I'm maybe being a bit self-indulgent starting this thread, but here goes!

After nearly 2 years playing my original Double Deluxe game, I've actually taken the plunge and bought an EP. I succeeded in getting a new copy of OFB at a very reasonable price from a charity selling through Amazon. For some time now OFB has been the only EP that I really really want. There are several reasons for this. One is that with Double Deluxe I already have the OFB game engine, and, when there are different versions of mods for different EPs, it is often far from clear whether I should have the OFB version or the Nightlife version. Things should be much simpler now I really have OFB. Also I would really like the possibilities of having owned community lots, including being able to save changes to them during gameplay. I do have a few concerns, but I hope they can all be addressed. I really don't want my Sims to become slaves to the balance sheet and profit and loss account, so I hope it is possible (with mods and cheats) to continue to run businesses at a loss, where I feel they are useful to the community (or just fun to play!).

Then there is the question of the Family Bin Sims (Malcolmn Landgraab et al). Do I see them in every 'hood, or only when I attach a Shopping District? So far my Family Bin Sims have been specific to one neighbourhood, and I really don't care for the idea of having different versions of the same Sims in different 'hoods. And should I get a clean version of Bluewater Village from Tarlia before I ever add a Shopping District?

And then there's the question of sucker punches. The seemingly innocuous things that can kill my Sims. I really hate those. I know about the danger of the elevator (lift in UK English) cable breaking, and of being electrocuted by flying an (evil?) kite, and I hope I can find mods to eliminate those dangers, or my Sims are still going to be climbing the stairs! There was something in the manual about a clown-in-the-box, but I didn't really get what that was about. (I think we'd call it a Jack-in-the-Box in the UK.) Is it a real danger to my Sims. I'm well aware that with a new EP, I'm back to being a total newbie in these things. Bearing in mind what most of you probably already know about my playstyle -- that I love my Sims and their lives are sacrosanct -- is there anything else that I really ought to know about OFB? I've been playing for 22 months now without ever seeing the Grim Reaper, and I don't want to lose that record now!

I don't mind my Sims getting an occasional nasty surprise as long as it's never fatal.

It will be a few days before I actually install OFB, because I'm going through all my neighbourhoods to make sure all the lots are ready for the inevitable reset. And I suppose I'll have to bother about a patch now, because up till now my game, as bought, has been fully patched.

Malcolm Landgraab et al will show up in every hood. If you want Bluewater Village but no Malcolm & Friends, look for empty templates. I'm afraid I have no experience with them, so I can't be sure which are best, but I'm sure other people have recommendations.

There's a hack somewhere that stops elevators breaking, but I can't find it just this second.

The "evil" jack-in-the-box will scare your sims, and you can be stuck by lightning when flying the "evil" kite. Both of those items are clearly recognizable by the black color, red flames, and/or giant yellow eyes. If your sims don't play with those items, there is no danger.

You can always kaching a business owner who is losing too much money for your taste. Or motherlode.

Enjoy your new EP!

You also can't end up with items unless you craft them, and like esme said, you'll notice directly if your Sim has crafted the "evil" version. Just sell those, and you'll be fine. As for elevators, according to wiki it's not deadly in itself, but it causes a motive drop that if hunger is low could cause them to starve to death.

Another death introduced by OFB is the motive plunge while using the business perk ability "Rally Forth". It increases employees moods and abilities temporarily, but drains the Sims motives instead. If they are low-ish, they would die and end up as a yellow ghost with a megaphone. According to wiki, you can't stop it once it's initiated, so I would just stay away from it unless your Sim has high motives. I've never used it, and I've had OFB for ages. It's not hard to run a successful business without it.

Congratulations for taking the plunge and getting a new EP! You'll love it, I'm sure. OFB is great. Good choice!

There's lots to read on running businesses, and many ways to do it. There's also no requirement to run them at all, so how money-focused things get depends entirely on you If I have a business that isn't about earning money, and more about providing something to the community, I open it but never run it from the owner perspective. I just create the lot for others to visit. That way, any monetary loss is small.

I love OFB, love running my own bushiness and having sims earn money independently. It also offers some of the most challenging game play of the series.

