Open For Business - Boom or Bust (1st Impressions)

Discussion in 'The Sims 2' started by Mirelly, Mar 3, 2006.

  1. Mirelly

    Mirelly Active Member

    Open For Business - Boom or Bust (1st Impressions)

    And second and third impressions if you like ....

    My first impression is that I am moderately impressed and as a very immoderate person being moderate in anything is unusual.

    Why am I impressed?
    1. Clean running with no obvious stupidities
    2. The provision of a large number of player-driven desiderata (roofs, matching build/buy sets etc.)
    3. But here's the real surprise. At last I have a reason to actually enjoy the pure dumbmuttness of my sims. I don't know about you, but I only ever play with free will off. Giving a collection of database files "free will" is analagous to handing a flame-thrower to a kindergartener; it's not just silly and pointless: it's downright dangerous. But with OFB the 'ornery software engine that drives sims to perform has come into full bloom. The whole concept of having NPC's as controllable employees is sheer comedic bliss. The idle slackers will slope off and watch TV in the staff room if you turn your back for a second. As is usually the case I found myself wondering why there were not enough options in the management interaction menu ... but that (I appreciate) is part of the fun ... but the option to fire the lazy article is always present and that (when we get down to matters relating to ursine arboreal scatology) is the only one that really matters. ;)
    On the negative side is the irritating omission of an important precursor to any putative EP: The Sims 2: Next Door

    I refer to the time freezing that occurs when a sim visits a community lot. A sim might have a business and go there daily for a hard day's work but it's darn silly that upon his return he is obliged, either to shower and crash-out to rise refreshed just as the kids get home from school or else to twirl into a track-suit and pretend he ain't there by meditating all day.

    Waits for Pescado to conjure up a hack ... :rolleyes:

    Meanwhile let's have some feedback, people ... especially those of you who have had the EP for days rather than hours :p
     
  2. Lynet

    Lynet New Member

    I haven't loaded mine yet and my only comment is I LOVE free will and always leave it ON. It's a big part of what I enjoy about those little database files, as I wonder who put the soap bubbles in the fountain and who didn't flush the toilet. And what happened to little Wynter? Then I find him outside trimming the bushes. :D
     
  3. MangoOrange

    MangoOrange New Member

    OK, I'll check back in a few days...:p .
     
  4. Blade770

    Blade770 New Member

    So what you mean is like what happens on a community lot? If so I thank you for bringing this up. I hate that!!! Hopefully someone will come up with a hack for it, not just for OFB but for everything else.
     
  5. JuliaThorne

    JuliaThorne New Member

    I agree on the community lot comment. It IS annoying. I actually started out a home business, which is abit better but it sucks for my sim not being able to have any social life as of yet. I guess I need to hire 1more employee.
     
  6. Blade770

    Blade770 New Member

    Do you have to mod any files to have a buisness at home? If not what business' can you make at home, and are there any you can't?
     
  7. HelloKit

    HelloKit New Member

    This has always been my biggest pet peeve since the TS1 days, and I have offered the Maxoids a simple solution on many occasions. And I distinctly remember reading in the early promos that OFB was finally going to address this (I only wish I could remember where so that I could offer proof). When I read in the chat transcript a couple months ago that this was not the case, I felt lied to. That was going to be my number one reason for buying the EP, even if I would never use any of the other features. If they scrapped the idea because they had problems making it work correctly, then that's fine... but say so! Don't just pretend you never said you were doing it in the first place, because that makes the customers feel lied to and manipulated, and that's not how you treat customers. And on an EP devoted to running a business, of all things... oh, the irony. :rolleyess:
     
  8. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    My only gripe so far is that you can't have a clothing store, restaurant or coffee shop at home. I suppose there are programming reasons, but I would really like to have that ... otherwise, I'm having fun and learning that starting small is smart.

    I tried a bigger shop right off the bat (yes, I cheated, it was my practice biz) but it quickly got out of control. She sold it and plans to start over smaller. I wanted it at home, but I want to be able to sell clothes with the haircut. So far I've made over Marylena Hamilton (the dark haired one) and Sandy Bruty. They both look tres cute. I love doing makeovers. Alas, Goopy still eludes me ...

