Holiday X-mas Pack - Is it worth it? Please report all bugs and "issues" here

[miramis]

RE: NL movies

Are you kidding?!  That's quite disappointing, they could have at least made one for the vampire biting a playable sim for the first time, I was looking forward to seeing something like that.  

I'd have thought it would be downloaded wherever you wanted, the installation would probably take care of the rest if there is an install program with the downloadable version.

[vector]

Will somebody please explain this Father Time thing, because I've only seen it referred to a handful of times and I don't really understand. Nice, small words with colour pictures, please. New Year Toddler?

Help!

ps: gotta agree about the dancing snowman, he's too funny.

[cristalfiona]

There isnt an install file - it was a rar file, with a very mixed up readme file, and some files that my computer cant open. So right now its in my downloads folder. When I can be bothered to play again, it might get moved somewhere else. Probably to program files, but no ideas if that doesnt work.

[miramis]

Father Time

Well I missed him, I can't remember if there was a popup at midnight saying something, all I know is the sims started heading out of the house together with 'see new year' or something like that in their queue.  When I scoured the lot (the biggest lot and my house is on the left edge near the back) I found a toddler standing up at the very right hand edge of the lot, the toddler began to dance - it might have bowed at the end but it could be my imagination - and that was it. *shrug* So now you know as much (or as little) as I do about it    If you have the pack go into CAS and look at the toddler outfits, the one with just a nappy and a sash is the one the Toddler New Year wears.

[SaraMK]

There isnt an install file - it was a rar file, with a very mixed up readme file, and some files that my computer cant open. So right now its in my downloads folder. When I can be bothered to play again, it might get moved somewhere else. Probably to program files, but no ideas if that doesnt work.

I sent you a PM.

[SaraMK]

Will somebody please explain this Father Time thing, because I've only seen it referred to a handful of times and I don't really understand. Nice, small words with colour pictures, please. New Year Toddler?

Help!

ps: gotta agree about the dancing snowman, he's too funny.

Father Time is who you get if you choose to throw a New Year's Bash. This is a new "Throw Party" option on the phone.

The party starts at 8pm. Around 10-11pm he will appear on the lot. Then usually he will fall asleep somewhere on the lot. Then he will wake up and dance like crazy. Then explode in a flash of light and turn into a toddler. Dance like crazy some more. And vanish.

[vector]

Rrrright. How extremely odd. Is this an american (or other foreign) thing that we poor Brits don't get, then?

vector,
Absolutely baffled

[SaraMK]

Rrrright. How extremely odd. Is this an american (or other foreign) thing that we poor Brits don't get, then?

vector,
Absolutely baffled

I have no idea. I'm American and had never heard of Father Time until now either. But then I'm kind of sheltered... as in I spend most of my life in my room, playing games and reading books. It may be one of those things that everyone knows about and I'll feel very stupid when someone points out that it's some huge American tradition that EVERYONE knows about unless they're a real FREAK.

[miramis]

He appeared at 10pm?  I can't believe he was there and I never saw him once, he could have appeared while I was playing with the fireworks I suppose.  He generated by the christmas tree I take it?  I'll have to try that one again.

Father Time is something I remember reading in books as a child, with other characters like the SandMan.  It may have been one of Enid Blyton's books, perhaps the Magical Faraway Tree series or something.  I think it's quite an old thing but I don't know much about it.

*Edit*  Just wanted to add that I'm British too, Welsh to be exact 

[cristalfiona]

Used to love that series (and most of Enid Blyton other books).

I remember reading about father time before, hes in some old legends, but I havnt got my books with me, so I cant check which ones.

[vector]

I'm remembering something really vague from CS Lewis's Narnia stuff.

What was the one with the giants? And Puddleglum the marshwiggle? There was a giant sleeping underground or something in that one, IIRC, and maybe called old father time or something. Oh, I dunno. It's been a long time since I read the Narnia books.

