So it seems every time i create a community lot hardly anyone goes to it i don't know what i'm doing wrong but i provide plenty of activites but still only about 4 or 5 people go to it, i created a sports park with all the sports activities and a kids park on it, chess boards, majong and cards, coffee stand, 2 saunas, only a few people seem to just be going for the coffee and to play cards though... they ignore the rest, what could i be doing wrong?.

It depends a lot on the computing power you have available, is my understanding. If your machine is just barely over the minimum requirements for the game, you'll only have a scant few Sims appearing- but if you have a high-end gaming desktop, you'll see a good crowd of pixels descending on even a pretty hoh-hum lot. I think that's something you can tweak if you really know the game mechanics though... it'll just introduce more lag to your gameplay.

I changed it a little and added the instant espresso thing and i took out the archery targets and put in a food stand and more sims appeared but they only touched the pool table, the vending machines and again just played cards but they don't seem to want to play football or basket ball and i think there needs to more kids in the neighborhood as well, only adults seem to want to go.

Your computer sets how many sims show up, and then the coding sets what they do and use. If the lot is unowned the sims arrive in a general mood and coding will push them to use whatever gives most fun and social. The card table and pool table advertises higher fun than the sporting items. so if you want them to use the sporting items remove the cards and pool table. Some items have a very low fun code calling even when it's the only thing on a lot so instead of say using a swimming pool sims are more likely to interact with each other. To make sims more likely to use what you want you need to set their moods. One way is by using the Customer Selector and setting the venue as a fun venue. That forces sims to arrive with low fun so that they use the fun building items. if you set it to restaurant the sims arrive hungry. You could also use something like the simblender and set everyone to half social to make them socialize. You can also use the CS or the Visitor Controller to control the type of sim who shows up. Say you built a playground and you want kids to show, then you would ban adults.

How would i go about making it clear to them that both adults and kids can go? i've no idea what the customer selector is :\ i've never seen such a thing in TS2. My computer is fine with TS2 it's a computer with parts used at the time of TS1 and 2 so it barely uses any CPU and uses only a quater of my memory and it's on high graphics so all fine is there. On community lots made by EA there is probably about 15 - 20 people on them but on mine i get about 8, i did there after adding the espresso machine and the diner but with the size it looks so empty.

IIRC, children don't show up unless the sims you've taken to the community lot include children.

What is IIRC? i'm sorry there is a few features i don't know about OFB still, i played it but didn't do much with it.

If I Recall Correctly. (Internet shorthand.)

You need to use the cheat code "intprop maxnumofvisitingsims #" replacing the # with a number. Do this before you load the community lot.

Try with smaller numbers and increase slowly. I think that if you set it too high, it resets itself.

If you want to test a quicker way, load a lot with only one sim, and no visitors, and have them throw a party. The party limit (you know, where it says "maximum guests: 8" or whatever) will reflect your cheat code (sometimes it's a bit lower than the limit you set, but for example setting it to 4 will allow a different number of party guests than setting it to 10.)

Other points:

Children won't show up (past NightLife) unless you take a child to the lot. This sucks but nobody has modded it out yet

Lots in a downtown will attract more visitors than lots in the main neighbourhood or shopping districts.

That explains it because of nightlife, i remember before nightlife kids went to community lots

It's counterintuitive, but small lots attract more visitors than big lots - especially if you're playing slightly underpowered. This is because small lots put less strain on the system, so it can afford to have more sims running around. Also, they'll be compressed into a smaller area, so the space will feel busier. Six sims underutilize a 5x5 lot; they swarm a 1x3 lot.

If you want kids on a lot, bring a kid to the lot. If you want teens, bring teens. (Although this is not guaranteed; I frequently send teens to places like the Freetime Recreation Center, which ought to be teencentric, and get nothing but old folks.) If you want pets, bring pets.

In a vanilla game, teens have a 9:00 curfew and kids have a 5:00 curfew. If you come between those hours and midnight, you won't see any of either.

It's a hack by Pescado available on MATY . (MATY = "More Awesome Than You") I don't have it myself because I still don't have OFB in the game I play. (I suppose I have a licence for it as I have registered the Ultimate Collection on Origin, but I wouldn't dare try running the AL game engine on my netbook.)

