Allege. Either your spell checker is on the fritz or it likes the elderly very much indeed.

If you delete a whole neighborhood, of course you don't have to bother with deleted2 because they're all gone. I don't know what happens for a subhood though. I'd like to know the answer to that also. Does deleting sims by deleting the subhoods leave nasty bits around?

Somehow nothing about American business models makes any sense to me anymore I still think that's why though. I heard they put something about resales in the EULA for mass effect.

I don't want to pirate - it's more trouble and I can afford the game. I like having a cd, I don't want to deal with figuring out how to get what I need, finding a site, making it all work. I want to put in a CD and have it work (not that it ever did :p). I just play sometimes, for entertainment - anything that's more work takes something out of the game for me. I don't want to wait for new cracks when patches come out and deal with an extra layer of possible conflicts or problems. It's not that I'm loyal - it's that this is a GAME and it's supposed to be just idle entertainment and I'm lazy. I'd be an ideal EA customer - have been actually.

BUT - I'm not renting a damn game. I end up reformatting my computer. Something goes wrong or whatever (easy/lazy, remember). I get new computers. I want to sell something I bought and I own. Used. And I want it to work for the person I'm selling it to. If they put this on AL I will pirate it (not buy a game and get a no-CD, out and out pirate). I've come this far. I want the rest of the EPs. I'll just skip the stupid stuff packs and won't ever play spore or sims3 because of all this. But if they're going to cheat me and steal what is mine (games bought, stolen by taking away access to them), the hell with it. Chalk up another pirate.

I think it's because they want to limit resales - so you can't sell a used copy of the game. ...even though that's not legal (in the US)

It can conflict with any CD burning software or virus protection you have on your computer. It can conflict with itself or other programs. It might not do anything - with or without a net connect. That's the BV and FT versions.

When the version of secuROM or DRM or whatever it is that's on Mass Effect now hits the sims, whether that's with Apartment Life or whatever comes next or not until sims3, you won't be able to activate the game on a computer without a net connect so you won't be able to play at all. The plastic wrapper for Mass Effect has a sticker on it that says 'requires a net connection to play' or some similar wording.

> "conflict with the emulation software"

That means that the new secuROM is unimpressed with the programs you have on your computer and demands that you uninstall some of your software. Most likely whatever you use to burn CDs. Removing secuROM and waiting for a no-CD recommended.

Does uninstalling FT and reinstalling from disk actually overwrite the new version of secuROM with the old one? If so, bet they "fix" that next. :p

I  think it's worth it - it's a huge list of fixes and people are reporting less lag/faster load time if it works for them. That's my experience as well - my game is sorta mysteriously "better" now. Back up your hoods and downloads first. My Desiderata hood just wasn't there after I patched. I put it back in from back up and it was fine. (Interestingly I've played Desiderata since I put in the previous patch but not my custom hood and the custom hood was fine. Maybe coincidence).

I can't say for sure what's not needed anymore. All the fixes would hafta be tested to be sure. The patch claims it fixed the biotech machine, but does it really? And for both virus and medicine even though it just mentions medicine? Anyways, I pull all my 'fix broken things' hacks and put back in the ones that fix things I notice wrong rather than the other way around. I'd rather not leave one I don't need as I'm afraid it'll conflict somehow with the game code if it fixes the same stuff.

Yeah, they are... but such attractive evil. Ya'll have something in common there.

Oh, good point about the two meshes... but then what would make the 'missing/corrupt texture numbers' show up and then go away if you removed a custom skintone?

Nope, didn't. Did you?

I guess with two meshes for the same texture, the game didn't know which to display so it gave you what it does if the Maxis texture is corrupt?

There's actually quite a few threads about numbers but they tend to be called things like "this doesn't look right" and "black and white dots" and other such terrible search terms. My game crashes a lot (my computer is crap) so I get corrupt game files a fair amount even, or maybe especially, if I set them to be read-only as they try to write to them or something, I dunno. Anyway there's 2 threads in "I broke it" with numbered trees now. Strange-looking.