[cristalfiona]

Me too, they look so small now compared to other books i read. Cant remember what that on was, but on the plus side, the films out next month!

And I think we have successfully dragged this thread totally off topic.

Although I want this now just for the dancing toddler. I love being totally creeped out when Im home alone 

[Sagana]

Father Time isn't American. Like Santa, and most of our holiday traditions, American immigrants brought him from Europe. Father Time is the representation of time itself, related to the Greek Chronos and Roman Saturn. He's a sun-god and "dies" on the shortest day of the year to be reborn as the New Year's baby. Like Chronos and Saturn (and Death, who is naturally related to the figure of time) he carries either a scythe (to cut down life) or an hourglass. Saturn is also an agricultural god and the reaping instrument is appropriate in that context. Saturnalia (Saturn's celebration in Rome) was celebrated in December and our New Year's contains the remnants of the pagan end-of-the-year holiday - those that didn't get rolled into Christmas. Both Christmas and New Year's contain elements of the "summer king"/"winter king" theme of the end of the year.

Just think of him as sort of an externalization of the idea that the sun will come up anew tomorrow

[SaraMK]

He appeared at 10pm?  I can't believe he was there and I never saw him once, he could have appeared while I was playing with the fireworks I suppose.  He generated by the christmas tree I take it?  I'll have to try that one again.

The time varied in my game, but always between 10 and 11pm.

I didn't notice him the first time either, until all the sims ran upstairs to see him dance. I had him come three times to the same lot, and he always went to sleep in that one lawn chair on the upstairs patio.

He will get generated by the tree, just like Santa. Unless you don't have the tree on the lot, in which case I guess he'll appear in some totally random location.

[syberspunk]

Edit: It looks like sagana beat me to it (with regards to Father Time). Also, ahem, SaraMK, can I get a certain PM too... 

Edit: and I'm really sorry syberspunk, I know you started this thread in frustration at diverted threads. I apologise & will stop now. I forgot where I was when I responded to baratron.

Hehe, now I regret making that little comment. Not completely because it is how I feel so I'd be dishonest if I said I didn't mean it. But... that shouldn't stop you or anyone from responding to other peeps. It's just a tiny bit of a pet peeve, but I'm not that anally retentive of a killjoy. It really doesn't upset me that much if at all. I've been guilty more often than not of doing it myself. I just mentioned it to be a troll about it because so many people do it. It's not as bad here, because I find that in general, the IQ level is better than average, and more often than not, it can be entertaining to read. But in certain other places, where people just tend to post single word or single sentence posts, where they are just so ludicriously and enthusiastically happy about being the first to respond (to a download no less) is just plain retarded in my book. I feel that, if you don't really have something important to say, then why bother posting? It's a waste of bandwidth. But then again, who am I to complain, considering just the amount of verbal spewage that I'm guilty of, when even responding to something as simple as this. Hehe.



@hairfish, miramis, vector, and SaraMK - Thanks for your replies. I think that somewhat rejuvinated my interest, or at least reminded me why I love the Sims 2 so much in the first place. For all the crappity buggy stuff that happens, there can be a lot of fun, cute, and enjoyable stuff too. I might come off a tad embittered and jaded, so maybe I'm giving a bad impression. It's just a shame is all that a lot of the other stuff is kinda buggy.

It's sad that it appears the community just seems so much more knowledgeable about the game than the developers. Especially when it somes to such practical things as adding content, like how it would have made so much more sense to have recolours of certain objects rather than separate individual objects. That just seems so simple to do, and yet the way it was actually done seems to have been a result of pure laziness on their part. What is so irksome is when a product is so blatantly a result of being rushed through just to get released by a certain time, rather than actually thought through and thoroughly tested.

