I think my game has some glitches. People I create don’t show up in thumbnails anywhere, which makes it difficult to play. There’s just a blank where they’re supposed to be. That happened on occasion in my first generation Sim game, but only when I was using a user created skin or mesh. Also, it stops altogether sometimes, like it’s stuck and then starts back up, especially in Buy mode or after I pause. Anybody else having any of this? 
Whoops - in the clarity of the morning I just realized I typed that wrong. You don’t use the “F” keys - just the normal number keys across the top of the keyboard. So for example to set a camera angle press CTRL-4, and to flip back to it press 4.
I am having a great time with this game, so much so that I could barely tear myself away to post to this thread.
I love the increased decision making you need to do to play the Sims 2. I loved the Sims, but it got to the point where I could play a family of 8 on the medium speed, while I was chatting on the phone, and keep them all happy and alive and making money. It probably speaks volumes that I continued to play my families even after it got so repetitive.
Always a cautious Sims player (you don’t fill a neighborhood with ten 8 person families, have all their skills maxed and every single person a household friend of every other family by playing with reckless abandon!), I haven’t ventured much into the community areas, but have been focusing my attention on the home life of my Sims. The novelty of having babies and growing them into adults hasn’t worn off yet, and I’m (vaguely) ashamed to say that I took advantage of Daniel Pleasant’s roving eye to build him a harem of women with whom to reproduce.
I’m still getting used to adjusting the view, so I really appreciated Slacker’s info about saving the various room views. I seem to get stuck behind walls a lot. I was having trouble changing the view angle, like Fenris mentioned, and I realized that the right mouse button wasn’t “catching” if I inadvertantly let it drift over the information panels.
Here’s the one I found via Google but haven’t tried it yet.
I’m not sure how to go about fulfilling elder Betty’s power want of having a grandchild. She already has two, as mentioned above, but didn’t have the option to phone them.
I invited the daughter and son-in-law over for Betty and Pao’s anniversary party, but the kids didn’t come.
After that failed I then read the pop-up description of the want and it mentioned having two Sims “try for baby”.
So I went back into Elizabeth and Mitch’s house (daughter & s-i-l) and invited Betty over. I then had Elizabeth and Mitch go upstairs and “try for baby” again while Betty played with her grandchildren.
As far as I know, Betty didn’t appear to get any aspiration points, even though they conceived (that makes 3! 
).
I still need to go back to Betty’s and check on that though.
Has anyone done this one yet? Any tips?
Nope, no tips, but you reminded me that I wanted to mention how cool I think it is that you can see NPC Sims getting aspirations points while they’re visiting - it shows just how… attuned everything is.
I finally built a house - the building was never really my thing in the previous game - and managed to very nicely recreate my own home. I’m seriously impressed with the power and flexibility in home designing this time around; I’m just waiting for them to start releasing new designs. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, some of the options are so limited.
I know!
I’ve been raving about the new building/design tools!
That eyedropper tool makes it infinitely easier to simply expand a room.
And it works on everything! Need another kitchen counter but don’t want to have to go back through them to find the right top and coloring? Simply eyedropper it!
It transitions so smoothly between by and build using that dropper that I don’t even bother to click the icons anymore.
I got my husband to exchange our graphics card last night to a better one…the difference is :eek: . Like when viewing the neighborhood, I’d zoom in and out and it would look pretty jerky and sketchy. Now it’s real smooth and quick.
I love it!
Foundations and stairs pissed me off at first, but now I got it going on. 
That should read buy and build mode.
Sorry, I got excited. 
I’m hoping we’ll get more stair options like spirals, curves, and a stair/landing combo for split-levels.
Amen to the split-level stair options. The house I built last night is a raised ranch, and while it looks pretty good from the outside, not being able to split the stairs took away from its authenticity inside.
I did most of my growing up in a Split-level Ranch.
Sounds cool - how about some screenshots? (I can put 'em on the web if you need)
Hmmm I’ll have to take a look and see what I can do when I get home.
(Is it sad that I just thought to myself “I’ll have to have them clean up first”?)
Oh, in other news, I managed to get my SimKid into private school yesterday. The Headmaster loved the house tour; I ended up maxing out with a score of 99/90 (not a typo).
I wish you could over-under stairs; in my house the basement stairs are directly under the stairs to the upstairs floor, which you can’t do in the Sims 2. And, yes, you can’t currently do a split-level as far as I can tell.
I got my SimKid into private school too. What are the advantages of this?
lee and I managed to get all three of Brandi Snifter’s (nee Broke) kids into private school last night, with a final score of 104/90. Brandi is a great cook, which helps.
She’s pregnant again, going for #4 but #1 with her new husband, Gnose. Dustin is about to grow up and we’ll probably have to move him out soon. We’re still debating whether to marry him to Angela and then kill her, or just marry him to someone else. I think it’s pretty much decided that Angela will have an unfortunate encounter with a satellite in the near future…
Private school drains your kid’s needs more slowly than does public school. It’s also a Want for many children. Finally, teens in private school start at level 2 in teen job tracks, instead of level 1.
For one thing, it can fulfill an aspiration. I don’t have the Guide with me but searching the Sims 2 boards gives one the idea that it’ll help the kid’s career in the long run.
And, kids’ comfort is actually raised by going to private school. And it was my Sim Dad’s aspiration for a whopping 8K points.
Thanks for all the replies.