So what's been fixed in NL

[gali]

"Possible work-around for the missing catalog icons:
Catalog icons are stored in the Thumbnails directory under My Docs\EA Games\The Sims 2\.  If you delete that directory, the original files should be copied back up from the Program Files location--if you have University it will try to merge the two." (HatedMaxoid)

THANK YOU sooo much!!! I suffer from this a long time, and as you advised, I deleted the Tumbnails folder from my documents/EA/TS2. Suddenly all my NPCs had want icons - it was pleasure to see the want icons again!

And, you (Maxoids) are not hated - we blame EA, in which you are a branch.

In TS1 I used to know ALL the team (you put very nice credits after playing 100 days with a family, pity we don't have it here).

We understand that EA is interested in profits - but if they continue to supply "second hand" merchandise, instead of keeping the high quality made in TS1 - They won't make profit at all.

The money is OUR, and we can spend it on more quality games than EA games.

Maxis always took care to keep the high quality of it's game, and issued every now and then updateds and patches.

Since EA bought Maxis - we felt decrease in the quality of the supplied games.  I only can be sorry for the Maxis team....

I really appreciate your effort to help us with NL (lol, I bought it, but I am scared to install it, unless JMP gives his OK and fixes.... I am tired of being "Beta Tester" - I want to play....

My game runs now (with the JMP's and Two-Jeffs' fixes) smoothly, and I won't install NL, untill I'll be sure that it will continiue to run smoothly.

And, in the future, nobody can convince me to buy an EA product, until after I get an impression that it runs OK, and EA issues fixes and patches.

[cabelle]

Also, the Prima Guide states that toddlers will only play in the toilet if they are in a bad mood.  Unfortunately, the toddlers would always favor playing in the toilet over playing with their toys. TwoJeffs has identified this problem as something missing in the coding, I don't quite understand it, but he has a fix for it.

As we've found out many times, the Prima Guide does have its fair share of errors.  I found toddlers playing in the toilet annoying too but it is actually similar to real life regardless of mood. Even with a full room of toys, my kids always made a beeline for the toilet if we ever left the latch undone (one of those baby proofing things you can buy). Annoying, but I can see how it can be considered a design feature. However, it would be nice if it only happened if the toddler is in a bad mood.

[Ancient Sim]

Someone has already mentioned the fact that Family Sims don't get their "Graduate 3 Children" want satisfied if they are not present when the third comes back from their final exam, but there is also a similar problem.  Popularity Sims who achieve their 20 Best Friends Lifetime Want on another lot (for instance, at a party) do not get credit, either.  A box comes up saying they've achieved it, but they don't get permanent plat or the Lifetime Want memory.  Similarly, we can probably also assume that if a Sim calls another Sim and they become best friends and that gives the called Sim 20 Best Friends LTW, they won't get their Lifetime Want achieved either.  The second one is particularly problematic because there is no way of knowing when it's happened.

There was also mention of the fact that the Uni careers don't come up in Lifetime Wants.  I know this was decided against because of those who don't have Uni, but PLEASE can something be done about this?  I have hardly any Sims in the new careers because they can't achieve a LTW with them.  OK, some people don't have Uni, but for those of us who do (the majority, I'm sure), can't the game be programmed so it automatically doesn't use those LTW's if Uni isn't present?  I can't see how that would be difficult to achieve.  We all want to see these new careers in our Lifetime Wants, so please can this be done?  It really doesn't make sense for them not to be there.

(Whisper ... off-topic ... whisper ... er ... middle-age lifespan???).

[HRH Posie]

Ancient Sim one of my Broke twins (either Aidan or Avery, I'd have to check ) achieved the "20 Best Friends" lifetime want during his college years.  He actually made the last best friend from a phone call and the want was achieved.  Presumably as the sim that is using the phone is on his own lot, the problems that you mention do not occur.  Unless it is an intermittent bug

[MaxoidTom]

Someone has already mentioned the fact that Family Sims don't get their "Graduate 3 Children" want satisfied if they are not present when the third comes back from their final exam, but there is also a similar problem.  Popularity Sims who achieve their 20 Best Friends Lifetime Want on another lot (for instance, at a party) do not get credit, either.  A box comes up saying they've achieved it, but they don't get permanent plat or the Lifetime Want memory.  Similarly, we can probably also assume that if a Sim calls another Sim and they become best friends and that gives the called Sim 20 Best Friends LTW, they won't get their Lifetime Want achieved either.  The second one is particularly problematic because there is no way of knowing when it's happened.

