The Ghostly Nightmare of Nightlife

[miramis]

You know, typically I loathe creating topics yet this is the second in 24 hours which should tell you how desperate I am.

So anyway, I play a legacy style game and have done for many months, so I'm no stranger to Legacy Ghosts.  In fact, I really like having ghosts around, I used to check every night from around 8:30pm onwards to see who had come out to 'play'.  But lately I find myself aprehensive and actually dreading nightfall.  Why?  Because since Nightlife my Platinum supposedly happy spooks are now evil sim-hunting, child killing maniacs.  Or at least they are trying very hard to be child killers 

The problems began when the Founder died.  Claire Patterson was kind of difficult to get along with in life, only her family loved her and the townies trembled in fear when she appeared on community lots.  You could pretty much guarantee that if you were at a community lot with another sim, Claire would be there pounding Abjheet, Brandi and whoever else looked at her the wrong way into the ground.  Yup, Claire was mean so it was no surprise to me when she finally died that she was very enthusiastic about her haunting duties.  Every time it was her turn she'd head across the lot from the family cemetary, make her way up the stairs and cheer at the bed where she had concieved her children.  Then she'd make her way around all the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs and wake all the sims she found, giving them a good few scares per night for good measure.

This was all well and good, every legacy has at least one or two ghosts who love to torture their descendants.  But when Mitch died I realised that something was not quite right.  Mitch had been a very friendly family sim and was married to Claire, he was so nice that anyone picking on him could make him cry a river.  I don't know what Claire has done to him 'on the other side' but his ghost is not as nice as it should be.  He too takes great delight in waking the sleeping family several times a night, and scaring the kids as much as possible in the short hours he has per visit.  This is not normal behaviour in my platinum ghosts.

Spook number 3 was Greg Patterson, Greg was the son of Claire & Mitch and I didn't like him all that much until he became an elder, and even then he was only tolerated - I imagine all sorts of ways to kill him but I needed the platinum fortune grave because his parents were both family sims.  Greg's ghost is like his parents' scares the kids several times a night, usually picking on the youngest.

The last and the nastiest of the bunch is Jesscia.  Jessica was Gregs wife and an ex-burglar, she met the family during an attempted burglary when Greg was a child.  Jessica was one of my favourites, a Romance sim who loved her children and spun up wants to teach them their toddler skills (I don't like Romance but Jessica was different).  She was easy to keep platinum until her child-bearing days were done and she was able to go back to work and get her permaplat.  Jessica was faiithful to Greg until her dying day, while Greg had a son with his ex-teen sweetheart after a short affair.  In complete contrast to the nice living sim, Jessica is evil in her ghostly form.  She wakes every single family member sleeping upstairs every opportunity, she scares the kids so much they get little to no sleep unless they nap downstairs.  In short she is a nightmare, combined with another ghost haunting with her she is potentially deadly!

When Clara and Robi were on the fifth pregnancy trying for twins (Clara was a twin and I'm trying to breed it into the family) she almost died several times because of Jessica and other ghosts.  Clara is the daughter of Greg & Jessica btw.  The final night of pregnancy was particularly difficult and it was a short-lived relief when she suddenly went into labour after another scare.  (Short-lived because she actually did have twins).  The nightly situation was manageable up until the twins became children themselves, by this time there are 8 sims living in the house with their parents and siblings.  Once the twins became children they became the favourite target for the ghosts and still are.  Drucilla in particular gets 7+ scares each night of haunting, Damien mostly gets the rest of them, this is in addition to being woken up nearly every time a ghost enters the room, which is constantly. 

The entire night is now spent in normal game speed because with the exception of Mikey sleeping downstairs, the whole family is constantly waking up, most nights the children end up downstairs refilling their stomachs, showering etc..  The situation is becoming unbearable and there are only 4 'happy' ghosts.  The only time I have come across such unruly spirits was when a sim re-married after his wife burnt to death.  When his son was born his dead wife took a huge dislike to him so badly I ended up building the kid a tree house to live in. 

