Apartment Living

[Monolito]

Thank you for your answer, Pmaize It helped. What I wanted to know if the sims I moved get their own apartments or are they stuffed in the same apartment. They were forced out of their houses so I would be able to fit in new stuff so let them have some comfort
Those new blocks of flat don't seem a good choice for me now :/ They take a lot of space and their capacity is not so wonderful. Time to employ the motherlode thingy for all those evicted families so they can live in comfort

[Xazeal]

So far I'm really enjoying living in an apartment. At first I was annoyed by not being able to change the windows (That's quite realistic, though) but relieved to see that it could be fixed with a simple MoveObjects cheat. Now my Sims have a great view!

The apartments are pretty well designed. Pretty realistic and kind of small, but I wouldn't say any of them are TOO small. The larger ones look awesome. The elevator hasn't annoyed me yet - I thought the trip went kind of fast (Not compared to the real world - compared to other things Sims do) and while it's obviously not as fast as simply walking out the door, I don't think it hurts much.

I couldn't care less about how you can't visit the other apartments. Just being able to live that high up gives me a real kick for some reason.

[Monolito]

What about gardening when you live in an apartment?

[Joria]

What about gardening when you live in an apartment?

The only way I have found to be able to garden is to use testingcheats and buydebug and use the buydebug plants inside the apartment since you cannot place them outside the apartment.

[mtglady]

You can very easily expand some of these one bedroom apartments into two or three bedrooms by taking over the 'hidden' space next to your current unit. 

Make sure you have 'testingcheatsenabled true' enabled. Go into build mode if you already live there or use edit town if you don't. 

Open your cheat window and type in 'RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings false'.  This cheat will show you the hidden room marker(s) (I typed the cheat in all lower case but it is written with the capital letters in the help menu).  I then moved the marker closer to the door of that 'hidden' unit so I could expand the usable apartment.  This way your Sim will still have a neighbor.

Use the wall tool to mark off a new wall to separate your unit from the 'hidden' unit.  I added two extra bedrooms, a den type area and another bathroom to an apartment that was previously a one bedroom, one bath unit.  I had no problems adding windows to the outside of the unit. 

Once you have the new internal walls in place, make sure you turn off the cheat.  Type in 'RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings true' then decorate and furnish your addition to your hearts content! 
 

[helen]

What about gardening when you live in an apartment?

There is a three bedroom, two bath apartment which has a small area outside (it's fenced) with a garden already planted in it. I moved the family in there out and moved in.

[aiyou]

Hello, long time lurker here. I was wondering if anyone else had tried to create apartments from scratch.
I developed 9 Sun Song Avenue into an apartment complex, but I had some troubles:

Had to use moveobjects on to make the elevator work. Had to use that cheat quite extensively, in fact. The elevator has to be in the same position in each floor and mine did not seem to want to do that. It might just be me though.

The individual mailbox thing is not available in buydebug mode. I got a regular mailbox. I don't know if it affects how 'official' the high rise is. I only paid for my little bit though, but I have not tested if it fulfills any living in high rise or penthouse wishes.

The elevator kept jamming on the way down (but never up). I don't know if this was because my sim was a vampire and was going out while everyone else was coming home or not.

And the most annoying thing of all, the 'I'm going home' messages from all the NPCs who lived in the building, around 30. It was the same messages you get when someone is over at your sim's house and needs to leave, but I had marked everything as 'hidden' or 'public' correctly. When the NPCs went into the hidden areas, I got the messages, almost if the corridors were mine, but they were marked public. I'm really hoping that this gets fixed with a patch, or someone comes up with an apartment building guide.

[LlamaMama]

I don't like the big city feel of Bridgeport, so I haven't played much there, but two things trouble me in my visits there so far:
-I can't make any sense of why some apartments are so expensive compared to others
-I can't keep the viewpoint steady when following individuals in a family around their top-floor apartments. If the camera goes off the edge, I go downnnn, then bounce up when I move it forward, etc. It's hard to zoom in and out and stay steady.

Also, I played the hippie-vamp dad who left his toddler daughter in the ground-floor lobby alone, and while I was controlling the wife elsewhere, the dad almost died of thirst, asleep way up in the apartment. After saving his bacon, I discovered the toddler alone then, made the dad go bring her up to the apartment, but then he realized he left a toy down there so he went all the way down to fetch it back up again. It was a ridiculous amount of up and down, neglect of child and neglect of self-care that seemed like it wasn't well-programmed.
 

