How to see a ghost?

[KnightSkyKyte]

I'm very jealous of everyone whose sims easily see ghosts, or get scared by them.

I have sims who really want to see the ghost of the family cat, but never have. And the ghost comes out every night!

I have the sims chase it around, and the stupid sims don't see it! It's right there, dang nammit!!! If a visitor can see the darn thing and get happy about it with a little green cloud around a ghost picture above their head indicating they've got a great,"Hey, I saw a ghost!" memory, then why can't the residents who are home every night?

I try and park the sim and wait for the ghost cat to stop. But the sim has ADD. Even if I get the sim in the same area or room as the ghost, the stupid sims absolutely and steadfastly refuses to see it. Even when the ghost cat decides to shriek, they can't hear it either. Maybe I just have stupid blind and deaf sims.

I don't have tight pants, and I don't have any hacks that prevent ghosts from being seen.

Are there any hacks that will *enable* my sims to see a ghost? Or, do you know of a surefire way that will guarantee that the stupid sims will finally see the ghost of their beloved dead cat? I'm now out of ideas after waiting for 4+ sim weeks for the stupid sims to see a ghost cat (or, am I being too impatient?).

[miramis]

The ghost has to scare your sim to trigger the 'See Ghost' want.  If your cat is a happy ghost it probably won't scare them, you could try making it angry by kicking the tombstone or deleting it's favourite object, I'm not sure if pet ghosts work the same as sim ghosts in that way. 

With sim ghosts they will make their way to their favourite object when they first come out at night and cheer at it, usually it's a bed they used a lot, though I once had a ghost do it with a toilet because I deleted his bed just before he died


While we're on the subject of ghosts, on community lots I've been experiencing a bug with ghosts only coming out for about and hour or two at which point they all go *poof* at the same time, it's been happening since BV if I remember correctly and is unrelated to any mods or cc.

*Edited to add:
Be aware that if you make a ghost angry it will probably torment your sims for the rest of their lives until it is deleted.  You may be able to pacify it by having family members do a lot mourning at the grave, I've had some success with this with unruly ghosts (usually they've been dead a long time and get aggro with their descendants they never met) but I am uncertain if it will work for kicking of tombstones and the like.

[Orange Indigo]

Starve a townie to death.  It'll be unhappy enough to scare your sims.
The cat probably lived a relatively content life, and it obviously died of old age.
Therefore, it's probably too happy, as miramis said, to scare your sims.
Kicking the tombstone might destroy it, I think, or it might be in the fears of one of your sims.
Your best bet is either continuing to wait, because ghost scares seem to happen most when you're not looking for them.
Or, of course, as I suggested: kill someone else.

[Callista]

I've had a happy pet die of old age who did occasionally scare his owners; but never more than once every few nights... Do we know whether happy ghosts don't scare as often, or do they just tend to do more helpful things?

Have you tried selling whatever item the pet used most in life? I've heard that annoys ghosts. Or, anyway, I've seen ghosts throwing hissy fits with a stolen espresso machine in their thought bubbles.

If you REALLY want to see ghost action, run a black widow challenge. The challenge starts to be keeping your sim alive, rather than just rounding up the next victim. (Also, it's fun when you want to be sadistic.)

[Orange Indigo]

I've noticed, although I wouldn't neccessarily live by this, that pet ghosts rarely scare.  Of course, all pets die of old age, because there is no other way for a pet to die.  I've also noticed that, when these ghosts do decide to scare, they rarely scare the sims that they liked.  Of course, that's just what I've observed, so it may only be true in the few instances that I've had this sort of situation in my game.

For example, my sim's cat just died of old age.  The cat scares my sim's new wife, who the cat had a low relationship with before it died.  The cat has been dead about three sim days, scared the wife twice, and never scared it's original owner who it had the "Mine" relationship with.

Sims scare more than pets, even if they did die of old age.  I've noticed that old age ghosts don't come out as often, as there are some nights where they're not out at all.  However, sims who died early come out every night, although they don't always manage to scare for whatever reason.  They also tend to reenact their own deaths, especially (or possibly only) if they died from electrocution or disease.

[professorbutters]

I have sixteen ghosts on the Legacy lot I play.  All but three died permaplat of old age.  Niceness or relative happiness doesn't seem to matter much. I always have three ghosts a night out. 

It's pure Murphy's law.  Ghosts always head right for the kids or Pop Sims who really don't want to see them and ignore your Knowledge Sims.  Knowledge Sims roll the want to see ghosts they haven't seen already.  That ghost won't show up forever, and when it does, it will refuse to scare your Sim. 

Having the Sim chase the ghost around doesn't always work.  Ghosts usually float around until they re-enact their own deaths (or visit their favorite bathtub or bed, whatever).  Then they *might* turn around and scare the closest Sim, but mine often blink and teleport to wherever they want to frighten someone.  Sometimes it helps to have your Sim skilling away, painting a picture or working at a craft bench, because ghosts seem to love to interrupt them, but even that doesn't always work.  The ghost might well blink over to a sleeping Sim, who will dutifully wake up and get out of bed to be scared.

There may be a mod that enables you to control ghost behavior, but if so, I don't know what it is.

[kiki]

is there a fix at all for ghosts tombstones disappearing after they've haunted them and made them levitate? that's always so annoying.

[professorbutters]

is there a fix at all for ghosts tombstones disappearing after they've haunted them and made them levitate? that's always so annoying.

