim just
wear the same exact clothes for the rest if his digital little life?
A: Your Sim can change their clothes by buying a Dresser/Armoir. Once
you have the Dresser, then select it, and do a "Change Clothes".
There is one downside to this, your Sim will simply change to the NEXT
Body Skin (there is no way to change the Head Skin). So if you want
to change to something specific, you may be at it for awhile. And if
you change your mind, and want to go back to the first skin, well...
that will take even longer!
Q: The Sim I called asked me to come over to their place, is there a way
for me to do that?
A: No. What the Sim you called really meant was "I don't want to see you
right now." And they were just being diplomatic about it. Anything
they say that doesn't result in them coming over is a refusal.
Q: If I create two Sims in my first home, are they automatically
considered married?
A: No. The "family" is just a grouping of people in one house. They
don't have any "relationship" until the game starts. Whether they
become good friends, or lovers, or get into a fight, is up to them
(and to you).
Secondly, even should they become lovers, they can't get Married. Why?
They already live together! Marriage is just a way to get a GuySim and
GirlSim to move in together.
Q: You mention in your guide that I shouldn't bother making friends for
SimKids, since they don't need them to advance in their job field or
anything. Does it work the other way around; can my adult Sim
befriend a SimKid to help with that promotion that he wants?
A: Although Kids don't need Family Friends for any particular reason (as
long as their Social is high, who needs friends!), they can be counted
for other people's Family Friends counter. So if SimBob befriends
SimKid1, he still gets +1 Family Friend.
Q: How long does it take for a SimBaby to grow into a SimKid?
A: 3 full days. So exactly 72 hours after the baby arrives, he/she will
*poof* into a child.
Q: So, a SimBaby grows up to be a SimKid. Does a SimKid grow up to be a
SimAdult? What about a SimAdult growing up to be a SimOldPerson?
A: Doesn't happen. The only Sims who grow up are Babies who become
children. Your Kids will never grow up and provide you with an
income, nor will your adults need to be placed in a nursing home.
Q: Can you take custody of a kid from a neighbor the same way you ask a
neighbor to move in/propose?
A: You can't take the kid directly, but there is a way to get a kid.
Suppose that SimBob is courting a Sim who lives alone with a kid. He
asks her to marry him, then she arrives with not just herself, but
brings the kid along as well.
Q: I know that a sim must ask a visiting sim with any kids to Move
in/Propose in order to adopt the sim kid. But suppose the kids DON'T
have any Sim adults? Can a simkid ask any adults to move in if he has
no parents?
A: No, they can not. They do not have the option to move in/propose with
other kids or adults, nor can adults ask a visiting kid to move in
with them. In other words, no adults can adopt any older sim kid in
the neighborhood. This could be bad if all the sim parents die,
leaving the kids to fend for themselves. This means they'll spend the
rest of their "lives" eating pizza and potato chips and getting money
only from "grandpa" and selling their artwork.
Q: Sometimes when a sim walks into a room, any lights in there
automatically turn on and when he leaves they turn off. Yet, in other
rooms, he had to manually turn the lights on. Why is that?
A: If the room has no windows, and it is still daylight, the lights won't
come on automatically, which is very annoying if you have a room in
the center of your house. Also Lava Lamps don't turn on
automatically. I suppose everything else is a bug, or possibly even a
Sim Equipment Failure (similar to a light breaking, not a bug).
Q: When I ask someone to marry me, they always say no. What can I do to
get them to FINALLY say yes?
A: Well beyond being stubbornly persistent (and why not?), you have to
realize that the Sim you are wooing has Needs just as any other Sim,
even though you can't see their Need meters. Why is this important?
Because a Sim must be in a good mood to accept Marriage (or Moving
In), and Mood is based on the 8 Needs. So make sure your SimLover has
eaten, had some fun, talked to your other Sims, and is comfortable
before popping the question. Beyond that just keep asking them until
they say yes!
Q: This marriage isn't working out. My SimWife gets jealous when I kiss
all the other girls. Can I get divorced?
A: No, there is no divorce! If you simply want to "play the field", then
just make sure to have your Sim do all of his romancing in another
room than any of his other love interests. But if you want that Sim
OUT, then there are ways... You can have that person Die (see the Q
below for more info on that), or you could get that Sim to get married
to someone else. Simply start up another home, and romance that Sim
until you can get them to marry you. They move out of the first
house, and in with the new Sim.
Q: The "Propose"/"Move In" option never seems to come up, what can I do
to encourage it?
A: The only reason that those options will never come up is if the two
Sims already live in the same house, i.e. if they started out in the
same "family", then they can't get married. Why? Marriage is only
an "event", it merely serves the purpose of getting a new Sim into the
house. After that, there's no special purpose to marriage, and the
two married Sims will act just like two Sims in Love who already lived
together.
Mark Hissett has this to add:
There are a few ways to encourage [the propose option]. First of
all you must be good friends with the person, or good lovers. And
your sim must be in a good mood as well. If they are hungry or need
some social, then the pie thing won't include the propose/move in.
Q: My Sim keeps making "ouches" while preparing Dinner. Can they be
wounded permanently from this?
A: Not from the actual preparing of the meals, but they can die if a fire
breaks out while cooking the food. To prevent such occurrences, have
your Sim read some Books on Cooking. Also build a Fire Alarm nearby.
It can't prevent Fires, but it will call the Fire Department for you.
Q: I'm trying to get rid of this Table of mine, but the game keeps saying
that it is "in use", which it clearly is not, nor is there anything on
top of it! How can I get rid of it?
A: First off, this is a bug, and as such, it may be prevented (I haven't
tested this) by downloading the patch off of the official site. If
you already have this problem, you may have to have your Sims move out
to get rid of the table. You don't have to bulldoze the house, if you
don't want to. Another thing to try would be to use the move_objects
cheat, and then delete the table. I haven't tested this as this bug
hasn't happened to me. (see the Cheats section for more info)
To use the move_objects cheat, press CTRL-SHIFT-C, enter in
"move_objects on" (without the quotes) into the little command line,
then go to Furnish mode, click on the table, and DELete it as normal.
