Late Night: First Impressions

[Joria]

My opinion, for what it's worth, is Bridgeport sucks.  The new clothes, game mechanics and such are awesome, but not being able to modify outside of your "cubicle", because that's about how big those apartments are, all except for one, if very annoying.  Ok, so maybe in RL you couldn't extend your space by knocking out a wall or three, but this isn't real life.  Besides, if you bought the entire floor you COULD do that. Even most of the houses are puny and the decor leaves much to be desired.  Ok, so thought we were going to be able to have penthouses, not cubby holes.  Or are the penthouses something you have to earn?

Also, what is with the "muddy bottom" look to the land?  It looks almost post apocalypse!  Like a huge mudslide hit everything.  The water looks pretty disgusting too, like sewage.  It is also darned near impossible to place any new lots.  Yes, you can place a few, the largest being 20x40 and I've only found two places for that.  Most of the land is mountain/cliffside/hills and any large plots of land are unroutable.  As a matter of fact, MOST of it is unroutable. The dreariness of it makes Twinbrook look like a green paradise by comparison, even with the fog.

Cool things like round pools and more modern things are really nice, and so are the clubs and such.  But if you can't fool around with things and redo/redcorate/remodel, my personal source of fun is depleted where Bridgeport is concerned.  I was SO looking forward to doing roof top gardens!  Since you can't even get onto the roof top I guess that idea is out.

This is just my first glance, trying stuff in Edit Town mode.  Maybe I'll find it more appealing as I play it but other than the goodies that came with it, it is definitely not my favorite town.  Geez, Sims2 night life stuff was awesome, not dreary and drudgery.

EDIT:  WHOA!  That was the fastest I've EVER been kicked out of the game!  I tried to play a townie and bam!  As soon as their icons showed up it was black screen of death.  This was the artsie trio.  I'll try one other but this does not bode well.

[Bde1225]

The game was angered at your comments so it crashed , I laughed out loud when I read your post the the edit saying the game crashed-that is something that would happen to me I swear. I agree with you about bridgeport. I am not very impressed with the apartments and the available spaces to live. I think it could have been done much better in my opinion. I have not tried so I am not sure, but can we make out own city like we could in TS2, or is it just edit the town we are already playing? I miss that..I want to make my own epic town.

[Glic2000]

Yeah, the design of Bridgeport is basically a compromise.  The developers realized it would be impossible to have fully functional apartment buildings, so they just created large "rabbit-hole" buildings with one "house" in each.  This way, we get the general look and "feel" of a city without all the complexity.

Imagine if you could create one apartment on each floor of an 18-story building...that would be the equivalent of 18 houses on one lot!  Your computer would need an enormous amount of memory and CPU speed to handle something like that.   The current generation of computers doesn't have anywhere near that much power. 

What I would really like to see is a separate tool (sort of like Create-A-World) that allows us to make our own "rabbit hole" buildings.  Then you could at least make a skyscraper the way you want (although it would still be limited to one "suite").   Presumably such a tool already exists, but I don't know if it'll ever be released to the public.

[Pam]

I feel like I have to defend Bridgeport a little.  What Joria says is basically true, but these are all things that are found in a true city/urban area.  The water's not clear and blue, the ground isn't lush and green.  And it's not a builder's paradise.  It's small, cramped, dirty, and crowded.  I find it to be quite true to life, including the lovely parts of the city that are nicely designed.  Electronic Arts didn't market Late Night as being a place with wide open spaces and lots of things to build.  It's a city with a city lifestyle.  I don't have any idea where all of you live, but I've lived in a large metropolitan area all my life and it's just like this.  Bridgeport looks so much like downtown Dallas and many other large cities I've visited.  As for the argument that "real life" doesn't matter, then what does?  Sunset Valley and Riverview are exactly as I would imagine such small towns would be.  And now we have a completely different environment with a big city.  When you live in the city, you have a small space.  You just do.  As for the penthouses, I think they are just more expensive.  My Sim had a wish to move into a penthouse and buying her a $33,000 loft with adjoining balcony didn't satisfy the wish.  So, I'm guessing that it's got to be one of the more expensive places.  From Edit Town, I was able to see places that have 4 to 6 bedrooms, but they're already occupied. 

Anyway, I'd like to share a few screenshots of my first experiences in Late Night.

