Good God, how is it even a Sims game? And for 70 bucks? Yeah...no.

I'm having Sim City Societies flashbacks here.

I had problems with the inspect portal too, and eventually traced it down to the photography fix posted on these forums that I forgot about having. Its an XML file, which I understand is more apt to causing problems. In any event, removing it made my sims able to successfully inspect the portal and get Emit to come out.

I also recommend that you triple check for any NRAAS mod updates. I thought I had all the updates for the ones I use only to discover there had been another update for one that fixed an issue I wasted a ton of time trying to narrow down.

Finally, don't forget Shimrod's mods. Many of them need updates for this patch even if they didn't need one in the past and don't sound like they would have any connection to this packs activities.

Updating/removed mods from the three above sources solved the following problems I was having:

- Inspect portal never ends.
- When travel to future the game asks you where you want to live for the term like its a University.
- Emit doesn't consistently give sim the time travel almanac or offer the first opportunity to collect power cells. If he comes out and just stands there like a dork be sure you exit without saving because there is apparently no way to trigger it after that first inspection appearance.

Hope that's helpful to someone.

Took me a week of endless frustration trying to make the game load with my updated mods before realizing this stupid thing had corrupted something in my DC Cache folder. I had to totally delete everything in it and reinstall all my store packs but I can FINALLY play again and all my mods are working. Never had that happen before, but I guess its still better than a total reinstall from scratch.

Oops right you are. I saw Generations at the top of the page and didn't realize it wasn't talking about both games.

Memories incorporate with conversation options.  Per http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Memories :

Memories are usually used as a subject of a conversation, in addition to interests. Recent memories are likely to be the conversation topic and will eventually wear off and not become a topic anymore. Negative memories can be spread by gossip. Sims who have heard a gossip can pass it on to other Sims as well. A topic of the gossip is started by Sims who witness a bad experience, or heard the story itself from other Sims via gossip or chat.

If you build something similar to this you can play both Sims and WoW at 1920x1080 with the graphics turned way up:
http://www.gamersnexus.net/pc-builds/46-pcbuildupg/999-mid-range-budget-gaming-pc-2013

The laptop isn't worth putting any more money into, but its still fine as is for the web, etc.

Yeah, and I have a lovely bridge for sale in a pristine Florida location...

I tried new version on Cloud 9 counter from 50's set as well as the Tiki set and had the same recolor and corner counter issues.

Reran and victory is mine! Thanks Pescado.

So I finally took the plunge and installed with full updating. HELS works fine with awesomemod, but just as with World Adventures my existing families are totally jacked up and unplayable (a corruption error trying to load those neighborhoods). Once again I lose all progress and am forced to start over from scratch...sigh. EA has certainly made TS3 a huge PITA compared to prior sims games.

After the new patch my firepits have stopped working correctly. For example, if I try to roast marshmallows the sim ports a little bit away from the pit and the fire goes out...like its resetting itself if I try to use it.

Dear EA Games,

I hate you.

Yours Truly,
Everyone.

====
Ug, I'm such an idiot for not checking forums before I installed a patch from EA. You would think I would know better by now.

Finally got everything working I think, including Riverview which was huge PITA that took me like 7 attempts to reinstall it fresh from the store. I have retail versions of both games and my original Riverview was from the store too (goodbye Legacy house). I get a weird string of numbers instead of a description, but Riverview is there and working.

Unless there is something I don't realize is gone yet the .dbc file copy method otherwise fixed up my issues. Load times to switch back and forth from adventure destiniations is horrific, and loading clothes in the CAS seems really laggy but otherwise I can't find other problems. I'm hoping this was just giant clusterfudge and not some misguided attempt to inflict more intrusive protections into their game but I'm not so sure with EA's record.

A really big thanks to everyone for all the research and fixes!

A couple generations in my townies all seem to have a lot of money anyway. I have a number of cheap starters they have never moved into while other more expensive homes get occupied. *shrug*

zomg carnival games! I had forgotten about those too! Then when MM came out I retrofitted my boardwalks with rollercoasters. I miss Maxis.

Your best, and cheapest, bet is more memory.

In the end what I miss most is the mountain of custom content I had downloaded. Being able to repaint is truly awesome and well overdue IMHO, but nothing compares to the flood of actually different styles and endless decorative objects made by users so that every house can be different. Being greedy and trying to gouge with the store instead of being smart and having the CC makers keep people addicted for them so they can sell massive piles of expansion packs shows just how short sighted and stupid EA is.

Beyond that I really miss stores and worthwhile community lots. I liked taking sims to go dancing or to buy new clothes, not to mention making new commercial lots...I loved doing that ever since Hot Date. Seamless neighborhoods are great, but what's the point if the town is boring as a result?

The only relatively significant difference I found is that my game starts up in about 37 seconds (awesome mod and skip intro).

ASUS P5B-E
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz 1066MHz FSB
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB TWIN2X2048-6400 (800mz running at 667 because my MB is weird about having 4 slots full)
nvidia 9800GTX+ SSC (EVGA overclocked to 792/1152)
Vista