This strategy should be used for any object that mysteriously stays
"in use" even though it isn't.
Q: My Sim put a bag of chips down, and now I can't get rid of the chips!
I can't eat them, I can't throw them away, what should I do?
A: As in the last problem, you can either move out and back in, or try
the move_objects cheat. (see the Cheats section for more info)
Also install either the Slot Machine or the Patch from the Official
site, these will allow you to clean the mess up.
Q: Some neighbors seem to be "stuck" on my property. I can’t talk to them
or anything. What do I do?
A: First, try going into Buy mode and moving things out of their way -
they might be trapped behind objects. If they are outside, make sure
they are not blocked by plants or hedges. Neighbors who are already
outside and trying to leave won’t cut through the house to get home,
so you’ll have to manually make sure they can reach the sidewalk from
where they are. If they are inside, in a room with an outside door,
make sure they can reach it. Just like when they’re outside, they
won’t change rooms in order to get around an obstacle.
If they have a clear path and still won’t move, you’ll have to do
something more drastic:
1) Hit Control-Shift-C to bring up the cheat window.
2) Type "move_objects on"
3) Go to Buy mode. Select the neighbor and hit delete. Don’t
worry, they’re not dead. Think of it as throwing them off your
property.
4) Hit Control-Shift-C to bring up the cheat window.
5) Type "move_objects off”.
-- from http://www.thesims.com/
Q: My Sim keeps getting strange phone calls, including one that implies
that (s)he is going to die soon! Is this just the developers playing
with my mind, or am I about to have an ex-Sim?
A: Wouldn't that be weird? But luckily it isn't going to happen. The
only ways that your Sim can die are through YOUR own negligence. In
fact most the incoming phone calls are completely meaningless. So, if
they aren't telling you something important, such as a Friend about to
lose interest in you, your Sim getting fired if they skip work again,
or your Sim gaining an inheritance, you can safely ignore the call.
Q: My Sim is Sick! What should I do? Can he die?
A. First quarantine the sick Sim to prevent contagion. Next make sure
that your Sim is well rested. Don't go to work or school while sick,
just stay home and rest. When up, go drink some coffee, but don't do
anything strenuous. And YES YOU CAN DIE! So take sickness seriously.
Q: I want to expand my house, how do you remove walls?
A: In the Build Mode press and hold CTRL, then click and drag the mouse
across the wall that you wish to remove.
Q: I saw on The Sims website that somebody had a garage with a car inside
it. How did they get a car?
A: You can fake it, but you can't really get a car. Here's what they did.
First they built whatever structure that they would use to house the
cars, using the standard house builder. Then, they activated the
move_objects cheat (by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-C, then typing in
move_objects on), wait for the carpool to show up, then go into the
Furnish mode (F2), and pick up and move the car into the garage.
It won't stay there, it will drive off eventually, but it will at
least look like you have a car in the garage for a bit.
You can actually download cars as normal objects from this website:
http://simsplus.homesims.com/
Although you still can't drive them.
Q: I want to move my Sims into a new home, will they keep all of their
money?
A: Yes. Also their previous house will be sold along with everything in
it (at current market value, e.g. all objects depreciate with time and
use). This value is called the "Net Worth". You can see all the
families' Net Worth at the Neighborhood screen. This basically is the
amount of money they would have if they moved out of their house.
Q: I ran out of money, and couldn't pay the Maid/Gardener, and now they
refuse to come back even though I have the money now. What do I do?
A: You've been blacklisted, my friend, and there's only one way out of
it, and that is to move out of your house. So go to the neighborhood
screen, Evict your Sims (the bulldozer icon) and have them move back
in. Or you could use this as your chance to move into a larger house,
but I suspect you wouldn't be able to afford it (if you couldn't
afford a Maid!).
Note: Blacklisting ends after 5 days and the Maids/Gardeners will
then work for you again.
Q: Ok, everyday the Repairman shows up, does absolutely nothing useful,
and just won't leave! I tell him to go away, but he just returns
again later! What do I do?
A: This usually happens when the Repairman is called, and he finds a
burnt out Wall Light. However, if this wall light is being partially
blocked, by a table, or a chair or something in front of it, the
Repairman can't fix it! But, he'll really want to fix it, so he keeps
hanging around hoping that you'll move the table/chair/obstacle so
that he can do his job.
Q: All my Sims only have 20,000 to start with, so how do I get them into
the nice big shiny homes?
A: Evict your Sims when they get rich enough to get a new house (use the
bulldozer Icon in the Neighborhood screen, then click on the
appropriate house to evict. It also asks if you want to bulldoze that
house, that's up to you) then go back to the Select/Create a Family
screen and select the Sims that you just evicted. Now you can move
them into any house that they can afford. Make sure that they still
have enough money to furnish the house, as most houses on the block
come empty.
Q: If Sim1 married Sim2 and moved into 2's house, what will happen to
Sim1's photos?
A: Sim1's photos will disappear when he moves in with sim2's house and
change his last name to his.
Q: I don't like my neighborhood, is there a way to reset it to how it was
before I mucked it up?
A: Uninstall and reinstall the game. Then you might want to make a copy
of the UserData folder (found in TheSims directory,
c:\program files\maxis\thesims\userdata). Then if you ever want to
play a different neighborhood, or just play with a blank neighborhood,
simply move the copied folder back.
Q: There is a marking on the lower right corner of one of my character's
face photo. A red plus with a circle around it. I got it when both
of my characters reached the final job levels. What does it mean?
A: I've seen this come up two different times (neither of which were the
one that you describe). The first is when you Right Click on the
portrait, it will then Zoom in on the Sim, and put in the Red
"Crosshairs." Then if the Sim wanders off, then the game will keep
that Sim on the screen. The other time I've seen this is when you use
the move_objects cheat to delete a Sim, they're portrait will have the
Crosshairs on it, click on the portrait and the Sim reappears.
Q: Is there a Demo?
A: No.
Q: Is this game worth getting?
A: Yes.
Q: How do we kill our Sim?
