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The Sims 2 Nightlife FAQ
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Creator Information:
Author: TheSocialBunny (Zephos Amaranis)
E-Mail: zephos@xynthica.com
Personal Website: http://www.xynthica.com
FAQ Information:
Version: 1.01
Date of Creation: October 08, 2005
Date of Last Update: January 28, 2006
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Update Comment:
The much anticipated update to The Sims 2 Nightlife FAQ has finally been
completed! In between drawing my usual pictures of cute anime female bipeds
with questionably large hydro active optics and a quarter of a year absence
from playing The Sims 2, I finally got the munchies for some more ground zero
sim testing action thanks to all you great people out there who sent me tips
and leads! And fifty dead sims later and a blank memory bug, this sucker is
ready to be upgraded! Actually, this update was done simultaneously with my
The Sims 2: University FAQ, and seeing as how the next expansion pack The
Sims 2: Open for Business is right around the corner, I wanted to get it out
of the way before I bury my head in the game's sand and fail to acknowledge
my friend's and co-worker's right to existence - or the need for sleep and
food for that matter. In unrelated news, I'm considering displacing some of
the more non-expansion specific info from both FAQs into a more generalized
base FAQ in the future.
So what's new? To top the list off, the ever popular action guide has had
several new entries added to it and has been heavily refined, and there are a
couple of new tricks and glitches in their respective section and the usual
all around grammar correcting good cheer! Overall though, the Action Guide is
80% of what this update is about, so please enjoy. ^_^
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Introduction:
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Now with 50% less beached whales due to popular demand, the spirit of The
Sims 2 University Practical FAQ that was anything but practical has now been
carried on into this The Sims 2: Nightlife FAQ! Yeah, I suppose sometime down
the road when Maxis gets to their seventh or two hundredth expansions for
this game, I'm going to have to compile it into one huge abominable ocean of
nonsensical advice in a War and Peace sized textbook, but for now, I'm going
to target this expansion specifically! Actually, to be more accurate, this is
an "Expansion FAQ". There are many basic techniques and cute little entrails
of information in my The Sims 2 University FAQ that covers the core game and
university, so please consult it if you have a more general question about
the core game or The Sims 2: University, and of course, there are many other
great FAQs and forums out on the internet to help you in all your simming
needs!
The Sims 2: Nightlife is the second expansion pack to grace The Sims 2
lineup, and focuses on the dark and exotic scene when the moon is full, the
night is young and the sims run wild all over downtown! There's a little
something for every The Sims 2 player with this expansion pack! From the OCD
perfectionist Level 99 powering RPG inspired zealot to the laissez faire
casual gamer who loves to watch soap operas unfold to the psychopathic
homicidal gamer with a tendency to oh, violently kill their own virtual
children off for a lack of a better euphemism, there's a whole new toy box to
open and dismantle for players all around the gaming table! Of course,
there's something for the master builders out there as well, and the great
artists cranking out that most excellent custom content, you will now have a
whole new bag of goodies to play with!
In addition to the core game, there are lots of fun and practical additions
that Nightlife makes in conjunction with the University expansion pack! So
much that it makes me want to bang my head into particularly spiky picket
fence when I realized just how much of my original university FAQ advice was
made obsolete by such game altering features as the inventory, cars, vampires
and those blasted blind dates that should go right, but never really do
(Actually, do blind dates ever go well in real life?)... oh, and those stupid
restaurants with the incompetent waiters and their projectile food.
Now then, before we start, I'm going to quickly review what I learned over
the past few months since my The Sims 2 University FAQ was released. First of
all, you The Sim 2 fans are awesome! Thank you for all your kind e-mails and
questions, I really appreciate it! You guys are the best! Second, EA isn't an
evil faceless corporate juggernaut - in Canada at least. Third, imitation
isn't the highest form of flattery, blatant plagiarism is, and to that I say
thank you! You never know if something is really good until someone tries to
pass it as their own and sell it on e-bay! Too bad it's against my personal
beliefs to make profit off of another person's or organization's work unless
officially commissioned too, hahahaha. Yup, that's going to come around to
haunt me alright when it's time for my next meal.
Since I covered so much in the University FAQ and not a big fan of copy and
paste methodology, virtually everything in this guide was original written
just for Nightlife, save for the very popular special move and command
section of my FAQ that everyone loves! It's now been updated! Please refer to
my University FAQ for more thorough coverage at:
http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/sims_2_university_a.txt
This FAQ is based a little bit on my experience with the game, but a lot of
it comes from advice and help from many of the The Sims 2 related forums. I
have relied a great deal on others for corrections when making this FAQ, and
I will definitely still be relying on you for them when it's done. Thank you
for reading, and please enjoy!
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Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: How Nightlife Will Traumatize Your Sims
[0] General Update
[1] Relationships Changes
[1.01] Chemistry 101
[1.02] Chemistry Factors
[1.03] Turn Ons and Turn Offs
[1.04] Perfecting Chemistry
[1.05] The Perfect Couple
[1.05] Changing Your Sim's Mind
[1.06] Fury
[1.07] Contacts
[1.08] Interest Update
[1.09] Influence Update
[2] Aspirations Update
[2.01] Wealth Aspiration
[2.02] Knowledge Aspiration
[2.03] Family Aspiration
[2.04] Romance Aspiration
[2.05] Popularity Aspiration
[2.06] Grow Up Aspiration
[2.07] Pleasure Seeker Aspiration
[2.08] Grilled Cheese Aspiration
[3] Sim Inventory
[3.01] Inventory Mechanics
[3.02] Usable Devices
[3.03] Consumable Potions
[3.04] The Inventory Advantage
[4] In Cars
[4.01] About Cars
[4.02] Building a Garage
[4.03] Car Alarms
Chapter 2: Going Downtown
[5] Why Go Downtown
[5.01] Why Community Lots Don't Suck Anymore
[5.02] Downtown Design Essentials
[5.03] Nightlife Benefits to University Young Adults
[6] Restaurants
[6.01] Eating Out
[6.02] Favorite Foods
[6.03] Disgruntled Waiters
[6.04] Getting A Discount from the Host
[6.05] Skipping Out On the Bill
[6.06] Restaurant Tricks
[6.07] Why Restaurants Suck
[7] Recreation and Fun
[7.01] Being the DJ
[7.02] Bowling
[7.03] Photo Booth
[7.04] Poker Table
[7.05] Electro Dance Sphere
[7.06] Karaoke Machine
{8] Miscellaneous Downtown
[8.01] How to Make A Cemetery
[8.02] Building a Base
Chapter 3: Getting Together
[9] Dates
[9.01] How To Get A Date
[9.02] How Dates Work
[9.03] How to Have the Date from Hell
[9.04] How to Have a Dream Date
[9.05] Rewards and Punishment
[10] Outings
[10.01] How To Go On An Outing
[10.02] How Outings Work
[10.03] The Worst Case Scenario
[10.04] The Omni Outing
[10.05] Goodies And Grief
Chapter 4: Vampires
[11] Going Vampire
[11.01] Becoming A Vampire
[11.02] The Vampire Lifestyle
[11.03] Special Abilities
[11.04] Curing Vampirism
[11.05] The Ultimate Vampire
Chapter 5: Meet The People
[12] New NPCs
[12.01] The Matchmaker
[12.02] The Count and Countess
[12.03] Mr. Big and the Diva
[12.05] The Slobs
[12.06] The DJs
[12.07] The Host
[12.08] Waiter/Waitress
[12.09] The Chef
[12.10] Mrs. Crumplebottom
Chapter 6: Action Guide
[13] Special Skills, Commands and Actions
[13.01] Hidden Skills
[13.02] Special Manual Commands
[13.03] Age Based Interactions
[13.04] Special Effects
[13.05] Automatic Commands
[13.06] Object Based Interactions
[13.07] Dining Interactions
[13.08] Motive Desperation
[13.09] Aspiration Desperation
[13.10] When Disaster Strikes
[13.11] Reactions to Death
[13.12] Paranormal Actions
[13.13] Career Reward Actions
Chapter 7: Wrapping Up
[14] Cheats
[15] Closure
[16] Copyright
[17] Special Thanks:
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Chapter 1: How Nightlife Will Traumatize Your Sims:
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[0] General Update: For When the Instruction Manual Self Destructs
The Sims 2: Nightlife adds so many excellent things you'll be wondering if
they were there since the beginning game or not! One thing you can change now
in the gameplay options is to have the surrounding neighboring buildings
around the lot visible while in actual play, as well as the decorations you
used on the neighborhood screen! Also, if you click on a neighboring lot, you
can now conveniently swap over to play them! These features are awesome, and
definitely make screen snapping album makers like myself happy when you have
a lush backdrop instead of a patch of infinite blue! Granted the quality of
the surrounding area is reduced to an abbreviated 3D model similar to what
you see on your neighborhood screen, but it's either that or your computer
implodes, and I much rather take the former. Another new and very much
welcomed addition to The Sims 2 is now the ability to adjust the fade
distance to increase or enhance game performance. You will find these two
options and a bit more under the newly improved gameplay options tab.
On an audio note, upon first playing the game, you'll immediately notice the
most excellent music they put into the game as well! Many of them are remixes
of your tried and true The Sims 2 songs that you heard way too many times to
not remember, you know, when spending like seven hours in build mode. EA got
some rather prominent artists like Timo Maas, Adam Freeland and my personal
favorite, Lemon Jelly, to work their music! Its nice weather for ducks, isn't
it!?
Another part of the game's interface that was highly improved is now the menu
screen for when you take to your car or taxi cab and go to a community lot.
The menu will now allow you to go straight to any place you want in any of
your neighborhood's communities, including the local area and downtown, as
well as university campuses for young adults. This also means that young
adults can go outside of their campus shells and go back to their home
neighborhood, to another university's campus or any of the created downtowns,
and do it directly as well, instead of having to go to the respected area's
neighborhood screen. They wouldn't get to visit other secret societies, but
oh well; you take what you can get.
While we are talking about the neighborhood screen, it should be to much
delight that you can now toggle between day and night! Downtown areas are by
default shown at night time, but you can switch any neighborhood back and
forth if you so desire! Just remember for those special effect lovers,
spotlights only work at night, rainbows only work during day. Along with the
standard lush and desert types of landscapes for neighborhoods, the game has
added two more new styles, dirt for those somewhat evil and cold
neighborhoods, and concrete for those cold and evil neighborhoods.
Added to the expansion at neighborhood screens are also new decorations like
spotlights and skyscrapers, which add to the downtown feel. It's a bit
depressing when a preset skyscraper is bigger than even your largest
construct on your largest lot by twenty fold, but eh, what are ya' going to
do? Well, you could use the cheat and build a 255 floor ziggurat or something
and blow up your computer, but that's not recommended, hahahaha, seriously,
don't do it unless you got your computer from NASA or something. Speaking of
lot sizes, the game adds much more variety! You can now get a petite 1X3
sized lot, and other lot sizes to help diversify your neighborhood when space
absolutely, positively has to be filled. Oh! There are also new preset
buildings in the houses bin, some complete with garages for that brand new
car! Speaking of garages, there are a few building tools added to the game,
specifically half-walls, drive ways and diagonal pools!
