Only a couple of weeks until the release of Pets! Excitement abounds. After perusing the chat transcript from the official site, I pulled out a few highlights. You guys have probably seen all this shtuff already, but much of it is new to me because I haven’t been following it that closely. Here we go…
There will be “custom paintings”. According to the Maxoids, “Custom paintings is a new feature that will let you put photos or images into your game as painted pictures that you can hang on your wall.” Ooh, will this be a way of making painting recolors on our own without having to use something like SimPE?
On a given lot, you can have any combination of 8 Sims or 6 pets that adds up to 10. (Apparently that number used to be 12. I’m guessing they decreased it so it wouldn’t tax our systems as much.) So theoretically, you could have a crazy cat lady with 6 cats. Sweet.
We won’t be able to control the pets directly in regulary gameplay, but there will be a cheat if we want to do so.
There will be pet ghosts.
New objects include a saltwater aquarium with tropical fishes and a sleek modern phone.
Pets will be able to extend their lifespans with a “Kibble of Life” reward object, much like the “Elixir of Life” for humans.
New build options will include diagonal roofs (YES!), diagonal rooms (we can do those now — I wonder if they mean you will be able to put furniture on a diagonal without the cheat?), octagonal rooms, and a new flatten lot tool. We’ll be able to rotate floor tiles.
Dogs can howl along with the radio.
You can now choose exactly what members of a family you want to invite over.
Weirdly enough, there will be a downloadable Hilary Duff Sim along with her pet chihuahua, Lola. Why anyone would want the Duffster in their game is beyond me, but hey, her doggie looks pretty cute!
Now I just have to get my game to run smoothly again — the bluescreens are making me want to rip my hair out. If Pets doesn’t fix the problem, I’m either going to get a new graphics card or another GB of RAM. I may have to sell my left arm to do so, but it’d be worth it to be able to play for more than an hour at a time. Bleh.
I’m still hoping one of the many many many new families they’re adding in (to make up for the lack of a whole new sub-neighborhood) will either be or be related to Claire Charming. I don’t know if you remember her from Sims 1, she was one of the Sims that came with the Unleashed pack? She had this gorgeous tiny cottage and a dog named Luna.
I am pleased that werewolves have the same age restriction as vampires and zombies: teens and up. Huzzah for ‘I Was A Teenage Werewolf In Pleasantview!’ XD
Heyyyyyyyyyyy! long time no see! I missed u guys (went to Montreal) I see u are talkig about PETS. I cant wait ( October 17 ) !!!!!!!!! the salt water aquarium has me stocked, I really wanna see more of it *holds breath* I WANT IT SOOO BADLEY!!!!!!!
I cannot wait for Pets!! All of my families are going to rush out and by all sorts of little critters! I can’t wait to breed the pets too! And make all sorts of new little pets! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!!!! And what’s this about werewolfs??!!
Oh my gosh, I am SOOO excited!! I can’t wait to get a dog or cat for my families!!! :D
(Oh yeah, Jen, I sent you the email about my completion of the Scavenger Hunt and if my request is not alright with you, just let me know :) I totally understand. Thanks!)
I am another on the Pets Excitement wagon. The only thing I’m sad about is the limit of 10 sims/pets. Since most of my legacy families tend to get up to 8 sims because of grandparents/parents/kids all living in the house (and when I tackle the ‘Have 10 kids’ want) that’ll limit those families to only 2 pets.. and I won’t be able to breed for puppies/kittens in that situation. ;_; Although if I remember right there is a cheat that gets rid of the 8 sim in a household limit.. maybe that will work for the 10 sim/pet limit too. I’m also a bit dissapointed that there will be no new clothes/hairs for sims. I know the pack is trying to focus on pets – and I”m grateful! – but clothes and hairs.. they’re really not that much to ask for, are they (especially after the slightly longer wait time for the pack)? But.. oh well. None of this dampens my excitement for the pack too much!
But otherwise.. YES. I. Am. So. Excited! I’ve been dying for Pets ever since they released the base game. And according the the chat transcript from yesterday, toddlers apparently have some cute interactions with pets – which I’m glad, since toddlers need to get more attention!
I have my copy on pre-order from Amazon. Overnight shipping (which, thanks to the free 3-month trial of Amazon Prime, was only $4!!). Which means I’ll have it the 18th. :D And without having to go running all around town trying to find it (it seems stores here never get it in until a WEEK after the release date!).
But yeah. Done blabberin’. PETS! WOO!
