In another thread, I was openly asking how to build a pawn shop (this is with OFB, of course). This is assuming that you have other venues in the NH that sell items.

I have discovered the way to do it, and to make a huge profit:

This is a 'little' cheaty, but if you prefer the old fashioned way of pricing and selling, all the more power to you-but this is what I did to open the Pleasantview Pawnshop.

1. Buy a community lot that is enabled for a shop-with shelves, an 'open sign' and a cash register.
2. Buy a few small items, price them 'ridiculously cheap' and then open your shop.
3. Wait for a customer. When one shows up, pause the game and make them selectable.
4. While they're still selectable, open up their inventory for items and remove those that might be saleable in your shop. Then unselect the customer.
5. Place the items from their inventory on the ground, or on a shelf and price them with the 'Business build' tool set on 'wholesale' price. They should show up as marked for sale in 'ridiculously cheap' (X amount of simoleons).

The cheaty parts: I use the Simlogical 'autorestocker' and the 'auto cash register' to improve sales. The 'autorestocker' can be set to 'restock for free' which is how I set it, and the cash register frees up the help to assist customers in their buying. I also use the 'auto-open' sign from Simlogical. I told you this way is a cheaty thing, didn't I?

Link: http://www.drealm.info/simlogical/s...s/Sims2_OFB.htm

Anyway, my shop made tons of money on the first day, and quickly got stocked with inventory items that are just flying off the shelves! In fact, it will probably have to be expanded very shortly due to the incredible amount of furniture being pawned by customers!

Yeah that's way I liked it when I seen evil doers career points and a new farming career now there is other careers I would like to download sence I'm a trucker by trader and heavy equipment operater so when I'm off duty I like to play Sims 2 when my computer was up and running it's down now but I'm going to get it running soon and have fun playing Sims2 again.
But back to careers Sims a few evil doers I forgot was Evil Killer Car-Jackers;they'er Evil-J,Skinner,dd,Awful Ernest he runs a chopshop with AcAlbert he throw acid if the Sims snoops around & BJ mostly kill their sims victims,when jack their cars mostly for from the big city NL,but is compatble with other and others their are other car-jacker and carthieves these less killer carjackers might kidnap your Sims if they are in the way and will sell you sims to
evil doers mob bosses,mad doctors,pimps, prevert creeps,Mean Circus Ring Masters,other chopshop bosses
Vampires,WereWolves. but these carjackers are most be in your BV,OFB,Pets,ApptL. and can be FreeTime,
the car thieves are like the burglers they'll wonder by your Sims wheels once or twice notice nobody around no alarm
they'll steal your Sims ride and could go any where to Pleasentville Strangeville,any place into the big city NL. the nice thing is they never will harm a Sims and few these guys are RJ,Speedy,WreckerWilly (WreckerWilly drives a 70 Chevy tow truck or a tilt bed 80's IHC F-1954S-Line
Tandem tilt bed truck and he swipes classic and rare cars and trucks old vintage farm tractors he's
more your low life of society Sims not a Evil doer he first strike is he'll come to buy you FreeTime
car or watch closely that vacan lot with old cars on it he'll come in and snag them at times.
He maybe a nossences until the law ketch up with him maybe they aren't after him when he's picking up old vehicles out of towns again he means no harm.
So we got your Evil doers, We need hide outs and lairs,for instance who is the burgler and where
do they go when not burglerizing some place? Well then lets give them a hide out Base Game Unv. large old house,NLF,OFB,Pets ,Season,BV,FT,Apt.L. they live in Large house and yard
warehouse,old run down appt. now if they are the ones that also kidnap.Then it's hide outs which are old warehouses with lots of noisie factory machinery,old abandon schools,and old hospitals.
or ServiceStations just out of town,and have so they can meet their fence or buyers,also have they police investagaters watching them and a ventually arresting them either robbing a house again or in the proccess of dealing. one of the two,now the evil serial killers will sometimes travel
around or stay. If stay they Live Out in the country in run down ram-shackled shack,maybe a trailer house,mostly old abandon warehouses or spooky old abandon hotels&motels creepy old trainstations,abandon miltary base,old abandon schools,Scary old Farms and Cabins now the best of them all old Service Station.Traveling killer old motorhome truckcamper,old vans,and Old R.V. converted School Buses,some Boats.maybe.Kidnappers Lairs for kidnapers for rasom are
warehouses old abandon School old Churches,boats,old closed down motels and cabins,now for
kidnappers for whoohoo their house,or appt.,motorhomes,boats,old closed down department stores,warehouse,cabin in the woods, out in the country farm houses,Vampire Lairs,basements of
the big high rises old abandon School old Hotels/Motels;Mad Doctors Hide outs and Lairs,
their big fancy house,old warehouse, and old abandon hospitals,old close down schools,shutdown
miltary bases,their boats and closed down airplane hangers their fancy Summer Beach House.
Pimps and Gangsters Pimps their Loft or penthouse suite,Gangsters their Nightclub basement,
their fancy large house with hostage cells one in the basement then out hidin guesthouse.The Spy
Hide out is ship,milatary base old closed hospital,old closed schools,a warehouse,basement of
old appartment.
The other career like trucking also good for OFB and mechanic,welder,autobody,heavy equipment operater career can use a loader or other heavy equipment.

