I've sort of been lurking around and waiting and watching in silence, trying to be very patient about things since:
A) My NL has not shipped yet
B) I'm undecided as to whether I will install or wait until the patch and/or hacks are updated
C) The new school semester has started and I've been busy with my own "Uni" homework and TAing
But I'm glad that a Maxoid has been available for answering all our questions and concerns and I feel compelled to participate a bit. I would really like to see a consolidated list of Maxoid (Tom?)'s response, and not just what has been
fixed but I am also really interested in what are considered "as designed" since what we may consider "bugs" or "flaws" may be a difference of opinion. If anyone has consolidated this list of responses, please provide a link. I know a lot of people are mentioning lists here and there, and some have provided links to the Same thread (kmlough's) on the BBS (which I never really go to anyway). But other people have mentioned other lists at other sites, and while it's great that you mention they exist, it wouldn't hurt to also provide a link, please?
I also have a few questions about certain bugs or design issues that people have mentioned like this secret society memory loss? I'm guessing this is not the same think as
greek amnesia? Could someone elaborate on this? If it is actual memory loss, why would this be "by design" instead of a bug?
People also mentioned a possible solution to things, such as the LTW re-rolling or only showing up at Uni. I prefer MaxoidTom's (which I will now assume that is who this Maxoid is, as I really don't like using HatedMaxoid
- I tend to agree with what many people have said already, that we tend to take our frustration out on EA/Maxis in general and not at any Maxoid specifically
) suggestion in that maybe it re-rolls at Age Transitions. I actually like that it shows up around the Teen years, and it is Especially helpful if the Teen is a Knowledge Sim and gets the Maximize 7 skills LTW, because this is certainly doable before entering Uni and coincides with getting as many scholarships as possible. It can make Uni life much easier for the Knowledge Sim.
What I
would like to see is possibly a dialog box that pops up at the end/start of an Age Transition asking if you would like to re-roll the LTW. This could be similar to how the dialog box pops up at the end of Junior year and gives you a chance to change the Sims Aspiration. Only this would just allow you to choose Yes for a
random re-roll or No and keep the one you already have. It would also be better if it followed Pescado's LTW Variety hack in a similar manner in that LTWs really should be based on a Sim's interests. It seems to me that, for the most part, the LTWs are fairly random and it only makes sense that they should be based on a Sim's interests. It is just one more way to make use of a Sim's interests and make them a bit more individual. We should also have more ways to change a sims interests "in game" rather than having to use tools like SimPE to adjust them. This is probably more of a "design issue" rather than a bug, but I think it would definately improve gameplay. I suppose if Maxis doesn't include this, hopefully Pescado will be able to update his mod.
And as many people have mentioned numerously already, it seems a lot of the Critical bugs have to do with the "too many interations" issue. While it is great that the iterations have been increased, I think that this is still just a minor tweak that may not really solve the problem. You could still theoretically get too many iterations, only now you have more iterations than before.
I think the issue is that the functions/BHAVs for searching are inherently flawed. I'm sure there are numerous posts/threads that we could find that describe the technical issues, or if any of the modders would be so kind as to step in and describe the issue, but from what I gather based on my limited understanding, some of the searching routines in BHAVs that require iterating through a list of objects (or Sims) fail and produce this error when the list is too large (say due to too many memories or too many sims in the neighborhood). It seems that these searches should be limited to valid objects (or sims) that make sense. There should be a way to validate the types of objects or sims that are being searched and not include the invalid ones (such as dead sims or possibly invisible memories or memories that have Nothing to do with what is being searched for).
Also, I think someone mentioned Crammyboy's solution to the missing (car) portals. I believe I read somewhere that these solutions are pretty much only work arounds and that modders also have not completely determined what causes it and why. I also believe that it was suggested that the bookcase might have something to do with the car portal, and although that struck me as extremely odd and totally related, I supposed it wasn't entirely improbable. I believe this was probably mentioned in Crammyboy's fix thread at MTS2. If I find it, I'll put a link here.
Incidentally, in my own experience, I think I had this problem with a portal of some type as well, most likely related to the Spaceship. Admittedly, I did have a hack that increased the odds for getting abducted. In this household, I had a teen sim abducted. However, I also had him scheduled to sneak out that night. I think the problem was that, since the car pool to sneak out showed up, and the spaceship/portal was on the lot invisible, it probably caused some unexpected error. When the teen came home and later I tried having him sneak out on other days, he would always just pop up and magically teleport into the house foyer/entrance. And no, it wasn't that he showed up after sneaking his way home into the house, he just appeared there. I think if I had boolprop testingcheatsenabled I would get an error log. I don't remember exactly as it has been a while, and the thread I posted related to this has since been deleted since it was originally in Pescado's forums on VS before he moved here.
