I'm running Photoshop 7 (yeah a lil behind) and it's located under Edit: Preferences: Plugin & Scratch Disks.  Tweaking this will help when you are actually using Photoshop. 

I would if I were you.  And make sure your scratch disk settings in Photoshop are set to the E drive as well. 

I don't see that it could make matters worse at this point.  It's already not playing nice. 

How much room do you have left on your hard drive that is running Photoshop? Photoshop needs a rather large area on the disk in order to use that for a swap file, and if you're running out of hard drive space, that may cause issues.  It's possible to set the scratch disk to a secondary hard drive in the Photoshop options, but of course that requires a second hard drive. 

Like I said, it's a resource hog...lol.

Unfortunately I know nothing of W2K. 

If you do uninstall it, and reinstall it, your option of course is to not tell it during setup to do any of the associated file extensions.  I would recommend however letting it open the propriatary file extension format .psd by default, that one should be safe.  Unless you are planning on doing a lot of work with layers, you won't be saving a lot of files in this format anyway. 

I do hope you get it sorted.  Despite the fact that it's a resource hog, Photoshop remains a most excellent and useful image editing and creation program.

Good luck!

Okay 600 photos isn't bad in my opinion, you should be able to handle that without difficulty, especially at the sizes the game takes photos.  They aren't that big of files.  I have over 1000 in my largest neighborhood and no lag of any kind when making thumbnails and I don't have ye uber computer lol  Just middle-of-the road I'd say. 

Are you running XP? And if so have you tried setting it to open with windows picture and fax viewer like I described to see if that opens them ok?

Opening thumbnails from within Photoshop via their file browser option is a nightmare for me, if that's how you're going about it.  Not from the standard "open" and searching for the file, but from their own funky file browser thingy.  It takes forever for the photoshop program to build the thumbnails.  If that's how you're doing it, then it doesn't surprise me to hear that it's crashing. 

I'd recommend at any rate not to use the Photoshop in-program file-browser option and instead go thru windows explorer thumbnail viewer options as I've already described.  It's faster and way more efficient.  A simple right click and open with will launch Photoshop for you anyway if it's not already open. 

Photoshop is a resource hog, that's a given.

What operating system are you using? I am running XP, and I have thumbnails in windows explorer under my view options.  Just select "view: thumbnails" and boom there they are.  My JPG's are set to open with windows picture and fax viewer, it's quick and easy if I want to see something larger, or else a simple right click and open with opens with whatever program I select.  I don't let photoshop or any other editing program have access to JPG's by default because they are such resource hogs.

Just how many photos do you have in your folder anyway?

The game would be forced to create new reporters for you by default, since the reporters were taken out of the pool, same way the maids or any other NPC's do. 

I've had no ill effects from moving in reporters, and it actually fixed the buggy reporter scenario for me by forcing the game to use an alternate reporter.  My business owner was friends with the first two reporters actually from their persistant phone calls after they first met and they never came back to report again, after 40+ hours of real life game play.  I'd call that a bug, not just merely bad luck...lol.  After moving both reporters in, shortly thereafter the game spawned a 3rd one that no one had ever met before and the reporter scenario played out as it should have to begin with.  Neither of the former reporters have attempted to do any reporting-type activities now that they are no longer reporters.

You may be on to something.

As well, the accessory.cache updates at weird times during the makeup process.  Even though I've selected everything and everything should be in memory, lag still persists.  The constant-load-from-harddisk-during-the-makeup-screen-ONLY that JM mentioned seems to be the most likely culprit, and it happens no matter if you have custom content installed or not.  It is clear that this isn't happening when you switch categories to the hair category.

Now, why is there a constant need to keep checking the harddisk for new items? You can't add new items while you are in the game.

This is definitely something that needs squished.  Gah and double gah.

I guess no one else has noticed or has an answer to the 100+ odd mannequin heads that I have in my glasses category in bodyshop create parts even with no custom content installed either eh? I'm still trying to figure out where those came from and why they have no textures.   

