FreeTime – Grilled Cheese Aspiration and benefits

There’s a new Grilled Cheese Aspiration in the latest Sims expansion pack, FreeTime. It’s pretty funny. Wants include making grilled cheese, eating grilled cheese, talking about it to another sim, serving it, and influencing another sim to make grilled cheese. Fears include eating bad grilled cheese and burning it. I first found this aspiration when choosing a Secondary Aspiration. In the new neighborhood, there’s a sim named Natasha Una with this aspiration. She had 6 aspiration points to spend, so her Grilled-cheese related benefits are: Bottomless stomach (doesn’t get overweight easily), slower bladder decay, able to paint grilled cheese on an easel, and Conjure Grilled Cheese. That one is pretty neat; she shouldn’t need to spend money on food, and can eat on the go!

EA Land – The Sims Online: review of free service

I always thought that playing the Sims online with other people would be fun, but didn’t want to pay a monthly fee for something I could play offline for free (after paying for the PC game). Now that EA has launched a free version of The Sims Online, I wanted to give it a try. My first impression is that it’s just a chat room with a bunch of actions and gestures your Sim can perform. It seems that you can’t enter certain types of lots with the free service, but you can go to a job and make simoleans. I think only paid subscriptions can own land/lots, and therefore sell items and provide free services (such as exercise machines and food). By going to lots you can build your skills up (although it takes a MUCH longer time to build up a skill online than in the PC game). And you can build up relationships with other Sims online, but this seems to take a long time too. You can get promoted at your job the same as the PC game – building skills and making friends. I guess it’s possible to buy items, but I don’t think they’d be useful unless you had your own land. It’s nice to chat to other Sims, but I don’t see a purpose to the other things available to the free players. I guess they need to entice the free members to upgrade to the pay service. If the monthly fee isn’t too high, I might think about it. But I don’t think I’ll become addicted with the free service.

Here’s an article I read that introduces it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/25/ea-turns-the-sims-online-into-free-ea-land-second-life-competitor/

Big Man on Campus

I just found a memory for a student called ‘Became Big Man on Campus’. I’m not sure what that means, but I found a couple discussions (one at http://forums.thesimsresource.com/showthread.php?t=279527) that claim it’s based on the number of friends you have, and can appear as a want for popularity sims. My sim had 14 friends/best friends. He’s a senior, about to graduate, and has a 4.0. He lives in a dorm and does not belong to a Greek House. The memory and want icons look like a varsity jacket.

Creating Hotels – Can’t Click on Door to Reserve Room

I tried creating my first hotel today in Takemizu Village. I first started by creating a residential lot, then used the cheat ‘changelotzoning hotel’ to change it to a hotel. After creating the hotel, saving and re-entering it, I could not change any of the structure (doors, windows, etc) of the hotel, but I could add other items. I sent an elderly couple off to vacation there, and they could not click on either of the room doors to reserve them. So there must be a special hotel door you must use. I did remember to add the check-in desk, but it’s useless without reservable rooms. Also I didn’t add the phone booth outside, but luckily I added a regular phone on the inside, so they could call to change accommodations. If I’m not able to change the doors in build mode, how will I make my hotel usable??? I’ll have to change the lot zoning back to community first to change the doors I think. I guess you set the price of the room when you use the special hotel room doors, because I never set the price yet.

Trouble getting 5 Top Level Businesses by Transferring

I just found something out today about the Own 5 Top Level Businesses want. The Sim must have owned the business as it became level 10!! Only then will it count towards the 5. You can’t transfer a business that is already level 10 from a different owner and have it count towards the 5. So I spent all that time building 5 top level businesses in my neighborhood and transfered them to Katrina. But only one of them she actually owned at the time it became level 10. I saw a post that said it actually counts the number of ‘Achieved a top-level business’ memory. So if your business goes back down to 9 and the back up to 10 four more times, you achieve the want. I did this in only a few minutes since her husband, Cleve, has the Sales–Manipulate power which always results in a lost star. Gaining the star back was pretty easy too.  I think this is a fair way to achieve the want, because I really think that transferring an existing business should have counted!

University mascots flirt with your girlfriend/boyfriend

On university lots, there’s always some mascot (dressed in a cow costume) who flirts with someone who’s already in love with someone else! This always causes a ‘Caught cheating’ memory, and the one who was cheated on will become angry at both the cow and his/her loved one.  I guess it’s not that hard to mend things, just takes a little time. But why does this happen and what can we do to prevent it?!?

Transfer Lot Ownership to another Sim

Today I’m finally trying to transfer a top-level business owned by a Servo to one of my sims (Katrina Loner) whose lifetime want is to own 5 top-level businesses. As soon as they became best friends I assumed it would be possible to click on the deed hanging on the wall and transfer it to Katrina. But the option wasn’t there. So I invited her to move in and then I  could transfer it. Next time I’ll try making sure the relationship is higher than 100/52. Because now I’ll have to move her husband out and back in again so that Katrina is the owner of their home business.

Tips:

  • If you can’t find the deed to your business, use the Real Estate\Order deed option on the phone to order one for 15 simoleans. It will then appear in your inventory, and you can hang it on the wall.
  • You can’t order a deed or transfer ownership of a home business. You’ll have to have the owner move out to transfer it to another family member. Then the old owner can move back in.

Trouble becoming a werewolf – can Elders become werewolves?

There are many articles to explain how to become a werewolf. See this eHow article
for a quick guide. One tip I didn’t think about was putting a bunch of trees and bushes on the lot to attract the wolf with green/yellow eyes. I’m trying with David, an elder sim, and he has a 99/99 relationship score and still was not ‘nibbled’. So I was wondering if elder sims are too old to become a werewolf. Then I just saw on this ArticleGuide article that the victim sim’s stats (social, comfort, fun, hygiene, and bladder) should be kept low for maximum results. I always keep my Sims’ stats pretty high, so it may be difficult keeping his stats low at the right timing when the wolf comes. I’ll give it a try; I haven’t heard that elders are not able to turn to werewolves. Have you? Hey, robots can turn into vampires, so I’d say it’s possible!

Hit by Satellite while Stargazing

Today one of my sims, David, got hit by a satellite while stargazing on the ground. Almost as soon as he lay down it seemed like he suddenly became a huge ball of fire and smoke. I think I’ve heard of Sims also spontaneously combusting, but after the smoke cleared there was a piece of satellite in his place. Grim reaper was on his way over, so I quickly got his wife Caryl out of bed and pleaded for his life (click on Grim reaper as he has his clipboard out). She won and he was resurrected! The piece of satellite can be sold for 1999 simoleons or put in their inventory. I think I’ll try selling it in a shop, but I don’t think it will be possible. Just another memento in their home.