The limit won’t be an issue; there’s already a hack out that allows you have a ‘limitless’ amount of sims on a lot. This includes the ability to try for baby, accidental pregnancies, etc. I use it now. I’m sure there will be one out for Pets, too. Then again, not recommended for those whose systems are already chugging… it certainly won’t help matters much!
While I LOVE Expansion packs, they also make me angry/sad. There’s always new bugs, and my hacks suddenly cease to work. I use a lot of hacks that make gameplay more interesting and rid of annoyances (phone hack anyone?)…so playing without them? Yeah, it doesn’t happen. So I normally get an expansion and wait until the hacks are updated before I actually play it. The phone makes me want to go homicidal, really.
I’ll be happy to have a business with sims who breed dogs or cats, though. That will be cool… if it’s possible. Heck, I just wanna breed dogs and cats, period. That was a feature I REALLY missed in the original version.
Audrey – They did specifically mention that Pets will come with new Lifetime Wants, apparently with most of them going to Family Sims. So maybe we’ll see something like ‘breed 20 puppies’ or something? :D
I’m also very excited! I’ve never had any bugs with my game so I’m not really that worried about bugs or anything. I can’t wait to breed the dogs and cats and make some bachlorettes with the little Chihuahuas.
Why Hillary Duff? Didn’t those Aly and Aj girls make a video for PETS in simlish *saw it on TRL*?
Anyway, its going to be awesome. I am a little worried that game play will be slower but I’m getting a new laptop for my Birthday, so it’s no biggy. By the way, PETS comes out the day before my 16th birthday! Yeah it’s awesome, PETS and License all at the same day. SCORE!
Kay – Oooh, I didn’t see that. How neat. New lifetime wants are always welcome (I’m so sick and tired of getting the same old “Reach Top of Career” LTW). It would be hilarious if ‘Breed Puppies/Kittens’ was one. XD Between going for a ‘Have 10 Kids’ impossible want and breedings puppies/kittens.. boy, my sims would go insane. >D
Mao – YES. I want to have sims who breeds dogs and cats, too. I hated in Unleashed that they’d pop out a puppy/kitten that was an exact duplicate of one of the parents (and that there wasn’t really even a puppy/kitten.. they just hid in the little house until they were “grown up” enough to come out).
sgx1018 – Happy early birthday. :D
Gah. I can’t wait for Pets. They haven’t been showing off too many pictures of the small dogs.. I hope they included dachshunds! Not that those should be too hard to make in Create-A-Pet, but.. dachies! I needs them! But anyway. I think I’ve blabbered on enough in Jen’s comments. XD; I should get back to writing my own updates. Y’all distract me with this Pets chatter. ;D
I’m pleased that whilst the new pet CAS will have big dogs and small dogs separate, in game you’ll be able to breed ’em. :D So theoretically you could have a blend of teacup chihuahua and great dane! Mwahahaha. But all puppies and kittens start out at the same size.
Seems like everyone is going to get Pets but me… Then again, I already have three crazy real-life cats, so maybe that has something to do with it. It’ll be real interesting to see what stories you’ll delight us with though, Jen!
Hey Jen! Quick question…you have some kind of hack or program that changed all of the townie and NPC names right? If so, where did you get that? I am loving all of the names of your sims! Thanks a bunch!
I got sims 2 u guys! and im confused wit downloading things off sites can someone help me?
How’re you confused, Abby?
Hi Jen! A new expansion pack is always exciting, I think everyone is in a playing fury for a month afterwards. By the way I’ve updated. (That doesn’t count as spam, does it?) I’ve made it to generation four! I’m darned proud that I’m sticking with it, even though it might not seem like anything to anyone else. Sims 2 A.D.D. has been defeated!
I dont know how to download while im playing the sims 2.
Mandie – The name hack I used is Bitsy’s Mythic Name Hack. It can be a little tricky, but if you follow her instructions, it should work. I did have a problem trying it with a different neighborhood — the deleteallcharacters command gave me some errors. To be honest, that was ages ago and I don’t recall what happened. I just remember that I had some issues. I’ll do some research and let you know what I find. Also, you can only use this in a brand new neighborhood — otherwise you end up deleting all of your CAS Sims, too.
Abby – Hey Abby, are you trying to download while you’re in the game? It’s a good idea to quit out of the game while you download and install items. To download stuff, you open your web browser and go to the site which has items you want to download, such as All About Style or Mod the Sims 2. When you find an item you like, usually you can just click on it (or the link below it). Save the file to My Documents -> EA Games -> The Sims 2 -> Downloads (if there isn’t a Downloads folder, you may have to create one). Downloaded items are usually in .ZIP or .RAR format, so you may need something like WinRar 3.61 (there is a trial version) in order to unpackage them. Hope that helps.