Yeah, I don't have any lag at all in bodyshop.  You'd think it's the same content, there would be lag both places, but there isn't.  So there's definitely something different going on...

Has this always been this way? With no downloads whatsoever, I opened up Bodyshop and selected to create part in the different categories...when I came to the "glasses" category, I literally have over a hundred in there for adult and elder female and male that have nothing but the model showing.  Yet when I go to any other age category for creating a part, there is one item that's blank, then it starts with the marked items, the funny goggles that came I think with OFB, then the rest of the stuff. 

When I go to build sims, the adult and elder male and female categories don't show all those 100+ extra items that the create parts screen is showing.

Now, as I said, this is after taking out all my downloads and deleting what I think are all the appropriate thumbnails as well.  Is it normal to have all those extra Maxis nothingness show up in the create-a-part glasses area? Which by the way you can't create anything from, it gives me an invalid texture error when I try. 

Just curious about that.

That being said, the makeup lag screen thing for me definitely started happening with Pets.  I have not added anything new since installing Pets, and whammo I got hit with this horrendous lag in only that screen with or without custom content.  The minute I start adding makeup to my sim, my sim starts lagging the screen tremendously.  Funny how adding clothing or hair doesn't do it, it's only anything within the makeup tab that does it.  If I put the makeup on and then rapidly switch hairstyles, I don't even get that lag, even though it's just as close as when I'm just sitting there merely looking at the sim on the makeup screen (not even making any changes, just LOOKING at it). 

So there's something seriously screwy going on now, and it needs fixed...

This issue is definitely new for me in Pets.  It isn't that the category is laggy per se, it's the animations that the Sim goes thru while standing there.  I don't know if it's something conflicting, or some other Pets-related weirdness going on.  But it's definitely new since installing Pets, as I have the exact same stuff I had as far as makeup and accessories goes before installing Pets, and I didn't have the laggy animations before now.  And it only happens when accessing the makeup/accessories area in CAS...everywhere else in CAS is fine as far as the animations go.

It's beyond frustrating.

Combining the above...

And since my name was brought up yet...lol...I will add my additional 2 cents worth.

Speaking of your founder on a business lot, and aside from comm-skilling/traditional skilling items, and aside from the above mentioned ways of earning skillpoints, you can also gain skillpoints two more ways that I can think of on a business lot: outings and the sim-vac.  Yes, the sim-vac...one of the most overlooked aspiration rewards for this challenge IMHO.

Not only can you suck skillpoints out of those simmies you aren't planning on using or other unsuspecting simmies along the way, you can also suck their aspiration points for a quick boost to yours.  There's no restrictions on aspiration rewards for your founder at all, and whether or not you use the sim-vac on a business lot is a moot point...it can be done home or business lot. 

When you think about it, that's really a powerful item to consider unlocking as your one aspiration item to unlock when you unlock Science.  Then you don't have to worry about which sim is in which career for which reward item.  Just go around sucking the skillpoints out of other simmies.  And if by some weird twist of fate you run out of sims to suck points from from your "other" pool, why not start sucking from those that have already reached the top of their careers?  Really those folks should be just as much fair game as anyone else.  And it's not that hard to repair the relationship hits from the sim-vac anyway.

Hrm, sucking seems to be quite a theme for this challenge...vampires, sim-vac...hehehe.

Just another angle to consider on this challenge...suck your way to the top!


Ivy

*have a cookie and a nerf bat* 

My sense of adventure is apparently lost in making t-shirts lately...rofl.

We are agreeing it just doesn't sound like we are.

Suffice it to say, I believe the best answer would be just to sell the lot without firing or laying off the employees, to a townie for a boatload of money, and then buying the new lot, inviting the new employees over and hiring them in person, making sure of course you have a high enough relationship that they will accept being re-hired.  Everyone wins that way


Ivy

Which means in essence it only helped on the customer loyalty part then since 100/100 is the best you can do for relationship scores, even if it showed a + sign above their heads, no actual gain in relationship score took place.