I had someone try to reproduce the "Graduate 3 Children" bug, but they were able to do so.  Is it consistently reproduceable?  Are there any hacks that interfere with want check trees or otherwise in the related global trees?  I don't want to blame it on hacks, but we've been unable to reproduce this--perhaps we could get better repro steps?  I can have someone look into the 20 best friends thing, but no guarantees...

There was also mention of the fact that the Uni careers don't come up in Lifetime Wants.  I know this was decided against because of those who don't have Uni, but PLEASE can something be done about this?  I have hardly any Sims in the new careers because they can't achieve a LTW with them.  OK, some people don't have Uni, but for those of us who do (the majority, I'm sure), can't the game be programmed so it automatically doesn't use those LTW's if Uni isn't present?  I can't see how that would be difficult to achieve.  We all want to see these new careers in our Lifetime Wants, so please can this be done?  It really doesn't make sense for them not to be there.

(Whisper ... off-topic ... whisper ... er ... middle-age lifespan???).

As for the Uni Career LTW, it was a painful decision to remove these.  The reason for doing so was because LTWs are determined when a sim becomes a teen.  If the teen decides to skip college, then they are essentially stuck with a LTW that is not fulfillable.  Since the user cannot change a LTW, this was deemed unacceptable.  Sorry.

[FatedCircle]

It seems that all the bugs I can think of from my own game have been mentioned already, but I would like to add my voice to the chorus of thank yous for coming over here and allaying our fears and doubts about this issue.  So thanks!

[Ancient Sim]

I had someone try to reproduce the "Graduate 3 Children" bug, but they were able to do so.  Is it consistently reproduceable?  Are there any hacks that interfere with want check trees or otherwise in the related global trees?  I don't want to blame it on hacks, but we've been unable to reproduce this--perhaps we could get better repro steps?  I can have someone look into the 20 best friends thing, but no guarantees...

I don't know if any hacks interfere with it, can't really think of any I have that would.  I know it happened to Cassandra Goth in my game so I don't leave it in anymore, I change it to something else.  I had to sort Cassandra out in SimPE so she could die with a platinum gravestone.  After I'd gone to the trouble of adopting a child so she could achieve the LTW (her eldest two were grown-up before Uni came out), I wasn't going to have her lose it ... even more so as I'd had to keep the silly woman going with elixir for ages.

As for the Uni Career LTW, it was a painful decision to remove these.  The reason for doing so was because LTWs are determined when a sim becomes a teen.  If the teen decides to skip college, then they are essentially stuck with a LTW that is not fulfillable.  Since the user cannot change a LTW, this was deemed unacceptable.  Sorry.

I appreciate this, although of course regular visitors to this forum change LTW's as often as they change their socks ... but ... what I am asking is, can't the game somehow detect that Uni isn't installed and therefore not spring-up those wants?  In any case, wasn't the LTW thing introduced with Uni and not the base game?  I may be wrong about this (probably my age ... MIDDLE-AGE, you know ...), but even if it was the base game, I would still have thought the workings could somehow reject the new career LTW's for those without Uni.  Sounds like very basic programming to me (but what do I know, being in the MIDDLE-AGE lifespan ...).

(Am I getting any better at this hinting thing?  Anyone???).

[MaxoidTom]

I had someone try to reproduce the "Graduate 3 Children" bug, but they were able to do so.  Is it consistently reproduceable?  Are there any hacks that interfere with want check trees or otherwise in the related global trees?  I don't want to blame it on hacks, but we've been unable to reproduce this--perhaps we could get better repro steps?  I can have someone look into the 20 best friends thing, but no guarantees...

I don't know if any hacks interfere with it, can't really think of any I have that would.  I know it happened to Cassandra Goth in my game so I don't leave it in anymore, I change it to something else.  I had to sort Cassandra out in SimPE so she could die with a platinum gravestone.  After I'd gone to the trouble of adopting a child so she could achieve the LTW (her eldest two were grown-up before Uni came out), I wasn't going to have her lose it ... even more so as I'd had to keep the silly woman going with elixir for ages.

