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

[Chain_Reaction]

New bork list I compiled from the BBS. I'm sure most of these are caused by hacks. I'll test them all myself whenever my game decides to land on my door step, till then, anyone got them?

Game crashes when searching for job via computer for unemployed newly made sims only. Seems to be random?
Game resetting skills to 0 on random sims apparently when moving them into apartments. (seems to mostly affect cooking skill... a BBS user reported it as losing the 'cocking skill', I'm still laughing.) - Confirmed.
Roomies when asked to Join Family are still being treated as roomies.
Toy dogs food seems to run out really quick. Seems they copied the hamster and it had the same bug.
Feline familiar seems to be both male and female? The male and female icons overlap each other apparently.
Roomies seem to get all their needs refilled by going to work and never have to sleep or much of anything else thus killing the challenge of keeping them happy. - Confirmed
Flirting while sitting at the new food stand seems to cause the sims to hop out of the seat.
Magus Mutatio spell (turning target into witch) doesn't work.
Apartment door mats start to flash blue when snow is on the ground.
Besides having the annoying losing enthusiasm popups for roomies, it seems to be spawning them for hobbies they aren't even learning in.
You cannot use the spellbook or cauldron again if it not abandoned before curing the witch.
Sims don't seem to be sitting and watching TV for very long before turning it off.
Any mailboxes that had mail in them when AL was installed seems to spit the mail to the corner of the lot. - confirmed but doesn't pose an issue.
Roomies don't pull the murphy bed down themselves and will instead nap on the couch.
Asking a sim to only sit in the helicopter with no other active sims capable of attending to young ones on the lot will say they can't leave the little ones home alone.
Going on a date with a neighbor on the lot causes them to go back inside of their apartment and won't come back out.
Landlords seem to pick up old newspapers and put them down again repeatly rather than throwing them away.
Option to play football gone.
Option to talk about a sims hobby gone.
Option on sim or other sims to take picture gone.
Trained dogs who are trained to not to sit on furniture are doing so.
Dog's won't eat. Cats seem to be fine.
Everytime a Sim returns from a community lot where they've purchased clothing they get a 'great, someone in the house bought clothes but don't own a dresser' message, even when they do. Also buying jewellery is prompting a 'great, someone in the house bought a game, you need a games console to play it on' message. - Confirmed
Asking a neighbor to babysit seems to make them forget they have a toddler of their own to watch (if they do) as they accept it anyway and leave the kid alone with no other adults in the apartment.
Neighbors are obsessed with catching butterflies.
Never see the old townies anymore because the old ones have taken over.
Nanny shows up in the middle of the night when hired at that time.
Sims in your apartment building but not in your household do not count as family friends for promotion purposes.
Dates with the landlord seems to cause him to cause him to just pace inside your apartment and never leave after its over.
The garage doors that came with NL count as another apartment door where as the ones that came with AL do not.
The skunk has no front legs now and doesn't leave the lot?!
Sims randomly get pregnant in the More Romantic than You bed while woohooing. I don't think thats a feature?
Having a witch open a business and sell potions yields the "there are no more of this item left" when trying to restock even if there is several in the sims inventory.
Teens cannot go to college by any method. The action drops out of the queue.
Witches with the want to cast a good spell do not have it fulfilled when a good spell is cast.
Newly born sims don't seem to be aging.
New households don't get the option to Write Restaurant Guide with pleasure aspiration on their computers. - Confirmed
Follow up on the no school bus coming bug: It only affects families you move in to apartments, sims born in the apartments do get the bus. - Confirmed but it's due to the apartments in the bin being borked.
Gypsy no longer leaves genie lamp, she sneaks onto lot but leaves without leaving it.
More Romantic than You bed doesn't use all the default bedding. - Confirmed but believed to be by design
Butler cooks for hungry toddler and if he cannot find empty counters or tables to put newly cooked food, he puts them in common areas. Sims also seem to be setting the tables out in common areas too and aren't suppose to be.
When homework is placed outside of the apartment you can no longer interact with it.
Classic dance causes crush.
Some families in Belladonna Cove aren't discovering their predestined hobbies.
Butler takes toddler off lot when holding it and his shift ends.
Cannot call other playable neighbors.