This would be a tedious one to actually playtest against the guide.  You'd have to have a considerable size pool of employees, making sure they had different niceness scores, and different relationship scores with the owner, and go thru and fire them versus laying them off and see what happens.

I don't know about you, but I don't have the patience for that kind of extensive playtesting...LOL.  I don't play by the gospel according to Prima, and I do playtest against the guide as much as I can, but this one, is a bit much for me to playtest


Ivy

Firing them according to Prima does cause a reduction in both daily and long term relationship and throws them into the furious state, more damaging than if you lay them off.  Even a rejected lay off interaction is less damaging than being fired, as a rejected lay off is only supposed to result in a drop in daily relationship and customer loyalty.  If the lay off interaction is accepted, it gives a small rise to daily relationship and customer loyalty.  To have the lay off interaction be accepted, there must be either a high daily relationship between the parties OR the laid off employee has 5 or more nice points.  That's what Prima has to say on the matter anyway.

I have not done extensive in-game testing of firing versus laying off to prove or disprove any of the above, as I tend to use family members as my workforce first.  Free labor is good

I agree there is no easy way to simply transfer the workforce from one lot to another, you have to rehire them at the new lot.  Unfortunately the Sims don't understand the idea behind "changing locations" LOL. 


Ivy

Well then since the rabbit head doesn't fill toddler to toddler interactions, then it can't be recommended for such things Which was what was originally requested when I brought up the toybox.

I don't blame the kids, honestly...

By the way since typing that last reply, my triplets became best friends with each other due to the toybox.  I cancelled out that silly rabbit thing and sent them to play with their toys and viola, they were ready to be best friends with each other.  How long that actually took in terms of gameplay, I cannot say as I didn't track that.  I do know that since they are currently one of my "aging-off" families my best guess would be "longer than your average toddler time".  But it can be done.

*offers JM some meat from my grocery store instead of a cookie* here ya go, sounds like you're going to need it...lol

Gali, I'm thinking SimJM can handle toddlers a lot better than the real JM


Ivy

Urm, how can two toddlers play with the same rabbit head? Whenever I try to get them to interact with the same rabbit head, it gives me the message "there are no actions available."  Using two rabbit heads, they ignore each other, no +rel gained.  The point of the toybox is to get them to get their relationship up with their same-age-group siblings.  I just had my set of triplets on 3 rabbit heads sitting next to each other for 3 solid in-game hours, no +rel gain.  So I don't understand how the rabbit head +rel gain works between one toddler and another?

They play *wrong*? They're just toddlers...lol.  Haven't you observed that toddlers don't care what you hand them, they will do whatever it is that they want with it? Doesn't matter if it's supposed to be used this way or that way, they've got a great sense of imaginary play that makes it whatever they want it to be at that very moment.  Scratch that...I know you hate kids, you probably haven't witnessed that effect.

I'm surprised you don't just bypass the stage and age them up immediately the moment they are born and just give them the skillpoints you want them to have  


Ivy

It has other benefits, just not related to skill points...lol.

It fills the toddlers' social and fun needs, brings up their relationships and it leaves one less thing for the parents to have to do, which in my book makes it very useful for multiples.  And I think it's adorable to watch them play.

It's all in how you play and what you enjoy.  I love the toddler stage myself, and I don't push them on skilling like some do.  I let my toddlers be toddlers, including dancing to the radio if they want to...just because I think it's funny to watch. They get their normal skilling toys too of course and if they want a skill point, they get it.  They don't all get smartmilk like it's an endless supply, and I don't play with all the childcare hacks.  Yeah that is probably an unpopular view but that is how I enjoy playing.