    My most successful biz so far is a home business selling flowers and statues out of the former living room. The couple that started it just had a baby, so things will quickly get more challenging, I'm sure, but right now it's a level 5 business, which I'm pretty proud of.

    Love that lock door feature! Thanks Mirelly for pointing it out. Keeps them from wandering all over the family part of the house!
     
  9. J. M. Pescado

    J. M. Pescado Fat Obstreperous Jerk

    I tried hair-salonery, but not really being dissatisfied with how people looked, I mostly just used it as an excuse to practice for the badge on townies, without actually bothering to make any changes.

    The townie population now looks like a pack of circus clowns.
     
  10. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    Hah! Please post pictures!!!

    Here's Sandy.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. Lynet

    Lynet New Member

    She looks way cool, SBW.

    I'm getting impatient to install OFB but I'm glad to see all the discussion here. I had the ReNu...Orb on several properties--important families (e.g. Errol's Granddad and Errol the younger (now a teenager)--and have gone back to delete the thing. There was even one in Errol and Kate's basement, next to the all important mirrors! :eek:

    Of the dozen or so neighborhoods I created in months past I deleted several because I had no more interest in the families that lived in them. In some sparsely populated neighborhoods where I don't really want to delete anyone yet I moved them out of their houses and into the sim bin. My main neighborhood, though, Baltimore, where Emmy lives, still needs serious preparation. Little by little I'll get there.

    But I'm thoroughly enjoying everyone else's good times with OFB. :p And I apologize for going a little off topic here.

    p.s. I'm at work. My computer at home decided not to let me on the internet most of the morning. :(
     
  12. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    I missed that discussion. What's wrong with the renu-u-orb? I use it a lot so please let me know if I shouldn't be ...

    And, thanks! One of my favorite things to do is make over sims. But getting them to the salon chair can be tricky. I still haven't mastered the technique.
     
  13. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    Sorry to double post but I thought I'd post some of the problems I've encountered since installing OFB. They've been really minimal.

    Couldn't open a lot and had to move the sims to a new one. No problems after the move, but boy do I miss that house. :(

    "Ghost" visitor version of a sim got stuck on a guitar and would not leave the lot. I double-checked that she was indeed at home and then moved the sims out and bulldozed the lot. It had been in the family for two generations. Sigh.

    I had a sim wander around her owned community lot waving her arms and sending no one home (there was no one to send!) and refusing to get into her car, so I had to exit without saving.
     
  14. Lynet

    Lynet New Member

    Check out Mirelly's discussion under the Critical damage Avoidance thread. People have been locked out of their lots when the family has the orb on premises.

    Also, there were problems described about driving your own car to a community lot. The advice is to take a taxi until Maxis get's the new patch out to fix the problem.

    Look at me :paranoid: checking on the site again when I've got a pile of work to do. Bye :eek:
     
  15. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    Oh. OK. Thanks! There are so many threads sometimes I miss things.

    I'll do that, then.
     
  16. PlayLives

    PlayLives Member

    I opened 2 businesses so far, both home.
    One is an art gallery. He sells his own paintings and the easels. At night, the back will be a nightclub. The business was open for only a few hours. Three customers came in and each bought 2-3 items each. So far so good. He lives with his sister and her fiance so that helps.

    The other business is a salon. It is not as hard as I thought considering the problems I've read about the salon. I have one sim working with one chair. Nothing else on sale in the store (yet) and nothing for fun. The customers talk and play with each other. In two days of working, she received the bronze sales badge and the bronze cosmetology badge and reached rank 3. She only has about 2-4 points in the associated skills. She drew in ALOT of customers and all she had in there was the make over chair. I didn't give any free makeovers and the customers paid without any problem. They didn't have a problem sitting in the chair and they even would sit waiting until I was finished with another customer. Although you do have to be quick as their attention span is really short. When they came in I would offer them a makeover. Once they started to consider (green carrot) I would do a sale on them. Once the bar filled they would sit on the couch and wait until I click the chair to "be stylist". Once I clicked the chair, they would get up and sit in the salon chair. I didn't change them much, only the hairstyle (some with hats) and on some just the eyebrows (to match the hair color). It's funny to watch them all ecstatic. I figured once she starts charging more, than I will include makeup. Isn't this the case in RL? Only two of the makeovers were messed up and that was because her needs were low. Poor guys. (well actually three) One of them I messed up and he had makeup all over his face. He didn't leave so after a while I asked him if he wanted a free make over. He sat in the chair and she messed him up again, she shaved him bald. LOL. Now he has make up all over his face and he is bald. He cried a little. LOL

