Apartment Life Borkiness, or how i ended the world in 1 hour.

[Emma]

My sims always want to fish in the summer, even if there is not and has never been a pond on their lot. I usually lock the want and take them to the Ole Fishing Hole, a community lot I made specifically for fishing.

[Gastfyr]

This I only noticed once.  I had one of the Cordial sisters, after she became a witch, get some form of the plague.  So since she had learned it, I tried having her cast the spell on herself that makes a sick Sim healthy (I forget its name).  Two dialog boxes popped up:  "I'm cured!" followed immediately by, "Kimberly has the flu!  She must blah blah blah" etc.  The spell looked like it worked, but maybe it actually failed?

I don't think this is nessacarily AL borkiness, since I had something similar happen soon after installing Freetime.

One of the Disiderata Valley sims that came with Freetime came home from work sick.  So I had his wife cook up some Gradma's Comfort Soup.  He ate it, and got those same sort of dialogs jumping up at the same time: "Wow, that really hit the spot; I can feel my sicknes just melting away!" and "sim is sick with a cold! blah blah"  I thought it was weird, so I had him eat another boul and that time he got cured and stayed cured.  At the time I thought he must have had germs on himself and re-infected himself, but now that I think of it, aren't sims automatically immune to the specific strain of a given illness once they've had it?

Maybe it has more to do with when the sim is cured.  If it's too close to the time the game was going to do the check to see if he's healthy again, maybe it gimps up.  Like if you try to grow your infant up at a cake, but the top of the hour rolls around and halfway thourgh the standing around at the cake animation, the sim cancells that and just does a non-caked "help with birthday" thus rendering the cake useless and uneatable?  Someone with more knowledge of the game and the coding and such should know more about this.

[Milhouse Trixibelle Saltfucker III]

My sims always want to fish in the summer, even if there is not and has never been a pond on their lot. I usually lock the want and take them to the Ole Fishing Hole, a community lot I made specifically for fishing.

It seems to me that the problem isn't "wanting" to fish, but actually undertaking the fishing action in the spot where the pond used to be. Of course, that would be a little difficult to figure out considering the poster has negative grammar, which is of course less grammar than none at all. For the record: queue != cue. A queue is best defined as a "lineup", a list where items are constantly processed from the head and new items are added to the tail, whereas a cue can be the stick with which one plays pool, or a signal of some sort.

[SJActress]

or a signal of some sort.

Ah, yes.  This is the type of "cue" with which I am familiar, in my super-high paying acting job  [/bizarro world speech].

Grammar aside, I have to pipe up and say I've also experienced the "gonna go fishing" queue where a pond USED to be.

But then, I don't always play on FLAT lots, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

[CrabOfDoom]

I've done a search for this problem in every phrasing I can think of, and nothing related came back except my own earlier mention (I'm repeating because I have more info); apologies if it's been brought up before and I just couldn't think of what it was called.

I'm having a bad bug where a sim on a residential lot, not an apartment, will glitch and start spinning in place, which in turn freezes the whole lot. The lot will still be in live mode, unpaused, but time won't advance and nothing can move. I've tried deleting the spinning sim, saving, exiting, and retentering, and the sim(s) do show up again by the mailbox, but the freeze and spinning don't go away. The only time it did stop was when I deleted everyone - including a roaming ghost - except the toddler, who began to move again. Save, exit. Upon reentering, everyone was there and could move; it was raining and I wanted everyone back in the house, but the child wanted to splash in a puddle. When I canceled it from her queue, she began spinning again. Now, the lot will not finish loading. I have never had this happen before installing AL.

I first thought it was related to the conflict between the CS radio and the crafting bench, as both were present when the first bout occurred (different lot than that above.) But I downloaded the fixed radio and it's still happening. I thought it might be a conflict with TwoJeff's welcome wagon and school friends dialog hacks (which are noted as conflicting with alfixes on his message board,) but I took his entire folder out of my DLs, and it doesn't make a difference. The only hack untested for AL I had in was LizzLove's noprivacy, which was also taken out with TwoJeff's folder and had no effect on the problem. Nothing's left in my hacks except AL-approved mods from here.