As for Father Time, well I can't recall when I first heard of it, and I can't imagine that it is exclusively an American invention. Actually, here is more info. Isn't google awesome? So apparently, it is european (Greek/Roman) in origin. There's also other info about New Year's in general. Anyways, that part does seem kinda cute as well. But I don't know if I like the idea of these invisible best friends thing. Who knows what kind of buggy stuff might result from that. If only I could easily detach myself from my sims. I mean, I already ditched my original neighborhoods and started from scartch. But that's because I really wanted to have my sims go through dating from the get go. But since this game now has generations, it's much harder to have to chuck the whole thing. It wasn't as bad for me since I'm such a slow player anyways, and I didn't even have any second generation sims. But from this point forward, I intend to "play for keeps" (as soon as the romancemod is updated ) and I really would hate to chuck a 'hood if it has the potential of turning into a BFBVFS. The funny thing is, despite the slow way that I play, I'm such a worry wart about it regardless of the fact that I was probably no where near close to a BFBVFS. But the mere idea that it could happen disturbs me to no end. I should just relax and tell myself it's "just a game" but I'm sure many of you have felt the pain of losing data before. Case in point - our original XBOX got fawked and I had painstakingly built up so much progress in SW:KOTOR. Once again, I was a slow player, and I only had barely gotten through 2 of the planets (the one you start out with and Tattooine) and I was maybe halfway through Kashyyyk. But still, it was pretty devastating. I had to start from scratch, which kinda blows, and I've been slow to play it again. I'm barely halfway through the first planet. Despite having a harddrive, I kinda wish I had my game saves on a memory card.

Ste

[baratron]

Hehe, now I regret making that little comment. Not completely because it is how I feel so I'd be dishonest if I said I didn't mean it. But... that shouldn't stop you or anyone from responding to other peeps. It's just a tiny bit of a pet peeve, but I'm not that anally retentive of a killjoy.

Not with an avatar like that . All us pervs who like to see boys kissing get plenty of joy from you .

*lots of stuff I agree with snipped to avoid quoting it all just to say "me too"*

But from this point forward, I intend to "play for keeps" (as soon as the romancemod is updated ) and I really would hate to chuck a 'hood if it has the potential of turning into a BFBVFS. The funny thing is, despite the slow way that I play, I'm such a worry wart about it regardless of the fact that I was probably no where near close to a BFBVFS. But the mere idea that it could happen disturbs me to no end. I should just relax and tell myself it's "just a game" but I'm sure many of you have felt the pain of losing data before. Case in point - our original XBOX got fawked and I had painstakingly built up so much progress in SW:KOTOR. Once again, I was a slow player, and I only had barely gotten through 2 of the planets (the one you start out with and Tattooine) and I was maybe halfway through Kashyyyk. But still, it was pretty devastating. I had to start from scratch, which kinda blows, and I've been slow to play it again. I'm barely halfway through the first planet. Despite having a harddrive, I kinda wish I had my game saves on a memory card.

I fear the BFBVFS as well, and my sims virtually never have children. It's just one of those things that, if you really care about your game, you can't help but worry about. Imo, anyway. As for losing data, I have 2 memory cards for the PS2 and four for the GameCube, and I back up all my saved games on multiple cards. Isn't that sad? Just a few times I've had my save game get corrupted through things like the console losing power while saving, or accidentally turning it off at the wrong time, and when you're 70% through a game, having to re-do all that takes a while, even if you have a good memory and can remember how to do it.

It horrifies me when I see people on the forums who don't regularly back up their Neighbourhoods & Downloads folders. I think "It's technology! Sod's law dictates that it will break down, the only question is when?". Mind you, people also accuse me of paranoia, so .

[cristalfiona]

It horrifies me when I see people on the forums who don't regularly back up their Neighbourhoods & Downloads folders. I think "It's technology! Sod's law dictates that it will break down, the only question is when?". Mind you, people also accuse me of paranoia, so .

Im not one of those people, i currently have 4 copies of my entire sims 2 folder on my desktop in rar files, each spaced 2 weeks apart, 'just in case'. And all of the downloads since the oldest one copied into a temp downloads folder. With datesso i can delete as necessary. Im a paranoid type of person too.