A: Well that is rather morbid of you, but there are several ways to "off"
a Sim. You can have them fight a fire, they might catch on fire
themselves and die a horrible death. Or you could starve them to
death. And finally you can also have them get electrocuted by having
them try to fix an appliance (or even changing a light bulb) without
any mechanical know how. I think a Sim has a 1 in 5 chance of dying
per light bulb with no mechanical skill points.
Q: What happens to Dead Sims?
A: Their remains will "remain" with you forever! You can place the
remains inside your house (as an Urn) or outside (as a tombstone).
Either way, that dead Sim will every once in awhile roam around
HAUNTING THE LIVING AS A GHOST! Spooky! It's a random chance as to
whether that Dead Sim will haunt each night at 11:00 pm.
If you have Livin' Large installed, when a Sim dies, your other Sims get
a chance to win back the life of the departed Sim. They must beat
Death in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, if they win, the dead Sim returns
to life.
Q: What happens to the rest of the Departed Sims' Family?
A: They have to mourn (if they know about the death, that is) for the poor
Sim for awhile, then they can mourn at any time by going up to the
remains. Beyond that, they aren't much affected by it.
Q: Can you kill off the maid, repairman and the gardener? If you lure
them into a room or pool and remove the way out, will they die the
same as a regular sim?
A: I've tried, but the Maid just managed to appear outside of my trap.
Several times. I would build a wall around her, but as soon as I went
back to LIVE mode, she just ... popped out of it.
Joseph Peitler has this to add:
"One of the floor lamps burned out, so I made my character call the
repairman. He came over, touch the lamp and got electrocuted.
Thanks to the patch, he didn't die (there is a joke in there,
somewhere). He finished it and went on as usual. It was funny
seeing him light up like a Christmas tree, though."
Q: My Sims' Mood is fine until they get outside, then it plummets (due to
the Room rating)... what's wrong?
A: When this first happened to me, it was because I hadn't bothered to
recycle the newspapers that had been arriving everyday (they stop
being delivered after 6 days of you not picking them up). Once a new
paper arrives, then the old one turns to trash, and trash has a
horrible effect on Room. Also you may want to decorate the outside.
Place some flowers, flamingoes, hedges, and whatnot. If you place
flowers, be sure to water them, or those will take the Sims' Room
rating down.
Q: My Sim is going to work everyday, has all the requirements for a
promotion, but doesn't ever seem to get it. What's wrong?
A: Once all the requirements are met, all you need is mood! If your Sim
goes to work a surly grouch, he won't get promoted, but a happy fun
loving Sim always gets the good jobs.
Q: Can my Sim get demoted for being in a Bad Mood? What about if he
loses some family friends, or a stat is dropped?
A: Yes, Sims can get demoted for being in a bad mood. One could suppose
that being in a bad mood caused their work to suffer, and that got
them demoted. And no, you don't get demoted if you lose some family
friends, or you have a stat dropped.
Q: My Sim got fired, can I get another good high paying job?
A: Nope! Have to start out at the bottom of the ladder again. That's
why you should avoid getting fired. Going back up the ladder is
easiest if you choose a career path that needs the Skills that you
already have from working on your previous job. So if you have lots
of Body, try for a Military, Law Enforcement, or X-Treme career
tracks. Same for the rest of the Skills, try to keep to what would be
easiest to get promoted.
Q: I am having no luck at making friends with this one Sim. What am I
doing wrong?
A: Some Sims just clash (click on the Personality Button, then on their
Astrological Sign to see which Sims they are least compatible with),
or maybe that Sim (or your Sim) isn't very nice. It's very hard to
like a mean Sim. Hard, but not impossible. With these Sims you have
to carefully monitor their interactions. If that Sim is about to
taunt you, then cancel that action (although you can't cancel their
action directly you can cancel it on the receiving end by clicking on
the "Be Taunted" icon that will appear in your Queue), and try simply
talking to the Sim. With time, their relationship will improve, and
you will be able to be less vigilant, as friends tend to clash less
often.
Q: While looking at my house on the neighborhood screen, it says that I
have 13 friends, yet when I get into the house, it says I only have
11! What gives?
A: At the neighborhood level, it counts every friend that your family
has, including friends INSIDE YOUR OWN FAMILY. So if your Sims are
friends with each other, they will be counted at the neighborhood
level. But since these relationships don't help with the Family
Friend count, they aren't counted at the House level. So, at the
House level, only friends OUTSIDE OF THE FAMILY are counted.
broadstrong has a differing viewpoint:
I observed that when I FIRST enter the neighbourhood (after the blue
loading screen with all the scrolling words below), the number of
family friends include both "friends" (50+ relationship) and "warm"
(20 to 49 relationship). But when I enter the house, relationships
below 50 won't be considered (well, accordingly they are not friends
with the Sim anyway), so the count decreases. However, on returning
to the neighbourhood screen, the family count is now correctly
updated, so if the family has 11 friends, this time it WILL show 11,
nothing else.
Q: My Sim seems to sleep forever! Nothing I have done will get him up!
What do I do?
A: Sims like to stay in bed, if they have no way to get out of bed. That
is, if you have some object by the side of the bed that prevents the
Sim from getting out of bed, they'll just stay in there forever. Of
course, it would be nice if they would tell you something...
broadstrong notes that with the Sims v1.1 patch installed, when this
happens, you see a "Can't get up" animation.
Q: My Sim has been in the Bath for an awful long time. How can I get
him/her out?
A: This one happened to my sister (and it's similar to the above Sleeping
problem). She had a Sim in a brand new Tub that was built in the
corner of the bathroom with a Shower right next to it. The Sim was
able to get in, but due to the Shower being right there, the Sim could
not get out. When something like this happens, look around to see
what is blocking your Sim, and move it!
Q: Do we ever get to see the Sims naked? Having Sex? What about any
Naked Skins?
A: No, no and no. Although at the proper angle, you CAN see the Sims
naked in the shower. (you'll have to figure out the angle yourself,
though!) The most the Sims ever do in love is to passionately kiss.
If they "make a baby" then nothing happens between the Sims and the
baby "magically appears".
