How do you feel about FREE TIME?

[Tomkat]

I like freetime...its an interesting piece of fluff...
Im not totally against it... i didnt hold much hope for it at first, but its better than i thought.

i just get a little annoyed with some of the behaviors -like the people that keep phoning you...? Im also one of those that just dont care enough whether sims become members of hobby clubs..

but its something nice to follow up on when you get bored playing.. just fill up some hobby bars.  

IMO though badge skilling takes to long... I had a sim sitting and sewing for 2 days straight, and he still can only make those oven mits.  so i gave up on that.  

i like the new way of writing novels, and that you can actually read them afterwards, and the fact that there are movies on tv now.  

but with both: they could have made it custom content compatible... im sure that wouldnt have killed EA. Now i have to replace all my nice bookshelves and tvs with EA made ones to get the new options... damn.  

Id also have liked the DIY cars to look a bit better after its done...and maybe had an option of a dad and kid working on the engine together or something?
ah well...i guess i am just nitpicking..
but like i said.  its a nice add to have.

[lewisb40]

I am with you Tomkat. The badge skilling takes too long for pottery, sewing. It is quicker to get the 1st badge in fishing and gardening. I did get a sim to sew curtins, and laughed at the choices. What came up? The single and double expensive maxis curtins.

I wish that the tinkering could go on with the DIY cars, like tinker with the engines and break them, fix them after the building has been complete. I have sim fathers and sons going to a lot I built to tinker on a car for a community Auto Body shop. I do wish they could tinker together on the engine, that is the most interesting part for me.

All and all I still enjoy the EP, the toddlers are more fun for me. I make them sing nursery rhymes so much, so I can see the thumbsuck, they are just about full in charisma when they become children. LOL

[TheDevian]

some things I like about it, same for all the ep's {though pets should have been part of the base game}, my biggest complaint with freetime is that every time I start to do almost anything the phone rings and someone wants to tell me about this new activity! um, I have to stop attempting the activity to answer the phone and if it is a group activity the group has broken up by the time i get back from the phone
I am also not too sure I like the game picking the "favorite" hobby for me either, I am just glad my self sim got one that I don't hate, like sports...
those are two things I would like to see a hack for. I am getting to where I hate phones in the sims almost as much as I hate them in real life. I start to play pool, the phone rings, I start to paint something, the phone rings, I start to dance, the phone rings..... always something like we at club bla see you are doing XX hobby, well I say GET YOUR CAMERAS OUTA MY HOUSE!!!!!! QUIT SPYING ON ME!!!! lol who wants to join a club that uses paparazzi and CIA techniques to spy on me, thx to sim-bush and the sim-patriot act our sims are now wired up to be spyed on!!! AAAAHHHH!H!!!! RUN AWAY! and  drive my sim-car to my sim-dentist for my sim-root canal {I've got news for you, putting 'sim' in front of everything dosen't make it hurt any less!}
I do really like the computer from mr. humble (when I have a place to put it, tyvm prebuilt family designers) or is THAT how they are spying on me? DAMN YOU MR HUMBLE! now I want to kill him too! lol I need to work on my tinkering so i can fix that system! the music dosen't bother me because I have never heard it, i keep the music off in almost every game I play, so annoying {thx lewis, I'll have to see if I can find it in that list}
speaking of annoying music, anyone know a way to auto-bypass all that noise from the intro stuff? its so loud and i am usually starting up the game when people are sleeping.

and seasons, just wonderful, now my sims can sit in the hot tub in their basement and spontaneously cumbust! great addition to the game, catching fire while sitting in water, good planning. :blob6: maybe if they wanted to add sim-body temp, they should have added sim-central heat and air!

but its still alot better than what I have heard about sims3 if I wanted to play the entire neighborhood at one time I would play sim city

a change I would like to see is to be able to build underground, and I dont mean like a basement that is poking its head above ground, but more like a bomb shelter, where you have earth above your head, or underground tunnels kind of thing. thats something I have been trying to do since ts1 all those years ago, kinda got close once, but not really... {foundation bridge over top of an basement level walkway} but it was a neat house lol

[Tomkat]

GET YOUR CAMERAS OUTA MY HOUSE!!!!!! QUIT SPYING ON ME!!!! lol who wants to join a club that uses paparazzi and CIA techniques to spy on me

Thats true - never thought about it! That IS creepy....:oogle:

[lewisb40]

Foxbaby, I got a hack that stops the losing interest in a hobby, but I can't find it now. I will post when I find it.

Found it! Whew. no enthusiam decay.

[ThatScaryChick]

I think Seasons, Open For Business and Nightlife are probably my favorites. I don't have Free Time yet and don't know if I will get it.

[freshsfs2003]

I agree with everybody. I just waant these people to stop interupting my sims by coming in their houses. I'm starting to hate it more and more!