As for the Uni Career LTW, it was a painful decision to remove these.  The reason for doing so was because LTWs are determined when a sim becomes a teen.  If the teen decides to skip college, then they are essentially stuck with a LTW that is not fulfillable.  Since the user cannot change a LTW, this was deemed unacceptable.  Sorry.

I appreciate this, although of course regular visitors to this forum change LTW's as often as they change their socks ... but ... what I am asking is, can't the game somehow detect that Uni isn't installed and therefore not spring-up those wants?  In any case, wasn't the LTW thing introduced with Uni and not the base game?  I may be wrong about this (probably my age ... MIDDLE-AGE, you know ...), but even if it was the base game, I would still have thought the workings could somehow reject the new career LTW's for those without Uni.  Sounds like very basic programming to me (but what do I know, being in the MIDDLE-AGE lifespan ...).

(Am I getting any better at this hinting thing?  Anyone???).

It's not a question of whether Uni is installed or not, the issue is that teens could get a LTW that they cannot fulfill if they decide to skip college.  I realize people are modding and such, but we have to make the game for people who do not use such tools and would be essentially stuck--that, it was decided, was the greater of the two evils.

As for the middle-age age-group, I would suggest continuing your crusade with Maxis/EA.  I can suggest it, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

[HRH Posie]

I had someone try to reproduce the "Graduate 3 Children" bug, but they were able to do so.  Is it consistently reproduceable?  Are there any hacks that interfere with want check trees or otherwise in the related global trees?  I don't want to blame it on hacks, but we've been unable to reproduce this--perhaps we could get better repro steps?  I can have someone look into the 20 best friends thing, but no guarantees...

Sometimes the want can be fulfilled after several children have graduated however with other sims it never happens.  I'm afraid I cannot be specific as it is just temperamental.  At the time I didn't have any recoloured objects however I did have the MaxoidMonkey objects from the official site and the following hacks.

amnesiafix
antibabylecture
captainhero
collegeclock
computerchatfix
deathfix
fratfix
handheldfix
hugginghack
marriage-postmortum
moveoutbugfix
nocheeringhack
nocorruptdeath
noroutefail
ONE School Bus Dialog
runtoclass

I believe two are from twojeffs, the rest are Pescado's.

[Kitiara]

I too would like to express my thanks for taking the time to communicate with us. The fact that you are spending so much time trying to find out what problems most need fixing makes me feel better about Nightlife and EA. (I never really felt bad about Maxis)

Thanks for listening.

[vecki]

I had someone try to reproduce the "Graduate 3 Children" bug, but they were able to do so.  Is it consistently reproduceable?  Are there any hacks that interfere with want check trees or otherwise in the related global trees?  I don't want to blame it on hacks, but we've been unable to reproduce this--perhaps we could get better repro steps?  I can have someone look into the 20 best friends thing, but no guarantees...

I don't know if any hacks interfere with it, can't really think of any I have that would.  I know it happened to Cassandra Goth in my game so I don't leave it in anymore, I change it to something else.  I had to sort Cassandra out in SimPE so she could die with a platinum gravestone.  After I'd gone to the trouble of adopting a child so she could achieve the LTW (her eldest two were grown-up before Uni came out), I wasn't going to have her lose it ... even more so as I'd had to keep the silly woman going with elixir for ages.

As for the Uni Career LTW, it was a painful decision to remove these.  The reason for doing so was because LTWs are determined when a sim becomes a teen.  If the teen decides to skip college, then they are essentially stuck with a LTW that is not fulfillable.  Since the user cannot change a LTW, this was deemed unacceptable.  Sorry.

I appreciate this, although of course regular visitors to this forum change LTW's as often as they change their socks ... but ... what I am asking is, can't the game somehow detect that Uni isn't installed and therefore not spring-up those wants?  In any case, wasn't the LTW thing introduced with Uni and not the base game?  I may be wrong about this (probably my age ... MIDDLE-AGE, you know ...), but even if it was the base game, I would still have thought the workings could somehow reject the new career LTW's for those without Uni.  Sounds like very basic programming to me (but what do I know, being in the MIDDLE-AGE lifespan ...).

(Am I getting any better at this hinting thing?  Anyone???).