The easiest form of business to start with is to put down a few fun items like a hot tub and and pool table and charge customers via the ticket machine found under electronics. It looks like a stick kind of. To start with set it to cheap and click 'start charging customers' Then sims pay by the hour. Your sim can practice selling by clicking on a sim at the ticket machine and selecting sales> basic sell. Do you have badges at all in DD? OFB comes with many badges one being sales. When your sim gets enough experience he/she will be awarded a bronze badge which gives him another sales interaction.

The badges go bronze, silver and gold and are also used on the Toy, Flower and Robot bench. You will know when your sim crafts an evil Jack-in-the-box as the box is black. This gives sims a scare-even toddlers. You can simply delete it. Likewise the evil kite should look different and it can electricute the sim playing with it. Sims in a good mood or good aspiration don't often make a bad craftable toy. On the Flower bench Gold badge sims can make the snap dragon bouquet which you will like I think. it puts out a pink perfume which raises sims needs. Very handy by a till to keep that person fresh. A bad one will also look different and that is dangerous as it lowers sims needs and can kill. I forget if all those benches come with OFB or not.

Malcomn lives in a house in Blue Water and he will show up every time you place the Blue Water sub hood.

ninj'd- no one had posted when I clicked reply.

Badges come in OFB and Seasons jo FT and AL have the things like parenting and fire management, but no badges.

As for bad toys/robots/flowers, I've never had a Sim produce a bad snapdragon, and I've only seen maybe 3-4 evil kites/boxes in the hundreds my Sims have created. What I do see are broken toy robots, that zap you if you don't repair it before trying to use it. So when you place one for sale or for use, check to see if it has sparks flying out of it, because that means it's broken.

Oh and munchiebots are useless. Don't trust your families hunger on them, because it won't grab food unless everyone is starving, and that's unlikely to happen. And just fyi, all robots break A LOT unless you mod them to reduce frequency.

EDIT: Forgot about sewing and pottery in FT. It adds badges too

I knew some came in Seasons but wasn't sure on the Flower bench, if it was Seasons or OFB, but thinking about Florence Delrosa is in Blue Water Village so i guess it is OFB.

I never use those 'house maid' type bots. The clean one breaks down and spews rubbish everywhere which if left could be dangerous-death by flies or illness from roaches. The water one breaks and spews water everywhere. The food one I think only brings pizza when your sims are really hungry. Very useless. I haven't used any in some years.

I've hardly had any bad toys except made by Stephin Tinker in Blue Water, he's a bit hopeless.

Edit: Oh yes pottery and sewing, they could have done so much more with those, especially pottery. Not a single useful item not even a usable tea set. Sewing is more useful, I added in extra craftable oven holders, wall quilts and teddy bears.

Not to mention the clean one can only clean things that are on the floor, and most things you'd want cleaned are not going to be on the floor. Robots really were kind of half-assed :P

I have, I think it's Pescado's, the evil sims make evil toys hack. That adds a bit of amusement. Noone has ever died from them though.

But, lol, did you forget that you already have OFB with the UC? I'd save the money for a computer that could handle it instead.

Andrew hasn't put on the UC as he said it would be too much for his computer. A new computer would still cost a lot more than OFB.

Ohh wcif evil sims make evil toys?

Paladin has improved robots at his site, but the catch is that you can't make them, only buy them.

The evilsimsmakeeviltoys is Pescado's. It should be in the DC.

Thanks for all your helpful replies! (Keep them coming! )

As far as I know UC is all or nothing - you can't extract bits out of it. If I installed it all (with its AL game engine) I'd probably get 2 ort 3 days fun playing with all the EPs and SPs -- followed by a fried computer! So UC is likely to spend the next few years sitting unused in my equally unused Origin account. And then, if and when I have a computer that will play it, I'll download and install it -- if Origin is still there! I can't really complain. EA gave to me for free! And, since they were offering me it for nothing, I thought I might as well take it!

I only paid £1.95 for my new copy of OFB (or £5.99 including post and packing). (See my post in the Safest place to buy the whole Sims 2 games? thread.) That's less than the £7 EA used to charge for a replacement disk. Even if I could extract OFB from my UC, I still think that would be worth it to have it on disk!

