A Little Something about getting a little More Money

A Little Something about getting a little More Money

Greetings all,

I've owned this game since early October and, despite some rather glaring flaws/annoyances, am still entertained and manage to find something fresh about it now and then. I was bored last week and decided to try the "Dreamer" family. When I started playing the lot and was challenged to survive just on selling Darren's various arts and crafts, I was hooked for a couple of evenings.

I became intrigued with the idea of limits...I wondered how MUCH money could be earned from selling artwork and/or books. After excessive fiddling, the maximum gained from a painting is around $780 and for a book, $2900. I guess Darren must be partial to writing novellas, or even just short stories. Then I experiemented some more, only painting/writing when my character was near-maximum platinum and full in the needs categories. Requires a fair amount of micro-management, but can be done. Anyway, seems to me as if the value of a painting _is_ somewhat affected by mood. However, novels were unchanged in value (perhaps depression and art really are connected... ). By the way, all paintings and books were completed with a "Creativity" score of 10.

My question, has anyone achieved higher selling prices than these? I mean, $3000 is great and all, but not after laboring more or less constantly for 6-7 days, book-writing-wise. Also, no chance of chance cards (and thereby, big bucks) makes Jack a dull (and poor) boy. It seems that Darren considers $800 and $3000 appropriate compensation for masterpieces and bestsellers, respectively. It would be nice if there was a chance for a "wild-card" sell of greater than $10000.

So, anyone care to post any record-prices? I'd love to hear what you did, because Darren is awfully tired of his 27" TV.

Thanks in advance,


Silmaril Dragon

 

This theory may, in fact, be unfounded. The reason: I had a painting on the easel, waiting to be sold, shortly after a save. It was already finished, so nothing was changing there. I sold it. Then I crashed. I came back. And I sold it again. The first time it sold for a piddling $488, but the next time it went for $630! Obviously, nothing changed, because it was the *SAME* painting. I suspect it may just be random.

THe same story with the novel: Game was saved shortly before completion of novel. In the first time, the Sim typed nonstop, finished it, and then it sold for about $3000-odd. The game then crashed, and I reloaded from that save, finished the novel again, same nonstop method. Measly $2290-odd. I conclude that the price at sale is random.

Further research finds little connection, or, at best, a tenuous connection. Besides, your Sim can't be TOO depressed. He still has to be a HAPPY Sim, in all cases, or else he'll simply refuse to do it. So he can't actually be depressed and do his art, anyway. And there aren't any drugs, so we can't test if being stoned has any effect on the art.

It takes only about one or two days, I think the figure may be 14 hours, to complete the novel. You get a take of somewhere between $2000 and $3000. Which is not bad, as it averages to about $1000-$1500 a day, work performed at leisure, and is a great supplemental income for a retired elder or top-tier career man with many days off where he doesn't work and therefore earns no money.

I made him a Mad Scientist. As a Knowledge sim, he finally has a real job that satisfies him, and he can do his painting when he returns home, and his late-night hours let him tend Dirk and Lilith's sprogs while they're at work.

 

Book writing/selling

Hmmm. I'll try that. Mind you, I was being OCD myself and laboring _only_ with Darren's needs at full and aspirations at full, as well. Probably most of the 6-7 day thing was micromanagement-related. Well, your information is both encouraging and discouraging. As to the former, books can be written more quickly. For the latter, no game-altering payout. Ah well. It seems Darren is destined to craft his version of "The Scream" on Microsoft Paint under the nose of his boss. Fiction mimics reality, it seems. Nothing certain but death, taxes, and work.



Silmaril Dragon

 

Ouch. I'm beginning to understand why you complain so much about the game. I have only had one crash total in all my playing.

 

I have yet to have a crash. It was a problem I had often with TS1, especially with the objects and skins I downloaded from time to time. So far nothing I have downloaded has been a problem, and my game has ran fine.

 

Well, I've had TS2 crash exactly 47 times since I first got it about a month ago, always for no discernable reason. Crashing stopped after I changed my motherboard, thank goodness. Nevertheless, it currently holds the titles of Most Unmodded PC Game Crashes, Greatest Frequency of Unmodded PC Game Crashes, and Greatest Frequency of Software Crashes - beating out even Win9x.

