Lawdy, tell me about it!
I’ve seen complaints on various Sims 2 sites complaining that Sims 2 doesn’t have this, that, or the other that The (original) Sims didn’t have either until it came in an expansion pack!
Then there are the people: NO PETS IN SIMS 2!
They don’t like them because of Unleashed. Somehow I think Maxis might make some improvements on that design for Sims 2. Heck, I didn’t think they were that bad in the first one. Don’t want strays coming in and messing on your lot? Get the “Stray Away” sign and problem solved! Don’t like having to care for your pet? Umm…well, I think that one speaks for itself. 
My only complaint with the pets was not enough size variety and that’s probably the number one reason they haven’t mentioned anything about putting out that type of expansion yet.
Think about it; unless you use the stretch_skeleton cheat all of your Sims are the same height because they have to be for interactions to look right.
Don’t believe me? Try setting one of your Sims for 0.5, have them kiss a regular size Sim, and then get back with me. :o 
Make that “all of your Sims in the same age group are the same height”.
Nat. 
There is a new Aspiration that I did not here about before now.
Mmm, Grilled Cheese! If your sim uses the ReNuYu Senso Orb in green or red aspiration states your sim may be granted the Grilled Cheese Aspiration. Your sim will have a lifetime desire to eat 200 Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Your sim will want to talk about, cook, serve and eat grilled Cheese!
Lee, let me say: that is a Sim aspiration that I can finally relate to.
Courtesy of a poster over on the Sims 2 site who had their copy shipped overnight (Spoilers ahead!):
Attraction: based on aspirations, turn on/offs, Zodiac, personality
Besides scoping the room, Check Sim Out will tell you if you’re attracted to a particular Sim. You can also find out if they’re attracted to you by asking Do You Like What You See
You won’t be able to Scope the Room or Check Sim Out if you haven’t established a Gender Preference, as only Sims of the Gender your Sim is interested in will sparkle. For Sims fresh out of CAS, the guide suggests a low-level flirt (like Wolf Whistle) with a Sim of the Gender you want them to be attracted to, which will set the preference.
The new system doesn’t hurt pre-existing relationships. If you’re in love, married, engaged, etc, your attraction to the other Sim won’t fall below a certain level. And it will raise if you marry, fall in love, etc a Sim you’re not otherwise attracted to.
Chemistry: The average of 2 Sims attraction to each other. There are 5 levels, which are visible in the relationship panel and marked with lightning bolts.
2 Sims with Max Chemistry can do and have accepted any interaction as Sims in love. 2 Sims with Negative Chemistry can do any interaction you’d get after repeatedly slapping each other.
Love Potion #8.5: Boosts your Sim’s attractiveness to all other Sims by 100 points (on a 150 point scale) so is guaranteed to boost Chemistry by at least one level. It lasts for 3 hours, and you can tell it’s still in effect because hearts follow your Sim wherever they go. Taking another potion before the 1st one has worn off causes Comfort and Hygeine to drop to 0, gagging, and Attraction is at 0 until the potion wears off.
More to come…
New NPC’s: Besides Mrs Crumplebottom and the Gypsy Matchmaker, there’ s also The Slob, The Diva, and Mr Big, as well as the restaurant Host and Server
**
Dining Out**: You can ask to be seated at a table or at a counter.
If you’re missing a key element from your restaurant, a “Closed/Under Construction” sign will appear outside the restaurant until you go in under Build/Buy mode to fix the problem.
If your group is too large to sit at one table, they’ll be seated at 2 tables, if available, and your Sim will be seated with the Sims s/he has the highest relationship scores with. If there’s not enough room to seat the entire group, the Host will apologize and refuse to seat any of the group.
Every Sim has a random, permanent, favorite food, that appears in a thought bubble when they read the menu. If you order for them, ordering their favorite food gives a score boost. You can also choose to order the same food for the entire group, let the group order for themselves, or only order for certain Sims and allow the rest to order for themselves.
A high relationship score with the Host can result in all or part of the meal being Comped (discounted) If you don’t have enough money to pay the entire bill, it will result in a relationship score drop and it will be added to the bills that come to the house. Before the meal ends, you can click on the podium and choose to Skip Out On Bill. If you can avoid the Host for 45 seconds, you get a free meal and don’t take a relationship hit. If you’re caught, your relationship score drops, and a fine is added to the bill.