I think there must be something in that. On my very first visit to a community lot, I had only one Sim (Veronaville townie Trista Shaw) turn up apart from my playable (Garry Mackay), and he couldn't even interact with her! It was my Veronaville Swim Centre (4x4), which at that time consisted of little else but a huge swimming pool in a field. Even the toilet/changing block was unfinished. (the toilet block had a foundation and walls but no roof, no toilets, and no way to get in!) My Sim went home from his swim with his social bar going into the red. Shortly afterwards, for my second community lot visit, I sent 3 of the Moltke family to (Maxis) Veronaville Market (5x2), and it was quite busy in comparison. I remember Julian Moltke met and talked two 3 Sims there, the last of whom was the hapless Garry Mackay who had had so little success at the swimming pool. I admit that my Swim Centre is bigger in ground area, but I would have thought that at that time, Veronaville Market, with all its facilities, would have been bigger in file size than my very undeveloped swimming pool. (I could check with my first back-up if anyone is interested.) When I started to develop the facilities at the swimming pool, it started to attract more Sims, and, ever since I opened a poolside restaurant, it has been quite busy. So it looks to me as if most Sims won't go to a community lot unless they think there's something worth going for!

The time of day may have a role to play too. Recently I sent two Sims to their normally busy local minimart (1x1) at about 3 a.m., and although they stayed for several hours, there was nobody else there the whole time except for the cashier. But then, who would you expect to find in a village shop at 3 a.m.? I suppose that's why most real life village shops don't stay open all night! With nobody else there to bother them, my Sims happily danced for hours to the piped music in the empty shop.

[EDIT] two more points:

Thanks! I've wondered for ages what that meant!

I wonder why on earth Maxis made that change! It makes no sense to me at all. In real life the place you're most likely to meet a screaming kid is wherever an adult has gone for some quietness!

What I'd like to know is that when the pixels arrive, they generally (in my game at least) go to one spot and stand there for a few minutes, even when there are 'fun' things to do. I've got a community lot with instruments, a chess table and the infamous 6 pack of beer..and even with the booze, they're still not very active at first (or sometimes never!). The lot is always busy, though, as are all of my lots; they're also smaller lots.

I just wonder why.

With the Ultimate Colelction i've noticed several changes in the way they interact, they act like real humans do i suppose... when most poeple go to 1 spot everyone else follows to join in because they don't wanna be left on their own and with how much more the sims interact and greet each other they just want to fit in, it's the exact same when you have a house party and 1 or 2 people go to the same bathroom... the rest just follow but they never did that before, i think this is the interaction improvements on the last TS2 expansion before they brought out TS3, that;s if you has UC FrankH, but this is what i've noticed and i read some where on here that the last expansion has improvements related to TS3, you can buy a mobile phone and mp3 player too.

Arriving Sims are coded to go look at the last item that was placed on the lot. So, if the last item placed on the lot was a light fixture in a bathroom, they will all troop to that bathroom. On Maxis lots, you unfortunately have no control over the last item that was placed, and some of the lots are pretty stupid in that regard. I have gone into such stupid ones in build mode and made some modifications so that I could pick the last item placed.

Anyway, I imagine it was coded this way so that arriving Sims don't clog the portals. Theoretically, they arrive, go look at the last item that was placed on the lot, and then go find something to do according to their motives, choosing something that will fill their lowest motive. If they arrive with full motives...then, indeed, they will often just stand there. @FranH, you might find the mentioned customer selector useful, if you don't already have it.

@Pygsmyemm: It was AL that introduced the requirement that one must "Greet" Sims before interacting with them, as well as the different "gestures" they can greet with. (The "High Five," the "Kiss Kiss Darling," etc.) which is also a "feature" of TS3. They were in development at the same time, so I guess it makes sense. Frankly, I find it a little annoying, although I suppose it is a bit more realistic. I mean, in real life, you don't walk up to a stranger and start whacking them with pillows; you at least say "hi" first. In any event, this does make the Sims seem a bit more "sociable," I suppose, with all the greeting and high-fiving and such going on. Cell phones, MP3 players, and handheld games were introduced all the way back in University, the very first EP, though.

Okie i never had university, the cd expansions i have is seasons, nightlife, festive edition, pets, glamour life and open for buisness, ofb stopped working soon enough though... the disc are obsolote crap! they crack in the middle so easily or just corrupt easy, only takes 1 tiny scratch and... dead. I like how much more sociable they are as they start dancing in the hall way upstairs lol love it so much. In TS3 you get phones and mp3 players straight away, i however hate their mouth doesn't move in TS3 and their features are ugly, never will buy it. I hope i can figure out the right combination for a lot, i took out all the game tables in the lot including the chess tables so hopefully this time they don't just browse the vending machines lol.

