The Sims 2 - Pet Peeves Thread! What makes you go "Grrrr?"
 

What annoys you in The Sims 2? What makes you go "Grrrr?"
Personally, as I have the Ultimate Collection, my game is in US English. I am Welsh, and I would rather have my game in UK English.

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My main peeve is the poor quality of the lot renders when viewing the neighbourhood either from on lot or in neighbourhood view. Otherwise, I have the game set up just fine which has dealt with many things that would otherwise drive me up the wall.

The supernatural racism. Yes, the wanttrees file can be hacked, but you gotta know what you're doing, and I only true/falsed it. There's still the potential for making errors. I really hate how anyone who doesn't have Knowledge as a primary or secondary aspiration ends up being obsessed with curing the supernaturals - particularly if someone they just met and have maybe a few short term relationship points with has turned into a plantsim. That's one thing I like about Sims 3 - only the Supernatural Skeptics would be obsessed about curing the occults.

I also wish that the Pets expansion would have come with finger birds... you know, like budgies, lovebirds, conures and cockatiels. Or even the red-shouldered macaw - the smallest macaw species in the world. They could be considered parakeet macaws.

I would think this is because the average computers at the time (2004) probably would not have had the ability to more properly render an entire neighborhood, like they did with TS3 and now TS4. I'm kind of hoping that TS4 does regress back to TS2 in many ways, but with the overall better graphics doable nowadays. It will remain to be seen. A TS2 with the graphics of a TS4 would be killer, but software developers never seem to go those routes, instead always opting to try to reinvent the wheel.

As for my pet peeves about TS2, there are probably too many to list, so I'll have to think about it.

I love to hunt and fish, so my pet peeve is there is nothing except fishing from a pond. It would have been great if while on an island vacation they added deep sea fishing (or just fishing from a pier) or on a mountain vacation you could go hunting. They loaded the game with a lot of fictional stuff, why couldn't they add RL stuff.

As for the Pets EP, my pet peeve there is why just add cats and dogs? I mean people own as pets horses, ducks (there's that hunting thing again), turtles and the likes. And why just pets? Farms have pigs, cows, chickens, horses, sheep, goats, and so on. And let's not forget the forest animals, like deer, coons, squirrels, bears, and so on. Yep the hunting thing again.

They could have had could have had wild animals that attack people at random.

Yeah, that would have been great, too. Instead of the skunk strolling around, a bear roams around and attacks.

I left out shrimping. It would be great if they could go shrimping, too.

You might like this then:
https://www.modthesims.info/d/231324
Because of that, you can fish off the pier both in Little Carping and Polgannon.

Never seen that one. Thank you

Definitely a pet peeve with me too. I made a suggestion a couple of years ago in an obviously older thread about EP wishlists that they could have added hunting, safari and that kind of thing.
It would also open up several related careers, such as veterinarian, game/zookeeper, safari/hunting guide, wildlife photographer, etc.
An inexperienced Sim could go hunting for small game with no problem, but for larger game he would risk being attacked, with the risk lessened if the Sim took marksmanship lessons first, or used a guide.
Desert neighborhoods could pose their own dangers, from occasional/rare snake bites or scorpion stings of varying lethalities.
I doubt there will ever be anything related to firearms in this franchise though, because of the obvious modding "abuse" possibilities.

The real-life possibilities for this series is practically unlimited, but I doubt we'll ever see it, which is why I wrote in another thread that an entirely different developer needs to come forward with the new Sim-type of game.

Pet peeves with non-CC game: "OK, let's build. I like this color of brown. This matches, this looks great, this looks fine, this ... OK. WHY doesn't this even vaguely match? It's not even close!"

And hence the need for recolors. Lots of 'em.

The animals in Pets ... agreed. There are so many other animals EA could have added. I would have liked the turtles! (Pouts.)

Mrs. Crumplebottom and friends. Certain NPCs can strike fear into my heart. Good thing I can ban 'em most of the time.

The blocky nature of so many Maxis hairstyles.

Oh, pet peeves like these make me appreciate CC creators even more!