This is the building Lainy lives in.  It's called Veranda Villas.  You can see her loft and balcony at the very top of the building.



Here's the entrance where the newspaper comes and where the trash is located.  The mailbox is just inside the door.



This is the lower and upper levels of her loft.  I haven't done any decorating, so this is how it came.  I think it's cute and stylish.





Here's the first vampire I saw.  He was at the diner when she went to get food for the film shoot.



Later that night, she was hunted by the vampire standing beside her at Plasma 101.  It was a little lame and nothing at all happened.

[Pam]

I've read that some people have gone to bars and such and there are no people.  Not sure if it was in this thread, though.  If you read the newspaper, it will tell you which places are the hot spots for the night.  There will probably be more people in those locations. 

[Joria]

Ok, maybe I've gotten spoiled by Portland, Oregon because OUR big city is NOT like Bridgeport.  Some of the water is kind of brackish looking in the port and marina areas but the big Columbia rolls on and it's fairly green water, not mud brown and neither is the Willamette.  The city has high rises and sky scrapers, a HUGE area for entertaining of all sorts but it is clean looking and very, very green.  We Oregonians take pride in keeping our state green and clean.  Yeah, we have transients and yeah we have homeless and yeah, there are a few shadier areas with questionable motels, if you get my drift, but on the whole it isn't muddy looking and grey and depressing, even though we have lots and lots of rain for months at a time.  (Never hard rain though, more a constant drizzle)  So my real life city, and Portland is a pretty big city now, is not much like Bridgeport except for being a fun place to be.

I understand how it would probably be impossible to have several skyscrapers with tons of apartments in them, (cpu problems etc.), but in Sims 2 they DID have the ability to change things around and there were a few high rises with more than one apartment in them, and also a residential section with single family dwellings.    It was a small city, and most of the skyscrapers were just props.  You could even pick them up and move them around if you wanted to.  The ones that were pubs, clubs, hot spots, bowling alleys, etc. etc. you could redecorate, (though not extend the exterior), and renovate the interior of many of them.  You could build hotels with several floors and elevators, and elevators in high rises were pretty nifty.  (I think the ones in Bridgeport are fine, at least the one in my building is.)  If all you wanted to do was party, or be a bar tender, or a vampire or hot tub it or play piano or whatever, you could.  You can do all these things in Bridgeport too.  What was cool was you could travel from your home town to this party town.  Daytime was more for shopping and night time was for partying, dining out or whatever entertainment you chose.  You could live there if you wanted to, but it was more a place to go visit and then go home again.  I think Bridgeport would be better if it were like that, because I think, (don't know yet for sure), living in this city would be unpleasant.

I never played vampires in Sims 2 and wish I could avoid seeing them at all in Sims3.  Just not my personal cup of tea.  However, from what I have seen the vampires in Bridgeport are pretty awesome.  If I was in to that kind of character I bet they would be a lot of fun.  Just not for me.  Give me the willies. lol

Once I removed that gray lot, I no longer was kicked out of the game.  So I decided to go ahead and try playing the townies I had originally looked at.  Their apartment is huge.  It is as big as many houses with three, very large bedrooms, large kitchen, dining area, lounge area and space for their musical instruments and more.  REALLY big.  I did renovate the interior to give them three bath rooms.  The original one bathroom was big enough to readily be divided this way with one very large bathroom also accommodating the washer and dryer I bought them.  (I used the motherlode cheat since this was not for a challenge and I was impatient).  They are 3 roomies, all of whom are artistic and musical.  One is a genius and wants to be a chess master, so I sent him to the library to bone up on skills.  Guess what?  NO SKILL BOOKS.  Except for kids skills, but how many kids are you going to find here?  So I guess it's either buy books, do an edit town add skill books to the library, or just figure they won't need skills since they'll spend most of their life in clubs and such.

I guess you could do a legacy here IF you could just buy a house and not worry about having to find a lot costly enough to follow the rules.  Another option would be to bulldoze a specific place and work from there.  Or just make up your own rules.  No one says you HAVE to follow Pinstar's rules.  As for Dynasty, mmm, I don't think it would be possible.

Mind you, these are all just FIRST impressions. Continued game play may change my mind and cause me to find this the coolest EP ever.