It's not a question of whether Uni is installed or not, the issue is that teens could get a LTW that they cannot fulfill if they decide to skip college.  I realize people are modding and such, but we have to make the game for people who do not use such tools and would be essentially stuck--that, it was decided, was the greater of the two evils.

As for the middle-age age-group, I would suggest continuing your crusade with Maxis/EA.  I can suggest it, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

What if... the LTW didn't actually kick in until the sim was a YA or Adult?  Sure, pick your aspiration at teendom, then when you either go to uni or transition into adult, a LTW is generated, ignoring Uni based careers for sims that skip college (I don't have any who do, though, they all tend to have a massive fear of being uneducated, regardless what their aspiration is), and incorporating them if they do go to uni (the vast majority).  Seems to make a bit more sense, I mean, what teenager really knows what they want to do in life?

[Motoki]

Someone has already mentioned the fact that Family Sims don't get their "Graduate 3 Children" want satisfied if they are not present when the third comes back from their final exam, but there is also a similar problem.  Popularity Sims who achieve their 20 Best Friends Lifetime Want on another lot (for instance, at a party) do not get credit, either.

Those aren't the only ones either, I've had be a zombie or so & so becomes a zombie wants and fears not be satisfied even after the target became a zombie. I think someone else mentioned the fountain want didn't work. In general, I've found problems with a number of the University wants not working.

[Melancholic Madam]

these may have already been addressed in the Uni patch.

if you invite a sim over to a dorm, once you have greated him/her, they will walk of into a dormie room and not come out again.  my sim greeted then and then immediately they turned to go.  you can not click on them as they walk away.  I had so many in a dorm room that my sim could not enter the room to enteract with them. the only solution was to use the move_objects so I could bring them to a place where my sim could interact with them.  

sims growing into adults once they graduate but no taxi arriving to take them home.  the work around I've used for this is moving the sim/sims into the student bin and then back into the exact same dorm.  they can usually use the phone at that point to call for a taxi, although I've seen where I've had to move them out several times before it took.  same with dropouts.

dormies not moving out to allow for a new dormmate.  the message comes up that it looks like there's no room.  whatever the message says.  and that a dormie will make room.  I had to move those sims out into the student bin also to get the dormie to go.  re-entering the lot did not help.  I still got the same message.   I'm not sure why it happened.  I started with a 6 room dorm and moved 4 students in.  later I added 1 and a dormie moved out.  I later decided to add 1 last sim and the dormie never moved out.  I played over night and had to use a double bed so I could sleep all my sims.  next day I moved them into the sutdent bin and back into the dorm.  

sims getting the message "it's high time so & so got back to the real world",  when they were a Freshman and djust come back from their first class.

I also get dead elders on the loading screen.  so far mine have left an inheritance and a tombstone.  the sims in the house can't use the paper or the computer to move out.  the option just disapears.  if a baby is born at this time, the sim will place the baby on the floor and none can interact with it and it can't be named.  

I'm also wondering why the computer can't be sold back on the first day for full value.  if you buy it to hunt for a job and then sell it back, it's devalued by $100 immediately.  is that design?

I lost part of my post.  I may have more later.  

[vecki]

On individual wants, I've sometimes noticed that 'nested' wants for lack of a better term don't always pick up.

For example, a particularly loving couple of mine will both have the want to 'kiss' and 'make out' with eachother.  I tell them to make out, and only the 'kiss' want is met.  Telling them to again make out sometimes meets the want, and sometimes doesn't.

Oddness.

[BlueSoup]

On individual wants, I've sometimes noticed that 'nested' wants for lack of a better term don't always pick up.

For example, a particularly loving couple of mine will both have the want to 'kiss' and 'make out' with eachother.  I tell them to make out, and only the 'kiss' want is met.  Telling them to again make out sometimes meets the want, and sometimes doesn't.

Oddness.

I've had that one too.

Also, something I noticed with the refrigerator not being able to be selected to make anything other than Instant Meals, which seems to happen if the Sim is out of the room, or behind a diagonally placed door. It makes it very difficult to queue up actions, and if you have a large household, this can make managing it difficult.  What has fixed it for me in the past is making my Sim walk into the room with the fridge, then selecting a food option. Sometimes that doesn't work, and I can have them check the food supply, then try it again, and it works.

