You guys are usually smarter about this stuff than most forums I know of so let's try this here first

We have a Dell Dimension 4600 & my husband bought PC3200 1G memory deal (sorry I don't know crap about this stuff)  We previously had 512mb.  Well he tried installing it but once he gets it in and starts up the computer and looks in the control panel it still shows that we have just 512mb installed. 

So what are we doing wrong?  Let me know if you need more info.

I was quite surprised to see my first sun tan sim..especially since I use custom default skins among other custom skins.  But my sim turned darker in the summer.  I did not have him layiing out in the sun though or anything so is it just something that happens in the summer season?

I'm still annoyed by the fact that most of my water surrounded terrains do not make suitable terrains for my beach lots.  There is always massive hilliness or steep slopes involved.

Have to add my thanks for this baaaaaah hehe

Will pass.  In fact I forget the last time I even used a EAxis patch at all and my game has been fine & dandy with just my hacks.

Interesting, I'll have to grab this fix b/c I have a home beach lot with 3 kids and they have practically filled the thing up with sand castles when I am not paying attention.  In fact I need a damn no autonomous building of sand castles hack 

With BV, having sims save up to buy a vacation home is a pretty good way to burn some money.  I have yet to build anything overly impressive and it is 70-80k for a nicely furnished home.

Same here.  Before this EP I downloaded SO MUCH Asian themed stuff, so clearly I have no issue with having more.  And now that I can actually build places that look Asian...with the new roofs and stuff...w/o having to learn any fancy building techniques...woohoo even better b/c I am lazy like that.


Maybe it sounds a bit corny *giggle* but I agree.  The first time I set up a pretty beach lot I was like oooooooo look at the pretties!  Can honestly say that is the first time this game has spawned such a reaction from me.

My sims did not know how to properly do tai chi...bow...or anything...but I had them following the old man around..serving him tea, raking the garden, & gave him a bow and he told the legend.  While he was telling it only one of my sims were really listening.  The rest were running around pissing themselves but they all learned it anyways.

I am laughing way too hard at this.

I'm really liking the new objects and building..umm stuff.  I think for a change they did a really good job with those things this EP, and b/c I love to build and decorate things, it benefits me more than adding a bunch more interactions and things of that nature.

I really love the little animation that goes along with the legend of the dragon story... it's just different in a good way.

The beach lots/swim-able oceans were probably almost worth the entire price of the EP for me...I seriously like them that much.  I was always improvising this before trying to make it look that way, b/c one of my favorite most played 'hoods is a lot of water front properties that I wanted to look beachy... not necessarily tropical or anything.

As someone else rec'd to in this thread already, ZoneAlarm, I gave it a try and am extremely happy with it.  As soon as it tried to phone home that mf'er got denied permanantly.

Awesome!  Assuming it works properly..that will work very well for some storylines I have going for some of my sims for having places back in their "homelands" being transferred to their children upon death.

Maids:  They come in and watch my sims sleep..talk about creepy!

Fish: I never needed a counter top or anything to prepare the ones caught..or so I thought.  Could have been my imagination.

Well I've had no more attempts since last night when I quit playing...leading me to believe it has been the game.  I could still be wrong...I don't know much about all this stuff but just the process of deduction...it is only happening when I play the game...leads me to believe it is the game..I dunno though, just my uneducated guess.

To the fire dancing rant...I was not very amused by how long it took either.  Especially for my first vacation taking elders.  I figured they needed something to spend their fortune on so they were the first to go on vacation.  My elder sim whom I had learn, was more or less ready to pass out when she got back to the hotel but had managed to learn. 

I don't mind how expensive everything is...b/c I want my sims to find a way to spend their money.  Hence the beach lots, I love even more b/c they are pretty pricey for lots. 

Does anybody know what happens to vacation homes own by sims once the sim dies?  I'm wondering if another sims inherits them or if they just revert back to "for sale"

Sorry but the Down's Syndrome sims made me lol..I have nothing against mentally disabled people but that is so totally random.

