Well, I have to confess, when I first saw that it was apartments, I was going "Oh". No sense of excitement, no looking forward to it, in fact I was feeling pretty ripped off to be honest. Never been inside an apartment in my life - why would I want to send my sims to live in one?? (Oh wait, maybe that's why I'd want to, just cos I never have seen one! LOL)

But the information about it is slowly starting to trickle through now.

CURVED Staircases - WOOOHOOO!!! They take up so much less space and look so good!

New windows and doors - FINALLY!

Move multiple families into the same apartment block - That might be handy for getting to know your neighbours!

New beds - what can I say, I have a thing for Sim beds. There are never enough of the different types!



But the biggest info to come out so far is that this is the Makin Magic remake. WOOOHOOO - I can hear some of you go. BOOOHOOO - I can hear the Superstar fans already! LOL

So from what I've seen, and someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, the 'creature' of this EP is the witch. As in, your sims can turn INTO the witch (like the plant people and vampires I guess). There are three types of witches - the good, the bad and the ugly... hehehe Just kidding, the Good the Neutral and the Evil.
Depending on the type of witch they are, they can create different types of spells. They can also fly around on broomsticks apparently.

I was pleased to see there will be a 'magical world'. I don't know if it is a sub neighbourhood, or if it is like the Hobbies thing, and you just go to different specialist lots yet.



I have to confess that knowing this is the magic remake has upped it's interest for me.


No system requirements are up on the Sims2.com site yet, nor is an official release date. But my local gamestore guy tells me it's slated at this point for late August, which will probably be early September 08.

Right, come on guys, lets share info and speculate!!!!

I am really looking forward to this EP as well, I saw a picture of those curved stairs and thought WHOOOOO!!! isn't it pretty!

I have no more info to add

I'm seriously looking forward to the witches, I have a feeling its going to be a fantastic addition! I wish we had some more info on them, I'd like to know if its going to be like MM where the kiddies could do spells and such, or if its going to be more of an adults only thing.
I wonder if it will tie into FT at all? like the witches lose their old interest and suddenly become interested in witchcraft instead?
I'm guessing they will be able to make potions, and I'm also guessing there will be good and bad effects depending on certain conditions, I wonder which ones though?
I'd say a love potion, death potion...skill potion....possibly a badge potion....health possibly?

I'll have a good look around tomorrow and see what I can find on it, hopefully I can come back with more info :megreen:

Right, some of the info I've gleaned so far.

Basically this is the EP in which EA are including some of our long term 'wants' from what I understand.

APARTMENTS

They work kind of like the dorms in Uni.

* You can move up to 4 families in. The rest of the apartments are filled with townies.
* Rent is due on Mondays. You click on the mailbox to pay it. If you forget, the landlord comes to get it.
* You can 'visit' the other apartments. (Like in Uni, you can walk into another sims room and see them).
* You can find a roommate in the paper, who moves in, but who will not be controllable. Said roommate will move out if they're not happy.
* You can hold 'block parties' (whatever that means).
* Build mode is limited once you move into an apartment. Just walls, floors, etc.

NEW INTERACTIONS

* New 'Reputation' meter - which is something to do with how well you get on with everyone.
* If your rep is in the negative, your rent might go up!
* New baby/toddler socials.
* You can bang on the wall of your apartment if your neighbours are too loud.

NEW OBJECTS

* As Gravey said - CURVED staircases! WOOOT!!!
* New doors for apartments.
* Air conditioning?
* Cauldron
* Spell book
* Playgrounds - climbing fort thing, roundabout, ride on toy?
* New beds.
* New tv (at least one anyway)
* Trash shute? Dunno if that's something that counts as a new object! LOL

NEW 'CREATURE'

* Witches are the new 'creature'.
* Like in NL with the vampires - you have to meet a witch on a community lot to become a witch.
* Once you've met one, a spell book and cauldron will be delivered to you.
* You purchase the ingredients ('reagents') you need for spells from the NPC witch.
* There are three ways you can go - Good, Neutral, or Evil. All three have different spells available to them.
* There is a witch secret lot?




