What are some of the new things with OFB?

My first impressions...

I played with Florence Delarosa, the lady in Bluewater Village with a flower shop in her house. I wanted to start simple.

First of all, this sim has no skill points whatsoever! Plus with running the shop she hardly has any time to earn any! She's managed a few creativity points from playing the piano before she falls into bed exhausted. This is probably why she's so agonizingly slow at the cash register. I had one customer scream at her, throw his bag on the ground, and storm out of the store because he had to wait in line so long!

So she hired a cashier on the second day. One of the new townies, who had a couple bronze badges. She's doing well, although she's pretty slow on the register too. The reviewer came in on the second day - way ugly guy with the bad mullet and yellow/brown cowboy shirt. He didn't look like a reporter to me! She got a bad review.

By this time a lot of stuff had been bought and those little out of stock signs were everywhere. Restocking is horribly slow also, for a sim with no skill points and no restocking badge. Between helping the customers and restocking, she had no time at all to make more flower arrangements. So those couldn't be restocked. She shut down the store for the weekend so she could make more arrangements, but she didn't get very many done. Slooow!

The store reopened on Monday and she did well. Customer flow picked up again after the slowdown due to the bad review. Customers bought a lot of plants! Florence ended up earning a silver sales badge and bronze restocking badge. She got a good review next time the reviewer came in. Plus, he started calling her every day! He's worse than Marsha!!

So overall, I really enjoyed the challenges. But I don't see how this poor woman is ever going to have any kind of a life besides running her store. I might just not worry about trying to find her a husband and let her be a spinster forever.

I do have a question about employees though. Will your employees tell you when they need a break? I told my cashier to go on breaks, but she didn't seem to do much of anything. Talked to a couple people, stood around for a bit, then went straight to the piano. I never saw her eat or go to the bathroom. Maybe she didn't need a break yet? I'm afraid she'll quit or something. By the end of the day, her "plumb-ball" is red, even with breaks. She did have access to the entire house except the bedroom. Will employees cook for themselves if they are hungry, or do we need to leave food out for them?

 

Ooh! Me me me! I can answer the employee cooking question. I built a new business for my Abelard ehiress to play around with and started off with hiring a cashier (after laughing my socks off at some of the inept sims in the premade stores I figured that hey! it works ... mostly ... let's get one in to leave the owner free to polish that sales technique )

After a few hours my sim was Hank Marvin so I figured the cashier would be as well. I hadn't thought of a kitchen so I slapped up a wall and a door (locked against customers ... nice touch Maxoids ... Pescado beat ya to it but better late than never ) and built a mini-kitchen. Sent cashier girl on break and she went straight to the ladies room then to the 'staff' kitchenette where she knocked up a nifty looking chef salad.

I know am posting ... but as a protest for having to wait an extra 24 hours I will now be freely using British vernacular and cockney slang so the ruddy yanks won't understand me :sly::hissyfit::silli::flippant:

 

No! Now you have it too? I feel so left out...Maybe I can get it this weekend..but I probably won't have enough time to play it as much as I want, what with stupid school (does it HAVE to be 6 and a half hours long?!) and homework and violin practicing...I might even have to wait until we have a day or two off...spring break isn't free..we're going to Cancun...it's so sad that I'd rather sit at home and play Sims 2 than go to Cancun.

 

LOL 123 ... it's so tough being a minor, isn't it. But you might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Being a minor is the only the part of your life that won't flash by in the blink of an eye. The moment your country hands you a vote and slides a l'il napkin under your cocktail it's just a ruse to prevent you noticing that they took the limiter off the clock ...

 

Thank you for posting that, Shana. Boy, was I screwing the elevators up! I was putting the car on the 1st floor, and the shaft on the second floor. Oh, what was I thinking?

