What exactly causes the blank Want/Fear slots?

[Cat Moonshadow]

Recently my Want/Fear slots have started to go blank, and I wonder if this is a "normal" part of the game or if it's because of hacks. I've had the Sims 2 since around January and I've never experienced the blank slots until this Sunday, which, coincidentally, was the day I loaded some more hacks into the game. However, by far most of these hacks are Pescado's. I also have a homework-goes-faster-and-sometimes-fun hack I got from someone on MTS2 and one called portalfix or something by crammyboy or something like that.

I can always do a "take out each hack individually and see which one is at fault", but this takes a long time and is rather tedious, and if it is a game glitch it'll drive me crazy if I can't fix the problem even when all the hacks are out of the downloads folder.

The slots don't stay blank all the time. They sort of come and go. Usually there is one Want slot available, and when that one gets filled, the rest roll up Wants, too.


Oh, and I love the phonehack. I don't know what I ever did without it. It drove me crazy how the stupid sims would just call to fill up their Social bar.

[Ancient Sim]

I get this happen in my game sometimes, but as in your case they usually roll properly after a while.  The Missing Icon bug is different, that's caused by a corrupt objects.package file, but I don't know what causes the missing wants.  It's always wants that are missing in my game too, never fears, and it particularly seems to affect NPC's who have become playable.

[Hairfish]

I have a LOT of missing Wants in my game. There are a couple of lots where, every time I enter them, one Sim will have all Wants empty (not just blank, but missing, unclickable), another Sim will be missing one Want, another two Wants. There's no rhyme or reason for it, no pattern, no commonalities among the affected lots. It's happening to former NPC's and Townies, and CAS and born-in-game Sims.

The do eventually roll up a new set, when getting up in the morning, or having a Want filled...if they have any Wants to fill.

I have Uni, and many fixes/hacks, but they're all JMP's. Hacked objects by Inge and Merola as well. This started about the same time as the blank career-related Wants (blank but clickable), but one of JMP's hacks fixed those. Don't know if that's at all related.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you upgraded these sims using the debugger?  If not and they are pre-uni sims, it might just unblock whatever is causing the problem.  I've noticed with mine, they sometimes stick for a moment, like a fruit machine that needs oiling, but then they move on round and stop without going blank permanently.

[Cat Moonshadow]

I don't have University (yet) and I don't have the debugger either. I played with a different family yesterday and saw that the blank Wants are indeed spreading. It's like the guinea pig disease. I find it a bit odd that only my female sims appear to be affected. And also that I never encountered a single blank Want until the last time I added some hacks to my game. It's really irritating. As good as these hacks are, I'd rather live without the hacks than put up with the blank Wants. As far as I can tell, once one of my sims has been affected, she stays affected, even if the Wants roll up again for a while it's only a matter of time before they disappear into the abyss once more.

At least I'm glad I'm not the only who suffers from this. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

It has to be something to do with a hack conflict, I should think.  You could try leaving JMP's hacks in place, then taking out all your other hacks, then replacing those one at a time, or modder by modder.  Since JM designs his hacks to not conflict with each other, it's likely that a conflict is either between one of his and one of someone else's, or else between two other modder's hacks.

[Sandilou]

I had the fruit machine rolling wants but I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't at every lot. It would start after I'd been at two particular lots for a bit, and on a couple of occasions it suddenly stopped and went back to normal.   At first I thought it was linked to the inteeminator, but then I pinned it down to the handheld game.  Whenever one of the teens pulled it out to play, everyone's wants rolled non-stop. 

This stopped completely when I started using the latest updated versions of both the insiminator and the inteeminator.  I have them alongside JM's fixes and TwoJeffs' triplets and quads hack and I've had no problems since.

[Kristalrose]

I experienced this for the 1st time last night.  I have many of JMP's hacks, the InSiminator, some hacks by twojeffs and Inge, and Merola's painting and mind-control mirror.  But, mine happened to a Secret Society NPC.  I used the mind-control mirror on her in an attempt to pretty her up and make her a suitable mate for one of my UNI sims.  She had no wants, no skills, nothing showing in her college, aspiration, or influence bars.  I could see her memories, and personality, though.  I sent her to class, and when she came back everything rolled and was fine.  Since this was the 1st time I had used the mirror on a NPC, I thought this was normal. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I don't use a lot of the things you mentioned and I frequently get the fruit machine effect, sometimes on lots where no-one has a handheld, an MVP Player or a mobile phone.  It's also happened without any hacks in the game, but it only started to happen after I installed Uni.  So???

[MokeyHokey]

Well, I just had it the other day, but I know what caused my problem.    I had reinstalled my game for fun, and when I did, I said "Oh look, all the cute little Maxis fixer-uppers are back in the house bin!"  I placed them all and decided that's what my new sims have to start out in...well, I neglected to consider that those houses are ORIGINAL Sims 2, so they pre-date Uni and the patch.  Not a problem at the first since it was an empty neighborhood, and I had to upgrade the sims after placing them on the lot.  The "downgrading" happened when I tried to move my couple into a larger home so they could start a family--they had already been upgraded and can't be placed into a pre-patch house.  They lost want slots and wound up with blank slots.   Ergo, I had to kill them off and pray that the contamination doesn't spread.