I tried killing sims in the lift multiple times. Never successful. Still YMMV. Also death by loudhailer is hard to achieve too, in my experience.

OFB was an EP I thought I didn't like and, to be truthful, I'm not too fond of running businesses the EAxis way. But, as time has passed, I find I use it's features more and more especially for owned community lots. I have churches, cemetaries, schools, banks, pubs, police stations, fire stations, city halls - all sorts of public buildings in fact - owned by sims in Little Carping (or, in my mind, in the temporary care of sims). I've revised my opinion considerably of the EP since release and like Nightlife, I think it expands gameplay considerably and significantly. So I say good buy AG. Have fun exploring it and don't worry too much about the potential threats - it's pretty much the same as any other threat. You do see random death and damage stuff but it's not the end of the world. Still ... I'm off to try the death by lift thing again.

Esmeiolanthe has told you an untruth - the Bluewater Village family bin sims only exist if you attach Bluewater Village. Malcolm Landgraab is nowhere to be seen in Drama Acres, because I never attached Bluewater. If you attach a shopping district, you will get any sims who exist in that shopping district. So if you were to attach Widespot RFD, you would get 1 new cashier, 1 new fireman, 1 new paper girl, 1 each of the taxi and bus drivers, and the Widespot characters; the Bluewater family bin will not piggyback on it. Once you open a business, a few new NPCs will spawn in the person of business reporters. You can recognize them by their notebooks. These reporters have full character data and are safe to interact with normally. You'll want to schmooze them hard to get a good review!

You will get a message every time you load Veronaville nagging you to attach a shopping district, until you either attach one, or install a simple mod that will suppress the nag message. Shopping districts are not necessary to use owned businesses. Any sim with the money can buy any community lot in any hood (except a University hood, which you don't have anyway). You can put down an assortment of empty lots, zone them as community, and sims can buy and build on them at their leisure as they can afford it.

Sims get an array of new wants with OFB, including wants for work stations and to buy hand-crafted items. Sims running businesses may roll wants that can't be filled while running that business - such as the owner of a night club rolling wants to make a sale to a customer who already has a ticket. Mostly while at businesses they will roll wants to earn business-related badges, to hire their friends, to gain customer stars, to get a good review, and to perform sales interactions with specific people. These wants have corresponding fears, like getting a bad review.

It is very, very easy to lose track of motives at a business! Energy has a tendency to start dropping like a rock about the time you start to really get into the swing of running it, and by the time you've closed, rung everybody up, and restocked, your sim may be running on empty. Employees are uncontrollable and don't always use their time wisely if you notice their plumbob color decaying and give them breaks. I only call in employees when I need them, and run the business with household members. One person on sales, one on the register, and one alternating keeping the place clean and restocking is an efficient arrangement. Employees will always be on the site when another household is visiting, and they can earn badges and money when visited. You can hire playables or townies, but not your own family members. A playable can own a business and hold down a career at the same time, but if he hires a playable, that playable will quit his existing job in order to work for the business.

As your business gains stars and levels, you will gain perks, which can be chosen through a pop-up. These include monetary grants, changes in personal interactions (one makes Influencing people cheaper, for instance), preferential rates with wholesalers, and changes in business interactions. There is a new death type, Death by Rally Forth, which will never occur if you never take the perk called "Rally Forth." Another perk - the "know everybody" one - is unwise to take. (I believe "everybody" includes Mrs. C and so forth? Or is it just that knowing all playables and townies makes the phone book too big and strains the computer every time you e-mail someone?)

I suggest you read Cyjon's "Study of Death" ( http://cyjon.net/node/268 ) to assure yourself you know how to protect your sims adequately.

I resisted getting OFB for a long time, because businesses sounded boring; but I was finally sold by the "children dancing on feet" interaction, which I believe you will like a lot. And I find I enjoy running the businesses, as it gives me extra time with my favorites, and alternatives to long hours of watching an empty house while sims are at work. Sims who are having trouble getting hired in their LTW careers often go to work for their friends until the right job turns up. I don't like employing teens, as they have little enough time to date and hang with their friends as it is, but hiring one for an OFB business means I get to see them every time someone visits the lot that hired them, and Fortune teens in particular love working this way - they fill "make money" and "earn badge" wants in between being played, and are almost always in great moods when I come to play their households.