Edited for clarity and spelling.

[Kitiara]

What if... the LTW didn't actually kick in until the sim was a YA or Adult?  Sure, pick your aspiration at teendom, then when you either go to uni or transition into adult, a LTW is generated, ignoring Uni based careers for sims that skip college (I don't have any who do, though, they all tend to have a massive fear of being uneducated, regardless what their aspiration is), and incorporating them if they do go to uni (the vast majority).  Seems to make a bit more sense, I mean, what teenager really knows what they want to do in life?

I would say that had possibilities, but then I would have to remember not to let my knowledge sims skill too fast. Often they get the 7 skills want and are permaplat as teenagers. Usually this is in thanks to the stuck smartmilk thing which I Do Not want to see fixed.

[FatedCircle]

Yes, Kitiara, very good point.  The smartmilk thing is rather nice, along with the potty training trick.  Also, the related trick with the medical career reward is rather nice too.

But, I suppose if all the other bugs get fixed, and there's no way to salvage these, I won't complain too loudly.

[Hairfish]

What if... the LTW didn't actually kick in until the sim was a YA or Adult?  Sure, pick your aspiration at teendom, then when you either go to uni or transition into adult, a LTW is generated, ignoring Uni based careers for sims that skip college...

There is the option to change Aspirations that comes up during...what, the Junior year at Uni? Anyway, suppose that when the option is accepted, and the Aspiration changed, a new LTW were rolled, one that included the new University careers?

I'm not MIDDLE AGED. I'm MEDIEVAL.

[Kitiara]

What if... the LTW didn't actually kick in until the sim was a YA or Adult?  Sure, pick your aspiration at teendom, then when you either go to uni or transition into adult, a LTW is generated, ignoring Uni based careers for sims that skip college...

There is the option to change Aspirations that comes up during...what, the Junior year at Uni? Anyway, suppose that when the option is accepted, and the Aspiration changed, a new LTW were rolled, one that included the new University careers?

I'm not MIDDLE AGED. I'm MEDIEVAL.

That is a very inspired idea.

Wait...do we really want them to program more tree checks when it comes to wants? The present ones are broken.

Speaking of wants, is getting wants to du Uni related things like be a personal trainer, work in cafeteria, etcetera in the main neighborhood a feature or a bug? How about same-sex couples with wants to have children? Why doesn't adoption satisfy this? Okay, not game-breakers, the other things previously discussed are more critical, but they bug me, so I brought them up while the opportunity is so good.

Hairfish - I really do think it is a great solution, just asking too much.

[Hairfish]

I don't know anything about tree checks, so didn't know they were broken. I just figured that if Sims can roll up multiple new Wants every morning, and every time one Want is fulfilled, a single new LTW could be rolled up once in their lifetime with only the addition of new code, not changing existing code that much. 

(This is why I'm not a programmer, I guess.  )

[MissDoh]

On individual wants, I've sometimes noticed that 'nested' wants for lack of a better term don't always pick up.

For example, a particularly loving couple of mine will both have the want to 'kiss' and 'make out' with eachother.  I tell them to make out, and only the 'kiss' want is met.  Telling them to again make out sometimes meets the want, and sometimes doesn't.

Oddness.

If you lock the "make out" want before you make them kiss, both will be fulfilled, it always worked for me.  Of course if you have another very important want locked it will not help.

[vecki]

On individual wants, I've sometimes noticed that 'nested' wants for lack of a better term don't always pick up.

For example, a particularly loving couple of mine will both have the want to 'kiss' and 'make out' with eachother.  I tell them to make out, and only the 'kiss' want is met.  Telling them to again make out sometimes meets the want, and sometimes doesn't.

Oddness.

If you lock the "make out" want before you make them kiss, both will be fulfilled, it always worked for me.  Of course if you have another very important want locked it will not help.

Nope.  I've done that before.  The 'make out' stays put, and the 'kiss' gets fulfilled.  A few times I've locked the make out want, and had them kiss romantically or whatever, the kiss has been met, so I send them to the next step of making out, and it's sometimes filled, sometimes not.

[MissDoh]

On individual wants, I've sometimes noticed that 'nested' wants for lack of a better term don't always pick up.

