Other Activities
Other Activities
Life isn't all about work and buying stuff. Well, in The Sims 2, it is for the most part. But when you and your Sims need a small break, there are other things to do. Here we'll go into detail about a few miscellaneous activities you can do, along with why (or why not) you would want to do them. You'll see some screenshots about things the whole way, as always.
Some of these things have already been touched on in the bio of the Nationals, but are repeated here for detail.
Parties
Parties are, without a doubt, the fastest way to spread your network of friends. This is especially helpful if you've got an elder Sim with a lot friends who needs to "pass off" those friends to his or her kids.
Parties are initiated by taking a Sim that is at least a teenager or older to interact with a phone. The option "Throw Party…" will be there at around 8 AM, and will last until the late evening. After clicking it, you can choose what type of party you want to throw. The basic type is the House Party, basically a simple get-together with your buddies. House Parties are always available.
The other types of parties are Birthday parties, Golden Anniversary parties, and Wedding parties. Those three are available when the time is right, and won't be on the list otherwise.
No matter what party you choose, the goals (and procedures) are the same. After making the initial call, you get choose the number of guests you want, including who specifically. This is great if you want to improve relationships among a couple particular Sims. The maximum number of guests you can have is based on the power of your computer; the maximum maximum is eight.
As soon as the selection of your guests is made, the calls automatically happen. Within a half hour, the guests will show up and automatically come in. A timer will start, and a hidden score will engage. That score is shown to you in text form (but not the number), which basically tells you how good the party is. For your purposes, the worst two ratings are Disaster and Snoozer. As long as your party is better than that, any positive Want about parties gets fulfilled.
Basically, to have a successful party, you need to entertain all your guests. Food and fun are the big two musts, and because of that, a buffet table and the bingo machine are practically required. You can find the buffet table in the Miscellaneous sort, and the bingo machine (called "It's Myshuno") is under the Hobbies sort. If you've got a Myshuno, it's almost guaranteed that your guests will do that first. That will give them time to get their Social and Fun meters up, and allow you to go to the buffet table and select the Serve Food interaction. You can't hire a caterer to fill the tables for you, but you can hire a bartender to… well, tend a bar. Bars are not needed for parties, but they can't hurt. You can find those under the Party sort also.
Beyond that, you'll need plenty of bathrooms to accommodate the guests' Bladder need. There are stalls under the plumbing sort that you can shove in a separate room. Usually, two Sims can't be in a bathroom at once, but stalls allow this rule to be bypassed. Having a stereo and/or a TV should compliment your guests' Fun meters, and be SURE to talk to everyone several times.
All the guests' moods are taken into account for your score. It's imperative that you get the party going on the right foot from the beginning, because all parties are timed. A window will be in the top-right corner to give you a constant countdown of the party. If you shut the window, it will just pop back up a couple seconds later.
Parties will take a score hit from the beginning if any of the invited guests don't show up. The chance of a guest showing up is based on his or her relationship with the Sim who makes the phone call. So let's say you've got one Sim in the family who hates everyone, and one Sim who loves everyone. If the Sim who hates everyone is the one who makes the initial call, there's very little chance you'll have a good party, if one at all.
Private Schools
Sim kids don't have to settle on going to those crappy public schools anymore, but they have to EARN their way into the prestigious schools.
But first, the question you have to ask yourself is, do you WANT your Sims to go into those schools? Private schools give your little Sims more intelligence, but take extra time away from the rest of their lives. What that basically means for you is that private schools will get aspiration meters really high, thereby adding life to your Sims. But, that will come at a cost of less time to improving job skills, which will sabotage your Sims' speed of promotions and success in the adult life.
Both pros and cons are actually not as big of a deal as it may sound, however. The difference in hours is nominal at best, if you choose to go private, and you probably won't earn THAT many more skill points if you choose to stay public. So it really comes down to what you, as a player, want to do: do you want your little ones to be private-school sissies, or public-school criminals?
As you know, getting into the public school is automatic when your Sim grows from the Toddler stage of life to the Child stage. Getting into private schools is a little more complex. The first step is that you have to have a Sim call up the headmaster of the private school and invite him over. He'll come for dinner and, like parties, it is a timed event.
If your family is just starting out, immediately get one Sim in the family to study Cooking. You NEED high Cooking for this. Even if you already have a Sim who has high Cooking skill, then have him or her study Cooking even more, unless the Sim as a perfect 10.
Once the headmaster arrives, you'll have to have a Sim manually greet him. Again, keep that one Sim studying cooking during this. After you greet the headmaster, you'll see a window in the top-right corner appear with the timer, the individual key area scores, and the total score. Luckily, the score is not hidden like it is with parties. You'll need to score a certain number of points in three key areas to impress the headmaster enough to allow your child entrance to the school. You'll have six hours game-time (six minutes real-time) to impress the crap out of this guy.
