I'm wiping my hard drive and reinstalling Windows, which means I will of course have to install The Sims 3.  I've got my saves and downloads backed up and all. 

I vaguely remember (and found some old discussion of) the suggestion that it was best to use a no-cd crack and possibly other tricks when installing The Sims 3, to avoid possible Eaxis craptasticness, but it's been long enough since I installed the Sims 3 that I have no idea what I did to set it up correctly the first time.  I have a legal copy of the game, but I still want to avoid the DRM. 

Obviously, I'm also failing at Google, since I can't seem to find any posts describing how to do this in a MATY-approved manner.  I took a look at the SecuRom removal thread and quite a few others, but none seem to apply. 

Am I simply losing the few marbles I have?  Can someone point out to me the thread I should look at, or describe what they did?

As this is an awesomemod thread, that is a safe assumption to make, yes.  Next time, look around the forum and do a search instead of asking questions you have reason to suspect are stupid.  You've posted here often enough to know that!

Right, because it's your tubes that aren't as perfect as they could be (satellite?), but for those of us who are spoiled with pretty good tubes, MATY is still hard to reach because to get to it we have to use Malaysia's pretty bad tubes.  This makes sense, even if I still curse at the site regularly.  I figured it might be something like that that had been causing the problems, but I was still getting pretty frustrated. 

Ok, that makes perfect sense. 

No, but there can be and are multiple astronauts and those who manage to qualify for the position do not become the one and only astronaut.  However, I can understand that there really should only be one Emperor of all Evil or whatever. 

I wanted to mention that I attempted to delete my post after realizing that I'd somehow missed Link's post and basically repeated it, but I couldn't get the page to load.  Then, after I returned to it now, Pescado has commented on it but my post is gone. 

Why, why, why does MATY sometimes just not load pages without me refreshing repeatedly for days at a time, and then work fine other times?  I never have this problem with unimportant sites!   

Please see my post one page back directing another Mac user to the relevant guide someone posted elsewhere.  It should work.  Macs are speshul snowflakes and require some steps that PCs don't, because they hide the file structure inside of what you see as an application.  I don't play the Sims on a Mac so I can't give you the exact directions, but someone else already posted them. 

Kind advice from a lurker:  It is a very, very bad idea to post on MATY without reading the entire thread (no matter how many pages long it is) to make sure your question hasn't already been asked.  Those who are More Awesome will poke you with sporks until you run away in tears.  If you're planning on posting again, read the FAQ:  http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7437.0.html. 

I'm fairly certain that you have two copies of AwesomeMod in your Mods folder, one in the AwesomeMod folder and one just in the packages folder.  You should only need one.  I'm not sure if you have the Resource.cfg that allows for subfolders inside of the packages folder or not; you could test and find out by removing the one that isn't in the AwesomeMod folder.  I don't know if the one from MATY allows for subfolders or not, because I haven't been using them personally. 

Awesome guide!

Installing Awesomemod on a Mac:  http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15477.0.html

There is an entire thread about it, but it is not in the Awesomemod section, so I can understand how you would miss it.  However, do try a search next time, it results in less pokings from the MATY crowd. 

Oh, I remember my beloved Railroad Tycoon manual!  In order to play the game, you had to match the picture of one of 25 or so locomotives on the screen to its name.  To figure out which one it was, you had to match the picture on the screen to the one in the guide.  Unfortunately, the picture on my screen was always so badly pixelated and generally poor graphics that I used to count wheels, stare at the position of the little bells and dohickeys on the locomotive and generally destroy my vision in order to figure out which one it was. 

Ah, the memories!  One of the other games I had, Castles II, made you answer a history question that was in the extra information included in the manual.  Who won the battle of Agincourt?

Of course, this type of copy protection has disappeared now that everyone has access to the internet.  Instead, we get Suckurom. 

I understand the desire for lists, but I've found that the Prima guide is more frustrating to have than it is to find correct lists online. Instead, try the sims2wiki, I believe they're continuing it for the new game, and you can contribute to the correct information!

Uggghhhh!  That's been my preferred way of getting through childcare quickly and ending up with the stereotypical family:  Get mom preggers with twins.  Rush her through to pregnancy.  Save the game, reload until I've got one boy and one girl.  Repeat all care actions twice, badabing, badaboom. 

Not that families with multiples of the same gender are bad or anything, I just like having one of each for some of my families. 

Of course, since we can only play one family in Sims 3, I guess I can live with it until el Presidente fixes it or something. 

It didn't work for me in the arrred version or in the official version.  It seems strange.  Wouldn't it make sense for people to want to type up their sims' biographies in a text document and paste them in, or copy a cheat code from a website into the game?  Everything seems to have copy-paste functionality now, but EAxis removes functions, of course. 

Anyone know if it's possible to export sims/clothing/houses from the Reloaded version and import them into the official version?  I like the ones I made and I don't want to have to try to recreate them.  Has anyone tried it?