Unfortunately, you won't always be able to control what visiting Sims do. It will depend on their motives when they arrive; they will fill the one that is lowest first. As I understand it, by default they arrive with lower social and fun meters. Different items "advertise" fun differently to different Sims. Serious Sims think chess is very fun; playful Sims would rather die than play chess. Playful Sims think watching TV is awesome, but serious Sims would rather not. That sort of thing. So, what gets used will depend not only on what items are on the lot but on what Sims visit the lot and what their personalities are like and what their motive levels are. You can control what items are on your lot, but unless you use something like the customer selector, you can't control what Sims show up and what their motive levels are.

Some things are universally attractive, though. Those card tables are highly fun, which is why if you have them on a lot, those seats will fill up before your Sims will do much else, and if a Sim gets up, another will quickly replace him/her; it's kind of annoying if you want your playable(s) to play but there aren't any available seats! So yeah, those card tables will trump many other things on a lot, in terms of attractiveness. Hot tubs are similarly attractive. So are pool tables.

So, in short, there's trial and error involved until you figure out what works and what's attractive to the greatest number of Sims but perhaps not TOO attractive or else they'll swarm that one activity and everything else will be ignored. But there's always a random element, too, in that without mods like the customer selector or things that you can use to teleport in specific Sims, you can't control who shows up on the lot and what their personalities are like.

uff... the customer count went down from 4 - 6 people but they used the other stuff even the saunas but they don't touch the diner with the vending machines lol so i will have to remove the vending machines, i think i will make a smalelr one and see what happen then.

One thing that bothers me, though-I don't know if it was in the game from the beginning or it was introduced in an EP, but unless I use the auto-teleporter from Inge's place, I don't get any customers that aren't townies..this is an owned lot. @Icad, do you know?

I could have sworn that I used to be able to have playables visit without any trouble...

That definitely doesn't seem right, maybe a glitch? the customers you get isn't perfect though... not even on an owned lot.

No, you should have playable customers just fine unless you do something to specifically ban them, like banning them with the Visitor Controller. Are you sure you don't have one on your lot(s) that you've clicked "Ban Playables" on? Other than that, does it still work that way if you take out your downloads? Because if you haven't accidentally banned playables somehow or inadvertently have some sort of mod that makes it so that playables don't show on owned lot, I can't think of what it might be. Could be a mod conflict, but that's a pretty oddly specific symptom. Have you downloaded any lots lately? If so, maybe a global hack snuck in with it....

The trick is to make the lot smaller definitely, i've got 7 people in the early hours of the morning t and i made it so there is a noodle diner instead of just burgers and hot dogs, i added just 2 backet ball courts, a target board thing for throwing axes, just 1 football net, the kids park, the espresso stand, only made 1 floor in the building and i added seats in that room so they can sit down quicker and the toilets in there too and i added a hot springs and finally i put in some speakers for country music and it all fits nicely and seems more busy than it is. The hot springs balances it out since it's not a hot tub so they go for the other activities too and are actually using the diner so i'm glad they are using everything.

@FranH I suppose that you haven't at some point downloaded Pescado's noplayableshoppers mod and forgotten it? It's a mod for OFB that stops playables coming to your shops (except of course when you send them). Evidently the purpose of the hack is to stop your Sims wasting their money buying junk they don't need. Pescado recommends that you use this mod along with his Customer Selector mentioned earlier in this thread; I only heard of it for the first time today, when reading up on that one.

For the children/teenager silliness, I usually use the Teleporter Cat and BO's Spawn Objects, in which I forcefully spawn kids and teens onto the lot to make it more realistic, and so my lots don't look like "No Kids Allowed" lots. I can also use the teleporter cat to kick off unwanted Sims, so old weaklings get kicked out of youth hangouts so my teen Sims can have more room to socialize. I guess it's a "manual" version of the Visitor Controller.

On the subject of old biddies showing up on lots meant for teenagers, is it ok to kick Mrs. Crumplebottom off with a teleporter (or the Visitor Controller) if she shows up? Once she showed up at my Teenmealz restaurant, severely cramping the style of Hermia and Miranda Capp who were trying to seduce young Gerry McBain. Adults and Elders are banned from the lot by the Visitor Controller, but there seems to be an instant when the lot is loading when a banned Sim can slip in before the ban takes effect.