The black and gray stuff in the pic though, that's not numbers. Looks to me like the hair file is a corrupt game file and maybe the skin tones are something else?

Skintones don't automatically revert to Maxis ones if you remove the customs from the game? I was pretty sure the thread I downloaded my defaults from said if I didn't like them anymore or wanted some others, I could just pull them out of the downloads folder. And I thought you only got numbers if a Maxis mesh was corrupt (like need to replace it from the disks)?

Yesterday my custom default skintones went kablooey - they look like what happens when something is too high polygon count for the game (I'm sure this is the wrong use of the term, but like the vertices stretch all the way out to infinity)? I'm hoping the game was just unhappy and it'll spontaneously fix itself next time I load it as they worked fine before. But if it doesn't, I thought I could remove the custom replacements and just have Maxis ones back again - is that not the case?

In this thread:
Problems with trees and crashing game

down the page aways, someone else had this exact problem. I think the solution there ended up being a base game reinstall, but it doesn't look like the OP ever said if that fixed it for sure or not.

Could be California which has some nice Bigfoot stories and logging for all those redwoods and such. Although actually there are similar hominid cryptid sightings in many places (Mongolia, Missouri, Scotland). Wiki has a nice long list.

I dunno, I still think the Paul Bunyan thing fits best. I can just see 'em skating around a frying pan on rashers of bacon preparing pancakes for his breakfast right before the slapdance extravaganza. I wish they'd put in Babe - I'd rather have a giant blue ox than a big foot myself.

I think lumberjacks for the lakes area, Paul Bunyan and axe-throwing and oversized pancakes, so more Northern US (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minn, Maine) than Appalachia.

With Carrigon's pottery crafts I was able to have a working potter long before FT. I still prefer her mexican and I've-forgotten-the-name-of-it sets for some things. She's also got a really nice martial arts stereo for having a martial arts studio and a ballet one that works better than the silly bar in FT. I don't use the VD or rape ones myself but can see how they'd be useful to others for stories or whatever. She's got a lot of other hacks and items that are useful/fun and work very well.

Since all newborns look exactly alike except eye and skin color, why don't you just change the DNA after the baby is born but before it ages up - shouldn't be able to tell at all.

Or take one of the sims you like, age it down to newborn and use a hack for cloning over to clone it onto the newborn and then have the fairies take the doppleganger away somewhere - that'd be a lot more interesting.

Or, even more fun, if the baby turns out ugly and with a bad personality have the parents insist it must actually be a fae doppleganger and set out to prove it (throwing the infant in the fire, traditionally) and quest to get their 'real' baby back.

Sounds interesting. This might be different enough, and short enough, that I'd give it a try.


I'm not clear on this - suppose the good twin starts to learn cooking by reading a book, and finishes out the skillpoint on the television - are both objects then verboten to the evil twin? Or just the one that the good twin *completed* the point on? If the former... if the good twin started from a book, and so the evil twin started on television at the same time, I guess that's allowed until the good twin switches? This sounds hard to keep track of to me.

If you allow made up stuff, like dying the cat's fur and call it a prank, JM or someone will turn it into auto-gimme because anything counts and it's subjective.

So far as I know, the only way for a child to have someone else do their homework is for the player to tell another child to do it for them, so it's really just a command you're saying the player should make? Also, I dunno about yours but my sims (mostly severely micro-managed) don't actually do their homework unless I tell them do. I don't think I've ever seen one do it autonomously - do they?

The same is true for the teen rule version, I think...

I should have modified - I don't actually consider either Legacy or Prosperity challenges. I love to start hoods using the prosperity system (roll for # of families, # of members of each, ages, aspirations, etc.) and then think up stories to fit what I've rolled and whatever I feel like doing (currently 1920s-ish film noir or neo noir or some combination thereof).