    I have another sim in mind to move in with her to help with the business. Also, when she has a child they are going to help. She has lots of customers coming in and one chair is not enough. I may have one of them specialize, like one will give hair do's the other will do make up, etc. Once she makes enough money, I'm going to have her buy the salon in Bluewater. Those chicks can't style for nothing though. I had another sim go there (b/c she couldn't go the home business lot) and they chopped her hair up. I then selected another stylist and they changed her back to normal. She didn't get charged for either so I don't know what that's about. :rolleyes:

    This EP is a real challenge. I spent so much time, focusing on the customers trying to make some $$ that her needs (hunger, energy, bladder) would bottom out. So much time is spent on the business; it becomes a challenge to balance the business, the needs and the aspiration. Also, it is takes time for the business to make money (even though their rank increases). My poor sim didn't have anytime to chat up the men she was meeting to fulfill her want of 50 dates. I may even have her get a job until the business makes some $$.
     
  17. PlayLives

    PlayLives Member

    SBW, others have driven to comm owned business lots and were able to drive home with no problem. The key was not to save while there. However, use the taxi to be on the safe side I guess.
     
  18. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    LOL, Playlives. That's the way I've been looking at the offspring now, too. Let's see, I've got a cashier, now I need a little restocker ... :D And hey, they can sell lemonade on the front lawn until they're old enough to help in the store. Put the little rugrats to work! Crack that whip.

    Having at least one family member have an outside job really helps. Porter and Xena both have good jobs, and are trying to get a restaurant biz off the ground. Her brother Alec is their sole employee. So far they're in the red, but that's to be expected. And their combined income of $7000 really helps cushion that.

    Which leads me to my question: Do you have to run your biz on a regular basis to maintain customer loyalty? I would assume not, but has anyone encountered problems if they, for example, take three days off? I had Joseph Raymond take a day off when his son was born so he could help his wife, and there were no ill effects on his business. Next time I play him he'll have baby duty and customer duty ... we'll see how that goes. I keep an energizer on his lawn!

    And, oh, here's a tip: Popularity sims love running a business! They really get into it. Joseph is almost always in the happy. And to think I used him as a home business guinea pig. He's my most successful biz owner to date.
     
  19. PlayLives

    PlayLives Member

    That's right SBW. Why pay employees when you have house labor?
    I don't think missing a day or keeping the store closed for a while affects customer loyalty. I hope not.
    The sim with the salon worked one day, closed the next day, and then opened the day after and it didn't affect her. Matter of fact, when she opened the 2nd day, she had much more customers then the 1st day.

    Does word about the business really spread? The 1st day she had about 3 customers and then some latecomers. The 2nd day, man, people were coming left and right.
    I hope the word about the messed up makeovers doesn't spread and mess up the business flow. When I messed up the one guy, he lost his customer loyalty point. When I fixed him, he gained two. The other guy (who I messed up twice) lost both of his loyalty points.
     
  20. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    I got overly ambitious and had a cheater sim take on a large clothing store complete with coffee shop and makeover chair. She had four employees, talk about a headache. I'm sure it will get easier once I learn the ropes.

    Anyway, everytime I visited the lot as a customer the employees had all switched jobs! The one good cashier would stand in the middle of the room like he was on a break and the idiot who ran the coffee counter would run the register.

    I actually had a sim I was playing spontaneously throw her bags on the floor and storm out! I never did get those pieces of clothing.

    I had the business owner sell. She's going to start a smaller shop with one employee who will only work the register.

    We'll see how that goes!
     

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