One of my sims had several children who all looked alike.  I thought this might be due to dominant genetics, but skintone does not have a dominant gene in the Sims.  Since the mother has skintone 3 and the father has skintone 1, then there should have been children with skintones 1, 2, and 3.  Only after using the randomize function did I get a child that was S1 with facial features that were different from the other siblings and more like the father.  The child still has black hair and brown eyes, but that is to be expected since those are dominant genes.

Eww, not good.  Below is what happened to me, which I posted at Quaxi's forum with nary a reply yet.  The thread was started by Zythe, who had a question about not being able to edit characters with no character data.  Quaxi responded a few times but didn't really understand the question I don't think.  Zythe's final question has not been answered by Quaxi and neither has the post by me describing the same problem.  And let me say that in the whole time I have been playing Sims, I have never had it crash my computer to the point where I had to do a hard reset.  Not even a nice little informative message like SimsHost described dumping you back to the desktop.  Nope, I was forced to wait through the whole computer bootup process as well after I finally realized that my computer was locked up nice and tight.  At least I was able to isolate the problem.

"I am having the same problem. I even had a problem with my computer locking up during the game, not just the Sims program, but my whole computer and I had to hit the reset button. I was making changes to Ripp Grunt's memories, and I accidentally changed the subject of his Potty trained by memory. I am sure it was Lyla Grunt, but it just says Unknown. So I used the hex number from his other memories for walking and talking, thinking this would fix it. Well, everything seemed ok until I loaded up the game and played for a bit, and my computer locked up solid. I wasn't sure at the time, but I think he had been caught cheating, and the game was trying to write a memory for it. After booting up my PC and the game and trying again, he was making out with a girl, so I think this must have been a memory marker too, and my computer locked up tight. So after resetting this time, I thought about what I had recently done, and I remembered what I described above. I went in SimPE and changed the three memories for potty, talk, and walk to General Buzz instead, and I had no further problems. However, I would like it to correctly show Lyla Grunt as the one who taught him. This is just one example of the problems I've encountered with not being able to see the names of the dead characters."

Yes, as I said, I wrote him about it on his forum.

It's too bad the old versions aren't available after the new one comes out, like other sites will do, they will keep at least the version previous to the newest release available for download.  I think I will take you up on your offer gali.  I will be emailing you.

I was wondering what was going on when I used InSim's Personal Stats menu in the sims, and they were showing up the opposite of what I had set them to be.  For instance, I set General Buzz +1000 Woman and -1000 Man, and his sats show somewthing like -999 Woman and 995 Man!  So what others are saying about SimPE being backwards makes sense.  How annoying. 

And speaking of the new SimPE, while some things are easier, such as the Family ties editor where you can see the family trees, I don't like how the older relatives without character data now show up as Unknown with a Mr. Potato Head icon!  Someone asked about it over at SimPE's forum, and I posted that I was having similar problems, and quaxi has not responded yet.  It is rather frustrating.

Yes, perhaps we might still get one.   Morague said there is a line that checks if the lot is a dorm.  Perhaps that could be turned off somehow?  I'm not a modder, but perhaps it wouldn't be too difficult.

I agree, a janitor, custodian, or whatever politically correct title they are using nowadays, would be great.

True, but I thought it would help at least, because I feel like veilchen said above, students living in a dorm shouldn't have to pay to get their toilets fixed or spend their time unclogging them.

In case anyone is interested, Morague just made a "No Clog Toilets in Dorms Mod" over at VS.  You can find it here:

http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/showthread.php?threadid=1902

You are so lucky, veilchen!

This is true.  That's why I would like a mod to suppress this behavior so they can get on with whatever I want them to do.

Even college kids will want to learn how to cook everything if they haven't already learned.  I believe I know what you are talking about "seeding" a skillpoint.  If you have them study a certain skill, then they will want to reach the next point, and the next, and so on.  I also learned how to get couples to want to woohoo.  Usually they will want to talk or something, and once the flirt want rolls up, you do that, then the second flirt rolls up, and then they want to kiss and makeout, two different wants at the same time.  Once you have them make out, that satisfies the kiss want, and then the makout want when they finish.  Most of the time, this will cause a Woohoo with X want to spin up, and you can lock this or fulfill it right away for big points.   I don't know if this is something new in university, but it happens a lot now.

I really don't think they are boasting or saying how incredible they are.  Sure it gets annoying, but I really think they are just glad to be home, as one poster said, and they are yelling to their family to greet them and let them know they are home.  They hold out their arms like they are ready to hug everyone and they holler what sounds like Hey I'm home!

I like family sims and I really have had no problems with them not paying attention to their kids or going into aspiration failure.  I have a lot of family sims, and I had to start playing the other aspirations for variety.  I think the way you play the sim drives their wants.  It seems the more you have a sim do something, the more that will show up in their wants.  Even fortune sims who seem to do nothing but want stuff will spin up wants to do stuff with friends and family if you keep having them do it.

I think all aspirations have their good and bad sides, with good wants and those that drive you crazy.  For instance, I like the knowledge aspiration, but the be saved from death want gets on my nerves.  How many times can you be saved from death?  And constantly wanting to see ghosts, even when there aren't any around.  And when they are teens it seems they want to do nothing but learn how to cook cereal (?) mac and cheese, turkey, etc.  Some of these I'll indulge, but there is no way to get all of them, but they will clog up the wants for days.

I've noticed the same thing.  At least when they are being encouraged to be active, they stand right there and do jumping jacks or squats or whatever.  But when being encouraged to be grouchy, they go looking for someone to be mean to.  So I have to make sure everyone in the house is busy doing something or else.  I had everyone on the phone calling friends, but when one hung up, there the kid went after them.  I didn't think of using power idle. 