[Glic2000]

-I can't make any sense of why some apartments are so expensive compared to others
-I can't keep the viewpoint steady when following individuals in a family around their top-floor apartments. If the camera goes off the edge, I go downnnn, then bounce up when I move it forward, etc. It's hard to zoom in and out and stay steady.
....

It was a ridiculous amount of up and down, neglect of child and neglect of self-care that seemed like it wasn't well-programmed.
 

Yeah, I agree about both.  I think the cost of the apartments has more to do with the furnishings in them than the actual suite.  Of course, you can't SEE the contents before you buy it, so who knows?    

These are just more quirks I've been gradually getting used to as I play.   

[Metropolis Man]

I'm definitely getting a forum vibe from a lot of players that they're not too keen on the apartment living/extra time necessary in Bridgeport. Well, here's my take — I love it. It's realistic and harder to get things done. I can definitely see forcing 2011 Tournament players to play one challenge in a Bridgeport apartment just to see what kind of chops they have. To be honest, I don't want to max a skill in a week. I don't want to max a career in two weeks. I want things stretched out a bit. It gives the game more value and replayability. That's always been one of my own complaints is that the game is way too easy for me if I just plop a Sim down in Sunset Valley. Many Lifetime Wishes can be accomplished inside of two weeks. Now it's going to be a lot harder for Bridgeport players because of added time element. Bravo, EA. Now, don't get me started on some of the stupid bugs that have existed for months and months. But, as far as what Bridgeport offers to a seasoned player looking for new challenges...two thumbs up.

[Xazeal]

Alright, so, elevators are starting to annoy me just a little bit.

Quite recently a burglar broke into my apartment. For whatever reason, I had forgotten to buy an alarm, so I had to manually call the police. Meanwhile, the burglar stole my shower. As it turned out, the police happened to be my neighbor. He quickly ran out, but by that point the burglar was already waiting for the elevator. The police could do nothing but stand there and wait with him. They then took the ride down together.

When the elevator reached the ground floor, the burglar quickly ran out. The police got stuck between the doors and fell to the ground. The burglar got away.

Oh, how I wish Sims could act while in elevators - having the police beat the burglar up on the way down would be great.

[Glic2000]

I'm definitely getting a forum vibe from a lot of players that they're not too keen on the apartment living/extra time necessary in Bridgeport. Well, here's my take — I love it. It's realistic and harder to get things done.
...
But, as far as what Bridgeport offers to a seasoned player looking for new challenges...two thumbs up.

I think I'm in complete agreement.  Most people I know in real life agree that living in an apartment is worse than living in a house.  So I'm not surprised that some players like it less than owning a house!  It's a trade off:  you can be right in the heart of the city and get spectacular views, but you have to deal with limited space and elevator rides.  It's just not for everyone. 

I'm getting this vibe from Late Night that it was intended for more experienced players who wanted a little more challenge to revitalize the game.  And, for the most part, that's a good thing.   A few tweaks could make it better, but hey, it's only a week old.

[inclement]

About the only thing that's baffled me so far is the loft apartment takes up one whole floor, except for 2 rooms on either side that serve as apartments, but are so small, I fail to see how. Not enough room to put a set of stairs in, if you're lucky, you could do a shower, toilet, sink, single bed, and 2 counters.

Guess NPCs don't need to up their skills.

[LlamaMama]

I think the cost of the apartments has more to do with the furnishings in them than the actual suite.  Of course, you can't SEE the contents before you buy it, so who knows?  

I always preview the homes and furnishing in Edit Town. I think there is a way to look inside before buying too, from the information box that comes up where you see its name and description.

[Anushka]

I've just installed it, and as much as I can see, I don't see the problem My Sim doesn't go home until she does all I want her to do outside, and basically, she only sleeps and use toilet in her apartment. And commuting from one part of SV to other isn't much faster. And it is cheap. She got one cheap furnished apartment (I think Metro used that one in his guide for Rich and Famous LTW) and she still had around 11K to spent around, which is great. Once she become rich, I may look for bigger place but so far this is more than enough!