My platinum ghosts are behaving like unhappy or angry ghosts, but without the shouting.  They are extremely disruptive for no good reason, their possessions haven't been moved, the gravestones haven't been kicked, the gravestones were moved immediately after death to the cemetary (on the same lot)  like I've always done.  I can think of no good reason why my sims lives are being made a misery.  I dread to think what they would be like if I did make them angry 

[Bookwerm]

sad sad

[KellyQ]

Very entertaining post! I could picture the whole thing, lol. I know it's your Legacy family but I wonder if you could get away with using TJ's ghost hack so those poor kids could get some sleep.

[miramis]

I've been strongly considering using a hack, but at the moment haven't quite reached the point where I can't take anymore.  I've seen the occasional person mention (on the bbs) that their ghosts seem more disruptive then normal but it doesn't seem to be something many people have noticed, perhaps because most are now using a community lot cemetary.  Here's the odd thing though, I have a community cemetary with 30 graves and it's far safer there with burnt, drowned, starved ghosts etc.. then it is in my legacy house 

What I'd really like to find out is whether Maxis changed the platinum ghosts behaviour for some reason and if someone can change them back to the way they were.

[KellyQ]

You're more patient than I am. I did the Legacy challenge a few months ago and it didn't take long before I put the ghosthack in. One of my nicest sims kept scaring the heck out of his teenage grandson and (child) granddaughter. That was before NL. Unfortunately I can't tell you if it has gotten worse since NL because I scrapped that entire neighborhood due to bugginess (I was on the 6th generation  ) and I don't have any ghosts yet since I installed NL.

[miramis]

The one thing I haven't tried yet is a little extra mourning at the gravesites, the weekend is coming up soon I think so I'll send the family over there for half a day's mourning, maybe that will calm things down.

[nectere]

From what I have read mourning effects nothing. I wont even get into the idea of breeding in twins...


However, hacks aside there are two things you can do with your ghosts if you want to keep them on lot:

A) build a basement with no stairs and put them down there with their stuff, buy the family upstairs new stuff. Ghosts need stairs to go up just like living sims, so without stairs they should wander around the basement contently. (if you dont know how to build a basement then turn move objects on, take the connecting steps and dig down three sets, level the ground on the third set, it will now be deep enough for walls etc without using elevation cheats)

B) build a mausoleum without steps. (i.e foundation without steps and then some walls. To make extra sure they dont get out turn move objects on and hollow the foundation, place graves inside the removed part and finish building and decorating it like a regular little house or whatever your imagination fancies)

C) use Pescados ghostbuster painting. Place in any room and ghost will be banished back to tomb. (ok so technically this is a hack/mod)

[BlueSoup]

I've been strongly considering using a hack, but at the moment haven't quite reached the point where I can't take anymore.  I've seen the occasional person mention (on the bbs) that their ghosts seem more disruptive then normal but it doesn't seem to be something many people have noticed, perhaps because most are now using a community lot cemetary.  Here's the odd thing though, I have a community cemetary with 30 graves and it's far safer there with burnt, drowned, starved ghosts etc.. then it is in my legacy house 

What I'd really like to find out is whether Maxis changed the platinum ghosts behaviour for some reason and if someone can change them back to the way they were.

I don't know whether the ghost behaviour has changed, but if you get to the point where you just can't take it anymore, rather than using a hack (against Legacy rules, although I break that particular rule myself  ), you can move their tombstones to a community lot, although you do forfeit the free-roaming bonus.  Just make sure to move them by clicking on the gravestones and moving them that way, rather than by way of inventory.