Note: You CAN patch your game to get rid of the Pixel Censor when
your Sim does something naughty. See section 12.2.1 for the
details.
Note: Also, Sims CAN have sex if you have the Livin' Large expansion
pack installed. Buy the Love Bed and turn it to Vibrate. Then
have the second Sim go up and "Play in Bed."
Q: In the opening movie I can see a Sim coming out naked (albeit
censored) from the Hot Tub, but my Sims always wear a Swimsuit...
Why?
A: The first Sim into the Hot Tub must be a VERY Outgoing Sim to get in
Buck Nekkid. Once one Sim goes in naked, then it seems that you just
can't stop every other Sim from going in naked as well. Crazy! Also
you probably should know that a lot of things in the Opening Video
were changed in the Final Game. If you watch closely you can see
different Serving Plates, Plasma TV's and more.
Q: I set the Sims to speak English, but I can't understand a word that
they are saying.
A: Sims speak in gibberish called Sim (or SimSpeak if you prefer). The
only way that it resembles English (or any other language that it lets
you "set") is in the rhythm or cadence.
Q: Can I change the radio station's names? What about the music?
A: See the above section "Everything else in the Neighborhood" for
information on changing the music. However, you cannot change the
radio station's names. So whatever you change the music to will still
be listed under "Country" "Latin" "Rock" or "Classical".
Q: Do you have any cheats? What about any trainers or editors?
A: Cheats can be found in the above section "Cheats & Tricks". As for
editors and trainers, there has been one, but I think that it has
vanished.
Q: OK, I deleted my mailbox/carpool, and now I want them back, how can I
do that?
A: Thus we see the perils of using the move_objects cheat! I have an
idea about how you could get your Mailbox/Carpool back if you deleted
them: Import a new house from somewhere (usually
http://www.thesims.com/) and install that into the game. That should
work. Or you could just uninstall the game then reinstall.
There are two places on the site that have houses to download, "Get
Cool Stuff" and "The Sims Exchange". Before you go there, check to
see which Lot Number you need, then make sure to download the correct
house. Your best bet, by the way, is the Sims Exchange.
Q: I downloaded a house from The Sims Official Site, and unzipped it, but
now what do I do?
A: Houses download as an EXE, which I have assumed that you have run,
after which it says something like "It has been installed", then run
your game, and at the neighborhood screen it will give you the option
to have this new house (and family) replace the one currently there.
So the previous house will vanish, along with everyone in it, to be
replaced by the new house and family. (all houses come with families)
Warning: Before downloading any house/Exchange family off of the
Official Site, make SURE that the lot that you are
replacing has nothing that you want to keep! The
displaced family will simply be back at the Family
Selection list, but they'll have lost their home.
Q: The cheat 'klapaucius' no longer works! Did upgrading the game do
this?
A: Yes. The new patch changes the money cheat from klapaucius to
rosebud. Why they did this is beyond me.
Q: Can I win The Sims?
A: Nope. You can't lose either, although if you kill off all your Sims
that could be considered losing. This game is all about the playing,
nothing more, nothing less.
Q: I can't find my serial number, can I have yours?
A: No. If your game didn't COME with a serial number, you could try
contacting Maxis through their website:
http://www.thesims.com/
Q: No, really, I lost my case, can I have your serial number?
A: NO!! All emails to this effect are IGNORED and DELETED.
Q: OK, I don't have a serial number, and therefore can't download off of
the Official Sims Site, so how can I get all those neat downloads?
Will you send them to me?
A: First, no, I won't send any of the updates to you. Second, you can
find most of the Sim's Downloads at any of the web pages listed in the
Online Resources down in the Final Words section. Try either
http://www.simzonline.com/ or http://go.to/simuniverse/ but almost any
of the sites will do.
Q: I want to put this FAQ on my webpage, can I?
A: Sure. Just don't change ANYTHING without prior email approval by me,
and try to keep it reasonably up to date. I update this FAQ a lot,
adding new Frequently Asked Questions, strategies, and correcting any
mistakes found. It really doesn't help me to have people seeing old
versions of the FAQ and sending me emailed questions that have already
been answered.
Q: I emailed you, and you didn't answer! What's up with that?
A: There are usually 3 reasons why I don't reply:
1. Your question is already answered in the FAQ somewhere. This
gets tricky if the question has been answered in a new version
but you were looking at an older version. So be sure to always
check GameFAQs for the latest version before emailing in a
question.
2. Your question is covered in the manual. I really don't want to
rewrite the manual in this FAQ, and to that end I won't include
much information found therein in here. Which means that I
won't answer questions found in the manual.
3. I lost your email. This happens either when I put the email
aside for the moment, and forget about it, or when I attempt
to reply, but get a Returned Email Failure. The second happens
quite often with AOL addresses, they won't accept Web Based
emails (to avoid SPAM) and so I couldn't answer you if I tried.
This is a setting in the options somewhere, and if you could
please tell me where to send a reply that won't get returned.
4. Your email didn't contain the proper SUBJECT line. If you want a
Sims related response, your subject should read "The Sims." I
never read emails that have no subjects at all.
Those are the USUAL reasons why I don't reply, others include that I
was too tired at the time I got it, and forgot about it, or that I
didn't know an answer, and ignored it. Those are rare.
If you didn't get a reply, and feel that you deserve one, just email
me again.
Q: I have some bizarre and obscure technical problem....
A: I have no idea how to fix technical problems, such as the game not
running or the game crashing. Try looking at Maxis' Official Sims
Website:
http://www.thesims.com/
If you have a question that wasn't answered by one of the Frequently Asked
Questions above, please feel free to email me: manymoose@hotmail.com
===============================================================================
Livin' Large Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
===============================================================================
Just because Livin' Large isn't out yet, doesn't mean I haven't been asked
questions about it!
Q: I installed Livin' Large, but it looks like the same ol' Sims. Where are
all of the new objects?
A: What happened is that your installation was interrupted, which means that
Livin' Large never fully installed. Here is what the official website
(http://www.thesims.ea.com/) has to say about it:
Some users report installing the Sims Livin' Large, but get no multiple
neighborhoods, no new walls, no new floors, and the only objects they
get are the downloads that were included in Livin' Large. Some users
also report seeing the new Livin' Large objects in Buy mode, but not in
Live mode.