Edit: Since i've gotten my game, I'm checking into some of these. I've crossed out the ones that aren't valid and obviously caused by newbness.

[Hannahspring]

OK, here come my two annoying bugs.

EAxis has made only one good phone for the game (Pets EP) yet, and Apartment Life makes it look stupid (I haven't tried the table version):


And one thing that is rather strange is that the icons/pictures of Sims change every once a while. It's the picture of Sim that changes when you change his/her look in the mirror; in my game it changes randomly without having makeovers done.

[Alex]

I honestly think the MRTY bed only has 3 covers by design. The other covers would look weird and clash with the colour of the bed, and I just think it's only meant to have the sleazy zebra print covers.

[nainon]

Is the food contest table (or whatever it's called in English) that came in Free Time supposed to be buyable in apartments?

[Hecubus]

I can confirm this. I spent some time last night making a really nice duplex on a foundation that had private backyards and I couldn't change it to an apartment until I removed the doors to the yards. Ugh.

I did some experimenting with this and found some workarounds.
The easiest one requires an invisible fence, the one I tested with is Niol's at MTS2. (First in the download list.)

.... detailed explanation here....

I have a question about this method - doesn't the fence keep the sims inside? I thought about an invisible window or door but rejected it due to movement restrictions. Do you delete the invisible fence once you place the stairs?

The solution I found is to create a small room like you would a garage with house-on-foundation; you get the sloppy walls around the door, but it's not horrible, I suppose.


From the top, of course, it looks like another room. I did put a door from the main floor to the fake porch - in this case I envisioned it as a mudroom. I can see using this method to build conservatories or other 'sunken' rooms.


The result is a real rowhouse sort of back yard, plus a small balcony from the master bedroom (bonus!). Now I just need to replace the Maxis fences with the custom fences I really wanted (I wondered for a while if CC was the issue).


Meanwhile, I hope someone comes up with a real fix to this issue.

[Tsarina]

Hecubus, I can has lot? Please?

[Hannahspring]

OMG! That apartment look awesome. I hope you'll find a solution soon. And upload them somewhere.

[Lana B]

Some random at a community lot networked at me and offered to put me in touch with his friend Therapist.
I refused, assuming this was a VBT.
Is there a hack for this?

[squish]

Some random at a community lot networked at me and offered to put me in touch with his friend Therapist.

My evil witch went into aspiration failure and she had an option to click on the Therapist to cast a spell. I tried it out, and it just gave a popup that Therapist looks too busy.

[jsalemi]

EAxis has made only one good phone for the game (Pets EP) yet, and Apartment Life makes it look stupid (I haven't tried the table version):
<snip>

Tight pants I assume.

CEP problem, actually -- there's a bug in the CEP module that allows phone recolors.  Remove it and everything should be fine.

[coralleane]

My evil witch went into aspiration failure and she had an option to click on the Therapist to cast a spell. I tried it out, and it just gave a popup that Therapist looks too busy.

Which reminds me - I sent a couple of Twikkii Island and while there, they visited the Witch Doctor's Hut.  They had just finished the repairs when I heard the Cuckoo-sort-of-noise that accompanies a visit by the Therapist.  Both my Sims were fine, so I was understandably confused - and I finally found the Witch Doctor over by the hammock going through aspiration failure.  Never seen that before, and not sure if it's 'intentional' or not. 

Another odd occurance - haven't tried reproducing it yet - I added a desk to a child's room, mostly to up the environmental score just before a Headmaster's visit.  Another desk already existed in the living room, with a computer on it, where it had been since before the child was even born.  When the child next returned home, the homework was placed beside the new desk, not the original.  Whilst obviously this isn't undesirable, it is interesting and I really ought to play another house with kids to find out if this was a one-off...

[pieisnice]

Hecubus, I can has lot? Please?

Yeah that's awesome.  I can has too?