[funky_flower_ch]

Personally I just want to say I completely 100% agree with Yacov , they have too many women based things I like to play as a guy and need more guy based stuff..

[Syet]

Is it one of the best EPs?
Well... It's up there. They should have come out with this sooner (like... Before OFB?!), but better later then never, right?
Is it one of the worst EPs?
No...
Is it worth the money?
Yes, though it wouldn't hurt to be a bit cheaper...

What are your favorite things about Free Time.
I love the Secondary Aspirations! A lot of those options are a pain, but things like "Plead with Social Worker" and "Grandma's Chicken Soup" make it worth it.
What should have Maxis done differently.
Custom-content compatibility and none of that "predestined hobby" crap. I don't want my artsy sims being obsessed with fitness, thank you very much! Thankfully, SimWardrobe has an object that can change that...
Are you experiencing any problems, any funny glitches.
Not sure if this is because of FT, but it doesn't seem to be because of my hacks and CC... Some of my families won't load fully. The screen will show that everything is loaded, and then [when I've got "boolProp testingcheatsenabled true" on] something will pop up saying there's an issue with... A curtain thing? Reset and Cancel doesn't work, but if I hit Delete, the family never ever loads...
Any advice for those still on the fence?
Be prepared to download many, many mods and hacks.

[Xtian913]

Hmm, I was thinking of getting Free Time, but with everyone complaining about annoying neighbor visits & phone calls... I think I would go insane.

[Pizztoff]

I like this Xpac, I'll enjoy it even more now thanks to Lewis and that link about the spam phone calls! =)

The only thing that kinda gets on my nerves is the time...like you need to do so much to keep your intrests up and combind that with all the normal stuff you need to do (shower, pee, eat, ect) and you really dont have alot of time to build up the skills to 'get into the zone' so your time will go slower...it's kinda aggervating. I would be less pissed if, oh lets say peeing, didnt take almost an hour! They should really either speed those kinda things up now, or slow the clock down so we can do our normal things and our free time hobbies.

Otherwise this is one of my Favs. for Xpacs...Uni was my least favorite.

[Sam the T-man]

Well, haven't had a chance to play that much with it yet, but so far I love it Haven't touched my custom 'hood for ages, so I've been having a blast finding out which of my Strangetown friends like doing what, not to mention playing a bit with the "check on baby" - something I wish they'd added ages ago. I laughed so much when planning Tank's Uni wardrobe - the poor guy got a ballet leotard for his sports outfit! :laugh: Yes, I've had a few surprises already, and I haven't found everything yet

For those of you complaining about every sim having the same hobby, check their interests. Yes, they actually have another use! Although in Maxian 'hoods it makes for some interesting combinations...

Anyway:

Is it one of the best EPs? One of, definitely. I think Seasons was the best

Is it one of the worst EPs? Nah. What was the worst? Hmm... I dunno. a) I'm a storyteller, so I can find something useful in every one, and b) I'm easily pleased - there's something in all the EPs I've enjoyed playing. Despite the complaint about Uni and how different it is from the real thing, with the right combo of students I'm easily hooked ^_^

Is it worth the money? Oh, I'd say so

What are your favorite things about Free Time? The extras! Especially the animations, they'll come in handy. I like the benefits and love the secondary aspiration feature - how long did it take EA to realise you just can't shoehorn people into just one!? I also like finding out which sim is PD to which hobby, although there is a flip-side to that - see below. Also the sports - I'm not the sporty type myself, but I'm not too shallow to know some sims will be on their knees thanking the powers that be for adding them Won't ramble too much longer, but I love that they finally added more interactions for the toddlers! Took them long enough...

What should have Maxis done differently? What's with the non-stop phone calls?! Every time a sim does something the phone rings. I'm so glad someone here (forget who) posted a link to a fix, I grabbed it in an instant. I also had to update the visitor controller, owing to the sudden appearance of these other NPCs. Why do they keep adding these new annoyances? I also don't like that it takes so long to get a bronze sewing badge - hope there's a fix pretty soon. In fact, raising enthusiasm could be a bit quicker too, given how long everything else takes. Oh yes, and there's the matter of the PD hobbies too - I don't like that you can't change or even choose which one a sim is given; I'm just glad that there's a hack available to fix that. Although it was creepy with my self-sim getting Tinkering - that does happen to be one of mine... Ah yeah, someone mentioned lack of objects for things like science - I couldn't agree more.

Are you experiencing any problems, any funny glitches? Usually it can be traced to a rogue download if I get any, but in the main I seem to be pretty lucky on that count. Although there does seem to be a bit more lag in things like cars leaving, that kinda thing.

Any advice for those still on the fence? If you like the sound of the added features etc. then go for it - just be prepared to do loads of updating, downloading new annoyance/bug fixes, and waiting patiently for the Insim to be updated