For example, a particularly loving couple of mine will both have the want to 'kiss' and 'make out' with eachother.  I tell them to make out, and only the 'kiss' want is met.  Telling them to again make out sometimes meets the want, and sometimes doesn't.

Oddness.

If you lock the "make out" want before you make them kiss, both will be fulfilled, it always worked for me.  Of course if you have another very important want locked it will not help.

Nope.  I've done that before.  The 'make out' stays put, and the 'kiss' gets fulfilled.  A few times I've locked the make out want, and had them kiss romantically or whatever, the kiss has been met, so I send them to the next step of making out, and it's sometimes filled, sometimes not.

What I mean is that you lock the "make out" want and right away choose in the kiss option "make-out" so both will be fulfill one after the other.

[MissDoh]

I had someone try to reproduce the "Graduate 3 Children" bug, but they were able to do so.  Is it consistently reproduceable?  Are there any hacks that interfere with want check trees or otherwise in the related global trees?  I don't want to blame it on hacks, but we've been unable to reproduce this--perhaps we could get better repro steps?  I can have someone look into the 20 best friends thing, but no guarantees...

I don't know if any hacks interfere with it, can't really think of any I have that would.  I know it happened to Cassandra Goth in my game so I don't leave it in anymore, I change it to something else.  I had to sort Cassandra out in SimPE so she could die with a platinum gravestone.  After I'd gone to the trouble of adopting a child so she could achieve the LTW (her eldest two were grown-up before Uni came out), I wasn't going to have her lose it ... even more so as I'd had to keep the silly woman going with elixir for ages.

As for the Uni Career LTW, it was a painful decision to remove these.  The reason for doing so was because LTWs are determined when a sim becomes a teen.  If the teen decides to skip college, then they are essentially stuck with a LTW that is not fulfillable.  Since the user cannot change a LTW, this was deemed unacceptable.  Sorry.

I appreciate this, although of course regular visitors to this forum change LTW's as often as they change their socks ... but ... what I am asking is, can't the game somehow detect that Uni isn't installed and therefore not spring-up those wants?  In any case, wasn't the LTW thing introduced with Uni and not the base game?  I may be wrong about this (probably my age ... MIDDLE-AGE, you know ...), but even if it was the base game, I would still have thought the workings could somehow reject the new career LTW's for those without Uni.  Sounds like very basic programming to me (but what do I know, being in the MIDDLE-AGE lifespan ...).

(Am I getting any better at this hinting thing?  Anyone???).

It's not a question of whether Uni is installed or not, the issue is that teens could get a LTW that they cannot fulfill if they decide to skip college.  I realize people are modding and such, but we have to make the game for people who do not use such tools and would be essentially stuck--that, it was decided, was the greater of the two evils.

As for the middle-age age-group, I would suggest continuing your crusade with Maxis/EA.  I can suggest it, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

What if it will motivate us to send a teen to college and will give us another reason to make it go through all that part of the game?  It would defenitely help me making that decision if I would see such a want!  Already Elders have impossible LTW to fulfill (when we create them in CAS or if we install University after they were elders) like becoming a "chief of staff" when they are not in that career track and by changing carreer track it won't help them anyway so what difference does it make if teen would have LTW that cannot be fullfill.  Can the player decide by themself if they wish to fulfill it or not, LTW are random and personally I always save before my Teen age so if I don't like what I see I reload the lot and go to the birthday process again so the LTW will be different.  And now in Nightlife we have a new aspiration reward which permit us to change our Sim aspiration so I guess the LTW will change too, so why not include them now.

[MaxoidTom]

What if... the LTW didn't actually kick in until the sim was a YA or Adult?  Sure, pick your aspiration at teendom, then when you either go to uni or transition into adult, a LTW is generated, ignoring Uni based careers for sims that skip college (I don't have any who do, though, they all tend to have a massive fear of being uneducated, regardless what their aspiration is), and incorporating them if they do go to uni (the vast majority).  Seems to make a bit more sense, I mean, what teenager really knows what they want to do in life?

I just suggested something similar, where a teen would age transition to an adult, and if they had a Uni career LTW, it would re-roll.  I'll see if we can put it in, but I'm not sure how likely it will be.  I think the priority is fixing problems that are preventing existing gameplay, though I agree it would be nice to have this.