Heavy duty builders like me will be glad to know that you can now build half-
walls. Half-walls act very much like fences but can be painted and wall
papered. Unfortunately, you can't put tiles on them to make a half floor like
many of us were hoping, but eh, it's still a nice addition. Half-walls are
more for cosmetic and design purposes more so than practical gameplay. You
can't put doors, windows or wall hung objects on them like paintings, and you
can't put a gate on them like a fence. They do look good on a well designed
lots though or as a room divider or rail. About the only thing that actually
gets past half-walls is light, even noise and an Environmental score straight
from the depths of Hell, complete with roaches, pools of urine and piles of
trash get filtered out by an enclosed half-wall.
A new feature introduced to Nightlife that many might not notice at first are
the addition of rugs! Now, you can have that perfect little sheet of wooly
cloth to cover the floors and add some depth to the room that you always
wanted! Rugs can be stacked on top of each other for some neat patterns, and
they are great for hiding that unseemly repeating effect that ordinary tiles
give to large room. Be careful with Rugs though, as they can be somewhat of a
fire hazard, and little children can rub their feet against them to deliver a
static shock to unassuming sim!
Next on the list are driveways! They come in two varieties, brick and cement,
and also have extended parts that can be used to build a garage. Cars can
only be placed on driveways, and the garage is also mostly for cosmetic
purposes, save for in the case that your sim is a blood sucking vampire, but
it's good to know that they are there.
Finally, Maxis has made pool building much easier! Long gone are the days
when you had to fool the game to build that looped, squiggly, or just plain
distorted to Hell and back pool of your dreams! The game now allows you to
build diagonal pools, and the pool tool is far more adjustable and editable
than its old "Lay down a rectangle of water and that's it" version.
Unfortunately, you can't place ladders, lights or diving boards on the
diagonal portions of the pool, but it's no biggy.
No expansion pack for The Sims 2 would be complete without new interactions,
and Nightlife offers a bucket full of fish heads of them! In particular, you
can now mass call sims to dinner, including guests and your household or
everyone in one step! Saves that clickity, clickity pain! Also new to the
game is the "Ask" social interaction menu. It's so obvious you'll wonder why
they didn't put it in sooner. Now you can ask sims to find out information
about them, like what their wants are, what their job is, their zodiac sign,
how skilled they are, and of course, how much money they will give you if you
marry them. You can also ask them out on a date as well as offer to give them
a ride back home or to your sim's place while on the date. Other ask
functions like "Ask to Join" get their own command on the main menu still, so
don't worry too much about command clutter! The "Ask" command can also be
used to start casual groups or ask sims what they think of your sim, but way
more on that later!
Along with the new object interactions, there's also a new dance in town, the
Smustle -- which is just plain disturbing - and kids can do it too! Of
course, there are now a few new romantic interactions, including the Slow
Dance! Now you don't need to be around music for your sims to dance, and they
can now do it with feeling! The slow dance also has three subcommands that
can be used during it, and often is chainable with related wants in sequence.
Finally, there are plenty of special interactions that can be done at the
dinner table between lovers and friends. Really, there's so much to talk
about, but this section is starting to get embarrassingly long, so I'm going
to have to snippity snip.
Of course, there are also new cloths, new hair styles, and other new goodies
to customize your sim's appearance with, and a few extra yummies, but I'll
save them for later in the FAQ!
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[1] Relationship Changes: Sims Have Feelings Too! Trample Them!
There are many new additions to the relationship system in The Sims 2:
Nightlife! Now your sims have chemistry between each other that can make
their dates a living Hell or Heaven on Earth! Also new are the turn ons and
turn offs, special preferences that sims are looking for in their potential
mates! One of my personal favorite additions is Fury. Now, your sims can be
thoroughly pissed off at each other, and they will indeed show their inner
most contempt for the rest of sim kind, or at least at your sim! On the
opposite end are contacts, people who want to lick your sim's boots and will
have a temporary positive relationship with your sim! These factors are at
the core of the new expansion pack, so enjoy!
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[1.01] Chemistry 101: Because Alchemy Just Doesn't Work Like It Used To
The Sims 2 Nightlife is all about good chemistry, well, either that or
chemistry gone terribly, horrifically wrong, one of the two. Now sims can be
irrationally biased pricks too, and doesn't that just make the game so much
more realistic?
The chemistry factor affects your sim's ability to interact with another sim,
particularly in regards to romantic actions. Positive chemistry increases the
success rate of social interactions, as well as allows certain actions, as
represented by a lightning bolt next to the interactions name to be boosted
to be executed earlier than normal, although it should be noted that it's not
necessarily a good idea to actually do so unless their compatibility is
extremely high, as it still usually stands a good chance of being rejected.
These bolts will be very prominent when you are just opening up a fresh
relationship, often helping to guide your path in woohooing the perfect guy
or girl of your sim's dreams, but they will go away from the command menu
when your sim starts to max their lifetime and daily relationship with the
person in question, since they will have freely unlocked all social
interactions and have no need for the chemistry boost.
Personally, I recommend when interacting to pick the next most powerful
interaction down from the lightning bolt, as it's almost guaranteed to work
instead of the actual lightning bolt command, which might deep fry the
relationship. This is especially true on dates when you don't want to add
insult to injury and get a flaming bag of poo the next morning. This is of
course, unless you are experienced with what and what will not work based on
the relationship and chemistry score, which takes quite a bit of play
experience to master now with the chemistry system in place which gives
different levels of success and accessibility. It's also interesting to know
that chemistry also "helps" with negative interactions under the irritate
command if the relationship is in the negatives, although exactly what else
could not go wrong from using a negative interaction with chemistry is beyond
me.
In order to get a read on your sim's chemistry in a relationship with another
sim, the most direct course of action is to use the "Check Out Sim" command
under Flirt, don't worry, it wouldn't piss the other sim off, they wouldn't
even know that you are stalking them. You can also ask them if they like what
they see under the "Ask" menu or just execute a romantic action to get a read
on their compatibility.
You'll know that two sims have good chemistry by looking at the thought
bubble of the person over a sim's head. If you see a bubble with a sim's face
in it with hearts fluttering about happily, it means that there is at least
some positive attraction there. Likewise, if you see a bubble with Xs flying
and the sim acts like they are going to vomit, it's a bit of an
understatement to say that they might not naturally get along so well.
Sometimes, your sim will automatically add another sim to their chemistry
relationship list, but this only seems to apply if they have positive
chemistry.
A more wide spread course of action is to click on your sim and have them use
the "Scope Room" action. Doing so will run a quick check, and any sims with
positive chemistry will have a white aura around them. It should be noted
that Scope Room is based on your sim's sexual preference. If you sim only has
had relationships with guys, then only guys will glow white, the opposite is
true for the lovely ladies. Of course, if your sim is bisexual or nonsexual,
then the scope will be scanning both sides of the field. If your sim hasn't
had a romantic interaction with or checked out another sim though, the "Scope
Room" ability will not be available
Oh yeah, if you were wondering, all sims have the potential to be bisexual,
so unlike in our world where same sex relationships aren't something
universally accepted, in The Sims 2 world, any sim can romantically involve
themselves with any other sim with no objection, regardless of gender. As a
matter of fact, if I were to be thinking in my usual extremely practical game
exploiting manner instead of my society dictating "common sense", I'd have to
say that a bisexual sim has an advantage over one that only plays one side of
the fence, since they have a wider selection to go through. As soon as a sim
stakes their sexual preference, their chemistry boosted commands will
automatically be displayed when dealing with compatible mates.
Sims cannot develop chemistry towards family members or other sims that they
are romantically incapable of falling in love with.
Virtually all moves that can be boosted by good chemistry share in common the
ability to alter lifetime relationship along with daily relationship, keep
this in mind when using them.
A Sim's chemistry with another sim is represented by a little lightning bolt
icon. The numbers of the boost here are an approximation and vary between
their levels of power. There are 5 levels of chemistry attraction, here in
order from worst to best:
1. Lightning Bolt Crossed Out: Horrible Chemistry
Boost: No Boost, Higher Risk of Failure
2. No Lightning Bolt: No Chemistry (Or Unknown Chemistry Status)
Boost: No Boost
3. One Lightning Bolt: Good Chemistry
Boost: 15-10 Daily and 5 Lifetime Relationship
4. Two Lightning Bolts: Great Chemistry
Boost: 25-20 Daily and 15 to 10 Lifetime Relationship
5. Three Lightning Bolts: Incredible Chemistry
Boost: 40-45 Daily and 20-25 Lifetime Relationship
As an important note, the boost of chemistry might not be equal on both
sides, although it's generally around the same neighborhood within the bolt
indication. There might be times when one partner gets a boost in one action
that the other does not.
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[1.02] Chemistry Factors: For When Love Isn't Blind, or Stupid
There are five factors to chemistry attraction, Zodiac, Personality,
Aspiration, Relationship and Turn Ons and Offs.
Chemistry is tough to properly evaluate, it's not as simple as one bolt plus
two bolts equals three bolts. There's actually an underlying numeral score
and the bolts are just there to vaguely represent it. This makes testing it
accurately very tricky. Without further delay though, the five factors of
chemistry are as follows:
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Zodiac Compatibility:
Of all of the factors to take into account, the Zodiac Sign is the most
important to take into consideration, if only because it's the only one you
can't change after sim creation. All sims are attracted and repelled by two
signs each, but it really makes no good sense why, and it's definitely not
symmetrical or systematic, kind of like astrology really (Depends on who you
ask). Speaking of astrology, if you know your real world astrology inside
out, you'll realize that the sim one isn't the same as the one we humans have
become accustom too, although it has the same signs, but I guess that's just
the just the way it is.
Due to the way the game works out, some signs have general overall advantages
over others, for example, Sagittarius is a well liked sign and apparently
doesn't repel any other signs, making it idea for Romance Sims who want as
many partners as possible. In the case of star crossed lovers, Aries and
Taurus work well together, since they both mutually attract and can be
adjusted to have similar personalities, which leads us to the next factor.
------------------------
Personality Compatibility:
Unlike Zodiac Signs that are positively or negatively affected by signs other
than their own, Personality Compatibility is based on how similar the two
sim's personalities are to each other, the closer the better. You'd think
this whole bit would be a big sweaty shell of redunda' fodder, since Zodiac
Sign is closely tied to personality initially in "Create A Sim" mode, but you
can alter the points within a certain degree and still be labeled under a
certain sign in create a sim mode. There are also a few ways to alter
personality, the safest being elderly and parental encouragement. On the flip
side is the not so safe way, which involves killing your sims off and
bringing them back with the Resurrect o' Nomitron wrong, either as a zombie
or on the side of cheap that reverses their old personality.