A high relationship with the Server reduces the chance of getting food dropped on you.
You can also fall asleep while dining if your Energy gets to low, resulting in a bad memory/embarassment.
Dating: Dates can take place both at home and at community lots. If you date at home, the date shows up immediately, so it’s suggested that you prepare for it before you call, instead of wasting Date time in cooking, cleaning, showering, etc.
For dates at Community lots, you have 1 hour to leave for the lot (picking up your date along the way) If you don’t leave within the hour, you get an angry phone call and the relationship score drops.
If you’re on a date with someone from the same household, both are controlable and you can switch back and forth.
For owners of TSU, no dates can be made on or taken to SS lots
Clicking the aspiration icon on the Date Meter shows you your date’s wants and fears. Fulfilling wants obviously will increase the score faster.
After the date has ended, its score can affect your needs, either high or low. A good date with someone with a high skill level can gain you skill points- a bad date doesn’t cause you to lose them. The amount of skill points depends on how many date levels you’ve raised the bar, but you aren’t aware of how many points you’ve gained until the date is over. You can ask dates and potential dates What Are Your Skills. I’m Pretty Good At means their level is 1-3, I’m Very Good At is 4-7, I’m An Expert At is 8-10. You can get points in more than one skill as well as multiple points per skill.
You won’t get a job promotion from a date with someone in your career if they live in your household.
A horrible date will result in a flaming bag of pooh being left at your door. ROFL The fire won’t spread, but it won’t go out until it’s stomped on or added to your inventory. There is, however, a slight chance that your Sim will catch on fire while stomping it out.
A good date will result in a Contact (a friend of your date’s) calling the next day to invite you on a group outing, which the date will also be a part of. Contact status lasts from 12-52 hours, depending on the date and Contacts are counted as a sort of temporary friend- they show in your panel and count towards job promotions.
Group Outings: “Just For Fun” is an unscored outing. Is useful to get group seated at one table in restaurants.
Casual Outings are asked for in person, Managed are done over the phone
You can add/remove people in the group while it’s going on.
Rewards are similar as on a date, except that chance of extra skill points is greatly increased as it’s based on the total of skill points in any given skill, not the average. Also can receive expensive present from the person on the outing with whom you have the highest relationship and/or a coupon in the mail for a free dinner at a restaurant.
You can change to a date while on an outing, but if you have more than one playable Sim on the outing, you’ll have to manage both the date and the outing.
Vampires: Getting bitten varies depending on Aspiration, Skills and other factors. Knowledge Sims and those with high logic levels are bitten at lower levels.
Daily 20 or more: Knowledge Sim
Daily 95 or more or Logic >3
Daily 61-80: Logic >6
Daily 41-60: Logic >9
And apparently it also depends on age and non-Family, but then goes on to say that those aren’t required for all conditions without saying what those conditions are or aren’t. In the Social Section, it says the Sim has to be attraction-eligible.
Until a playable Sim is bitten, no townies will be bitten by the Grand Vampire. Afterwards, however, vampirism will spread, but only to 10% of your town’s population. Above that, playable Sims will have to do the biting. However, although Townies don’t regenerate when they’re bitten, Service NPC’s do, so it’s impossible to have a complete town with just vampires.
Vampires will sleep in their coffin until Sunset, not get up when they’re energy is full.
Even inside, during the day, Vampire’s needs decay faster than an ordinary Sim if they’re not in their coffin.
Vampires have their own special pictures from the photo booth, and can neither starve nor drown.
Although their needs don’t deplete naturally after sunset, they can be depleted by actions/objects. And the need don’t raise on their own- they just freeze.
More on NPC’s: You can’t interact with the Cook at all, and Mrs Crumplebottom only has limited interactions- if you try to talk to her, she’ll either give you a lecture or pull out her knitting and ignore you
Mrs. Crumplebottom, besides hating PDA’s, apparently will tell you off for wearing undies/swimwear in public, even if there’s a pool on the lot.
Besides the bowling lanes, poker and drinking at the bar will occupy her and keep her from coming after you.
The Gypsy Matchmaker is on call 24/7. After calling her to the lot, any controlable Sim can use her services. She matches you with any Sim of the preferred Gender who isn’t married/engaged/going steady with the highest Chemistry- including NPCs. They instantly appear out of thin air. She is marriageable.