This generally occurs when a user has installed an unauthorized
3rd-party patch or other modification to the game's executable code.
The Sims Livin' Large only installs properly on legitimate, unaltered
versions of The Sims executable. Objects, skins, walls, floors and such
have no effect on this; it is only patches to the game's executable
code which cause this problem.
We have also had reports of this occurring when no changes have been
made to the executable, but we have not yet isolated the cause of the
problem in these cases.
You must uninstall and reinstall The Sims, then reinstall The Sims
Livin' Large.
If this does not correct the problem, download the Livin' Large install
fixer. After installing The Sims Livin' Large, run the install fixer.
This is NOT a game patch, and should NOT be used if your game is
functioning properly. It simply completes the installation process in
cases where a technical problem has prevented proper installation.
A: Livin' Large is the upcoming Expansion Pack for The Sims. It will
have new careers, objects, and other bizarre things. Check out the
Livin' Large section near the beginning of this Guide for more
information.
Q: Will Livin' Large be like Sim City 3000 Unlimited and be a complete
game?
A: No, it will require that you already have The Sims installed on your
computer. Then when you run The Sims, it will probably require that
you have the Livin' Large CD in, rather than the original CD.
Q: How much does Livin' Large cost, and where can I get it?
A: The MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) is $29.95. The
original Sims had an MSRP of $49.95. You can find Livin' Large at any
retailer that carries software:
Also, starting in mid-September (2002) you can get the Sims: Deluxe
edition, which is both the original game and the first expansion, Livin'
Large. ($39.95)
Q: My Sim died, and I'm trying to Plead with Death, but it isn't working.
What do I do?
A: You have to have someone who ISN'T DEAD plead with Death. Then they
can play the eternal game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you win, your
Sim comes back to life, if you lose you may come back as a zombie. Or
maybe Death will ignore you and take him to Hades anyway.
===============================================================================
Final Words...
===============================================================================
_________________
Online Resources:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
http://www.ea.com/ -- the publisher's site
http://www.thesims.com/ -- the Official Sims Site
This one is probably the one you will
want to go to the most often. They have
downloads to add to your game (new items
such as the Slot Machine), etc.
http://www.simzonline.com/ -- One of the best Fan Sites
http://sims.xtremesimz.com/ -- The Sims Resource Center
http://www.projectsims.com/ -- Project Sims
http://www.synchroplay.com/mallofthesims/
-- Mall of the Sims
http://www.simeden.com/ -- SimEden
http://www.sim-heaven.com/ -- Sim Heaven
http://go.to/simuniverse/ -- Sim Universe
http://www.7deadlysims.com/ -- A bizarre little site that has different
skins and things based on the 7 Deadly
Sins.
http://www.crosswinds.net/~simsonline/
-- Sims Online (not to be confused with the
above Simz Online)
http://simsdiary.gameaddicts.net/
-- The Diary of a Sim
http://coasters.nozone.net/ -- Coaster's Sims Page
http://thesims.xtremesimz.com/ -- Appears to be offline now
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ -- the best FAQs site on the net!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/25322.html
-- GameFAQs section on The Sims
http://www.cheatcc.com/ -- a great place for all your cheating needs
EBWorld made some neat skins that can be found at the above site.
ASCII Art created using the ASCII Art Maker by LTS (freeware)
You can possibly (doubtfully) find it at http://www.download.com/
This FAQ was written entirely using the GWD Text Editor: (shareware)
http://www.gwdsoft.com/
_________________________
Shameless Self Promotion:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
I have also written FAQs for:
NES: Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
Final Fantasy -- Magic FAQ
The Legend of Zelda
SNES: Aerobiz
Aerobiz Supersonic
Utopia: Creation of a Nation
Genesis: StarFlight
PSX: Thousand Arms -- Walkthrough
-- Forging/Dating FAQ
PS2: Madden NFL 2001
PC: AD&D Rules FAQ
3rd Edition D&D Rules FAQ
Baldur's Gate & Tales of the Sword Coast -- FAQ/Walkthrough
NPC List
Creature List
Baldur's Gate II & Throne of Bhaal -- FAQ/Walkthrough
-- Items List
-- Class FAQ
-- Creature List
Civilization III (incomplete)
Colonization -- the Single Colony Strategy Guide
-- the Cheat Guide
Drakan: Order of the Flame
Dungeon Hack
Icewind Dale & Heart of Winter -- FAQ/Walkthrough
Items List
Kresselack's Tomb Map (JPG)
Burial Isle Map (JPG)
Shattered Hand Map (JPG)
Icewind Dale II -- Items List
Master of Magic (revision)
Messiah
Pharaoh (currently being edited by Red Phoenix)
Planescape: Torment -- FAQ/Walkthrough
Items Listing
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima 7: The Black Gate
Ultima 7 Part 2: Serpent Isle
Ultima Underworld -- Keyboard Commands
Ultima Underworld II -- Keyboard Commands
-- Spell List
All of my FAQs can be found at:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/2203.html
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Email: manymoose@hotmail.com
Subject: the Sims
Email Policy: If you are going to email me about this game, please put
The Sims as the subject. Or Sims. Also please realize
that I am not hiding cheats or any other information, i.e.
everything I know about The Sims is in this guide.
Emails without the proper subject MAY BE DELETED!
_______________
Special Thanks: (I don't post email addresses, except by special request)
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Joseph Peitler for contributing more than his share of tips (thanks!)
Lynelle Foulk for the baby personality research
Shyguy982 for his Trick in "Cheats & Tricks"
Kyrre Aalerud for the 3 tricks also in "Cheats & Tricks"
Christopher Scatliff for the Balcony correction
Alan Waumsley for noticing that some Sims just don't get up
Nancy Beck for a new cheat
J.T. Kauffman for his great Questions
Andrew Tate for a correction in the FAQ (about Sim's Bios)
Apieper for some minor corrections here and there and for the Known Bugs
Jesper Thiesen for the Every Other Bill thing
Red Phoenix for a great many tips, tricks, and/or strategies
Locutus for the Spellchecking
Mandy Falco for her wonderful tips
Catty Burton for her multiple baby bug
Mark H. Dove for sending me the note on Forced Job Switching
Mikey Griffiths for the Easter Egg (see the Cheats section)
Dan Vernon for his method on killing everyone in the neighborhood (a bizarre
thing to thank!)