Personality is the second most important compatibility trait, simply because
it's very difficult to change controllably, especially for anyone older than
a Teen as encouragement starts to lose effect and you'll basically need an
elder in the family. To throw salt on wounds, you'd need to have two parents
with extreme opposite personalities to have good control over their child's
personality, which takes planning and lots of forethought, and there will
still be one stray personality value left unless there is an elder to
straighten it out. This is because parents can only encourage another sim to
be at a level of personality equal to their own. It'll at least be this way
until a new expansion pack introduces another way to alter personality, like
the good old crystal ball from the first game.
------------------------
Aspiration Compatibility
Aspiration type is a big part of the game, and now different aspiration types
have different compatibility relationships with others. All aspiration types
love other sims of the same aspiration, so that's the safest bet, but let's
face it, having a town of all the same aspiration is boring, and probably
impossible thanks to the expendable NPCs that keep on coming back despite
making your city into a death trap. Outside of having the same aspiration
type, which will always be good chemistry, attraction between aspiration
types is a mixed bag that is not shared equally on both sides. Aspiration
used to be harder to change than even personality, only getting one shot at
it in university, but now with the aspiration item the ReNuYu Senso Orb, it
becomes almost as easy to change as turn ons and turn offs, allowing for
interesting gameplay.
------------------------
Relationship
The saving grace of chemistry, when your sims have a strong daily and
lifetime relationship, their chemistry score will also get a boost. It's
practically impossible for two sims that are the best of friends to have bad
chemistry with each other. Unfortunately, this is quite useless in actual
practical effect since chemistry specifically helps build relationship faster
and safer. When two sims already have maxed out their lifetime and daily
relationship scores, the purpose of chemistry becomes pretty much obsolete.
Still, if you like the look of a triple lightning bolt, then it definitely
helps. On the flip side, if two sims hate each other's guts, they'll also
have a massive decrease in chemistry. You'll know that two sims are truly,
compatible if they can become mortal enemies and still have triple bolts,
albeit there's not exactly a good reason for them to be at odds in the first
place, unless one of them cheats.
------------------------
Turn Ons and Turn Offs
New to Nightlife, Sims now have turn ons and turn offs! In case you are under
six years old and live under a rock where cute little dragons hoard their
treasure night and day, turn ons and turn offs are what people desire in
their potential mates. If the lovely guy or gal in question matches the turn
ons of your sim and not the turn offs, then it'll give their chemistry score
a boost. In this game, turn ons and turn offs exist solely for effecting
chemistry between sims and can mean the difference between an easy romp and a
kick in between the legs, figuratively of course, it'd be awesome if there
was a social interaction to do that.
Newly created characters or children that grow up to teens can pick their
turn ons and turn offs, as well as the usual aspiration selection system, but
old sims from before the expansion get a random batch of them upon you first
playing them after Nightlife installs, however, Maxis knew this would piss
off gamers, and included a handy ReNuYu Potion with every sim from previous
saves that you can chug to instantly change them. Of course, Maxis also knew
that they would have pissed the Hell out of the world if they decided to have
turn ons and turn offs based on the color of a sim's skin, hence why they
aren't there, and to that I salute you and your politically correct minions
of orthodoxy Maxis! Anyhoo, there is much more about turn offs and turn ons
to come, but that'll be in just a little bitty from down here, so please be
patient.
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[1.03] Turn Ons and Turn Offs: Hey Folks! Artificial Discrimination!
Well, that was a long wait! Since I'm already riding on a wave of words here,
I'll just get right down and crawl through the mud - that's right, crawl
through the mud! Of important note is that the "Best" turn ons and turn offs
are directly related to your playing style and who the majority of people in
your neighborhood are, or the potential mate you want to set your sim up
with, so there is no "Best" choice for all situations, ah screw that, Custom
Hair is the best turn on or turn off in the game, next.
Of all of the factors in the game, turn ons and turn offs are the easiest to
change, you can also change your own and other sims to match preferences, so
it's no biggy if your old sim from before the expansion gets some really
weird fetishes when you check their turn on and turn off tabs. Turn ons and
turn offs are also one of the more influential factors in chemistry
Here's a list of the Turn Ons and Turn Offs with small notes:
------------------------
Fat: Sadly, a turn off in our world and age (Remember when plump and pale was
in some hundreds of years ago?) but the sims seem to randomly love fat people
as much as fit people. Still, most townies are average build, so unless you
have a custom neighborhood full of fat people, it makes a safe turn off. It
makes the perfect turn on though however if your desired partner has the
Grill Cheesed Sandwich Aspiration. It's a difficult factor to change
unfortunately, albeit infinitely easier than in real life, just get your sim
to use an exercise machine till they have reached the desired weight.
------------------------
Fit: A good turn on in custom neighborhoods with sims that have been raised
with particularly strict athletic attention, whether they wanted it or not.
It's pretty hard to get a sim with high body skill that isn't fit
accidentally. The downside to being fit is that it's hard to change on a dime
if your date happens to hate athletes or supermodels, so you have to really
plump your sim out through over eating. Keepin' it real!
------------------------
Stink: There is really nothing good that comes out of having this as a turn
on, it's probably the worst turn on you can have, since sims who start to
stink generally have extremely low hygiene and have other things on their
mind than chumming about with romantic interests. It makes a natural turn off
though.
------------------------
Cologne: All sims can buy a bottle of cologne for 125 simoleans, it can last
up to four and a half hours if you don't ultra speed through it, so it's a
safe turn on to have and also a safe turn off, since you can use it at will,
so long as you got the scratch to pay. It's downside of course is the fact
that it costs bling whales and it's temporary.
------------------------
Vampirism: Makes a safe turn off if you don't plan to have any vampires in
your neighborhood, but what fun would that be? On the flip side, if your
vampire loving sim's mate isn't to their liking, you can always remedy that
problem should they be vampires themselves with a big ol' bite. You can
always reverse vampirism with Vamprocillin-D.
Formal Wear: A good turn on, since it's controllable, but not particularly
constant, since non-controllable sims tend to rarely wear, if ever wear it
outside of special events. It's okay if you have two controllable sims and a
wardrobe though. Can't recommend it as a turn off, just incase you want to
dress the part for oh, a wedding or something trivial like that. Formal wear
and other clothing types can be changed with a wardrobe instantly, as well as
performing certain actions like going to bed, taking a swim or working out.
It is also be possible to make a custom "Omni Suit" like my main sim's custom
made "Xynthica's Universal Yukata" dress that counts for all clothing types,
however, it will only count for the style of cloths that you put it on as
with the wardrobe, so you wouldn't be able to hit all three clothing turn ons
at the same time. Still, having like six outfits for the price of one isn't
horrible, and it's especially useful to give your sim when they start out in
create a sim mode.
------------------------
Swim Suits: A logical turn on for the voyeur sim in you, or pretty much any
biped with a pulse. There is actually only one reason why a sim should be
given this as a turn on, and that's specifically for hot tub interactions or
around the pool. I can't recommend it as a turn off though, since it's always
handy to have in those cases. I'm personally not sure if outgoing sims who
take it all off in hot tubs are classified as being in swimsuits, it has yet
to be tested.
------------------------
Underwear: Yeah! Panties! Fan service! Ahem... other than making an infinite
amount of sense as being a turn on, you almost never see non-controllable
sims in their underwear, save for extremely outgoing sims at Toga Parties, in
which case, I still have to test if the outfit counts as underwear instead of
a toga. Seriously, unless you don't approve of minor things like oh, how the
Hell sims can reproduce, don't give your sims this as a turn off, as they are
still technically going to be wearing it during Woohoo, and you don't want
that going south.
------------------------
Make Up: A safe turn on for girl lovers, since quite a few female sims in the
game wear makeup by default, although it doesn't quite always work that way
for the opposite sex so it makes a safe turn off for men lovers. Make up and
other facial features, including hair style and color, glasses, hats and
basically everything down on the this list from here can be changed using a
mirror. It seems that sims don't actually take off their Make Up when they
are about to take a shower or go to sleep, so it seems to have a pretty
constant presence.
Not to imply anything politically incorrect here, but you can take advantage
of the Make Up turn on to "brand" your sim's love interests using the "Make
Over" option with the Cornerstone Variable Vanity table. This will accelerate
the attraction if your sim has a turn on for Make Up, and Makeup isn't as
obvious as some of the other turn on or turn off choices in appearance, so it
can help.
------------------------
Full Face Make Up: Very few sims wear full face makeup in blank default
custom neighborhoods, save for those that are ruled by clowns and evil pro
wrestlers, but it's an easily alterable trait, so if you happen to
aesthetically like it, it's not a problem. Full Face Makeup also makes a good
Turn Off otherwise.
------------------------
Glasses: I hate people with glasses, it makes me want to punch their squiggly
little faces in, or so I would like to say - if I didn't wear glasses.
Glasses are a good controllable turn on and turn off. The glasses do come off
on some occasions though, so it might not be as universally viable as some of
the other turn ons or turn offs.
------------------------
Hat: Who doesn't like hats? Oh wait, me, I absolutely hate hats, I can't
stand them, I think they are an insult to cacti everywhere. That being said,
hats are very changeable, just go to a mirror and pop one or off, makes for a
controllable Turn On or Turn Off, and at least a small amount of townies wear
them. Sims have a tendency to take their hats off when they aren't dressed to
go outdoors or are planning on doing something like sleeping or showering, so
it's not the most stable turn on or turn off.
------------------------
Facial Hair: Anyone who has their eye on the lovely ladies has a better
chance to fetch an ice cream bowl out of Hell with their teeth than to have
this as a turn on, seeing as how girls in this game are normally incapable of
having facial hair. It's a pretty safe turn on though for man chasers though,
at least a fair deal of townies has facial hair.
------------------------
Black Hair: It's black, its hair, what more is there to say? Makes a great
turn on, but a pretty counterproductive turnoff, seeing as how a lot of
townies, dare I say the majority, have black hair, well, that's the way it is
in our world anyway. If you are starting a fresh neighborhood with no
grandiose plans of community assimilation in mind, I highly recommend giving
your sim it as a turn on.
------------------------
Brown Hair: It's brown, it's hair, and it's everywhere! There aren't many
ways to go wrong with having brown hair as a turn on, and like all the other
hairs, quite a bit if it's a turn off.
------------------------
Blond Hair: Blonds are more fun! Hurray! And to think that they are going to
do the dodo in two hundred years (Actually, that article was more or less
debunked). Save the blonds! Have blond hair as your sims turn on! Well, if
you have it as a turn off, fair enough, I like black hair more anyway.
