More Awesome Than You!

So I was putzing around in the neighborhood checking out the spawn when I discovered a toddler who caused the game to hang every time I moused over her and displayed an enormous series of asterisks instead of a legitimate name.

Thinking I was being quite clever, I sent her mom off to City Hall to change the little brat's name (her thumbnail wouldn't even show up in the "Change Name" box, but I clicked the empty space and apparently selected her.)  So ma heads into the building and I get this popup:

(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y298/KarateKari/screwyname.jpg)

I can't get to the part of the dialogue box that allows one to enter a new name because her current bizarro name is so long that it heads offscreen in both directions.  I had to kill the game because I couldn't exit the change name dialogue.

I'm using Awesomemod and a few xml hacks (just these four (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15385.0.html)).  I do have the No Duplicate Names option enabled in Awesomemod - any chance that's the culprit?

Also, anyone have a thought on how to fix this name so that the little twerp doesn't continue to bork my game?

I wonder if "editsim" would help? It might hang for a while, but eventually get to the CAS screen. Just a suggestion.

Have you downloaded the most recent Awesome Mod?  Not this morning's, but the one from this afternoon.  I had that happen to me, but while I was trying to reproduce it, the mod was updated so I updated mine (why try to reproduce an error with an outdated mod?) and Sims seem to be getting sane names again.

Edit: To answer your actual question:  Editsim will allow you to fix it, and loading into CAS doesn't even take that long.  In CAS the name will just show up as a manageable ***** ***** ***** and changes seem to be permanent.

I'm about to install the newest version and see what happens.

I'm assuming it won't fix names that are already borked, though...?

I don't know why I didn't think of stuffing her back through CAS.  Asteriskateriskasterisknumbernumbernumber (now renamed Lizbet) thanks you both.

I just got a baby name from hell born in my town. I saw it because I had the option to be informed about storymode happenings.  This baby is somewhere in my town and I have no idea where it is or how to find it. Will this big nasty name cause my game troubles if my sims don't encounter the child?  As soon as I actually see the kid, I will use editsim. But I wanted to know if the star named kid will cause meltdowns just by existing in the game.I'm thinking the 1 AM updates are going to get really really really nasty.. unless I find this kid.

Ugh. Nevermind. I was unable to save the game. The game paused when it announced the birth of this creature and I couldn't unpause the game because the text box was in the way. I'm still interested to know if anyone knows a good way to find rogue babies with bad names without actually searching each house in the neighborhood.

Hey, the new sims 3 challenge. Find that buggy name before storymode kicks in. This should be in the challenges thread.  :D

I got that borked baby in Riverview, I tracked it and I deleted it. I had no other choices, it was messing up my game.

LOL. I suspect Pescado will fiddle with this and auto-rename all Asterisk Tsunami Babbyz "Trogdor Burninator" (boys) and "Delishus Caek" (girls).

If you can't see the checkmark in a dialog box for some reason, just hit Enter or Escape.

Man! That is worse than when my daughter named her Sims 2 family's twins "Baby Lugnut", and "Baby Nutlug"

The only thing close was when I had a cut gem in my inventory and when in jail they referred to it with ***(bunch of numbers)*** but it was nowhere as long although it did lag to display that popup.

Oh, that's it - my first Rock Star *will* be naming her/his firstborn "Asterisk Tsunami".

Secondborn shall be Rabbithole Mausoleum.

I've found with babies named *** (bunch of numbers) you can edit their name even if they're not in your household.  So long as you know their last name, typing 'editsim *** lastname' into the cheat window will bring them up in CAS.

Do you have to type in ALL the *'s or just 3?

Unless there is more than one child of doom, the offending sprog is the Alto child.
At least it is in my game.

Just the three stars, it worked with my game.  In the end I had about three or four sims affected by this (I picked it up pretty fast since I took advantage of the awesome and went around my neighbourhood to ensure the next generation)

I have an offending STAR child in my neighborhood, but I don't know how to select her.  Two of my generations have now met her at school, so she is not aging.  I've never seen her walking around the neighborhood.  She is just in their relationship panel and when they meet her it says, "Jane has met ***.***.***(etc) at school today."  Jane can't invite the friend over, so that I can select her and I don't know how to find her.  I'm usually pretty computer savy, but this has me stumped.  Inviting her on the phone causes the game to crash and the only option is to reboot.  Any suggestions on how I can find this child to nuke her?

Have AwesomeMod use editsim. If your sims have met the child, shouldn't they have knowledge of their last name? Or is that shoved off the screen somewhere?

It's shoved off the screen.

Go to the relationship panel. Prepare to wait for a bit. Find the child and click on her portrait. Choose "Invite Over". You'll probably need to drag the relationship bar up to friend the freak will accept. Then, when she's over, you can either cheat to move her in (CTRL-SHIFT on her) or do editsim on her. You should be able to see her last name on mouseover in the font used there, but I suppose it depends on what resolution your game is at.

It also works if you ctrl-shift-click on it (i.e. move cursor on sim, wait for 6 months for the tooltip with the name, then ctrl-shift-click), then choose "Edit in CAS". Its name will be truncated in the name field, and you can edit easily the bugger.

I kept calling the offending child till my sim had a high enough relationship that she could invite her over.  I added her to the household, changed her name, then kicked her out.

Even though the girl showed she never aged in the relationship panel, when she arrived to visit, she had grown into a teen.  It took me a moment to recognize her, but since my town is deserted, and since she was the only one that showed up at the theater when my sim invited someone over, it didn't take too long to figure out what happened.