Adam McSweeney for pointing out one very bad mistake of mine
Lim Yu Kee for telling me about Maids and Gardeners not returning
Andrea Della Malva for the table question
Joseph Peitler for the Baby Tips, FAQs, and Bugs (etc., etc., etc.!)
Jordan Edmonson for his correction
Keri for a couple of notes having to do with children
RD Saunders for the Job "Shifts"
Leviathan for pointing out that I had left section 14 off of the Contents
Mike Fenton for section 5.7 Sim Personalities and Compatibilities
Mark Hissett for a bunch of stuff (known bugs, and such)
Knowla for a way to correct a bug
Derek Hansen for his personality information
James Wardle for a few Wishes in the Wish List
Eric Chapman for more information on killing repairmen (see Known Bugs)
Andrew Harms for section 6.3.1 and everything in it
Jon Mars for the trick about getting the desired social interaction
GamemaniaX for the expanded abuse the carpool
Seeker for the Housebuilding on a Budget stuff
broadstrong for lots of information (mostly on kids)
moonshine for the evil twin bug addition
Rob Sevening for several Livin' Large tips
JediPika88 for lots of Livin' Large tips and information
TheReaper86 for a trashcan strategy
EvilDave2
Anyone who has emailed me with something nice to say
CJayC for posting this FAQ and informing me (via his website) that The Sims
was out!
Will Wright for making this bizarrely fun game
Maxis and EA for publishing this uniquely addictive game
________________
Version History:
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Preliminary Version 0.9 (2-11-00, 47k)
Original Version 1.0 (2-12-00, 63k)
Added the section Babies and Children
Finished all the other sections
Added a Trainer
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 1.1 (2-19-00, 64k)
Renamed the Cheats section to "Cheats & Tricks"
Changes in Version 1.5 (2-20-00, 74k)
Rewrote a lot of the information for clarity
Added lots of new information as well
Changes in Version 1.6 (2-21-00, 82k)
Added a neat new trick from Kyrre Aalerud
Added the Frequently Asked Questions Section
Changes in Version 1.7 (2-25-00, 86k)
Added several new Frequently Asked Questions
Started work on the Career Ladder Chart
Added a new Online Resource, and fixed another
Added 2 new Tricks to Cheats and Tricks
Other minute changes
Changes in Version 2.0 (2-26-00, 126k)
Spun out a new Section 6.1 and put the Career Tracks in there
Finished all the Career Tracks
Added 2 new Sections, 4.1 and 4.2, Cooking and Room Rating
Spun out another section 10.1 Death and Ghosts from section 10
Spun out the section 9.1 Children and School
Added another Alternate Floor Plan
Added another Frequently Asked Question (having to do with Hot Tubs)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.1 (2-27-00, 127k)
Created a new section 2.1 The Bachelor Sim
Changes in Version 2.2 (2-28-00, 132k)
Added to the Bachelor Sim Section
Added the section 4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks
Also added the section 6.2 Abusing the Carpool
And also added the section 6.2.1 Early Morning Social Call
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.3 (2-29-00, 146k)
Spun out the section 11.1 Deleting Trash (and Bills too!) from the Cheats
& Tricks Section
Added the section 2.2 The Full House (8 Sims)
Renamed 6.1 to The Jobs Chart
Added the section 5.1 Befriending Mean Sims
Changed the Frequently Asked Questions Format
Added a couple new Frequently Asked Questions as well
Spun out the Changing the Radio Station Music section
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.4 (3-1-00, 153k)
Added the section 5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances
Added the Section 5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
Spell Checked the entire document (thanks to Red Phoenix who pointed out
that I needed to do this)
Added the section 9.2 What Kids Do
Added the section 2.1.1 The Bachelor Gets Married
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.5 (3-2-00, 164k)
Added a new Online Resource (Mall of the Sims)
Added a new Frequently Asked Question
Added the Section 3.1 Building a Better House
Added the Section 4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
Added the Section 8.1 Building that Second Story
Also added the Section 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.51 (3-3-00, 165k)
Created section 8.1.2 (thanks to Christopher Scatliff for the info)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.52 (3-5-00, 166k)
Added a new Frequently Asked Question
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.53 (3-8-00, 167k)
Added 2 new Frequently Asked Questions
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.0 (3-9-00, 200k)
Added the Section "Customizing Your Game"
And in that section I moved the "Changing the Radio Music" Section
And created 2 new sections "Skins" and "Multiple Neighborhoods"
Created the section "Alternate Job Chart"
Created the section "Understanding Your Sims" and its subsections: "What a
Sim Wants/Needs" and "Why A Sim Does What He Does"
Oh, I also created section 12.2.1 The "Nude" Patch (heh)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.01 (3-10-00, 201k)
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.02 (3-11-00, 202k)
Some more Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.03 (3-13-00, 203k)
Added a new cheat from Nancy Beck
There is now a new Translation! Check the Notes at the top of the FAQ
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.1 (3-18-00, 210k)
Added the new section 7.1 Working the Pause
Added a few new Frequently Asked Questions
Did some Spellchecking!
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.12 (3-20-00, 214k)
Added the section 6.3 Quitting for Fun and Profit
Realized that I had left out the Final Stats for the Medicine Career Path
(this is now fixed!)
Cut some things out from the "Misc Facts"
Added a new "Alternate Job Chart" to the section of the same name
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.14 (3-21-00, 221k)
Added a bunch of new Frequently Asked Questions (courtesy of J.T. Kauffman)
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 3.15 (3-24-00, 222k)
Lots of small changes all around!