------------------------
Red Hair: Apparently, according to a study, red heads feel naturally feel
more pain. That being said, don't make their sim counterparts go through the
emotional half of it! Yup, it's a similar case with the other hair types.
------------------------
Gray Hair: Old people! Yeah! I love old people! Nothing says "I'm old and
rich! Give me some love!" like gray hair, not to be confused with white or
silver hair that says, "I'll kill you and use your entrails as a skipping
rope". Naturally, if your sim and his/her love interests are elders, giving
them gray hair can only be beneficial. It's not bad for young and regular
adults either, but don't give it to teens because they wouldn't be able to
romantically interact with elders.
------------------------
Custom Hair: Custom hair, in a few words is the absolute best turn on AND
turns off you can have in the game, depending on your gaming preference. For
example, if your entire city consists of giddy anime hair brushing school
girls (School referring to university of course) with hair color from all
parts of the Mississippi northern lights, then have a single guy with a turn
on for custom hair, he's going to definitely be in chemistry heaven. Well, on
the somewhat more practical side, you can just make all of the "anime girl"
sims extra yuri, and that'll do more than just solve the problem. Anyhoo,
bottom-line is that if you get a community of custom haired sims together,
it'll be all one love, love, happy, happy community!
Custom Hair can be of any color or texture as well, since you create it, so
you can have a blond who is still technically considered as having custom
hair despite it looking exactly like the preset blond hair. It doesn't work
at all well with the townies, but you can invite them home and change em' up
a bit to your liking. Basically, the work will take place outside of the game
in the Body Shop, but since hair color has an indefinite duration, it'll have
a permanent effect until you decide to change it. If you're really serious
about milking your sim community's potential, the Custom Hair factor is
definitely an aspect to look into. Of course, if you happen to hate the body
shop and don't like downloading custom content, well, then Custom Hair might
not be the Turn On to float your boat. On the flip side, if you don't plan to
have custom hair, it suddenly becomes the safest Turn Off in the game,
because nobody in the game uses it outside of your own sims, nobody that you
can form a romantic relationship with at least that I know of.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.04] Perfecting Chemistry: When It Doesn't Blow Up In Your Face
Chemistry and Compatibility in The Sims 2: Nightlife is a surprisingly hard
thing to predict. Unless you happen to know about the finer details, you'll
probably rely on trial and error to find your sim's perfect match, which can
be a bit of a pain can't it?
The following tables regarding Aspiration Compatibility and Zodiac Sign were
taken directly from the official www.thesims2.com site and I hope you to find
them as useful as I did:
-----------------------
Zodiac Sign Compatibility:
Zodiac Sign: Attracted to: Repelled by:
Aries Gemini/Taurus Cancer/Libra
Taurus Aries/Libra Virgo/Cancer
Gemini Pisces/Virgo Capricorn/Aries
Cancer Taurus/Scorpio Gemini/Aries
Leo Sagittarius/Cancer Capricorn/Gemini
Virgo Aquarius/Sagittarius Leo/Taurus
Libra Virgo/Cancer Pisces/Scorpio
Scorpio Pisces/Leo Libra/Aquarius
Sagittarius Pisces/Capricorn Libra/Scorpio
Capricorn Aquarius/Taurus Leo/Gemini
Aquarius Capricorn/Sagittarius Scorpio/Virgo
Pisces Scorpio/Gemini Leo/Aries
-----------------------
B: Bad
N: Neutral
G: Good
(R) (W) (P) (F) (K) (PS) (C)
Romance G N G B B N N
Wealth N G B G N G G
Popularity N B G N B B N
Family B N B G G B N
Knowledge B B N N G N N
Pleasure G G N B N G G
Cheese N N N N N N G
-----------------------
I'll level with you folks, I agree with the Zodiac Sign chart, since I've
crossed referenced it with other sources, and it seems to work in execution,
but I have my doubts about some parts of the Aspiration Compatibility table,
namely because I've experienced a couple scenarios where making a neutral
aspiration compatibility on both sides go bad had a positive effect on the
relationship chemistry and vice versa.
So you're probably thinking that an obsessive compulsive, perfectionist, RPG
level hoarding bastard like yours truly couldn't possibly come up with a
completely different version of the chart through repeated painful accounts
of trial and error? Well, you don't have to spell it out so clearly, but
yeah, I did.
Unlike the official chart above, this one focuses on the actual outcome of
the final chemistry score, instead of what one aspiration type thinks of the
other. I have never seen through hundreds and hundreds of different chemistry
combinations a case where two people didn't have the same chemistry rating
for each other, they consistently and reliably mirror each other. There does
apparently seem to be an asymmetrical attraction between aspiration types
though like the above chart states, as evident when you use the "Check Out"
command and one partner is impressed and the other is indifferent, so it does
seem true that one aspiration type can like another, but not the other way
around., this is taken into account automatically in the final score, which
is what I am using as a measurement. Okay then, here are the ratings, unlike
the chart above, the one I researched has six different levels, although
please keep in mind that there are probably actually more increments of
measurement:
1. Sucky
2. Bad
3. Neutral
4. Good
5. Great
6. C. Lust
-----------------------
(W) (K) (F) (R) (P) (PS) (C)
Wealth 5 3 4 3 4 3 1
Knowledge 3 5 5 2 2 1 3
Family 4 6 5 1 2 2 4
Romance 3 2 1 5 3 5 2
Popularity 4 2 2 3 5 4 1
Pleasure 2 1 2 5 4 5 3
Cheese 1 3 4 2 1 4 6
-----------------------
So you're probably wondering what C. Lust stands for right? Cheese Lust of
course! It is by far the most powerful Aspiration attraction. It practically
equals triple bolts even if virtually everything else between the couple is
wrong, so if you are thinking about making a couple with as insanely high
chemistry score as possible, make them Grill Cheese Aspiration sims!
Oh yes, please feel free to follow the aspiration compatibility chart that
works for you better. As I have not found enough volunteers to cross check my
version of the chart, I do not have complete confidence in its universal
accuracy, although it seems that the official chart has a few skeptics as
well. If you find my version of the chart to be accurate or inaccurate,
please let me know, I appreciate it.
Okay then! At the very least, any relationship between two sims in the game
can be turned into a double lightning bolt from changing aspirations and turn
ons and turn offs to fit on both sides to fit each other alone. The roadblock
in chemistry is generally the Zodiac Sign, since it cannot be changed.
Personality is a close second of course, since you can only change it
controllably if you have someone in your family in an older age group than
your sim. On the positive side, the other loose variables of chemistry that
are aspiration type, relationship and turn ons and turn offs are pretty
influential and adjustable, there's even a pretty good chance that you can
ring up a triple from just altering those three factors alone. It's not very
hard to convert crappy chemistry into good chemistry once you know how things
work out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.05] The Perfect Couple: Are Not Born, They Are Made
It is very rare that two sims will just naturally have triple bolts without
you trying. Even if you pay the Matchmaker top dollar, chances are, she'll
just summon an okay double bolter from the heavens. A double bolter who's a
stranger can become a triple bolter upon becoming a lover, but where's the
fun in that? You want a couple with such insanely high chemistry that they
can tear each other's eyes out and become lovers again in the same day!
Do you want a couple with chemistry so ridiculously high that they can still
"Friendly Hug" each other when they are in the negatives? How about a couple
that doesn't just get to the third base in few short hours but a full blown
homerun? If you are, here's how you do it. Please take note that under most
normal circumstances, as mentioned above, a good deal of couples can be
changed up to meet the triple bolt level by adjusting aspiration type and
turn ons and turn offs alone. Personally, my main sim is a Cancer, so the
fact that Cancer is kinda' "Uguuuu..." when it comes to general or
specialized compatibility ticks me off, but she still managed to get a triple
bolt with her Sagittarius partner.
if you want to make a couple with perfect compatibility, which by the way is
pretty pointless at 100 daily and lifetime relationship since the success
rate of almost all positive interactions with the exception of badly told
jokes and automated chatting is virtually 100%, then this section is for you!
-----------------------
Perfect Zodiac Compatibility:
There are four Zodiac combinations that mutually attract each other:
Aries to Taurus
Capricorn to Aquarius
Gemini to Pisces
Scorpio to Pisces
Of these four, Aries to Taurus is the one that starts off naturally as having
the closest personality in Create a Sim mode, which bring us to our next
section.
-----------------------
Perfect Personality Compatibility:
If you start your sims as teens or younger and encourage them to match their
destined lover's personality perfectly then you have hopes of scoring the
maximum score for personality compatibility. This part of the process
requires a lot of planning and effort, and your sim should at least have
parents that have personality levels that match or exceed the child's
destined lover's personality, both on the positives and negatives. At this
point, it all boils down to lots and lots of encouragement commands. In the
case of a good match like Aries to Taurus though, you wouldn't have to
shuffle that many points to get them to match
-----------------------
Perfect Aspiration Type Compatibility:
The easy way to do this is to just have your two sims have the same
aspiration. However, in the case that the level of compatibility is all that
matters and nothing else, than have your two sims stick their heads into the
ReNuYu Senso Orb with crappy a aspiration level and fry the grill cheesed
sandwich aspiration into their heads. There will be more details regarding
this in a later section. Two cheese aspiring sims have the greatest
compatibility by far of all the aspiration matching, a practically guaranteed
triple bolt.
-----------------------
Perfect Turn On and Turn Off Compatibility:
This one is easy, you either make your sim's turn ons and turn offs match
their partner, or you make their partner match their turn ons and turn offs.
This process is a double sided road, meaning that it's ideal if both
partner's match each others preferences from both sides. You can't change the
turn ons and turn offs for your partner if they are an NPC not living with
you, so you have to work with what you can change.
For the first case, just have your sim drink a ReNuYu Port o' Chug or stick
their head into a ReNuYu Senso Orb with success, as opposed to grilled cheese
surprise. Next, just pick two traits that your partner has, like black hair
and wearing makeup that are indefinite in time duration for most all
circumstances, as opposed to temporary effects like wearing cologne or what
type of cloths they are wearing. This will help boost the chemistry on your
sims side.
In the second case that is changing your partner to fit your sim's turn ons
and turn offs, buy the Cornerstone Variable Vanity and use the "Make Over"
option. Assuming that your sim's relationship with the other sim is
tolerable, they'll allow you to prep them up however you wish, just like when
your own sim uses a mirror. You wouldn't be able to change everything about
them, but you can at least alter things like makeup and hair, and make them
look like your sim's dead lover in a creepy sort of Hitchcock inspired way.
Of course, if you know your partner's own turn ons and turn offs, try to have
your sim match them as well if you can't control them to change. You can
either use the wardrobe to change clothing if they have a preference for
underwear, swimsuits or formal clothing or use a mirror to put on make up,
change hair styles, or any other number of things. All of this of course will
take a moment, so it's recommended that you prepare for it before the date if
possible.