We'll touch all three key areas one at a time. The first one you should tackle is the house tour. Click the headmaster and use the Entertain… > Give Tour interaction. The Sim that initiated it then needs to walk to every room of the house (including the yard), then selecting the Show Room interaction once the headmaster gets to the room also. There will really be no visual clue that the room was shown, aside from the headmaster shaking his head or clapping after you select the interaction. Do this for every room of the house, then select the End Tour interaction. The score will be posted in the corner for you after every room, based on the Environment scores of the rooms the headmaster visited. Hopefully your score for the tour is at least 30 to 35. That will give you a very solid lead to build on.
Okay, now it's time for the next step. Have your Sim that been studying Cooking all this time to show off his or her skills by selecting Serve Dinner… and selecting the best meal available. Once it's made, have any Sim use the social interaction Entertain… > Call For Dinner. Note that the headmaster WILL hear the call, but may not come to eat right away. He will be bored by the time the house tour is done, so he may watch some TV. Allow him to in peace, and in time, he'll come to dining room.
Although the Sim that made the interaction should eat with the headmaster, no one in the house needs to. However, everyone SHOULD eat with him, because for every successful conversation with the headmaster, you gain points in the third key area, Schmooze.
Either way, the meal score is based on the quality of the food. With any luck, you've got perfect appliances and hold a 10 in your Sim's Cooking skill. Even if you don't have all that, though, you should still score solidly. Hopefully you can get 25 to 35 in this category, and it will be posted once the meal is over.
As soon as the total score breaks the 90-point requirement, the headmaster will leave even if there's time remaining on the clock, and your Sim kid will get entrance into the private school. If the meal didn't get that requirement, try the Schmooze… social interaction to get that number up. When all else fails, try to have a female Sim flirt with the headmaster… you never know.
If the time limit expires and the score has not been met, you can try again the next day. But before you do, spend some time improving whatever went wrong. If the headmaster didn't like the food, get better appliances or improve the Sims' Cooking skill. If the headmaster wasn't entertained, grab a TV or something similar.
If you have managed to impress the headmaster, your Sim immediately gets access to the private school. Starting the next weekday, the bus will arrive like normal. The only difference is that your Sim kid will change into the school uniform before getting on it. Otherwise, congrats on being a snob!
The Neighborhood
Your Sims do not live and die in only their houses. Sims are social creatures, and houses are great most of the time, but sometimes they need a little change of pace. Unfortunately, The Sims 2 does not have nearly the options available as The Sims 1 did with all its expansion packs. Still, Sims 2 gives your Sims the opportunity to be social in other places aside from homes.
In order to go to a community lot, a Sim simply needs to pick up the phone and call a taxi. Have the Sim select the Call… > Transportation interaction from the pie menu to get started. The Sim can then call a taxi for his or her own benefit, or invite a Sim from another house Downtown. Once the taxi comes, you're informed that your lot will save if your Sim leaves the house. If you don't want to save, you'll have to just deny the taxi and go later.
If you chose to call a taxi for your own family, you can choose to have only the caller or the whole family to go. The button to select the whole family is marked "Multiple Sims," and the reason it doesn't say "Family" is because not everyone can head to a community lot. Teenagers can, but children, toddlers, and infants cannot. If you have any of those, you need to leave behind a Sim who is teen or older to act as a babysitter. If you don't want to do that, you can immediately call a nanny to baby-sit for you.
When your Sim or Sims get to a community lot, they will probably be joined by several NPC Sims. It's the perfect time to have all your Sims talk to anyone around to spread the network and try to get more friends to contribute to the Family Friend count. Once a Sim is met for the first time, they can be called up on the house phone for whatever reason. When you're ready for your Sims to head home, simply have one select a blue payphone and call a taxi. You can do this to change community lots too and head somewhere else.
We'll discuss how to build community lots shortly.
Customizing Your Sims
The music and videos inside The Sims 2 are fine, but what if you want your own? Because of the new file structure during installation, "skinning" (adding your own music and such to your game) is easier than ever.
The first step is knowing what precisely you want to skin. You can skin Sims, to make new clothing and hairstyles; music, to play on your Sims' radios; videos, to play on TVs; and collections, to help organize Buy Mode.
To make skins, you need to head to the official Sims 2 site and grab a tool called the Sims Body Shop. Tutorials are also on the site, so that won't be covered here. Don't worry, Maxis will guide you the whole way without fail.
For music and movies, it's as simple as putting the appropriate files in the appropriate folders. No matter where you installed The Sims 2, a folder is created under your My Documents folder. It should be:
..\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\
We'll call that one the "root folder." Inside the root folder is a folder called Music, and inside that one are several that break down into mode type. There's a folder specifically for Buy Mode, one for the neighborhood screen, and so on. Place any MP3 into the folders, and you can then select it from the options screen in-game. I've got my Sims working out to the likes of P. Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Avenged Sevenfold, and even a few WWE entrance theme songs!
Also inside the root folder is another one called Movies. Here you can place any AVI-type file (although probably not DivX), and those will play on the TV when the respective channel is on. When you record movies in The Sims 2 using the in-game movie capture, the files are output to AVIs. So, you could record situations of your own in-game, then use those same situations as movies for own shows or commercials.