Late Night: First Impressions

[Glic2000]

The thing you have to remember about The Sims is that it's almost infinitely customizable.  So if they allowed more than one household on the same lot, people would try to do crazy things, like hack it to allow 20 or 50 households on the same lot and then people would complain about the terrible performance hit.

They decided to nip that in the bud right from the start, and probably were wise to do it.   

[Schneider8]

If people hack and then complain about the terrible performance hit, it's not EA's interrest 

[wildredchild]

Can we please get back on topic of Late Night: First Impressions?  The past few posts are getting dangerously off topic as well as argumentative. 

[MomOfMany]

I have mixed feelings of the whole apartment thing. I agree with Pam in the sense that EA did make it clear it was single family and that I like that NPC's can live next door and what not but I think it would be neat to have more than one family in an apartment that being said I didn't have Apartment Life so I don't know how that worked either. I think it would be neat if we could buy out the apartment next door to our Sims. I also think it would be neat if we could pick the floor we moved in on but then I understand what that would mean for the expansion as well and the fact that we would have had to wait a lot longer for it to come out but for all we know they are still working on this stuff and the apartments we have now are like a teaser of what they have perfected enough to add to the game with more to come in another expansion. If we had it all in the same expansion what would we have to look forward to and what would keep you interested all the time. But all in all I love what Late Night brings to the table as far as game play and the apartments are very neat and different from what we had before. So I will take what I can get and not complain because I know that if it was me I wouldn't even almost know how to do what EA has done with the Sims!

[TGBlank]

I think it would be neat if we could buy out the apartment next door to our Sims.

Ctrl+Shift+C
TestingCheatsEnabled true
Buydebug
RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings false

And then you can.

I also think it would be neat if we could pick the floor we moved in on

<technical detail>
There are two types of apartment buildings: Regular ones and "shell" ones.
Regular ones are built like regular homes, with some bits added to mark common areas, hide rooms and npc doors. There is at least one of these in bridgeport, can't recall the name.
Shell apartments are the skycrapper-esque ones, basically, you have a flat lot, on top you have a big tall huge object that is the building frame. The frame works very much like a column.. A huge, ridiculously tall, hollow and multi-floor column. You are still limited to the old number of floors as before (4~5 or so), because that's what the engine was designed for, it's just that deck 2 and on are now higher. Inside this hollow column apartments are built, much like a home, and non-player areas are marked much like non-shell apartments.
</technical detail>

Empty apartments are that, a big empty room with no objects inside, there isn't even a division between them, if there are several on a single floor, so letting the player pick & choose floor is just not that feasible under this system.
However, you can still use the above cheats and manually edit the building to have the apartment elsewhere, you can even do it in edit-town prior to playing.

[Saltypaws]

Not sure if anyone knew this or not, but if your sim has a need moodlet, click on the moodlet icon and they will automatically fulfill that need, for example, if they have a hunger moodlet, left click on that moodlet and the que will come up for your sim to fix themselves something to eat or if they have a "strained moodlet" they will automatically find something to relieve the stress.  My sister just found this out and I did try it and it helped alot.  If you have multiple sims and some are home and some are dowtown or wherever, you do not have to keep switching back and forth, just click on the sim at home and if they have a need moodlet, click on it while you are downtown.  Kinda neat, I thought.

[Schipperke]

Not sure if anyone knew this or not, but if your sim has a need moodlet, click on the moodlet icon and they will automatically fulfill that need, for example, if they have a hunger moodlet, left click on that moodlet and the que will come up for your sim to fix themselves something to eat or if they have a "strained moodlet" they will automatically find something to relieve the stress.  My sister just found this out and I did try it and it helped alot.  If you have multiple sims and some are home and some are dowtown or wherever, you do not have to keep switching back and forth, just click on the sim at home and if they have a need moodlet, click on it while you are downtown.  Kinda neat, I thought.