[miramis]

I rarely backup, every time my game goes *bang* I shrug and re-install.   Starting anew can be refreshing.

[witch]

I recently received MS SyncToy. I keep my C & D drives synchronised with all my personal stuff and my sims2 stuff. I back up my n'hood before I play, every time. (Well not more than once a day). I back up downloads and savedsims before I add any new content or hacks. It does save time in the long run. I only delete backups when they're 3 or 4 months old, partly because I have the room, partly because a BFBVFS can start in small ways, long before it is noticeable so I can go quite a way back in sim history.

I had another freeware program to sync backups, I may have to go back to it, MS SyncToy was playing up last night. I might have got too complex for it, it's very much the Microsoft wizard way as in, 'click to tell us what you'ld like to copy' & 'click to tell us where you're going to put it' patronising bullshit.

[dewshine]

Since it overwrites the main executeable, does that mean it also updates/overwrites the objects.package?

IMO? No. Not many new interactions. The mistletoe sounds like trouble and slaps and fights waiting to happen. Santa didin't impress me much. He's anorexic and left me coal.

Do you mean that figuratively or literally? Lol. Can the Santa NPC actually leave you coal? Cuz that is somewhat funny to me.

I forgot about the mistletoe. I wonder, does it allow anybody to kiss? Or does it restrict it to non-family, and only if you are in crush/love/engaged/married. I personally think that it should be like a family kiss between family members, a platonic kiss between friends or best friends, and a romantic kiss if you are romantically involved. It should only be rejected if a) you hate the person, b) the person is a total stranger, or  c) you're in a bad mood.

I had an issue with baking cookies where they dissappeared. It's related to a download but not a custom food but which one is anyone's guess. I don't feel like taking them all out one by one to check and taking the foods out didn't fix it but taking them all out did.

By download, do you mean all of your downloads? Including game hacks/mods (i.e. hacks that modify bhavs)? Or do you mean only your object mods (i.e. hacks that either modify existing objects or add completely new objects that have their own GUID and custom bhavs such as mood adjusting paintings, etc.)?

If you only mean objects, and it isn't custom food that conflicts, I imagine it would have to be some kind of object that modifies kitchen related objects (the fridge, oven, etc.). But... if you mean that you had to take out your game mods as well, that's a bit crazy (not you of course, I mean Maxis ). My guess is that hopefully it would be a food related mod, like Serve Everyone or smartserve? I can't think of any other game mods that change the way food is prepared/served off the top of my head. 

Besides Santa being skinny? :p I dunno, I guess the fact that the cloned all the window meshes to make frosted windows rather than doing them as recolors annoyed me.

Hrm... about the windows, that is lame. I wonder if those were included in the object count of new items. It woulda made more sense to make them recolours so you can just change the "colour" rather than having to replace the entire window. Who's idiotic idea was that? I wonder if it adds more to loading time, loading an entire set of objects rather than just recolours.

As far as Santa being skinny is a bit annoying... couldn't you just take control and edit their body somehow? Maybe make their fitness realy low? It really irks me that there aren't a variety of body types/meshes in the game to begin with. I really like some of the body meshes out there, like beosoboxboy (sp?) and marvine's stuff is really hot and faeriegurl's fat body meshes as well are very cool. I wish there was a lot more variety in the game like there seemed to be in the original sims. It's a shame we only start with two choices in CAS/BS: skinny, and not so skinny.

Although these cool body meshes look awesome in game, if I understand it correctly, I don't think they would get inherited via genetics? I could be wrong. I  hope that Maxis might eventually someday release an EP that adds more variety to genetics, body shapes and types, skin tones, hair, etc. I think it would be great if they ever do a Superstar update, this could be included as part of the fashion aspect.

Ste

Actually the BBB and Marvine meshes do have special linked skins that pass on the mesh with the genetics.  And there are tutorials for linking other meshes to skiins to do the same thing.