For my Legacy Lots, the child chess time is spent playing chess with their future spouse...lol  They have to get an early start deciding who is going to be the next heir/heiress and their mates...got to pass that Legacy on somehow! Fun time with siblings is usually red-hands for fast fun x2 after school and again after homework is done, enough to keep their relationship on track so they aren't annoying each other to death when they have a spare moment.

On my non-Legacy lots, my toddlers often spend months being toddlers.  They grow up when I'm good and ready for them to grow up . 


Ivy

Laying them off is supposed to be less damaging to your relationship than firing them.


Ivy

Toddlers can play and socialize together:  link here for example

I have my twins socialize together this way.  It's fun watching them play together and they get to be friends this way.

No hack or mod needed either


Ivy

Yay! I'm so happy that worked out for you!

Yup, the change didn't get forwarded to those only having base + OFB...an oopsie on Maxis's part.

Anyone else missing flamingoes, here they are, they will show up back in deco.


Ivy

So now expanding on that a bit, have your permaplat vampire founder get to the top of natural science and then spouse go for business as soon as possible.  Once the top of your career(s) is reached, quit your job(s).  You of course have already earned all your crafting badges in Uni (since you can use workbenches without actually owning a business) and since you played your time there well, you have a nice nest egg to make plenty of snapdragons, pay the mob and your bills to boot.  Since crafted items aren't taxed by the mob, snapdragons are ideal replacements for home furnishings.  Not to mention, people will come to you that you can socialize with if that's your thing if you actually open a business.  With the unlimited life span of a vampire now you have all the time in the world then to pop out spawn to unlock whatever other restrictions in whatever order you wish, as Frankenbeasely first stated so eloquently back on Sept 6th.  Said spouse/spawn can be vampires too, making it necessary to only get to the 2nd generation to get all 14 careers unlocked.  Death is a part of life eventually, after all...even for vampires...

This does take some planning and work and a little bit of luck on the part of those chance cards...not to mention, you are still limited to 8 sims in a household at a time, which is more planning and yes work coordinating that many at once. 

Does everyone want to play this way? Probably not.  Creative thinking or abuse of the rules? That's for each simmer to decide.  Unless of course vampires, permaplats and not to mention meditation get ruled out next... 

This is of course if you're not bothering to go for the ultimate 0day perfect strategy.


You are now laying down a path for simmers to follow logically to maximize the use out of one item that can be placed multiple times.  It's not a dynamic decision.  Well let's see...unlock natural science and business and abuse snapdragons, save money and abuse the heck out of it until the other restrictions are unlocked...sounds more like a no-brainer to me.  You're trying to compensate for a relatively small portion of simmers that would actually do this strategy.  As you have seen by reading the many forums, some folks get tired of them and choose NOT to use them at all.  If you'd go back thru this thread, snapdragons were mentioned here in this thread as early as Sept 6, after which you decided to eliminate businesses at Uni instead of snapdragons.  Hrm...something doesn't settle right about that to me...either you're not reading what we're writing here, or something is getting lost in translation...you were warned about them at any rate by more than one person.  And it's not like OFB just came out either...there are snapdragon strategies posted as to how to best maximize them, and how to best use them when combined with a business. one such link (copy shortcut and paste and open in a new window if you have a problem with the link...silly gamefaqs)

Along with snapdragons, you eliminated toy making as well.  What the heck do toys have to do with snapdragons?  Robots are already covered elsewhere, but toys? What could anyone possibly gain from a toybench besides some fun from the products? You couldn't sell them until business was restricted anyway...so honestly, what's the reason behind restricting toys?


Playing this within the Legacy Challenge as a handicap, unlocking Business was already one of the top items to get unlocked if you wanted all your business points, however...you are now handicapping your Legacy Players even further.  Without unlocking business as one of your first options, you can't possibly begin to start any of your simmies (other than your founder at Uni, and hey looky there, you can't get all of them either since you restricted businesses at Uni...) towards those 7 talent badges (unless you happen to play free-range style, which not very many folks do).  So way to go on restricting the choices even further in hopes of getting that perfect Legacy Score if someone had chosen the Apocalypse Challenge as a handicap   Even with 10 generations to get your points in, it's now become a case of "all that work for one point?"  (Only two ways to earn points in the business category...the "family business" and via the 7 gold badges-then-die-a-platinum-death simmies).   