When it's okay when a bunch of communal showers are in one bathroom and its fine for a sim walking in when other sims are in plain view of them showering but they refuse to walk into that bathroom if the showering sim is behind a curtain in the base-game, square, 1-tile shower. NOPE, that sim MUST respect the showering privacy of the other (unless they are good friends/loves with the showering ism in question).

I'm going to list pet peeves that have NOT been fixed by mods or hacks (or at least none that I know of).

1. I don't like how dogs only have TWO Play interactions, and how cats only have THREE! You can do so much more with a dog and cat, but now all my Sims do is play razzle, fetch, cat teaser, toss in air, and finger wiggle. Seems like a lot? Nah, not to me. And it does get quite repetitive...
2. You can't fish from beaches. What the heck, I can fish from a pond, but I can't get saltwater fish? No fair...
3. Kids can't go to community lots by themselves without an older Sim present. Combined with BO's Kids and Pets Unattended mod, it's nice to have my Sim kids go out when mommy and daddy are at work, but I apparently can't...
4. You need to organize an outing just to have your family sit together at a restaurant. Sure, you can use the "Outing.../Just For Fun" option, but it would be nicer if I got a menu where I could painlessly choose the Sims I want to have dine at the restaurant.
5. The pathfinding. It's certainly a step-up from the pathfinding in The Sims 1 (where it was virtually impossible to have one-tile wide hallways because Sims would always get stuck in them!), but there's so much starting and stopping and arm-waving and complaining in crowds of Sims. Good thing I have moveobjects handy to pluck my Sims out of the mess.

The fact that when you move sims out of a house (with the intention of moving the house to a different downtown and moving the family back in it again) all their furniture etc automatically gets removed, unless you put in the "object stay on move out" blue flower mod. Maxis should have sorted that one out really from the offset and it has always irritated me.

Even the mod I use has its disadvantages - eg, when you move the family out of the house the value of the house drops to at least a half or even 1/3 of its original value.

Similarly I think it's a bit dumb that you can build and furnish apartments but then when you move a sim in, there is no option to rent the apartment furnished unless you do "boolProp testingcheatsenabled", get close to the door and click on it while pressing the Shift key.

jodemilo, The furniture disappearing was the designers attempt at cleaning the lot, it removes numerous sims references, gets rid of certain bugs and is actually a good thing. A nuisance, but a good thing.

My biggest peeve or really disappointment was the Pet's EP and how much was not included. I never understood why they didn't include the dog show from pet stories. maybe pet stories came after I'm not sure, but they could have patched it in. Cat's can't sit in a lap or climb trees. Dogs should at least bark at a burglar and wake the household and maybe depending on it's personality scare the burglar off but they do nothing. There should have been more small pets and talking caged birds should actually sat little phrases at passing sims.

Apart from the pets I was also disappointed that they did not include skiing, they gave a snow mountain holiday with no skiing, what kind of snow mountain holiday is that?

Jodemilo, the furniture-deletion most likely prevents corruption from left-behind instances, so I for one am glad they left that. Though it would of course be better if it didn't cause corruption to begin with.

I'm with k6ka on the animal interactions. I don't care that much about having more types of animals, but I'd like to see the existing ones have more "uses". Cats should sit in Sims lap when they watch TV or use the computer, or better yet, climb on the keyboard. They should wake Sims up by getting in their face and asking for food. Dogs should jump up on Sims returning home, and sleep on their feet at night. Or with their butt in the Sims face, like my dog does with me. There should have been many more ways to actively interact with them, specially with kids.

I generally think there are too few integrated interactions between Sims, where they duo-use an object or interact with each other. Like a kid and a parent watching TV, the kid should be able to curl up next to the parent, and perhaps even fall asleep. People should be able to cook together. And there should be more interactions between siblings, with fights, teasing and all that. I know there are some, but I want to see moar!

You put way more thought into this than I did. I was thinking more on the lines of just hunting and putting fresh food on the table. Like with the fish, it gives you a different meal that you can only cook if you have it in stock and it gives you the sparkly meal. And maybe possibly add to the nature ethusiasm.