The twit above posted that nonsense solely to insert his/her stupid link to a website selling thermostats.  The post itself has no meaning.  You can tell because they bothered to put in a signature that's expressly forbidden by the FAQ in their first (and hopefully only) post.  

Why they think people in this forum would want thermostats, I don't know.  Sims 3 = thermostats.  Of course!  Why didn't I see it before?

The Shift key!  Ahah!  That worked.  I tried the control key, but not the shift key.  Hmmmm... What else can I do with this?  What can I explode? 

Yeah, I thought I'd seen someone mention the bug somewhere in the thread, but I didn't know there was a solution.  I'll give it a try.  

ETA:  I tried enabling debug mode (TestingCheatsEnabled true) but I can't seem to change anything by clicking on my sim, either on her body, her info, or the mailbox.  What am I missing?  I've never used TestingCheats before in any of the games; I've used most of the other cheats but I never bothered with that one. 

I'm afraid that most of my simming before involved a lot of Awesomeware to get things working, and that often enabled me to bypass the annoyances. 


I know there's a way to see the difference in earth color, but it's a pain in the ass.  I do not want to have to stare at the lettuce and compare it to others to figure out what in my huge garden needs to be fertilized.  It's making me go blind get a runny  nose.  Really, it's doing something nasty to my sinuses.  I stop paying attention to the garden for a bit, and the sinus problem goes away.  Virtual allergies?

I'm fairly certain after gardening with several families that the "nice, very nice, great, excellent, perfect or outstanding" that appears in the list is a reference to the quality of the fruit in the gardener's inventory, not the future quality of the plant.  I've seen "normal" quality food in the list when fertilizing that I've then gone and removed from the sim's inventory and put in the fridge, and after that, normal doesn't show up on the list.  At least, if you're talking about the list that appears when you click on a plant and choose fertilize?  I'll test out your suggestion though.  

So is it possible to have twins/triplets that aren't all of the same gender?  So far, I've only seen reports of all boys/all girls.  Anyone have a mixed batch?  It seems stupid to not be able to have fraternal twins. 

I've been playing for about a week now and I've been reading the thread.  I've seen a few of the bugs others have reported, but I've got one that's really pissing me off.  I just noticed today that the daughter of two of my sims is missing one of her traits.  I distinctly remember being able to choose her traits, since I'm annoyingly controlling and generally pretty good at keeping them happy.  I created her with Excitable and Friendly as a toddler, and when she grew from toddler to kid she got Bookworm.  She's still got the toddler traits, but she's missing Bookworm.  Her brother has all of his traits, and he went through the same process, including being created as a toddler. 

It could be that I somehow canceled her traits after adding them.  It's very easy to not add a trait you think you've added to the list, but I think it warns you if you try to leave the window without filling all the trait slots.  Anyone able to confirm or deny that vague memory?

Also, a request for a mod - Gardening for idiots: macro - Fertilize all that need fertilizing with X.  It's very difficult to see which leafy green plants need to be fertilized without clicking on them, and I've got a gardening sim.  If it turns out that different types of plants do better with different fertilizer, it could be based on plant type instead of all types.  Also, as someone mentioned before: macro - Turn on all sprinklers.  Which idiot thought it was a good idea to make us click on each of them to turn them on, and to turn them off?  It's an exercise in frustration. 

As someone mentioned before, for some extremely strange reason any challenge/opportunity items have to go into your sim family's shared inventory in buy mode.  They don't go into the individual sim's inventory.  I'm fairly certain it actually says something about this in the simpedia or whatever they call it.  It's the bottom button of the three on the middle left in buy mode. 

I don't know if this is a bug, but my sims don't seem to age at the same rate!  I made two sims in CAST, in one "family."  They started out as housemates, then got married and lived together for a while.  The other day they had a kid, then a few minutes later it said "Male sim is about to have a birthday!" and when I looked at the sims' age bars, he was 2 days away from his birthday, while the female sim had 8 days.  I'm playing on the default speed, and they were both young adults.  It's pissing me off; I don't want to have him be that much older.  My other family seems to be aging at the normal rate, although the daughter was only a kid for about 5 days before it was time to age her to teen.  It's very strange, since I think the aging time is supposed to be set for each age group, not variable unless it's an elder. 

My only thought was that perhaps the happiness level of the sims affects that too?  My guy sim has been a bit more stressed than the female sim, but I hadn't payed much attention to their ages while I was playing them. 

It most definitely does not autosave my games.  ::grumbles::

This is only sort of true, in my experience.  By the time you reach civilization stage in the "peaceful herbivore" track, you've got several special abilities that let you persuade recalcitrant cities that they like you.  Also, it's entirely possible to build up enough religious vehicles to convert a hostile city even if they're firing on you.  I wouldn't suggest taking on a powerful warlike neighbor first thing if you can avoid it, but once you've got more than one religious city it's fairly easy.  

Economic power acts almost the same way except that it isn't seen as a threat; send enough trading caravans to a semi-friendly city and they'll offer to sell out in a few minutes.  The econ track also has a "make friends" special ability, I think.  I'm not at home at the moment so I can't check.  The only problem there is when another neighbor takes them over with military or religious power before you can buy them out!  