[phyllis_p]

I've noticed since NL that some of my formerly happy ghosts go around smacking their fist into their hand, shouting, and looking angry.  No thought bubble when they shout, though, so I have no clue what they're upset about.  I'm not doing a challenge at present and may end up moving them to a public cemetery

[Ancient Sim]

Probably the best way to check whether NL has affected anything would be to 'acquire' a fresh ghost (i.e., one from a post-NL death) and see how that behaves.  Because they've messed around with the ghost codes (including making several ghosts linkable, I think), it could quite easily have affected ones that were already in the game.  I haven't noticed anything different in my game, but most of mine have been moved to the cemetery and I've totally deleted ghosts unrelated to any of my families from the game, such as the two nannies and the maid and that sort of thing.  Didn't need their files clogging-up my character folder anymore.

I've played the Goth lot a short while since NL and all ghosts seemed normal in there, they just floated around minding their own business as usual.  The only one there who takes a delight in waking people up is Mortimer, the others who died in game (Bella, Alexander & his wife) didn't cause any bother before NL and still don't.

[skandelouslala]

This is why I now take great pride in my community cemetaries.  No longer do I have to deal with the ghost issue.  I do have one ghost right now on a college lot who is quite angry.  I haven't moved him yet and he scares who ever lives on the lot 6-7x a night.

My ghosts always seemed to get angrier as the generations went one.  One of my favorite sims, Jill, was so nice and sweet but by the time her great grandkids were living on her property..she was scaring the crap out of them nightly.

[Kitiara]

When Clara and Robi were on the fifth pregnancy trying for twins (Clara was a twin and I'm trying to breed it into the family) she almost died several times because of Jessica and other ghosts.

When you say you want to breed twins into the family, do you mean that you wanted to have a set of twins, or that you wanted to introduce the twin gene into the family genetics? Because there is no twin gene.

Just seeking clarification.

[miramis]

Wow, so many replies since last night.

To start I'll say that I have always sat on the fence when it came to mourning, but tended to have my sims do it in the past just for the heck of it.  Well let's face it they are typically good for nothing else once someone dies, this family didn't seem to care much though except for Clara, heck when Claire died one sim wanted a new stereo and when I bought the DJ booth hopped right on and stayed there happily all night. 

The first thing I did on re-entering last night was send the entire family over to the family graveyard and had them mourn each grave until thier needs had to be seen to.  That night Claire & Greg came out 'to play' and headed straight upstairs, I should add at this point that the eldest teen Pippin, had grown into an adult and I made the decision to pack her off with the next three oldest kids.  This left four sims, Clara & Robi and the twins Damien & Drucilla.   When it came time to send the twins to bed Drucilla was given the downstairs spare 'bedroom' an older brother had been using and Damien was sent to the main heirs bedroom, but as I clicked on the bed I realised the ghosts that should have been there were missing - they were both downstairs roaming the lot.  I couldn't believe it!  So perhaps mourning does work, or perhaps all the ghosts took a dislike to one of the other children who left - I don't know, but I'm leaning towards the mourning.

These ghosts are all post-nightlife & patch, I did a clean install with no backups when the patch was released and only started adding the hacks I needed a couple of days ago, with the exception of Motoki's comm skilling hack (found in a post here somewhere) which was replaced a day or two after re-installing.

This house has a second floor already, it was rebuilt (by rebuilt I mean that all the furniture is shoved to the edge of the lot and the whole house is demolished to start from scratch) just before gen2 came back from Uni using houseplans off the net.  There are only two floors with no basement - unless I dig a big hole in the garage heh.  You can tell I play legacy families a lot by the fact I don't need to expand once the rebuild happens, I always make sure that the rooms and beds are in place before the first family death so there are no whining ghosts shrieking about how their bed has disappeared.

Doorless Mausoleum - a good idea, I'll keep that in mind if they start their antics again in later generations. 

I play legacy style for fun, so the point thing doesn't bother me.  The legacy rules are just used as a guideline and I modify them in the beginning to suit my playing style, past rule changes have been things like marrying only townies, starting with a townie teen and marrying ex-townie teens.  The rules I keep are the ones that I like, the free-roaming ghost is one of the rules I like - there's just something very funny about watching a sim get scared into wetting themselves, that wide-eyed look of horror as they jump in the air with their hands up is just comical. 

