Hooray! Huzzah! etc, etc!
Apartment Life is finally here! I don't have it yet (don't you hate living in a small town?) but I will have it at 6pm tonight
Anyways, with the permission of Cheesy here are some pics of witches and the like!
Evil Withchy!

Good Witch!

Here is a thread from the BBS detailing what spells and such are available!
Click Here

Ceilings!

The new toddler toy!

Ummm...eerrrr.... Wooho?

We have all been waiting for it! and here they are!
Spiral Staircases!

This picture shows some of the new Kiddy playthings!

I have always missed the jungle gyms from Sims 1! Kinda dissapointing it took them untill the last EP to give them to us!
So there we go, Tonight I shall play, and get me some more pics!
If you have any yourselves, please share!
Thanks to Cheesy for allowing me to use her pictures!

They're cool pictures

Well, I'm three days down from getting AL now, and I have some likes/dislikes and as usual, some glitches! LOL

LIKES:

* There is a new child/adult interaction called something like 'swing me around' which I think is SO adorable!
* I love the new curved staircases.
* I like how you don't have to feed/take care of the spectral cats - they just disappear when their needs are low.
* I love the new playground stuff.
* Really enjoy the new closets.
* Happy to be brushing my simmies teeth (but see DISLIKES as well)
* Like some of the spells (see DISLIKES as well)
* Like the fact my witches can fly (see DISLIKES as well lol)
* Like the new bookcase study options (would like them even better if I could figure out what benefit they have! LOL)
* Like having a butler (when he actually works).
* I do like some of the maxis made apartments (but see DISLIKES as well!)
* I am relieved that it's not too much of a drain on my pc memory!
* I love being able to call the landlord to repair stuff.
* NEW BEDDING!!!!!!



DISLIKES:

* I don't understand why they can only brush teeth with the medicine cabinet (which is also hard to find in buy mode). Would've thought that they could've shoved some toothbrushes on a sink somewhere and made brushing teeth possible with every mirror as well.

* Some of the spells are awesome! (Like the one which defeats death). But some of them are a bit 'blah' really.

* I can't figure out, why when my witch flies to work on her broomstick, that the carpool brings her home.

* Bookcase options take FOREVER to study.

* Witchiness talent fades so quickly you've gotta spend basically all your time casting spells in your area of talent or studying it through the spellbook.

* NPC's are no longer contactable, so don't bother making friends with them.

* There is something up with the bills - one sim started at 53, went down to 41, then jumped to 200, then 249!!! NOTHING was bought for that apartment in that time, she still had exactly the same stuff she'd started with.

* Can't place ANYTHING outside your own apartment. So if you don't get one with a spa pool in the common area, you aren't going to be able to place it outside in the common areas later. (The upside of this is you can place your telescope next to a window and you can still skill build - dunno about abductions yet though. Also works placing them inside for aspiration objects like the weather control and re-energiser).

* Very disappointed in lack of furniture etc. Thought there would have been more.

* Also disappointed in no new aspiration objects. Was hoping for a new one at least.

* No new jobs (not really a biggie given how many there are now, but I'm a work-a-simmic!)

* I'm bored with the witches already. (Which is disappointing because that's all I wanted this EP for! LOL)

* Was hoping for more food cooking options (ie. baking etc)

* NO new interactions for infants. GRRR!!!!! (on the plus side, my nannies seem to be doing their jobs).

* Only new thing I've found for toddlers so far is that ride thing, and can't figure out what benefit it has.



All in all... I'd rate this EP a 7/10. It has some good stuff, but didn't go far enough, especially since it is rumoured to be the definite LAST EP of Sims 2. I would have expected something pretty damn spectacular if it was meant to close the series.



(PS - I actually like apartment living!!! LOL The one thing I didn't think I'd care for in this EP! LOL)

Oh and Gravey - that picture up there of the mirror with the woohoo option - that's the inbuilt closet. Sims can woohoo and try for babies in the new closets. (AND get pregnant too! LOL)

I know! I know exactly what you mean!
I do love the new skipping rope action! I think it's great! their needs aren't going down much when they do it either!
I so far haven't had any glitches, and I only played for a little while with witches (I ended up killing one of them so I exited without saving )
you have explained one thing that happened though! I had an evil witch, and about 3 - 4 sim hours after I made her, she wasn't green anymore! She must have dropped back to a neutral witch.
The "secret door" doesn't seem to work, the one that looks like a bookcase? she couldn't get through it, and that is where I had placed her cauldron and spell book holder

Is the secret door supposed to work? I don't know - the footprint of it would suggest it is supposed to, but I haven't got that far yet.

Reading on the BBS today, it seems the Spawning problem from BV is back. You know, it creates 3 or so character files for every NPC you see.

I have the Unsavoury Charlatan on EVERY community lot in Belladonna Cove and in every associated neighbourhood - ie. my Uni neighbourhood, my downtown etc. I'm sure that's gotta be a glitch.