[Goggalor]

I have a question about this method - doesn't the fence keep the sims inside? I thought about an invisible window or door but rejected it due to movement restrictions. Do you delete the invisible fence once you place the stairs?

No, the sims can enter the yard just fine, they just walk through the invisible fence. (Or a solid fence too actually.) I think this is because as soon as they are on the stair the game considers them to be on the ground level, and since the fence is on the foundation level it's not blocking them.

I tried the split level yard entry as well, it definitely has its uses.

[Hannahspring]

EAxis has made only one good phone for the game (Pets EP) yet, and Apartment Life makes it look stupid (I haven't tried the table version):
<snip>

Tight pants I assume.

CEP problem, actually -- there's a bug in the CEP module that allows phone recolors.  Remove it and everything should be fine.

Oops, sorry! Didn't know that. Actually, I was happy to install CEP after like 100 years and now I have to uninstall it. Duh, guess I'll have to wait for an update. Thanks!

[myskaal]

Or just delete the CEP-EXTRA_Phones.package. If you auto-installed it should be in Documents\The Sims 2\zCEP-EXTRA.



...it should be fairly obvious custom phones and recolors likely won't show up after doing this.

[Arnina]

New bork list I compiled from the BBS. I'm sure most of these are caused by hacks. I'll test them all myself whenever my game decides to land on my door step, till then, anyone got them?

Game resetting skills to 0 on random sims apparently when moving them into apartments. (seems to mostly affect cooking skill... a BBS user reported it as losing the 'cocking skill', I'm still laughing.)

This glitch occurred once in my game.  A newly created Sim exploited the skilling glitch and maxed all skills.  A few Sim days later, the cooking skill reduced to one.

Roomies seem to get all their needs refilled by going to work and never have to sleep or much of anything else thus killing the challenge of keeping them happy.

The Prima Guide mentions that roomies can refill needs by going to work and running errands but I think this feature is working too well. One roommate maxes her needs each time she leaves the lot; she is never in a bad mood.

Everytime a Sim returns from a community lot where they've purchased clothing they get a 'great, someone in the house bought clothes but don't own a dresser' message, even when they do.

I've received this message on several occasions.  I didn't have any dressers on the lot but the Sim did have functional closets.  One would think that having closets would stomp this message.

Dates with the landlord seems to cause him to cause him to just pace inside your apartment and never leave after its over.

My Sim became friendly with the landlord and, after finishing his work, he asked to hang-out for awhile.  After hanging-out for a few hours, I directed my Sim to select the landlord so that she could "say goodbye".  The option did not appear.  The playable Sim was a witch and the only option available on the landlord was "cast spell".  I then directed my Sim to begin skilling as I thought the landlord would leave on his own when it became late.  He never left.  Instead, while she was skilling, the landlord wanted to say goodbye to my Sim.  Each time I cancelled skilling so that he could say goodbye, this action dropped from her queue.  At around 5 am, after he stayed all night, I used the cheat "moveobjects on" to delete the landlord.

Gypsy no longer leaves genie lamp, she sneaks onto lot but leaves without leaving it.

I've had no problems with the genie lamp.  It was left on the lot and worked properly.

[Lerf]

10. Not a bork, but some really weird townie names in Belladonna Cove. Christian Love...

There are lots goofier townie names (Goopy Gils Carbo, anyone?) but I wondered earlier if Christian Love who used to upload mods at MTS2 has gone to work for EA. They seem to name some of their townies after EAxis slaves employees. Somebody told me CL is back updating his stuff at MTS2 though.
[/quote]

No, I think it's just Maxis pretending they're benignly tolerant of modders.  Have you checked out the name of the vibrating bed.  Or the fish wall thingies from FF?

[Ambular]

I did some experimenting with this and found some workarounds.

That's fantastic! I was most of the way to that, but since I was on the test account with no CC, I didn't think about invisible fences. Invisible walls should work as well. The only problem is with shadows...I've yet to find an invisible fence or wall that doesn't throw a shadow.

