Architecture Profession Tips

I bought the Sims 3 Ambitions a week or so ago, and have been testing out some of the new features and professions. This will be the first in a series of posts about the new expansion pack! For the first I’d like to give some advice and information about the Architecture Design profession.

First, you’ll need the Drafting table and the stool in order to ‘Research Architecture Design’ and practice painting. Use the phone to sign up for the profession just like any job. If you want to create a Sim specifically for this profession, I would suggest picking traits such as:

  • Handy
  • Artist
  • Loves the Outdoors (I thought this may come in handy if he needs to visit the outside of people’s houses)
  • Perfectionist

Are there any others you suggest? You can also give him the Lifetime Want of ‘Home Design Hotshot” and he’ll keep getting wishes regarding furthering his career.

How Do Architecture Jobs Work

Your Sim will have specific hours (8a-6p M-F) in which he can pick from several renovation requests marked on the map. You can read a description of what the client wants. Then the game will ask you if you’d like to begin now, or come back to it later. Choosing Begin now will take you to the client’s home and enter Build/Buy mode. You will be given a checklist of items to buy and place in the home, and a budget. I find this pretty neat; you get to use the client’s money, and they give you a pretty large budget. You get to pick styles for the furniture and decor of the room. You can place the new objects anywhere in the home, and delete or modify any furniture, walls, flooring, or landscape. So you can go above and beyond what the client demands.

Completion, Portfolio, Reviews

When you’re satisfied with your work and have completed the checklist items, you can submit the renovation for review. Your sim will call the client (who had vacated the lot) and they will come to review your work. They’ll give you a review and comments, your fee and perhaps a bonus. The game will ask you if you’d like to take a picture for your portfolio. The reviews tend to get better as your profession level increases. But I just received a negative review for a renovation I had to come back to. She said it was ‘cluttered’ and she couldn’t reach the new items (it was a large house and the renovation was for a larger pool area). I’m not sure why she couldn’t reach the area, I just had some foot lights and flowers around, but a clear path and steps in the pool.

Bugs

When you submit the renovation for approval, some buggy gameplay may occur. First, you will be taken out of build/buy mode which means the walls will suddenly become opaque. Then when the client enters the house again to review, your Sim should also be able to enter, and the camera view should be able to ‘enter’ and view the house. But I experienced a bug where the walls remained opaque, even though I could see inside the house if I zoomed in the camera so it ‘entered’ the house. It was very annoying since I tried to take a photo for my portfolio. I didn’t try leaving the lot and re-visiting since I wasn’t sure if the photo would still work for the portfolio.

Another bug I encountered was when the client never told me her ‘review’. (It was for the pool renovation mentioned above). All I saw was the completed checklist. There were no extra interactions on the client to make her review the renovation again. I later figured out that if you zoom out to Map view, you should be able to see the map icon again, and on it will be an option to submit the renovation for review. But when she did renovate it she gave me a negative review! I’m not sure if it had something to do with coming back later.

Tips

In the negative review the client said “You didn’t use all the budget! Do you think I want it to look cheap?” Although in another review it said “I’m glad you saved me so much money!” So I’m not sure if you should use all the budget or not. I would suggest spending it all if you have a wealthy client. To avoid the “cluttered” review, maybe avoid adding too many lights or flowers.

Let me know if you have any other tips or comments!

Sims Ambitions Expansion Pack – Worth it?

Well, I finally decided to write another post for my Sims blog! No, I didn’t forget about this blog, but I have been pretty busy with some new websites and family stuff! I actually haven’t played the Sims since my last post I believe, which is really quite good for me, since I can get addicted when a new expansion pack comes out. Unfortunately my parenting responsibilities prevent me from playing these days. But I hear that the next expansion pack for the Sims 3 came out recently… shipped June 1st? I’m checking prices now to see if it’s gone down: EA Store (available as a direct download!) and Best Buy are still $40. You can get it for slightly cheaper on Walmart ($38.54) or Amazon ($36.99) but you may have to pay for shipping.

Control Your Sim At Their Job!

This expansion pack seems pretty neat. The biggest new feature or gameplay change is being able to control your Sim at his job. You don’t have to sit and wait while your Sim goes off to work during the day. There are several new ‘professions’ to choose from in which you complete missions or tasks around town to get paid. Seems kind of like the World Adventures missions or jobs. I really like that aspect of the previous expansion pack, so I think I’ll like this new one. You can choose from: firefighter, private investigator, doctor, ghost hunter, stylist (did I miss any?). There are also new hobbies such as inventing, sculpting, and tattooing, which can earn Simoleons. Guess what you can invent? A ghost-capturing device used in the ghost hunter profession, or a time machine! You can sell your creations in a new consignment shop, and as with any skill-building hobby, your Sim won’t be very good or be able to build the fancier inventions until they build up their skill. The review at CNET seems to have a good intro/summary to the new features. It says you can choose to be ‘self-employed’ by earning Simoleans from Gardening, Fishing, Nectar-making from World Adventures, as well as the new hobbies. But I’m not sure if these ‘hobbies’ can actually bring in enough Simoleons to sustain a comfortable standard of living (will you have enough time for other things, or do you need to dedicate every spare moment to your profession?).

What do you think? Have you gotten the new expansion pack yet, or decided whether it was worth it?