Before the lot stopped loading, I managed to get a few seconds' footage of what the spin looks like. The film's crap 'cause I never upped the settings after installing AL, but the gist is there.

[Emma]

My sims always want to fish in the summer, even if there is not and has never been a pond on their lot. I usually lock the want and take them to the Ole Fishing Hole, a community lot I made specifically for fishing.

It seems to me that the problem isn't "wanting" to fish, but actually undertaking the fishing action in the spot where the pond used to be. Of course, that would be a little difficult to figure out considering the poster has negative grammar, which is of course less grammar than none at all. For the record: queue != cue. A queue is best defined as a "lineup", a list where items are constantly processed from the head and new items are added to the tail, whereas a cue can be the stick with which one plays pool, or a signal of some sort.

Ok, I misunderstood.

[NikonSnow]

I'm having a bad bug where a sim on a residential lot, not an apartment, will glitch and start spinning in place, which in turn freezes the whole lot. The lot will still be in live mode, unpaused, but time won't advance and nothing can move.

My sims are doing the exact same thing in CAS right now.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

[Tsarina]

I thought I'd share:
ACR and the AL Murphy Bed.
Hawt woman waiting for her hawt boyfriend.
Woohoo!

I know it isn't EAxis who borked this. I just thought it was funny and AL related.

[jsalemi]

Makes me wonder if sims can sleep in a Murphy Bed that's up -- I'll have to try that.

[shadow]

I don't know if this is borked or EA's stupid logic, or are those the same thing?  Anyway, I only get the walk to school/work option for a brief moment right before the bus/carpool arrives.  Shouldn't you be able to walk to work/school up to an hour before they come, then not get the bus/carpool?  They wouldn't actually have to leave that early but have the option show up so the bus/car pool doesn't show up.  It is really irritating to have them walk to work while the carpool honks their horn for an hour and the kid ignores the walk to school command and gets on the bus.  (I play with free will off)

Also, is there any specific 'rules' for the 'read to sleep' action?  I only have one family that gets the option for their child; the other 3 families don't have the option.  The room configuration is pretty much the same, there are no obstructions on the floor or anything I can see that would prevent it.

ETA:  I'm playing a trailer park.  One family had a baby.  I exited that family and went to play another one in the same park and the baby shows up in this family's thumbnails.  WTF! I clicked on the baby to see where it would take me and this is what I found:



The baby was doing smustle-like movements.   

When I went back to the baby's family it was in its crib. 

[Emma]

Hey! It's Ally McBeal's dancing baby!

[jsalemi]

Ooogaaa chacka, ooogaaa chacka, ooogaaa ooogaaa ooogaaa chacka....

[spaceface]

Freaky... dancing babies. Now of course I really wish I could get that glitch.

What about the new baby interactions that were supposed to come out with AL but didn't make the final game?

[Alex]

I had a very brief look through the files and didn't see the baby objects. It's possible that remnants exist deep within the files, but they have otherwise been removed (or at least attempted to be removed).

[jsalemi]

What about the new baby interactions that were supposed to come out with AL but didn't make the final game?

They're hiding with the fire-breathing toddlers we were promised in the base game. 

(The absence of those baby interactions is probably my biggest complaint about AL, which I'm otherwise enjoying.)

[jwaas]

[If] ... when the sim is cured ... [is] too close to the time the game was going to do the check to see if he's healthy again, maybe it gimps up.

Entirely possible.  I'm trying to remember whether I've ever tried using Grandma's Comfort Soup to cure a sick Sim, but I think not.

Since I basically had apartments working reasonably well, I'm now trying moving more than one family into the same apartment building, expecting plenty of already-reported borkage.  So far so good, though it is awfully weird to see "my" Sims being basically like NPCs.  Have yet to test whether "my" Sim schoolchildren walk automatically to school when they are NPCs.  It has also occurred to me that it is not beyond the realm of possibility for one of "my" Sims to die while an NPC, since I don't trust Maxis at all to take better care of them than I can.

