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801. Fan-made Patch for Karaoke Bug

Written on Wednesday 21 September 2005 at 17:32 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The very infamous karaoke bug in Nightlife has been fixed. Not by Maxis yet - the fix might be in the patch, but no Maxoid has mentioned that yet - but by a fan. Shaklin has made a small hack which you have to put in your Downloads folder for the Sims 2. When installed, the voices of Sims singing at the karaoke machine will be heard again. There's also a "$JobTitle" fix, which should get you a more sensible answer when a Sim asks what the job of another Sim is. The final patch on the same page, the "Female Teenager Vamp-Body" one, will make the skin color of the bodies of female teenage vampire Sims less blue, so it matches their heads too. According to the description this hack should be removed once Maxis releases its own Nightlife patch, suggesting the problem will be fixed with that, but that's unconfirmed. You can download the hacks from Shaklin's Sims2 Page, but of course at your own risk. Thanks to SP Zone for the find.

802. News about University/Nightlife Patch

Written on Wednesday 21 September 2005 at 17:25 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

Maxis is working hard on a patch for both University and Nightlife. The deadline for it is coming up soon and so the patch can probably be expected within a couple of weeks, if not sooner. MaxoidTom has been actively posting in a thread at More Awesome Than You, mentioning some of the issues that will be fixed with the upcoming patch. Stuck bills, amnesia for greeks (Sims losing many memories) and a diploma being reposessed by the repo man are some things that will be fixed. Below is a list of what will probably be fixed with the patch, but keep in mind that this information is not confirmed officially and may not be completely correct or incomplete.

• Kicky bags can get stuck rendering them unusable (some other problems with kicky bags are fixed too).
• If a Sim uses the remote control car while saving/loading, catalog icons may go missing (possible work-around available).
• Sims go to a final exam, but a message pops up saying they missed it when they get home.
• Townies may not have all necessary DNA traits internally, causing crashes when they give birth to a baby Sim
• The car portal might go missing sometimes, corrupting lots and causing the "slow-down" bug generating many NPCs (see this thread for more info).
• Several bugs with Nannies
• Several bugs with the Headmaster
• Playing a Handheld game can cause a crush
• Sims don't get proper credit for selling a novel if someone else answers the phone
• Purchasing a fountain doesn't satisfy corresponding want (the want will be removed in the patch, it was left in while it shouldn't).
• Dormies become transparent if they enter their rooms and exit immediately and are unclickable for several Sim hours.
• Facial expressions may not play while a Sim is on the phone.
• Some problems might occur with large Neighborhoods (already fixed in Nightlife, may not fix all problems)
• Sims might get stuck in rooms with diagonal doors, unless they're told to move out (playable Sims only). This is fixed in Nightlife already, it's unsure whether the University patch will fix this too.
• The piano stops being fun after 24 hours.
• Memory icons may be too large to fit in their boxes in the panel.
• Some "Ask" interactions can trigger crushes: "What Are You Good At?", "What's Your Job?", "What's Your Sign?", "What's Your Turn On/Off?", "What's Your Wealth?"
• Diplomas might not show up in the right Sim's inventory.

Again, this list might change from what the final patch will be like. The latest status update is that the patch is currently undergoing testing and will be released soon. There's no specific date for its release yet but naturally we'll keep you updated with news about the patch.

803. Hot Rod in Exchange [Update]

Written on Wednesday 21 September 2005 at 15:14 by ChEeTaH - 7 comments.

The Hot Rod car that was available to those who pre-ordered Nightlife at certain shops, is now also available to anybody else. Not directly, but only through the exchange, where people have uploaded lots with the new car on it. So rather than just downloading the car, you'll have to download a house (potentially with other hacks, objects, downloads, etc as well) that has it. Searching the lot exchange for Hot Rod is likely to bring up some results so you can download the car. The original asset is hidden and thus cannot be downloaded directly. Thanks to SP Zone for finding it.

[Update 15:38] On the Exchange, in the list of custom content and hacks included with the lot, the car will be listed as an Object by MaxoidMonkey, with the filename "CarOwnable_RatRod.package" and CRC "2d112506422a4e619c7baef0d0f2dbd6". Going to its original download will take you to the asset's page, which will show that the file is hidden on the exchange.

804. Karaoke Machine Work-around

Written on Wednesday 21 September 2005 at 15:08 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Recently Maxis has posted a work-around for the infamous karaoke bug in Nightlife. The problem with the karaoke machine is that some people don't hear the voices of the Sims using the object. MaxoidKane has now suggested on the official BBS to change some of the audio settings. It might work for some people, but maybe not for everybody. The problem is that the game doesn't play some sounds to improve performance, but as the karaoke sounds (and sounds from the band objects in University too) are quite long it is easily noticeable if these are missing, whereas usually only short sounds are not played. Setting the Audio Quality to the highest setting, in the Options panel, will make the game play most sounds, but it may also affect performance. See MaxoidKane's post for more info.

805. SimDay - PodCast and Content Manager

Written on Monday 19 September 2005 at 01:12 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Last Thursday the official site has received an update again, and besides the fansite kit they've posted two other things. The first is an update of the Content Manager. The updated version has been improved by suggestions from the community. After uninstalling the old version, you can download and install the new version from the Content Manager page.