What is funny is when the parent encourages the kid to be grouchy, the kid makes a 'nyah-nyah!' face at them, and the parent folds their arms, leans back, and looks huffy, but then claps their hands and cheers.

Yeah this is what I did, after struggling with radius, which never quite worked right.  I also used moveobjects on to be able to place the toilet paper in the stall under the window, since it wouldn't let me put it there normally, although it never has a problem occupying the same space as the toilet, shower, or sink.  I've been lazy about design, but I'm learning more about it, and it sure makes life easier when things are designed properly.  I just get worried about something bugging the lot and having to bulldoze it and start over. 

I never understood this either.

When I changed his aspiration at his Junior year, he no longer had these wants.  I switched him to family, and he started wanting to be best friends with other people.  I changed him back to knowledge, and his wants returned to the same as they were.  I decided to leave him because I wanted to keep the Max 7 skills LTW.

I have Family sims spin wants to play with their kids all the time.  It's all they want to do.  So I don't understand why your sims are wanting to ignore theirs.  My Brandi Broke wanted to hug and play and talk to Dustin and Beau all the time, and the same with her others when they came along.  I got her a handsome guy to marry, and she was happy as a lark.  I like Family sims myself, and Knowledge sims. 

I recently had something funny happen with a Knowledge sim.  It was one of the secret society members at Sim State.  My sim is engaged to him, and he moved into the dorm.  All he wants is to flirt with her, talk to her, makeout with her, woohoo with her, and the one that always comes back is WooHoo in the hot tub.  He cares nothing about schoolwork or skill points, although I make him do them.  As a result, it's not hard to keep him happy as his girlfriend is always happy to oblige him, but she is a knowlege sim and while some of her wants revolve around him, she also has the typical wants of doing her assignment and writing a term paper.  Weird!

That's what I was thinking, you have to make sure there is space in front of the TV for workouts, but I'm sure that could be worked with.

JM, do you think you could put something in where if one activity fails, it will choose another?  Like if a mirror or TV was blocked, it would choose something else instead of continuing to try that same one.

If you use the expensive telescope, you can use debug cheats to get your sim abducted.  (You can do this with the cheap telescope, but there is no reaction to it as with the expensive one, your sim just gets sucked up in the sky.)  Since my video card is not capable of cut scenes, I have never seen them, but I can get a lot of pictures of the sim's expression as well as the other sims gathered around.  Unless they are knowledge sims, family members will be horrified and have a bad memory.  Maybe you could disable cutscenes in your video preferences to be able to take these pictures.  I'm not sure if you can take pictures of a cutscene since I've never had them.

Recently I've had several bathroom sinks get stuck with the water running.  The animations and the sound are as if someone left the water running, but it's not broken.  The water doesn't overflow the basin.  Forcing an error does nothing.  Sometimes having a sim wash hands or get a drink will reset it, but the only way to fix it seems to sell it and buy a new one.  It doesn't cause any problems in gameplay, but the sound is annoying.  It's the cheap bathroom sink, and it happened several times in a dorm, and now it happened in a house in the regular neighborhood.  Anyone else have this happen?  The bugs continue...

I'm thinking that's the best thing to do, especially if you can't figure out how to fix it.  I would rather use the skillinator rather than micromanaging the thinking cap and bathroom breaks and such.  Do you know why the radio doesn't always have work out available?

I had a similar problem.  I had to move this family out because of a bug with the school bus.  She did not have the option to get on the bus at all, altho her sister did.  So I moved them to the family bin.  I bulldozed their house, and imported the same house from another copy of Pleasantview.  This was an empty house except I packaged it with Inge's moveout objects stayer so not all the objects were sold.  No sims though, and this was after I installed Uni.  When I moved the family back in, I received an error (with debug mode enabled) about CAS or something, I am not sure.  Daniel Pleasant had only 5 want slots, and Mary-Sue only had 4.  They each had one want lock.  The teens had 4 each but they were blank except for the ones I had locked before they moved out.  I used the Aspiration adjuster from the Insimenator to add the want slots and locks back, and I used it to refresh their wants several times.  I was concerned at first, but eventually they got straightened out.  With the girls, I couldn't get their blank wants to roll over, but the locked want was to reach charisma level one.  So I sent them to do that, which didn't take very long, but when they did, all their wants came back as normal.  Everything seems to be progressing normally now, and the one that had problems with the bus is now able to go to school normally.

JMP, why is the "unfriendly" option not available for everyone under Macro Socialize?

I don't think they are "bragging" about how great they are.  I think this is coded into family sims as a way to greet their family when they get home.  Kind of like saying, "Hi Honey, I'm home!"  Usually everyone is too busy to pay attention tho, so I cancel the "work" icon and they go about their life.

He said he was delayed in getting Uni due to "security."  Not sure what that refers to though.  He did update some of his mods before he actually had the expansion though.  I think he said he was working off of code differences.  I think Boris helped him with that.  Where is this mysterious Boris anyway?  Where does he live?  Why do we never hear from him?

I don't do challenges either, but from what I've read, moveobjects and "boolprop" are only allowed to fix "bugs," such as stuck chairs and such.  I am not sure what all qualifies as a bug, but you could justify a lot of things and call them bugs.

I am definitely certain that 'motherlode' is not allowed (except in strict exceptions, i.e., setting up the lot.)

I don't remember having this problem with the Admire interaction in Sims 2.  I remember in Sims 1 that a "spouse" (or someone who was in love with them, since they didn't technically have spouses then) would come over and slap them silly anytime they admired someone.  I didn't think this should have been a romantic action, and I remember thinking that they seemed to have fixed it in Sims 2.