-----------------------
Perfect Relationship Compatibility:
This one is pretty much automatic, when your relationship with the other sim
reaches very high levels, their compatibility will naturally increase as
well. Just have the two sims hit off on each other normally and romantically,
and they'll have maxed out relationship compatibility in no time.
-----------------------
Love Potion #8.5 Touch Up:
If you want to absolutely, positively make sure that the relationship is as
high as the game can possibly allow, then have each partner drink a Love
Potion #8.5. Basically, this is like injecting steroids into a pink elephant,
there's really no need to since anything past this point in chemistry is
pretty much all in your head rather than in practical gameplay, but if you're
the kinda' person who likes the cake, the icing, the card, the cherry on top
and the box that the dang thing came in, then this is a good final step.
-----------------------
Well then, there you go, after taking care of all five variables, you now
have a couple that is so ridiculously compatible that they can beat each
other down with baseball bats and still be lovey dovey in no time, as a
matter of fact, most any interaction between the two will work as soon as
they appear, and your sims will even be able to successfully deliver friendly
hugs even when their daily and lifetime relationship scores are -25 each and
furious with each other! At a neutral level of 0 daily and lifetime
relationship, they also already start off at a healthy launching point for
middle level flirts and low level hugs and kisses. You can practically take
them from 0 to 100 in a couple of hours. How's that for compatibility!?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.06] Changing Your Sims Mind: When Being Yourself Just Isn't Good Enough
Do you think that it's weird that even a beautiful young maiden of a sim that
you have watched and cared for like a doting father each and every sim day is
turned on by smelly vampires after installing Nightlife? No problem! Maxis
included two ways to easily change your sim's turn ons and turn offs. First
off, with every old time sim's inventory from before the expansion back was
installed is a ReNuYu Porta-Chug! Good for a one time use to change their
preferences, and of which I will discuss more in the inventory section.
Now, onto the second method to change your sim's turn ons and turn offs! The
dream machine behind this is the new and only additional aspiration reward
called the ReNuYu Senso Orb! All your sim has to do is stick their head into
it and get reprogrammed to witness the broader horizons of life! It costs
6250 points, comes with five charges and can change your sim's aspiration
type and turn ons and turn offs - but wait! There's MORE! IT CAN COMPLETELY
SCREW YOUR SIM'S MIND OVER AND GIVE THEM THE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH
ASPIRATION!
Ahem, pretend you didn't read that whole part in caps and let's go on. No
longer will your sims have to go through the hell that is university to give
themselves a fresh perspective on life! Now even grown adults can experience
any aspiration they want, and Family Sims will now finally have a way out of
those nightmarish lifetime wants like "Marry Off 6 Children", like Hell they
will!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.07] Fury: When Cold Silent Homicidal Hatred Just Doesn't Cut It
Long gone are the days when Sims were innocent, inherently good love children
of the player! Now, you can look down on all of creation with pity and
embarrassment!
Fury is a special period where one sim is clearly pissed off at another sim
for a variety of possible reasons. In this time, the portrait of the
character in the relationship menu is eclipsed in a red haze that slowly
clears up like a clock and provides a massive temporary decrease in both
lifetime and daily relationship scores. It doesn't make positive interaction
with the sim impossible, but it definitely limits your options, since the big
scoring interactions wouldn't be around unless you work them back up to the
positives. You can restore a relationship back to its former state even when
still in fury if you work at it and do everything you could before, but it
might be a battle better waited out than fought.
Sims in fury that you do not control will make it their mission in life to
ruin yours. From stealing your newspaper, to kicking over your trash can to
just plain ominously creeping about your lot at night, furious sims not under
your control are obvious not very nice. You can pay them off to stop for 50
simoleans, but it's best to let things blow over and repair things after the
red clears up.
Fury makes the game much more "interesting", in an evil, more realistic
sorta' way, and balances out the game's original friendly environment. In the
old days before Nightlife, the worst two freewill controlled sims could
usually do on their own without pre-intervention was have the usual awkward
conversation, piss off each other with annoying pranks, and the occasional
poke and shove, but it never really escalated on freewill alone into a full
on brawl. Now computer controlled sims will escalate their negative social
interactions, even on community lots into full blown fights! I had two of my
best sims become mortal enemies with -80 on both lifetime and daily just from
one nasty set of exchanged social interactions on a community lot. Also, if
you influence a sim to attack another sim, there is far more leverage and a
much higher possibly that the two will start attacking each other out of
their own freewill.
There are several ways to incite Fury. First off and most guaranteed, is
catching someone cheating on your sim, resulting in a slap happy sim seeing
red. Another way is just attacking them and beating them into a bloody pulp.
Losing in a fight seems to automatically ensure fury, but so does simply
repeatedly insulting and attacking the other sim. Yet another way is when a
burglar robs your house, it results in your sims being furious at him or her,
yeah really. Another very reliable way is to use the "Throw Drink" command
under irritate to easily and understandably toss the victim of the splashy
surprise into a furious frenzy. There seem to be a lot of ways to feel the
fury indeed.
In regards to fury and all around general hatred, there is one personality
trait in the game that has become much more prominent in its role, the
Grouchy and Nice parameter. Even before nightlife, there was a difference in
behavior; like grouchy sims would cheat when playing chess, more and Nice
ones would take pleasure in joyful actions like hugging, but now there is
even more of an effect. In Nightlife, the freewill takes the grouchy
personally and has gotten around to making them pure evil. Seriously, I have
one old man of a grouchy sim, and he insults and attacks almost any sim he
doesn't have a friendly relationship with, I have to quickly exit the lot as
soon as I see him poking another sim, because I just know he's going to try
and attack them - again. Very nice sims on the other hand start their
relationships quite well, you can leave them on their own on community lots
controlled by freewill, and be pleasantly surprised at their new
acquaintances when you get back to playing them. It seems that being nice now
has definitely been stepped up in Nightlife to become a very important
personality trait if you happen to like your neighbors, and I don't mean in a
tiny drinkable cup of cow plant milk.
That's not all there is to being a Nice or a Grouchy sim now either, Fury's
power and duration is actually directly affected by how nice your sim is, at
least on their side of the conflict. A perfectly nice sim has the ability to
reduce the total time it takes for them to get a grip and subside from fury
by almost four times as fast as a perfectly Grouchy sim. Being perfectly Nice
also reduces more than half of the relational damage that being perfectly
Grouchy takes when triggering a furious state, along with having a generally
higher relationship score when the dust clears.
Nice sims also get a little behavior bonus that you'll notice if you watch
them carefully -- they don't fight back! If a grouchy sim comes up and slaps
one up the side of the head for no good reason, they'd sooner run away with
tears streaming out of their eyes than slap back. It's lacking a bit of
dignity to it, but nice sims are experts at keeping bad emotional fallout to
a minimum, which can be extremely helpful if you don't like to watch your
sims wring each other's necks. Of course, if your nice sim still has high
body score, they can still finish what another sim starts if they are full on
attacked. Generally, if you have a good relationship that has taken a furious
hit, then being Nice can only be an asset, on the other side of the coin
being Grouchy actually has some benefits in the fury department as well, if
only because it exploits the game mechanics.
There is a unique case where a smart player can use fury to their advantage
to actually increase relationship! It is best used if their sim is especially
Grouchy, but it'll work with any sim to varying degrees. If a sim already has
hit the bottom of the hate well and is in the deep -100 in daily and lifetime
relationship, or pretty darn close to there, a sim can actually heal their
relationship by initiating Fury. The Fury period actually recovers the
relationship from its lowest point as it subsides by a very good amount, this
is of course, partially due to the natural recovery of negative relations
over time, but it's also because there's just nowhere else to go after -100
but up. Since Grouchy sims have a much longer recovery time, they'll actually
heal more, since they don't take any additional relational damage over -100.
This does take quite a long time though, so don't expect any immediate
gratification. It's also not exactly a common thing to "accidentally" get two
sims to hate each other to the point of maximum bloody red loathing.
So how long does Fury last exactly? It depends on the severity of the action
really and how nice the offended sim is. Doing something somewhat small like
throwing your drink at another sim can make them pissed off at you for about
5 to 18 hours, but beating the tar out of them can leave them burning in
their own rage for a day to half a week! So what's the longest time I've ever
seen? When a burglar robbed the house of a perfectly Grouchy sim, that must
have went on for what must have seemed to be weeks, probably enough time to
go through almost all four years of University come to think of it. Needless
to say, sims do not take kindly to having their houses plundered.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.08] Contacts: When Other People Want to Lick Your Sim's Boots
Put simply, Contact status is the positive opposite of Fury, they happen most
often when your sim has gone out for a good date or outing with a person with
connections, and you might get a phone call from one of their buddies later.
In my experience, contacts have always been, except for one case, people who
your sim hasn't met yet. They'll just call you up when you're all good and
not ready and ask for an outing, just like real life!
With Contacts, instead of covering their portrait in a red haze, you get a
blue haze and a nice boost to their relationship of something like 30 Daily
Relationship and 10 Lifetime Relationship, enough to easily cut to the chase
and make them your friend permanently. When a sim has contact status, you
should try your best to befriend them before the time is up, since it's a
very easy way to make a new friend. Well, that's it for contacts, so much
fury, so little friendly, hahahah. Oh yeah, since there is really only one
way to get contacts, they are pretty stable in length I'm theorizing, about
24 hours or so regardless of personality, of course, they are also generally
much rarer to come by because you can't trigger them at will, unlike Fury.
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[1.08] Interest Update: When Grill Cheese Is a Cold Issue
Along with the original 18 interests that were around since the core game was
released, there is a bit of a hidden one that doesn't work quite as
conventionally, the grill cheesed sandwich interest. Seriously, I can't make
this stuff up, well, actually I can, but that's beside the point.
It might be that there is a grilled chees sandwich interest parameter in
everybody, but unless they happen to have the Grill Cheese Sandwich
aspiration, other sims with it the same aspiration stand a snowball's chance
in hell of successfully communicating their cheesy good desire, and since the
cheese sim has frequent wants and fears relating to it, it's rather important
to them.
Oh yes, this is not exclusive to the expansion pack, but I did more testing
on interests in my epic crusade to try and max out my main sim Xyni and
discovered the following. Apparently, there is indeed a limit to the total
amount of points a single sim can have in interests, if it exceeds the limit,
then other interests decrease to compensate. The magic number hovers around
101-110 total interest points. If an attempt either by reading magazines or
sharing interests is made to exceed the 101 number, then it is extremely
likely that the total number will rebound back to 101 by decreasing other
areas. You can crawl past it just slightly, but 110 is about as far as you
can stretch it to. On the other hand, a sim who has less interest points than
101 can safely increase their interest in any area they wish without fear of
a rebound until they meet the set number. It should also be noted that sims
start having serious trouble reading magazines for long periods of time when
they are around the 90 point or so period and wouldn't be able to sit down
and soak the information in as well.