Anyhow, I had no idea the prices had a random factor in them, and it has a very significant effect too ($800 difference?)... when performing such time-consuming activities as novel-writing and painting, I usually keep an Energizer nearby to charge them up at the end of the day.

 

Hm. I have had 3 crashes. Two occurred during a major house rebuild. All three came directly associated with a switch between modes (F1/F2/F3 ... though #3 came when switching between camera modes while video recording (and game time) was paused. In other words the only crashes I've had have been when my style of play has upped the ante in challenging the integrity of the game's logical structure.

 

Yeah, well, you know all the stories that end with "And <insert protagonist here> woke up, and discovered it was all a dream"? Mine end with "And then game crashed, and I had to reload from the last save."

 

Ouch dude

I haven't had one crash since I installed this game. And I should apparently count myself lucky.

Are you overclocking your video or CPU? Or do you run a high end system without any secondary / case cool,ing fans? I had a friend who complained that every game crashed. Turned out his case was a heat trap. A different case with two built in fans (bottom and side) and he rarely if ever crashed again. Just a thought.

 

I'm not overclocking anything yet. While this *IS* a fairly high-end system (3 GHz processor, 4 GBs RAM, 2x80 GBs HDs and a 3 TB SCSI RAID), it is hardly a heat trap, being cooled by two 12" diameter fans, one intake, one outtake, each of which draws power for their large electrical motors from a seperate power supply, and when operating at full power, produces a sound not unlike that of a jet aircraft taking off, and drives the air with enough force to propel the computer across the desk if it is not pinned into place by the large concrete blocks I use for this purpose. It also doubles as the fan for my miniature wind tunnel, not to mention the fan for several other more improvised systems.

So no, I very much doubt that heat is the cause of the problems, given how much I am inclined to blame it for everyone else's.

 

I to have not had my game crash but i can't minimize it without the game frezzing ) : so i always have to choose betweeen msn and sims2

 

That's not a hard decision. Why would you want random people badgering you over that silly IM program while you're trying to play your frickin' game?

 

LOL. Taking msn permanently out of my system was one of my greatest "minor" pleasures. While I'm here ... further to my previous info ... I usually leave my DSL connection on (with Norton firewall/AV) plus Outlook and Firefox ... I have not had any trouble switching between them tho undoubtedly they contributed to my crashes.

 

You could run it in windowed mode - makes switching to and fro easier and much more stable, but has an overall detrimental effect on game performance.

 

Bad Times

It's hard for me somtimes, i have a coulple friends who moved awayIreally miss em so i go online to c wats up......... I only have ppl i like on my msn. Also i spend half my time writing on forums so if im not playing sims2 im writing on forums about Sims2 while talking to me friends........Plus my Guienea pig just died.i had him for 5 years and i don't know how to tell one of my friends who moved away, it used to be hers.........and todays the SAME day my grandpa died last year. So i need my friends support so im going on MSN a Lot more.....:(

 

Evolution of threads

Hello all,

It's amazing to me that conversation seems a living thing sometimes. Just look at the wide variety of threads that have spawned off of the message. Don't get me wrong, I love it. Having what I'm pretty sure is adult-onset ADHD, these conversations definitely appeal to me.

My original reason for posting: my family has also had several guinea pigs over the years. Their deaths always hit me as hard as when the family dog died. Poor little things. Now,...the guinea pig in TS1 I didn't mourn nearly as much when it was accidentally deleted. Too bad there was no "pan-fry guinea pig" option in that game. There are some seriously sadistic minds at Maxis. I'm starting to suspect the "jump bug" was intentional as well.

By the way, there ARE ways to revenge yourself on your computer. A site I found a few years ago. Very cute, especially if you're the "build your own" type of gamer. Check it out.

http://members.aol.com/spoons1000/break/

Enjoy and take care.



Silmaril Dragon

 

Hey, I love paranoid conspiracies, but I've already proven exactly why the jump bug happens, and I'm pretty sure the interaction between the two features that produces the jump bug is not intentional....but it *IS* rather obvious, and Maxis should have caught and killed this in days, rather than dragging their feet like they're still doing.