I have a community cemetary which I made myself for knowledge sims, all the non-legacy deaths end up there.  It has a little building in the middle that sort of looks like a chapel on the outside but inside there is a small cafe with food & expresso, and in the 'waiting room' there is a wall mounted t.v. and stereo, there's a little study (did I mention the comm-skilling hack?) with a bookcase and computer, and there is a bathroom with toilets & shower.  It's kind of smallish but the sims have no trouble getting around, and any sim from teen on up can stay there as long as I want.  My husband thinks it's great - which is something because he hates the sims 

I spent a long time yesterday (before the mourning) considering J.M.P's Ghostbuster, it seemed like the closest I could get to 'free-range' but with protection, if the situation hadn't changed last night I would most likely have ended up using it.  I have no problem with using hacks anymore, pre-uni I was very reluctant because I knew so little about them, T.J's kicky-bag fix was my first and I only came across the link to that while searching the bbs.  That link led me to VS where I stumbled across Pescado and was amazed by the things I read about the problems with Uni.  I would never in a million years have guessed that the mass bulk of my bugs were caused by overpopulation.  I shudder now to think of all the moving sims between neighbourhoods I did.  A couple of months back I came across an old installation (pre-uni) on the other drive, for a laugh I packaged one of the lots and opened it with Clean Installer, there were over 80 sims packaged with that house which was in an otherwise empty neighbourhood!

The Twin Gene...

I tend to take what is thrown about in General Chat with a pinch of salt and rarely read the twins posts.  But I'm still undecided on this one simply because back a few months ago a had a legacy family or two that spat twins out every single damned generation.  No other family did it except for those, it was unbelievable!  By the time gen3 had twins I thought something was fishy and did a recheck of my downloads folder, but there were only walls/floors & the Uni fixes from VS.  It's been a long time since a legacy family has had twins at all, this family is the first in ages, the thing is the generation 2 heir & his sister who was living in another lot both had a set of twins on their 3rd pregnancy which may mean it's only a coincidence or that something is afoot. 

I've had families spit out twins once in a blue moon and nothing comes of it, but sometimes you come across a 'special' family that actually does manage to have twins every single generation and that is what makes it so difficult to believe it could be coincidence - of course it could be that the game screws up the 'randomness'.  I don't know much about the 'twin gene' or the debates about it, I only know that sometimes I end up with a special family which is what I'm hoping this family is, this is only the second gen of twins so it's too early tell yet if they are special or not, judging by how many pregnancies it took to get the second set I'm siding with 'not' since typically they happen during a 1st or second pregnancy.  I once had a very distant relation of a legacy family have two sets in two pregnancies with the same guy, but the main line never once had any.  I've always wondered if her kids would have twins of thier own but will never know because I re-installed Uni.

I think I've replied to everything suggested, some things were covered by the same reply but if I missed something let me know.

[miramis]

You're right, that trick has worked for me in the past but this house isn't one I want to rip apart for an extra floor.  The roof alone took me ages to get right (I'm not that good a builder).  No stupid ghosts are going to make me ruin this house.  I could upload a couple of pictures to the exchange if you want to see it, it's not good by others standards but for me it's a work of art 

[miramis]

I did notice the lengths you went to in the restoration, didn't you have to change lots twice or was that someone else?  I seem to remember the house being very nice, and didn't you try to make an almost exact same version?

If you're bored then you can point and laugh at my er lovely home.  Exchange seems slow, took forever to upload but here it is.

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=62347&asset_type=story&user_id=69425

I also added a picture of two of Claire because I couldn't help myself lol.  Oh and the community cemetary as well as the stupid chapel thing on the main lot that didn't work like I wanted it too.

[Kitiara]

re: twins

Unless something has changed in the programming of the game since NL that I am not aware of, there is no twin gene. Twins do not have increased probability. Extensive research has been done on this. You just got lucky. Congratulations.