I also managed to get 1 of the toddlermania sets into the hood with a backstory (for myself, I never really get around to blogging and I tell myself stories truly just because I enjoy it) and just townified another, but I did Toddlermania 3 times and 7 Toddlers twice so some of them just got dumped. Too many sims.

Roles to fulfill.. that's a great way to put it. I have backstories and what I've been thinking of as simlife goals (not game goals, the sims have goals) but I like your phrase better. Do you post yours in Made-up Animals? I'll have to actually look in there sometime.


I gave up and put insim back in to set up my hood. I know I can do everything with testing cheats really, but it's tooooo frustrating to find the parts I need and then use them in ways they work (like don't, for example, teleport in a bunch of sims that are in the bin and then turn them into townies with the in-game cheats. You get dupes and if you aren't careful crash the game because one wasn't moved the way the game wants them to be. I'm very glad insim is being updated. I really need it for that kind of hood.

Actually Toddlermania does allow an energy hack, but you lose points for using it... *shrug*. 7 Toddlers doesn't. People on a list I was on claimed 7 Toddlers is harder for that reason - it's not. Toddlermania's scoring (especially the advanced scoring rules) make it a lot harder. And, of course, if I'm going to do a challenge, I do play to win as well. Losing points does not == winning.

I don't usually play challenges either. My hoods are very story-driven... but I like toddlers and enjoyed the toddler ones. They're short so I can go right back to my story after.

It might be just 2 or 3 tops per kid, but that should be all you need to get hygiene high enough to let them potty train again. You usually only need to bathe toddlers once or twice during the time period - at least if their space is fairly clean. I haven't done real testing, but just from playing I'm convinced their hygiene scores go down faster if there's a lot of trash around (like you empty the potties on the floor). Changing their diaper maxes hygiene back out (or somewhere close to max), so it's a great strategy if there's an issue and no time for a bath.

Mine too so I was pretty surprised to discover it can be difficult A family sim truely is harder than some of the others. I did use smart milk and the energizer, but not until the very end of the challenge any of the times I played. The hack would be nice, though honestly I don't use aspiration rewards at all in regular game play.

I dunno about visitors - it takes time to go and greet them (you have more time in this challenge of course) and there are a lot less - with 3+ on the lot all the time a couple of them are bound to be handy even if the rest are just useless (just tell them to leave). An acquaintance happen to have servos in the hood she played the challenge in and they came as shoppers and basically just took care of the kids for her. That felt a bit too cheaty to me, especially as I didn't already have any servos and would have had to make them specifically for that, so I didn't try it.

Yep, is that allowed in this one? I'm not clear on the higher EP rules for it.


I dunno, if you're trying to simulate life, seems to me like you could put both kids on a potty one after another without standing around whistling inbetween. How about, cancelling only to put the 2nd one on as well and then waiting for it for both? Anyway, it's an in-game strategy - the kind of loophole JM uses without thinking, so if you're competing on scores... you need it for 7 toddlers, probably don't for just 2, but in that case it wouldn't change your score either.

Well you're not very good at it, are you? You lose points for using a hack and why bother when you can caffeinate? And you don't need unlimited funds to buy that stuff - it's cheaper than an expensive coffin by far. 7 Todders (the other Toddler one I've personally played) doesn't allow either of those things anyway. There's plenty of money, especially when you use room dividers instead of walls. And the home business brings in money if you need more.

The same strategies work just fine. Pescado seems to have been trying to tell you, you're not doing it right.

I've done Toddlermania (and another similar challenge) several times. Since you get points for each skill trained, and obviously the idea of any challenge is to max points, training all 7 toddlers in all 3 skills is a big deal, and although I didn't quite make it, I did respectably (2 with all 3, and the others with 2) and have seen people do it. Learning to talk is *much* faster than potty training and even walking, btw. The point is specifically to grow them up platinum, rather than make sure one isn't, so that part would take some consideration for this challenge. BTW, you can change diapers a good number of times and still have time to potty train them - every time I've played, all the toddlers were potty trained and I lost a number of points for diapers.

