Game Help:Hotels & Lodging ISO 18513:2003

Introduction

This guide, written for The Sims 2 game series, helps to give you tips, tricks, rules, and mod recommendations on building an accommodation for your housekeepers to clean up in. A big bug for these vacation lots that accommodate Sims is that the housekeeper will perform their duty, and eventually freeze up to do nothing. This results in messy rooms, dirty dishes everywhere, garbage piling up, etc. The usual solution would be to turn testingcheatsenabled on, click on the housekeeper, and choose "Force Error" (then "Reset" on the window).

However, to reduce those chances of encountering undesirable bugs and glitches, see the tips listen below. This article is a work in progress, and new issues may be found and added.

Tips & Tricks

• Prefer to build multi-level accommodations with modular stairs instead of staircases or elevators.

Elevators, can break down and cause the Bellhop to leave his concierge desk to travel to the elevator for fixing. If he is interrupted, such as to check-out guests, the elevator will remain broken until time passes where his interruption is over and goes back to fix the elevator. Although housekeeping can fix the elevator, it is not their priority. Same with sinks & clogged toilets, the Bellhop most likely will be the one fixing the broken objects.

Staircases refer to the (4 x 1) or (4 x 2) object found in build mode. Only one Sim at a time can use the object. This can cause unnecessary traffic in routing. This is also an issue with elevators, in that one Sim at a time can use the elevator, rather than multiple Sims.

It is recommended that your accommodation has a set of modular stairs to connect each level in case of elevator breakdowns. Otherwise, your Sims & tourists cannot access other levels of the establishment.

Additionally, when Sims want to sleep at a bed situated on another level, they will forget to sleep at that bed after taking an elevator to the level that bed is situated on. The Sim, still getting low on energy, will then attempt to sleep at another bed. If that other bed is situated on another level of the accommodation, then the same occurrence will happen of the Sims forgetting to sleep at the bed they reach. This could potentially happen over and over again until the Sim faints and sleeps on the floor.

• Always leave an empty space near the one-tile concierge desks on the right of the Bellhop's view (or left of the guest's sign-in view).

The maid is very particular of where they would like to stand when not performing their housekeeping duties. If you are specifically using the one-tile concierge desk, make absolute sure that there is an empty space next to the desk. If there isn't, your maid will constantly try to stand in the position of where the Bellhop is located. This can be an annoyance when the maid constantly bumps into the Bellhop, trying to force him out from behind his desk.

If you are using the three-tile concierge desk, you will not have that issue.

• Prefer not to place dining chairs to the side of an adjacent walls/fences/half-walls/stages/objects, where the Sim only has one way out from their dining chair.

Sometimes Sims will finish eating their meals, and begin leaving their place only to stand up between the chair and a wall with no empty space to walk around. This causes an issue of Sims complaining that there is no space to move, & the Sim will continue whining & render the chair useless for others to sit on.

The main issue has to do with the type of seating used, as some chairs will have this issue more than other seats. There is currently no list of recommended seating to use, and so testing will be needed to determine the appropriate seats to use. This is very likely a case of many Maxis objects not being coded well to use in lodging establishments.

This is not an issue with booth seats, however. You may use booth seats without consequence to this issue.

• Prefer not to have a restaurant with Host/Chef/Waiters as your accommodations main attraction.

A few problems with dining in these accommodations occur as follows.

First, some tourist Sims from the area dine in the restaurant & do not give up their seats after their meals. The tourists would be seated by the Host, the Waiter comes to serve the tourist, and after the tourist eats and finishes their meal, they leave.

There is a high chance that when the tourist leaves, they are not actually finished their dining experience. They leave their seat, and that entire table with its seats become useless. Meaning that if you were to direct a Sim to sit there, to any seat of that table, there would be no option to do so. When other tourists come, they may occupy other tables, and then those tables could be rendered useless too, drastically reducing the number of available seating in your dining room. This is very inconvenient, & may force Sims to use their tables in their hotel rooms as places to eat their meals, leaving more mess for the maid to go to.

Second, problems occur when any toilet is open for the public to use. Sometimes, even after only one Sim uses the toilet, the maid & waiters will flock to the used toilet to clean it, even though it's not very dirty. This is an inefficient use of the waiters' time, & can leave patrons in the dining room waiting longer for service.

It is recommended that if there are many visitors (and many rooms), cluster all toilets, showers, baths, etc. to one area of the accommodation that is near the kitchen, so that when used, the waiters do not travel long distances to be distracted from their main task of cleaning the dining room.

• Instead, prefer to have a tiny restaurant space with Host/Chef/Waiters as your accommodations sub-attraction, with the main dining attraction being a buffet.

Having a tiny restaurant space means that you set in your dining room a small area for the dining experience, and leave the other seating available for buffet dining. You would do this by using the floor dividers to divide the space for where Sims will be seated by the Host, and the other space to be used for the buffet.

The disadvantage is that your Sim will have to foot the bill for the food to serve the accommodation's guests. The advantage are two-fold.

First, the waiters will be using more of their time cleaning the dining room, rather than waiting on one Sim at a time, leaving the dirty plates for the maid to clean. We all know that the maid is already prone to freezing up & standing idly the entire day, we don't need to add to the maid's already long list of stuff to tend to.

Second, the chairs in the dining room that would have been frozen by the tourist Sims who eat their via the Host/Waiter routine would be non-existent (aside from the potential couple of tables set aside for the dining experience). Meaning, if the tourist Sim went to the buffet table, grabbed a plate of food, took a seat, ate their meal, then left, the dining chairs and table would then be available for the next Sim who wishes to use it.

• Always make sure plants that need watering or tending are reachable to the maid, when the time comes to water or tend to them.