Admittedly I haven't played on the hard level, which Pescado has probably leaped right into, so our experiences may differ slightly!

While the peaceful route is easier so far, it's also sort of boring.  Simon game over and over and over again.  Once I got to the space mode I was enjoying myself for a while but then found that every five seconds I was being asked to go fight pirates or attackers on any of my allied planets, which got to be a bit much!  Doesn't anyone else have a spaceship?  At that point being warlike might be a lot easier, as you get fewer pirate attacks.  Defeating them isn't hard, but I seem to be defending planets constantly and never being able to play any of the other parts of the game.  

I'd like to report that despite changing my computer username prior to installing, it's still using my original username for the creator name on my items.  I'm not surprised, but it's a completely stupid thing to do.  I'm not connecting to the internet in Spore, so this hasn't been a problem, but it's going to keep me from sharing my content and probably keep me from ever letting the game connect. 

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to change the username Spore uses without having to copy all my files over to a new account?  My computer has been getting a blue screen of death when copying files, so that puts a bit of a wrench in the works.   

I wouldn't be worried but I have a very unusual first name, and I don't really want to be sending it out to the world if I can avoid it.  It's too easy to connect it to me.  If I had a name like Mike or Katie I'd be ok with it. 

Exactly.  For those who are still confused: 
I figured out that to be an omnivore and have access to the omnivore mouths in critter phase you have to split what  you eat in cell phase.  You don't have to eat one plant and then one meat, but once you have access to both a carnivore and herbivore mouth, you can have a two-mouthed creature until you get the omnivore proboscis (Said proboscis kicks some serious ass!).  With the two-mouthed creature, you can try to eat the equivalent amount of whatever you didn't have access to before and then go on from there switching between the two. 

Step one:  Pick your original mouth.  In this case I'm saying carnivore. 
Step two:  Eat meat until I get enough points to evolve and buy another mouth.  Keep vague track of how much meat I've eaten. 
Step three:  Get the herbivore mouth and stick it as close to the front of my creature as possible without removing the carnivore mouth. 
Step four:  Eat plants until I am even with the amount of meat I've eaten.  While doing this, attack critters that have the gold token symbol until I am tricked out with shinies.  Once meat=plants, eat a balanced diet. 
Step five:  Evolve legs, and rejoice in my awesome omnivore qualities. 

Yeah, I've taken numerous breaks from the sims, so I haven't gotten nearly as far as a lot of people.  I also kept creating new families that I wanted to be at the same generation as families I'd already played, so there are families I haven't played since well before Seasons came out.  Some of my sims are very lonely while they wait for me to play all the other families up to the right point! 


I know that the game mechanics are supposed to work like regular genetics and it isn't such a problem now that I can get into SimPE and edit the genetics of the parents prior to them having kids, but for a while it seemed like everyone's genetics were borked by the in-game CAS, so I'm rather cautious.  Knowing their hair color also helps me keep track of who they are, as it's something to narrow them down if I forget. 

Wow.  Everyone has such a variety of playing styles.  And you're all very OCD! 

I've been playing the same hood since I got the game when it first came out, and I'm still only on what is actually part of the first generation of kids starting college.  Obviously their parents are actually the first sim generation, but these kids are the ones who I've gotten to "raise" if you will.  They're the second group to go to Uni, as their older brothers and sisters have already graduated and started families.  It was when I realized that the 3rd generation was the same age as their aunts and uncles that I knew I needed to reorganize and stopped playing my favorite sims until I could get everyone properly aged for their generation. 

I have a limited amount of playing time and tend to not want to spend too much of it on organization, which is how things got to be such a mess.  I keep track in-game by hyphenating my sims' last names when they marry (in SimPE), and their children currently carry the hyphenated names.  When the 3rd generation starts to marry I'll have to be a lot more organized.   

Outside of the game I use MyHeritage Family Tree maker, which is really easy to use and free.  It can export my sims' records into Excel if I want an easily readable list.  At the moment there isn't much in there other than the sims' names and relationships. 

I also have several Excel spreadsheet lists of the current group I'm playing; one lists all the females and another the males, their hair colors (I'm trying to keep a range rather than end up with all brunettes) their aspirations, and any other important info.  I use these for planning who they'll marry, as I usually have them fall in love in Uni and wanted to make sure they all had partners.  I don't use any townies or NPCs, so I have to balance my sims pretty carefully if I want them to have a significant other!  There will probably be a few who I'll just ignore after they graduate except to age them with the other sims. 

My goal at the moment is to catch this group of sim kids up to their siblings.  From there I may experiment a little bit more, but I'm having more fun playing around with hair and clothing recolors at the moment, so who knows if I'll get there before Sims 3 comes out! 

I also have a list of names I liked from one of those name your baby websites so that I don't have two or three of the same name.  I can sort them by gender and by whether or not I've used them before.  Whenever I have a new simbaby, I find a name I like on the list and mark it as used.  Does anyone else have a list of names?