In any case, the other symptoms that resulted was an invisible object blocking the road, so all my car pools and bus pools would just sit in front of the house, honking until the end of the hour, at which point they magically disappeared. I even verified that there was an invisible object on the road, as when my sims tried to walk across it, there was a point where they were blocked, and they would complain about the route failure and in their thought bubble, they would have a spaceship. One time, the mother of this household came home in her limo (she was at the top of the medical career) and it was invisible. You could just see her and the driver floating in front of the house, almost as if they were in an invisible limo. I tried various solutions such as scorching the road with fire, hoping to burninate and destroy whatever invisible object was there. This only succeeded in burning it and then my sims complaining about an invisible object blocking their path (the thought bubble changed to the trail of footsteps ending at a red X). When I pulled back the camera, I could see a floating set of ashes on the single tile that my sims could not walk across. I was only able to solve this by moving my sims off the lot and back onto it. Not a total loss, and it had its fortuitous side-effects (my knowledge sim mother lost her obssession with her co-worker that she had been having a mini-affair with but then I worked very hard to make her enemies with) but it adds another useless Moved Out/In memory (which only further contributes to any possible "too many iterations" memory issues) and I had to redo my furniture, which was both good and bad, since I needed to redecorate anyways but it was a pain to have to do redo completely.
Oh, and this also brings up issues regarding romance and enemies. If sims do make enemies, there was an issue of "too many iterations" when sims
became enemies, which was fixed by Pescado's nmefix. There should be a way for them to stay enemies much longer, which is accomplished by one of Pescado's mods as well. And it seems strange, and I don't know if this is "by design" how some interactions were inexplicably romantic (such as playing with the handheld, I think MaxoidTom mentioned should be now fixed, and the backrub, which I
don't think was mentioned whether this was fixed or "by design"). Additionally, it seems odd that WooHoo does not affect gender preference, and although that might be something arguably debatable on a philosophilcal level (almost to say that it shouldn't matter who we woohoo with, it doesn't
change who we are and we should be accepting of everyone regardless of who they woohoo
) but it does seem odd that kissing and making out and other romantic actions affect a sims gender preference and woohoo does not. Finally, there's the "design" issue with the Apologize interaction, which frankly, I personally think should be completely re-written as it doesn't make sense that the
Offended sim is the one who has the option to apologize to the
Offending sim. That is just plain backasswards!
I mean, if the cheating sim gets caught, s/he should be the one that has to apologize to the sim that was cheated on. This definately appears to be a limitation and/or glaring error in how the interaction works and I can't understand how anyone would have approved that.
A couple of things were mentioned that will hopefully be addressed:
The piano not being fun after the first day? I don't understand why that is "by desgin" either.
The obssession with the toasting set until sims pee or freeze up also seems to be flawed "by design."
As for the Uni career LTWs, I can understand why they were removed, but this just gives further reason why LTWs should be re-rollable. And it seems a shame that only Non Uni careers get LTWs, because in a way, it almost makes it
pointless to go to Uni. Aside from getting the Uni career related rewards, there is no incentive for sims to go through Uni in order to get access to those careers. I think it would have been better to include those LTWs, and that way it is up to the user whether they fulfill them or not. They would at least have a choice to send the sim to Uni and work towards that goal, rather than not have an incentive at all. Personally, this is a serious issue in my book, and it seems almost pointless if, in further expansions, any new careers are added, but no new LTWs associated with those careers are included. If that is the case, there isn't very much incentive to pursue those careers. Getting stuck with an LTW that you can't fulfill if you don't send your sim to Uni is Just as bad as getting stuck with a career related LTW that
forces or
boxes you into one career. I think part of the enjoyment of Sims is the flexibility in being able to create your own stories and building your characters/families in the way you would like to imagine them to be. That's why it would make more sense to have More options for LTWs that include all new careers, regardless of whether they are Uni or not, AND allow for LTWs to be re-rolled at special moments such as Age Transitions.
Anyways, I've probably exhausted a lot of what I had to say and anyone who bothered to read this as well. I just wanted to throw my own 2 cents in and hopefully keep nagging about the same issues, even if they are "by design" so that maybe the designers would eventually be willing to listen to the players/consumers. Wishful thinking? Ha!
Ste
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