I thought I read somewhere around here that it was also caused by contamination from the remote controlled car?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I suppose the car could cause it.  But your explanation sounds pretty good to me, Mokey.

[Hook]

I've seen blank wants twice. 

The first time was on Meadow Thayer. I used a cheat to get her into a family, and she'd often show up with blank wants.  This didn't bother me.

The second time was today.  I invited Marsha Bruenig over for a swim (got tired of her calling on the phone all the time) and afterwards resurrected her.  For a couple of Sim days she would have one or more blank wants or fears.  She's in college now, and hasn't had the problem in a while.

For what it's worth, Marsha is a reasonably attractive young adult.  Just add a bit of makeup and she looks really good.  She also has high neatness, so she gains a lot of cleaning points going around the dorm cleaning various toilets and showers.  She's also very active, but for some reason seems to drain energy more quickly than other Sims, and recharges slower while asleep.  I spent §9,000 on the resurrection so she doesn't have odd personality stats.

Hook

[gynarchy]

I invited Marsha Bruenig over for a swim (got tired of her calling on the phone all the time) and afterwards resurrected her.

OT, but is with her obsessive phone calling? I grew her up and sent to to Uni, with the hopes that she would grow out of it but it seems as though age has made her problem even worse. She calls any Sim I have that has ever met her, whether they are friends or not. I thought maybe it was because she had a high outgoing personality, but she only has 2 points. Normally I just use the phone hack and turn off the phone but I'm trying a legacy neighborhood and I'm about to feed her to a cow plant if she doesn't cut it out. She's the only Sim in the neighborhood who will call without a good (or at least some) reason.

[Hook]

Pescado calls this The One syndrome.  In any given neighborhood, there's always the same Sim that calls your sims if they know each other.  Marsha keeps getting calls from the Orlando child.  In another neighborhood, it's one of my playable Sims that calls everyone.

If anyone has ever met Marsha, she will pester them on the phone all the time.  I haven't played another house since I started playing her, so I don't know if she still calls everyone.

Hook

[ZephyrZodiac]

It's like the one they all want to watch through the telescope - if you don't have Mortimer, then they all pick on someone else.  I don't have Marsha in my game and it's, as you  say, one of my playable sims that does the phone calling, and again one with a retiring personality!

[gynarchy]

I see... Is Oneness passed along to another Sim if The One is unable to fulfill his or her obnoxious duties? If it's just going to start all over again with someone else, I'd rather just move Marsha to an empty lot without a phone.

[ZephyrZodiac]

But then she'd be playable and therefore replaced - and without the notownieregeneration hack, one of the other sims would take over!  Although I suppose if you did it with the teleporter shrub, then she'd still be a townie.

[gynarchy]

She's currently a playable Sim at Uni and is the only one who obsessively calls my Sims, but I haven't been back in the regular neighborhood long enough to see if another phone stalker has replaced her. I guess I'll keep playing with the sound off. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, if she's still making the obsessive calls, then probably that won't happen.  But if she no longer existed in your game, or died, then some other sim would take over the role!

[ElviraGoth]

I grew her up and sent to to Uni, with the hopes that she would grow out of it but it seems as though age has made her problem even worse. She calls any Sim I have that has ever met her, whether they are friends or not. I thought maybe it was because she had a high outgoing personality, but she only has 2 points.

I did this, too.  She's really quite cute, considering she was such a homely child!  And I was surprised at the low outgoing, especially when she was calling my sims at 11:30 p.m.  Now she's married to one of my sims and hardly calls anyone any more, but one of my born-in-game sims has taken to doing the stalking.

There's one in every crowd, I guess.  Applies to sims, too.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I suppose if you took that one's phone away, they would just "pass the baton"!

[gynarchy]

Yup, that's exactly what happened... except now I have two phone stalkers. One of my Sims keeps calling his brother's wife and the Headmaster is obsessed with her, too. I'd like the phone number of the person who thought this was creative or funny so I can let them know how I feel about it every night at 10:45.

[ZephyrZodiac]

There are a lot of things that someone at Maxis thought was creative or funny!  For example, I've just discovered that, although according to both him and me, the youngest of the three Broke brothers Grew Up Well every time, according to Brandi and Dustin he Grew Up Badly from a teen to a YA.  Haven't checked what Beau thinks yet!  Seems unfair - he was the only one of the three who never moaned about doing his homework!

I've also discovered why both Jennifer Pleasant and Alexander Goth are wierd!  Jennifer was originally supposed to be a Family sim, but someone obviously changed it to Fortune.  Alexander was supposed to be a Fortune sim, but since he was only a child when the game opens, he can end up with any aspiration the player chooses to give him!  Consistency, thy name is not Maxis!

Is the sim who keeps calling his brother's wife a Romance sim?  If so, it might be worth going into SimPE and checking the family box!

[gynarchy]

Is the sim who keeps calling his brother's wife a Romance sim?  If so, it might be worth going into SimPE and checking the family box!

Indeed he is, he's been wanting to spoink her ever since he met her. I would change his aspiration but he's an absolute riot when he's trying to score so I'll just have to live with it until I get bored and go back to my regular neighborhoods.

[ZephyrZodiac]

As I said, try altering his relationship to her to family!  You never know, sometimes it works.