Changing novel title after delivery

[IcemanSimmer]

I accidentily hit the check button when my sim completed her novel and now its stuck with the default "Book Title". Is there a way to change the title now that the novel has been delivered to me?

I searched through the files in my docs using simpe to see if any fields contained the novel title. No luck The title must be stored somewhere if I only knew where it was.

Now I seek the help of you more awesome ones.

Thanks.

(I have FT so the novel was written using the new system)

[J. M. Pescado]

If it's stored anywhere at all, it's probably in the lot file. Somewhere.

[IcemanSimmer]

Right after opening this thread, I sent the family on vacation. None of the bookcases at their vacation home contained any of her previously written novels. Logically it would make sense that the data would be located in the lots file. In my case, I haven't "fused" the novel into the lot as yet. It's in her inventory.

I opened up her character file, looked through the inventory items and found the reference to her book. Sadly, the book title is not saved as plain text but rather hexcode. ARGHHH!!!! I had to take my new title and convert each ascii character into hex and then manually input them one at a time. What a royal pain in the ass!!!

Here's the lesson for all you kiddies out there: Make sure your title and description are spot on. Correcting them later is a pain in......

Peace

[Berg]

Not really related, but still... What's up with the ridiculously short titles for the books? I had carefully planned that the title of the first custom novel written with FT would be "The Mysterious Case Of The Countless Clues" but oh noes! Way too many characters! I had to do with just "The Mysterious Case" which wasn't nearly as thrilling.

The book description, which is even only readable when the book's stuck in a sim's inventory, can go on and on and on but the title must be limited to, like, 6 characters. Bah!

</rant>

[IcemanSimmer]

The character limit imbalance is simple PHAIL!!! And don't get me started on the complete uselessness of book description. I give my sims novels simple, to the point titles which also act as desciptors. My current sim has an entire series of "The Art of..." cookbooks (Fine Cuisne, Dessert, Grilling Fish, Juice Making, etc).

Peace

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm still trying to make "Lessons I Learned From Brynne" appear.

[Berg]

Ah, one of my bestselling sims went with the "... And You"-series. Cooking, cleaning, gardening, pet care... You name it; she knew it all. Then she met Peter Sims of the dread Garden Club, fell in love and started to write crappy romance. They all had "mysterious, handsome count" in the description, somwhere (oh, another peeve! There is a romantic book cover, but hardly no romantic plot icons? Wtf?)

I'm still trying to make "Lessons I Learned From Brynne" appear.

Wait! Any sim who attempts to read it will pee themselves? Please say it is so!

[Zazazu]

I have one sim who works as a police psychic and writes crime novels, but due to my rotation usually he's mid-novel when I switch to a new home. The first time I had him write a novel I forgot what my plans were for him, and it ended up being titled "Dude, seriously?". I wish the title screen came up first, when you choose the plot points.

[IcemanSimmer]

(oh, another peeve! There is a romantic book cover, but hardly no romantic plot icons? Wtf?)

My fubar book was a romance and I remember the "plot" went Money - Cruise Ship - Sunshine - Airplane - Question Mark. But herein lay a bigger question. In my game, whenever I mouse-over the icons, I don't see any tooltip explaining WTF the icons mean. Some of the icons are seriously cryptic. Do these plot icons even have any meaning? Could I shut my eyes and randomly pick 5 icons and still get a best seller? For all I know, I could be doing that already 

The first time I had him write a novel I forgot what my plans were for him, and it ended up being titled "Dude, seriously?". I wish the title screen came up first, when you choose the plot points.

When I was trying to find a solution to my problem, I kept thinking that in the 4 months that FT has been out, there MUST be lots of players having issues with titles for one reason or another. There MUST be an easier way to alter titles. You are dead right that the title screen should be part of the initial plot screen. When the novel is done, a popup should appear informing you of that and to also expect a phone call on your HOME PHONE from the publisher. The first time I wrote a novel, I thought the publisher would call my cell phone. But no!!! It had to be a landline and I didn't get my royalties  Now I keep a phone next to all my writer sims computers.

[Berg]

The first time I had him write a novel I forgot what my plans were for him, and it ended up being titled "Dude, seriously?". I wish the title screen came up first, when you choose the plot points.

Lol! I had the same thing happen (because it took the guy half his adulthood to write the damn thing) so i thought "Teh kewl stuff!!1" was an open enough title I remember it sold badly, not too surprising (although it might have had more to do with his lack of creative skillz...). So, yes, I agree about the title screen thing wholeheartedly.

My fubar book was a romance and I remember the "plot" went Money - Cruise Ship - Sunshine - Airplane - Question Mark.

But I want heart, kiss and woohoo! 

Do these plot icons even have any meaning?

I never thought so, at least. Think they're just pretties that are supposed to appear in their "thought balloons" when they read.

Could I shut my eyes and randomly pick 5 icons and still get a best seller?

I can't see why not? I did it all the time after Joseph Hart had written over ten books and I  couldn't feel creative about the whole thing anymore (he wrote a total of 21 novels!)  Isn't it all about creative skill?

[J. M. Pescado]

My fubar book was a romance and I remember the "plot" went Money - Cruise Ship - Sunshine - Airplane - Question Mark. But herein lay a bigger question. In my game, whenever I mouse-over the icons, I don't see any tooltip explaining WTF the icons mean. Some of the icons are seriously cryptic. Do these plot icons even have any meaning? Could I shut my eyes and randomly pick 5 icons and still get a best seller? For all I know, I could be doing that already 

Like all simspeech, they have only as much meaning as you give them. The icons mean nothing intrinsically.

[IcemanSimmer]

Wouldn't JM's "noplagiarism" work for that? Or do you mean he missed the phone call entirely?

I hate landlines. They annoy my sims. None of my lots have them by default. All sims carry cell phones instead. The game insists that the publisher's call be received on a landline (something I didn't know at the time). My sim was waiting for a call that never came.

<rant>
If townies and whohaveyou can reach me on my cell phone, why the fuck can't the publisher do the same? Writer sims lots are easily recognizable in my neighborhood cause they are the only ones with landlines for the specific purpose of receiving publisher calls. EAxis's retarded idea was made worse by poor coding in the form of other sims picking up the publisher's call and getting all the credit which JM fixed with the no plagarism hack.
</rant>

I never thought so, at least. Think they're just pretties that are supposed to appear in their "thought balloons" when they read.
Isn't it all about creative skill?

From my own game play, all those cookbooks used the same 5 icons (the bowl with the brown sludge). Whenever a sim read one of the cookbooks, the thought balloon was pretty much static showing the bowl icon. At the end, these plot icons mean whatever you want them to mean. The sims creative level definitly has a huge bearing on whether the book is a success or not.

[imyourboy]

My phone was on the second floor and of course he was walking very slowly, when he got halfway up the stairs he got the publisher message without answering the phone.  He got his money though.  So do they really have to answer?

[Emma]

My sim finished writing a novel just before his final exam. He sped off without answering the phone and didn't recieve payment for his novel. Delivery person left the book on the porch.