Furious State: Sims no longer instantly forgive you for insults. Furious state lasts from 3 hours (grouchy Sim loses a game) to 336 hours (Break Up of Marriage, Left at Altar or towards the Burglar after a Burglary) Time passes towards this if the Sims are on the same lot, even if you’re not playing either of them.
Furious Sims autonomously walk by your lot and vandalize it, can do enemy actions, bad mouth the other Sim, and one will be driven from the room if they’re in the same one. Status of this state is viewable in the relationship panel- the background is tinged red, and as time passes, part of the red part disappears counterclockwise until the time is up. You can also speed the process by using the new Appreciate> Apologize action.
Furious Sims can lead to Romantic Rivals. You can get rid of a Rival 3 ways: Influence to Leave Us Alone, Bribe with the Buy Off interaction, or Fight>Attack, with the loser leaving. However, even if you win, this can ruin the status of your Date, especially if you’re dating a very nice or Family Sim. Or boost it with a Very Mean or Popularity Sim
On Cars: The Smooga Minima: $995
The Smord P328: $2250
The Landwhale by Heaveola: $4250
The Yomoshoto Evasion: $6250
Hunka 711 by Hwang Motors: $11950
Nested Actions are Kiss, Make Out, WooHoo, Try For Baby
Regular Actions are Change Owner, Drive to Community Lot, Take a Spin, Drive to Work, Take to School, Drive to School, Carpool to Work With…, Carpool to School With…, Get Alarm Installed, Sit in Vehicle, Turn Stereo On, Dance( after turning stereo on and getting out), Turn Lights On, Ask to Get Out.
All Sim cars have infinite capacity.
Dating Rewards: For dates, you get a bouquet of flowers that never die for a Deam Date, one flower for Great date, Love Letter for Good Date, nothing for Okay and Lame Dates, Hate Letter for Bad Date, and Poo for Horrible Date.
If a Sim is married/engaged/whatever and the Spouse, etc sees the token of the date, s/he gets mad at him/her just as if they walked in on the date in progress! So cheating Sims had better keep their flowers and love letters in their inventory and hope they get to the mailbox first!
As for apologizing, it must only reduce the time a certain amount, because it says it will only affects the furious state once an hour
If the furious Sim is a child, the time is a lot less than if the same action that caused it was done to an adult. That duration is also affected by how nice/mean the Sim is- Nice Sims are more forgiving and don’t get as mad to begin with.
Romantic Interactions: Kiss Hand is a new general Kiss action
Under Slow Dance, you have Dance Close, Lower Hand, and Head on Shoulder
While sitting at a table, you can Blow Kiss, Caress Hands, Feed a Bite, Steal a Bite, Surprise Engagement
While sitting in a booth, you can Hot Smooch and Love Talk
**
Some Lifetime Wants for the new Pleasure Seaker Aspiration**:
Go on 100 First Dates
Become Professional Party Guest
Have 50 Dream Dates
**
And my personal favorite**: Fences can now be duplicated using the eyedropper tool.
Courtesy of another poster over at the Sims 2 site. Don’t worry…I’ve given them all my benes.
New Cheats: A new money cheat is included in the guide. Used in neighborhood view with a household selected either on their lot or in the Family Bin: Open the cheat window and type: familyfunds Insert family name here 5,000.
5,000 simoleons will be added to the family funds.
There is also "unlockCareerRewards (allows access to all career rewards).
maxMotives: Sets all needs for all playable sims on the lot to full.
motiveDecay on/off: Turns natural need decay on or off.
aspirationPoints #: permits for more expensive aspiration reward objects.
lockAspiration on/off: Freezes Aspiration point decay for all sims on the lot.
roofslopeangle (15-75) : In build mode, adjusts the slope angle on all roofs on a lot.
showHeadlines on/off: Makes invisible thought balloons. Useful for movie making.
aspirationLevel (0-5): O puts them at the lowest, 5 in the platinum level.
agesimcheat on/off: Adds “Set Age” to the interaction menu. Any sim you click on can be set to any age group.
setLotLightingfile (filename): Change lighting by choosing an alternative lighting file. The original can be found in C:Programfiles\EA Games\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\Lights. To restore the lot bck to original lighting settings, input “setLotLightingFile clear”.
I don’t suppose there’s some cheat code for a neighborhood wide flu vaccine, is there?