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[1.09] Influence Update: Being Even More Under the Influence
There are a few new influence actions for those with the luxury to own both
expansion packs!
Bite Neck: 1000
The most useful of the new influence options, a sim can now influence a
vampire sim to directly bite another sim, turning them into a vampire in the
process! It should also be noted that if you influence a Count or Countessa
to do so, their chances of success will be significantly higher, even on
complete strangers, as opposed to if you influenced a regular vampire.
Drink Vamprocillin-D: 1000
Basically the opposite to the Bite Neck influence command, Vamprocillin-D is
a potion you can buy from the Matchmaker for 60 simoleans, and if you take it
out and put it directly onto an open space on a square, you can influence
vampires to drink it to be restored to normal. Take note though that there
seems to be a bug in the game that prevents computer controlled sims from
being influenced to drink Vamprocillin-D. Kind of stupid, since that's pretty
much the entire point of the command. The option will be available, they will
acknowledge the action, but the game will make them not actually jump into
action. That doesn't mean that they can't be restored though if you gain
control of them and have them drink it manually.
Serve Grill Cheese Sandwiches: 2500
A notorious influence ability exclusive to cheese sims. Cheese sims can
influence other sims to cook grill cheesed sandwiches regardless of their
cooking skill level or time of day. Cheese sims also have a high paying want
that corresponds with this.
Sing Karaoke: 1000
You can influence a sim to make an idiot out of themselves on lots where
there is a karaoke machine available. There seems to be a corresponding want
to this, and in all fairness, it's rather fun watching people sing very badly
like an American Idol reject.
Sing With: 1000
I hate duets, I really hate duets. They annoy me. To have a sim sing with
another sim at the same time, just use this influence option. Their
relationship with the other sim should at least be tolerable for it to work.
=============================================================================
[2] Aspirations Update
All of your favorite aspiration types are back and more fleshed out than
ever, but making their new appearance in this expansion pack are two new
aspirations! Now, the highly anticipated Free Loader, errrr, I mean, Pleasure
Seeker aspiration is available! So what's the second new aspiration? Well, if
you didn't see it being mentioned several times already, read on down!
=============================================================================
[2.01] Wealth Aspiration
It's back with a fistful of cash and more worldly desires than before! Well,
that's what I would like to say, but aside from a desire to try out some of
the new toys and social interactions in the game, wealth aspiring sims
haven't changed much, they are still reliable and solid choices for climbing
the corporate later though, and I'm willing to bet in the next business
oriented expansion pack, they are going to take a big ol' spotlight.
On the plus side for wealth sims in this game, they gain an extremely big
benefit from the inventory, so much that it feels like you are cheating. When
you stash an object, say an expensive painting away in their inventory, their
want to buy it again will be renewed for you to quench again. Additionally,
object's values don't depreciate in the inventory, so you can easily exploit
the wealth sim's want to buy things by stashing them immediately after buying
them and then selling them a day and a bit later for no loss of aspiration or
money!
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[2.02] Knowledge Aspiration
The most evil and twisted aspiration in the game has just gotten even more
evil and extra twisty with the addition of vampires! Now, most sims don't
want to be vampires, and if they are, they want to be bloody cured of the
dang ailment, but not knowledge aspiring sims, they want to share the love in
big watery mouthfuls with as many people as they might remotely like! Bleh!
If you are thinking of making a vamp who wants to spread their lifestyle,
pick the knowledge aspiration, you wouldn't regret it. There is so much fun
to be had with vampires though that I definitely had to make a section in
this FAQ dedicated to them, and will cover more of the importance of the
knowledge aspiration in it as well. Oh yeah, if you read my last FAQ on The
Sims 2: University, you'll know that the sims of knowledge aspiration have
the unique ability remember very bad things, like seeing ghosts, being turned
into a zombie or being abducted by aliens in a very good light.
The knowledge aspiration actually starts to gain relevant wants and fears to
particular phenomenon after first witnessing them, more so than any other
aspiration type. Upon seeing or being through their first alien abduction,
zombie resurrection, the grim reaper, or vampire turning, they will start to
have wants related to them. Other sims go through a similar process, but they
will most likely have fears about them instead of wants. For scoring
purposes, it's good to focus your knowledge sim in one instead of all
phenomenons, so they can combo their want satisfaction better, but having a
sim who's seen and done everything is also satisfying.
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[2.03] Family Aspiration:
Not much has changed with the family aspiring sims with this expansion, still
good, still sweet, and still firm believers of monogamy. Like it's popularity
striving sister, family sims thrive on social interaction, and can take
advantage of the new dating features, however, they can get away again and
again with dating the person who matters the most - their spouse! How
exciting is that! Yeah, you can tell I haven't been married yet can you tell?
Actually, the Family Aspiration loses a bit out to the other aspiration types
in this game, because now any aspiration can go into "Date Override" mode and
gain intimate interactions with their partner, which was one of the things
the family aspiring sim excelled at originally that made them so reliable.
Oh yeah, I noted it in my previous FAQ, but although the family aspiration is
one of the most reliable in the game, right next to the popularly aspiration,
it has some of the most painful lifetime wants, like getting 6 children
married, getting 6 grandchildren, getting 3 children through college. This
especially screws up your game if you happen to be an OCD story teller like
me and have no idea how to fit something like 6 grandchildren into your plot
arc. Thanks to the ReNuYu Senso Orb, you can now switch your sim out into
another aspiration to fulfill a much easier lifetime want, the lifetime wants
of the wealth aspiration are particularly easy to achieve, then switch them
back with their lifetime platinum aspiration still intact.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.04] Romance Aspiration:
If it weren't for the Pleasure Seeker aspiration, I'd swear that Nightlife
was made for romance aspiring sims in mind! Of all of the old aspirations,
the romance aspiration has the most to gain from the expansion. Now thanks to
the dating feature, they can get aspiration points and also get some good one
on one time with their potential love interests to shoot their meters to
platinum and through the roof! This isn't even taking into account that they
can now also conveniently woohoo in cars and in photo booths for extra booya!
The Photo Booth in particular actually allows them to do "Public Woohoo" in
the comfort of their own home oddly enough.
The chemistry system also gives players a lot more to think about to what
their romance sim's personality, zodiac sign and turn ons and offs should be,
so that they will have the sweetest honey to attract the flies. For best
results, get a romance sim who is a Sagittarius or to a slightly weaker case,
a Taurus which have the best attraction versus repelling ratios of any of the
signs. After deciding their chemistry features, make them start hitting on
anything that moves, except for the RC car thingie, that would be just weird,
and buggy (Seriously, the RC car is bugged, don't use it!). Now the only
thing you have to watch out for is getting caught cheating!
Oh yeah, if you didn't read my other FAQ, then you should take note that
romance sims are notorious for being self gratifying, disloyal, cheating
bastards that would sooner jump on anything with two legs that move than
conform to something as trivial as commitment, no offense to anyone who's
like that in real life. Trying to have a lovingly committed romance sim is
like trying to make a Chia Pet designed to be lit on fire. The problem that
comes with Romance Sims is that dating becomes very difficult when any other
lovers see your sim dating a new boyfriend or girlfriend. When former flames
are stalking your every move, it practically becomes a game of Metal Gear
Solid, and I'm not even talking about the radio waves that doing a woohoo
apparently sends to any potential hearts on the lot to come into your general
vicinity with extra slap happy virgin oil on their minds. Now then, when half
of the neighborhood is deeply in love with your romance sim and you go
downtown for a date, you can imagine the Hell that will ensue, it'll
steamroll your dating score, back up, then run over it again - in slow
motion. Remember folks, just because it happens in harem anime definitely
doesn't mean that it'll work here (Might work in real life though), so there
are two things you can do in order to keep your free loving sim from
disasterizing every date they go on in a town where everybody loves them.
First of all, you can kill all of your sim's old lovers *sips a cup of
coffee*. You know, I just realized just how morally bankrupt that sounds, but
really, it's not a bad idea. Just ask them to move in, take their money and
inventory, and then just chuck them into a pool without a ladder or an
incinerator room for that extra crispy flavor *takes a bigger sip of coffee*.
Actually, that's not an incredibly bad idea either, your romance sim might
not even have to work if he or she lives off of marrying the rich and mowing
them down underground after emptying their pockets, I mean, they're all just
expendable, worthless excuses for digital people after all *finishes the cup
of coffee*. Anyhow, remember, sims don't kill sims, people kill sims.
Actually, the above paragraph wasn't the best idea really; it's just the most
amusing. The best idea is to invite your sim's lover to move in, and then
move them to the family bin using the "Find Own Place" command on computers
and newspapers, that way, your sim will still technically be in love with
them, but they wouldn't be able to come and interfere with your sim's life.
This is especially useful for you to be able to achieve the multiple loves at
a time related wants. Keep in mind though that relationships deteriorate with
the passing of time, so you might have to move them in temporarily to refresh
the love then out again to the bin, this is not actually a bad idea either,
because when you move them out, they'll gain the default 20,000 simoleans,
and when you move them back in, you'll add that amount to your account as
well. Of course, this is kinda' exploiting the game, but if you don't like
exploiting the game, then you shouldn't be reading a FAQ in the first place,
especially this FAQ, hahahaha. Oh yeah, watch out when you ask a young adult
to move in, they'll automatically drop out of university in the process.
Young adults and adults look almost identical, so the best to tell is by
their voice sets.
The second, and infinitely more morally correct solution than the ones
proposed above is to simply have your romance sim date at home where the
roving public eye wouldn't follow them, but that just makes too much sense,
and where's the adventure?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.05] Popularity Aspiration:
Ah, after practically writing an essay on the popularity sim in my last FAQ,
I'm sad to say that there isn't much new to say about it. Popularity sims can
take great advantage of both outings and dates, helping to satisfy their
rapid wants to meet new people and make friends, helping with their longer
termed goals. It's actually pretty fair to say that the concept of outings
had popularity aspiring sims in mind, since they are basically like parties
on the go, although pleasure seeking sims develop the relevant want to do so
far more frequently where popularity aspiring sims tend to want parties
instead.
Popularity aspiring sims definitely have a lot to gain by dating. Unlike
romance sims and more like family sims, they can stick to one loving sim and
not get tired of them, unlike real life I might want to add as I dodge
various implements of death being thrown at me. At peak performance, they
still have the highest aspiration point output, especially if they go on
frequent dates and outings now.