The only apartment weirdness I'm seeing is that the neighboring apartment interactions seem never, or almost never, to work.  Knock On Door results in either "Goopy doesn't feel like hanging out right now, try again later," or else Goopy and his apartment become visible, my Sim goes in and looks at Goopy (who just stands there), then leaves.  Ask Goopy To Come Out results in him walking out of the apartment, then immediately turning around and going back in.  Not very neighborly in either case.  I am actually holding out some small hope that this will go the way of Sims spontaneously combusting in the hottub in SNS, and be fixed with the Maxis AL patch.

...

I know, I know -- there's only one word to describe me holding onto a hope like that:

[Sagana]

Although it seems like neighboring apt. dwellers are always not home, not in the mood, already hanging out in the community lot, in bed or at work/school - when they are available visiting another sim or inviting them to come out works fine in my game. The apt. lights up, my sim heads in and then must be directed to interact or chooses to do something stupid.

"Oooh, you have a toilet just like mine! I have one too! Only mine is blue and yours is white. White is such a wonderful color. I must go closely examine your toilet. I went potty before I left the house (my mommy trained me well) but let's see if your toothpaste is more fun than mine. I think I'll go through your medicine cabinet and brush my teeth now." At least she brushes.

Um, yeah, I don't have 'no what's this' in yet, but even if I did, they'd choose something else stupid to do. Anyway, not that I've tried it a lot, but when told to interact, they do fine. And sims invited out can come over and have coffee or a meal or whatever at my tiny lot as well. As long as they're directed.

[Mootilda]

   During the L&P phase, i remember a tidbit of information that was mentioned. 
Quote: "Different living experiences based on the surrounding communities impacted by rent and noise"   http://www.simprograms.com/?p=429
   Yet this wasn't mentioned in either of the chats nor since release.  It makes me wonder if they left code-remnants (GASP!) in the game relating to what type/quality of lots surround the apt lot?
   Questions arising that need answers: (My gaming comp is on the fritz, so unable to play me sims right now).
   Would leaving the custom lot as residential until after placement and then making it an apt building alleviate the dreaded borkness?
   Do surrounding lots actually have an effect on the rent prices?
   Could this be the reason why occupied apt lots can not be moved?
   Would changing surrounding lots after setting up occupied apt lots, bork those apt lots?

I believe that EA disabled moving occupied apartment buildings, because they were having problems keeping all of the clones in sync.  I also believe that this is why you can't (safely) modify an occupied apartment building (walls, doors, etc).

Just to be clear: An unoccupied apartment building looks very much to the game like a standard residential lot.  However, when a playable sim family moves into the apartment building, the game creates a new clone of the apartment building to hold that family's gameplay information.  The new lot is given the apartment name, followed by the family number.  When a second playable family moves in, a second clone is created.  And so on...

Because the occupied "apartment building" is now up to 5 almost-the-same-but-still-different lots, the game has special logic when you click on an occupied apartment building (in the neighborhood view), to allow the game to decide which of the clones to give you access to.  The actual apartment building lot becomes inaccessible until all playable families move out.

It's possible that you could move an occupied apartment lot by using SimPE to modify the Top and Left fields in the Lot Description for every one of the clones.  Of course, you should backup before trying this and be sure to change Top and Left to the same value for all copies of the lot.

As far as the feature: "Different living experiences based on the surrounding communities impacted by rent and noise"... I suppose that it would require some testing to determine whether this feature was ever implemented.  My guess is: no.  I believe that EA ran out of time to complete everything and sent out the survey to try to decide which features to cut.  I haven't been able to find anything about this feature in the released product documentation.

[Sparkleuk]

I posted about this in another forum and someone recommended that I repost my problem here, in this thread.

I'm having problems with the sims' thumbnails altering all the time. After my initial irritation I got used to it and put up with it, even quite liked it but I've noticed that my sims' phone books now take an age to load. A similar effect happens when I try to look through their relationships panel. I assume this is because the game is having to load the latest portraits for everyone that sim knows?