[miramis]

Hush Kitiara you'll spoil the fun!    It's not luck, it's just the way the so-called randomness works.  The game seems to spit out so many at a time then dry up completely for so many births, I already know that from all the births I've had since the game came out, I choose to pretend some families have a genetic trait to have twins, that's part of my playing style.    It's like creating elaborate weddings, you stick a teleprompter in front of the couple and pretend that's a real religious person speaking on it in a church.  You know it's not real, but pretend it is.  For me it's the same thing with twins, I like to use my imagination, to pretend that so and so is like this or that.  Take Greg & his lover for example, their destiny was planned from the moment she grew into a child, she was destined to be his one true love, but he would have to marry the burglar Jessica because it was required of him as heir.  They would drift apart in college, trying to hide their feelings from eachother and get on with their lives.  Katherine would ensnare Mr.Big not because she wanted him, but to prove to Greg that she didn't care.  Greg would see them together and be miserable because there's nothing he can do, in the end he decides to do as he is meant and woo's Jessica. 

But none of this is real, Greg doesn't care one way or another if he sees his ex girlfriend with another man because when they became young adults they are freed.  My imagination brought it to life, not the game.  This family is special, they have a genetic disposition to have twins which in reality isn't really a genetic disposition.  It's the result of my hard work in forcing sims to go through pregnancy after pregnancy until they achieve the goal I've set for my personal story-telling purposes.  In other words I already know there is no bloody twin gene but choose to make-believe there is. 

JFed, I usually re-installed or began a new neighbourhood when the slowdown bug hit.  I still haven't made it to gen 10 for various reasons, sometimes I end up hating a family.  One family heir was abducted twice, I'd taken a chance on him and made him gay and thank goodness he was abducted.   I knew the aliens were ugly but it was their grandkids I think that really looked hideous.  If they'd had the alien skin it would have been fine, but instead they had these huge eyes (not black) and extremely thin cheeks with no lips.  I destroyed the entire neighbourhood lol.

[Zeljka]

I am still playing the base game and my ghosts are all evil.

They are always best friends with their entire household, die of old age in platinum and regardless of personality, they go after anyone new who enters the house. They seem to take particular delight in tormenting kids. Weird when they pick on what used to be their favourite.

I still don't get why random non-knowledge (or at least serious) Sims can't be happy to see ghosts (and toddlers fear it though I've never seen a toddler react to a ghost). I would have been delighted to see my grandpa's ghost when I was a kid, particularly if he was pulling faces.

[Myth]

One thing I have done on my newest Legacy lot that I've never done on the others is I have had the heir of the dead ghost mourn the tombstones everyday.  Other things I had done, are all the beds for the adults are the four poster Maxi's bed.  It has the highest energy and comfort levels so I have just passed it down generation to generation.  Also I place all tombstones way out of the huge lot.  So whenever my ghosts have appeared they are happy because their beds are still there, they have a huge back part of the lot to roam and they just do not seem to be so angry since they are mourned so much.

Mind you, I am only in my third Legacy and only have three tombstones and ghosts so far, so I just may not be into the challenge far enough for the bad repercussions of ghosts.  But so far it's has been working for me.

[Process Denied]

It would have been so great if they had developed the ghosts personalities better in this game.  A Virgo goes around washing windows,a mean ghost pulls pranks,a wealth sim cheers when the money trees are harvest.  The ghosts need more animations.  Consort just died in my game and he is a pretty nice ghost he scares if you are outside and it is only once.  I did have a unique thing happen right before he died.  I installed a global hack when his wife was at work and her car was missing when I found them reset on the lawn.  I rebought the car and on the next shopping trip she never returned .  I had to move them out then back in again.  He was to die that day so he didn't have any furniture when he died.  I kept his needs up with hacks cause I was curious what he would be attached to if he had no possessions.  He doesn't go inside the house at all and doesn't cheer at any thing.  He is pretty polite unlike the other ghosts.
.

[nectere]

Well as they say:

They wouldnt pick on you if they didnt love you!

[Myth]

Along the lines of agression is the first sign of affection huh?