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Spoiler Info from Sims 2 Strategy guide [Update]
Some people already received the Sims 2 strategy guide from Prima. It has some useful information in it, but be warned: this info goes quite in-depth and may spoil the fun for you exploring the game yourself. The info includes some cheats (including money and camera cheats), some details about the career tracks and how to do basements. If you haven't already ordered it yet, you can order the strategy guide from our shop. Read on at your own risk for the details...

Note that this information was posted by a user of the BBS, and we're not responsible for it. Correctness cannot be guaranteed.

Cheats:
The 'aging -off' or 'aging -on' cheat was already published by EA yesterday. Today the following cheats have been added:
  • Kaching: Get ยง1,000
  • Autopatch [on/off]: Turn on/off auto updating of the game. If on, you will be informed if there are updates to the game.
  • moveobjects [on/off]: Similar to move_objects in The Sims 1, this allows you to move or sell any object on the lot. This can cause problems in the game!
  • Vsync [on/off]: Improves the visual quality of the game by doing Vertical Synchronizing. It's on by default, turning it off will make the game faster but with graphical errors.
  • deleteallcharacters: In the neighborhood, this will instantly kill all the Sims in the neighborhood.
  • terraintype [temperate/desert]: Allows you to change the look of the neighborhood to temperate (like Pleasantville and Veronaville) or desert (like Strangetown).
  • Slowmotion 0-8: For filmmaking, slows down the game (0 being normal speed, 8 being the slowest)
  • boolprop enablepostprocessing [true/false] Enable post-processing of the movie you're making, required for all filmic cheats (all the next ones) to work. Your computer graphics card must also be able to handle pixel shaders for those cheats (recent cards will support this, just try out once the game is out to see if it works)
  • bloom [R G B X] Creates a filmic look in which everythings so bright it blurs together (a la sitcom flashbacks) "R", "G" and "B" are color values (0-255) and "X" is the amount of blooming from 0 to 255.
  • vignette [CenterX CenterY X] Creates a filmic look in which a focal point is clear but everything around it is blurry. CenterX and CenterY probably define the size, and X the intensity, but that's not said.
  • filmgrain [0-1] Creates a film graininess.
  • letterbox [0.0-0.4] Creates a letterbox view of size specified.
This is most likely not the complete list of cheats that you can enter in the game. More will be released some way or another later, probably after the game's released. Of course we'll keep you updated on that.

Careers:
Not entirely new is the exact list of careers in the game:
  • Atheletic
  • Business
  • Criminal
  • Culinary
  • Law Enforcement
  • Medical
  • Military
  • Politics
  • Science
  • Slacker
That means not all the Sims 1 career tracks have been converted to the Sims 2. Adults will have 10 jobs in each of these careers, teens and elderly Sims have 3 jobs in each career. The strategy guide has a complete career index including all the promotion requirements. So far that has only been revealed for the Business track:
  1. Mailroom Technician: No Requirements.
  2. Executive Assistant: 1 Charisma.
  3. Field Sales Rep you need 2 Charisma.
  4. Junior Executive: 1 Creativity, 2 Charisma, 1 Friend.
  5. Executive: 2 Logic, 1 Creativity, 4 in Charisma, 1 Friend.
  6. Senior Management: 3 Logic, 3 Creativity, 4 Charisma, 2 Friends.
  7. Vice President: 4 Logic, 3 Creativity, 5 Charisma, 1 Friend.
  8. President: 6 Logic, 4 Creativity, 5 Charisma, 1 Friend.
  9. CEO: 7 Logic, 6 Creativity, 6 Charisma, 1 Friend.
  10. Business Tycoon: 9 Logic, 7 Creativity, 8 Charisma, 1 Friend.
Furthermore, the amount of days off you get per week is more as you advance in the career. You can get up to 4 days a week off in the athletic, culinary, science and slacker careers, other careers give you up to 3 days off (minimum: 2 days). You get about 0.15 holidays per shift you worked, at any level. These holidays allow you to have paid days off. In about 7 days you'll have gathered enough to skip the carpool without having to call in sick. There's also a maternity/paternity leave.