The issue that will arise if you make plants that are inaccessible for trimming, watering, or tending is that the maid will freeze up and not move on to another task to perform in their housekeeping duties. They will insist on trying to water, trim, or tend the plant before moving on to another task. This may also apply to trees that have their leaves fall off. These trees need accessibility for housekeeping to rake their leaves.

It is strongly recommended to limit the use of plants that to those are decorative and need no attention to. Alternatively, to reduce the chance of routing or staff issues, do not place any plant items around the establishment. Only use plastic plant objects.

• Always use a community lot as the bases for your accommodation, not a residential lot.

You will have to build your lot using community lot items along with items, such as the concierge desks and Solidity Doors, that you may not find available in a residential lot setting. You will also need a community lot telephone situated outside the property to insure that your visiting Sims, who do not possess a cell phone, can dispatch a taxi to bring them home or to traverse between community lots.

Community lot properties are also coded differently than residential lots, and so it is strongly recommended to construct your accommodation on such a property to decrease chances of the property malfunctioning.

• Afterwards, back-up your completed community lot before testing your lot OR before converting it to a lodging establishment.

If you finish constructing your property, or if you wish to test it out before converting it to a lodging establishment, create a back-up copy of the property so that you can refer to it in the future for changes to be made. Lodging establishments have the undesirable effect of saving Sim references from previous visits to the property, due to saves of the property when playing your game, or even after the visiting Sim family visits the lot, due to tourists still occupying the lot, and staff in motion.

If you were to go back a make changes on the lodging establishment, you will see undone bed sheets, dirty plates, buffet tables with food, closed toilet stall doors, and many more items still in use. This lodging establishment cannot be redone for risk of having staffing issues.

• Afterwards, back-up your lodging establishment via your game's Lot Folder situated in the C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N###\ directory before visiting the property.

Additionally, along with the undesirable mess that the property will have from the previous family visiting, your Sims revisiting the property will not have the Tour Guide come to the community lot phone. Your Sim will not be able to do sightseeing, unless they travel to a community lot. You may also be subject to staffing problems in your subsequent visits to the lot.

To avoid the issue of revisiting the property and having missing/irregular staff & cleanliness problems with the hotel, make a back-up of your establishment from the Lot Folder in your current neighborhood, and overwrite it after your Sims have finished visiting the establishment. This way, when your Sims revisit the hotel, you will have everything set up as it were on the first visit.

• Prefer to use specific architectural items & furniture for your accommodation rather than other furniture or architectural items, even if they may look more appealing.

The specific architecture & furniture in question work better than other doors in your accommodation's operations when related to staff's functionality. These items may help resolve issues regarding staff freezing up and being rendered useless. The architectural items that is recommended to use include the following:

- Subliminally Soothing Hotel Door (2-tile door)
- Solidity Door (1-tile door with no Welcome Mat)
- The Going Somewhere by UppersCo (2 x 2 tile elevator/lift)

These doors when used can help avoid functionality issues with the accommodation's staff.

Make sure there are at least two of the Subliminally Soothing Hotel Doors so that if one entrance is being used, the other would be available.

Make sure your Solidity Door is facing towards the public area to insure the room functions correctly, and doesn't lock out staff. The door has a "map" behind that faces the room for rent. The door also has a "room number sign" that faces out towards the public space.

The elevator works fine for the staff, but as with all the elevators, Sims still suffer from amnesia when going from one bed to another at different levels of the building.

The furniture that is recommended to use include the following:

- The Schottel Chair
- Jacuser's "Last Stand" Sectional Booth
- Customer's First Dining Table

These furniture items can be used in dining rooms to avoid having patrons getting stuck between spaces or even to pay for their bills and give up their place in the dining room for future patrons.

Frequent Asked Questions?

The buffet table has flies all around it, why is staff not cleaning it up?

That's probably because the gelatin is still good. Yes, the salad & turkey will spoil quicker than the gelatin. Until the gelatin is finished, or until it too spoils, staff will not react to clean up the buffet table.

Why do my waiters keep going to the public restroom/a guest's room to wash their hands?

That's because they are very hygiene conscious, & want to have very clean hands when handing food trays to their patrons in the dining room. Make sure your kitchen has a sink or two available for waiters to use. If the sink breaks, they may try to wonder around the property looking for an available sink to rinse their hands in. That travelling time is an inefficient use of their time.

The Maid/Tour Guide/Guests are not visiting my accommodation. Why is that?

It's probably because your Sims are visiting the property at night, or during off hours. Staff & guests visit your property during business hours in the morning period. The following are the business hours of staff:

• The maid's typical hours are from 8:00am to 10:00pm, depending on the amount of stuff to clean in the establishment.

• The Tour Guide's typical hours are from 7:00am to 8:00pm.

• The waiters are always on site & have no typical hours.

Tourists visiting the hotel can range anywhere from 10:45am to 10:00pm, depending on available rooms to rent & the number of tourists that can occupy your hotel.

I've followed the building rules perfectly, why is it on my next visit the hotel is broken?

It's because the game has the undesirable effect of saving the state of the property the same way as when your previous family visited it. Meaning, you'll find dirty plates all around, undone bed sheets, and other hazards that were not part of the hotel built.

So, this requires either demolishing your hotel & placing the back-up copy that you should have saved previously, or overwriting the Lot File that belongs to this property from the C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N###\ directory with the saved Lot File used before.

After doing either of those, your next visit to the property will function properly. You will have to rinse-and-repeat this process to insure a pleasant stay on future visits.

Related Discussion Forum Threads

Hotels & Lodging ISO 18513:2003 (Tips/Rules/Mod Recommendations)