Of course, the strategy that I first posted technically falls within the rules, it's do-able, but how much appeal does it really have? 

With all these additional business restrictions being placed within the Apocalypse Challenge...it's really starting to drain my fun meter...

Ivy
edited to explain linkage

I don't know what an image editimg program is...

However I currently use Adobe Photoshop for my image editing needs. 

I also enjoy Corel Painter for extra flair.

And who doesn't love a good Wacom tablet to go along with all that?


Ivy

Rohina, good for you!

Even a whisper can be heard above a scream, provided the right person is listening...


Ivy

Rohina I know without a doubt others are feeling the same.  Thank you for echoing it as well.


Ivy

Okay...well you asked for it...

Oh for pete's sake, quit changing the rules just because there are folks out there who come up with different and clever strategies that in and of themselves already take a lot of work to accomplish.

Not to mention, you are further handicapping your Legacy Players who choose this as a handicap already to play...double whammy on them.  You are making it even more difficult for them to start a Generation 1 business by eliminating an entire category of options for a home-based business when you eliminate all workbenches.  What's the point of going after all your business bonuses then?

When you turn a challenge from "hard to play" into "not fun to play" you are going to turn folks off from playing the challenge at all. I
think you are forgetting that a challenge should be FUN as well as challenging. For some folks, watching their simmies with mood bars
dropping below green with no way to quickly counter it or prevent it isn't fun at all.  I'm talking your average sim player, not a power player here.

Not everyone plays the same way, and not everyone will use the same strategy.  This is where simmer's adaptations on whether or not to use a certain strategy come into play.  They can choose to handicap themselves further or not.  

If you're going to rule against snapdragons, you may as well rule against meditation as well.  Meditation is even easier to gain than snapdragons are.  Your first simmie can merely meditate his way to the top of whatever career path he wants.  Send your elders to the corner of the lot and make them meditate until they die.  Easy way to plan where their graves will be, and no worrying about where their graves will end up at.  Meditate your way thru pregnancy, no worries about hunger.  So shall we now rule out meditation now too?  

And while you're at it, you may as well rule out vampires as well.  Heck they're even easier to take care of, they don't age, and they can still reproduce.  And becoming a vampire is a piece of cake.  So there ya go, guess they're out as well now too?

Instead of rewarding clever simmers for thinking outside the box, you think everytime someone comes up with a "new" strategy that a rules change MUST be implemented or OMG it's a bad challenge now because of it. It isn't. Why can't you just let them play and be happy that they were clever in figuring out a different way to play it?

This challenge still has too many loopholes left open.  But for the sake of those not wanting to work the loopholes, just give it a rest and let them play it out and have FUN figuring it out.  Those finding the loopholes are having FUN finding them. They're going to find even more ways that this challenge should have been written from the get-go that you'll sit back and say "Now why didn't I think of that?"  Let them have their fun, let them discover ways to work within what you've already given them.  Perhaps at some point down the road make The Second Coming of the Apocalypse Challenge that includes the rules changes that you want to make after *carefully* evaluating what you've accidentally left out of the first one.  Give it a few months and give folks time to play it thru to the end.  Gather feedback and then decide what should be changed or not.  

Just remember: Having too many restrictions severely limits the paths that can be realistically taken during a challenge and still succeed.  In a challenge that already has so many restrictions, be careful what you restrict, or you'll lose more players than you gain.  When it's so restricted that only one path is the right path to take, the fun factor bottoms out, and it merely becomes a chore to follow that path to get to the end.

My 4cents, doubled now for mob inflation rates,

Ivy

edited for spelling and formatting