Changes in Version 3.16 (3-25-00, 223k)
Some small changes
Changes in Version 3.17 (3-27-00, 224k)
One small change
Changes in Version 3.18 (3-28-00, 224k)
One more small change
Changes in Version 3.19 (3-29-00, 225k)
Added the section 11.2 Paying only Every Other Bill
Changes in Version 4.0 (3-30-00, 240k)
Added the Section 13 Known Bugs (thanks to Apieper!)
Added a new Frequently Asked Question
Added the Section 5.4 Sending your Sim out of the House
Added the Section 5.5 Creating Friends the Old Fashioned Way
Added the Section 11.3 The Newbie Trick
Added the Section 3.2 Who Needs Walls?
Added the Section 5.6 How to Befriend SimKids
Added the Section 4.6 Moving Trash Yourself
Small Changes (Always!)
Changes in Version 4.01 (3-31-00, 241k)
One small change (The new SimDay was an upgrade to the game!)
Changes in Version 4.02 (4-1-00, 242k)
Apparantly klapaucius no longer works with the game update (see above), but
a new code, rosebud, works in its place. So I added a Frequently Asked
Question about this as well as updated the Cheats listing.
Changes in Version 4.03 (4-3-00, 245k)
Some spelling corrections, thanks to Locutus
Some new tips, thanks to Mandy Falco (added 11.4 Washing Dishes Faster)
Added a new Known Bug from Catty Burton
Changes in Version 4.04 (4-4-00, 248k)
Added one thing from Mark H. Dove about Fored Job Switching (Section 6)
Added a new Frequently Asked Question
Changes in Version 4.05 (4-5-00, 252k)
Re-did the Cheats section with a LOT of new cheats!
Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.1 (4-6-00, 257k)
Added Section 4.7 The "Cluster" Method
Added a tip to Section 9, about Children being a Tax Credit
Added an Easter Egg from Mikey Griffiths
Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.11 (4-10-00, 258k)
Added a new "trick" to section 11
Fixed one glaringly bad mistake
Changes in Version 4.2 (4-13-00, 267k)
Added three new Frequently Asked Question (about Maids not returning, and
Objects that won't go away, and Chips that stay on your floor)
Added the new section 14. Getting the Most from The Sims
Added the new section 11.5 Deleting your Characters and Resetting their Mood
Added the new SimDay "event", new MTV Skins
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.25 (4-14-00, 272k)
Added a couple of new Frequently Asked Question (about Repairmen not
leaving, and Neighbors not leaving)
Added the new section 10.2 Did you Know?, which is about the makers of the
game, Will Wright et al.
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.26 (4-15-00, 274k)
Added some Facts from Joseph Peitler in the new section 9.0.1 Baby Tips
Added a new Frequently Asked Question (about how Friends are counted at the
neighborhood level vs. the house level)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.27 (4-16-00, 275k)
Changed one mistake (thanks to Jordan Edmonson)
Added a couple notes from Keri
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.28 (4-18-00, 277k)
Updated the Maid Blacklisting thing (thanks again to Lim Yu Kee)
Added an idea to get the Mailbox/Carpool back (see the FAQ section) if you
deleted it with the move_objects cheat
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.3 (4-20-00, 281k)
Created section 11.6 How to Max out all the Personality Stats
Created the section 11.7 Starting a Sim with random Job Stats
Added the new SimDay "event", topiaries
Added a couple of new websites, SimUniverse (http://go.to/simuniverse/) and
7 Deadly Sims (http://www.7deadlysims.com/)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.4 (4-24-00, 286k)
Created section 6.4 Job "Shifts" (a job shift is when you get kicked out of
your level 10 job somewhere, and placed into a lower level job in another
career, Thanks to RD Saunders for this!)
Fixed a mistake in the Contents
Added a new Frequently Asked Question (about downloading houses)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.5 (4-25-00, 300k)
Created Section 5.7 Sim Personalities and Compatibilities (thanks to Mike
Fenton)
Added a couple new Frequently Asked Questions (thanks to Joseph Peitler)
Added some new "Known Bugs" (in the section of the same name, thanks again
to Joseph Peitler)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.51 (4-26-00, 304k)
Added several new Frequently Asked Questions
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.52 (4-27-00, 306k)
It's Thursday, SimDay, so added the new Maxis Object, Flowerbeds
Added a couple new Frequently Asked Questions
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.6 (4-28-00, 320k)
Received a way to correct a bug (the "accidental twins" thing) from Knowla
Updated a Frequently Asked Question from Mark Hissett
Added a couple of new Known Bugs from Mark Hissett
Created section 4.1.1 Food Strategies (thanks again to Mark Hissett)
Put Derek Hansen's personality scores into section 1.1.2
Created section 15. Wish List
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.61 (5-2-00, 321k)
Added a brand new Frequently Asked Question
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.62 (5-3-00, 321k)
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.63 (5-4-00, 322k)
Added the latest SimDay event, the Jukebox and the White House
Added a new Wish to the Wish List from Mike Fenton
Snipped a few things out of the Notes above that seemed a bit redundant
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.64 (5-6-00, 323k)
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.7 (5-11-00, 336k)
Added the latest SimDay event, the new Trashcans
Added several new Wishes (thanks to James Wardle)
Added to a Frequently Asked Question (thanks to Joseph Peitler)
Added section 12.4 Download Surprises (also thanks to Joseph Peitler)
Added a couple of new Online Resources (web links)
Added some information on killing repairmen (see Known Bugs, thanks to
Eric Chapman)
Created section 6.3.1 Job Hopping Analysis (thanks to Andrew Harms)
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.71 (5-12-00, 339k)
Created section ii. Information on the Upcoming Add-On, Livin' Large
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.72 (5-16-00, 343k)
Created section 5.8) Getting the Desired Interaction (thanks to Jon Mars)
Added an expanded Abuse the Carpool thing (section 6.2) thanks to GamemaniaX
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.73 (5-22-00, 345k)
Created section 3.3) Housebuilding, especially on a Budget thanks to
Seeker
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.74 (5-23-00, 348k)
Added several Editors to the Cheats section
Added information from broadstrong
Added a couple new tips from Joseph Peitler
Some Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.75 (5-24-00, 349k)
Created Section 12.5 Playing Without the Sims CD
Changes in Version 4.76 (5-28-00, 350k)
Added some more information from Joseph Peitler, in Known Bugs and Death
and Ghosts
Changes in Version 4.77 (6-1-00, 350k)
Added the latest SimDay Event, the Glowing Flamingo
Changed the email policy (see above)
Changes in Version 4.78 (6-4-00, 353k)
Added a bug note from moonshine (about Evil Twins)
Added yet more information from Joseph Peitler (a couple new FAQ's, etc.)