Are they Romance Sim urnstones?  It can't hurt to have nocorruptdeath, nounlinkondelete, and romanceurnstonefix.  If you've already got those, I don't know why your tombstones are disappearing.  Mine turn around during/after a haunting, but they don't disappear. 

It looks as thought TwoJeffs has a Ghost hack on Simbology that changes ghost behavior, and might contain a fix for your disappearing tombstones.  I don't have it in, because I don't care how much of a PITA my ghosts are. 

[Orange Indigo]

Mine never disappear, but I don't have that many tombstones as it is.

Maybe try moving all the tombstones in the neighborhood to a cemetery lot, then send your sim there at night.  That should do the trick, although he might not see the exact ghost you wanted him to see.  Not a problem, if his want is the generic "See A Ghost", but it is if it's "See the Ghost of xxx".  Still, the latter doesn't happen that often, so I'm assuming that's not what you've got.  Re-reading through your post... maybe it is.

[Jfed]

Old tips are old.     Like base game only old, so I don't know if they'd work with EPs...much less animals.

- Along the lines of what Prof said, have the ghost-questing sim stand in the spot your ghost last stopped drifting and disappeared.  The ghost might return to the same spot and scare your sim for the memory want fulfillment.
- Buy a teddy bear.  There's an option to 'Talk through to...' or something to that effect, and if ghosts were out, their names would show up in the pie menu list of those to bug with the bear.

I recall having a success or two with the first suggestion, but not so much the second.

[Jayroo]

Ghosts are such an interesting aspect of the game.  I wish more had been done with them. 

This should help TC:
http://www.modthesims2.com/download.php?t=289811

[KnightSkyKyte]

Thank  you all very much!

Yes, the cat was a contented, spoiled creature. And the sim in question does indeed want to see the ghost of his beloved cat.

I will try all of your suggestions; one is bound to work!  When I have some success, I'll post back what worked.

Thanks again.

[J. M. Pescado]

is there a fix at all for ghosts tombstones disappearing after they've haunted them and made them levitate? that's always so annoying.

Yes, it's in the Director's Cut. No more moving urns.

[miramis]

I usually have the ghost hunter run around after the ghost and macro/procrastinate as the ghost stops, I don't have much experience with pet ghosts though, except the one cat that refused to scare anyone, ever.  I can't wait to get some ghost action again, and when I do I'm going to try out that teddy bear trick!

Professor, I think they go for the kids mostly because it's a lot like having someone new move in, ghosts don't like outsiders or when their spouse re-marries.  When a visitor dies on the lot they seem to be hateful too and tend to fixate on someone, often a youngster.  Dormie ghosts always seem to be angry as well. 

I had terrible trouble with one family, about 5 or 6 generations in I think, those poor kids would get scared by one ghost after another and came close to death quite often, until I sent them over to the church cemetery built on the other end of the lot for a good old mourning session.  After that the ghosts didn't come out so much again and were less aggressive towards the children.

Best haunting ever was one of my early legacy families, Brandi LeTourneau's ghost would float around picking up dishes and washing them    I had a video of it up on the sims2 site for a few years.


Don't play without the tombstone fixes in though, bad things might happen.

[starlady]

@miramis - Really? I just acquired my first ghost ever and he was a dormie (a VERY annoying cow mascot). I killed him off and all he's done so far is wander around and possess lamps.

I will most definitely have to try the bear trick, as he is practically useless as aspiration fodder. All the controllable sims on the lot are much too nice to be able to kick his tombstone.

[Jayroo]

Someone really should do a study on ghosts.  Things like haunting habits, methods of death, abilities as a ghost, etc...
Man, make a whole mod with seances and such... fun fun. 

[Gastfyr]

In my expirence, it is quite difficult to see ghosts if your sim actually wants to see them.     lol  Mortamer Goth was always rolling that want, and he's got quite the group of haunters on his lot.  At first I had him chasing the stupid things around, but he never saw it even when it was right in front of him.

What I found that worked was to have him stargase with a telescope in his backyad.  I may have been halucinating, but it looked like the ghost actually stuck it's face right in the other end of the telescope to scare the heck out of him.  It was quite funny to see.    I also had this method work for old Olive Spectre to have her see a ghost.

Probably the funniest haunting I ever had in game was when Cassandra Goth married Darren Dreamer.  She'd already moved in to his lot (so she'd be controllable for the wedding party), but it wasn't until the party was actually happening that Darlene decided to get all pissy about it.  Darren actually had a want to see a ghost, but even though he was standing right next to Cassandra, he never saw the ghost.  I think Darlene scared Cassandra at least 3 times during that party.  It was hiliarious.   

Has anyone who understands those things looked at the actual codeing for ghosts to see if the rumors are true?  I mean, does mourning really pacify ghosts?  Does everyone on the lot need to mourn, or does having just one sim mourn work?

[Mootilda]

My understanding is that ghosts haunt objects.  If you watch a ghost, it will disappear into an object.  If your sim subsequently uses that object, s/he will see the ghost.

[jlkeal]

I don't seem to have much of a problem getting the ghosts to scare my sims. I usually just put them in the path of where the ghost is floating, and the ghost scares them.

As for the pets, I've never seen a pet's ghost scare it's former owners. But I have seen the ghost of a dog scare a visitor once.

[queenbrat]

I must be doing something wrong since my Sims never see a ghost when they want to. I would much prefer they had other wants than that. I never let my Sims die or their pets though. Mock me if you want too. I know that's probably considered weird or soft.