Neither version I've played disallows aspiration rewards but they all require starting with a CAS sim and 7 toddlers (not infants) so getting enough points for smart milk (much less an energizer) is difficult. Most don't get there until the last day (and actually a Family sim is not a good start if you want early aspiration rewards - some of the others are easier. My family got points for buying toilet, fridge, and shower, then rolled 2 wants to potty train (got to finish doing that before you get points for them), a want to fall in love and a want to marry - and since he didn't sleep, they didn't ever roll.) The best (hardest) version also takes away points for every diaper change needed, any time the kid falls asleep on the floor, and any social worker *warning* which includes the one for low social. It's really a difficult challenge.

Nannies are useless - don't bother with one. If you really feel a need to hire someone, hire a maid and let her pick up the bottles, wasth the dishes, pick up dirty diapers if there are any (or if you've run out of time and dumped the potty chair on the floor) etc. She's useful, a nanny isn't. Your parent/caretaker sim should never sleep. Don't bother to buy a bed at all. Instead buy a bunch of caffination stations and serve espresso and leave it there for whenever it's needed. Don't let the sim get all the way down in energy, if energy starts to go yellow, drink caffeine. It comes up faster if you don't let it go into the red.

A toddler won't play in the community lot bathroom stalls, so use those. You can also put the bathroom up on a stage/half platform so the kid can't get to it, but then they'll complain they can't. They won't complain about the stall.

I didn't see, on a quick second run through, anything disallowing the parent from opening a business. If you open a home business, the shoppers will help take care of the kids and pay you for the pleasure. They'll get them in and out of bed, play with them (you'd need to watch the evil twin that one of the visitors didn't solve a social want), and even bathe them.

I played this prior to season's so there was no fall reward.  I made my caretaker group meals and kept them in inventory - that involves the hand and wouldn't be allowed in this challenge, I guess, but group meals of gelatin laying around would work fine. Room dividers keep toddler sims from waking each other up, so you don't need walls. Put the toddler on the potty and just as the sim turns around to walk away, click on cancel on the caretaker and you can use let the parent do something else. If you click at the wrong time (or happen to have the toddler selected) you'll cancel the action and have to empty the potty before you can start again (a pain). Also cancel the potty emptying action and it'll turn into trash. That's faster to clean up. And if you cancel the fed bottle after you get the bottle out, they'll put bottles on the floor and the kids can get them themselves. Since Seasons (or FT maybe) bottles spoil faster though, so you can't leave as many around for extras.

If you need a little extra time, make sure the kid is asleep at the hour marker, and then get the training started. The 'help grow up' thing won't interrupt a skill session.

Maybe put the hack back in the downloads folder where it worked properly? Didn't subfoldering come with NL? I know you could always do some (except Bodyshop stuff) but still if it worked straight in the downloads and doesn't in a subfolder why not just move it back?

Other alternatives - you could have a conflicting hack that needs a specific load order and you've changed the order by moving around the hacks. Maybe you copied a hack by accident and ended up with two? That messes things up.

Also maybe try renaming the folder . I used put all the custom content (walls and floors and sometimes objects) that came with houses in their own folders in a folder called "Custom Lots" and half the time or more, the cc wouldn't load - sometimes it would, but often it wouldn't and was very annoying. I somewhere got the idea the game didn't like having another folder called "Lots" and changed it to "Custom Housing." It's worked nicely since - probably some coincidental thing that just seems causative but still... never can tell.

Nope.

About 2 seconds worth of thought, considering it's a Charlie Brown quote.

Another few minutes to phrase the original reaction in a way that wasn't the very personal 'and how many ex's are you up to now' - intended as a slight generosity which ya'll are running roughshod over very well indeed.

> Jamie'sGranny has a pretty narrow and traditional view of these things.

Do I now? That's interesting.

> I suspect witch could write a best-seller about relationships if she could only be bothered to do so.

Another unmarried marriage counselor...