For those of you who've got the game, want to tell us about how you've used the game? What features have you explored? What new objects are you using? How has this affected your gameplay?

Well last week I completely reset my hoods as I found I was becoming overwhelmed with everything I had going on. In one hood I had 3 ages of one character... I kept remaking him to try different aspects of different xpacs I recently bought. (OFB, Uni) I bought the digi download yesterday and after I got it all installed I took all of the binned characters that come with the xpacs and gave them each a home and minimum required items to live in the houses. I never did this before and I found my hoods always lacking people and I figured I could get more out of the game this way. Then I made all my old characters again 2 families and put them in the same house- I like having a busy house.
Anyway- Not many of the Sims had desires to do any sort of hobby- so I just threw them on what I figured would go with thier personalities. So far David has recieved his Bronze badge in Pottery and Sammy has gotten a Bronze in sewing. They both are in the arts and crafts secret society. I did give the household musical instruments and some have gone over and gotten the "music and dance" interest started. This expansion so far is really enjoyable- but I found that after a while it does pop up saying they "lost interest" in thier hobby if they aren't on it constantly- which I found to be annoying since in real life your interests ebb and flow- so one week you could be all excited about drawing and then another week you would enjoy movie marathons. I am hoping once you reach the "in the zone" of your hobby, you are locked into it- so its not a constant upkeep.
I ventured to the secret Muse hide out for the Artsy hobby and the lady there gave instruction to David making it possible for him to give instruction. I thought that was quite nice- Odd thing though is when he left that lot and went home I had him "blog" about his hobby, and then it told me he was now able to be an instructor. To me that made me think when he left the Muse lot he lost the ability and regained it from blogging.
I have one question though- in the winter time some of the sims have 2 trees with a plus sign over thier head- whats that mean?
OH and I love the clutter they gave us! I hope my ramblings answered your questions.
Aine

The two trees sounds like the icon for the nature hobby. What were they doing at the time?

Right now, I'm playing with Desiderata Valley, also Abney. I gave my Treasure Hunters secondary aspirations, well, because I felt like it. But I've been having Amin read up on parenting, because their daughter Erica Anne was born. I also can't seem to figure out which hobby they belong to, or have the most enthusiasm about, but it's whatever for me. I also noticed that all of the sims can "Tinker" on everything.

lol I had my sim Abdul tinker one night with the shower. He ended up breaking it. I guess his mechanical points were not high? Another sim needed to repair what he tinkered with.

I'm continueing to play with my custom neighbourhood, aging up all the families to be about the correct age relative to eachother (I'm obsessive that way). Nearly done with the last family to need aging this way.

The family I'm playing is enjoying their hobby time. The son got the easy way out with a games hobby, which he's raising on his new llama pc and the chess table. Dad's got the worst, sports. Sending him outside to shoot some hoops is nice and all, but it drops his energy really quickly which is quite annoying. Mom enjoys music and dance. I like the new violin, it's a nice alternative to the other instruments. Over all, I like the fact that it gives my sims things to do during the day when I don't have anything else for them to do (especially the elder ones).

Unfortunately, it seems Free Time broke my ingame snapshot functionality, it keeps making drafting table style images. It's not so bad for the family I'm playing right now, as I don't use their family album.. but this could be an issue for some of my other families (specifically, legacy ones).

Does tinkering with stuff actually do anything or just help raise points in the tinkering hobby?

I've tried playing the new neighbourhood but the new characters were just too ugly (some of them were buggy as well).. So I created a new neighbourhood and started a legacy there I gave the founder knowledge aspiration so she will probably be interested in science. Going to see if she is just now

Oh I didn't even think about nature.... he was a kid so I am not sure what he was doing. I noticed it when he was getting into the dinner chair- maybe he was checking out the ants.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious over look I had Glad someone knew what it was lol

Well I had re-installed all the games and left out three sp's (thats all I could bare to live without and Im about to put one more back on). I saved two families on empty lots and so I re-uploaded them and am playing with them now. I figured out that each sim has this pre-destined hobby that lights up (in the enthusiam panel) once you find it. SO Ive been having my sims try everything til I found it. SO far Ive got two nature sims, one tinkering, one music and dance, and one science. Its been pretty cools so far as one of my sims just won a cooking contest(not at any of the private lots as I havent been invited to any yet). I want a sim thats into arts and crafts so bad so Ive been forcing it on this one sim. LoL. I love how everything is associated with a hobby now. Like gardening with nature and eating with cuisine. Its awesome! No genie yet for me, and Im trying to find a hubby for one sim so I can explore the new baby interactions and the cool new nursery.

Thus far, I've focused on one family, the Chu family. The father, Paul's hobby is music and dance, while his second wife Rory, and their two kids, teen Sabine and child Jason, are all into sports. All of them have the memberships to the special clubs. Sabine also practices music and dance, thanks to her dad, and spends hours at a time practicing ballet. Her mom and brother however, spend most of their time shooting hoops. As for Paul, it's hard to pull him away from his violin these days. Paul's other two children, Katie and Sam, are off in college, so no clue as to their hobbies yet.

I was trying different activities, trying to find what my sim had a 'natural enthusiasm' for, she tried painting - nothing, cooking - nothing, birdwatching - nothing, movies - nothing, tinkering with the tv set.....
She got electrocuted and died
Oops.

I played my custom neighborhood to find out what kind of hobbies my families would have. So far I've played my Taylor family, the dad has natural enthusiasm for music and dance. I found that out the easy way, he was watching the music channel and he got the "I'm so excited" pop up. The mom would have been wonderful for cuisine, but she turned out to be a natural tinkerer. I really don't think that's going to happen ;-) Their son is still a toddler when I started and I had him try all kinds of stuff, love that creativity table, but nothing. Until one day he momentarily escaped my attention and autonomously went to the t.v. and watched the sports program that was on. He's into sports! I really didn't know toddlers could watch t.v.! Now he's a kid and loves to throw the football.
The adults all seem to have gotten the same amount of lifetime aspiration points to start out with, this gives them about 5 perks. I love the idea of a secondary aspiration, but their wants panel doesn't seem to change that much. My sims mostly benefit from the extra perks the secondary aspiration gives them. I wonder if their secondary aspiration will become more prominent in the wants and fears if I play them a bit longer.