So can anyone tell me how many access attempts they normally get with this EP trying to access the net?  B/c umm...I have been playing for like an hour and a half...NOTHING else running that should be trying to connect.  And I have nearly 400 attempts.  You've got to be kidding me if this is all coming from the game.  Insanity.  But of course since it is blocked, my game seems to be running now at normal speed.  And at a home lot, it is almost running flawlessly like it does with almost no CC.

Right now, I can't say if I am thrilled or not with my purchase of this EP.  The whole "The Sims phone home" thing seriously has put a huge damper on the game for me. 

Of course I was expecting with this EP as well that there would be a lot of waiting while lots load, but it is a tad more annoying than I expected.  But I do enjoy all the things there are for sims to do, so that's a plus.

 I really adore the beach lots.  Hell that was almost worth the 30 bucks for me.  I have long been improvising in creating beach lots and now I don't have too. 

Concerning the lag...I installed ZoneAlarm and also decided to bypass the launcher.  Apparently for me bypassing it did little anyways...by the time the game got to the loading screen it had attempted to contact the internet at least six times.  If not bypassing the launcher makes it do so even more...I hate to think...lawdy.

And guess what...my game loaded SO MUCH FASTER.  Gee, now I wonder why it loaded so slow before hmpph

Thanks I am going to try this, do you use the free one or the "free" one that you get if you sign up for one of their offers?

I am so disappointed by the lag I am getting.    And I have never had any troubles.  I seriously think it is the game trying to phone home b/c they'll be times when it seems to be up to speed and then like everything almost freezes.    And I'm bummed that it appears that bypassing the launcher doesn't work. 

From what little I have actually got to play.. the lots for the vacation hoods seemed really crowded with objects which could be something else causing some of my lag.  I really never play with so much stuff community lots but then again, I've been known to cram my residential lots insanely full and haven't had problems, so I really don't wish to blame all this lag on my computer yet.

I'm so annoyed.  This thing has been loading for like 40 minutes.   And it's been creating "exotic destinations" for like another 10.  Before I installed this EP it still took a shit ton of time to load b/c my enormous amount of CC...like 15 minutes...but me thinks 40 minutes is just ridiculous.  Guess it is time to prune the CC again and if that doesn't help then my computer has decided BV is the devil.

Way to go screwing that up EA!~

Can't say I was really expecting such anyways so I'm not disappointed...however I also did not watch all the videos/read all the interviews that came out prior to this EP.

Well that would certainly be point & laugh worthy.

Oh I somehow missed the no gifts from off lot sims or whatever even though I did read over the entire thread.

So what do you do with them?  I have simply left them there to keep my sims in poverty. 

Eh besides a lot of the mods here which are mostly what I play with...Insim...Inteen and other drastically altering game mods or those that are known to break... I throw everything else CC related back in and finds out what works.

I used to be really meticulous about it all and then I realized it was pretty much a waste of time.  If you back up anything you truly care about, there's not much you can do to truly FUBAR something.

I think you need to make a rule about selling gifts that are lefts on dates... I was playing this challenge last night and was brought a hot tub.  I decided to sell it and well....ended up bored out my mind b/c that totally took the challenge away.  And what about selling flowers left after dates?  Yes or no, must be stashed in inventory?

Also agree that some rule about CC needs to be added...like nothing cheaper than the cheapest Maxis made item when it comes to things like beds...couches ect.  I have some cheaper ones downloaded and it is too much of a cheat...that and some of them, if I tried to sell them back for cash or something they actually sold back for more than I paid for them...dunno what is up with that.

Or maybe there should be a rule that you can't sell anything back that you buy.  If you buy a toilet and run out of food...tough luck you can't sell your toilet to buy any more food.  I think that adds more realism to some extent. 

I'm going to try to play with some of this stuff in place and see if it makes it better for me.

Interesting...I shall have to give this one a go.