As you can see I have the odd question about something I've read. More than likely I've only seen it once or from an unreliable source (aka the BBS on the Sims2.com LOL)

But that's just a quick look at some of what I know so far.


Oh and for those of us 'downunder' - NZ has a current release date of August 29th.

Its been delayed by a week, September 4th is the US release date, so we will either be a few days earlier or a few days later (depending on whether they decide we are Asian or European with THIS EP )
I can only hope this means that they are finally taking something their customers want into consideration, they aren't giving up on SecuROM or this stupid store, maybe they realised they had to at least try their hardest to eliminate bugs with this EP..... lets hope so anyways

I like the information you got there Blue, I still haven't really found a chance to have a look around yet (bub takes up a lot of time lol) i'm going to try this weekend though, the other half is home from work, so I can get him to look after him for a day

Hehehe You go girl!

The only thing I saw about the delay was a 'rumour' on the BBS, so didn't know it had gone official yet. My game store is still showing that release day, but they're pretty good at getting it right (the big head honchos wife is a simmer, so she doesn't let up about it, hence why all their info is fairly reliable LOL).

I so hope this EP is fairly bug free - the last one was such a mess in terms of bugs that should never have happened. (ie. The unusable tiles around the violin - like did NOBODY notice that PRIOR to release day???) )

Good Spells:

Banish Death: Click on a dead Sim or Death himself to bring a Sim back to life.
Aura of Niceness: Makes the world a better place to live.
De-Fuego: Instantly extinguish a fire.
Bugs of Ambiance: Summon butterflies of fireflies, depending on the time of day.
Make Agreeable: Cast this spell of a Sim to make them accept the next five socials.
Waves of Happy: All Sims in the area get a boost to their happiness (great for parties)
You Can Has Cheezburger: Spawn a tray of food, varies depending on the time of day.


Neutral Spells:

Make Fit: Instant fitness for the target Sim.
Make Fat: Opposite of Make Fit
Mighty Cluck of the Beyond: Posses the target Sim to perform chicken moves.
Leave'spolsion: Clear all the leaves from a Lot.
Puddle Evaporator: Clear rain, mess and pee puddles from your Lot.


Evil Spells:

Resurrect Zombie: Bring any Sim who's tombstone is on the Lot, back to life as the walking dead.
Bees!: cast a spell on someone to have them chased by bees.
Mist of Plague: Force a Sim to throw up.
Fuego: Cast a fireball to start an object blazing.


http://www.thesimsresource.com/article/apartmentlife3[size=Font Size] [/size][size=Font Size] [/size]

According to Wikipedia the release date for AL in Australia is August 22nd, America the 27th and Europe the 21st

*sigh*

I remember a day when NZ was always first to get a new EP. But somewhere around Seasons EA cottoned on to the fact that us kiwis were getting it first and we got shoved down to the end of the list. Now we usually get it somewhere around 3 days after you guys.

Oh that Release date was actually for Australasia (I hate how we have Asia attached to our name We are our own Continent!)

Oh so we aren't European now? I hate how they can never make up their minds! One Ep we are Australia, the next we are tacked onto Europe, you would think they would have realised by now that we down here are 2 seperate countries, not parts of other places

I thought they must have changed us back from being Euros.

For a while there, every SP and EP did funny things to the game when I installed it! (Hehehe Suddenly "Jane Simpson" would become Alamak Yinnirsk or something like that! LOL) It involved registry fixes every time anyway.

Then suddenly the installs starting working properly again - I think it was somewhere around Teen Style stuff that I didn't have to chase down the reg fix for it.

I dunno the launcher and cases always try to send us to www.thesims2.com.uk but then the cars are on the right hand side of the road [you do not know just how much I HATE that!!]
EA makes a mess with us Aussies and Kiwis

Hehehe

It's almost like we're a 'forgotten tribe'...

We should all refuse to bathe, start living in tree's and so generally tribey stuff untill they acknowledge us

Nah... they'd end up making a game outta us and add to their fotunes! LOL