I make movies when I get bored. It is quite fun setting up scenes and making stories. If I get really bored I'll put on Sims Life Stories again and play with Riley and Vincent. It makes Sims 2 seem more fun as it has more options and CC. I can't live without it.

If you create families then play them till you're bored and they're old - play on rotation. The rotation in my neighbourhoods lasts 2 days so I play each family for 2 days or university lots for 2 years (4 semesters) to keep it balanced. I keep a log of this on notepad so it's always there when I play. Playing in a rotation means you play each household for a small time so they don't become boring and so that your families stay the same time part (your sims don't become elders before their parents). Boring families still get played too because they're only played for a small time.
I've also started to keep a diary on notepad too of the things that are happening with my sims or that I would like to happen the next time I play.
Having stories for families is definitely fun too. I just created an italian family all with genuine italian names after researching them online. I added a grandfather to the family too and already he has high chemistry with his son's wife so that should be fun. They now run a small italian restaurant which is great to play.
Theme subhoods are fun too. I added 2 more sub-hoods districts - one a mountain and one a beach using all the lots I've downloaded like beach houses and forest retreats. Creating community lots like woodland furniture shops are fun too.
I've moved some sims from the main neighbourhood to the mountains and the beach and created some sims too. Mountain sims dress in more outwear type clothing all the time as the season is always autumn or winter and live in more forest style, country houses with gardens. Beach sims dress in very summery clothes like shorts all the time as it is always summer and they live on beach lots or lots with pools and outdoor seating. So much fun using all these lots and not having a neighbourhood mixed with forest country homes and beach lots. Also I've gone on holiday with my sims less than 5 times since I installed BV in 2 years so it's nice to use all the new items and there are great versions of BV lots on MTS2 only made smaller so they don't have long loading times that you can put in your neighbourhood. Maybe one day I'll make a far east district....

First think is yeaa for Evil Doers I was mentioning Drug Dealers they don't generally kill any Sims they will how ever capiture them if to snoopy and mostly teens or young adult females which they beat,torture and sell or trade them to the mobboss for favores our,
will end up in the hospital rescued by our nieghborhood EMS worker they'll take you straight to Hospital Emerg. then our Sims will be visit by the Police SVU. and then go and
arrest them. If they them to the mobboss he will kill them when they get too old or they
won't work rite for their crooked casinos or work as positutes they will kill them.
Evil Doctor Death or Doctoc T for torture they are two different Doctors and they are both serial killers one Evil Doctor D kills guest as they come to his home which is a old
abandonned hospitals they seem to favor,the other Evil Doctor T has henchmen to kidnap
their vics. where the henchmen will grap the Sims at their homes maybe not often,teen
Sims at hang out like arcade,mall,swimming pool and parks,young adults at Campus hang outs mall swimming pools bars and night clubs,adult Sims at home sometimes,stores,gyms,
B.V. Spas,swimming pools,nightclubs at work as ie. P.I.'s,Police,Solders.And burglers
are known at times to sell them victims,well that it for now.