Building:
You can have up to 5 floors without, or 4 floors with foundation. If you build a tall roof, you can also get an attic and place objects there, provided that the base is wide enough. As said above, there is also some information about how to build basements. Although the actual book has pictures, this is what's been posted so far:
"One of the most interesting things you can with foundations is make a basement. Though it's not difficult, it's far from obvious how to do it. The good news is you can learn it right here. [...]
  1. "Build a standard foundation.
  2. "Stillin the foundation and deck tool and holding Ctrl, drag to erase the center of the foundation.
  3. "Going down to the lowest leverl (page down), it looks something like this.
  4. "Lower the terrain inside the inner wall of the foundation using the lower terrain tool.
  5. "Switch tot he level terrain tool. Then, click and hold on a tile the seems to be the right depth. This levels out any included tiles tot he same level as the first square. Kepp leveling until the basement floor is flat.
  6. "Return to the ground floor (page up) and select a connectingstair. Point to the floor adjacent tot he hole. Astaircase draws automatically down the basement floor. Release the mouse button.
  7. "Apply flooring to the ground level and put a railing around the opening with the fence tool.
  8. "Cover the floor in the basement too and, if you feel like it, cover the walls.
"*Note You can decorate and wallpaper your basement walls. You can even install ceiling lights."
Sickness and Death: Sims can die in several ways. There are several illnesses, including colds, flu, pneumonia, food poisoning, morning sickness and a virus. A swarm of flies can also kill your Sim, if they aren't very neat. The key to curing your Sim is giving them a lot of rest, about 12 hours of rest (comfort and energy will have to be high). A Biotech Station (Reward object) can also cure Sims. A cold or morning sickness won't kill a sim, but a cold can turn into pneumonia which can result into death. Of course there are also some of the well-known deaths, like burning or drowning. Dead Sims return as ghosts, and if such ghosts scare a living Sim well enough, dropping their mood far in the red, the living Sim might join the dead. Finally, when gazing through the telescope or watching the clouds, a satellite dish might crash down on the Sim, of course killing him.

With thanks to Rollup24 in this thread of the BBS for the details.

[Update 9 September, 18:45] More info has been posted by Rollup24, or at least something I missed initially. They're a few cheats for purposes other than filmmaking. The list above has been updated.
Written at 21:06 on Wednesday, 8 September 2004 by ChEeTaH.

4 Comments
These comments express the view and/or opinion of our visitors and not The Sims Zone. It's not necessarily The Sims Zone's or any of its staff members' opinion. The Sims Zone cannot be held responsible for what's said in these comments. Abusers of this service will be blocked. We have filters installed to filter explicit words, but we cannot guarantee that they filter all explicit words.

Written at 05:43 on Thursday, 9 September 2004 by elvendragon
Edited at 05:45 on Thursday, 9 September 2004 by elvendragon
A bloody satellite!?

P.S. What is the strategy guide called? Is it episode 2? I can't seem to see it in your shop...... (**feels like an idiot**)
http://www.radio-goethe.de/index_e.htm

woot! w00t! w007! \/\/007!!

Written at 12:23 on Thursday, 9 September 2004 by Neil Jones (NKTP)
Episode 2 is the second strategy guide that was talked about as being out in Feb 2005. This particular one is the first one that's been available on Amazon for some time.

Nice to see that The Sims are embracing Widescreen Technology already :)

Written at 20:14 on Thursday, 9 September 2004 by ChEeTaH (TSZ Webmaster) (ChEeTaH)
The Episode 2 guide is a bit of a mysterious guide, nobody's sure what that's about yet.

There's another one (with an image of the Sims 2, similar to the box shot) that is the guide for the original game (2nd in the list, to the right of the Episode 2 guide).
C-yAh,

ChEeTaH

*************
Webmaster of this site
The Neighborhood Handler: http://www.thesimszone.co.uk/tnhh
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Written at 06:14 on Friday, 10 September 2004 by elvendragon
oooh, okay, thanks. I thought that was the actual game. w00t!
http://www.radio-goethe.de/index_e.htm

woot! w00t! w007! \/\/007!!


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