Lost&Found: Stock Market
 

updates

2011-07-28 - Added Brazilian translation.
2011-07-26 - Updated to game version 1.24.


compatibility
Supported for game version 1.24 aka code version 0.2.0.154.

stock trading
After gobot101 asked about the related XML in the discussion forum, I found the EAxian stock trading system. It seemed complete and even has a couple computer interactions for a user interface. The StocksManager simply doesn't get started and the interactions don't get added to computers.

This mod kickstarts the StocksManager and adds the interaction to all computers. I also hijacked the list that stores the stocks to make it survive save&reload and altered the interactions to support localization. Since most of the strings were missing, I wrote them myself. I hope it makes sense to you. I asked a friend who knows financial stuff about the "speculative" thing in the code, and he couldn't quite make sense of it, so the whole thing probably isn't very accurate anyway.

The string keys for the stocks didn't give me any hints about the names, so I made up new names. The first one that everyone sees without looking up new stocks is "Llama United Inc.". One of the other stocks is named after the one who pointed me to the StocksManager and the rest is named after staff members. See if you're able to find out which ones. Disclaimer: Sorry to everyone who didn't make it on the list. There are only ten stocks, so the possibilities were quite limited.

Heads up 1: The interactions only appear on expensive computers! I guess the intarwebz on the cheap computer aren't shiny enough or something.

Heads up 2: While the EAxian code is complete, it isn't really fleshed out or fine-tuned. Don't expect too much. I didn't do anything to flesh it out, have it make more sense or make it look nicer. Yet.

Heads up 3: The computer screens will stay black for the stock market interactions.

description:
Ok, Buy and Sell should be obvious, I hope. Sims always have to discover stocks before they can invest in them by using the Check For New Stocks interaction. One stock will always be discovered in the beginning.

Discovered stocks that sims didn't invest in, will go hidden again after a certain time. A pretty short time actually. Also only four stocks can be discovered and investable at the same time. If you have four stocks discovered, you'll need to wait for one to get hidden again before you can search for a new one.

By using the Research interaction, you can find out some info about the stock. The volatility info basically tells you how much short-term changes the stock will show, the noise so to speak. The stability/sensitivity info tells you how much big changes the stock will show, i.e. how big the changes will be. If you know a bit about real stock trading, you got by now that the EAxian stock trading doesn't really resemble real stock trading.

Finally, to see what happened with your stocks and the stock market in general, use the Check Stock interaction. See the attached screenshot for the related notification.

translation
This mod should be fully localizable. Tell me if you happen to find any empty buttons or notifications. If you are willing to support a translation, please read the instructions.

Disclaimer: I consider my mods to be free as free beer, public domain - all right reversed, whatever you may call it. I expect the same from your translation! If you are not okay with this, then don't support a translation! If you already supported a translation and are not okay with this, tell me and I will pull it.

Currently supported languages: English, German, Mexican, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, French, Brazilian



legal stuff

possible conflicts
This is a scripting mod and as such the possibility for conflicts with other mods, no matter what kind, is next to non-existant.

installation
Please follow Game_Help:Installing_Sims_3_Package_Files^wiki. I can't explain it any better than that. Seriously, I won't even try even if you ask me.

deinstallation
Should be safe to simply rip it out whenever you want. If any household own stocks, these will be lost of course.

support
I support my mods. I appreciate bug reports. I don't support mods or custom content in general. It's not an issue with a mod if it doesn't even show up in the game.

credits
Thanks to gobot101 for his question about the StocksManager XML in the stupid questions thread.

Thanks to lizzylovesjasper, Ekkii, yu_1, Aiken and matheusmm94 for translating.

disclaimer
Might lead to a serious case of squished brain. Use for rocket fuel. Don't use for stomach ailment.

Ooh, I really like this idea, can't wait to see if you develop it in future versions. My sims have too much money lying around not to try this out!

this is really nice, it adds a bit of fun to the sims computer! thanks.

This sounds interesting, thank you! I wonder how much other usable 'lost & found' stuff is lurking in the game code - very intriguing!

Very cool! Been playing around with this and after discovering 4 stocks the "find new stocks" option has disappeared. I had my sim wait a few days and try again but still not there. I thought there were 10? Is there a limit to how many you can invest in at once?

Wonderful! Thanks for finding this :-)

Just checked and yes, you can only have 4 discovered stocks at once. I'll update the upload thread.

Translation German
 

Hey
Here is my take on a translation into German, I really hope I got everything right. I did NOT translate the names of the companies but I gave my best on the rest of the mod! :D

Yet another thing for my sims to do with their money!

By the way, I translated the strings to Spanish, and I'm also looking into translating them to French later today. In the meantime, here's the file in Spanish.

Oh wow this is so awesome and darn should have read the disclaimer before i ingested.. :/

@Ekkii: Is that Spanish or Mexican? The file says MX...

It's Spanish, but the way it's used in Mexico. Let's call it "Mexican Spanish".

@lizzylovesjasper: I altered the translation here and there. Also "Volatilität" is a tem used in economics, so I changed that back. Hope you don't mind.

@Ekkii: Added as Mexican then. TS3 supports Mexican Spanish and Spanish Spanish.

This is really cool. I can't wait to test it out!

Can't wait to try it out Buzzler! Thank you.

Very impressive discovery! Strange that EA didn't implement this, it looks great!

This looks so amazing! You are amazing! I can't wait to play with this fun new option

Thanks for figuring this out, can't wait to try it out. Glad I was poking around the gameplay data and someone was able to do something with this. =]

This is pretty cool! I wonder which EP added this or was it hidden in the base game all along. I bet there's some neat stuff in the game code that just needs a nice pull and tug to work.

This mod adds more realism and more fun to the game. I love speculation and I miss so bad Open for Business when TS2.

Buzzler, please: I have checked the "mexican" version" and I think that its perfect also for spanish of Spain. Could you turn on the "_ES" suffix to a copy of the translation of Ekki to make it available for every spanish game??? The rest of the spanish speaking world uses the _ES version, not the _MX.

If I don't like the company names or just want to pick my own, how easy would it be to change them? Can I just do it with S3PE or do I have to download the strings and change things there?

Oh yay! I'd seen this in the XML and always wondered about it. I even assumed at first that it was accessed via the "Stockmarket Ticker" object that came with Fast Lane, but that turned out to be just decorative.

Thanks Buzzler!

Thanks for finding this. I hope you found more "Lost&Found" stuff. Thanks again.

I'm working on the French translation, but it's a vocab I'm not comfortable with, so it might take a day or 2.

edit: didn't mean to post this as a thanks, or a reply to the above post specifically

There's one thing I'm confused about. I didn't see anywhere to pick "buy" or "sell". I saw the stock, i researched, and checked on stocks, but I couldn't see how to buy or sell