Oh yeah, in case you are wondering, my "main gal" sim that I mentioned
several times in my last FAQ as being a popularity aspiring sim is doing
fine, she's almost graduated from university with highest honors at the time
of writing this part of the FAQ. Her name is Xyni, named after my own
original anime style character which you can find on my site mentioned at the
bottom of this FAQ. She has blue hair, pink eyes, two legs, and loves her cow
plant, and is very much in love with a snail (My stories are messed up,
hahaa). Then again, the real Xyni has a man eating tail and collects
caltrops, but until the The Sims 2 gets the "The Sims 2: Completely !@#$ed
Up!" expansion pack, I'll have to improvise. Almost all of the positive
experience I have in the game comes from playing her and her family. On the
flip side, I also have Xyni's "Onee-chan" Rally Vippy. Rally has pink hair,
blue eyes, and is basically the exact opposite personality of Xyni, which is
to say that she's Satan. As you might have guessed, a lot of the "evil"
things mentioned on this FAQ are experienced by playing as her. I will
mention the two sims in a way similar to "Good Idea", "Bad Idea" later in
this FAQ, because I think it's !@#$ing hilarious.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.06] Grow Up Aspiration
Since Nightlife has so little to do with the children and the younger aspects
of The Sims 2, there is very little to mention here. I just thought I'd list
it here for the sake of completeness. The grow up aspiration is extremely
dependant on what stage of childhood your sim is in. As a toddler, they'll
want to learn the basics of life, like walking, potty training, and that kind
of fun stuff. As a child, they'll be more independent and want to do things
like play with other sims and make friends and learn how to study. Except for
family night outings, kids don't have very much to do with the Nightlife
Expansion, but it doesn't stop them from going to nightclubs if mommy or
daddy comes along.
Sim parents can't leave their children at home without a nanny, so bringing
them along to a nightclub, a bar, or a poker joint isn't actually a
completely horrible idea, unlike in real life where they could be exposed to
the lowest levels of human corruption. Oh yeah, on the bright side, similar
to how having children at home makes other children automatically appear as
passing by neighbors, bringing a child to a community lot makes other
children to interact with appear, and that means that your child will finally
have a victim to bully and attack.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.07] Pleasure Seeker Aspiration
Freeloaders rejoice! The new pleasure seeker aspiration has been introduced
into Nightlife, and what a pleasure it is! Honestly, I'd like to compare it
to some of the other aspirations, but there's just nothing particularly close
enough. Sure, it has the worldly desire to buy lots of stuff like the Wealth
aspiring sim, it has the drive to go on dates like the romance sim, and
perhaps it has a dab of the original grow up aspiration's playful nature, but
for the pleasure seeker, it's really all about having good times using fun
objects, going on great dates, not lifting a finger to work and juggling
balls! Yup, you can't forget to juggle balls if you have a sim with 8 points
and up or there is a juggling opportunity for an object on the lot, because
your sim will remind you that they want to juggle every chance you get!
In terms of lifetime wants, I have seen pleasure seekers have the following:
1. Become a Professional Party Guest
2. Have 50 First Dates
3. Have 50 Dream Dates
The Professional Party Guest job is the top of the slacker career, so it's a
pretty normal lifetime want shared by the romance sim, but the other lifetime
wants are rather unique. Believe it or not, the 50 First Dates want is
actually a bit more difficult than the 50 Dream Dates one, because you have
to date a different person each time. Well, it's actually very easy if you
don't mind them ending regularly in disaster, just go to the Matchmaker, pay
minimum wage for a date, then end the date immediate, it's almost as fun as
using a broken slot machine, but you might have to change up the prices later
on when you get the same idiot falling from the sky a few times. You should
be able to at least squeeze by with at least a "Good" and above rating with a
total stranger if you are actually trying and something doesn't go horribly,
horribly wrong, but it all depends on how you want to play the game.
With the "Have 50 Dream Dates" lifetime want, all you have to do is go on a
date with the same person over and over and over again. Your sim can even be
married to them, and the dates will go by very fast in getting to Dream Date,
since they can cut straight to the heavy duty romantic actions. I like to
call this technique "Machinegun Dating" and will cover it thoroughly later in
the FAQ in the dating section.
The pleasure seeker sim is probably the most difficult sim out of the
aspiration types to start off alone due to their tendency to quickly saturate
their wants list with wanting to buy objects that you might not have the
money to part with, and no other way to clear off their list. Of course, you
can use the inventory trick mentioned in this FAQ's inventory section to help
lighten the burden, but seriously, it can become rather annoying, since
unlike the wealth sim that has the desire to actually make the bread to buy
the butter, the pleasure seeker is basically a good for nothing freeloader, I
mean that in the nicest way possible. When making a Pleasure Seeker sim, you
might want to highly consider giving them 8 points of playfulness, because
unlike all the other sims who find the art of juggling completely useless,
the Pleasure Seeker sim can get a small regular boost just from whipping out
their balls, errrr, I mean juggling. Still, you don't absolutely need the
actual innate ability to juggle to satisfy the want, since sims can juggle
tumblers and bottles as well to satisfy the want, but it's a much more
portable way to satisfy a want than going to an object.
The higher their playfulness level is also generally means the weirder and
more out there the pleasure seeker's wants will be. This should at least keep
them a float till they fill their houses with materialistic goodness. Of
course, needless to say, the downtown feature of the game was practically
designed with the pleasure seeker in mind, as they'll frequently get wants to
just go there, and once they are there, they will find plenty of things for
them to do to help rejuvenate their aspiration meter.
A good strategy for pleasure seeking sims is to pair them up with adult
wealth aspiring sims. Pleasure seeking and wealth aspiring sims can help
fulfill each others needs. They both also frequently get buying object wants,
so you can get lucky and nail two birds with one stone by buying objects that
both sims want. Of course, needless to say, the pleasure seeker sim can
freeload off of the wealth sim's bling whales. An alternative, but very
effective strategy, similar to the romance sim, for pleasure seeking sims is
to have them specialize in dating wealthy sims, like Mr. Big and the Diva.
A pleasure seeking sim that specializes in dating for profit would invite
lovers to move in or marry, then kill or ship them off after looting their
money and inventory. It wouldn't take a well played pleasure seeking sim very
long to land a lover ready to move in after a good date or two, which they'll
most likely have wants to do anyway, and if you manage to land Mr. Big or the
Diva, you'll be set for quite a while to come, so it'll be done, done, onto
the next one.
Aside from all of the above, pleasure seeking sims sure have some fun small
time wants only exceeded in weirdness by the cheese aspiring sim. Pleasure
seeker sims love to play pranks on people, fair enough, they also are
particularly fond of using influence commands, however, that doesn't even
begin to cover their hilarious want to roast marshmallows over a fire jet
that could potentially fry their eyebrows off or to stay home from work.
That's right, pleasure seeking sims can actually get a puny counterproductive
want to stay home from work, something we all can relate to. They also will
want to do things like jump on the coach and take bubbles baths, and the want
to go on outings or dates is pretty standard with them as well. One other
cute want that certain personality pleasure seekers have is the desire to
change into their PJs when they are at home, I can kinda' relate, hahahah.
Finally, pleasure seekers also develop the want to buy children's toys, guess
there is a kid in every sim after all, except for romance sims, they're evil.
Oh yeah, Pleasure Seekers have one of the most hilarious desperation
aspiration animations of the bunch! They put a lamp shade over their head and
start dancing like the delusional disco inferno stud that they are, oh yeah,
they also make weird noises while they are at it, can't forget the weird
noises.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.08] Grilled Cheese Aspiration
What's grilled, has cheese in it, and is sandwiched? A beached whale of
course! Errrr, I mean a grilled cheese sandwich, and now your sims that have
enough emotional problems in their lives to deal with as it is can be further
traumatized with dreams and ambitions of a better grilled cheese sandwich for
tomorrow! So how do you get this magnificently cheesy aspiration? Stick your
sim's head into the ReNuYu Senso Orb with green, and most definitely red
aspiration level and watch as they get the dreams of the ideal grilled cheese
sandwich implanted into their minds! In case you aren't familiar with
aspiration rewards slightly defective quirks, they tend to backfire when your
sims are lower than gold mode, the ReNuYu Senso Orb in this case is just
acting out it's defective paces.
So what is the grilled cheese sandwich aspiration good for? Absolutely
nothing! Hahaha, if only that were really true, cheese sims ironically gain
the most new abilities from their new found aspiration, more so than any
other aspiration type. Some of these special abilities include the talent to
make grilled cheese sandwiches at anytime of the day and to talk about grill
cheese sandwiches to other sims for a surprisingly big pay off if they can
actually relate, in which case is dismally not often unless they are also
cheese sims, since it seems other sims find the grill cheese fetish
apparently rather bizarre. Sure, they're pretty useless abilities, but then
again, what the hell good is the sexy walk for anyway?
Another ability of cheese sims is that they can influence others to serve
specifically grilled cheese sandwiches, this actually isn't all that bad of
an extra skill, since grill cheese sandwiches are at least a lot better than
the instant meals the lazy talent lacking townies tend to serve, although if
they burn down your kitchen in the process, your grilled cheese sandwich and
local friendly townie might be a little overdone, although it's good to know
that the sandwich is still somewhat eatable -- not so much with your
neighbor. Normally, you need two points of cooking skill to make a grill
cheese sandwich and it can only be done during lunch time, but cheese sims
can completely bypass that, as well as bypass the limit of others when
influencing them.
Cheese sims are actually pretty reliable in their wants, you wouldn't get
want palette lock too easily with them, since their grill cheese related
wants are simple to satisfy and small in variety. They're weakness however
seems to be that they don't have any gigantic payoff wants unique to them, so
you'll have to chip away at their wants in small doses. The simple wants that
they do have however, pay surprisingly well for such simple tasks. All you
have to do is keep them at home cranking out sandwiches all day long, but
hopefully you'll have another bread bringer in the family to keep the fridge
nice and full.
So what about wants? Well, compared to other aspiration types, the grilled
cheese sandwich is quite limited. They will have wants of eating a grill
cheese sandwich, serving grill cheesed sandwiches, influencing other sims to
serve grill cheesed sandwiches, and the occasional object or relation
oriented want that the other aspirations get as well. On the flip side, they
fear eating bad grill cheese sandwiches, burning grill cheesed sandwiches,
losing cooking skill points, and of course, our good old friend since the
dawn of time, fire.
So with all of this fun, what would the cheese aspiring sim's ultimate
lifetime want be, well there's only one, and it involves wolfing down 200
grill cheese sandwiches! They are definitely going to put on a little weight
for that one! So how are you going to count how many sandwiches your sim has
eaten? Well, each time a cheese aspiring sim eats a grill cheesed sandwich,
they get a vivid memory of it, beats me why anyone would make such a big deal
about such a small thing, then I remember the succulently smooth, warm and
gooey texture of a grill cheese sandwich, and I can kinda' relate.