Added more information about the upcoming Add-On, Livin' Large (see section
ii.)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 4.79 (6-6-00, 354k)
Moved something out of Known Bugs and into the FAQ
Found at (via Joseph Peitler) that the Slot Machine was listed twice in the
"Download Surprises" section, this is now fixed
Changes in Version 4.80 (6-7-00, 354k)
Added the Italian version of the FAQ (see the Notes above)
Changes in Version 4.9 (6-8-00, 357k)
Created section 11.8) Speeding up your Sim (thanks to broadstrong)
Added a lot of little additions all over the FAQ from broadstrong
Some other small changes
Changes in Version 4.91 (6-13-00, 363k)
Added a lot of new information from broadstrong
Some other small changes
Changes in Version 4.92 (6-15-00, 365k)
Added some new information on the Add-On, Livin' Large in section ii.
Some other small changes
Changes in Version 4.93 (6-20-00, 368k)
Added a bug from moonshine
Added more information on the upcoming Expansion Pack, Livin' Large
(courtesy of Wendy Zupack)
Changes in Version 4.94 (6-23-00, 372k)
Added new Bug info from broadstrong
Version 4.95 August 15, 2000 376k
It's been almost two months since the last update and Livin' Large is fast
approaching!
Started using the new version history form, which as you can see is much
cleaner to look at. Also updated the Shameless Self Promotion to reflect
what I've been up to lately.
Created section 12.6 to deal with the slew of new Object Editors:
Blueprint, SimTransmogrifier, and Maxis' Art Studio, a new tool for
creating custom Wall Hangings. And started up the Livin' Large Frequently
Asked Questions section. Not much there right now, but it will grow when
it comes out.
Version 5.0 September 13, 2000 405k
Livin' Large is now out (The Sims Expansion Pack, at a store near you), so
I went through and updated where appropriate. Created section 1.2 to deal
with most of the Livin' Large updates, such as the Genie, Death,
Cockroaches and the like. Added section 6.1.2 to deal with the new Livin'
Large career paths. Also added section 11.9 Better Personality through
Chemistry, one of my favorite new tricks.
Version 5.01 September 13, 2000 408k
Added new jobs to the Livin' Large career section. Updated the Genie
listing. Some other small things.
Added new Livin' Large Frequently Asked Questions (which can be found in
the section after the regular Frequently Asked Questions).
Version 5.1 September 15, 2000 416k
Finished filling in all the Livin' Large jobs.
Version 5.2 September 16, 2000 418k
Added some new Livin' Large tips from Rob Sevening.
Version 5.21 September 20, 2000 419k
Added section 12.7 Custom Interface Graphics
Version 5.3 October 3, 2000 421k
Added some information from JediPika88. Added a spiffy little alternative
to outside trashcans from TheReaper86.
Version 5.31 October 18, 2000 421k
Tiny update.
Version 5.4 November 30, 2000 418k
Just updated the SimDay event items. (Turkey Dinner, Jack O'Lantern)
Version 5.5 December 6, 2000 396k
Added some new Career Shifts from Joseph Peitler. Cleaned up the
Frequently Asked Question so that it takes up less space. Also removed
redundant/useless questions and updated other questions to include Livin'
Large information.
Version 5.6 December 9, 2000 396k
Found the solution to the "Livin' Large objects not appearing" problem,
which has been added to the Livin' Large Frequently Asked Questions.
Version 5.7 December 10, 2000 382k
Finished cleaning up the FAQ, so it is now quite a bit smaller. Also
removed the Misc Facts thingie at the bottom of the FAQ as ... well I never
really liked it.
Version 5.8 January 18, 2001 383k
Added Marcel VanDalfsen's spiffy job charts to the section of the same
name.
Version 5.9 January 22, 2001 384k
After much ado, added some information about gifts from EvilDave2.
Version 6.0 April 28, 2001 393k
Updated the guide to include the new House Party additions. Added a
socialization note from Winston Jen. Added the Baby Personality Matrix
section (which determines how Baby personalities are determined) which is
from Lynelle Foulk.
Version 6.1 May 16, 2001 394k
Created section 9.3 Let the Kids GROW UP which links to a program that
brings your SimKids to adulthood.
Version 7.0 September 25, 2002 412k
Updated the guide somewhat to reflect what's been going on in the world of
Sims. Added sections for the last 2 expansion packs (Hot Date and
Vacation) and tried to get everything reasonably up to date. Created a
new section (5.2.1) on creating a "Love Shack" that deals with multiple
Sim-romances.
________
Stinger:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Reticulating Splines:
According to Webster's, to reticulate is: to divide, mark, or construct so
as to form a network. And a spline is: a function that is defined on an
interval, is used to approximate a given function, and is composed of
pieces of simple functions defined on subintervals and joined at their
endpoints with a suitable degree of smoothness.
Therefore, reticulating splines would be: Constructing network based
functions that are defined by divisible intervals while approximating said
network and composing it of pieces of simple functions defined on
subintervals and joined at their endpoints with a suitable degree of
smoothness.
-- Will Wright (from http://www.simzonline.com/)
_______________________________________________________________________________
This Document is Copyright 2000-2001 by Dan Simpson
The Sims is Copyright 2000-2002 by Electronic Arts
I am not affiliated with Maxis, Electronic Arts, or anyone who had anything to
do with the creation of this game. This FAQ may be posted on any site so long
as NOTHING IS CHANGED and you EMAIL ME telling me that you are posting it. You
may not charge for, or in any way profit from this FAQ.