I know others have bought this up already, but the reason I'm mentioning it again is because I've just lost two sim days worth of play at a house because the game crashed when loading up a sim's 7 page phone book. That wouldn't be a problem but I'd redesigned the house, landscaped it and made a whole load of new friends. I was planning to leave the house and save the very next morning as I needed to move their son back in with them.

[Inge]

I usually save at fairly short intervals when redesigning a house, as the building process seems to eat up tons of memory (must be all those undoes).  You don't have to go back to hood to save, there is a save icon in the player control panel.

[Sparkleuk]

I do normally use the "save only" feature rather than "save to hood", but since I was only minutes from leaving the house, I thought I could make a quick phone call. It wasn't a huge redesign but I'd had to play around to get rid of a sort-of-bug connected to where I could place the camera man camera. I perhaps made a mistake in not saving when I normally would have done but it would have been a difference of about 2-3 minutes play time so I thought "finish off, then save when you have to leave anyway". I normally save at 6:00 - 7:00 am so I can guarantee no vistors and that all of the sims will be up but still on the lot.

It was just irritating that something as simple as trying to phone a sim to form a friendship before saving caused me to lose everything.

[Roux]

   During the L&P phase, i remember a tidbit of information that was mentioned. 
Quote: "Different living experiences based on the surrounding communities impacted by rent and noise"   http://www.simprograms.com/?p=429
   Yet this wasn't mentioned in either of the chats nor since release.  It makes me wonder if they left code-remnants (GASP!) in the game relating to what type/quality of lots surround the apt lot?
   Questions arising that need answers: (My gaming comp is on the fritz, so unable to play me sims right now).
   Would leaving the custom lot as residential until after placement and then making it an apt building alleviate the dreaded borkness?
   Do surrounding lots actually have an effect on the rent prices?
   Could this be the reason why occupied apt lots can not be moved?
   Would changing surrounding lots after setting up occupied apt lots, bork those apt lots?

As far as the feature: "Different living experiences based on the surrounding communities impacted by rent and noise"... I suppose that it would require some testing to determine whether this feature was ever implemented.  My guess is: no.  I believe that EA ran out of time to complete everything and sent out the survey to try to decide which features to cut.  I haven't been able to find anything about this feature in the released product documentation.

I recall from some L&P that the alleyway neighborhood decorations are intended to impact the rent cost in nearby apartment lots. Trashy ones would lower rent, while fancy brick ones raise it. However, I've not tested it. Has anyone here played around with this yet?

[Mootilda]

   During the L&P phase, i remember a tidbit of information that was mentioned. 
Quote: "Different living experiences based on the surrounding communities impacted by rent and noise"   http://www.simprograms.com/?p=429

I recall from some L&P that the alleyway neighborhood decorations are intended to impact the rent cost in nearby apartment lots. Trashy ones would lower rent, while fancy brick ones raise it. However, I've not tested it. Has anyone here played around with this yet?

Some people have been testing this new feature:
http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php/topic,1401.0.html
http://www.the-isz.com/theisz/index.php?showtopic=870&st=0&#entry10645

[rufio]

I am having some strange issues in dorms since I installed AL:

1. Dormies now sleep in beds belonging to my playables.  A professor who was invited over for woohoo took a foodnap and stayed there until long after her energy meter had topped off.  I eventually made her selectable and woke her up so she could go home before she starved.  I do not have nouniprotect installed, and I haven't noticed dormies passing out or peeing themselves either.  They just appear to need sleep now.
2. I invited my sim's fiancee over and after they had socialized for a few minutes he headed off at a very determined pace.  I thought he might be leaving, so I made him selectable to see if I could find out why.  In his queue was an icon like the ones dormies get when they go to class, but the text was "Hide".  He then went into an unlocked dorm room.  My sim followed him in, and he was standing next to the door just like dormies are when you go into their rooms.  The fiancee was a adult downtownie.  He kept going back into the dorm room to Hide, so I eventually deleted him with move_objects.

[Ailias]

I cannot understand why living in apartments is much more expensive than living in the own house?
Sims have to pay rent and bills. they survive not live.