Other than that there's a first 20-minute podcast. Host Dano talks to Tim LeTourneau about Nightlife. After a quick overview on the features, questions from members are answered. These include questions about living downtown, the dating game, realism and fiction, the smustle, social interactions, vampires, feeding Mrs. Crumplebottom to the cow plant, building, cars, and a lot more. Tim finishes off telling about a wedding between two vampires. You can get more info about podcasts, open the PodCast channel in iTunes, or get the MP3 from the newspost. Other programs might have to use the Podcast RSS feed to use it. Finally, Maxis has posted a new help page showing the compatibility between sims based on aspiration and zodiac sign. View it to find out if your Sims match.

806. Sims 2 (PC) Hardware Performance Guide

Written on Monday 19 September 2005 at 00:35 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The Sims 2 is an odd game compared to others, in that it doesn't use too much graphical power, but depends on the processor (CPU) a lot more. This is one of the main conclusions that GameSpot pulls in a new hardware guide. In the article of five pages they test the effect of hardware in your computer, like the graphics card, CPU, memory, as well as the game's settings, on the framerate. The better the framerate, the smoother the game runs. When it comes to the settings, they say turning off viewing the neighbour lots gives a performance boost. The same goes for shadows. When it comes to the screen resolution, it doesn't matter much which you put it in. Even the graphics card, as long as it's not extremely old, doesn't matter a whole lot. ATI cards performed worse in GameSpot's test, but Maxis engineers say this is due to recent drivers. Performance might be improved using the "boolprop useshaders false" cheat, which puts the game in DirectX 7 mode, and so disables some advanced effects.

On the CPU page three tests show how much impact a fast processor can have on the framerate. The resolution doesn't matter at all. As for memory, GameSpot recommends 512Mb. If you're stuck with less, e.g. 256Mb, the game doesn't perform well at all. It doesn't perform much better with more than 512Mb though. Other than that, defragmenting the drive after installation is said to help. A fast hard drive might also help stop some hiccups due to hard drive access.

Although it all is a bit of a technical story, it might help some fans figure out what to upgrade on their system to improve the performance of the Sims 2. Check out the hardware guide for more details about the tests performed.

807. Nightlife Review

Written on Monday 19 September 2005 at 00:22 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

A new review about Nightlife has been posted, this time by 1Up. They too, like previous reviewers did, mention that the game doesn't have a similar set of robust feature like University did. The new inventory is extremely handy when it comes to moving a family to a new home, and also turn ons and turn offs are mentioned. The main criticism is that Nightlife doesn't offer rewards like you could get with the new gameplay in University. Instead you can waste some time in the life of your Sims. "It would be nice if Nightlife brought some more lasting impact." The review has the worst score for the game so far. Whereas others scored it 8.0 out of 10, or 4 out of 5, or even higher, 1Up rewards the pack with a 7.0 out of 10. Read the review if you're interested in what turns them on and off.

808. Sims 2 Screenshots, Wallpapers, Videos

Written on Monday 19 September 2005 at 00:09 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

A lot of material has appeared the past few days, all for the Sims 2 on Consoles and Handhelds. There are 8 screenshots for all platforms (except mobile), coming from GameSpot and the official site. The latter one has posted a fansite kit of the game, which also contains four wallpapers (two for the consoles, two for the PSP), and two new artworks (one for consoles, one for mobile). All those graphics can be found in the read more part of this post - just watch below, or click the link if need be.

As if that's not enough, EA UK has also released a trailer per platform (again, except mobile). All of them come in both high and low resolution, and require QuickTime to be played. Note that hot-linking (leeching, direct linking) to these downloads will not work. Instead copy the files to your own server or link to this newspost if you wish to pass on the news. Click the links below to download the trailers.

• Console Trailer: High Resolution (7.2 Mb) / Low Resolution (1.8 Mb)
• PSP Trailer: High Resolution (5.4 Mb) / Low Resolution (1.4 Mb)
• DS Trailer: High Resolution (4.3 Mb) / Low Resolution (1.1 Mb)
• GBA Trailer: High Resolution (4.3 Mb) / Low Resolution (1.1 Mb)

Read More!

809. Nightlife Tutorial - Garages!

Written on Friday 16 September 2005 at 02:19 by Neil - 2 comments.

Yes, the rumours were true, one can build garages at home with Nightlife. It's so easy to do as well. They actually look quite good and function very well.

Therefore there is a tutorial written by myself on this very subject, which one can read by clicking below.

Click to Read Extra!

810. Two Nightlife Reviews

Written on Thursday 15 September 2005 at 00:34 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

IGN and GameSpy already posted their reviews yesterday, today websites GameSpot and Yahoo! Games have given their opinion about Nightlife. The first of these has actually put two reviews online; one written one, and another video review. Although positive, the GameSpot editor does mention that vampires might be more trouble than they're worth. That's because they can't do much during the day, and have trouble maintaining long-term relationships. Hence they're more of a novelty than anything else. The effort of finding the count - which he says is hard to do - is not really worth it. A bit of new information is given as well: the influence feature from University will be available in Nightlife, even without University on your computer. Some old-time problems like Sims forgetting things, or the sometimes sluggish camera, haven't been fixed, but overall it's worth a look. It doesn't contain any extreme changes, but all the little things add up to a good expansion pack, worth 8 out of 10 points. At GameSpot, you can read the review, watch the video review or the four new gameplay videos, or you can check out GameSpot's own set of screenshots.

Yahoo! has less to offer, with just a review, which is even without any new screenshots. Basically it's not much more than a summing up of all new features. They're positive about every major feature. "The only drawback to this pack is its effect on a happy home life; my Sim-couple isn't on speaking terms any more. Really, when they think of each other, the thought balloons are on fire!" All in all the reviewer stays in line with GameSpot and GameSpy, also giving it a 4 out of 5 rating. Read the review if you want more details.