Search Numenor's stuff on MTS2.  He's got a true shadowless invisible wall setup there that might work for you.  The downside is that you have to edit a core game file and you may not be able to share lots made using it.  :/

If you plead for the life of a non-playable if death decides to visit them, then that sim becomes a playable sim.

That's normal, or it's an old bug. I had happen that once (Seasons?) when my YA pleaded for a dormie who croaked thanks to nouniprotect.

Who says it's a bug?  Makes perfect sense to me.

Grim:  WELL OKAY.  BUT HE'S YOUR PROBLEM NOW.

New bork list I compiled from the BBS. I'm sure most of these are caused by hacks. I'll test them all myself whenever my game decides to land on my door step, till then, anyone got them?

{Insert massive list of FAIL}

Ye gods.  I see a patch in the (hopefully near) future...

ETA:  Edited multiple time because I fail at quoteboxes.

[ShortyBoo]

Is there supposed to be an Apartment Life collection file? I checked my in-game collections and all I can find is the individual set collections but not the full AL one. All the other EPs and SPs have a collection with all the new objects, walls and floors so am I just missing the AL collection file, or is there not one?

[DigiGekko]

There is one, but EA in all their wisdom decided not to give it the green plumb bob you'd normally look for. The folder icon is hard to spot because it's Easter colored apartment buildings on a pink background.

[jwaas]

After adding in the AL DC (or at least the things I wanted), doing a binary search, and finally removing all tight pants except what I absolutely couldn't live without, I'm pleased to say all dorms and regular houses are working fine.  Cell phones work again, fridges act like fridges, and my Sims can go to community lots.  I have yet to see the Good Witch, but I have seen the Atrociously Evil Witch twice.  I could have wished they'd given her a different voice, as she sounds nice but looks evil.  The other feature I haven't tried is the lap dog, but I'm a bit afraid....

Incredibly, I'm not only running the InSimenator, but also using a version that's pre-FT.  I believe they said the AL version would be out in about a week.

I am still getting dormies using my student Sims' beds, unless I tell them to lock their doors -- and I'm not using nouniprotect.  My guess is this may have to do with keeping apartment roomies from passing out.

Also, is it me, or are Sims' needs decreasing much more quickly with AL installed than before?  I could also live without my Sims trying to put themselves to bed so often, but it could be worse.

Next I'll try an apartment again, just with a single Sim.  And let me add my vote that those row houses look fantastic! 

[DigiGekko]

This might just be me, but because it was reported in another thread by someone else, I doubt it. I have the latest pee files.

yellowpeeobject is causing puddles to spawn one after another until there is no room left under a sim simply standing next to a pee puddle. The option to mop it up is instantly stomped, making the only way to delete said puddle via moveobjects or evaporation.

Here's a crappy screenshot.


And they'll just keep multiplying as long as he's standing still, until there is no room left for pee to spawn. Yum.

[Alex]

Reminds me of Mrs. Emery in Little Britain.

I managed to fix the "Needs" text on the Needs panel. It was insanely small (and mismatched with the pets version of the panel!) because EAxis inexplicably deleted a line of code. Something I presume they do quite often.

Now if I just find a way to fix all the other things they thought was a good idea to make absolutely tiny.

[Solowren]

Like the Name the Baby dialog box? That's an annoying one. Is it as simple as opening a file in Notepad and changing a text string, or is it more complicated than that?

[sloppyhousewife]

• I don't think anybody reported this here yet but I did ask about it in the podium. My Evil Witch won't make the "lamp thingy". She just keep on stirring the pot for hours and hours and doesn't make it.

The time it takes to make the "Hand of Darkness Floor Lamp" seems to depend on the evilness level. I tried to make one as soon as my warlock unlocked it, he was only "mean" at that time. It took several hours, while I was busy dragging his motives back to green. Since he's become "evil", though, that thing is finished faster than e.g. the "Enchanted Essence of Cur Tails", with no remarkable motives drain. At least not more than while making other "evil" stuff.

But I really hope for a hack that makes cauldrons fun to use.