I created two businesses so far, to go along with my storylines. #1 was Cara Yokel's flowershop. To my disapointment, She couldn't use the plants that she grew on the horticulture career reward. She had to purchase plants in wholesale mode, once I figured it out, and then work on the flower arranging table to make more. She's expecting her third baby, too, so it's very hard for her to keep the house going. #2 was Eddie Dawson's shop with his family's home upstairs. He's hired employees who had badges in cashier and making robots, so things are going a tad bit better with his store. Still, I've been using the motherlode cheat a lot so I could get those two businesses off the ground.

Mirelly: How do you lock the doors away from customers? I keep cooking meals for my family and soon enough a customer is upstairs watching TV. :(

 

Ok guys, thanks for rubbing it in for those of us who haven't made it to the video store yet. (ME!!) Northern VA has seen a wicked cold gust of wind and just crazy cold weather. I've rented five movies and I plan on staying in. Hopefully EB or Gamestop won't be out when I get there....

 

Your welcome! Glad it helped.

Second of all, just click on the door when in live mode. If you can't see you, just put all the walls up. It gives you several options to allow people in or keep them out. Nice feature, I love it.

 

Ooh! Thanks, you guys! I tried a home business but gave it up because the stupid sims wandered all over my house. With a locked door I can live above the shop! How cool is that?

I love makeovers! I'm just waiting for Goopy to come into my beauty parlor ...

A very cool feature I just discovered is "fix single plate/fix group meal" which you can get at home, too ... Todd Miguel made a lot of single plate meals for his wife when she was pregnant. Kept him from getting the "simpathetic pregnancy belly." That will be great for kids, too.

Beverly's got a level 2 business, and she was able to pick some perks! Her clothing store/beauty salon is really taking off. Tonight I just finished a session where she managed the store all by herself, didn't call in the employees at all. She did pretty well. She's horrible at the cash register, but practice makes perfect ...

Dante had a customer throw a wedding cake on the floor of his bakery, though, because it took him too long to ring things up. I have noticed some improvement in his cash register skills since then.

I had to stop playing him for a while to let the rest of that gen catch up, though. I was getting pretty engrossed in his little family ... let's just say it's growing and Stella has called a halt to the baby production line ... the last pregnancy resulted in twins and nearly did her in.

 

And have you checked out all the new roofs? there are lots including a round one that you can make any size.. so way cool.

 

For thos who can't wait for the hacks I just found this on the EA BBS

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I've not tried it myself yet but I thought I'd share
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I know of that cheat as well, but I also find on MTS2 someone who had extracted it for download from the site. Here is the link for that:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=136173

 

Thanks for that, Shana.

 

I got a question about Pregnant Employers. See, at one of my busniess, I hired Phoenix Savage/Savelle (Created my self, not a townie), but she is pregnant, I think in final stage, seeing how round she is.
Now there was no probleim in hiring her but the little green dot above her goes down rather quickly, while the others don't I know this must be the needs bar, and I am asfraid I will forget about it and Phoenix will end up dead (She isn't meant to die and she is meant to yhave that baby), but because I haven't played her household for a couple of weeks she still pregnant,.
Will her working affect her pregancy? (She works at Angela Pleasant's and Katie Richman's house,), she orignally worked as a restocker and did good but I thought maybe I should giv eher a much easier job so I switched places with I beileve Lilith Pleasant and got her to restock and Phoenix at the cash register. 9It might e Lilth, I can't remeber).
So my question is Will Phoenix's work affect her pregancy, and she won't have a miscarriage right? or should I send her home until she has the baby? (And why doesn't she have maternitty leave in the first place?)

 

They probably didn't think of that. It should not affect her, but if you're really worried you should play her and let her have the baby before she goes back to work.

I had a fairly pregnant sim show up at her boyfriend's house to leave flowers after he'd moved in with her! (I was playing his roomies.) And she was absoutely unaffected.

I also had a sim stuck in someone else's house and had to bulldoze the lot (after moving the family out). She was not affected, either. Actually, weirdly, it was the same sim.

However, I once almost killed a vampire by asking him to visit and then having him get stuck trying to help the toddler go to bed after the sun came up. When I went to play him it was a good thing he had an energizer ...

So, I guess I'd say, better safe than sorry.