But hey, add yours and mine together and there are more possiblities. An EP that adds all animals or right up their ally to make more money, 3 EPs. One that adds farm animals and more crops that when added to your fridge you are able to cook Ham (pig), corn on the cob (new corn crop), turkey, scramble eggs and bacon (chicken, turkey or duck eggs and pork), steak and eggs ( same as before only beef instead of pork)possiblites are endless. One that is strictly towards hunting in the forest like deer, bear, coons, squirrels, bull frogs, wild boar, rabbits, even snakes, and so on. Foods that they would be able to cook here could be like rabbit stew, frog leggs, and so on. And one that adds big game hunting, things that could be added with this expansion would be all your suggestions like safari, the different careers, and so on. I really like the marksmanship aspect you had. Each expansion could have another neighborhood added or maybe an exotic destination like Africa for the big game.

Of course we know this will never happen, which brings me to another pet peeve that kind of has to do with TS2 but don't. I really hate it when Microsoft does an upgrade and the games you love no longer work on the new upgrade. It would be nice that EA released upgrades of their old games. This is why I invested into Full Version on XP, so if and when my computer gives out, I can still have XP installed into another computer.

I own most of TS3 Eps and SPs, but by reading forums here, I think they will just sit on my computer desk unopened. As for TS4, unless they offer something in the way we spoke of for hunting to entice me, I will keep my money and buy something else. Just not interested in anything else other than TS2 unless they add hunting to the mix.

Yep I've always been aware of that, that's why I always package the lot to a file and reinstall it under a different name with Clean Installer and remove any unnecessary hacks/mods. I never had any problems with corruption using this method. It would be nice if one didn't have to do this though.

My pet peeve is that aspirations can't be added to the game. I feel that there is an important one missing, which would be some type of altruistic aspiration. It would be good to have a Sim who was focused on making the world a better place. I also get frustrated with Fortune Sims who want only to buy stuff. It seems to me that many of their wants should be focused on doing things that make money, and sometimes that happens, but often all the wants are for stuff that doesn't always fit into their home.

my pet peeve is with the FT food enthusiasm ---being able to serve different platters--like the chips and dip or the cheese and crackers...once you serve them--there is no way to "call to meal" your guests so that they can take part in the food.
and also--why can;t my sims cuddle and watch tv at the same time--if the cuddle interaction is started--they turn off the tv....I can see if it is on a skill building station like cooking but movie watching too???

I really do hate how sending a Sim to a community lot is like time travel. But then there's a mod for that, even if it technically isn't past the beta stage.

I agree! Althought it's not just the lack of interactions that bothers me, but the fact that there are more things for cats than dogs. Cats get three interactions like you said, while dogs only get two. Also, cats get two objects (scratching post and weird birdie thing that connects to the wall), while dogs just get a bone. Not fair!

Cats actually have three or even four depending how you look at it. Scratching post and tower, birdie on a stick and a mouse. Dogs have the stick that the sims throw, but it isn't an item from the catalog.

I always planned to make an anti-Crumplebottom NPC. Just as annoying, but a lot more....not CA (Camp Appropriate). Basically, he goes out and about streaking and making out with his girlfriends on community lots in a swim suit. When he's not doing that, he'd just be a general turd and do "pranks" on camera. (Aka fart on people and laugh, then run away) Basically he's an adult that acts like a child. He may be recently out of his teen years, but still. The only good thing about him is that he'd actually fight the Crumple-crone. He won't win, but he'd fight her.

Of course, there needs to be a way to counteract him....so I imagine there should be an option to call the cops on him. Or beat him up. He's weak. Very weak. You'd get a guaranteed win there. And you can choose to banish him from places, but like real life, it's on a place by place basis. He won't appear that often anyways, you could deal with it.

And he'd be 100% optional, so if you don't want him in your game, he won't be there.

So, we can make new hood templates using SimCity 4. Great. But we can't edit the hoods in our game. Really, really bugs me that they never gave us a "create a hood" or "edit hood" part to the game. At least let me add/remove or adjust roads, but no, not possible. Also bugs me that they required two spaces along the edges of the lots. Why? There is no purpose to that. Makes creating an urban environment impossible without mods. Those two were my biggest peeves for a long time. Thankfully, I'm not one to hold grudges. :D