When visited from other households, business owners and any employees will appear on the lot. They will be "all business" and will avoid interacting normally with their friends. When played, however, inexperienced business owners will be constantly wanting to play with customers - you'll have to ride them a bit to keep them from losing stars by ignoring customers in favor of playing catch! Sims will often wander to random places on the lot and start turning in a circle, turning their hands up helplessly. Approaching these sims and asking "May I help you?" is worth a star all on its own - they are looking for something and can't find it (often because they are on the patio or in the restroom; sometimes when they are standing right next to it). Don't queue up anything after "May I Help You?" Give the sim time to complete the interaction by showing the item, and then you'll get your star and can hurry to the register.

The Unbreakable Elevators mod can be found here. I use it mainly for apartments.

*snicker* I remember being very confused when my orderly in my hospital walked past looking like he'd been struck by lightning inside. I didn't figure out what had fried him until I discovered that the elevators were busted. XD

Useful links here: http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/forumdisplay.php?fid=53 and OFB fixes: http://www.simwardrobe.com/

When and if you hire emplyees and you see that plumbob colour go orange you can also make them selectable and make them go tend to the needs that actually need tending to.

You might want no complaining by Squinge or less complaining by Cyjon.

Hey now! esmeiolanthe has made a mistake caused by no caffeine and no premades in her game between 2010 and May 2014 (and even after then, no Bluewater Village). esmeiolanthe has not told a deliberate untruth.

AndrewGloria, a nice perk to having an owned lot that I don't think has been mentioned yet is that if you have an owned business, you can set the uniforms for the employees. One of these days, I'm going to motherlode a sim out the wazoo and then have them buy all the community lots so I can set uniforms. That way, I can make a tiki bar where the servers all wear hula skirts, and a used car lot where the salesmen dress like gorillas, or at least in something really horrible in plaid. With bowties.

I love playing businesses. It's definitely one of my favorite expansions. Personally other than the initial cost of a business I find that they don't cost money until you start renovating. Generally I either only spend what money the business has made in it's lifetime to do renovations. So say my sim runs a grocery store, the store's net profit is $22000 then when I renovate the store to make it less of a dump I won't spend more than $22000. If you're buying well fitted out businesses and charging a suitable amount of money (without a ticket machine a park won't make you any money) you should break even in the end and shouldn't lose any money. Regardless of how much money your sims lose (which shouldn't be much) you'll be able to keep your businesses.

*** When I say you won't lose money I'm assuming you're not hiring employees (until it can be afforded) and are charging for everything you give sims. If you want to run things like charity clothing stores (where everything is sold for $50) or say a soup kitchen where you give away free food you will run at a loss. If you really wanted to run businesses like those you could always set them up and then never run them again, that way you'd only lose money when you send playables to visit.

When it comes to starting a business I would suggest starting with a retail business (with things priced at cheap or average) a couple. When I was starting out I found it easiest to get into businesses by cheating/using aspiration rewards to keep the needs up while I figured out the mechanics. A community lot business is easier to start with as you don't need to worry about kids, work etc. A small store can be run with just 1 sim but it's easier to keep the needs up when the sims can date to get an aspiration boost and then use the energizer. Your two main concerns are the Sales->May I help you? interaction when sims are turning around with their hands in the air and the cash register. If the objects aren't expensive most sims won't need help to buy them and you can always close the shop to restock everything. With a low level business you shouldn't have much trouble keeping on top of everything. I would start out with only a few items for sale and having them mostly from the buy catalog. Retail businesses are easier but IMO they don't really help get the mechanics of running a business down. I'd also avoid restaurants because they're very hard to break even with when you hire employees and if you visit an owned restaurant without employees there will only be one sim running everything.

The Evil Kite is useful for knowledge sims. They occasionally get a want to be struck by lightning. One of my sims used the kite at a party and got struck, it was one of the funniest things I've seen because it's so sudden. It won't kill unless motives are low though. Occasionally I've seen one of my playables walking by a community lot and get struck. They just look around like 'what happened?' then continue on their way. Johnny Smith was on a date and fishing when his date got hit, she continued to fish after. They also obtained the Dream Date goal. Lightning can strike at any time, kite or no kite. Knowledge sims are like little kids you see that repeatedly do something they know they're not supposed but just have to do it anyway.