For the normal "Eat Grill Cheese Sandwich" want, you can take one bite out of
it to fulfill the want, but in the case of getting a marker for their life
time want; they have to eat the entire sandwich for it to count. Since
naturally doing this will require your sim to eat it all in one sitting or
else it might rot, they will most likely overflow past their hunger bar and
put on weight. Basically, trying to have a fit grilled cheese sandwich sim is
like sticking your hand into a flaming toaster and expecting it to come out
okay.
In actuality, the best strategy with cheese sims is to have them work in
twos. Giving your cheese loving sim a partner to share their passion with,
serve and be served meals to is a great strategy, and kinda' cute in a sick,
nonsensical kind of way. In particular, they'll be able to satisfy their want
to talk about grill cheese sandwiches more, since sims of other aspirations
tend to have an inherent indifference or sheer hatred of them, regardless if
they have a high food interest score or not. Two grilled cheese sims together
also have the highest aspiration type compatibility possible, so that's
definitely something to look forward to.
Cheese sims have a rather hilarious aspiration desperation for when their
meter is in the deep red. They'll take out a cardboard plank with a grill
cheesed sandwich picture on it and fantasize over it. Grilled cheese
sandwich, I solute your greatness *Bites out of a hamburger*!
=============================================================================
[3] Sim Inventory
Finally! Long time fans of the original The Sims with its fully decked out
roster of expansion packs will be more than happy to discover that Maxis has
revived the inventory feature in Nightlife! Except this time, they loaded it
up with steroids, spun it around three times, and sent it out to the players
wielding an aluminum baseball bat! Ever wonder how the burglar manages to
steal things bigger than any single human could ever hope to carry, like say,
your new car? Well, we'll probably never know exactly how, but now your sim
can do it too, and isn't that all the better!?
=============================================================================
[3.01] Inventory Mechanics: Your Sim's Own Personal Black Hole
The new inventory system doesn't just hold usable items like the cellphone
and consumable objects like cologne, it holds practically everything that you
can buy in the game, any aspiration or career reward, paintings and pictures,
and even a bag of flaming poo that pissed off daters leave on your front
door! For the love of all things holy, you can pocket other people's
tombstones! The basic rule is that if you can select and delete it, and it
isn't a window or a door, then you can stuff it down your sim's pants
(Seriously, where exactly do they put their belongings?). All you got to do
is enter the inventory screen and drag and drop the item into your inventory
bin, and your sim's semi-infinite black hole of a pocket will grip onto it
where ever they go! The classic "Bag of Holding" has got nothing on this bad
boy of a black hole inventory system! There is a time though when you can't
use the inventory though, and that's basically the same time as whenever buy
and build mode are not available, such as a disaster, a burglary, or on a
community lot.
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[3.02] Usable Devices: Because the World Needs More Distractions
All three of the usable objects in the game that can be carried with your sim
and used infinitely originated with the University Expansion pack. For the
long, winding, and admittedly far wordier than it should be version, please
check out my The Sims 2 University FAQ, specifically the master copy on
www.gamefaqs.com.
-----------------------
NOYIN 2680 Cellular Phone
Price: 149 Simoleans
Buy From: Sellafone Gadget Kiosk
The cornerstone of all on the go sim communication, your sim can take their
cellphone out of their inventory now! It seems from my experience, that you
can add cellphones sometimes by drag and drop, but other times you can't, so
your sim has to pick it up and use it manually to add it back again. I can't
believe I'm saying this, but I think Maxis finally fixed the cellphone waking
up people in the middle of their slumber problem. It seems now that when your
sim sleeps, their cellphone automatically stops ringing, yeah, I can't
believe it either. With the new downtown in place, a sim with many, many
friends can expect to be invited to go downtown quite often, feel free to say
no, as it can actually be rather disruptive to your sims' lives if they say
yes to every invitation. The cellphone is probably the number one most
important item to have in your sims inventory, and now that it doesn't seem
to wake them up, it's all the better. After using a cellphone for a while,
you'll start to feel naked without one.
-----------------------
Cozmo MP3 Player
Price: 195 Simoleans
Buy From: Sellafone Gadget Kiosk
Allowing your sim to whip out the music everywhere they go, so long as they
don't mind standing around in the middle of the street dancing like an idiot.
It's a handy device to use boost up your sims fun motive.
-----------------------
LeTournament Decahedron XS
Price: 245 Simoleans
Buy From: Sellafone Gadget Kiosk
Ah! The ever addictive marvel of portable entertainment is still available to
enjoy for sims of most ages! As of the recent patch, sims now wouldn't have
to worry about getting a crush with themselves or another sim from the
wonders of gaming technology and metaphysical string theory application! Oh
yeah, if you didn't know, the word "LeTournament" is a play off of Maxis'
senior producer "Tim LeTourneau". In somewhat related news, if you were
wondering why the names of the objects in the game are so ridiculously long
and hard to remember, it's because Maxis hires tiny little elves slaving over
a typewriter to cram as many in-jokes as literally possible into each and
every little write up, very similar to how the Caramilk bar is made, except
those are made with evil machines. I like Caramilk bars.
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[3.03] Consumable Potions: Liquid Solutions to Your Every Problem!
ReNuYu Port o'Chug
Price: N/A
Buy From: N/A
All sims that were created before the Nightlife expansion pack will get a
complimentary ReNuYu Port o' Chug magically deposited into their inventory,
free of charge! The blue potion is good for a one time change of turn ons and
turn offs. In the case that you want to get more ReNuYu Port o' Chugs though,
don't fret, pretty much all default townies come with one in their inventory
upon moving into your household and becoming controllable, so you can just
take theirs and deposit it into your inventory before introducing them to
your torture room full of fire jets.
-----------------------
Compulsion by Melvin Stein Cologne:
Price: 125 Simoleans
Buy From: Compulsion Fragrance Display
Cologne is a handy little fragrance your sim can sprit onto themselves to
help increase their chemistry with sims who are turned on by it. You can use
it at anytime by clicking on your sim and selecting the appropriate command.
Cologne can last up to about four hours and a half consistently, however it
actually seems that going into Ultra Speed mode ends its full duration
prematurely, and not just special effects. You'll know it's working when the
flower petals flutter about your sim. With the exception of the ReNuYu Port
o' Chug, potions can also be bought in bulk in intervals of 1, 3, 5 and 10.
-----------------------
Love Potion #8.5
Price: 350 Simoleans
Buy From: Matchmaker
When your sim absolutely, positive has to make a relationship work,
regardless of trivial crap like the other person's feelings, then try some
Love Potion 8.5, because apparently the sim FDA deemed version 9 unsafe for
human consumption, works fine on cats though.
You can buy a bottle of Love Potion #8.5 from the Matchmaker for 350
simoleans each, and it's definitely worth using in a pinch, especially in
combination with the Cool Shades aspiration item for an enhanced effect
during a date. What Love Potion #8.5 does exactly is temporary boost
chemistry between your sim and any other potential romantic for a period of
game time. Strangely enough, if you set the game on Ultra Speed, the game
makes the potion's effects wear off prematurely, whereas if you play at
normal or fast speed, it seems to last reliably for four hours of game time,
so make sure you work fast within that time to dig your way into the
relationship. You'll know that the potion is taking effect when you see the
flowers sprout from wherever your sim stands and hearts are radiating from
them, as opposed to seeing birds suddenly appear whenever they are near.
Drinking a vile of Love Potion #8.5 usually adds about one or two bolts to
your chemistry score by multiplying the effect of your sim's existing
chemistry variables, however, if you happen to be controlling two sims that
you want to hook up, having both of them drink Love Potion #8.5 together has
a multiplying effect that basically results in an instant triple lightning
bolt chemistry. This is unless in the extremely rare case that every single
one of the five chemistry factors violently clashes, including relationship,
after all, a billion multiplied by zero is still zero. Even if you have just
one of the five factors that do work though and the rest clash completely,
you should expect at least a positive chemistry to work with, especially if
the relationship is descent, meaning that the lovebirds aren't ripping each
other's hair out. Having a couple with perfectly broken chemistry is as hard
to create or come across a couple with perfectly compatible chemistry, so it
shouldn't be an every day event that downing two Love Potion #8.5s each
wouldn't do the trick.
-----------------------
Vamprocillin-D
Price: 60 Simoleans
Buy From: Matchmaker
There's only one cure for the power of darkness that is vampirism, and it
doesn't involve chopping off a vampire's head, filling it with garlic and
whopping it with a silver golf club, and that cure is Vamprocillin-D! Along
with being able to cure your sim by clicking on them and selecting it, a sim
can influence another vampire to drink it for 1000 influence points and
return them to normal, however, this does not seem to actually work on
computer controlled NPCs at the time of writing this, as although they will
appear to comply, they simply wouldn't spring into the actual action.
Vamprocillin-D is also surprisingly cheap, costing only a measly 60 simoleans
from your local friendly Matchmaker!
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[3.04] The Inventory Advantage: Exploiting The Game One Step At A Time
Now thanks to the inventory system, otherwise heartbreaking scenarios can
easily be remedied! Here are a few cases in which you might find the
inventory extremely useful!
-----------------------
Scenario 1: Moving
Are your sims moving, but you want to take all their goodies, including
sentimental pictures and paintings, and hard earned career and aspiration
rewards instead of selling them with the house for dismal returns? Well now
you can! Just pile on anything that isn't nailed down with the house in a
sim's inventory, then get a moving on up!
-----------------------
Scenario 2: Going to University
Is your teen sim going to university to live a life of poverty but her family
is obscenely rich and it makes absolutely no sense why they can't give her
some serious bling whales on her adventure to higher education? No problem,
just load her up with expensive goodies like a little pony in the spring
time, send her to university, have her sell some expensive objects,
preferably expensive art for money to buy and move to a bigger lot, then
build a ginourmas mansion bigger than any other building on campus and fill
it with material zeal! You can even lend them some career and aspiration
rewards to share with their friends or bring to the secret society for future
generations! That's right folks; the mind numbing trauma that I underlined so
many times in my previous FAQ of sims going to university is now officially
remedied!
-----------------------
Scenario 3: Lending a Helping Hand
Now if you have an established and powerful sim in your neighborhood with
more money than they know what to do with (Without crashing your computer)
they can lend the new sims in town that you create a helping hand by -- you
guessed it, moving them in and loading them up like a pony, then sending them
out to their own lot to lay down their new toys! Thanks to the inventory,
sims helping sims is now even easier, and the boost is extremely helpful for
a fast startup!
-----------------------
Scenario 4: Ransacking!
Thanks to the inventory system, now your sims too can be thieving, lying
bastards, well, maybe except for the lying part, sims seem inherently
incapable of lying, with that whole speaking in a nonsensical language and
everything. Anyway, similar to the ransacking trick with the normal
University expansion pack, your sims now can go from dorm to dorm in
university and steal everything that isn't nailed down and if that wasn't
enough, they can also plunder the entire Secret Society along with their
career rewards. So if you have a sim who wants a Cow Plant or 
Walkthroughs 