Well that certaintly seems to be a glitch.
As I understand it, there is no respawn glitch, or at least, not one that the modders have been able to find yet.
Whats happening is that the game has to spawn all these extra "social townies" and there are LOADS of them, so even if you start with a blank slate, once your game has loaded NL townies, UNI townies, Pets, Garden club, hobbie people, Vacation locals AND all the new social townies PLUS all the NPC's, it doesn't matter if you have only played one family, and went to one community lot, you are going to have a LOT of charcter files. Still nowhere near enough to crash a game, they increased the size to some ridiculous amount after the bug happened last time.
I know Pescado has said he thinks he may have found a phantom landlord, several people have said they have heaps of evil and good head witches running around, someone else has far too many drama proffesors and you just said you have charlatans, so I would guess maybe they have something bad in the code with those charcters.
I wonder if we have extra vampires mr/mrs bigs and slobs running around as well?
I would go and grab the notownieregen hack from MATY to stop getting extra uneeded characters. I'll post the links up in a little bit.

That'd be awesome, thanks.

There is definitely something up with my bills in the apartments too - they come the first time, seem about what they should be, then the second time they drop slightly, as they should. But then the THIRD time, they'll be an exorbitant amount. The fourth time, they go up again. I don't know if it's happening in houses yet, but it definitely is in the apartments, and it doesn't matter what sort of apartment it is. Just moved my evil Cordial into a house, so will see if the bills go screwy there too over the next couple of days.

By the way, I had the Cordial sim cast the zombie spell and it didn't do what I thought! I thought it would turn someone into a zombie, but it adds a townie zombie to your family!

Oh wow! Zombie townies!!!
Ok as I understand it, only some people seem to be experiencing the respawn bug. I am not, and that makes me wonder if it might have something to do with a Stuff Pack I dont have installed? I do not have Celebrations, H&M, Teen Style, K&B or Ikea stuff installed.
I know Ikea broke a few things last time.
Blue do you know how to check your character files? too see if you have too many? I asked another friend to check hers when I checked mine, I have played a little more than her and had 498 characters, she has 797 < Definaetly a bug!!

766 characters for me if I've checked in the right place! That's Belladonna Cove - in comparison, Strangetown, which I've not touched has 212. Veronaville, which I've also not touched has 199.

Thats pretty much the same as mine for my untouched hoods!
Pleasentview is my most played and it only had 6 hundred and something!
Ok so the way to check and see if you have a respawn glitch is thus:
Open up your character folder, and then open your game, play as normal!
Watch the character file folder! keep checking and refreshing it!
If you have - a new file being generated upon EVERY loading of the home lot
- 3 new files being generated upon visisting a community lot
- random excess files being generated every 24 sim hours
- X amount of files generated when a new walkby appears
The first 2 are definates, the last 2 are could maybe happens. If you are getting any of/or a combination of these, head over to MATY pronto and grab the notownieregen hack!

I already grabbed it, to hopefully deal with the charlatan. So far so good I think, but I've only played a couple of hours today and most of that was building an apartment.

DEFINITELY something up with bills though - I built a slum apartment, and thought I'd play it through the bills drop offs just to see - first bill started at 222, second bill 222, third bill was 579, fourth was 632!!! I'm trying a house now to see what the bills do there. Given that it was a slum apartment and everything in it was cheap, and I didn't buy anything for the sim (although someone gave him a tv damn it all! LOL) it shouldn't be that high even to start with? I'm wondering if somehow they're getting charged for the neighbour's stuff as well?

Anyway, trying it out with a house with really expensive furnishings even though it's small, and it started at 157, so we'll see.

I think you may have put your finger on the issue.
watching the BBS over the last few days I see some people are having issue that have to do with this. Neighbours using their kitchens/beds/couches/etc etc.. their sims using the neighbours stuff. It looks like it could be something similar to this one you are having! Are your sims/neighbours doing this? do you start seeing inside another apartment lot before the bills increase at all?

No, I'm not seeing inside other apartments at all. I am still testing this all out. In houses, the bills seem pretty normal (as in pre-AL sorts of rates). In the apartments, even in shabby ones, they start off quite high anyway. For instance, one maxis made family started out with 222, dropped to 114, and now I'm just waiting to see what the 'magic' third bill produces. Their furniture is not particularly nice or expensive, but unfortunately I had to add a cot when the wife went into labour so it might affect that 3rd bill amount. Getting charged for the neighbour's stuff is all I can think of, but then, theoretically, the neighbours must be shopping somewhere before that 3rd bill.

hmmmm, This may be a stupid question, but are they paying their rent? and do they pay the rent before that first bill comes?
The prima guide says that if they miss a weeks rent, that gets added onto the next bill. The numbers dont seem right at all but the pattern does.
1st week, you dont pay rent, the landlord never asks for it - this gets put on the next bill, second bill comes - normal amount, Miss the next rent payment - gets added onto next bill.
Like I said the numbers aren't right, but the cycle is, I could be extremely wrong
at least your house bills are normal! thats one thing to be thankful for

Yeah they're paying rent. I also have no problems with the mailboxes as being described on the BBS. I can't figure it out - but the fact that it goes in the right sort of cycle is what makes me think it's something to do with the neighbours!