I had my neighborhood come down with the nastiest flu epidemic - all because of those slobs at the university. Absolutely no one could visit anyone else without either catching or giving the flu. Eventually, I had to go into every single house and play each family until they got better. Frustrating.
Not that I can find, but I have found on Variousimmers.net a “No More Spreading of Disease” hack so at least you can contain it.
I know what a pain it is when it spreads. I just got my neighborhood cleaned up from a bad bout of it (I hope! :crosses fingers, knocks on wood:)
Here’s more on The Life Vampiric from livejournal.
One week to go!
Harmless… I love you.
Seriously though, you’ve convinced me to buy the expansion 
Beat ya down and broke through your defense, huh?
Well, that’s one down…5,466,123 to go.
This pack is going to change the game play so much; I can’t believe more people aren’t excited about it.
I guess that University put a lot of people off of new ones.
I can see their point of view, especially since Maxis has yet to release a stand alone patch for it, but all bugs I’ve experienced so far (and there weren’t that many) I’ve been able to play through or find a 3rd party hack to fix.
I guess if I can’t smoke 'em, I’ll huff 'em, huh?
Yes, I’m addicted. Why? :o
Forgot to add that they…lemme find the post so I get this right…
So there’s their word on it. Take it for what it’s worth.
My issue with uni was that it…let me down. Where did the weekends go? The interactions were sort of limited (plus there wasn’t anything that big or different). The only reason I send my sims to college is for the career choices and extra wants/needs.
This one sounds totally different and hopefully it is! I hope there is a lot of new furniture! (I’m a dork, I like building pretty sim houses).
By the by, if anyone is interested in some Jem themed stuff (yes, pink-haired cartoon chick from the 80’s) I’ve been feeling nostalgic and am planning on doing some serious skinning tonight!
What bugs are in University? I can’t think of any Uni specific ones I’ve come accross, but I have come across a few “regular” ones, I think:
The stupid headmaster bug. I think I’ve read this is a common one. Headmaster comes, but either leaves too soon, or never leaves at all. Once that happens, I can’t get a headmaster onto the lot at all. That one pisses me off in a big way.
I had a lot on that big hill in Pleasantview. Unfortunately, the kid’s school bus and the father’s carpool came at the same time, making the bus stop halfway up the hill. The kid could get on the bus, but couldn’t get off again. All his motives would bottom out, and the social worker would come, but even the walk-through-walls social worker couldn’t get to the kid. Ended up having to move them out and stick them somewhere else.
Oh, one Uni bug, I guess, occasionally I’d get some lot visitor stuck on the lot. They’d just be standing in the middle of the hallway, staring off into space. No interactions worked with them.
And now that I think of it, I think I had a fraternity bug as well… But I can’t remember what it was. I think I couldn’t get anyone to join my fraternity, somehow. Gah, I can’t remember. But good god did that habit of going to campus every 30 seconds drive me nuts.
And is it me, or does the family tree fail after a couple of generations? I eventually had situations where great-grandfathers could hit on their great-granddaughters (or sons) if they were so inclined.
Still love the game though. Just reinstalled because I decided I had developed the neighborhood poorly, and there were just way too many people related to each other. But I did have quite the family dynasty going for a while.
One I can think of off hand was that when it came time for a Sim to leave campus after graduation they’d just stand there until they died.
That was pretty problematic.
There’s a new jump bug that some people, myself included, are experiencing. This one only happens for me occasionally and isn’t interrupting game-play so I barely even notice when it happens.
I’m not sure about the family tree thing. I had just gotten up to 4th generation when my hard drive crashed and am now only on new 3rd gen. I never tried to flirt with the granchillin’s so I don’t know. Never seen it as an option within family before.
Ooh!
Thought: there is an “All in the family” hack. If you have downloaded Sims or Houses it’s possible you might have inadvertently gotten that hack along with it.
Do you have the Maxis program to check for hacks?
I’ve been fairly anal about not downloading hacks, after I lost an entire neighorhood to some widely-acclaimed hack in the first Sims. So, no, definitely not a hack problem.
Sad, too, because some of the hacks out there look like fun.
I need to get a desktop though because the graphics card in my laptop just isn’t hefty enough to give me cut scenes, and the machine tends to bog down after I play for a while.
The good news is, looks like I’ll be able to get Nightlife right around the same time as you guys in the States, so that’s a plus. Just like TS2, just in time for my birthday.