[jestina]

I think they overdid it on the vampire population too. Seems like your sim runs into more vampires than other sims. 

[Pam]

@Joria:

I've only heard great things about Portland and it's probably the exception to the big city rule.  Here in Dallas/Fort Worth, we have the Trinity River and it's just ugly.  We've got lakes around here that are nice, but certainly not the gorgeous area you have out there.  It gets so hot and dry here in the summer that everything turns brown.  But, it's home.  What can I say? 

I'm not minding the vampires as much as I thought I would.  I really expected to hate them.  My Sim has been hunted a few times, but it does nothing except give a negative moodlet.  One of the vampires she introduced herself to came to her apartment and asked to be buzzed up.  They became friends and jammed together.  Now she has a wish to kiss him!  I can imagine where that's heading.

[mtglady]

Not sure if this is new or not as I never noticed before, but in buy and build mode there is a place to click on the far right hand side (by the asterisk for CC) and it expands everything in that panel.  In other words, I used to be able to see just two rows of items and now, once I click the tab, I can see everything in that section.  It was amazing that I can now open the decorations section in buy mode and see every decoration I have instead of having to scroll to find what I want.

And Pam, I agree, Bridgeport is definitely what some 'big cities' look like.  I remember being in Houston, TX USA and thinking how ugly and crowded the town was after living in a small town in Colorado, USA.  But so far I really like Bridgeport!    

[Joria]

Pam, it's all up to the people.  Pete Seger went out and sang for the Hudson River and now it's once again clean enough to swim in.  (I'm a native New Yorker).   Here, our Willamette was superfunded in order to make it clean and safe again because it was so severely polluted by industrial waste.  There are still areas that are being worked on but it's now safe enough to swim in, although I wouldn't want to drink it!

I'm having a hard time moving things around in my new apartment.  Mouse just doesn't want to release items and if you turn it just spins out of control.  I'll do some clean up and see if that eases the problem.  I'll also test it in other environs.  It was fine until I bought those cars! lol

I am absolutely loving the new furniture!!

[HalfJack]

Am so jealous reading all your posts. Can't wait to get my copy (tomorrow if amazon holds up its release day delivery). The Late Night expansion seems to have all the things I enjoy doing in the Sims, parties, socialising and finding the little hidden things that always seem to come with an expansion!  Am literally turning green with envy! Thank you guys for sharing your thoughts and pictures!

[Glic2000]

 Their apartment is huge.  It is as big as many houses with three, very large bedrooms, large kitchen, dining area, lounge area and space for their musical instruments and more.  REALLY big.  

Yes, I'm playing the same household and it feels like a palace compared to my apartment in real life.

I tried looking through all the highrises in Edit Town mode.  There's 6 of them in the library, and you can get a few more by copying the ones from Bridgeport to the library.  Some of them have apartments that take up the entire top floor of the building.

[Crimson]

I think they overdid it on the vampire population too. Seems like your sim runs into more vampires than other sims.

I don't have the game yet so correct me if I'm wrong but could the vampire population be large because they are infecting other townies? Kind of like in Salem's Lot by Stephen King every night the population of Vampires doubled.

[Saltypaws]

Well, supposedly, they do not turn other people without their permission, but with townies, I could be wrong.  I have run into a few, but I don't think there are an overobundance of them.  I rather enjoy seeing them myself.  I haven't played one yet, I am still in the process of checking things out.  I love this game.

[MomOfMany]

I started off not liking Bridgeport but thinking about it really I do. Thanks to Glic I think it was you who told me to hang in there a little longer and it might grow on me. It did! Anyways I totally agree with Pam on it though. I live in a rural area but am very close to suburban areas and only an hour and a half from Chicago. The Sims town really hit the bill if you ask me. Chicago doesn't have much green depending on where you go. I imagine most big cities don't as you can't have it all. And city living in my opinion either is for you or isn't. I can't imagine living there but I know many people who can't imagine living anywhere else so I think it just depends on you. Now I don't see any towns in the Sims that are quite as rural as where I am mostly suburban but that is what is needed in the Sims as they can't travel out of there towns like we do. I really like Brigdeport and all it has to offer. I think it has enough room to have suburban kind of houses if you took the time to make them that way (although I don't know for sure as I haven't tried) but I think it is more intended as a city life.