First think is yeaa for Evil Doers I was mentioning Drug Dealers they don't generally kill any Sims they will how ever capiture them if to snoopy and mostly teens or young adult females which they beat,torture and sell or trade them to the mobboss for favores our,
will end up in the hospital rescued by our nieghborhood EMS worker they'll take you straight to Hospital Emerg. then our Sims will be visit by the Police SVU. and then go and
arrest them. If they them to the mobboss he will kill them when they get too old or they
won't work rite for their crooked casinos or work as positutes they will kill them.
Evil Doctor Death or Doctoc T for torture they are two different Doctors and they are both serial killers one Evil Doctor D kills guest as they come to his home which is a old
abandonned hospitals they seem to favor,the other Evil Doctor T has henchmen to kidnap
their vics. where the henchmen will grap the Sims at their homes maybe not often,teen
Sims at hang out like arcade,mall,swimming pool and parks,young adults at Campus hang outs mall swimming pools bars and night clubs,adult Sims at home sometimes,stores,gyms,
B.V. Spas,swimming pools,nightclubs at work as ie. P.I.'s,Police,Solders.And burglers
are known at times to sell them victims to Evil Doctor T .
Evil Doctor T can make some simmollion working for the Mobbosses,Evil Dictators,Pimps
and Evil Spies.The for the Dictator and Spies they travel B.V.,but again usually has a old
closed down insane asylume or hospital that they worked at once.their henchmen are some wicked nurses,evil orderlies,awful ambulance drivers in which is the vehicle of choice for abduction if some could create the classicy 63 Caddilac Supiour Ambulance would be awsome.and of course Choloraforme,Sleeping,pills and or syrnge and needles full of sleeping agent or knock out agent.So the Evil Doc doesn't live there as the Evil Doctor D. who lives in the Spooky old hospital,the other doc lives in a fancy house and will drive a Jeg,MB 450S,Lexus,Caddilac Escalade,or Caddy Fleetwood.
And Evil Killer Country hic like any good horror movies lives out in a Spooky Country back woods either in old run down farm family house,cabin,or mobilehomes,either with wacky socopath inbread family or live alone weapons of choice big butcher knife,3 different guns,axe and a chainsaw also a oh dear excuse me for this trible clesha but a old Mantle Saw used in other laimo old B&W villian movies for the vic. demize,working on Sims serial killers the differances, canabal one can also be country hic or sicko city deweller they perfer females,then we got the Blackwidow type Sims she moves to one rich bachalor the
(Blackwidow ) she starts out as a young adult and evenually is elderly and she nevers has off spring.well I'm leaving now so I don't bore anybody these are just my idea sugguestions.

I have stories going in a few hoods, but don't play some hoods at all. It does really get boring micro-manageing "smart" successful sims. So I created some original couples and really tweeked them; like the alien "blues devels" - totally mean, & I encourage everyone to fight. Or my frogs that are total slobs and have lots of babies. Or I'll pick a family I'm bored with & give each exactly what they want - & nothing else. So if the teenager wants lots of lovers I supply them, but otherwise don't control him at all. Usually they wind up totally unhappy, sleeping through school, losing jobs, starving. Sometimes I will pick a toddler from a big family I'm bored with, and only work with other family members if the toddler wants/needs something - to the point that the toddler is always happy while everone else is missing work and exhausted (never mind the trashed house). I can usually keep SOMEONE alive long enough for the toddler to become a teen.

Or I'll pick a family I'm bored with & give each exactly what they want - & nothing else.

I like this idea. I think it makes a nice alternative to an ISBI/Asylum style of play (which I fail at, because I want to know everything about my Sims). Sims can still be madly dysfunctional when they're not in aspiration failure.

I've found this program, http://www.splinterware.com/products/idailydiary.htm
which imitates a real diary (it's free, too!) and have set up a day to day diary of all the families by name-so that every time I play a family, I put the daily happenings into it.

Believe me, it's very useful when you're playing 60 families and can't remember what happened at which lot!

The advantages of the program: it can be edited from within and you have a lot of style choices for the diary, even in the free version-and there's no limit to the size of the pages you write on.

How I've set mine up: I track the day within the game-The day (Monday), "Highlights of the day" at the top, and then an individual lot listing for every family, with separation lines between the families. Of course if something interesting happens during the game I will pause it and then write it down in the diary to make sure I don't forget it.

If I've lost track of what's doing where, I just refer back to the previous day and read the comments I put in the family listing.

Great way to keep track of everyone and make a running commentary on the game while you're playing it. I can't recommend it too highly!

I'm currently playing a BACC, and I play the families for one sim week each. All the families are doing good, as are their businesses. But even though this is a BACC, I keep falling into my usual rut of utter boredomness... I've had a couple of break-ups, which have kept me interested, but that does not last long. The families are all perfect, they have great businesses, and the children are all perfect as well. It bores me to the point that I want to start over, but I'd rather not do that, seeing as I have accomplished a lot in this BACC recently. I would love to get some tips to make playing more fun. If you'll excuse me, I have to go read through the rest of this thread.

Thank you..This is really helpful...Serious,thank you (:

Mazolix, what you need is an ROS!!!
A Random Occurence Scenario if you don't already know, is a list of negative and positive events which can occur to one of your sim families. You roll dice or use an online dice roller, or use Hook's Randomizer

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...pic,8253.0.html)

to determine the event, choose which family suffers (or enjoys!) the event, and then play it out.

As far as I can determine to date, the idea was originally inspired by Staysee, and written up by Jade Eliott; check out this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...p?topic=12374.0

(look at the attachments at the bottom of the first post).
Here's another similar idea: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=341154

You can also create your own.
I have created two for use with two challenges I play:
a Victorian ROS for use with the Victorian Population Challenge or other Victorian challenges, and a
Medieval ROS for the Medieval Charter Challenge (which I also created) or other Medieval challenges.