I never knew that!  Is this a new feature that came with Late Night?  Thanks for sharing this - I think it will be very useful with large households.

[Schneider8]

I knew this one   (but I discovered it a week ago).

[Saltypaws]

Not sure, never really even thought to do that, lol.  It is pretty cool though.

[Pegasys]

I did play Sims 2 but not Apartment Life (stopped after Pets). I'm not disappointed with not being able to have multiple apartments in a building at all.. the way I look at it is this: Bridgeport is slower and a bit more laggy as it is with the 1-family per apartment as it now... if there were "real" apartments, I shudder to think of the lag. I'm happy enough with the fact I can knock on the doors and chat with my next door NPC neighbor easily.

The premise that Sims 3 is a whole different game than Sims 2... I disagree. They are very similar. After not playing the Sims 2 for years when I started back playing the Sims 3 it felt very familiar. I do think the Sims 3 is better than the Sims 2, though. Yes... there are small specific things I miss from Sims 2. However, if you went back and played the base Sims 2 with NO expansion packs and no custom content... and then compared it to Sims 3 with no EPs and or custom content... there is no comparison; in my opinion, Sims 3 is significantly improved.

Okay to make this more on topic... onto my first impressions. I really like this EP. It adds that extra something that is needed for enriching gameplay and stories, I think. Bridgeport is *gorgeous* but a bit laggy and hard to play. Even if Bridgeport played absolutely perfectly smoothly it would be hard to play... with the increased "difficulty" of getting around town. I have taken a break from Bridgeport after getting my Sim to a 4-star celebrity and placed a club in Sunset Valley. Fun! Now my sims have somewhere cool to hang out other than the park or beach.

I'm not having any show-stopping bugs but I did run into the problem in Bridgeport with getting an opportunity that couldn't be fulfilled because the building didn't exist in the city (Doo Peas building, I believe). And Bridgeport runs kind of slow. However I did install... (edited — mod discussing is against the forum rules — MM) to prevent the car build-up problem I'd read about. Anyway.... it's a good EP... I'm having fun with it!

[LlamaMama]

(sorry don't know whether mentioning this mod here is outside forum rules)

It is outside the rules, for good reason, and is strictly enforced.

[Metropolis Man]

It is outside the rules, for good reason, and is strictly enforced.

Indeed it is.

@Pegasys, your post was edited.

[malteser60]

Not sure if anyone knew this or not, but if your sim has a need moodlet, click on the moodlet icon and they will automatically fulfill that need, for example, if they have a hunger moodlet, left click on that moodlet and the que will come up for your sim to fix themselves something to eat or if they have a "strained moodlet" they will automatically find something to relieve the stress.  My sister just found this out and I did try it and it helped alot.  If you have multiple sims and some are home and some are dowtown or wherever, you do not have to keep switching back and forth, just click on the sim at home and if they have a need moodlet, click on it while you are downtown.  Kinda neat, I thought.

Genius! Thank you very much for sharing that Saltypaws. 

I'm finally getting LN, hopefully today. Boyfriend has given in and is buying it for me for my birthday (which is today) so hopefully I shall let you know what I think of it soon! Although I think it may be another week or so, my mum is up from Malta visiting for 10 days, and also have to go away for work. Oh, the frustration of having it in my hands and not being able to play with it, I think I'll cry 

[malteser60]

Didn't come in to this forum so I won't be jealous of you all having LN. Now that I have it, I can.
I'm having huge fun with it, a shame they didn't add metal, only hip-hop and blues. But I managed to make a thrashy looking brute with that new beard, so it's all good, I guess.

I do agree with you, I wish they added a metal/rock station (although I like the blues too), however can you imagine cradle being sung in simlish! 

[Ausette]

Quick Deviation From Topic: Happy Birthday Malteser!  I'm going to have to get the game soon myself, only I seem to live in the most distant corner of the Western world and none of the shops here stock it yet.