I told somebody an untruth over in help today, too, esme - I thought the Ramaswamis came with AL and they come with something earlier. The person who corrected me thought OFB, but they've been in my family bin since the beginning, and I didn't buy OFB till later, so there we are. I never intended to call you a liar.

As an example of how OFB plays, I just played the Munny Music store for the second time, and it shot up from Level 1 to Level 3. The first time I played it was just to get it set up and briefly playtested before Frank and Amanda took off for their honeymoon and moved out of his folks' house. The rise was very quick by my standards, and I credit the fact that Frank and Amanda already had sales badges and were able to generate stars quickly and efficiently, working the floor together and keeping the register covered. But it also helped that the business reporter came in and Frank recognized her (hey, she used to work for his Ma) and schmoozed her. No review, but a Best of the Best Award, plus they made a few sales. I may have to take their handheld games away from them, though.

(The highlight of the day was when Frank and Amanda, during a lull, met in the middle of the sales floor and decided this was a good time and place to make out. Newlyweds! Immediately after that was when the reporter gave them their award! But that's neither here nor there.)

There's more than one way to make money from a business. Frank had owned and operated the Mary Munny Memorial Music Center in college (purchased with frat funds), and I'd focused on getting him sales badges and taking personal interaction perks. Frank is a Popularity sim, and mighty good at it too! So it makes sense that he finds it easier to influence people than other sims do. When he graduated, he moved back in with his parents, his Pa being the richest sim in Drama Acres. He got married and Pa financed the purchase, construction, and stocking of Munny Music. Frank and his bride Amanda then moved out, but (as expected) they could not afford the house Pa'd built for them across the street. So I moved them onto an empty lot, bought a computer, desk, and chair, and Frank sold the MMMMC back to the community (now with his grandmother's ghost on it, since she spawned while he was operating it). Since he'd gotten the MMMC up to a 5th level business, this gave them enough money to move into their house, go on their honeymoon, and plant their garden. Now that he's operating the store as a for-profit business, I've taken a couple of money perks, so they won't have to worry about bills for awhile and will have enough cash to tweak the house when Amanda gets pregnant. Frank's actual LTW is to Become Mayor, but I'm not going to let him go into politics until he's gotten his business to Level 10 - he will then be a "prominent local businessman" and ready to throw his hat into the ring.

The actual cash generated by sales is hard for me to track (I'm practically innumerate; can't remember numbers for 30 seconds and can't add reliably), but the cash perks add up very quickly and if, as in this case, you start with a business that is tolerably complete and won't need expanding in the foreseeable future, they're almost pure profit. And the value of the business is based on the business level (representing the value of the operation and goodwill) as well as the physical plant and inventory, so building a business up to high levels and then selling it may prove to be profitable in the long run, even if the business itself runs with a narrow margin or even at a loss. This is what my Junior Mann intends to do with the General Store in Widespot - he charges "ridiculously cheap" on many items, and grossly and deliberately overpays his (highly competent) teen employee, because his aim is not to make money in retail, but to get the business to level 10 in order to prove his competence, move out of his parents' house, marry his child's mother, sell the General Store to buy a fancy house, and then go into the business career

So there can be a lot more to the owned community lot than a filthy purse string..

Thanks again for all your advice.

Ideally I'd like to have Malcolm Landgraab and the other OFB Sims in one 'hood when I attach Bluewater Village, and not have them in any other 'hood as I'd find it confusing to have different versions of the same Sims in different 'hoods. I'll probably add Bluewater to Veronaville, as I still think that's my "real" game. I might add custom shopping districts to other 'hoods, but I think I'd get these Sims in any I create myself unless I put an empty Bluewater template in my Program files(?). I'll have a look to see what Tarlia's got before I add any shopping districts.

If Fortune teens like working in owned businesses, that sounds a good way to extract Dustin from the clutches of Gordon King and his ilk. So thanks for the tip Peni!

I have a few ideas for things I might do in OFB, so can I run some of them by you all to see what you think.