Hope this helps!
Cheers, Vllygrl

One thing that I found (and I'm not going to give the link-18+ over age restriction) is a mod by Chris Hatch that slows down the speed of the game by half. What this means is that all actions take real life time to do-and thus you can almost 'live' the simmies lives as they get older, etc.
I have been using this mod along with another from ChristianLov that allows sims to introduce themselves and not leave the lot-this link is to that mod, from his new site. It's called the visitor manager, and it is seriously awesome:http://blog.daum.net/christianlov
You will find all of his mods on this site, and they're updated to the last EP, I think. Don't be dismayed by the Korean language on the page or in the pictures. He made sure to translate the mods into English.

I tend to get burned out on sims at times. So, I just get more stuff to keep it going. I tried the get old thing and playing my offspring and it ended up being boring, I like your options though!

Well, I kind of make my own challenges as I go along with the game (I did the find how many relationships one can have without getting caught - 16 for me...)!

I also try to follow my sims wants and wishes to a tee, as opposed to just making a family. It's quite fun. For instance, if a teen or child sim doesn't want to do their homework (it doesn't show up in the "Wants" category), and want to play video games instead, then I won't force them to do it. It's a cool way to handle it.

To be honest, I got the idea from Chickadeelee Sims' (chickadeelee.livejournal.com) game/challenge. I really found that it was a cool way to play - without making it so very drab.

Suggestions, comments?

- A

Wait...what?

Walk away antoniabgonia, walk away...

Forgot to tell you what I do. If I get bored with the game, I will scrap everything, uninstall and start completely fresh. It is amazing what a fresh install will do for my motivation. I then add back some of the CC and start building the hood again. Works every time

After a couple of months of not playing The Sims 2, I have come to appreciate it again. I still have my Pokemon trainer sims. (Some weren't made by me in that I downloaded some of the ones made here and the ones I made were Frankensteined from other CC\expansion packs\stuff packs I had.)

Also, an uninstall then reinstall usually helps. Of course, if you have ALL the EPs\SPs, including Happy Holidays, then you would know how much of a pain the uninstall-reinstall can be. But I love new stuff added to an old thing.

Sorry to bump an old thread but since I'm still actively playing Sims2 and always up for a challenge, there are some mildly interesting ones to be discovered over on TSR that may be interesting to some without having to download the (unnecessary) program /packages that come with their site-integrated Challenge system. (Unless you're into that sort of thing.)

Just wanted to pop in and say, that this was an extremely helpful thread.

I have been stuck in a sim rut.. without even knowing it! haha
My simmies are in for a whole new world... starting with living off the land .

Thanks a ton for sharing this.

I usually have a lot of amazing storylines that i think up, but legacies don't get interesting until the second or third generation-I can't last that long- and apocalypses are way too hard. One of the things i do to mix it up is change my writing style. Sometimes I play with a simself interacting with the sims, sometimes it's the voice-from-the-sky bit, and a new style I've been meaning to try is the "diary" style. Obviously, it's written in the first-person, and the sim keeps a book in their inventory representing the "diary." Then, when the next gen. heir goes off to college, or when they turn into an adult, (depending on which EPs you have) the first person passes it on to their successor, and the writing style begins from that person, and so on. It's going to be really fun!

This guides awesome! Even if I may not use it.. It tells you to experience the game how it really is, not just using mods& CC and boolprop to make your sims lifes easier.

I made a mad cat-lady with, like 6 cats in the house and she annoys all the other sims. It's funny when she comes by the other sims and starts nagging.
Also I made a crazy party-loving bunch of ugly sims. They do nothing but party and are as untidy as it could possibly be. Every day they invite all the other sims or go to downtown to mess up the whole place.
Then I made a grumpy girl, wich is very agressive (not nice at all). Sims must be careful around her, and absolutely never ever play ball or tease her.
Btw, I wanted to say that this tread is really helpful. EA makes the games so that they just can sell more and the people want to buy new ones instead of playing the old stuff over again. So I like it that there is such a big fan community here.

Whenever I get bored I play my family that I only play without cheats, mess around with moveObjects on, or just log off and play The Movies or Smallworlds.

I recently created a gay family to see how that would work out...it's kind of interesting...although strange. I watch them try to adopt and deal with their "gayness" since they are both in the closet and have not come out to their families due to fear of rejection. They also both have "side" hags who are female and these girlfriends come over whenever the parents visit to pretend to be their girlfriends...it's very very funny to watch hahaha.

I also did a themed neighborhood, 19th century...I had soooooo much fun it was totally enjoyable and i learned so much history!

Right now i am working on a Transgender family where the wife is a trans person and she is hiding it from her husband..LOL. They never woohoo or anything so he doesnt know that his wife has a secret weapon. Only frustrating thing is that i can't find a way to attach a peen on her when she showers or add a bulge to her panties...which can be very frustrating. So instead i make her wear a strap-on under her shorts LOL