In my island 'hood I have a restaurant called Tyler's Diner, named after it's NPC host. How about making Tyler and his staff playable, so that he really owns his Diner? If you can't employ family members, I could have Tyler living in one house, while his employees share another as "roomies". I think I'd be more than justified in using cheats and/or mods to give them adequate skills and badges as they've been running the place successfully for a while as NPCs. (Well, fairly successfully: the waiters have been known to spill food on their customers! ) (Actually they already have something in the way of a special uniform there: the two male waiters have variants of KSK's Pretty Boy outfit as their formal attire, and I simply change them into formal when my Sims arrive.) I think I accept that restaurants are hard to run profitably, so I'd just use money cheats to make sure Tyler doesn't starve.

I think I might try finding owners for some of the (typically smaller) lots that I've added to Downtown. For example "lovable rogue" teen Jack Gill might buy the sleazy PaintBoyz club for gay teens, possibly more as a service for his friends than as a money making venture. He could get a bandatron machine to make a small admission charge. Or possibly charge for "extra" services. One obvious advantage would be that objects in the clubs would keep their settings. If he didn't buy PaintBoyz, Dean Cameron's fortune mum Carla might. She'd probably want to charge more, but her son would likely plead with her to keep the prices down for the sake of his friends.

On a much more wholesome note, I wondered about Rev. Elspeth Anderson, the parish priest in Veronaville, buying the church. Obviously it wouldn't really run as a business, but it would mean that she'd always be there when other Sims visited. I presume I'd still be able to make her selectable, and tell her to preach from the pulpit. At the moment they go as a group outing, with her always included in the group. The church might also buy a hall to use as a youth club, and try to provide a healthier alternative to the teens constantly being lured downtown to the dubious attractions of clubs like PaintBoyz. With owned lots that aren't in the strict sense businesses (like the church) is there anything you can do so that the owners have ordinary rather than business wants?

Lastly (while thinking that you might sell a few books at the back of the church), can you run bookshops with OFB? Or clothes shops? With Veronaville trying to increase its profile on the fashion scene, the Council would like to encourage a few privately run boutiques.

If you want Bluewater and it's Sims in one hood but not others, just make sure you add it to that hood first, then replace the template with an empty one.

EDIT: Removed this part because others answered it better, and with more knowledge

You can't hire family members, but you can just bring them with you when you visit the lot and assign them to jobs there.

The trouble with owned restaurants is that not only are they hard to make profitable, they don't run as efficiently as unowned ones when other households visit them. If you're in the habit of making sims selectable who normally wouldn't be, you may be able to run dates to them without people going home hungry, but they will be more work than the dates you're accustomed to. And there aren't any badges for hostessing or waitressing, so I'm not sure if they ever get better.

You can indeed run bookshops and clothing shops. You stock a bookshop with bookshelves and magazine racks, and people buy individual books and magazines off of them. Unless you have a sellable novels mod they'll be buying the same book over and over. The Enlightened Bookstore in Drama Acres also sells educational toys, computer games, scientific equipment, postcards (BV), and book-related deco. You stock a clothing store with the clothing rack (and possibly jewelry and cologne stands, and fashion-related deco) and set the price of the outfits with the tool that looks like a price tag in the little Wheel of Business in the corner. I sometimes have trouble setting things for sale, especially clothes racks. The problem here is that buying clothing and jewelry from owned businesses doesn't satisfy the wants to buy clothing and jewelry. I don't know why no one's ever modded that.

Owners should have ordinary wants mixed in with their business ones, and eventually the training mechanism would kick in and they'd roll fewer business wants over time. If the lot doesn't at least pretend to try to generate income it will never gain stars and rise in level, so you'd want to have a bandatron donation box or something at the church. You will get the option to "stop charging customers" or to let certain sims in for free. While Frank was courting Amanda, he designated her as someone to never charge at the MMMMC, and took her there on a date without opening the place - she generated a lot of customer satisfaction stars, and Frank rolled hardly any business wants! But opening or closing an owned lot during a date ends the date, I don't know why. I understand that taking an outing that includes a business employee to a business kicks off a "Staff Party" but I've never done it and can't vouch for it.